Rescue mission

"Did Princess Lyra manage to get off planet?" Skylar asked an alien that looked to be half chimpanzee and half tiger who was sitting at a console.

"Negative, Captain." The Chimp/Tiger Hybrid replied. "She's still on Soran-Kovia. The Rebels thought ahead and placed heavily armed guards at every escape pod station on the planet in case a member of the royal family caught wind of the plans."

"Any chance we can speak with The Rebellion Leader?"

"Xfmm, uibu'r uif qspcmfn, Dbqubjo." An orange and pink blob stated, "Qsjodftt Mzsb xbt Uif Sfcfmmjpo Mfbefs!"

"... Come again?"

"She said, 'Well, that's the problem, Captain. Princess Lyra was The Rebellion Leader!', Ma'am." A four eyed male alien translated.

"Hmm." Skylar hummed as she brought a hand to her chin. "Then it looks like we're going to have to go down and sneak her off."

"Captain!" A green and black plant-like creature exclaimed, "According to Princess Lyra, a large majority of The Rebellion, including their newly crowned leader, still do not trust the alliance."

"Well then, it looks like it's going to be a smaller rescue party than usual." Skylar said, "If the Soran-Kovians don't trust anything that doesn’t resembles them, then we'll have to fool them. And since we have no Soran-Kovian's on board the ship..."

"Captain!" Officer Huugian exclaimed, "The only known species that is exactly identical to Soran-Kovians are humans. And apart from you, we only have two other humans aboard this ship!"

"I'm well aware of that, Officer Huugian." Skylar stated as she turned to leave the deck. "And I know that neither have the exact combat training as I do. However, if we play our cards right, it will hopefully not come to that."

And with that, Skylar pressed a button and stepped out into the hall towards the galley... Not noticing her towel getting stuck in the sliding doors.

"... And that should do it!" A thin redheaded twenty-six year old man grunted as he finished tightening a pipe in the kitchen, placing the wrench into a pocket dimension in his belt before turning to the head chef with a friendly smile. "Is there anything else you need at the moment?"

The head chef in question, a chubby and thick twenty-seven year old brunette with pale skin, merely sighed as she stared at the redhead, a smile on her face as she stood next to an assortment of premade food.

"Uh... Millie?"

The Chef, Millie, shook her head and blushed as she cleared her throat. "I'm sorry, Drake, I got lost in thought for a second. Did you say something?"

"I asked if you needed help with anything else while I was here." Drake said with a friendly smile.

"Oh. No, I think everything is fine at the moment." Millie chuckled, rubbing the back of her neck. "Thank you, Drake. You fixing that water pipe will make everything all hunky dude."

"'Hunky dude'?"

"DORY!" Millie shouted before chuckling sheepishly, turning redder by the second. "I meant hunky dory. I... I don't know where that came from!"

"Well, if you don't need anymore help, I'll catch you later then." Drake said as he went to leave the kitchen.

"Drake wait!" Millie called out, causing the young man to pause and turn around to face The Chef. "I was just wondering, are you... I mean, would you like... That's to say..."

"Are you okay, Mills?"

"Drake, would you like to... Try some of my new dessert recipes to make sure the rest of the crew like them?" Millie asked, inwardly screaming at herself to chickening out... Again.

"Thanks, I'd love some." Drake replied, "They're always my favorite parts of your meals, so fair warning: I may be a bit biased."

"Heh. Yeah..." Millie said with a sigh as she went to cut a slice of cake. Looking at her reflection in the knife, she sighed and thought to herself, "Why do I honestly keep trying? There's no way that Drake would look at me and think, 'Yeah! I wanna date three tons of blubber!'. Why wasn't I born beautiful?"

"Chef Clarkson! Chief Engineer Stamos!"

Millie dropped the knife as she and Drake saluted and turned to face the the doorway... Their eyes going wide at their naked Captain standing in the kitchen.

"I have a special mission that I need the two of you to assist me with." Skylar explained as she looked between the two.

"Um... O-Okay, Captain." Millie stammered awkwardly. "However, I must insist that we discuss this outside of my kitchen. It is unsanitary to be naked in here, after all."

Skylar raised an eyebrow before looking down... Letting out a squeak as she grabbed an oven mitt off the counter and placed it over her womanhood while slapping an arm over her breasts, her face blazing. "Duly noted, Chef Clarkson."

After being briefed on their mission, and Skylar swinging by her quarters to get dressed, the three headed towards the hanger where a cruiser waited for them.

"But why not just reach out for other human fighters?" Millie asked. "I've never had combat training in my life. And even then, I'm a pacifist!"

"Same here, actually." Drake commented, "I'm the kind of engineer who builds and fixes machines, not weapons!"

"Perhaps not, but you two are the only humans we have aboard the ship apart from myself." Skylar stated as the approached her cruiser, signaling one of the hanger workers to stand by as The Captain climbed into the ship with the others following. "And we don't know how long Princess Lyra has left until she's found by the revolutionaries. This is going to be an easy enough mission: We get in, we grab Princess Lyra, we get out. Besides, I have enough combat training for the three of us."

"I still don't know about this..." Millie commented as she and Drake got in their seats and strapped in.

Skylar closed the cruiser door and strapped herself in the captain's seat, signaling to the hanger worker to open the bay doors before turning on the cruiser's cloaking device. Turning to her newest teammates, she said, "All I ask of you two is remember what you learned about Soran-Kovian society and not give us away. One wrong move, and we'll be exposed as frauds."

"Oh, well that makes me fell much more relaxed..." Drake muttered sarcastically under his breath as Millie gulped nervously.

Outside the ship, Skylar's space cruiser rocketed out of the hanger, hidden under it's cloaking device, and sped off towards the planet of Soran-Kovia below...