BETH

The lights had dimmed and sounds had been muted. Beth came awake. She had fallen asleep with her head against Milo’s shoulders. She must have been tired. The weapon was lying by her side, since the sweetness had retreated when her mind had fallen asleep.

Milo snored.

How far could it be?

Tern had not shown her any attention once he had floated into the darkened chamber. As Tern had explained it, the chamber was used for preparing and checking health statuses of all the orb’s modules. The mechanics of all mechanisms inside the shell. But why could Tern not do these health checks on his own? Maybe, the orbs were advanced. The chamber might have a ritual function. She would need to ask when he emerged.

She shook the coffee thermos, there was still some left, but she didn’t want to drink it without Milo. That would not have been nice of her. But she wanted his company, so she shoved at him. He came to with a snort.

“What is happening? Why is everything looking so funny?” Milo muttered.

She gave him a second.

“Right. Alien ship. We are sitting on the bulkhead wall and the ‘ceilings’ have been stripped. Do we still have some coffee left?” Milo said.

Beth handed him a steaming cup. “Go ahead.”

She rummaged through the bag and found nutrition bars for them. They were far from delicious, but they filled their growling stomachs. She and Tom had used to live on these things when they were onboard the Au-delà, she turned her eyes away when recalling the memory.

There was motion in the darkened chamber.

Tern floated out. There was a shimmer to his surface that had not been there when he dove into the chamber. The orb floated slowly down to them, landing without touching the ‘wall’. The pieces moved into place in her mind at the same moment, Tern connected with her again. It felt like she could breathe again.

“Good morning,” Beth said.

Beth would not need to actually to put voice into her thoughts, but she had found that creating the correct thought and without any other slippage of the mind, it was easier to just perform the action of saying the words instead of only thinking about them. Since saying them, automatically put the words into her mind. Also, it was nicer to include Milo, and more practical, otherwise she would need to repeat herself to him.

“Yes. New day,” Tern said.

There was something wrong with the orb. Its shell. Tern had grown since entering the chamber. 

Beth scrambled to her feet. “Your shell, it has expanded. You have installed new modules.”

“Modules have been installed. For trade,” Tern said. 

Beth nodded, it made sense, bringing bargaining chips to the bartering table. “How much further until we arrive?”

Milo stood by her side, following one side of the conversation, but it looked as if he received enough context to derive the remaining responses.

“Landfall, shortly,” Tern said.

Beth’s eyes widened in excitement, she turned to Milo. “We have arrived.”

Milo nodded. There was dark bags under his bloodshot eyes, and somehow it looked as if his face drooped a little bit. Had he slept that bad? He was a young man and he had came to just now, he needed a moment to become fully awake.

“Tern, I have a question. Does this chamber have a ritual purpose?” Beth said.

Tern paused before answering. “Ritual? Legacy, yes. Module installation. Simulation. Legacy, but better.” 

“I am not following you, but that’s alright, it is not important. But the word ‘legacy’ suggests some kind of traditional use. Maybe we are onto something,” Beth said. “We would have to take it when your language has improved.” 

Milo looked in her direction. “Maybe.”

He was uninterested. If Birgitta was here instead, she would have begged for Beth to ask more questions. She was on a quest for finding answers.

“We are moving out,” Beth said. “Suit up.”

Milo nodded.

They activated their vac suits again and stepped into them. As they sealed the pressure inside them normalized.

The sweetness trickled down Beth’s tongue, giving her just enough strength. She grabbed the Birgitta-made weapon from the floor and held it to the light. She would probably not need to use it and therefore there would be no second iteration of tests this time around. A bummer, but there would be more opportunities, there always were. If she leaned the weapon on her shoulder, having the lump behind and above the shoulder blade, she was able to use her body and its skeleton to offload some of the weight. Which made it possible to ease back the sweetness a bit. It was always worth it to save on the water, she never knew when she needed it the most. It must look weird for the aliens to watch her walk around with this primitive mace-looking weapon.

Tern floated in between them and activated the bubble again.

Beth knew how forces would be applied and how to brace against them, it made it possible for her to adjust her balance and timing. With her knees slightly bent, feet offset and her shoulders rolled forward, she stood firm. Milo was not as lucky and stumbled to the back as Tern took off.

They went above and across this household sphere’s network of corridors and rooms. And since none had ceilings they saw everything again. As last time, there were orbs and their companions moving about, fulfilling various tasks. It looked like a cross section of a busy ant farm.

