It's a Plan(et)

Chapter 2

A/N: Time is measured in "clicks" where one click = one second.

Therefore...

Hectoclick = 100 seconds

Kiloclick = 16 minutes, 40 seconds

Megaclick = 11.6 days

Gigaclick = 31.7 years

Teraclick = 31,700 years

_ _ _ _ _

H'zashi knew that his luck was running out. He had been too lucky recently, or well, for his whole life he had been pretty lucky. He had a good upbringing with competent, caring parents, met A'zawa (and that was lucky, even when everyone told him that it wasn't and that their species could never work out as a long-term pair), and found a good job with the Universe Alliance as a rescue agent. H'zashi was hoping that his inability to lay eggs was going to be enough "unluckiness" to last him for his whole life, but with how happy he had been with everything else, he knew that would be too good to be true, too much to ask for.

He had warned A'zawa that something unlucky would be coming, and with how interwoven their lives were, he would probably be roped into it as well. It's not that A'zawa didn't believe him, he didn't think, it's just that A'zawa didn't quite understand to what level the unlucky thing had to be to even out how damn lucky H'zashi had been so far in his life.

Like, maybe it would be getting bad food during a grocery run a few times in a row, or having the same part on their spaceship fail three times within the space of a megaclick, or something. But H'zashi knew that it would be bigger than that. Much bigger. But this big? He didn't suspect this.

Being falsely detained on a prison planet?

Yeah, H'zashi thinks that this should pretty much set him up for the rest of his life, no matter if he lives a whole teraclick after he gets out of here, and even if he's lucky enough to live that teraclick with A'zawa still by his side. And he would still have some extra luck left, if H'zashi had anything to say about it.

Especially because the crime they were being falsely accused of was falsifying research records.

First of all, that did not warrant this level of punishment, even if it were true. (Okay, maybe H'zashi would have argued otherwise, being the research-minded aldoi that he is, if it were someone else in his place and he believed them to be guilty. So, he's a hypocrite. There are worse things to be.) Second of all, their accusers did not present the United Alliance with any proof, which is probably because there is no proof to be had, which is the bigger issue in H'zashi's mind. How can they say there are falsified records with no records to present?

They are most likely just going to hold them for the allotted five megaclicks that they are allowed to hold them for without having any evidence before releasing them. For what reason, H'zashi is still trying to figure it out. A'zawa still hadn't let him in on any leads yet either if he had come up with any ideas of his own.

Anyway, they were almost one megaclick in, and the facility was clean and a proper research facility, so the cells were regulation size, and meals were high quality and specified by their species instead of one-meal-fits-all bland sludge. It could have been worse, but H'zashi and A'zawa had important work to do that they could not do while they were locked up there, waiting for their stupid five megaclicks hold for the opposing counsel to "gather more evidence" that doesn't even exist to be over and done with.

Maybe the universe should owe him two teraclicks worth of a lucky life to live alongside his lover, H'zashi thought with trepidation, when he recognized the species of the new prisoners being brought down the corridor. One was unconscious and being carried by two dolluns, an alien species that resembles a pill bug on Terra, and they were obviously struggling under the weight. The other was conscious and struggling, being escorted by two scraks, tall insectoid aliens with long stick-like limbs that were stronger than they looked, but even so, these scraks wore armor reinforcements on their limbs for the escort of this new prisoner.