Gem, Timothy and Victor were gathered around the dining table while Andrea was standing by the kitchen fan with a cigarette in her hand. 

  “That excavations are about to begin basically means that the UFG is going to empty Earth of all its resources which will take about a week, judging from its size. My home planet was blasted after being deemed useless. Not sure if that will happen to your planet, but either way it will be inhabitable.” Gem took a theatrical pause to let what she just said sink in to her audience. “I’m planning to leave this place before we’ll get blown up or die from toxins or starvation and for that I need Stella.” She nodded towards the robot before resuming. “Stella will be my co-pilot, but first we need a ship and we’re going to get that from the hangar at the military base. Andrea and I will go into the base with Stella while you two, Timothy and Victor, will get the code to unlock the ship. Any questions?”

  “How exactly were you planning for us to do all… that?” Timothy asked.

  “So, Andrea will pose as a specialist and pretend to take me and my ‘illegal’ robot in for questioning. To access the ship I had in mind, you and Victor have to get your hands on a tablet belonging to a sergeant, and from there I assumed that you knew how to unlock it.” 

  “That’s quite some assumption, but I probably could... depending on the manufacturer.” 

  The group went over the plan in further detail over a stew of boiled potatoes and beans. Gem had a contact who would provide Andrea with a fake ID as well as a specialist uniform. Victor was tasked with getting, or rather pickpocketing, a handheld computer from a sergeant or higher up on the outside. Timothy was assigned to unlock the device and give Andrea and Gem, who would be at the base, the passcode to one of the spaceships of model Pollux VI. 

  “Wouldn’t it be better if you pretended to be a specialist?” Andrea asked Gem.

  “Have you ever seen a blue person in the military?”

  “I guess it makes sense if you do it, Andrea,” Timothy agreed. 

  “I don’t know man,” Andrea said, not totally on board.

  “Don’t worry, I think the uniform will do most of the job.” Gem reassured.

  “Dude, it’s not that I’m worried. It’s just… nevermind.” 

After finishing up the discussions about the following day, they cleaned up the late supper and figured out the sleeping arrangements. Both Timothy and Andrea made strong cases for sleeping on the floor to let the other sleep on the couch. Timothy argued that he was the better option since he had a couple of more pounds of subcutaneous fat on him whereas Andrea argued that she still was young and lacked back pain problems. The argument ended with Gem deciding that Timothy would sleep on the couch while Andrea and Victor could share her queen sized bed. The bed turned out to be sufficiently wide enough to make room for all three of them. 

  Gem turned off the lights as the long day finally had come to an end. Once the lights went out, the room appeared to be decorated with yellow, orange and pink stars in different constellations. 

  “Wow,” Victor said, looking up at the ceiling.

  “It’s pretty,” Andrea admitted. 

  For the trained eye it was possible to distinguish the source of the stars amongst several trinkets on the living room table. The item of interest was a slightly shimmering stone-looking thing with small bumps and chips all over it. 

  “That’s not our night sky, is it?” Timothy asked as he tried to find the Big Dipper.  

  “No it’s not. It’s the sky I used to fall  asleep under a long time ago,” Gem said.