What Happens in Orbit Pt. 04

Tor was pointing out the foods he recognized for her.

"Oh- you might like these. They're like the- what did you call those eggs you made for her?" He turned to Mar.

"Hardboiled. Yeah, they're cooked kind of the same way."

She reached for a familiar vegetable and speared it. "I know these! We ate them a lot on the other ship. They're like potatoes, or radishes. Like a mix of the two." Happy to be eating something familiar, she leaned back and took a bite.

There were thin cuts of some kind of lean meat rolled into spirals, a smaller kind of egg, and several kinds of vegetables. One of the foods looked a lot like grilled pineapple rings. Bright red, in neat stacks in the center of the plate.

"These are good! My mom made something like this for me a lot when I was little." Cora took a bite. "They taste the same! Pineapples aren't red on our planet, though."

Mar squinted at them. "Those are new. They're always serving something different when I come here. It's all safe, though," he hastily added on as Tor shot him a nervous glance. "They wouldn't serve it if it weren't."

The band began a different song, one Cora found herself nodding along to. "Oh, I like this. It's funky."

"They're here often. I never know what language their songs are in." He huffed a sigh. "Which is odd, because I can at least tell what a language is. Even if I can't tell you exactly what they're saying."

"I didn't know they taught mercenaries a love for linguistics."

Mar shot Tor a sour look. "Don't you start that again."

Cora had frozen, fork in hand, staring off to her right. She put down her fork, tapping out the beat on the table.

"Guys?"

The two were already watching her, concerned.

"Why do I know this song?"

Mar began to laugh, shaking his head. "It's a big galaxy. Some things are going to be similar."

She held up her hand, hushing him. The band consisted of three musicians, each playing instruments Cora didn't recognize and probably never would. One of them definitely had strings, though. There was percussion, bass, and what could be called a keyboard. It was shaped the same, except it was held up and played by a creature with more arms than she wanted to count.

"My uncle would lose his mind if he heard you say that. Let me see if I can remember the words." It didn't sound exactly the same, but the bass and rhythm were way too similar to ignore.

"No, no. Listen, it's about to go in." She pointed a finger when she expected the keyboard to come in. It did. "Look, no, it goes- here-" She sung along with the familiar bassline. "And he's about to start singing."

The band didn't sing in English. They were singing like she did when she was a kid and didn't know the words to a song, making phonetic approximations of the lyrics.

"My mom's brother tried to make me listen to what he called 'the good stuff'. This was the only song that I really liked to listen to, and I didn't even like it that much. Here comes a solo by the guy with the big rectangle. Then it goes quiet." She tapped out the pause. "Fuck! What is this song called?" Her eyes went wide and she whipped to face the band as they resumed playing. It had a weird name, it was too much of something. The guy with the glasses, fuck, what was the band's name?

"Too many puppies!" Cora shouted, triumphant, just as the singer called out their version of those lyrics.

One of the band members froze at her shout, falling out of sync before quickly rejoining the song, bouncing along to the beat.

Shit. She'd forgotten to lay low. A shadow fell over the table.