Space Fish

This week's prompt is reminiscent of A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It'll be a trial not to copy the style or the story. Subject: "The Rocket-Ship," and theme: "fish." My first thought is a lot like what I did with the vessel and sand. I'll try to think of something else. 
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They had only been in space for a week, and it was already unbearable.


First, the constant noise. There was never a moment of silence, a moment of peace. Not at all. The throb of the engines, the hum of the heat generator, the hiss of the water circulation.

Next, the staleness of the water. They had been told they would get used to it, that it wouldn't bother them. That wasn't true. It had only been a week, and it was already getting hard to breathe.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the light. Lights above and lights below to mark the boundaries of their confined space. Lights flashing sequentially along the walls to show them which way to go. Lights on the control panels to ensure they pressed the right buttons. Like whoever had designed this floating tub assumed that eventually, none of them would be able to think properly.

The Chiliarch pressed the flashing red button and swished his tail restlessly through the water, propelling himself upward toward the ceiling, and circling back to float in front of the control panel again to wait for the next button to flash. Why bother trying to think through what needed to be done when the stupid thing did it all for him? Why did they bother training him at all, if they were going to deprive him of every chance of exercising his skill as a pilot? The note of the engine changed slightly, and a button flashed yellow. He pressed it. The engine returned to its normal throbbing song.

In the gallery, the second-in-command tried to alleviate her restlessness by swimming in circles. She kept her eyes closed, the better to ignore the flashing lights, even though this caused her to bump into the walls continually. Hitting the wall was preferable to having a constant headache.

Only the shrimpy, underfed Omega seemed to thrive at all in their present situation. The rest of the crew were too distracted to attack him much, and his unimpressive physique didn't suffer from his confinement. It was therefore the Omega that first noticed that they were approaching their destination, and roused the others to push their buttons and flip their levers, preparing the ship for it landing.

With luck, the ship that brought colonists would be better designed.