Chapter One Saved by a Fish-girl? (Patreon)

She groaned, and rubbed her head groggily. It took her a few moments to register her surroundings and the alien voices. She could not understand a word being spoken, but the voices were decidedly female. The language was almost musical in sound, but she had never heard it spoken before. It must not be a language her translator implant knows either since the implant had projected an error message into her vision. She focused on it, and it expanded. Telling her exactly what she expected, a simple ‘language not found, cannot translate’ error message. She dismissed it, and looked around.

She was not in the sub anymore clearly. Three small girls were having a heated discussion at a table. It wasn’t any common material either, as it was colorful with shoots of pinks, oranges, and reds mixing in harmony. The material glittered a bit in the blue-white light coming from the ceiling lamps. The girl then noticed other things, she was lying on a couch but it wasn’t made of normal material either. She had no idea what it was made with, but it was red in color with orange highlights. It was smooth and cool to the touch but gave a bit when she pushed against the material. Springing back into shape when she released the pressure.

In front of the couch was a low table similar to the one the alien females were at. It seemed to be the same color scheme and material. Same style as well, with clean smooth lines. Functional and practical if oddly colored. Sitting against the wall was a large monitor. She had never seen that design before though. It was flat, with an orange and silver border. The screen seemed smooth and polished though. It was currently off. Placed facing it were several chairs that looked to be of the same style and material as the couch.

The walls all had a curve to them. They were smooth and polished, each wall looked a little different with the swirling colors that continued with the floor as well. Then she noted a window. Around the edges were colorful corals outside, and she could see fish swimming by. They were underwater, the sunlight giving her quite the view. In the distance, she could even see the flowing form of the local underwater plants as they reached for the sky. Suddenly she noticed the voices stopped.

Looking over, she noticed one of the girls approaching. Then she noticed her state of dress. The alien female was entirely naked and didn’t seem to care. The young girl wondered how she had missed that. Then she realized she had missed something else as well, when she realized she was feeling a little cool. Glancing at herself, she realized she was just as naked as the alien.

The alien plopped down in a chair near her and leaned forward as she noted her features. She had webbed hands and feet. Her body was covered with fish scales, and yet she had shoulder-length blue hair that looked damp. The only thing she was wearing was a cute pin above her left ear that stood out. Her ears were interesting, with their webbed fin-like appearance. The alien seemed to be shorter than her at around 130 centimeters. In a strange way, she was kind of cute.

The alien pulled something out from under the table, and held it in her palm. The object was a small blue sphere that swirled with violet highlights. After a moment the alien spoke and to her surprise, she understood the alien. “Hello, glad to see you are awake. I’m Ilia and you are?”

She was full of questions. The young girl wanted to ask so many questions that she didn’t know where to begin. Following the prompt she introduced herself, “I’m Telis. Where are my clothes? What are you? Where am I?...” one after another her questions spewed off her tongue.

Ilia interrupted, and said “Slow down! I can’t answer so many at once.”

She stopped talking, and after a moment Ilia started to answer some of her questions. “I removed your clothes earlier so I could examine you after I brought you to my home. It was the nearest place I knew of that had air. Something I know most land-dwellers, like you, need to live. As for what I am, I’m a Renkethi.”

She tilted her head and said, “Never heard of the Renkethi. Can I have my clothes back?”

The fish girl scrunched her face cutely and with an honest tone asked, “Why do you want your clothes?”

Before she could answer, she yelped when someone pulled her tail. She turned and glared at the small girl who had pulled on her tail. She looked a lot like Ilia, but was smaller and less mature. Clearly, a younger sister, who Ilia was talking to in that weird musical language of theirs.

She looked sheepish and then slunk away. Illia turned back, “Sorry about that. They’ve never seen a land-dweller before. We tend to keep to ourselves, so we don’t have much opportunity to meet land-dwellers.”

She gave Ilia a light glare, and said “Could you stop referring to me as a land-dweller!?”

Ilia looked away, and said, “Sorry. Anyway, I do have a few questions myself. Like what brought you surface-dwellers down here to the middle depths or for that matter what brought you to Renketh in the first place?

Telis blinked, and muttered almost questionally, “Renketh? Renketh...Renkethi”

Her eyes widened as she linked the alien’s words. “Wait Renketh!? Do you mean your kind are native to this world?”

Ilia hesitated for a moment, and then ultimately said, “We were here first, yes. That is not important though. What brought your kind here?”

Telis sighed, and after a moment began, “First off, my people are called the Vikari. Our people cracked hyperlight a little over a hundred years ago. This was one of the first habitable worlds we found and a bit of a curiosity, since it showed evidence of extensive orbital bombardment about one thousand years ago.”

Ilia nodded, “Sounds about right. Renketh was indeed bombarded one thousand years ago. There are plenty of books on the subject, but no one really likes to talk about that.”

“I guess I can see why. Anyway, as to your other question, my mother was a scientist seeking to study deepsea life here. She dragged me along because she couldn’t find a babysitter,” she sighed, “As if I am not old enough to look after myself for a few days.”

Ilia giggled, “That happens. My mom is the same way sometimes.”

She giggled as well in understanding, and then a thought occurred to her. “My mother, did you find her?”

Illia’s whole face changed, and she shook her head, “I did not, but I wasn’t there long. Any ocean-dweller knows that you don’t stick around when there is blood in the water. It attracts predators. Still, there is a chance she escaped whatever crushed your sub.”

Telis had to admit there was, but she wanted to look. “Can’t we go back and look?”

Ilia shook her head, “I’m afraid not.” She must have given a look because Ilia went on to explain, “On my end, I have to babysit my sisters. There is no way I can leave them here, alone, and I can’t take them with us. Then there is you, I can’t read your language so I don’t know how much air you have. Not to mention you aren’t exactly built for swimming and are unfamiliar with the dangers of the middle depths.”

