The two of them quickly found themselves lost in the crowd. Mira seized the opportunity to ask Akash an important question.

“Doesn’t he know what we’re trying to do?”

Akash was hoping that Mira wouldn’t pick up on that. But no, his father had heavily implied that Akash was going to take up the reigns as a water merchant. “Well, I...” Akash stuttered. He was never a very good liar. “You just don’t want to let him down again, do you?” This was, of course, completely true. His father was the only family he had. “Mira...” said Akash. Mira put her finger up to Akash’s face, silencing him. “You need to stop caring so much about what he thinks.” Akash couldn’t help but feel angered by her remark, as Mira’s grandmother had long since given her their blessing for the secret project. And as for Jagjit? He had no family whatsoever.

It was a small town. To Akash, this meant that the few people he knew meant everything to him.

“...I don’t want to see you bail on this at the last second, okay?” said Mira. Akash broke out of his stupor, hoping he hadn’t missed anything. “I won't.” he said, hopefully feigning enough confidence to convince her. “...All right.” said Mira. She looked morose for a second, her dark brown eyes turning away from Akash. He leaned in, hoping that he could at least identify what was wrong, when she quickly turned back to Akash, with a giant grin on her face.

“Here.” she said, all but forcing a letter into his hands. “I figured we could cover more ground if we each took half of the list.” Akash reluctantly took his half of the list. “Good thinking, Mira.” he said. Mira smiled. “We’ll have plenty of time to talk, after we’re done shopping.” she said.

“I’ll catch up.” said Akash. “Don’t worry about a thing.”

Mira turned into the crowd with a wave, and she was gone. Akash stood there waving at nobody in particular for a little while. But when he stopped, he couldn’t help but feel no small amount of rage bubble up within him. A menagerie of thoughts; what would his father think if he just left? What would his friends think if he decided to stay behind?

Akash had a nasty habit of letting negative thoughts like this eat away at him. He was well aware of this, and even though he did his best to collect the items on his list, he couldn’t help but feel like he was squandering his money. Perhaps, thought Akash, as he approached the next counter. we’re not going to be gone that long.

“Time is relative.”

Akash turned around to see a merchant wearing dark, hooded robes behind the counter of a dusty merchant’s stall, with nothing on display. “What?” asked Akash, unsure of what he was hearing.

“A few seconds for you could mean a lifetime for another.” said the merchant.

“Who are you?” asked a concerned Akash. The merchant responded by putting an ancient box of corrugated paper on his countertop.

“And in those lifetimes...” said the hooded merchant. “What kind of potential could be wrought?”

“What are you talking about?” asked Akash. “And what’s in the box?”

The hooded figure pushed the box towards Akash. “Inside the soul lies the boundless energy for both good or evil...” he said, as he began to gesture over to the box. “Use it however you like.”

Akash reluctantly took the box. He’d never seen corrugated paper before- it fell out of popularity long before it was outlawed. The flaps on the top were folded in on themselves, making it hard to open, but when it did, it opened with a cloud of dust and sand that was easily older than he was.

Inside was a collection of cables, circuit boards, and screws. The circuit board had the phrase TC-VOYAGER laser-etched on one of the connectors. There was also a monitor inside. Akash was quickly able to tell that the monitor was the exact size that he happened to be looking for. A mysterious merchant had shown up out of nowhere, in a stall that otherwise looked abandoned, just to give Akash the last items on his list. It was almost too good to be true.

Akash looked back up at the merchant, only to see that nobody was there. Akash quickly looked around to see where he could have gone, which should have been an easy task, even with the crowds, but all he could find was a four-armed alien with a blue-tinged, humanoid face giving his cardboard box a particularly confused and concerned look.

At least, he hoped that’s what their expression meant.

Akash simply took the box away, and hoped that he wouldn’t draw too much suspicion. It didn’t help that it was gruelingly heavy and conspicuously large.

A while back, while hard at work, Akash found something buried in the desert. His two closest friends, Jagjit and Mira, were the first ones he told about it. They helped him anchor it to his tanker, and they dragged it back to Jagjit’s house, as he lived alone on the outskirts of town.

It’s been six months, and every day since, the three of them had been hard at work making sure that it was operational. While there was a bit of gossip about how a few local kids had seemed to gain a passionate interest in engineering out of the blue, that gossip quickly died out in favor of the next big thing that happened in the Royal Federation’s council. Not that the three of them were old enough to care. For now, their priorities were simple.

