Chapter Summary: A Visit to a round planet
Chapter Word Count: 5,174
"Found it," Brittany said, her voice echoing loudly in Quinn's com.
"Their shuttle?" Quinn said hopefully. It had been over a month since Rachel and Santana had disappeared, leaving no trace. In that time, Fleet, her troopers, and the Shadows had searched the entire system with a fine toothed comb, to no avail. She'd taken to sleeping in her quarters on Flag and hadn't been home in weeks.
"The portal they went through," Brittany said. "Sending probes through it now."
"Why did it take so long?" Quinn asked, still tense.
"Space is big, really big," Brittany said. "You know that, Quinn. And this portal is at a slightly different frequency from the ones we've seen before. It looks like it's left over from some experimental space drive. At least that's what my science team is claiming."
"So, they went to wherever that space ship came from?" Quinn asked.
"Or to wherever it was going," Brittany said. "From preliminary tests there's no time shifting, like that one over the Pacific on Terra."
"I'll meet you there," Quinn said.
"We don't know what we'll find," Brittany said. "Maybe you should wait?"
"I'll meet you there," Quinn repeated. She closed the comm, and turned to Pip and Squeak. "Pack it up," she said. "The Shadows think they know where the shuttle disappeared to."
"Yes, Boss," Pip said, knowing that asking for details at this moment wouldn't be well received. The Boss had been in a bad mood since the Memory and Lady Air disappeared.
"Do you want the rest of Gold Team to get ready?" Squeak asked.
"Tell them to prepare just in case, but hopefully we won't need them. Just the three of us for now."
"Yes, Boss," Squeak said, sending a message to the Gold Team XO to go on standby. She really hoped this worked out. The Boss may not believe in Clan soulmates but it was obvious to them that she was wasting away without the constant presence of the Memory.
"Why are there trees in space?" Rachel asked, staring at the shuttle view screen, after she'd climbed down.
"We aren't in space?" Santana said. She poked the console. "Looks like there's breathable atmosphere, and gravity is close to Mars gravity."
"So we can go outside?" Rachel said, excited. "Maybe it's Terra?"
"Not like that," Santana said. She waved at Rachel standing there in her ship suit. "You need to put on your enviro suit. And the shuttle would have said if we were home."
"Do I have to?" Rachel asked, pouting. "It's tight and makes me feel claustrophobic."
"There could be something in the air or ground that is poisonous," Santana said. "Quinn will kill me if you get hurt."
"I won't get hurt," Rachel said.
"Doesn't matter," Santana said. "You still need to put it on." She pointed towards the back.
"What about you?" Rachel said, giving her a look before heading to the back where the enviro suits were stored.
"I'll be putting mine on also," Santana said, following her. "I'm not foolish."
"I really want my own hard suit," Rachel said, removing her ship suit to put on the enviro suit. "These never fit right."
"Then you aren't putting it on right," Santana said. "They're designed to be form fitting. Put it on and its nanos will change it to fit you perfectly."
"There's only one way to put it on," Rachel said. "How could I be doing it wrong?"
"That's how," Santana said, grabbing her wrist and typing a command into the wrist com. "You have to tell it to adjust the fitting and how you want it."
"Why doesn't it do it automatically?" Rachel asked.
"Don't know, that's just the way it works," Santana said, pulling on her own enviro suit, and activating it.
"How come yours changed color and has different designs on it?" Rachel asked.
"It likes me," Santana said. "And it grabbed my settings from the system."
"Oh," Rachel said.
"Do you care?" Santana asked. "How often do you wear one?"
"Almost never," Rachel said.
"I'm sure we can get Quinn to show you how to save your enviro suit settings when we see her," Santana said. "It'll be a good bonding exercise." She noticed how Rachel brightened up at that but didn't say anything.
"So, what are we going to do?" Rachel asked.
"Basic. We'll just take a look outside and see how the shuttle looks," Santana said.
"Do you think there's any civilization wherever this is?"
"Don't know," Santana said. "Since no one's come knocking on the door, we're probably in some wilderness." She flipped down her hood, covering her face. "Cover up," she said.
Rachel nodded and followed her example. Once she was all suited up to Santana's satisfaction, Santana opened the shuttle hatch and cautiously stepped through the air shield. Looking around she saw more trees. "You can come out," she said over her comm.
"Looks like a forest," Rachel said. "Isn't this an alien planet?"
"Yes," Santana said. "Why?"
