“I can’t fucking believe we’re still on this damn ship!” Elksia screeched as she charged in and out of the kitchen area. “I wanna go out there! I hate it in here! Is boring!”
Psiksi had been ignoring Elksia at first. Ever since they had arrived on the strange, tattered planet, something had felt wrong about everything, and Elksia’s sudden mood swings were climbing that list of wrongness. But he dared not interrupt the pissed off Vrekan, lest she attack him with the 30cm long claws that jutted out of her arms.
“I want to go OUTSIDE!”
“We… we can’t go outside…” Psiksi muttered. “Retvik said no…”
“But whyyyyyyy?”
Psiksi tutted. “Were you not there when Retvik called us all in and explained the damn situation? I’m pretty sure you WERE there, you just weren’t paying attention!”
A large blade stabbed through the table in front of Psiksi. Considering the state of the table, Psiksi was pretty sure this had happened before.
“Shut. Your. Beak.”
Psiksi leaned back in his chair. “No. You shut your mouth because you’re the one being a whining idiot. We can’t go out there because that planet is filled to the brim with hallucinogenic materials and if we went out there, we would very quickly go mad and start trying to murder each other like some sort of old horror movie!”
Elksia hesitated, then retracted her claws, covering the tips with specially made sheaths. She looked at Psiksi, then sighed.
“Sorry. Am being dumb…”
“Yeah, you are…” Psiksi snarked, then changed his tone. He got up from the table and began to make himself a little sandwich. “You’re not normally like this though. You’ve been acting funny ever since we left Portalia, and you have only gotten… more mood-swingy since we got here. Is something wrong?”
The Vrekan played with her fingers before sitting down in Psiksi’s seat. Unlike Psiksi, her taloned feet remained firmly on the ground.
“Elksia?”
“I just… I dunno…”
“You don’t know?” Psiksi sat back down, pushing a plate towards Elksia. He had made a snack for her as well.
“My brain is fuzzy. Kinda been fuzzy for ages. Being here makes it worse. I’m scared that something will happen.”
“Like what?”
“Something horrible. That I can’t explain. I think Retvik feels it too. He’s always locked up in his quarters now. Only seems to do things with Tenuk.”
As if on cue, Tenuk peered into the room. He was standing in the doorway, holding a small vial.
“Are you two alright?”
Psiksi and Elksia both nodded. Tenuk nodded back and entered the kitchen, sitting down at the chair closest to the entrance.
“Sorry we’ve been cooped up for so long.”
“Yeah, about that…” Psiksi grunted. “Is this normal?”
“Nope…” Tenuk sighed. “None of this is normal as well. Dessi is still doing a huge number of tests just to work out what the fuck this place is. Nothing about it makes sense. Earlier it was raining LSD and now there are sandstorms blowing amphetamine microcrystals around. The scanners are saying there’s no life out there at all, but Retvik saw things moving out there this morning and so did I…”
“So why don’t we just go home?”
Tenuk glanced at Elksia, who was rubbing her arms. He noticed the gouge in the table, then sighed again. “I really want to. I didn’t want to come back to this bloody place, but the High General asked us to, and Retvik always does what his brother tells him to. But the problem is that we’re basically contaminated…”
“Wait so we can’t leave?” Elksia suddenly exclaimed, leaping from her seat. “We’re stuck here? Forever?”
Tenuk shook his head. “No, not at all. It’s just we have to stay put for a little bit for two reasons. Firstly, Dessi is still trying to calculate whether it’s safe for us to even leave the ship, even with our special suits. But secondly, we will also need to quarantine ourselves in orbit before we can attempt to go home, and that’s tying up the calculations as well…”
“Surely it doesn’t take that long?” Psiksi interrupted. “It feels like it’s taking ages!”
Tenuk smiled nervously. “Uh yeah, about that… Uh… Well…”
“Well?”
“It turns out that… that the drugged up environment outside may have… affected some things… in here…”
Psiksi and Elksia stared at Tenuk.
“Are you saying that we’re contaminated?” Psiksi finally asked.
“Uh, possibly. But we should be fine, the dosage is so low that it’s negligible. The more pressing concern is that something in the atmosphere has affected Dessi, meaning we can’t access proper Olanet connections. That’s… what’s taking so long…”
Elksia’s shoulders dropped. “So that was why I couldn’t message my babe…”
“Oh, so that’s why your mood sucks!” Psiksi suddenly shouted. “You’re pissed off that you can’t speak to your partner!”
“That or her Vrekan DNA is more affected to the tiny traces of LSD in the air…” Tenuk muttered as he got up and started leaving the room. “Vrekans are very susceptible to that sort of thing, after all…”
Worry flashed in Elksia’s eyes. “Do you…”
“You’ll be fine. Just keep your blade sheaths on, dear…” Tenuk smiled as he closed the door behind him.