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Alarms blared throughout the ship, Amelia could feel the sweat on her back and the blood in her mouth from biting her lip in concentration.
She turned the flight stick and felt her, and the ship's orientation, shift.
The sides of the sunfish scraped against the asteroids with a loud screech that resembled nails on a chalkboard.
She checked the screen that showed the rear camera on the ship, two pirate vessels were still on her tail.
"Why did I make this ship so frakking big!" She growled and turned the stick again, pushing the large freighter into the clouds of the planet below.
The blonde felt her face flush thanks to the heat and her ears rang from the new alarm that began to blare.
A L T I T U D E P U L L U P
P U L L U P
She saw the plasma rounds of the pirates fly past the bridge and cursed her luck!
A L T I T U D E P U L L U P
P U L L U P
She began to pull up on the stick with one hand while reaching for the button of her retrorockets.
Her hand barely touched the other console.
A L T I T U D E P U L L U P
P U L L U P
Her eyes glanced back at the window.
The ground was rushing up at her.
A L T I T U D E P U L L U P
P U L L U P
"Shit!"
Amelia lept from her chair, immediately falling straight down at the console with a painful slam.
A L T I T U D E P U L L U P
P U L L U P
Amelia opened one eye, tears already welled up from the pain, and slammed her hand down on the retro rockets.
A L T I T U D E P U L L U P
P U L L-
The momentum slammed to a stop and the blonde was sent flying over the console and into the window.
The orientation of the ship slowly fixed itself and Amelia let out a cheer, "Hell yes!"
A L T I T U D E P U L L U P
P U L L U P
"God damn it!" Amelia growled but quickly got to her feet.
She ran back to the Captain's chair and looked at what was coming her way.
It was a mountain.
"There's always something!" She growled and sat down.
They pulled on the stick and felt the Sunfish begin to climb.
But the belly of the sunfish slammed into the mountain.
The alarms deafened Amelia, and the bounce slammed her head into the console.
Then everything went black.
-_-_-_-_-_-
"...my head…"
The blonde brought a hand to her forehead and tried to collect herself.
Behind her she could hear the sounds of sparks, somewhere even further away she could hear the sounds of alarms still going off.
She laughed and opened her eyes with a groan.
The glass in front of her had shattered, there were some cuts on her right arm from it. She'd have to bandage it if she didn't want to bleed out.
She turned to the computer screen next to her and tried to look at the status of the ship, but the screen would only light up, it wouldn't show a picture.
She huffed and got out of her chair, "I guess I better bandage my arm up, then I can check up on the ship."
She's not worried, the sunfish is a tough ship, it could take a beating like this!
She got to the first aid by the door to the bridge and opened it, taking the bandages and wrapped her arm in them. She knew she'd probably need to change the bandages later in the day, but for now, they'd do the trick.
After she put away all of the supplies she pressed the button to open the door in front of her, it lurched open before a loud metallic groan filled the room and some sparks fell to the floor. The blonde sighed and squeezed through the slightly open blast door, when she made it out of the bridge she took a moment to look at the hallway leading to the living room in the center of the ship. She’d be able to assess how bad the damage was from there.
The lights had been shattered and flickered, Amelia continued to walk through the hallway. She spared a glance to the kitchen which was just outside the lounge, thankfully the magnetic locks on the cabinets had kept all of the food and drinks in their containers. She smiled, at least she wouldn’t go hungry for a while.
She pressed the button to the living room and heard a clang and yet another metallic groan from the ship, but the door didn’t open.
“God damn it,” Amelia cursed under her breath and took her multitool from her belt and quickly took off the panel the button was on.
She took a moment to see the wires, they had been severed in the crash. Luckily for her, she knew how to hotwire, so she did just that. After a moment the wires were fixed and she put the panel back on. She also left a mental note to get actual repairs after she was off of this rock.
With the repair to the wires done, she managed to get the door open.
And her heart fell flat.
The hull had been ruptured.
It was split in two, snow was falling into the ship. Amelia could see some oil leaking onto the floor. The other half of the ship was further down the mountain and from what she could see it had rolled onto its back, repairing it was gonna be impossible.
So…
She was stuck…
On an alien planet….
All by herself…
The blonde looked at her bandaged arm, then at the other half of her ship down the hill and she sighed.
She turned around and went back to the kitchen, “I need a drink.”
-_-_-_-_-_-
“Not that one,” Amelia reached further into the console and wiggled her fingers around until she found the piece she needed.
With a grunt she managed to pull it off the console and brought it out from there, she then took some wires she had already ripped out of the console and began to hotwire the two together. After a moment the console began to make a repeating sound, it was an SOS that she had pre-programmed into the computer.
