Part 7:
It just hadn't seemed possible to her before - flying off into outer space. She'd believed being an astronaut was the only reason to go on a space expedition, and she certainly had no intention of becoming an astronaut. So, she couldn't help but initially feel panicked that that was now where she was headed.
But soon, Bailey found herself getting more excited during the flight. She had just been wishing to join Morty and his grandpa, Rick, on a wild adventure of theirs. Now it looked like her wish was being granted.
Of course, she was a stow-away so she'd have to remain hidden during this exciting trip, but Bailey was sure that she'd get to see some pretty cool things. She'll see things that the average kid from back at school would never be able to. That made her grin.
When Morty's dad had caught him in the garage, Bailey thought that was it for the two of them. She had climbed into Rick's ship so Mr. Smith wouldn't see her if he had come into the garage. She sat there for a few seconds before gathering up the courage to peer out the window, preparing to duck down again if she saw Mr. Smith. Instead, she saw Morty re-entering the garage with Rick.
At that moment, she truly thought they were both going to get into trouble, especially since she wasn't just in Rick's garage, but in his space ship. She couldn't clearly hear what was being said between the two of them as they chatted but she could see that Morty mirrored her increasing panic as he looked back at her through the window.
All she could do was be as quiet as possible as she got into the back of the ship and hope that she wouldn't be discovered.
So far, it seemed to be going well.
Bailey could hear Morty and his grandpa talking in the front but wasn't too focused on what they were saying. She was too preoccupied envisioning the various possible landscapes of planets and the shapes and colors of the aliens that she could potentially encounter. It was then that Bailey remembered the alien that was stashed away in the backseat -no, no, she was not going to look at it again-, and realized they had to be stopping at its planet first and foremost to ditch the body. Who knows where they might end up afterwards though.
An empty bottle was suddenly tossed at her feet from the driver's seat as Rick belched crudely, making Bailey scrunch up her face in disgust. Ugh, not even her own father burped like that on nights that he'd been drinking. Wait a minute... was Rick drinking and driving?
Bailey opened her mouth, just about to protest, but quickly thought better of it. She couldn't give herself away now, not when they must be getting close to seeing alien life. She couldn't get out this far only to get taken back upon being discovered. But she really wanted to yell at the old man - how could he be so irresponsible?
Bailey's eyes drifted upward toward the passenger seat and found herself locking eyes with Morty, who looked at her apologetically. She mouthed 'I'm fine' back to him before giving him a small smile and a thumbs up. Morty frowned before looking over at Rick, who had started to speak up.
"Le-lemme-lemme tell you something, Morty. These people we're going to see, they-they can get real nasty when they want to be. I mean one minute they're serving the best drinks, telling the best jokes and acting reeaaal friendly. The next minute -burp-, next minute they can slit the throat of the person sitting nearest to them faster than the word 'knife' can even leave their lips, Morty."
"Ah jeez, wh-what exactly are we seeing these people for, Rick?"
"What does anyone usually meet up with people like that for, Morty? Business. They're good businessmen and grandpa has some good old fashioned business to take care of while we're out here."
"Ok. And, uh, we're still taking the alien back to his planet, too, right?"
"The what?" Rick looked at him with genuine confusion for a brief moment. "Oh right, th-the body. Man, can't believe I forgot about that. Yeah, yeah, we'll take care of that too. Remind me to remember him again later."
Listening from the back, Bailey frowned. How did the old man already forget about this dead alien? Wasn't he supposed to be like a super genius?
"A-are we going to- going to be stopping anywhere else, Rick? Just out of curiosity," Morty inquired, wondering just how long Bailey was going to be stuck in the back of the ship for.
"Guess we'll soon find out what the day has in store for us, Morty," Rick responded flatly with an indifferent expression, not even looking over at his grandson. "Why? You sound like you're in a real hurry to be somewhere else."
"No, no, j-just wondering. I've got a lot of homework to do tonight and want to make sure I can get it all done."
"Oh I'm sorry, is this getting in the way of you getting your precious homework done? K-kind of strange that you worry an awful lot about work you have to do after school when you don't even put forth effort to get work done during school. Gotta be honest, Morty, doesn't make a whole lot of sense."
"Oh, what, s-so I should've stayed in class today then? I thought you don't even care for school or whatever."
"Correctamundo, I do not. But I don't want to hear you complain about school-related shit while we're out here when you chose to ditch in the first place. I hear any complaints and-and I'll find a way to extend our time out here or something, you got it?"
