Kreaving stayed where he was. “Prove it’s you.”
We looked at each other. “How the hell does he expect us to do that?” Chuckie asked me.
“I may have it.” Time to go with the crazy. “Wheatles, if you actually want us to get you off this stupid rock, stop playing coy and get out here. Time is literally running out, because you’re not wrong—whatever hit the sun is going to do its business all over this solar system sooner as opposed to later.”
“It’s her,” he shouted to someone. “Weapons down.”
“Well, James called that right,” Chuckie said.
“So did you, not that I want to shoot these people.”
Wheatles walked toward us, followed by a lot of people who were various colors and sizes, just like humans, most with hair on their heads and some without, but who didn’t look that much like humans. What they looked like were literally apes—as in gorillas, chimps, and so forth—with no fur. Wearing nice space jumpsuits, carrying space helmets, and looking, to a person, freaked out.
They had the bigger heads—which probably indicated nice, big brains and my likely having to arrange Dazzler Singles Trips to their planet—the thicker limbs, body structures, and digits that apes had over humans. Unlike cartoon ape people, they were wearing shoes, so couldn’t compare their toes to ours, but took it on faith that they looked like an ape’s more than a human’s.
“It’s a crazy old galaxy, isn’t it?” Chuckie asked me, clearly trying not to laugh. “I think they get to win on the name. You may have to come up with something else for our species.”
“Maybe they’ll let us keep on sharing it.”
Wheatles reached us—he was gorilla in structure and, taking a look at his expression, bearing, and coloring, figured him for the silverback, likely the Commander, and someone I was never calling Wheaties unless we became very close friends or he seriously pissed me off—and he shook his head. “I thought you said you were Naked Apes. Did we misunderstand?”
“Nope. You’re just far more like true Naked Apes than we are.”
“Our evolution branched away from pure simian,” Chuckie said quickly. “So we don’t have the same body strength I’d assume you have and our body structure is slightly different, but only slightly. Otherwise, we’re probably very similar.”
Kreaving nodded. Then he put his right fist up to his left pec. “Commander Wheatles Kreaving of the Eknara from the planet of Ignotforsta, officially requesting rescue from the Distant Voyager of Earth.”
Chuckie nudged me as my music changed to “Killer Queen” by Queen. Time to do what I was pretty sure Wasim and Gadhavi would strongly suggest in this situation as well as what Algar obviously wanted.
I bowed to him. “We are Queen Katherine, Regent of Earth in the Solaris system for the Annocusal Royal Family of Alpha Four of the Alpha Centauri system, First Lady of the United States of America on Earth, Earth’s representative to the Galactic Council, and Communications Officer for the Distant Voyager, and we welcome the crew of the Eknara and will offer them safe haven and passage.”
Kreaving gaped. Then he did the down on one knee thing and bent his head. All the rest of his crew followed suit.
“Nicely done,” Chuckie said to me. “You even remembered the royal ‘we.’ I’m so proud.”
“Thank Wasim and Mister Gadhavi.” And the King of the Elves and DJs. “Um, can I please ask them to stand up now?”
Chuckie laughed. “Yes. Commander Kreaving, please rise. The Queen is extremely informal and prefers to be called Kitty, by the way.”
They did as requested. “Are you her consort?” Kreaving asked Chuckie respectfully.
Who managed to only snort a little bit of a laugh. “Ah, no. A moment.” He turned around and motioned to Jeff, who came over at hyperspeed, which caused the Ignotforstans to jump. “King Jeffrey, Regent of Earth in the Solaris system for the Annocusal Royal Family of Alpha Four of the Alpha Centauri system, President of the United States of America, and Chief Weapons Officer of the Distant Voyager, I present Commander Wheatles Kreaving of the ship Eknara from the planet Ignotforsta.”
“Please don’t bow again,” Jeff said quickly as Kreaving and crew started to bend.
“The king is also extremely informal,” Chuckie said, as Kreaving and his people straightened right back up, “and prefers to be called Jeff.”
“Thank you for coming to us, your highnesses,” Kreaving said.
“We would have been here sooner but we had a heck of time figuring out where in the galaxy you were. This system is hella remote.”
Kreaving blinked. “Ah . . .”
Winked at him. “Chuckie did say that we were extremely informal, dude. Get with the program here. The greeting is to level the playing field, so to speak, or unlevel it, or whatever works, basically. As of now, though, we’re all just people, trying to save ourselves and as many others as we can.”
“True enough, but please call me Charles or Chuck,” Chuckie said. “She’s the only one who gets to use that familiar of a nickname for me.”
Kreaving nodded. “Understood. Can you really get us out of here?”
“Your crew, absolutely. The rest? That’s the problem.” Pointed to the Distant Voyager. “Our ship is huge, and clearly bigger than yours, because we saw the wreckage, but despite its size, it’s not able to evacuate all this system. We might be able to get everyone on this planet off. Maybe.”
Kreaving shook his head. “They won’t go. Our shuttle was still intact—though it has a limited warp capacity, it can only hold six so it’s not viable to get us all out of here. But its long-range capacity is such that we were able to send a team to the other planets. While all of them were welcoming, which was somewhat surprising, none of them want to leave.”
Jeff groaned. “And, just like that, it’s worse.”
Chuckie squinted at the sun. “I’m able to see that the sun is flaring in an odd way. Can’t they?”
“Yes,” Kreaving said. “They feel it portends good things.”
“It doesn’t. That sun’s going to become a black hole, and then it’s going to become something much, much worse.” Looked around. “Is this your entire crew?”
“Yes, we’ve chosen to stay together in case help arrived.”
“Any locals hanging with you? Anyone who might actually not want to trust the portends and instead listen to the clearly more scientifically advanced visitors?”
“We crashed on this planet,” Kreaving said wryly. “Therefore, we’re not really impressing the locals.”
“Will we?” Jeff asked. “Our ship is impressive.”
“It is,” Kreaving agreed. “However, no one on any of these planets is scared. They all want to wait it out.”