"Why do those look like oak trees? And maple trees? Giant, but like the ones on Terra?"
"Huh," Santana muttered, pulling out the small scanner from her suit. She aimed it at the trees and took several readings. "That would be because they are oak and maple trees," she said.
"On an alien planet?" Rachel asked. "Even I know it's very unlikely."
"Well, I'm no xenobiologist but..." Santana paused and looked around. "I have absolutely no frickin idea."
"The light seems a little odd," Rachel said.
"The system's sun is right there," Santana said waving her arm. And then she actually looked towards it, her suit's visor blocking the center of it to protect her eyes. "And that's different," she said.
"What's different?" Rachel asked. Santana continued to wave her hand. "What are you pointing at?"
"We aren't on a planet, strictly speaking," Santana said. "I didn't know anyone ever made one of these, except in old Terran sci-fi."
"You read sci-fi?" Rachel asked, before looking in the direction Santana was pointing. "Oh, my," she murmured.
"That's one way to put it," Santana said. "We're on a huge ring. In space. A very, very, huge ring."
"It's wide. I don't have words and words are my thing," Rachel said. "And huge seems to be the only word for it. How are we going to get home? This isn't where we were going."
"It's not anywhere near there," Santana said. "We would have noticed one of these."
"So, how'd we get here," Rachel asked, staring up.
"Probably another damn portal," Santana said. She increased the magnification on her visor. And squinted. And squinted some more. "A system ringworld. Not as big as the one in those books, but still bigger than anything I've ever seen."
"Is it real?"
"As real as such things get," Santana said. "Hopefully Brit and Q will find us. Don't really want to spend the rest of our lives wandering around."
"Is the shuttle okay?" Rachel asked.
"Hmmm..." Santana pointed her scanner at their shuttle, and cautiously walked around it, stepping over broken branches. It didn't look damaged, except for a few scorch marks along the sides. "I'll have to run the system diagnostics but it looks fine."
"So, we can just get in and leave?" Rachel said. "And come back later to explore?"
"First we need to figure out how to get back," Santana said. "This isn't anywhere near Terra or the Amazon planet. We would have noticed. So, we'll need to find that portal and hope it goes back the other way."
"That should be easy, right?" Rachel asked, twirling around in a circle trying to get a better view of the ring above her head.
"If we had Brit with us, yes," Santana said. "She's a wiz with a scanner. But me? Not so much. We'll have to wait until night time to get a good look at the sky, before we go running off into it. And a place like this must have defenses so we need to watch out for that. Wouldn't want to be mistaken for an asteroid and get shot at."
"Shot at?" Rachel said.
"It's a scary universe out there," Santana said. "Any ship this big needs to be protected."
"Oh," Rachel said. "Think we're near any towns?"
"Just a minute," Santana said. She punched a command into her wrist unit. There was a low humming and a small hatch opened on the top of the shuttle. A small probe the size of her hand flew out of the hatch and straight up until it disappeared from sight.
"What's it look like?" Rachel said. "Can I see?"
"We'll need to go back inside," Santana said. "We can use the shuttle's view screen."
"Okay," Rachel said, turning back towards the shuttle. Stepping through the air shield, she popped open her suit, and drew in a breath of shuttle air. She left her enviro suit on. Now that Santana had activated it it didn't seem to be too bad.
Santana quickly joined her. Going over to the console, she tapped out several commands. The view screen at the front of the shuttle changed from a view of the forest to one far overhead. "There's a town," she said, pointing at a group of boxy structures on the screen. "Let's take a closer look." She zoomed in on the structures.
"It looks deserted," Rachel said. "How far away is it?"
"From here? Three clicks. A long walk, unless we move the shuttle."
"It can still fly, right?" Rachel asked.
"Definitely. But we're really low on power," Santana said. "Coming through the portal must have taken a lot of energy. If we move it we might never get it back here."
"Does it matter?"
"If we want Q to have any chance of finding us, we need to make it easier not harder. And getting stuck somewhere because we ran out of fuel wold make it harder," Santana said, shaking her head.
"Can we explore a little bit?" Rachel asked.
"On foot, if you want to look around."
"Okay," Rachel said. "How long would it take to get to the town?"
"Two hours," Santana said. "Minimum. But there're no roads going that way." She gave another command to the probe and it started to sink towards the small town.
"The roofs are all gone," Rachel said, disappointed. "Must not be anyone living there."