"Yeah, fine, whatever," Morty grumbled, leaning back against his seat.
Apparently Bailey was just going to have to be patient and wait out however long this trip was going to be. Morty hoped, for her sake, that it wouldn't take them too long to get back to Earth.
Rick pulled out his phone and Morty saw him messaging someone. He raised a quizzical eyebrow toward his grandfather.
"Who you- who are you talking to?"
"A buddy," Rick curtly responded with, and Morty knew that was all he was going to get out of him.
The boy rolled his eyes and looked out the passenger window just in time to see what looked like a large hunk of rock flying erratically toward the ship.
"Rick!" Morty yelled in alarm.
"Oh shit!" Rick abruptly jerked the wheel to the left to get them out of the rock's path but there wasn't enough time to dodge it.
The collision sent the ship spinning wildly as it began to plummet downward. Rick and Morty cried out in panic, gripping their seats to avoid being tossed around. Meanwhile, in the back, Bailey tried desperately not to scream, though it was extremely hard not to. She gritted her teeth and closed her eyes tightly, extending her hands out to either side of her to grab and hold onto what she could.
'I should've stayed in class! I should've stayed in class!' She replayed that thought in her mind, desperately wanting to believe that if she wished hard enough for it, she and Morty would suddenly appear back at school. She came to the conclusion a little too late that she'd had enough of a crazy space adventure for one day.
Morty turned his head to look back at Bailey and saw her holding on for dear life. He swore if they all walked away from this ordeal, he would do whatever he could to make this up to her. She already endured one horrible accident before, she shouldn't have had to go through another one.
As they descended, Rick spotted several chunks of metal coming off from the bottom of the ship and cursed furiously.
"No, no, Rick! Your ship is coming apart!" Morty worriedly shouted as he, too, saw the chunks flying off.
"Oh is it? Is it really, Morty? Gee, thanks, I didn't notice!"
Rick grabbed the steering wheel and attempted to take control of the aircraft. He had just gotten the ship to stop spinning when he saw that they were about to make a crash landing on an unknown planet.
"Oh boy. Hold onto your ass, Morty!"
Rick and Morty once again grabbed onto their seats as they braced for impact.
Bailey peeked her head up from behind Rick's seat and saw that they were mere seconds from hitting the ground. She laid back down and held on tight to her surroundings as she got ready for the landing.
The ship made contact with land and bounced roughly a couple of times before finally coming to a stop. Morty and Rick groaned miserably as they opened up their doors and stepped out of the ship, feeling like they wanted to throw up after all that spinning around.
"Fuuuck! My ship!" Rick cried out, gripping his hair with both of his hands in frustration as he gazed upon his banged up creation.
Morty spun around as he heard a strange sound coming from behind them. An alien was rushing toward them, shouting and waving his arms around wildly.
"Ooohh for fuck's sake. What does this asshole want?" Rick grumbled in annoyance as he walked around the ship and stopped beside Morty. "I don't have time for this."
Morty hadn't seen this kind of alien before. It was violet colored with yellow stripes along it's long and slender arms and legs. It's shirt and shorts were worn and shredded in some areas. There was a large pair of goggles strapped onto the top of its head and it's beady eyes held a look of worry in them that seemed clearer the closer it got to the two humans. It looked Morty and his grandpa over before speaking in a language unrecognizable to Morty, who had heard many different alien languages by this point.
"Ugh, man, I didn't think I'd run into these guys again," Rick groaned. "I didn't realize it was THIS planet we landed on."
"Wha-what do you mean? Where are we at?" Morty inquired.
"The planet Andralle. I've only met up with Andralleans one other time and, well, let's just say things didn't go too well and I had to scram. Go figure, add another thing to screw with my plans."
The alien tried speaking to them again, the tone of its voice raised slightly as it gestured between them and the downed ship.
Morty looked up at Rick. "Well, do you know any of the language?"
"Besides a few of their curse words, not much," Rick admitted. "And you'd be surprised, too, Morty. Some of this planet's swears would put the worst of the glip-glop's planet swear words to shame. Alright, let's see if I can decipher some words."
Bailey peered out the window from the back of Rick's ship and saw Morty and Rick speaking to the alien. Her heart was still racing from the fall and resulting crash, and she was amazed that Rick and Morty didn't seem too fazed by the incident that could've led to their deaths.