With a satisfied smile on her face, Amelia got to her feet and dusted herself off.
“What are you doing?”
Amelia spun around, pulled her pistol out of her holster, and pointed it at the source of the voice.
In front of her stood a tall tan woman with long blonde hair parted into twintails with spheres that looked similar to planets. She wore a leotard and had eyes that reminded Amelia of stars.
The woman raised an eyebrow, “Is there something on my face?”
“No,” Amelia narrowed her eyes, “Who are you?”
“I’m Sana, Tsukumo Sana.” The woman introduced herself.
Amelia was still for a moment, the name sounded familiar to her. After a few seconds Amelia lowered the muzzle of the pistol to the ground and cautiously held out her hand for a handshake, “Amelia, my name is Amelia Watson.”
Sana eagerly shook the shorter girl's hand before she looked down at the contraption Amelia had just made, “Is that what’s sending out those radio signals?”
“So you heard them?” Amelia watched the woman tilt her head at her, “The radio waves, you can hear the radio waves?”
“Well yes,” Sana nodded, “I am space after all, also why do you still have your pistol pointed at me?”
“I’m just being conscious,” Amelia explained, “I was being chased by some pirates, you’re not one of them, right?”
“If I was, wouldn’t I have attacked you already?” Sana winked and made her way over to the contraption, after she looked at it for a moment she made her way further into the destroyed ship, “Were you in a crash thanks to these pirates?”
“Yes I was, I’m trying to send out an SOS so that I can get help.”
“And here I am,” Sana turned and smiled at the blonde, “Speaking of which, how long have you been here?”
Amelia finally put her pistol away and sighed, “A few days, but now that you’re here I can finally get off of this rock.”
Sana made a click with her tongue, “Not… exactly.”
“What do you mean,” Amelia frowned, “How did you get here without a ship?”
“Not everyone needs a ship to move around space,” Sana chided Amelia, “But as the very concept of space, it’s barely a walk for me.”
Finally, everything clicked for Amelia and she cringed at herself, then returned her pistol to its holster, “Oh my god, I almost shot a member of the council!”
“It wouldn’t have done anything anyway,” Sana waved her hand dismissively, “If you had shot me the plasma would have never touched me.”
Amelia, still shocked at herself, sighed, “So, what, um… what do we do now?”
“Well,” Sana tapped her chin a moment before she turned her eyes back to Amelia, “How about I give you some company while you wait for a rescue ship, of course, I still have some duties that I would need to take care of, but whenever I’m free I could be here.”
Amelia thought about how long she would probably have to wait and after a moment she nodded, “Sure.”
“Yay!” Sana hugged Amelia, which took the shorter girl’s feet off the ground, and spun her around, “This is going to be so much fun!”
Amelia, however, was starstruck.
-_-_-_-_-_-
If you had asked Amelia what she would have done when sitting next to the Speaker of Space ten years ago, she would have told you to kick rocks and that she had more important things to worry about! But here she was, sitting next to that exact person in front of a campfire.
Making smores.
“I’ve always loved Marshmallows!” Sana smiled at the blonde, “One of humanity's best inventions if you ask me!”
“Haven’t they been around since the eighteen hundreds?” Amelia asked, her eyes were watching her turn into a charred mess.
“Mumei showed them to me back when Egypt was a major player on Earth,” Sana informed the blonde, “So how long ago now… more than four thousand years ago at this point.”
Amelia was handed the s'more supplies and made her charred marshmallow into a delicious masterpiece.
The two sat and ate for a while, then Sana turned to Amelia once again, “We moved a lot of supplies around today, what, if you don’t mind me asking, did you have on this ship?”
The blonde slowed her chewing for a moment before she turned back to the fire, “I was shipping Atlantean spices to planets in the Union, they’re very popular on the black market normally I can shake them off in the scarlet nebula, but I didn’t have the fuel to outrun them this time.”
Sana frowned, “Sounds dangerous.”
“It is,” Amelia huffed, “New London, where I grew up, was hit by a crystal asteroid when I was little, thanks to the fallout my parents were hospitalized… I’m doing my best right now to make ends meet.”
Sana rubbed the shorter girl's back in comforting circles.
“This shipment should be able to pay for the rest of the treatment,” Amelia had a small smile appear on her face for a moment, “But without the fallout being cleared, there’s a chance it may come back.”
The two were silent once more, but after a moment Sana cleared her throat and began to burn another marshmallow, “The next council meeting is tomorrow, I can bring this issue up to them and see what they say about helping to cure the planet.”
The blonde blinked at the Concept in shock, “Y-you would do that?”
