Chapter 3 - Covert Child
An emergency meeting had been called, summoning most of the staff from across the site, the children had been ordered to their rooms, there was a deep concern across the entire site about what had happened only an hour ago.
Staff poured into the cafetera, the only room large enough for everyone at once, pulling up chairs and arranging themselves as best as possible on the rickety tiles. At the front, Director Simon Chance and Sten were both talking quietly amongst themselves, waiting on a few more members of staff before speaking up, after a few more baited minutes, Janna arrived along with a couple of nurses and took a seat, prompting Simon to stand and address everyone.
“Thanks for coming on such short notice. We had an incident in the playground this afternoon and…” He paused for a second, steeling his nerves. “It appears that one of our children, Mana, has psyonic potential and accidentally unleashed some of her power directly into another child. I understand Janna has kept Mana safe, how is she?”
Janna shook her head sadly.
“She won’t let anyone come near her. Until she knows Scaarth is alright, I don’t think we can calm her down… She doesn’t appear to be dangerous at the moment though. How is Scaarth doing?”
The director sighed heavily, glancing at the floor briefly.
“He’s alive.” The room breathed a sigh of relief. “But he… He’ll need a wheelchair. And we don’t know if it’ll heal by itself, everything we’ve tried has failed, he needs a specialist to look.”
The atmosphere in the room dropped at the revelation that Scaarth may never dance again, before things could get too bleak however, Simon continued.
“The good news is that the Universal Council has some stations not too far away from here with some top tier medical facilities, Sten has assured me that they’ve fixed greater wounds than this and we could have him back to his old self again within a few weeks… but if we bring him to the U.C- they’re going to have questions. Nothing that's going to get anyone in trouble, but the likelihood that his brother, Rex, is going to remain here is low. If anyone here alludes to the fact that Rex is gifted, he will be taken. The U.C will take him to one of their institutes and-”
“Why is that even bad?!” One member of staff spoke up in the background. “You know we can’t teach him much more here, we’re stunting his potential!”
Simon motioned with his hand calmly, getting the crowd to calm as others agreed.
“Good question, and you deserve a fair and honest answer. I know for a fact that the U.C institutes are not good places to grow up. But don’t take it from me-” Simon motioned towards the captain behind him, who was currently sitting with his arms folded. “This is Sten, he’s a U.C marine captain and he was one of the team that discovered the boys, Sten, would you explain to my team why we don’t want Rex leaving?”
“Sure thing.” Sten stood from his chair, addressing the staff member directly. “The U.C institutes are not what you’ve been told. Any children taken there are essentially products for the U.C to sell or use, Rex can be sold to any buyer should their offer be high enough, the amount of kids who complete their education at those institutes is practically zero. They’re also terrible places to grow up, they don’t treat them as kids, they treat them as computers who need food… I guarantee you, if Rex gets taken, he’ll be sold to one of the corps or even a merc core within a month. The entire thing is deeply corrupt and if you give even the slightest toss about these kids, you’ll do everything in your power to prevent them being taken there.”
The crowd fell into a contemplative hush, swallowing Sten’s words.
“So here’s the issue.” Simon spoke up again. “Getting Scaarth treatment from the U.C. will massively increase the risk that his brother is taken from us. Unless everyone in this room swears to help us conceal his talents. If even one of you slips up…”
“First you deny this kid a proper education and now you got us lying to the U.C. now?! If they ask, I'm telling the truth!” The staff member shouted out, although less people agreed with him this time.
Simon looked at Sten and shook his head, but the soldier still seemed hopeful and gestured for the two of them to talk after.
“What about Mana then? What the hell happened?!” Another staff member yelled, sounding more desperate than angry.
“Mana appears to have psyonic potential. Apparently this sort of thing can happen if the kids have a lot of power in them… I've reached out to a few people but we’ve not had this happen at this facility before. Remember that this was an accident, Mana couldn’t have known this was going to happen, she’s shown us no signs of psyonic power up until this point.” Simon was quick to ensure his staff remained calm, he pressed his fingers against his forehead strongly. “She appears to be harmless at the moment but I'll be talking with Sten to see if there's anything he knows that can help.”
