“Hey. What’s is your ship’s name, anyway?”

“Blip-A.”

“No, I mean, what do you call it?”

“Ship.”

“Your ship has no name?”

“Why would ship have name, question?”

I shrugged. “Ships have names.”

He points to my pilot’s seat. “What is name of you chair, question?”

“It doesn’t have a name.”

“Why does ship have name but chair no have name, question?”

“Never mind. Your ship is the Blip-A.”

“That is what I said. Flash in ten seconds.”

“Copy.”

Rocky and I each fall silent and stare at our respective screens. It took me a long time to notice the subtleties, but I can now tell when Rocky is paying attention to something specific. He tends to angle his carapace toward it and pivot ever so slightly back and forth. If I follow the line he’s pivoting on, that’s usually what he’s examining.

“Three… two… one… now!”

Right on cue, a few pixels on-screen blink white.

“Got it,” I say.

“I not notice.”

“It was dim. We must be far away. Hang on…” I switch to the Telescope screen and pan to where the flash came from. I sweep back and forth with small movements until I catch a slight discoloration in the blackness. Taulight reflecting off the Blip-A. “Yeah, we’re pretty far away.”

“Beetles have much fuel remaining. Is okay. Tell me angle change.”

I check the readouts at the bottom of the screen. All we have to do is align the Hail Mary with the current telescope angle. “Rotate yaw plus 13.72 degrees. Rotate pitch minus 9.14 degrees.”

“Yaw plus one three mark seven two. Pitch minus nine mark one four.” He grabs the beetle controls from their holders and gets to work. By flicking on and off the beetles in sequence, he angles the ship toward the Blip-A.

I zero the telescope and zoom in to confirm. The difference between background space and the ship is so small as to be barely perceivable. But it’s there. “Angle correct.”

He focuses hard on his texture screen. “I no detect anything on-screen.”

“Light difference is very very small. Need human eyes to detect. Angle is good.”

“Understand. What is range, question?”

I switch to the Radar screen. Nothing. “Too far for my radar to see. At least ten thousand kilometers.”

“Accelerate to what velocity, question?”

“How about… three kilometers per second? Will get to the Blip-A in an hour or so.”

“Three thousand meters per second. Standard acceleration rate is acceptable, question?”

“Yes. Fifteen meters per second per second.”

“Two hundred second thrust. Begin now.”

I brace for gravity.

We did it!

We actually did it!

I have Earth’s salvation in a little tank on the floor.

“Happy!” Rocky says. “Happy happy happy!”

I’m so giddy I might throw up. “Yes! But we’re not done yet.”

I strap myself into my bunk. A pillow tries to float away, but I snag it in time and wedge it under my head. I’m all wired up, but if I don’t go to sleep soon, Rocky will start hassling me. Sheesh—you almost ruin a mission one time and all of a sudden you have an alien-enforced bedtime.