The branch I sat upon was only some five feet off the ground, and the grass underneath was soft. It was with more trepidation than worry that I met those large eyes, staring up into my own with shock.
It wasn’t long before their owner, a girl with her arms splayed wide in the grass, gave a short nod, got to her feet, and gave me a winning smile as if it’d all gone according to plan.
“As expected from the Asteras’ younger brother. You make for a worthy opponent.” She loudly laughed as another girl, thinner and frailer looking, kept worriedly picking leaves from her hair and brushing her off.
The one who had fallen was Myla, a tiny girl from the neighboring farm back at Ferada-1109. Though, perhaps not as tiny as me. She had freckles and autumn colored hair, somewhere between red and a burning yellow.
Beyond what memories Nyamien provided me with, I remembered very little about her. Her friend, I didn’t know at all.
“What are you doing?” Myla asked, barely flinching as the other girl was forced to yank a piece of the branch out of her curly locks.
“Isn’t that what I should be asking?” I retorted, flipping off my tablet to slide it into the satchel I wore over my chest. It wasn’t as convenient as my old overlay, but it worked.
“Nuh-uh, I asked first.”
She’d crossed her arms, and from her look, I could tell she found the argument rock solid.
I shrugged.
“Important research.”
“Sounds boring.” Her response came too quickly, letting me know that, no matter what answer I’d come up with, it would probably have been deemed boring as well.
As she saw where my eyes were going, Myla continued, “And this is my new best friend, Leyi. Leyi, this is Nyamien.”
The other girl shyly glanced up at me before quickly looking away. She was too pale to be fully human, and her eyes had an almost purplish tint to them. The dark markings on her cheeks were even moving as she began hurriedly whispering something to Myla.
Our home moon and the surrounding planets were colonized by all sorts of outcasts and fortune seekers. My own family landed somewhere in between.
Whatever the girl had been whispering to Myla, Myla promptly ignored as she continued, “And this is Happy.”
The stuffed rabbit Leyi had been holding at her side disappeared behind her back in an instant, and there was a deep blush to her cheek as she kept frantically whispering something in Myla’s ear.
I couldn’t hear what she was saying, and maybe Myla couldn’t either as she kept talking unperturbed. “Leyi’s mother gave it to her before we set off. Apparently, if she squeezes it reeeally tight, her mother will know that she is safe and well out here.
“And that way, they can be together in their hearts, smiling together. That’s why he’s called happy. Isn’t that really awesome?”
If not for the way Myla’s eyes glittered with wonder, I would’ve been certain she was trying to embarrass her new best friend. Leyi’s face was as far from pale as it could be, now in the deep realms of crimson.
“I-it’s just some silly things my mum likes to say,” Leyi quietly mumbled, and it took me a moment to realize the words were meant for me. She’d been staring straight into the ground as she said them, fingers fretting restlessly with one of those bunny ears behind her back. “I-I’m too old for it, really…”
“No one is ‘too old’ for a good companion,” I said, sincerely. “It’s important to have someone that can hold your back out here.”
Myla nodded along seriously.
“It really is,” she said with emphasis. “I have a box of my favorite cookies and extra socks, though the cookies are starting to run out…”
“You were meant to share them with your new friends at the Academy, weren’t you?” I – or was it Nyamien – sighed as her voice trailed off. “But you ended up eating most of them yourself.”
“No, I did not,” Myla whined. “I only tasted a couple to make sure they were still fine up here among the stars and…and Leyi got one as well, isn’t that right, Leyi?”
“I, uh…” The other girl didn’t seem to have expected the curve ball, and it took her some stuttering attempts before she’d managed to pass it onto me, “D-do you also h-have a companion, Nyamien?”
Another shy glance my way, Happy spinning behind her back where she was now playing with both his ears.
“I do.” I nodded. “Or did, at least, until I lost it.”