Upon seeing the alien outside, Bailey's eyes widened in both curiosity and slight apprehension. Sure the dead alien they had in the ship was weird looking, but this one was even more so. At least it didn't seem to be an immediate threat to them, judging by Morty's and Rick's interaction with the being.
She'd had to push against the dead alien in the backseat in order to keep it from flying forward and falling onto her when they crashed. She shuddered as she remembered how cold and weird it felt to touch, but she certainly didn't want it to wind up on top of her. She would've freaked out and hurled for sure.
The back of her head was throbbing from having hit the floor when the ship crash landed. She reached a hand back and gently messaged the sore area, groaning softly. As much as she now found herself wanting to be back home with her grandma where it was safer, this crash now meant it was going to be a lot longer for her to get back home than she'd prefer. She would just have to wait for Rick to get his ship fixed.
Meanwhile, the alien locked eyes with Rick and spoke slower than he had before in hopes that Rick might know what he was saying.
"Rock... uh, work... in-inventing?" Rick squinted his eyes in confusion as he listened to the alien speak and tried to translate. He shrugged and the alien shook his head, rolling his eyes. He spoke again slowly, enunciating each word.
Rick glared back at him.
"You wanna be a more condescending asswipe there, pal?" He spoke slowly as well, also enunciating. "Keep at it and see how it ends for you."
The alien noted the angry tone of Rick's and paused in thought for a moment before speaking up once again. This time it made gestures with its hands while it spoke to help explain, and Rick's eyes widened.
"So YOU did this to my ship?" He pointed angrily from the alien back to his damaged aircraft.
The alien nodded, looking apologetic, and Morty looked between Rick and the alien with confusion.
"Wait, huh?"
"Ugh, keep up, Morty. This motherfucker was working on blowing up large rock clusters posing a threat to his dumb little planet. But this negligent little shit didn't see us flying nearby when he blew up that rock and sent some our way. Hence, he's the reason we could've died today and why I'll spend forever fixing my goddamned ship!"
The alien spoke again calmly, gesturing behind him. It seemed like he wanted them to follow him somewhere.
"Yeah, yeah. Just... just hang on for one second," Rick responded, holding up his pointer finger as he turned to walk back to the ship.
"Wait right there," Rick instructed Morty, who turned to watch his grandpa open up the passenger door. He inhaled sharply and stiffened when he saw Rick pull the seat forward.
"Alright, come on out of there," Rick called out, sounding both bored and annoyed, as he stepped away from the door, gazing into the back of the ship. "Jig is up."
Morty saw Bailey's head shoot up from the back as she gawked at Rick.
"Wait. So you- you knew I was back there? Like this entire time?" She asked incredulously. He couldn't have, could he? She thought she'd hidden herself so well.
"Like duh," Rick snapped right back with sass as he took out his flask and took a swig. "Y-you-you could use a lesson or two on how to be a proper stowaway, you rookie. If you pulled this on anyone other than me, you'd be at the bottom of a lake with your feet weighed down with a cinder block by now."
Bailey climbed out of the ship, massaging the back of her head, and stood sheepishly in front of a very peeved Rick.
"But how-how could you have known she was back there, Rick?" Morty asked, walking over to the two of them, leaving their new alien friend very confused on what was now happening.
"Um, it's something called being a genius, Morty. That and some newly installed technology on the ship. Pretty easy for me to figure it out, actually. I'd explain exactly how but in the time it would take me to give that tedious talk, I could be getting my ship fixed instead. Sooner we focus on that, the sooner I'll be rid of this persistent, nosy little rock in my shoe." Rick glared down at Bailey, who returned a glare of her own.
"Don't talk to her that way, Rick. Or-or about her that way." Morty stepped defensively in front of Bailey, who put a gentle hand on his shoulder.
"It's ok, Morty." She looked solemnly back at Rick, who remained unfazed. "I'll stay out of your way, Rick. And when we get back to Earth, I... I'll stay away from you and your stuff. I won't bother you again." She averted her gaze apologetically.
Morty gave her a disheartened look. He hoped this didn't mean that she wanted to stop hanging out with him altogether.
"Coolsies," Rick replied nonchalantly before taking another drink and walking back over to the Andrallean. "Glad we're on the same page, missy. Now come on, you two. Let's get going. I've got people to see and places to meet."
Morty sighed heavily and looked over at Bailey, who gave him a brief, reassuring smile as she stepped up beside him. The two of them followed after Rick, who stopped in front of the patiently waiting native.
"Alright, lead us to your humble abode, buddy." Rick stated.