The staff nodded in agreement but were still feeling pretty confused about the whole thing.
“I haven’t come to a conclusion on what to do about the boys yet though. I’ll inform you all as soon as I do.” And with that, Simon ended the meeting, turning to face Sten once and addressing him quietly.
“Please tell me you have an idea, Sten…” Simon rubbed his darkened eyes, his forehead wrinkled with stress. Behind him, the staff slowly funnelled out of the room, each looking a little shaken.
“I do. Let me take the kid to a friend of mine, should be able to patch him up- off the books. If we can't get him walking again, we’ll get him an exo-frame instead but I reckon he’ll be on his feet.” Sten was tapping repeatedly on his gauntlet, sending messages to multiple people at a time.
“You’d do that for him?” Simon paused, considering the situation and the little time he’d known Sten.
“Of course. It’ll be a two week trip, we’ll need to take the astro-train there and back, we should wait for him to stabilise first though.”
“Thank the Ethers you turned up today, Sten.” Simon looked relieved beyond words. “I’m sure one of the staff would have taken him but we’ve got so much to deal with as it is…”
“No problem. I’ll get my stuff packed, as soon as he’s ready to move, give me a shout and we’ll head out.”
Simon felt a little odd entrusting a man he’d only met earlier today with the fate of a child in his orphanage, but Sten was a well respected and trusted member of the U.C military, considering their situation, he didn’t know what else to do.
“Tell you what, lets go check on him, if he’s awake, I think we should at least introduce you both, right?”
—----------------------------------
Scaarth was currently laid down in the medical ward, a light blue blanket covering his bandaged body, Janna had done her best to patch him up and had applied pain killing medi-gel to his tail and back. He looked somewhat worse for wear but was awake, his bright mint eyes were looking around the room for things to do, apparently he was bored more than anything else right now.
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The medical bay was a well kept, tiled series of rooms with a few metal framed beds kept apart from one another, Simon kept a lot of funds available for it as the kids tended to spread illnesses around between them, but Scaarth’s injury was unusual and difficult to treat, it was a first time for the orphanage to have a child wounded by some form of psyonic burst.
Simon and Sten entered through a set of wooden double doors on the far side of the room and calmly made their way over to Scaarth’s bed, grabbing a couple of chairs that were leaned up against a wall.
“Hey Scaarth, how you feeling, son?” Simon gave the boy a kind smile as he spoke.
“Hmm… I dun-know…” Scaarth was obviously feeling shy and strange, but the medi-gel was keeping the pain at bay nicely and he didn’t seem to be in discomfort.
“Janna told me you can’t feel your legs… is that true?”
Scaarth nodded and strained but his legs remained motionless, along with his tail.
“You-”
“Is Mana OK?” Scaarth interrupted Simon suddenly, looking firmly at the floor.
“You’re not mad at her…?” Simon tilted his head slightly, pondering at Scaarth’s priorities.
“N-no… She would never hurt her friends… Someone must have done something to her!”
Simon seemed relieved, he didn’t know what Scaarth knew but would hate for them to stop being friends over the accident.
“Good. She’s fine, just a little upset I think. Listen, Scaarth. We… can’t fix your legs here, but my friend here is a Universal Council Marine Captain! And he’s offered to escort you to somewhere where they can make you better, how does that sound?”
Scaarth’s tired eyes lit up upon hearing the words “Marine Captain” but he still seemed unsure.
“Tell you what, for being such a brave boy, I'll let you take someone if you want?” Simon glanced briefly at Sten to make sure he was OK with it and the captain nodded quietly.
“M-Mana… If she’s upset then… I have to help her.”
The two men seemed a little surprised but Sten leaned in to whisper to Simon.