They reached the end of the sphere and Tern flew them through to the next. Four spheres later they arrived at their destination. From her perspective the inside of each sphere looked the same. Tern took them down and landed. This sphere was a single giant, opened room. With the exception for all the shuttle-like crafts that hovered in mid air. It clicked in her mind. Every new alien species they bonded with needed to have their own shuttle. They could not always fly around in space in the bubbles, not practical.

“They must have quite a few alien races onboard the ship,” Milo said.

Milo had not used the correct term, but Beth held her tongue. There was no reason to irritate him for nothing, he needed time to adjust to the new terminology. It was not a ship, it was a household, home or family.

“Tern says seventeen different species,” Beth said. “Can you see the craft made for us? Tern wants us to try to find it. A little game.”

Milo sighed. “Why not just get a move on?”

“We will give a try,” Beth said. “What do humans need?”

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“A pressurized environment. Life support that supplies oxygen and filters out the carbon dioxide we breathe out,” Milo said. “We also need it to be kept at a certain temperature. That will not help us. All the shuttles have similar shapes. I cannot see internal systems or wiring from the outside. I guess they have a form of inertia meshing, too. But again, I cannot distinguish anything from here.”

Beth had liked the idea of the game, but Milo was correct, there was no way for them to find the correct one. She relayed the information to Tern.

Tern took them to flight with the bubble again and purposely flew towards one of the shuttles. It had a cigar shape and would fit the three of them with ease. There was no immediate evidence where its thrusters or reactor core were located. The rear airlock’s outer door slid aside and Tern took them inside. The interior was a single opened space from rear to front. There were three frames along the room, where bulkhead doors could slide down and separate the compartment into segments if needed. It looked almost like a human shuttle, but that was the point, too. But it looked erringly similar, Tern’s kind must have observed humans for some time. The airlock’s outer door slid closed, its cycle ran through and the inner door opened. Tern dropped the bubble. 

“Suits off.” Beth disengaged the helmet, putting it aside and tasted the air. It was fresh. It felt homely.

Beth walked across the floor and inspected the control terminals. There were four human made seats and each one had control consoles to them. But the consoles were off. There were no joysticks or touch displays, there were only two palm sized plates on each one.

“Touch, bond and fly.” Tern floated towards the obvious spherical hollow in the floor that had been made for him.

“There is even a synthesizer,” Milo said, standing in the middle of the ship.

“You are not touching anything. We don’t want the ship drained of its energy,” Beth said. “No touching. Don’t even go near any electrical outputs. We don’t know how it will react. Please take your seat, Milo.”

She held her hands slightly above the palm sized plates, not ready yet.

“Tern, where are we going?” Beth said.

“Destination locked,” Tern said.

Milo sat down beside her. “Maybe I should fly instead. I have actually been given some training and I have worked on the assembly yard of dreadnoughts.”

“No touching,” Beth said.

Her hands came down onto the plates.

She jacked in. A mental display popped into her mind, showing control commands and the data from all the shuttle’s sensors. She became one with the vessel.

There was this tingle across her temples, as if someone was inside her mind again. Like the feeling Tern or Saif left. The ship had connected to her. She thought ‘forward’ and  the shuttle surged forward.

“Our destination. This planet,” Tern said.

The alien orb still held the connection to her. Coordinates and images flashed into her mind. And context. The neutral planet sat between several divided slices of space, the borders of other clans. It was often used for clan meetings, negotiations and certain high-end trades. There was no space station or any satellites in orbit, otherwise the neutrality status would have gone out the window. There were a few buildings on the surface, but only enough to accomodate the meetings and some storage capacity for trade items. Everyone was given an allotted amount of time that specified the duration of their stay and which was limited. Also, only smaller vessels, like shuttles, were allowed near the planet. At first glance, it sounded impossible to enforce such stringent demands. But by building a solar system wide space station with sensors the size of planets and the power of a star behind them, they were able to ping and track anything that had any trajectory towards the meeting planet. Everything was surveilled.

Even at full speed, it took the shuttle a few hours to reach the destination. Beth pulled the view from her mental display and put it on the main screen. It looked like Mars. Light brown, mostly covered in rock and sand. There would be little or nothing indegeoius life and very little native vegetation, the planet seemed to have no value other than its neutrality status.

The lights flickered. Data came into her mental display. A loss of output from the reactor. She requested data directly from the reactor’s control unit and compared it with normal values, it looked alright. So, not a core breach or meltdown. She put the shuttle into auto and pulled out from the control system. The light became stable again.

