Nick’s eyes went wide, and he held his breath as he stared at his own shadow on the pitted gray door in front of him. He didn’t move or make a sound.

On the other side of the door, Uncle Damian sighed. “Nick, I know you’re in there. I’ve got proximity sensors.”

Slowly, almost against his will, Nick’s hand reached out for the latch on the door. He opened it to see his frowning uncle on the other side. 

“Uncle Damian, what a surprise.” Nick forced a smile. Damian remained grim.

“Nick,” he said slowly, “What are you doing?”

Joking worked so well the first time Nick thought he’d double down. “Well, it is a space ship, right? I figured this would be the easiest way to get to space.”

“Nick.” Damian’s sharp tone cut him off. “Your dad told me in no uncertain terms that you weren’t allowed to come with me.”

“Would you believe he changed his mind?” Nick asked, then caught himself before the vein in Damian’s temple exploded, “No, wait, no more jokes, I promise.” Damian nodded. “Well… I want to come with you?”

“That’s not very convincing.”

“I know, just… it’s hard to explain.” Nick sighed. “I want to go to space. I have to see what’s out there. I can’t just stay on Earth and pretend like everything’s normal, like I don’t know that there’s all this,” Nick waved his hands at the ship, “out there. I have to see it, just once. It’s the adventure of a lifetime, and I can’t just let it go.”

Nick stopped. Uncle Damian watched him intently, unmoving, unblinking. Finally, when Nick felt he would burst, Damian grunted. “Sounds familiar,” he said. “Mayyybe I could give you a shot.” Nick beamed. “Just for a while. You can stick around for a few days, then we’ll give your folks a call and see what they say. If you can’t stand space, I’ll take you back anytime, just say the word."

Nick nodded. “Sure. I will.” He wouldn’t. He knew he wouldn’t give this up. “What now?”

“How about, right now, you get out of my engine room?”

“Huh?” Nick looked around. The room he was standing in was darker than the hallway outside. The walls were covered in a thin layer of grime, the dirt made worse by the uneven light cast by some giant glowing orb hanging behind Nick that he had been too distracted to notice.

“What’s that?”

“Power core,” Damian said quickly. “Now get out before the damn thing gives you radiation poisoning.”

“It’s not really radioactive, is it?”

Damian grunted and looked at the door latch. “Looks like you busted the lock? How’d you do that?” he muttered. Nick was sure Damian was joking about the radiation thing, but he grabbed his duffel and hustled into the hallway all the same. Damian followed, frowning when the door hung ajar.

“Gonna need a new latch,” he muttered in the same low voice. Nick wanted to get him to stop worrying about the door handle and show him around the space ship, but he was still a little shocked that Damian had said yes, and without Nick sneaking into orbit first, so he wasn’t about to push his luck. Fortunately, Damian’s attention was distracted from the door by the sound of footsteps coming down the hall.

Damian’s head snapped up. “Nick, you want to meet my crew?” He grinned.

“Yes!”

“Fleith, Triskar,” Damian said, “come over here.”

“What now?” A low voice asked.

The man who spoke stepped into view. He would have looked human from far enough away, and maybe if you saw him at night. The man’s skin was green from head to toe, emerald green at the darkest, and pale mint on the scar that stretched out from under the eyepatch covering his left eye, all green except for the mohawk-like ridge running from his forehead back, which was deep red, taking the place of hair. Six and a half feet tall, he was tall and lean, less like a mountain than some roman column. He looked about as friendly as stone, too. His face was impassive, but when his eye fell on Nick, both eyebrows raised in disbelief. 

“Who,” he spoke slowly, stressing each word, “is this?” 

Damian put a friendly arm over Nick’s shoulder. “Triskar, this is my nephew, Nick. Nick, this is Triskar.”

“I wasn’t aware this rite of passage involved touring the ship,” Triskar said. 

“It does not, and it’s a graduation, RX was the one who called it a rite of passage,” Damian said.

“I prefer using exact terminology,” Triskar said. “And if your nephew isn’t here to fulfill social niceties, then why is he here?”

“He’s joining the crew,” Damian said cheerfully.

“What?” Triskar asked.

“What?” A fresh voice asked. Someone raced into view, and Nick’s eyes nearly popped out of his head.

If Triskar looked almost human, this creature, Damian had called him Fleith, most certainly did not. Short, barely over four feet if you didn’t count the antennae on his head, the newcomer was… buggy was the best word Nick could think of. He was humanoid, if you discounted the extra pair of arms sticking out of his abdomen, but the creature was definitely a bug. He had a light blue carapace covering his body, tiny translucent wings sticking out of his back, which shivered slightly when he saw Nick, and his head accounted for a good foot of his height. It was huge, and vaguely oblong, and had compound eyes the size of softballs which glittered as he tilted his head, looking at Nick.

