The Zeno Crew

Captain’s Daughter’s Log

Today something amazing happened. It was so crazy it seemed like something out of an old world movie. A subtle rocking woke me up to this marvelous adventure.

“The space station must be hitting some turbulence”, I assured myself as my room tilted towards the left, then to the right.

The stars outside my window stayed where they were but then again, they never seemed to move. I started out of my room to my parent’s room. My dad was the captain and my mom was the ship’s gossip so they must know what was going on. But dad wasn’t in his room, neither was mom.

“Dad, Mom!” I yelled. My feet pounded against the ground as I ran to find someone, anyone! But a hand grabbed mine and pulled me aside, covering my mouth

“Sh,” a voice said,” they’re right around the corner.” I turned around and it was Xander, my older brother.“Zandra, didn’t you hear the blasting? Alien pirates have boarded the ship and have everyone tied up in the cafeteria.”

I looked around the corner and saw creatures that had guns in their hands. But even stranger, their appearance. They had the body of a large gorilla but the texture and face of a jellyfish. They had all of our crew all tied up and unconscious on the floor.

But worst yet, I had looked up to my brother for almost my entire life. Anything that scared him terrified me.

“Why are they here?” I asked. “They want to ransom us to Earth so they can steal all of our resources. But we are a small community of no value, so even if reinforcements come, we are doomed.” My brother looked as glum as ever on his makeshift crate/chair.

“Wait a moment.” I said

I grabbed a crowbar from the wall and opened one of the crates. The first one had my old hoverboard, the second one had some old blasters, and the third had some titanium rope. An idea started to come to mind, but for it to work I would have to have luck to one side and hope to the other. “I have an idea,” I said to Xander,” but we will have to be sneaky if it is to work.” He looked at me as if I was crazy. “Zandra, you can’t fight aliens. You’ll just get captured if you try.” I ignored him and put on my space suit. It was a silver bodysuit with an oxygen generator hooked up to the back. I strapped my oxygen mask to the generator and stepped up to the airlock.

“You’re crazy, you know that?” my brother said unhelpfully,” You’ll just get blasted by their ship and then you will get lost in space and they will take the rest of us to one of their prisons forever.”

I again ignored him and ran out into space and jumped onto my hoverboard. I have heard that on Earth people surf waves in the ocean for fun. The stars were like my ocean but unlike the surfers on Earth, I was a girl on a mission. I sped towards the top of our ship and started looking for the top-airlock.

Suddenly, a large metal-octopus ship shot into view. A dozen or so squid drones dispatched towards me.

“Human life form: Please return to ship so we can capture you.” One announced as they advanced. Out of fear I made a sharp turn and yanked my mask off. Now only a meter away from a drone I see my pale skin start to turn a paler blue as ice creeped up my neck. The alien inside screamed in fear as he shot his blasters at me. I quickly pulled my mask back on and started dodging blasts as I surfed back to the ship.

“No way jose, compadre.” I said as I reached the top and started working on the airlock. I at first tried to use the rope to pick the lock, but after about two seconds I blasted the lock off. “Is that a yes?” The same drone asked. The door opened and I slipped into the control room. “No!” “Get her!” the drones said as they scurried back to their ship.

I tied the handle of the door with the rope but one of the aliens was in the control room about to bash the controls. “No” I yelled and I blasted the creature right in the jelly-face. I tied him up and quickly put on goggles and gloves that operated the ship. I made a swishing motion with my hand and tapped the goggles to activate the ship.

I had access to the security cameras through the goggles and said calmly into the intercom. “Excuse me attendants of The Invading Zeno Crew Party, but you are going to be ejected if you don’t leave in twenty seconds. Starting twenty, nineteen, eighteen...″ I was counting on them not calling my bluff as I flexed my fingers starting up the engine. I pulled back my hands as if holding imaginary levers. The engine started to glow as I reached the final seconds. “...five, four, three, two,-”

“Human offspring, stop!” the octopus-ship said,” We will negotiate a surrender! We just did not wish for your kind to invade our ship .You were heading course and we are too weak to survive a full scale invasion!” Blasting asteroids! They weren’t the ones invading, we were. Or well, that’s what they thought. “It’s cool. Just release my crew and we’ll be on our way.”

And so the aliens released my crew and my parents and the aliens negotiated. In the end, we are now powerful allies and surf the universe looking for a new home planet for them. Our two kinds even had a whole ceremony for me.

My parents and the commander of the alien ship stood at the front of the stage as I nervously walked out. “We have all felt small at times..’’ he began. I was too interested in his face to listen. His face was more pinkish and he had hundreds of eyes scattered across it. “...And now, we shall award Zandra Helix our most prestigious award! The Medallion of Heroins!” The alien commander pinned the medallion (whitch was weirdly squishy) to my chest as the crowd cheered. “We also award you a puppy!” A little alien boy came up to me and handed me a small green ball, but after a second it unfurled and became a cute little green corgi with one eye! I named him Goonie, which means green in alien and minion or cronie in human.

My parents then walked over to me and made their speech. “ In times of unrest we often make rash decisions. We may attack an alien ship or move to eject an innocent species. But we always make the right decision in the end. That is why we promote Zandra Helix to Junior Captain of the Space Guard for Zeno!” My mom walked over to me and pressed a badge with two appendages, one an alien tentacle and one a human hand, holding each other. “Well done.” my father whispered over the roaring crowd.

My brother came over and mumbled an apology but I can tell he was really embarrassed. I felt bad so he and I went out for a surf on the stars! We had a grand ol’ time! He even played with Goonie, I think he was a little creeped out because the corgi was made of slime like the other aliens.

My crew and the alien’s all now live in the Quesenix Galaxy on the planet Tseebo. Me and my family still live in the space station though.

So in the end, it ended well. But the end is just the beginning.

See you tomorrow Captain’s Daughter’s Log.