“That’s better,” Milo mumbled, his hands came off from behind an open panel.

“What do you think you are doing?” Beth asked.

Milo cracked his neck and licked his lips, lookeding invigorated. “I am not going into this meeting without being prepared. Electrons need to be excited, I am their conduit. Thus, I prepare dutifully.”

Milo was fueling with blood. His eyes were alert, his body language spoke of strength and confidence. Far from the state he was in when they had woken up in Tern’s preparation chamber.

“Alert?” Tern floated off its hollow. “Strain on core.”

Beth leaned back and sighed. “A minor incident.”

She could not lie to Tern, the orb read her thoughts and not only the literal meanings, but he also picked up the context.

“Milo drained some electrical energy from the reactor core,” Beth said. “In preparation for the meeting.”

Tern must have seen inside her mind before, how she perceived Milo’s power to work.

“Interesting,” Tern said. “Me have wondered. How. Suppression module. Not working.”

Oh. What? Tern disregarded Milo’s obvious intrusive behavior of draining from the core. Had Tern let him tag along because of this? As an experiment? 

Tern dumped the context and images to explain into her mind.

The orbs had the ability to suppress electricity with a certain module, but if one of the clans had found something or someone that could provide electricity through that suppression. That person would be valuable, as both a weapon or a trading item.

“So, you have kept the electrical suppression field on him?” Beth asked.

There was anger in Milo’s face. When he fueled with blood he seemed to be a different person, as if the sensation of being powerful affected him. Just like a drug addict.

“Yes,” Tern floated across the floor to Milo.

Electrical tendrils jumped between Milo’s fingers.

“We had need of. Knowledge,” Tern said.

Beth relayed the conversation to Milo and added her own perspective. “This is the reason you were allowed to come. The meeting will probably house a strong suppression field. To avoid armed conflicts when arguments get heated.”

“Then nothing has changed. You understand that this was one of the reasons they bonded with you? Your strength functions inside those fields too, even though it is not as colorful. We are still running protection for this clan, your clan,” Milo said, the tendrils vanished. “It’s just like with Saif. You are Tern’s weapon. With me along, I am his weapon.”

“No, it’s not like that at all,” Beth said, trying to defend the companion bond, but the truth slid into her thoughts. Maybe it was the same.

Milo leaned his head forward, tendrils snaked across his face, his barrier was coming to. “It is. You are just too naive to see it.”

“No.” Beth shaking her head. “No.”

Sweetness trickled down her tongue, her hands tensed into fists.

“Stop blinding yourself. The truth is right in front of you. Use that clever brain of yours.”

Beth clenched her jaw shut. His change of states worried her. How he switched so suddenly between feeling tired and worn to powerful and confident. But his words sounded truthful.

“I don’t accept it,” Beth said.

Tern floated up and in between them. “Stop. Our clan weak. We are not like the others. There was a war, a long time ago. To eat or not to eat the fear induced flesh of other species. The scent of it can be intoxicating. We ran away. Our position is weak, our numbers weak.”

Beth relayed the information to Milo, who’s face relaxed.

“Me need you. We need you,” Tern said.

Beth stepped back. “I get it. You cannot have another clan war. I see what you put into my mind. It could mean the end of you.”

Milo muttered.

“We will help each other. I promise,” Beth said. “Thank you, Tern, for letting us know. Let’s get to it. Milo, keep your hands where I can see them.”

Milo gave a half hearted nod.

Tern bumped into her.

Beth moved back to the controls and put the shuttle into motion, aiming towards their designated landing pad that connected to the building the meeting was going to take place in.

The shuttle came down, inside the planet’s atmosphere. There was a thin cloud coverage and so the view was fantastic and uninterrupted. It was interesting how a dead planet like this could be so beautiful. The landing protocol took over and then the shuttle came to a full stop. Reactor shut down and its vibrations and humming became silent.

She disconnected from the controls and returned to the real world. Milo already stood by the rear airlock, ready to go. Tern floated away from its hollow and joined them.

“Lets not keep anyone waiting,” Beth said.

“What if the suits don’t function within the field?” Milo asked. “ We cannot survive without them.”

Tern explained.

Beth relayed. “Atmospheric suits and their life support will work. The field has been configured to encompass them. You are not the first one to point out this issue. There will be many different kinds of species, some in need of suits and some not so much.”

“Great,” Milo said.