Chapter 30
..[ SYLVIA ]..
When had been her birthday? Last Week? Or had that been the Week before?
Like Mativo, Mondhe didn’t like having big celebrations. Unlike Mativo, she did like having celebrations. It had been a small affair with less than ten people in attendance. And she had loved it. It was the little many things that set her apart from Mativo that Sylvia enjoyed the most. They were a reminder that she wasn’t obsessed with being just like Mativo. But there were reminders that she might be obsessed too. Like the gifts. Everyone had given her something, with Sylvia giving her /*CoolAppropriateGift*/. But Mativo had gone overboard.
Fifteen been the age at which the hybrids were considered adults capable of making decisions for their own wellbeing, he had given her the frameworks of a Class Three shuttle and the allowance to work on it. She would design everything. From the engine core to the engines, how the shuttle’s internals worked, to how it looked on the outside. By the end of it, she would prove just how much she had learnt about the shuttles in her studies. And have a way to travel for hundreds of light-Years away from any habitable planet, all on her own. It was the clearest sign of been given her own freedom. And all other gifts had been forgotten. She still took them with her, but it was clear what she would be talking about for the foreseeable future.
Why was she thinking about Mondhe’s birthday again? Right, Sylvia was not happy with the way things were progressing with the Talingi. They weren’t bad, just that she wished that things were better. Or maybe that they had done things differently somehow. If she were being honest with herself, she wasn’t sure what could have been done different. Every little thing she thought of changing always seemed to have negative consequences when she thought about it. She was just… she wished she could redo things until she found a version that she liked best.
“Why doesn’t someone hurry up and invent time travel already?” she asked absentmindedly.
Maybe she could use it to go back in time and try altering everything that could have affected their situation different. As it was, they were going to leave the Talingi planet without having done anything in terms of restoring its economy. And that wouldn’t help with the overall tax goal of The Empire.
“Because time travel doesn’t exist,” Mativo said, with his head laid on top of the conference table.
They we currently in the conference room of the Senior Deck after another Senior Officers Council meeting. They had talked about a lot of things, but it had mostly been about the Talingi situation and how to proceed.
“You don’t know that,” Mũsango commented to his left.
She was one of the few people still left in the room. Jacy was having a discussion with some of the other Chiefs. Maybe she should have been there, but if it had needed her involvement, she was sure Jacy would have told her. Their relationship had improved considerably, and not because she and Kacy were back together again. It had gotten better even before she knew that had become a thing.
“But I do.” The certainty in Mativo’s voice made her think that time travel would never be discovered. But only for a moment.
“You can’t be sure,” she told him.
He lifted his head from the table and looked at her directly. Then asked, “How close am I to becoming immortal?”
“Very.”
And it was true. That was not something she liked thinking about too much. It wasn’t that she had any issues with anti-aging. She herself had undergone a mild version of anti-aging treatment. But Mativo’s hadn’t been mild at all.
“So, I’ll be alive for thousands, millions, billions, maybe even trillions of years. There are things I wished I had done differently in my life. If time travel gets discovered within that time, I would do just about anything to get to use it to come back in time and do them differently. I still remember those things happening so that means I never went back.
“There are two explanations for that: either no time travel or I’m dead. I don’t think I’m dead.” He finished with a finality that belayed any question.
“You could be,” Mũsango told him. “Don’t be so sure of yourself.”
“It is not that. It would take a lot just to kill me and keep me dead as it is. The longer I stay alive, the harder it’s going to get for anyone to ever have a way of ever completely killing me,” he told her.
“Maybe the reason you don’t remember anything is because the change led to a new timeline,” Mũsango offered a new explanation.
“That’s even more absurd than time travel itself,” Mativo exclaimed.
“You don’t believe in the existence of multiple universes?” she asked him in surprise. She would have thought someone like him would jump at the idea of multiverses.
“It’s not that I don’t believe. I just find the idea that a human decision can lead to the creation of whole new universe absurd. We are powerful and important, but we are not that powerful and important. Maybe one day our decisions will lead to the creation of other universes. But I’m pretty certain it won’t be in the way we think about it nowadays.”
“Some of the greatest ideas were considered idiocy before they were proven to be true,” Mũsango argued. But Mativo seemed done with the argument, having laid back onto the table.
But he still asked one last time, “And how many others were proven to be just plain idiocy?”
The room had cleared up considerably, with a few stragglers. She noticed Jacy making her way to the door and followed her. After bidding Mũsango and Mativo farewell. She caught up with her a few steps outside the door.
“What did you think about that?” she asked as way of opening up a conversation.
“You still want to talk about the Talingi?” Jacy asked back. “I would have thought you would want a break from it all.”
“I’ll get a break when we leave this place behind.”
“We’ll just find ourselves in another civilization that needs a diplomatic envoy just as much,” Jacy told.
“They always do need that, don’t they? Even the peaceful, welcoming ones,” Sylvia said as she tried to keep up with Jacy’s pace. For a short person, she sometimes walked fast. Very fast. Like she was in a hurry to get to somewhere. “You still haven’t answered my question.”
“I don’t know…” Jacy looked ahead in thought, thankfully slowing down a little. “It’s just… they are going to need a firm hand for a few Years.”