“Oh,” Happy stopped spinning, Leyi’s eyes now wide and almost hopeful, “was, was it also a rabbit…?”
“No, it was a raven,” I said, thinking back to my Raven-CC14, the most trusted pistol I ever owned. There’d been decades where I didn’t go to sleep without it safely tucked away beneath my pillow.
“Maybe Leyi can let you borrow Happy sometimes?” Myla eagerly asked, seemingly glad we’d strayed away from her cookie munching.
With Leyi having nearly dropped her rabbit at the suggestion, I just shook my head. No matter what she said, it was clear that the girl didn’t want to let the stuffed animal go.
“I’m fine,” I said. “I’m actually really busy right now, so I don’t mind being alone. You two can go off and play on your own.”
“Bu-buu, wrong!” Myla said, grinning widely as she mimicked the sound of a buzzer. “I actually promised your mum that I’d be your friend out here so that you didn’t become all alone beneath the stars. So, whether you like it or not, you’re coming with us.”
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
With her fists put to her hips, Myla let out another loud laugh as if she’d just trapped me in her carefully laid scheme.
Does she think I can’t say no just because my mother asked her to…? Not that the suggestion didn’t give me pause. Did I really make my mother worry that much in my youth? And, shouldn’t I remember Myla better if she really tried to become my only friend at the Academy?
Something was off, but I wasn’t sure what.
Did I drink away her memory, too?
With Myla looking up at me with expectant eyes, however, I pushed up the worry for later.
“You’re not here to pester me about my sisters again, are you?” I asked, causing her eyes to flicker to the side.
“No…” she said in an all but convincing tone.
“Really?”
“Really really,” she insisted. “I just want to play today.”
Even as she puffed out her chest and cheeks, I could tell that was a lie. Not that I blamed her.
My two older sisters were everything I was not: strong, bright, funny, outgoing, and gifted. They’d been famous back in our town even before they left for the Academy, and now, they’d become famous there, too.
Cadet Kalyteros Vinyera and Stratigós Ilyana weren’t just their names, but their titles of excellence they’d earned over these short few years since Nyamien last saw them.
Even after all this time, I could still remember my inferiority complex towards them – the looming shadow that was bound to crush down upon me the moment I reached the academy.
I can’t say I had any fond memories about them. Then again, these nights, I could barely even recall their faces in my dreams.
“…and because Leyi wanted to ask you something,” Myla finished, and I was forced to shake my head just to catch her words.
“Ask me?” I repeated, looking over at the other girl.
“Well, she actually asked me, but I didn’t know…” Myla reluctantly admitted. “So, I told her about your sisters, and how you are really smart as well and could answer anything!”
Ah, I see…
Some part of me could suddenly see why I might not remember Myla. Nyamien would’ve hated being compared to his sisters like that.
I’d never been that smart or talented, but people always expected me to be because I was another Astera. Even if there was no malice to it, innocence could be just as painful. If not more so.
Then again, with nearly three centuries of knowledge at my disposal, I didn’t feel any need to avoid them like Nyamien would’ve felt inclined to do.
With a shrug, I slipped down from the branch to easily land in the grass besides them. “Sure. Ask away.”
Disorienting as it was having to look up at the young girls, I still waited patiently as Leyi gave me a shy glance.
She was even thinner than me, almost fairy-like and cute in the way most children are. It made me want to ruffle her hair and tease her about a dozen different things.
“Do…do you think it keeps going forever?” she quietly asked, her wide eyes having gone upwards to stare into the endless space beyond the ceiling. “Mum always said there were more stars out here than there are blades of grass in the fields back home, but I never believed her…
“I, I mean, those stars,” she raised a thin hand to point towards the three dots of light that dominated the velvety black, forming a perfect triangle impossibly far away, “I’ve been seeing them since our first day up here?”
I gave a faint smile. She had good eyes.
“Those are not just any old stars, they are the Ancient Triumvirate; the brightest solar systems in our galaxy,” I said.
