Sarah coughed as she crawled out from underneath the decrepit piece of space metal, formally known as a StarKisser 3000. She had accidentally unleashed a good handful’s worth of dust while trying to disengage one of the fuel pumps, and with a surprised gulp, she sucked most of it down into her lungs. In addition to the busted pump, the ancient ship was sporting a slew of electrical shortages, two snapped antennas, and an offensive sticker on the front window which showed the outline of a sexy, purple alien woman bent over in a compromising position. Sarah made a face as she wiped the grease off her hands and headed over to the haggle with the young male Haraldie who brought the hunk of junk in to be fixed five minutes before closing. Bernie had left Sarah in charge for the first time since taking her on as an apprentice. She was supposed to finish taking inventory, double check the day’s work orders, and call Bernie if any new customers happened to drop in during the last half hour before closing.

“Looks like you’ve really put this thing through the wringer.” Sarah grabbed a new invoice sheet off of Bernie’s makeshift desk and work table. “It will take a me few days to get her all patched up, and you’re uh, looking at about 200 pinches for the whole job.”

“200!” The Haraldie spat a little as he repeated her estimate, and his three yellow eyes narrowed. “Are you out of your mind! At any other port the repairs wouldn’t be a pinch over 75!”

“Ha! What market reports have you been tuning into?” Sarah started documenting the necessary replacement parts and the labor costs while the rough-scaled alien paced back and forth, mumbling racist human slurs under his breath. “I hate to break it to you, sir, but your ship is…outdated. And I’m sure a proud StarKisser owner like yourself knows better than anyone how difficult it is to find Kisser compatible fuel pumps. I’m sorry, but I’m afraid the lowest I’m willing to go is 180. Take it or leave it.”

The Haraldie snatched the invoice out of Sarah’s hand and bitterly reviewed every word. While two of his eyes scanned the page, his third eye, which sat smack-dab in the middle of his moist forehead, scanned upward and gave Sarah a good sizing up.

“Aren’t you a little young to be running your own ship shop?”

“Aren’t you a bit desperate to be haggling over repair prices?” She reached up and grabbed her mess of curly blond hair, and with one quick motioned, tied it up using only her pen and whatever grease she had left on her hands.

“Alls I’m saying, girly,” the Haraldie took a step closer towards Sarah, “is that this port is infamously dangerous. If I had a pinch for every unfortunate tale I heard that began with ‘so we was on Reeveral Port,’ well, hell, I’d have enough money to pay for your overpriced repairs and still have enough left over to buy you as well.”

Sarah made direct eye contact with the Haraldie for the first time. “I’m not for sale.”

“Well, sure, not now. But Reeveral is a hot bed for pirates and those Kylen maniacs, is it not? A pretty little human girl like yourself…It won’t be long.”

“Are you leaving your ship or not?”

The Haraldie smiled. His yellowish teeth were all crooked and bent at odd angles, like he’d lost a few and had some shoddy underground dental repairs. He reached into his left pocket, prompting Sarah to step back. She slowly extended her hand behind her, trying to quietly reach for something metal and heavy from her toolbox. If it came down to it, she didn’t stand a chance against the seven-foot-tall alien, but that wasn’t going to stop her from putting up a fight. Just as her fingers wrapped around the cool handle of her trusty wrench, the Haraldie pulled from his pocket a leather pinch pouch, and threw it at Sarah.

“175. That’s all I got.”

Sarah, who just barely managed to catch the pouch, hesitatingly poured its contents out onto the desk and began counting. Usually she would count twice; nothing irritated Bernie more than losing money over a simple miscount. However, seeing as the Haraldie’s third eye had been fixed on her chest for the past few seconds, and the large alien was inching closer with each pinch counted, she decided one count through would suffice.

“Great. It should be done in a few days. You can stop by for a progress report tomorrow if you’d like, but for now, I’m closing up shop, so if you wouldn’t mind…” Sarah smiled and motioned towards the door. The Haraldie gave her one last flash of a smile, winked his third eye, and left.