"There are probably other towns or cities, if we have time to explore," Santana said. "But first let's make sure Q and Brit can find us."
"How? Do we have to carve a big X out of the forest?" Rachel asked. "Do we have the tools to do that?"
"No and yes," Santana said. "We have tools, but we don't need to do any carving. We just need to set up a solar power collector to give the shuttle's emergency beacon enough juice to broadcast outside of the ring. By itself it's really low powered."
"Do we have the tech to do that?" Rachel asked. "Is that something a shuttle like this carries for emergencies?"
"For emergencies? Nope. But we were taking one to our meeting to power our trading center. Just need to get it out of the hold," Santana said. "It's going to take both of us to put together," she added. "Think you can handle a little bit of manual labor?"
"Of course," Rachel said. "I'm in great shape."
"It's not your shape I'm concerned with," Santana said.
"Do we have to wear our enviro suits still?" Rachel asked.
"Yes," Santana said. "The air should be safe but you need the protection."
"It doesn't look like much," Rachel said, looking at the small array of shiny panels. "How much power does it get?"
"Enough," Santana said.
"That's vague," Rachel said. "How much is enough?"
"Well, do you want the incomprehensible explanation or the simple analogy?" Santana asked her.
"Simple please. Those are easier to put to music."
"This isn't one of your musicals," Santana said.
"It would be kind of boring, except when we went outside to explore," Rachel said. "Explanation?"
"Okay, okay," Santana grumbled. "The solar panels put out enough energy to power a small television. The beacon needs about half that to send out burst messages."
"What do we do with the rest?"
"It gets stored in the shuttle energy bay. If we run low with power for the shuttle, it'll use that."
"Oh," Rachel said.
"I'm hungry," Rachel said, leaning against the open hatch, watching Santana fiddle with the solar array.
"Plenty of food," Santana said. "And plenty of organics for the converters if you don't want survival rations."
"Can you show me how to use the converter?" Rachel asked.
"Didn't they teach that in your basic survival courses?" Santana asked.
"That was years ago," Rachel said. "I've never needed to know how to use it."
"Okay," Santana said, putting down the small probe. She looked around the clearing. "We'll need something to feed it. Leaves and small branches, and grass should do it."
"Okay," Rachel said, climbing down to the ground. "Do we have to wash it?"
"Might want to shake off any bugs," Santana said. "They can go in the converter no problem, it'll take anything organic, but I'm sure you don't want to eat them anyway."
"Bugs? Yuck! No," Rachel said. She walked over to the edge of the clearing and started picking up branches and twigs. When she had a large armful, she headed back to the shuttle. "Where do I put it?"
"In a pile right there," Santana said. "There's an external intake for the converter right there."
"How much more should I get?" She looked down at her small pile.
"Three more armfuls should be enough for tonight," Santana said.
"For tonight?" Rachel stared at her. "We have to get that much every day we're here?"
"Every meal," Santana said, grimacing. "The converters can turn organic crap into edible food, though the taste might not be my favorite, but it isn't very efficient."
"So, we really don't want to be here for very long, do we," Rachel said, heading back out to the edge of the clearing. "Can we check that village for food?"
"We can check but it looked like it's been deserted for a long time. Anything edible is probably gone by now." She joined Rachel in picking up branches and leaves. "And, no we don't want to be here too long. We might have to go back into stasis if it's more than a month."
"How do we get them here faster?"
"If you have any personal lifelines to the gods, you should contact them now," Santana said.
"No, that would be Sophia," Rachel said. "She has all those connections."
"And she's not here," Santana said. "What do you want to eat for dinner?"
"What are my choices," Rachel said. "What kinds of things can the synthesize make?"
"Well, nothing fancy works out well in the model in the shuttle," Santana said. "We can tell it to make all sorts of fancy dishes but they usually come out looking like slop or tasting like crap. So, something simple. Like bread or simple soups."
"Pancakes or waffles?" Rachel asked hopefully. "Those are simple. Comfort food?"
"We can try," Santana said. "Pancakes are really simple. I don't think even a Clan synthesizer can screw that up. And simple takes less veggie crap to make."
"I'd like that please," Rachel said.
"Come on," Santana said. "I'll show you how it works."
Rachel happily followed her back into the shuttle and towards the small galley next to the engine room. "This is a tiny kitchen."
"Mostly for light food during short trips," Santana said. "That's why the synthesizer is so lightweight." She pointed at it.
