Shipwrecked

July 2023

“I could eat you.” The massive wolfman leaned inches from her face, clacking his teeth and licking his lips loudly. 

“Sure. Then where would you be?” She refused to back up. Instead, she pointed again at the chamber behind her. “Eating those.”

“Becca, Camdyn don’t graze.” 

“Duh.” Rebecca rolled her eyes. Camdyn eating veggies? She shook her head and lifted a panel between the rows of vegetables, exposing large grubs. “Protein, just the way you like it. So’rn, Elves eat these just fine.”

“I’d rather eat you. Terrans are so deliciously tender.” 

“Pfft. I’d get caught in your teeth.” Rebecca stood up. “That fella on Mars did it. So can we.”

“That movie again?” So’rn grumbled and turned around, heading out of the chamber. “We still have rations. And we’re not on your Mars.”

“C’mon.” Rebecca chased after the massive Camdyn. Wolfman. She sighed. Why couldn’t she be marooned with an Elf or Faerie? “We could be here for months.”

So’rn looked at her quizzically.

“You know. Month. It’s, um, like thirty of your days?” Rebecca shook her head. “We cannot use up the rations too quickly. We need to make them last longer. That food is healthy for us.” She pointed behind her.

“For you.” So’rn scowled. “No.”

“You’ll love it. I promise.” 

“No.”

“We can cook them. Spice them.”

“No and no.” 

“It’d be like eating clams.”

“Do I look like I eat clams?” So’rn pulled up short, looking at her in exasperation. 

“They are yummy.” Rebecca said, subdued. “We have this sauce stuff back home. It’s called soy sauce.”

“No.”

“We have salt here. That’d help make them yummy.”

So’rn glowered at her. “It’d make you yummy.”

“Give it a chance, willya?” Rebecca pulled on his thick, black fur. “It’ll make the rations last longer.” She followed him into a ruined control room. “We need to be ready for anything.”

“We weren’t ready for that.” So’rn pointed at a wall sized viewscreen.

Rebecca sighed and looked at the wreckage displayed. They were on a space freighter over a hundred miles long, and something had impacted it head on, carving it nearly in half. “We’re alive, So’rn. And we’ll be found. I know it. But we need to prepare for the long term.”

So’rn turned to face her. “I have no doubt we’ll be found. But by who?”

Rebecca just looked at him. He turned to look at the wreckage again. “We weren’t hit by an asteroid, Becca. We were hit by a projectile.”