Unable to contain her laughter, Margaret spit a mouthful of caffie-drink right onto the restaurant floor just as Sarah was reaching the climax of her story.

“I’m sorry,” the young halfsie woman wiped a tear from her eye while trying to catch her breath, “Your plan was to beat the Haraldie with a wrench?”

“Well…maybe. I don’t know!” Sarah reached for her own caffie-drink and downed the last half a cup in one sip. “What would you have done?”

“Not let the Haraldie into the shop in the first place,” Braya chimed in. “I mean, seriously, what are you going to tell Bernie?”

“Just tell him the truth,” Margaret interrupted. “He should be happy! You got him more business, didn’t you? It’s not like he’s really in a position to be turning away customers, even if they are skeezy, Haraldie swine.”

“First of all, not all Haraldies are like that.” Sarah sighed. “And secondly, you know Bernie won’t see it like that. He specifically told me to call him if any new customers came.”

“So why didn’t you?” Braya asked disapprovingly.

“I don’t know. I guess I just wanted to prove myself. He’s been keeping me on desk duty for months. Hasn’t once let me pick up a tool. I mean, what’s the point of apprenticing in a ship shop if I’m never going to get to work on a ship!”

“What do you expect? You’re still in school, and he’s liable if anything happens to one of the ships in his shop.”

“I know, I know. But it’s not just that. I swear, Bernie treats me like a little kid sometimes.”

“And here I always thought you guys had more of a will-they, won’t-they romance dynamic going on.” Margaret smiled coyly and tucked some of her long dark hair behind her purple spotted ears. Margaret was half human, half alien—half Para to be exact, which was a species of aliens famous for their striking purple skin tone and general lack of emotional depth. Luckily, Margaret’s mother had been a particularly empathetic and patient human, so even though Margaret was half-Para, she still possessed the ability to sympathize with, and care about others, though she often did so through teasing and inappropriate jokes.

“Gross!” Braya said. “Bernie is old enough to be her dad!”

“Plus he’s married,” Sarah added.

“Oh c’mon!” Margaret scoffed. “Don’t tell me you’ve never thought about it! He’s handsome, in a rugged, honest day’s work kind of way!”

Braya folded her arms matter-of-factly. “I prefer men my own age, thank you very much. Besides, I don’t trust your opinions on sexual matters anymore, ever since you said you thought Kylen guys were hot.”

“You said what?” Sarah gawked.

“Kind of hot! I said kind of!” Margaret aggressively pointed a finger at Braya. “And you swore you would never repeat that.”

“You know I can’t keep secrets!”

“Kylen guys? As in the hideous blue-horned dragon men? The ones that pillage ports, kidnap women, and will kill a person just for speaking in the wrong dialect? You find those…things attractive?”

“I thought that dialect thing was just a myth,” Braya murmured.

“Oh no.” Sarah lowered her voice. “It’s true. Bernie tells me stories of when he used to work as an engineer on a Kylen ship. There’re four different dialects, and if you address someone using the wrong one, they have grounds to kill you. No questions asked.”

“That’s barbaric!” Braya’s eyes sparkled with newfound fear. “I knew they were violent, but I didn’t know they were ruthless.”

“Yup, they’re ruthless, and according to Margaret, they’re totally sexy.”

“Okay, okay.” Margaret threw her hands up in defeat. “I take it back. Kylen are nothing but a bunch of bloodthirsty, flea-ridden mongrels. Happy?”

Braya shifted awkwardly in her seat. “I’ll be happy when we change the subject.”

“Actually, now that you mention it, we need to talk about our project for Unconventional Ship Design.” Sarah reached for her bag and pulled out a notebook. “How do you guys feel about using alternative sources of fuel for our topic?”

“Works for me! Margaret?”

The halfsie woman leaned back in her chair and yawned, “Sure. Whatever. But if we’re going to start talking homework, I’m going to need more caffie-drink. You two hit the books and I’ll go grab us a fresh pot.”

Margaret got up and walked towards the front counter and promptly started flirting with the teenage alien boy working the register.

Sarah glanced her way and laughed. “Yeah, I don’t think she’ll be much help on the homework front tonight.”