“The vast reaching humanity,” I pointed to the leftmost one, “The wise Luminesari,” My finger shifted to the northernmost one, “And the war-forged Kre…Gres…Khre—” I bit my tongue as I gestured towards the last one, not that Leyi seemed to mind as I finished in reasonable time, “Kghrechur.”
“The friendly aliens?”
“I heard one of them is aboard this ship,” Myla chimed in, whispering conspiratorially. “Some of the other kids saw it floating by in the hallways. It was suuuper tall.”
“Celian?” I asked, before slowly nodding. “He would probably count as a friendly one but the rest…”
Just hearing the Battle Junkies and the Emotionless Watchers described as ‘friendly’ was a bit weird, but I just shrugged.
“They tolerate us, just like we tolerate them. The alliance between humanity, the Luminesari and the…Khrecks has governed the civilized worlds for millennia beneath the Triumvirate’s light. At least those within our galaxy.
“There are countless more worlds out there that we’ve never managed to reach—” many tried when the Scourge came. No one managed to, “—and the Void is endlessly vaster still.
“A star voyage could keep going forever and ever and never reach an end. Even our current trip will take us further than you could ever imagine.”
I picked up some dirt from the ground, split it in two, and held up one piece for both of them to see.
“If this was our moon, Ferada—1109, up to scale, and this was Wochir-11,” I held up the other piece. “The distance between them would be from here, and aaall the way over to that tree with the flabby branches.”
Maly’s mouth went wide as they both followed my finger towards the other end of the garden, though, she soon shut it again. Now, her eyes narrowed.
“You’re lying,” she said. “That’s suuuper far.”
“It is super far,” I agreed.
My scale was probably off by quite a bit as well, but there was a reason why our sector felt so isolated. Even with the fastest Light-drive ships money could buy, it would take decades to travel to the Triumvirate’s main planets unless the Gates were opened.
“But if that’s our moon,” Myla continued, still staring at the piece of dirt in my left hand, “how small would I be?”
“Even smaller than you are now.” I laughed as I ruffled her hair, already walking away by the time she could swat away my hand.
“Hey, I’m taller than you,” she huffingly called after me, though her voice had taken on a whiny tone as she finished, “And you were supposed to play with us…”
“Maybe next time,” I called back, waving over my shoulder with a smile that would’ve made me look like some old uncle if not for my current body.
And I honestly meant it.
Trapped as I felt on that ship, and inconvenient as my prepubescent body was, I wouldn’t have exchanged it for anything.
Being able to tease curious kids, to see my old comrades at work once more — young guards trying to look tougher than they were, soldiers too proud and awkward to interact with children — and talking with someone that didn’t have the artificial resonance of an AI in their voice, had filled a hole in my heart I hadn’t even know existed.
It was something worth fighting for. Not just a distant ideal that gathered dust in my mind.
Though, in a sense, all of those things; everything that didn’t involve me breaking bones, tasting the blood in my gut, or barely scraping by the skin of my teeth, made me more restless than I had been in years.
Everything was too peaceful, too perfect, and it stressed me out. The current me was barely able to do a handful of push-ups in a day, and my stamina rarely lasted until one of guards told me to knock it off with my obnoxious running.
I wouldn’t be able to protect anyone once things started to go wrong. Just as they’d always been prone to do.
But maybe they won’t this time…?
Just as I’d began to fear — with equal parts dread and hope — that all my memories of being some ragged soldier in a distant, dystopian future was just some strange dream, however, that I really were just another kid freshly picked off my home world, it finally happened.
Fate came knocking on the door.
Levels Added, Conversation:
Teacher > 1
Inspire > 1
Charm 1 > 2
Reassurance 1 > 2
Levels Added, Physical:
Climbing 3 > 4
Acrobatics > 1
Levels Added, Perception:
Espionage 1 > 2
Threat Assessment 3 > 4
Scouting 1