“Of course!” Sana nodded, “Council, while spread a little thin at the moment should be able to at the very least nullify the damage, that’s if the vote goes our way, however.”
Amelia turned her entire body to the Speaker, “If it doesn’t?”
Sana was silent for another few seconds before a smirk appeared on her face, “Well then, another asteroid, this time helpful, could find itself near the planet in a month or two.”
Amelia dropped her marshmallow and jumped onto Sana, “Thank you! Thank you so much!”
“Don’t worry abo-”
A scream filled the air, it took Amelia a moment to realize that it was her voice that was the source of the scream.
What followed was a burning pain in her back.
“Amelia!”
Sana’s voice called out her name.
The blonde went limp in the Concept’s arms.
A second plasma round slammed into Sana’s body, shattering into atoms the moment it came into contact with her body.
Sana glared at the two dozen pirates at the top of the nearby hill, all of them watched her with fear.
“Y-you’re one of the concepts!” One of them screeched in fear.
“I am.” Her voice was colder than the void of space itself.
“W-we-”
Sana gently laid the human down on the ground and stood up, “You hurt my friend.”
“We-”
Sana stepped over the unconscious blonde and blocked her from any more attacks, “You have chased her across the cosmos more than once, now you have hurt her.”
“We didn’t mean any harm!” One of them screeched out.
“Those words don’t mean much when there is a fatal plasma burn on my friend’s back!” Sana’s voice roared with anger.
One of the pirates timidly moved out from behind cover, “We’re just doing our jobs, dear speaker.”
“You’re job is murder?”
“No!” The pirate was flabbergasted, “Our job is to ‘tax’ the cargo captains, this one, didn’t want to pay the tax.”
Sana glared at them then turned her gaze to the still unconscious Amelia and frowned.
She didn’t have long.
“Tell you what,” Sana turned her head back to the pirates, “Tell your boss that the Speaker of Space, Tsukumo Sana, would like to speak to him about his business practices, until then you’re job here is done.”
“You’re not our boss, miss speaker.” one of the men noted.
“But I am a member of the council,” Sana responded, “So you should heed my words.”
The pirates glanced at themselves before they scrambled back to their starships, only after they were gone did Sana run back over to Amelia and checked the wound.
It didn’t look good.
She willed a portal to the Fauna’s Domain to open walked through.
-_-_-_-_-_-
Amelia felt an itch on her nose.
She also heard the sounds of two voices discussing something.
One was Sana’s, the other was a much softer voice that she didn’t recognize.
Her back hurt like hell.
Then her memories returned and she shot up in bed, her back screamed in pain and so did she.
“Don’t move like that just yet.” The soft voice chided her.
Amelia opened her eyes and saw the woman who was speaking, it was a woman with green hair and… were those branches?
“They’re horns, not branches.” The woman sighed, she read the blonde like an open book.
“Amelia,” Sana knelt next to the blonde, “This is Ceres Fauna, the keeper of nature, she helped heal you.”
“Normally I wouldn’t have stepped in,” Fauna told the blonde, “But I owed Sana a favor and it's rare that someone captures her attention as you did, but after seeing you myself I see where she was coming from, you should have seen how worried she was.”
She winked at the already blushing Amelia
The Speaker blushed and nudged the Kirin, “D-don’t we have a meeting to get to?”
“Sadly we do,” The Kirin stood up and a portal appeared behind her, but she smiled sweetly at the blonde, “Hopefully we’ll meet again sapling.”
The Kirin turned and made her way through the portal, it gave Sana and Amelia a moment alone.
“The-” the flustered Speaker shook her head to clear her mind, “The rescue ship will be here in a few hours, I’d be here, but meetings can be quite long so, um, good luck!”
She turned to walk through the portal, but Amelia stopped her by taking her hand.
Sana turned back around, “Y-yes?”
“W-will I see you again?” Amelia didn’t know why she was asking herself this question.
But she just couldn’t think of a future where they never crossed paths again, she wanted to know more about her. What was her favorite food? What was her favorite Star and constellation? Had she seen any anime? Could she show Sana anime? Could they be in the same room and just.. Be in each other's presence?
While those thoughts continued to spiral, Sana kneeled and brought her lips to Amelia’s forehead.
The blonde’s train of thought came to a screeching halt and she waited for Sana to speak.
“Next time you’re in space and I don't have any duties to attend to,” Sana smiled, “expect a knock on the airlock.”
Amelia nodded and awkwardly saluted the speaker, “Y-Yes madam speaker!”
Sana giggled and walked through the portal.
The blonde watched the space Sana used to occupy and replayed the sweet sound of her giggle over and over in her head. She couldn’t wait to hear it again!
She couldn’t wait to return to the stars!