"How do I start?" Rachel asked, looking at the small device. It slightly resembled a microwave.
"Make sure there's enough supplies in the converter," Santana said, reaching over to a side panel and pushing a couple buttons on the touchscreen. "This right here," she said, pointing at one reading. "As long as it's green you can run the synthesizer. If it's yellow, it's running low. When it turns red, it needs a refill."
"So, green means we can make dinner?" Rachel said. "Can we get syrup or butter for the pancakes?"
"We can try," Santana said. She pushed a couple buttons on the synthesizer. "Once you turn it on, just enter what you want. It understands most words for food, it's hooked up to the shuttle controller."
"What else can it do?" Rachel asked, as Santana pulled open the synthesizer and pulled out two trays, each with a stack of pancakes.
"Other than food?"
Rachel nodded. "Can we make other things with it?"
"Not this model," Santana said. "It doesn't have the power. But we've got bigger ones in the fleet that we use to make ship parts with. And other things. And some of the hard suits have the ability to repair themselves using similar tech."
"Oh," Rachel said. "I know Brittany said something about nano-bots once but she didn't really explain the tech in detail."
"Do you really need to know how our tech works like that?" Santana said.
"I should have some idea how we do things," Rachel said. "I know we use nano-bots to do a lot of things, but the Clan Memory isn't really like a library. Stories can't really be used to do more than have a basic understanding of tech, not build them from scratch. That's not what they're for."
"Well, we do have training for such things," Santana said. "Let's eat," she said, leading the way to the hatch. "A little sunlight makes even these taste better."
Rachel giggled, sitting down next to Santana, taking one of the plates. "Finger food," she said, picking up a pancake and rolling it up. She took a cautious bite, and then dipped it into a puddle of syrup. "Not bad," she said. "A little messy."
"Not for every day," Santana said, following her example. "But a little mess won't hurt us."
"Ready?" Brittany asked, looking around the bridge of the small cruiser. She'd had to limit the crew to as few as possible for the jump. Herself, her command crew, a bare bones ships crew, and Quinn and her handmaidens. The jump was dangerous and untried. The fewer at risk the better. They'd sent probes through but none had come back.
"Ready," Quinn said, bracing herself.
"Go," Brittany said, to her helm and navigator.
There was a hum that built slowly, getting louder and louder, until the cruiser started to vibrate.
"Preparing to jump," Helm said. "3... 2... 1..."
At the count of one, there was a sudden silence as the cruiser seemed to leap forward, all of the built up power left behind. Time seemed to stretch out and a strange light filled the bridge.
And then suddenly everything seemed normal again.
"Position?" Brittany asked, looking at her navigator.
"We're far out on the edge of the sector," the navigator said. "On the other side of Terra."
"What's that?" Quinn asked, pointing at the front view screen.
"Ma'am, we're being scanned," Helm said.
"Well," Brittany said. "Why didn't we know this was here? Take us closer. And block the scans."
"Yes, ma'am," Helm said.
"Brit?" Quinn said. "What are we looking at?"
"A myth," Brittany said. "It's a ringworld. Someone took their solar system and turned it into a big ring around their sun. It's been discussed over the years, but this is the first known example. It takes a lot of time and effort to do something like this."
"So, Santana and Rachel are down there somewhere," Quinn said. "How are we going to find them?"
"If their shuttle survived the trip intact, we should be picking up the beacon now."
"Ma'am, the ring is shielded. There are multiple layers. We're in between two of them."
"So, what are they shielding?" Brittany said, frowning. "Can we contact any of our resources from here?"
"Our subspace comms can't penetrate the outer shield."
"It probably blocks electromagnetic waves also," Brittany said. "Which explains why no one knows it's here. Take us in closer, through the next shield."
"If it's shielded, how are we getting through?" Quinn asked.
"We'll find a way," Brittany said. "Find us the door."
"Yes, ma'am," Helm said. It took her an hour. "We've found a way through," Helm said. "It's another portal. We need to use the same method that got us here, though with less power."
"Okay, get us through," Brittany said. The humming started again, rising quickly. The cruiser moved forward until it touched a section of the inner shield. There was a loud snap, and they were suddenly on the other side.
"Any more shields?" Brittany asked her crew.
"None," Helm said. "We're being scanned again. Some kind of targeting system."
"Friendly," Quinn said. "They didn't shoot down the shuttle did they?"
"No signs of debris," Helm said. "Ma'am."