If nothing ever changes in the land of sand and chains, the solution was to leave.

Akash thought that it was gruelingly hot while at work, and he had the luxury of riding in a car for most of the day. The heat was all but unbearable on the long walk over to Jagjit’s house, but for their project, it was worth it. Akash was struggling with how to hold the cardboard box in such a ways that he could knock on the door, only for Jagjit to open it the moment he figured it out.

“That’s a big box.” said Jagjit.

“Yeah.” said Akash.

“Did you really drag that thing over here by yourself?” asked Jagjit.

“Unfortunately.” said Akash.

“Couldn’t you get Mira to help you?” Jagjit asked, inviting Akash inside.

“I lost track of her at the market.” said Akash. Jagjit took the cardboard box from him, carrying it with no noticeable effort. “I figured she would be here by now.” said Akash.

“No.” said Jagjit. Akash was a bit puzzled by the tinge of anger in his voice. “Thought she was with you.”

Akash got the door for Jagjit, and the two of them looked out into the backyard, upon their handiwork in all of its glory. A starfighter. To be more specific, a scout shuttle. Lightly armed and armored, with a tad bit of cloaking technology, designed to allow for a small crew of five to land on rough terrain, perform their recon duty, and hop back aboard the main freighter. It also came with a small cargo compartment, in case the mission had any complications. For Akash and his friends’ purpose, though, this was the best kind of ship they could hope for.

Akash fetched a tool box while Jagjit began to install the circuit boards and screen into the pilot’s console. “You know,” Jagjit remarked, “Half the time I feel like we’re soldering together a few scrap parts and hoping that this thing’ll fly.”

“But this circuit board... It’s a motherboard.” he said, removing the ruined old motherboard from the console. It had long since suffered a death by a thousand cuts from the desert sands. “It’s the same make and model- where did you find this thing?”

“Some guy in a big brown hooded robe just kind of...” Akash remembered that he never actually paid for the heat sink.

“But did you get their face?” asked Jagjit.

“No.” said Akash. “They were wearing a hood. And their robe was too thick for me to tell you what kind of alien it was.”

“In this weather?” mused Jagjit. “Must have been cold-blooded to wear that thing. Maybe like, a Hexapod with half his arms cut off.”

There was a knock at the door. Without saying anything, they both knew that Akash would go and let them in, while Jagjit finished installing the heat sink.

Akash opened the door to let his friend Mira in. “You made it!” said Akash. “What took you so long?”

“You know,” replied Mira as she gestured towards the wheelbarrow that she brought with her. “The ususal.” If Akash didn’t know any better, Mira would look like a wandering desert scavenger, picking up anything that looked like it would fetch a credit on the black market.

“All right.” said Akash. He went inside to get the fence to the backyard for her. Once inside, Jagjit greeted her with all the enthusiasm he could muster.

“What’s up, Mira?” he asked.

“Nothing too important.” said Mira. “Here,” she continued, “Let me finish that. You’ve already worked all day.”

“It’s nothing.” said Jagjit. “What’s a little more work for me, anyway? Difference this time is, well...”

“It’s something for all of us.” said Akash. “So, we should all work on it.”

Jagjit paused for a moment. “...I guess you’ve got a point there.” he said while passing the screwdriver to Akash. Mira, meanwhile, pulled a cumbersome heat sink out of her wheelbarrow, causing a small metal box to fall into the sand.

Akash, of course, recognized this box. “Wait, is that...?”

“Well, yeah.” said Mira, setting the box on one of the ship’s seats. “It’s been brutal today. More so than usual.”

The three of them toiled for hours. Miraculously, every tool that they used, every part installed, fit their ship almost perfectly. Their excitement had the effect that time itself had slowed down, fueled by the feeling that this had gone far beyond a pipe dream. When the sun began to hang low into the sky, six months of toil were about to bear fruit. They already had the ship ready for its final test.

“Ready?” asked Akash, from the back seat.

“Ready.” said Jagjit, from the ship’s cockpit.

Mira sat in the backseat, holding her box. She could barely contain her excitement.

Jagjit turned on the ignition, and heard the engine roar to life. A standard issue temperature regulator immediately began to cool the ship off.

“It doesn’t say anything’s wrong.” said Akash.

Mira leaned in. “But still, we should run that diagnostic.” she said, pushing a few buttons on the console. The console’s screen responded quickly.

