Page 7 of Ava Greasemonkey

It was so quiet her mind began to slip, the neat box that contained memories from her past bleeding into her thoughts.

Ava swallowed heavily as anxiety bloomed. She grit her teeth, trying to force the images of her mother and sisters away. She needed to focus on something else. Anything else.

Thankfully, there was a supply of books that had been left over her many journeys up here. Ava sorted through them now.

The selection was still pretty slim. Most of the books were romance novels between two Tuxa, which were the aliens that had contracted the Phor ship for the transports that they’d been doing all cycle. She opened one, flipped through the pages, and put it back down, uninterested. The Tuxa’s appearance didn’t become any more attractive with familiarity. They were an ugly species, reptilian with beady eyes and a permanent scowl.

According to the data logs Ebel kept in the control room, the Tuxa had no romance to speak of, which was ironic seeing as all the books she had featuring them were romance novels. She strongly suspected the books were written by another species and featured the Tuxa, since doing so was a surefire way to get your book published by them. The Tuxa were, after all, the biggest manufacturing species out there. Ava seriously doubted the books were accurate about anything Tuxa related, including their mating rituals.

Putting the books aside, Ava leaned back to look out the grate hopefully. A still and silent cargo bay was all she could see. Again. Gray machinery and loading platforms with no one doing anything.

She tilted her head to try to see the sides of the room, but gave up when the grate started to hurt her cheek from the metal digging in. Not only was it empty, it also wasn’t interesting to look at. The Phor were technologically advanced but not very decorative. Everything was utilitarian and gray metal. If it had no function it did not belong.

Not even the preboarding checks are starting yet.Ava huffed, frustrated, and attempted to flip through the books again.

Without her com, Ava was losing track of time. The books were not appealing, so she resorted to drawing instead.

Her pencil scratched in the silence. The doodles turned into her drawing engine components, designs that could improve the efficiency using the biologics’ natural spin. Through sheer will, she challenged herself to come up with different designs, making her drawings overly complex to keep her brain too busy to think about anything else. She had so many ideas. Ava loved the engine and all the mechanics.

She eyed the work critically, putting one drawing in her bag to show to Ebel later.If only I was allowed to modify parts of the engine.

A beep made her look back down through the grate.Finally.

Wert walked in, his movement breaking the deafening silence.

Ava sighed in relief and put her finished picture aside before crumpling the half-finished ones.She shifted in the vent and leaned down to take a look, her belly pushing into the grate uncomfortably.Let’s get this over with.

Wert walked proudly across the engine hall. His yellow body didn’t slouch when he walked, but extended vertically with only his last pair of legs on the ground and the other two in the air available for tasks. Ava mentally contrasted Wert to Ebel, who usually hunched over so much he walked on two pairs of legs and only had his top available to work.

After opening the protective cover, Wert stood looking at the com screen attached to the wall for a moment, then began rapidly typing across it.

Ava couldn’t read the small writing from where she was, but she had seen it enough times to know the protocols of welcoming a foreign shipment on board.

The preparations would take awhile. Wert was meticulous, his face serious as he did the procedures.

She idly watched, waiting forR526, the ship’s name, to flash on the screen. She counted its appearances. Once it came on screen three times, the procedure would be done.

Ava chuckled to herself, watching the seriousness that Wert displayed while documenting the weights and confirming details about the cargo. His ability to pretend to do everything aboveboard was amazing, seeing as he knew Ava was right above his head the entire time. Cameras were not allowed in here—a selling point the Phor stressed for confidentiality. Little did they know that the Phor weren’t as scrupulous as they acted.

Wert appeared to just let his gaze wander, glancing up to where Ava waited. The Phor’s convex eyes might look unfocused, but they had better eyesight than she did.

“Good to see you, Ava,” he chittered from below, walking to right under the grate where she lay.

Ava pressed her face against the grate and spoke loudly back. “You too Wert. Will it be much longer?”

“No, it’s almost time. The logs have been noted on our end. We are just waiting for them to sign off. This transport has been unusual in their communications. Keep your eyes open for us.”

When have I ever not?“I will.”Ava frowned, annoyed at his unnecessary reminder. She watched him nod before he moved back to the cargo door and started to unlatch the straps on the floor to begin receiving the shipment.

She bit her lip, thinking idly while watching him. Did the other Phor cargo ships have the same setup, with creatures like her doing the same thing across the entire fleet?

She had asked Ebel before what other Phor ships’ protocols were but he had no idea. Ebel had only been on this Phor ship, assigned to the engine, so he had no insight on how other ships were run. She did hear him say once before though that it had been such a success having Ava spy for them that they were looking into taking more Humans on board their other vessels. The only problem was finding other Humans. As far as Ebel knew, the breeding facility she grew up in was the only one and had been shut down a few years prior.

The red lights on the wall began blinking, signifying the doors were clear to open on the other end.

A reptilian-looking Tuxa, beady black eyes sweeping, moved into the ship’s cargo hold as Wert opened the gangway.

Ava wrinkled her nose at the Tuxa, comparing the real deal to the heavily airbrushed cover on her romance book. Both were ugly. The real deal decidedly more so.

---