"The shuttle has no weapons," Brittany said. "It probably let them all the way through. Now we just need to find them."
"That's a lot of territory to search, if their beacon isn't working," Quinn said. "How big is it?"
"Just eyeballing it, I'd say it's very large," Brittany said, looking down at her command console. "The ship thinks it's a hundred times the land area of Terra."
"A lot of room to grow," Quinn said. "Is it populated?"
Brittany looked over at her science geek for an answer. "There are life forms but no indications of known intelligent life."
"So, probably plants and animals but no 'people' that we'd recognize?" Quinn said.
"Yup," said Brittany. "Once we find Santana and Rachel we can look around, if you want."
"I'm curious," Quinn admitted, "but unless we're looking to move in, I'm not in any hurry to explore."
"We'll save it for a rainy day," Brittany said, nodding. "Set up some monitors and keep an eye on it. But first, we have a shuttle to find."
"Lady Shadow, the inner ring has shielding blocking any signals from reaching us out here."
"Closer then," Brittany said.
"Lady Shadow, the gravity field is too strong, we can't get any closer," Helm said several minutes later.
"Any sign of the beacon?" Brittany asked.
"We're getting a faint signal," Helm said. "We haven't pinpointed it yet."
"But you're getting something?" Brittany asked.
"Yes, Lady Shadow."
"Keep searching," Brittany said. "Find the shuttle. It should stick out like a sore thumb."
"Yes, Ma'am."
"Well, that's interesting," Santana said. The shuttle console had begun beeping, waking them up. "Looks like they've found us."
"Where are they?" Rachel asked.
"Somewhere out there," Santana said. "The beacon is picking up a signal from a Fleet ship at the limit of its range."
"So they haven't really found us," Rachel said. "But they're nearby."
"Yes," Santana said. "Might take them a while."
"Are we going to have to use the stasis field?" Rachel asked. "How long?"
"Let's give them a couple days," Santana said. "Brit has some clever people. If they know we're here they'll find us."
"So, what do we do until then?" Rachel said. "Can we go explore that village?"
"And if we're not here when they find the shuttle?" Santana said. "Quinn won't be happy with us."
"Well, that isn't good," Rachel said. "Can we take the shuttle with us?"
"It's not flying anywhere," Santana reminded her. "If it had enough power to get off the ground we'd go meet them."
"It was a thought," Rachel said. "I'm bored."
"Poker?"
"No cards," Rachel said. "And you play a different kind of poker in the Fleet. I've heard about that."
"Still poker," Santana said. "And there's always a deck of cards somewhere."
"I'll pass," Rachel said. She pulled out her tablet, and started looking through it, humming as she did.
"You aren't going to do that the rest of the night!" Santana said.
"Do what?" Rachel asked, puzzled.
"That humming," Santana said. "It's annoying."
"Find me something else to do then," Rachel said.
"Go for a walk," Santana said. "Go look at the stars."
"I tried that last night," Rachel said. "The sun blocks them, even at night."
"Read a book," Santana grumbled, trying to get comfortable on her patch of floor. "Quietly."
"This isn't going to be a very exciting story to tell people," Rachel said. "We need to do something exciting while we wait to be rescued, or we need to rescue ourselves."
"We aren't rescuing ourselves," Santana said. "We can't leave the shuttle and there's nowhere to go anyway."
"Do you think anyone lives on this ring planet?" Rachel asked. "Shouldn't we have seen someone? They must have seen our shuttle land."
"It's a really big place. There could be billions of people living here and we'd still not see them," Santana said. "Besides, the probe didn't find anything within a thousand clicks."
"Don't they have tech?" Rachel asked. "Don't you need tech to build a planet like this?"
"Of course," Santana said. "It takes a lot of energy and advanced tech to get something like this to work. I don't think anyone in the Confederation has the ability to do it."
"Who do you think built it? The Gate people?" Rachel asked.
"Don't know," Santana said. "And we'll probably never know." She held up a hand to stop further questions. "But I don't think the Gate builder built this. It's a completely different kind of idea. You build a planet ring like this if you have nowhere else to go. The Gate builders would have built a gate to somewhere if they needed more land."
"You're just guessing," Rachel said.
"Damn right I am," Santana said. "How would I know? But you saw that village. The Gate builders used crystal in everything. That village was stone."
"How thick is the ring, do you think?" Rachel asked. "Do they have mines?"