RECONNAISSANCE VESSEL TC-VOYAGER 06-16

LIFE SUPPORT: ONLINE

HULL INTEGRITY: 99.97%

AI ASSISTANT: ACTIVATED

WEAPONS SYSTEM: OPERATIONAL

SHIELDING SYSTEM: ONLINE

CLOAKING SYSTEM: ONLINE

Akash felt his heart skip a beat as a warning flashed across the console.

EXTREME EXTERIOR TEMPERATURE WARNING

EXTERIOR TEMPERATURE: 75 DEGREES CELSIUS

...Only to breathe a sigh of relief. As the tension left the ship, Jagjit turned to Akash and Mira.

“So,” said Jagjit. “There aren’t any oxygen leaks or hull breaches. What do you say we...?” Jagjit then pulled the lever that engaged the launch thrusters. They roared to life, and Akash noticed that Jagjit was giddy with childlike wonder. The ship rose off of the ground, the engines giving off a quiet, yet noticeable hum.

“Woah! Hey! Jagjit!” cried Akash. “We can’t leave just yet!”

Startled, Jagjit quickly fiddled with the controls. One of the buttons he pushed flung a LASER blast at a faraway cactus, causing it to explode in a fine, green-tinged mist that could easily be seen from their vantage point.

Mira stepped in. “Computer! Stop! Park this ship!”

Unfortunately, there was no response from the computer. Akash suddenly remembered a very important quirk about flying a ship.

“T-C Voyager!” he shouted. “Land!”

The console responded with a mildly effeminate voice. ACCEPTED said the console. The ship immediately began to descend.

A cloud of white-hot sand burst out from beneath the ship as it parked back in the backyard. “What are you thinking!?” shouted Jagjit. “Isn’t this what we wanted?”

“Well, yes.” said Mira. “But I was planning to leave with the cargo hold full of food, water- you know...”

“Well, I mean, it’s just...” said an increasingly frustrated Jagjit.

“We should probably bring a weapon, too.” said Akash. “You still have your dad’s rifle, right?” he added, hoping that he could defuse the situation.

“...Yeah, I do.” admitted Jagjit.

“It’s just one more day.” said Mira. “Now, what did you say this ship’s name was, again? T-C Voyager?”

The console lit up with a blipping noise.

“Open the cockpit, we want out.” said Mira. The ship popped open.

Jagjit took a quick look around at the other two. “Damn it.” he said.

“It’ll be all right, Jagjit.” said Mira, picking her metal box back up. “Besides, it’ll be nice to spend one final day here before we cast off.”

“Maybe.” said Jagjit, sounding depressed.

Akash nudged Jagjit. “Come on,” said Akash, gesturing towards Mira’s box. “I know what’ll cheer you up.”

Mira presented the box to the two boys. Jagjit couldn’t help but crack a smile. “Wow.” he said. Mira opened up the box. Inside of the specially-made container were a few cactus-fruit popsicles. Mira’s grandmother taught her how to make them. She would later find a metal freezer box at the market in dire need of repair.

Akash grabbed two of the partially transparent popsicles. He quickly passed one to Jagjit, before holding his own up to the light of the setting sun. He could barely see the light past the shredded cactus fruit, but the dark red ice of the popsicle itself refracted the light in a surprisingly diverse array of colors.

“Are you gonna eat that,” asked Jagjit. “Or just stare at it all day?”

“Sorry.” Akash apologized. Mira gave them both a look.

“You don’t need to apologize.” said Jagjit. His mood seemed to have improved significantly.

“I guess not.” said Akash. “Tomorrow’s our last day, so we should enjoy it while we can.”

“That’s right!” said Mira. “Once we get what we need down here, we could stop by a nearby space station and get some hazard suits!”

“Sounds expensive.” said Akash, taking a bite of his ice cream.

“So’s the training to pilot a starship of any kind.” said Jagjit. “But that’s not gonna stop us!”

Akash pondered for a moment. When they found the ship, a manual on how to fly it was left in the cargo space. At first, he thought that it was a lucky coincidence, but now? “Who leaves a flight manual on a scout ship...” he thought out loud.

“Don’t you leave stuff in your tanker all the time?” asked Jagjit.

“Well, yeah.” said Akash.

“There you go.” said Jagjit, smugly taking a bite of his popsicle.

“You’re going to give yourselves brain freeze.” said Mira.

“Freeze?” joked Akash. “What does that even mean?”

It was a petty inside joke, but it was enough to get all three of them laughing. Moments like these were what made life worth living.

Akash wasn’t too worried about how his father felt. After all, he could come back anytime he wanted.