“That could work… I’ve got another friend who I can potentially meet on the way who might be able to help Mana with her psyonics… from what I know about it, she should be fine to travel with us for a couple weeks…”
Despite whispering, Scaarth appeared to hear them just fine and piped up at the chance to travel.
“How will we go?” He asked, deeply curious about the adventure to come.
“Astro-train!” Sten smiled, deciding to address the boy directly. “You ever wanted to sleep in one of those little cabins, Scaarth?”
“Yeah! With the rolly doors and the panels?! The little pods?”
“Thats the one! What do you say? Me, you and Mana get our own pods and go on a little holiday? Perhaps I could teach you a few marine tricks out there?” Sten raised his usually gravelly voice up a few octaves.
Scaarth nodded enthusiastically, his little hands playing with the lining on the blanket with excitement.
“Then I guess it's settled! You get an all expenses paid holiday with a marine captain and Mana!” Simon went to leave but was called back by Scaarth who was suddenly overcome with emotion.
“W-what about my brother? He’ll be left by himself!”
“He has other friends here Scaarth, he’ll be OK!”
Sten leaned in to whisper to Simon again, quieter this time.
“I can handle the three of them if it’ll cause problems…?”
“I don’t think I can allow that, if Rex exposes his talents outside of the orphanage… All it takes is one overheard conversation you know?”
“True. As long as it doesn’t upset the little guys too much.”
They glanced back to see Scaarth weighing the whole thing up in his mind. Obviously upset about leaving his brother for two weeks but excited to see an astro-train in all its glory with Mana.
The team took a day to prepare the children, reuniting Mana and Scaarth in the medical ward, ending Mana’s self imposed isolation and sadness, the little alien sprinted across the room and threw her arms around her friend, hugging him tightly and refusing to let go for some minutes.
It became impossible to get Mana to leave his bedside along with Rex who was constantly in and out between lessons. Mana stayed at Scaarth’s bedside through the entire night, the nurses giving her a blanket and a snack to keep her going… The next day, Mana was found hunched over Scaarth’s bed, snoozing quietly and holding onto his hand, prompting smiles from nurses as they came in to check on them.
Scaarth was loaded onto a small wheelchair with a bag packed with freshly washed clothes and food, along with what supplies might be required for two children. They completed their classes first and had food, waiting for the night to come and finally, when everyone else including Rex had gone to bed, Scaarth and Mana were collected by Sten in a personal shuttle, exiting from the lobby of the orphanage and to the landing pad, placed out on the bare rock of the asteroid. The two of them had never seen the building from this angle before and they were both awe-struck by the sights unfolding around them.
As the shuttle departed the bio-dome, its metal body rattling as its engines warmed up, the orphanage faded away into nothing but another dot in the endless cosmic ocean that stretched out in every direction. The stars were much brighter now that the thick glass of the dome didn’t obstruct them and the kids were dumb-struck by their beauty.
Sten left the craft on auto-pilot briefly to tend to the kids, they’d only be on the shuttle for a couple of hours but Scaarth needed his medi-gel changed and gently, Sten lifted him from the wheelchair and placed him down on a pull out changing station mounted on a wall at the back of the shuttle.
“Hold on bud, lets make sure you got plenty of painkillers for that wound. Are you excited for the astro-train?”
As he spoke, he gently lifted Scaarth’s t-shirt to reveal the now mucky bandages on his back, stained dark brown from dried blood, although there was a fresher spot in the middle. That's not good… medi-gel should prevent bleeding…
“Yea… I just hope Rex is OK without us… I-is it bad?”
Pulling the bandage off revealed a hissing blue wound under a mound of clear medi-gel, it looked like his spine was on fire under the gel, Sten’s eyes widening as he realised the extent of the injury. Whatever Mana’s psyonic was, it was preventing any standard medical tech from working and fresh blood indicated that it was still attacking Scaarth… It's a goddamn miracle this kid is still alive…
“Not gonna lie bud, it looks pretty bad. But that's why we’re getting you help right? It's not going to get any worse so we’ll keep applying the medi-gel and make sure you’re comfortable.” Sten spoke calmly but with authority in his voice, upon hearing the words, Mana came in again, her big celestial eyes were going glassy already and she reached up to hold Scaarth’s hand as he laid on the changing station.
