Fam Away From Home

Miserable

The tent's interior looked like a mix between medieval fine dining and Native American chic. A man sat on an exquisite sofa.

"This is lavish... for a tent." Blondie stepped forward, presenting herself in some sort of attempt to gain control of the situation. "I'm the Doctor, these are my new best friends," she spun to face the group and pointed. "Ryan, Graham and Yaz. And that's Astra. Now..." She turned back to the man, dramatically running her hand through his middle. He and the tent around them flickered from a while haze then back into reality. She gasped a bit dramatically. "Oh. See? Hologram. Thought it might be. Good one, though. I love a good hologram." She turned and spoke to her friends, "I was a hologram once, for three weeks. The gossip I picked up." She faced him again. "What are you, projection reality or AI interface?" Squatting, she looked up at him in a way that made Astra cover her smile. "Cos if you're an interface, those are excellent nose hairs."

Angstrom frowned at Astra's reaction while the hologram frowned at their existences. "Who are these people?" he asked the pilots.

"Bonuses," Angstrom answered in a chirp.

"No..." came the sharp retort.

The chubby man lost all expectation and was instantly suspicious. "What?"

"I told you, bonuses and snaketraps are over."

The man got antsy with his feet, trying to intimidate the man and make his anger obvious. "They were hanging in the starfield when we exited hyper. Are you saying we scooped them for nothing?"

"Yes." Simple reply. What a dick.

"I sacrificed my ship!" the pilot shouted indignantly.

"And saved some lives in the process, sorry for the trauma?" Astra quipped sarcastically. She even splayed her fingers for sass.

"Yeah, sorry. Some of this is my fault." She stepped closer to the hologram. "Hi. We were loads of solar systems away, I was trying to find my own ship, I got a fix on it here... and then it all went quite badly wrong, actually." She turned to gesture to her human friends. "These three are being very good not going on about it." She faced the hologram again. "Astra, not so much. Gonna have to have a talk later." She looked between the pilots, not even breathing in. "Very grateful you came along." Back to the hologram, hunched over a bit (adorably). "Can I ask, what is actually going on here? Cos I'm confused." She turned back to the Earthlings behind her. "Are you confused?"

"Pretty confused," Yaz confirmed.

"Proper confused," Ryan agreed.

Graham snatched Astra's glasses from his have. "I'm way beyond confused."

Finally, it was the little witch's turn. "Is this a checkpoint?" Astra asked.

The four adults in the semi-know looked at her, shocked at her intelligence.

Astra looked around, a bit nervous at having so much attention on her. "Well, it just feels like a video game. Mysterious, more in the know than leader gives helpful hints in tent in the middle of a desert? Sounds like Zelda or something so you guys," she pointed at the pilots, "...would be.. the- well, some sort.. of competitors. Not side by side or you'd have shared her ship." She pointed at Angstrom, examining the harder man closely. "Traveling competition," she corrected at seeing his clothes.

The Doctor caught up very quickly and was very excited about it. "What, like a race? Like Paris-Dakar, in space? Are you two space-racing each other?" she asked, looking between the pilots.

"You're intruding on the final stage of the last ever Rally of the Twelve Galaxies," the hologram said bluntly, uncaringly. And why would he care? He wasn't there. He had nothing to fear.