Page 4 of Ava Greasemonkey

The first time it happened she visited the med bay, asking for a scan, but her results didn’t show anything different about her. Now she liked that it happened. She’d put how her skin changed from a pale to a darker shade in the sun on the logs the Phor kept of Humans since it wasn’t already in the records.

A tone sounded from Ava’s wrist, startling her.

She looked down to see her com watch light up. Shading it from the sun to see the screen, she saw a summons from Ebel urging her to come back to the engine room.

“I bet that’s about the transport we’re due to be getting any minute now,” Nuor said, her voice a bit muffled. She had turned on her stomach to sun her back and pulled the jumpsuit down for all her feathers to be splayed out.

Ava squinted at her com. “I think you’re right. Looks like there is a lot of chatter about this one.”

She hadn’t bothered opening the messages; seeing the notifications flash on her screen was enough to know whatwas happening. She would be getting a firsthand look at the transport herself soon enough.

Nuor hummed her agreement but remained sprawled out in the sun.

Ava stood up, readjusted her jumpsuit, and put her black hair back into a bun. She really should cut it to make it easier to work around the engine, but it made her happy to keep it long. Before coming to this ship, she’d never had the option of growing it out.

Bending over, Ava picked up her water bottle and said goodbye to Nuor.

Nuor raised her hand and waved her off, still face down in the grass.

Ava reluctantly walked back into the gray hallway and down the stairs to the engine hall, immediately missing the warmth and sunlight on her face.

Chapter 3

Ava snagged the clipboard after entering the engine room. It was still sitting on the navigation panel, unmoved.

She tapped lightly on the biologics tanks as she passed it, watching them swirl fast in response.

“Ebel!” Ava bounded into the control room, hoping to shock him by opening the door suddenly.

No reaction. He didn’t even turn her way. Ava huffed in disappointment.He hasn’t moved at all since I was here last.

Ebel’s fuzzy yellow shape was reclined over a beanbag-like chair with his stubby back four legs sticking in the air. His front two pairs, which he used much like she did for hands, were tossing a little ball compulsively between them.

She tapped him on his shoulder.

Ebel’s multi-eyed head looked at her briefly to nod and grunt at her appearance, not even phased at her attempt at surprise.

Ava leaned in farther, looking over his shoulder to see on the monitor the latest Bohxi game, a daredevil sporting eventinvolving a lot of fighting and gore. It’d looked dumb to her the few times she tried to watch it.

“What have you been . . .” Ava began, waggling the clipboard in her hand.

“Hold on, Ava,” Ebel clicked. His long fingers on his top pair of arms stopped throwing the ball and held it while his middle pair of arms reached forward to tap on the keyboard. He motioned to the screen and clicked again, “There’s only two minutes left.”

“Two minutes for this round,”Ava muttered while shaking her head and tapping her foot. She knew full well that if she wasn’t here, he would have gone right over to another game after this one ended. It was easy to tell by the complete lack of work that had been done the last few cycles that he had been at it awhile.

It must be the playoffs.

Ava clenched her jaw in annoyance. She ignored his feed and kept herself busy by opening the first aid kit to heal a small scrape she got on her leg last cycle.

The cut wasn’t too bad, though she eyed it critically, pants leg rolled up. It hadn’t even bled much. The ointment alone would seal it up.

She spread the green paste over it, watching the skin knit together before her eyes until only the shadow of a scab remained.

“What did you do this time?” Ebel said, his head swiveling her direction, watching her movements.

His Boxhi game just ended. He shut the screen off, silencing the onscreen celebrations.

He moved closer as his convex eyes narrowed on her wound. “Your outer layer is so fragile.” His antennas pressed on his fuzzy yellow skull indicated his concern, despite his teasing.

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