Telis looked away, and again had to admit there was a point there. She did have a question though. Ilia had mentioned middle depths twice. “You keep mentioning middle depths, and it’s starting to sound like a place.”

Ilia gave her an odd look, then sighed, “I guess I shouldn’t be using Renkethi terminology without explaining it. I don’t know how you divide regions, but our domain is three dimensional. We split regions by depth and area. We are in the middle depths, the deeper half of the sunlight domain, and where the majority of Renkethi civilization can be found. The sunlight isn’t as bright here feeling a lot like twilight in the upper depths. Speaking of the upper depths they are the shallow half of the sunlight domain, and sparsely populated. Well by us anyway, they are quite lush thanks to all the sun. Then there is the darkness domain at those depths it is always dark. Again we split it into two major regions. The lower depths, and the Great Depths. For reference, the Great depths have such crushing pressure that none have charted them.”

Telis listened and realized it made sense that they would pay attention to depth. Their territory was three-dimensional and the deeper you were the less sunlight there was. While she was thinking about that, Ilia suddenly said, “Anyway, while we can’t go looking now. There are other things we can do. I’ll make a couple of calls, and then we can go around teaching you Renkethi. Best not to rely on this thing all the time.”

Telis glanced at the sphere, and replied, “I have been wondering, what is that thing anyway? How does it even work?”

Ilia shifted the small sphere, in her hands, that was now glowing slightly. “A good question. I’m afraid I don’t have all the answers on how it works, but I can tell you what it does. It enhances psionic ability and even has a couple of its own. The translation ability is one of them.”

Telis glanced at it in shock. Technology that could enhance psionic ability was unheard of. Even technology that interacted with psionics was rare, and tightly controlled by the Starlords. It was thought only the Starlords have such technology.

She stared at it for several moments before finally asking, “Do the Renkethi have a connection with the Starlords?”

Ilia said nothing, and merely walked away. Briefly pausing to tell her that she had calls to make. With Ilia having left, she looked around and noticed that the two younger fish-girls were playing a game of some kind at the table. It looked like a board game, but not one she had ever seen.

Feeling curious, and wondering if she couldn’t find something to wear. She decided to take a look around the building. The room she was in had doors, all of which were made of a shiny polished material and not the materials she was used to. The Renkethi seemed to rely on different materials, but since they lived underwater that was likely a given. At least their homes had air. That was something, but she was also curious about how it was generated. She had so many questions, and everything was so new that she had a hard time worrying about things for long. She looked at all three doors in the room. The first was in the curved outer wall that had the window she noticed earlier. The other two were in flat walls on the sides of the room. There was none on the curved inner wall.

She took the outer door, hoping to get a look at the exit. Instead, she found that it led to a set of bedrooms. Three of them and a bathroom. Along with two empty rooms. The beds were not at all like the ones she was used to. There were no blankets, no sheets, no cushions. Instead, they were made of a soft spongy material, with a raised rim around the outside. In addition, the beds were kept wet with flowing, but shallow water. She had seen a few alien bed styles before, so she knew what to look for, but this was different. Then again they were fish people so maybe this made sense. They must like being wet when they sleep. Another thing she found was a complete lack of closets. No folded clothes in drawers either.

The bathroom was more normal if a bit different. There wasn’t a shower for example, but there was a large soaking tub. The control scheme was not what she was used to. There was also a toilet, but clearly not designed for someone with a tail. It was also shorter than the normal toilet. She did not examine it long and noted the sink with a mirror. A container had several toothbrushes neatly arranged. The toothbrushes were of a different design than what she was used to, and then she noted that the tub had an array of brushes. Having scales herself she recognized them as scale brushes. Again their design and material differed from what she was used to. Looking around she didn’t find a linen closet with towels in it, or anything to dry off with.

She headed out of the bedroom area and explored a bit more. She found a kitchen next, where Ilia was busy talking to someone on a monitor set in the wall. She couldn’t understand a word being said so she took a look around. There was another table set here along with chairs. The kitchen had spacious counters, it seemed to have a stove, a couple of ovens, a sink, and something that looked to be a fridge. She noticed again that designs were all a little different than she was used to.

She looked around the cupboards and cabinets. She found a number of utensils, pots, pans, silverware, and even plates. However, she didn’t find any cups or mugs. She did note the design of the handles on everything differed. Likely better suited for the smaller webbed hands of the Renkethi. While looking around she found the pantry.

She checked the outer door in the kitchen area and found it led to a single large bedroom with an attached bathroom. It seemed she had found the master bedroom. She looked around briefly and then left after not finding anything like a closet. She still wanted to wear some clothes.

The next area she found was largely empty, if you ignored all the boxes. It had several desks with alien computers. Against one wall was a series of shelves, and she finally found a closet. Inside, she found nothing but cleaning supplies and tools. Taking the outer door, she finally found an exit.

It led to a large room, with a fenced pool in the middle. On the left, and right sides of the pool was a retractable metal bridge. In the water, she could see a large metal gate. To her left, she finally found some clothes. They were hanging on a rack, and they were clearly not designed for her frame. They looked to be wet suits but clearly designed for the smaller Renkethi.

She went over and examined them. The suits were different from what she expected. Reasonably flexible, but hard and resilient. It seemed they were meant to protect the wearer. Testing something, she tried to scratch one with her claws. Only to have her claws slide off without even leaving a mark. It seemed they were more armor than clothing.

Near the suits was a small closet with some tools in them. She had no idea of their function, so she turned back to the suits reexamining them, and was startled when Ilia suddenly spoke up, “I see you found the sub pen. Something fascinating about a work suit?”

She looked over, “work suit?”