“I-I-I am sorry Scarf… I d-d-didn’t m-mean-”
Sten looked at the girl sternly and raised his finger to his lips, silencing her immediately.
She stood there, choking back more tears and sniffling, trying to remain quiet as she thought she was in trouble.
The human knelt down slowly, smiling at her sincerely as he did.
“Mana, this was an accident. Scaarth knows that, Rex knows that, I know that. Scaarth, do you accept Mana’s apology?”
“Y-yea! I do!” Scaarth watched from slightly above, his eyes darting between Sten and Mana.
“Then there is no more apologising to be done. Let's focus on making him better. Would you like to help, Mana?”
The alien girl nodded with all the energy she could muster, wiping her tears away.
“Excellent, keep him busy or distracted whilst I change his dressing, Scaarth, just let me know if it's painful or uncomfortable OK?”
With the words said, Mana and Scaarth began playing rock/paper/scissors with each-other repeatedly, talking about bubble-bath mechs and their favourite types of cookies.
Sten expertly removed the spent medi-gel from the hole in Scaarth’s back and replaced it, administering more pain-killers as provided by the orphanage and bandaging the wound up fully once more. Once he was done, he scooped the child back up and placed him back in his wheelchair, making sure his legs and feet were OK and covered.
The journey to the train station was uneventful once Scaarth was settled again and the kids were happy to watch the stars drift by amongst the endless ebony ocean in awe as they approached.
Astro-trains briefly slow down during their constant journey at designated stations where rocket pods are launched to join onto them or launched off to be docked at the station, giving a brief 10 minute window where cargo and passengers can be moved, before the train immediately speeds up again and travels to the next station. The kids would only catch a glimpse of a titanic metal behemoth as it rocketed towards them, hundreds of carriages all held together with precise and complicated engineering. The front of the train was a massive metal spearhead, with long glimmering brilliant white lines of precious Messiahryte crystals carefully lining the chassis, housing within protective glass plates.
Sten’s shuttle was brought onboard one of the rocket pods and fired at the train as it passed with hundreds of others, seamlessly docking as their speeds aligned and an array of air-lock doors whizzed open to reveal the busy, multi-leveled innards of the trains front docking port. With various metal walkways and paths forming the hangers for the rocket pods as they arrived from the left and ejected from the right in seamless motion.
From here, a maze of carriages formed what was essentially a huge moving city with its own ecosystem and the trio would take themselves and their bags to the ticket bay and then be given instructions on how to reach their carriage. Pushing Scaarth’s little wheelchair through the many different carriages didn’t take too long and soon enough, they found themselves in a cosy little cabin. A U shape in the walls with four single person pod beds embedded within and a decent sized table in the middle of the room. This was to be their home for the next two weeks whilst the train made its way through several solar systems and many billions of miles of empty void.
As they began to look around, Sten noticed one the bags was moving a little of its own accord, the fabric shifting slightly with no outside interference.
Oh no… he didn’t…
Sten knelt down and pulled the zipper open, revealing the bright young eyes of Rex, curled up in the bag and smiling at him nervously.
“Uh-huh… I suspected as such…” Sten hid a grin as best he could and shook his head. “You waited until the train left the station too! Simon wasn’t joking, you are a smart one, aren’t you? Come on, no sense staying cramped up in that bag.” He unzipped it and allowed little Rex to climb out, prompting a squeal of delight from Mana and a happy exclaim from Scaarth who wheeled himself over and hugged his brother, nearly falling out of the chair, Sten catching him and making sure he was safe.
“Whelp, this just got a lot more difficult… settle down kids, we need to talk.”