“A new crew member?” Fleith asked. His excited voice buzzed slightly. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” Fleith extended a three-fingered hand for Nick to shake. His carapace felt dry and smooth to the touch.

“See, Triskar, Fleith is excited,” Damian said. “Nick, this is Fleith, he and his mate-pair, Evech, are traveling with me, looking for a place to set up a colony.”

Fleith nodded, and his antennae twitched. “It’s been fun.”

Damian laughed and punched Fleith on the arm. “Fleith is also the ship mechanic. You give him five minutes alone with a machine, and he can disassemble it, put it back together and have it working again, better than new.”

“You exaggerate,” Fleith said. 

Triskar winced. “Captain, can we talk in private?”

“Is it about how you don’t want me to invite my nephew to join the crew?” Damian asked. “Because if so, then no, we cannot.”

Triskar sighed. “Sir, is this a good idea? This ship is hardly the place for a child.”

“I’m not a child,” Nick said. “Didn’t you just say my graduation counted as a rite of passage? If it is, then I must be an adult.”

Triskar frowned, and Fleith’s antennae twitched again in what Nick suspected was a sign of amusement. Damian laughed.

“He’s right, Trisk,” Damian said. “Besides, Nick’s not much younger than Liat, and he’s out on his own. Nick’s right here with all of us to keep him from getting shot.”

“Comparing him to Liat won’t make me more glad he’s here.”

“That’s because you’re an old grump,” Damian said. “Nick stays, and that’s final.”

Triskar sighed. “Fine. Also, Meria left a message for you.”

Damian’s easy-going smiled fell. “Why didn’t you lead with that?” He turned to Nick. “I need to go see what that’s about. Fleith will take you to a room you can have, the one next to him and Evech.”

Fleith nodded and buzzed again. “No problem. Right this way.” Fleith pointed forward, for him, which meant behind Nick. As Damian and Triskar went the opposite direction, Fleith chatted amiably. 

“Living quarters are all in this back circle, so it’s real easy to find anything. Rooms are on the outside, inside is the engine room, which you’ve seen, and the common area, which is facing the cockpit, opposite the entryway. Past the cockpit, at the front of the ship, is the garden area, for backup air filtration. You might have seen the windows from the outside.” 

He paused long enough for Nick to nod, before continuing. “We’re on the left half of the ship. Three rooms to each side. Evech and I are fore, RX-9 is aft, and you’ll be right in the middle.” Fleith stopped in front of one door. “Here it is. The door should be unlocked.”

The doors, like the one to the engine room, had a small, recessed latch to open it manually, but there was also a button to the side. Nick tapped the smooth glass of the control panel, and the door opened with a hiss. 

Fleith buzzed. “That’s it. I’m just next door if you need anything. See you tomorrow.”

“I’ll see you,” Nick said. He stepped into the room, and the door closed behind him.

The panel on the other side of the door had two buttons. Nick pressed the top, and the lights went on. His room was small, not much bigger than the narrow bed. Nick tossed his duffel bag down and looked around. The bed was a weird size, a bit larger than a twin, but not by much, and pushed against the right wall. There was an indentation in the wall, eight inches above the bed, which offered the only flat surface in the entire room. There were two feet of space between the bed and the left wall, and three from the foot of the bed to the door. The left wall had two doors in it, each with their own buttons next to them. The first one Nick opened revealed a closet, and the second was a bathroom small enough to wash his hands from the toilet, and it looked like the whole room doubled as a shower, if the shower head built into the ceiling and the drain in the floor were anything to judge by. The knobs on the sink were mis-matched, one gray and the other, slightly smaller, bronze.

The walls of the room were the same faded, off-white as the hallway, and the floor had dense, office-building carpet, which looked like it might not have been original to the ship. The room was both very sparse, and very old. Nick hoped the hull wasn’t as aged as the inside of the ship.

Nick pulled his camera out from his duffle bag and placed it on the ledge next to the bed. The rest of the bag, filled with clothes, he dumped onto the floor of his closet. He could sort it out later, maybe.

As Nick was standing at the foot of his bed, wondering what to do next, he heard a small hum, and felt the floor shake a little. The shake subsided quickly, but the hum remained. He smiled at the thought of the ground racing away as he, in a little metal can, shot off the planet into the space beyond.