"Where would they put them?" Santana asked. "They probably don't need them. They got all of the metals they needed when they built the ring."
"Hadn't thought of that," Rachel said. "So they must not need to build anything and are all farmers."
"Farmers or bankers," Santana said. "Something that doesn't require hard work."
"What's that?" Rachel said. "It sounds like something is outside."
"Probably just the wind," Santana said. "Or a tree."
"We've been here for weeks," Rachel said. "Why haven't they found us yet?"
"We've been out of stasis for four days," Santana said. "The beacon went off three hours ago. Give them time to find us."
"I am," Rachel said. "I hope we didn't go through a time warp."
"Why would you even think that?" Santana said, frowning.
"What if we did? The war with the Bugs could be over and they're just looking for us now."
"No," Santana said. "We would know if there was a time warp."
"How would we know?"
"Umm..." Santana shrugged. "We would just know. It's like being in one of the pods. Even when time passes at a different rate, you still know it's wonky."
"That's not the same thing," Rachel protested. "When you're in the pods it's all in your head. Mostly."
"What's wrong with your shuttle," Brittany said, her voice loud on their Council comm channel.
"Brit! Where are you?" Santana said, rushing to the shuttle hatch.
"Not where you are," Brittany said. "We're close enough for comm traffic but we're having a hard time finding your shuttle. We need some landmark."
"The shuttle is almost out of juice," Santana said. "I had to jury-rig one of those solar panels to boost the beacon signal."
"It worked but it's confused by the planet."
"Well, we aren't going anywhere," Santana said.
"Is Quinn there?" Rachel asked.
"She's in the drop tank," Brittany said. "She can't hear you. As soon as we find you she's coming to get you."
"Yeah!" Rachel shouted as loud as possible.
"Jeeze, Shorty, keep it down," Santana said. "I almost lost an ear. And Q isn't going to hear from there if she's in a drop tank."
"Hey! One of the lights went out," Rachel said, looking at the beacon.
"That means we're getting closer," Brittany said. "This planet's making navigation screwy."
"We're in a clearing with lots of trees," Santana said. "Can't miss us.
"There are a lot of trees," Brittany said. "It's a big planet. How about something else?"
"There's a small town a few clicks away," Santana said. "Abandoned."
"They're all abandoned," Brittany said. "You're the only intelligent life that we've found on the ring."
"So, finders keepers?" Rachel said. "Do we get to keep it?"
"What would we do with it?" Santana asked.
"There you are," Brittany said. "And a backup plan is never a bad thing. It might take a while to move everyone on Terra to it but it is an option. Our own ark, so to speak."
"When are you dropping by?" Santana said. "It's a nice vacation spot. We can have a cookout."
"And singing around the campfire," Rachel said, getting into the spirit of it. "But you'll have to bring the food. We don't have anything for a barbecue."
"Quinn should be with you shortly," Brittany said. "We can't get the cruiser too close to the ring."
"Gotcha," Santana said. "What about power to get this bucket of bolts moving again."
"Quinn will secure the area first," Brittany said.
"I thought you said there are no other intelligent beings here?" Rachel said, frowning. "What's there to secure?"
"There are active defenses," Brittany said. "We're not sure yet if they are mobile but we aren't taking the risk. We haven't seen you for over a month."
"We've spent most of it in stasis," Santana told her. "Something turned it off a couple days ago but we don't even know how we got here."
"A portal," Brittany said. "Though not anything like we've seen before. This planetary ring is a long way from Terra."
"So we can't have it?" Rachel said, sounding disappointed. "Who's territory is it in."
"Ours," Brittany said, "just on the other edge of the sector, along the galactic edge."
"Oh!" Rachel said. "Who gets to name it?"
"You aren't calling it 'Barbra'," Santana said, firmly. "Or anything after a musical."
Rachel pouted. "But it should be named after someone special, someone famous."
"Planet Q," Santana said. "Is that special enough for you?"
"Why not Planet Brittany then?" Rachel said.
"Because I never want a planet, star or ship named after me," Brittany said. "There's only one me, and I'd like to keep it that way."
A high pitched sound came through the open hatch. It got closer and closer and then suddenly stopped.
"What was that?" Rachel asked, looking like she was ready to flee.
"That's what a hard suit sounds like coming in at supersonic speeds." Brittany said. "Though if they were going for stealth they wouldn't have made any noise."
"The Q Ball always has to show off," Santana said.