“You think that we aren’t firm enough them?” Sylvia asked surprised. Jacy hadn’t said much during the meeting. That and Mativo’s lack of contribution, she had thought things were going fine in their view. She was beginning to doubt that. Maybe they had just given up.
“I don’t think we can be firm enough with them.” She added, “At least not us. Maybe the next ship. Maybe not.”
“A more permanent presence is what you think is needed,” Sylvia tried to put her thoughts into words that made sense.
“Yeah. An Explorer Class ship does not have enough personnel for a project like this.”
“The nearest Colony Class ship is close to a Year away,” Sylvia finally understood. She thought that Jacy was exaggerating the situation though.
“And that’s if she hasn’t left any considerable force behind.”
“Don’t you think you are being a little pessimistic? We have made headways in the meetings. The next delegation might have them joining The Empire in Months-time.”
“You are looking at the problem from a diplomatic stand point, dealing with the planet as a whole. Or a few sections that make a whole. And that makes it easy to solve the relations issues. But there are a lot of different views for the average Talingi,” Jacy said as they made their way to the cafeteria.
Sylvia was surprised she hadn’t noticed as they made the way. She hadn’t even realized they had been heading to the Kitchen Deck. But now that they were there, her stomach was making her aware that she hadn’t had anything substantial to eat in a while. There were always snack available during meetings, but those didn’t really keep the hunger pangs at bay for long.
“Micromanaging everything would take up a lot of resources we can’t afford to invest,” Sylvia said, continuing the conversation even as her mouth watered. Letting her know it would rather be doing something else altogether.
“Exactly my point.”
“Oh.”
She realized she had in a way said what Jacy had been saying all along. But she didn’t think micromanaging was necessary either. The political leaders seemed capable enough of managing their own people. The same ones who had been about to nuke each other? A part of her asked. Maybe she had been starving more than she had thought.
After washing her hands, she got herself chapatis, meat stew and cabbage salad dressing; and went to join Jacy on her table. Jacy had gone for ugali, meat stew and a kale-spinach salad. She had also taken an avocado with her.
“Where did you get that?” she said, pointing the avocado Jacy was scooping into her plate. She wanted one too.
“It had been on the fruit table,” Jacy answered without even looking from her treasure.
“I didn’t see any when I got there,” Sylvia pointed out, with a bit of a whine in her voice. “All I saw were oranges and bananas.”
“It was the last one,” Jacy said, finally looking at her. “You want a piece?”
She nodded enthusiastically, there was no way she would say no to that. Jacy cut three-quarters of the remaining half had added it to her. Which she immediately took a spoonful to her mouth. It was divine. All that sweet oily jelly. She swallowed immediately when she realized she hadn’t thanked Jacy for her generosity.
“You could have taken any of the other fruits,” Jacy said as she half-licked her fingers clean of some of the stew sauce.
“Those are don’t go well with any meal. They are more like desserts. I was planning to take one of each on our way out.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Mmh… maybe I’ll do that too,” Jacy said.
“You already had an avocado, leave the rest to us.”
“There is enough for everyone. Besides, you know there is more avocadoes in the kitchen, right?”
She knew that, but she didn’t feel like going to ask for more avocadoes to be brought out. She had other more urgent business to take of, i.e. putting the meal on her plate into her stomach.
“How are things going with Kacy?”
Kacy told her sometimes, but it was a good idea to have the point of view of the other party involved. Especially if they were both her friends. It could come in handy the next time the two had a misunderstanding.
“Fine,” Jacy answered. “More than fine, great.”
“Good.”
They continued their meal as they conversed about other menial topics of their lives. It was always nice to just talk about things that didn’t involve the fate of a whole civilization every once in a while. It kept her grounded, reminding her of the things she valued in life and what she could be offering to all these new civilizations they kept meeting. And what they had to offer in return. As much as it was tiring to spend Days, Weeks, or even Months on diplomatic talks; there was always the other side of these encounters.
..[ MATIVO ]..
A few Hours after the Senior Officers Council meeting, I found myself in Mondhe’s design room a.k.a. my personal lab’s conference room. Wait, I think I got the order wrong. Anyway, ever since her birthday, she had taken to using it to design what would be on her shuttle. And like the vain character she had somehow become, she began with the outside appearance. She hid that from me, maybe even from everyone else. Everything else, she let us see.
She had been surprisingly fast in coming up what adjustments she wanted done to the original design of the shuttle. I had given her a Class Three shuttle and those normally had enough height room of around two and half decks. For a personal shuttle, that was a lot of room to work with.
She had kept the rough original layout of having the bridge and living quarters on the top deck. The cargo bay and everything engineering were on the third deck. The weaponry was well distributed on the shuttle, giving her a spherical access to her enemies.
She had added a few things that hadn’t been on the shuttles of that class. A personal lab and gym on the top deck. The gym looked a lot like my personal lab without the conference room. Why she needed an observation room in a personal shuttle? I didn’t know and I wasn’t going to ask. She also had a miniature bionics lab in the second deck. Just enough to serve one person’s needs for around six months.
Everything else had been redesigned for use by a single person. Or a limited crew. The bridge had been reduced from six stations to only three. And two of those were clearly passenger seats. All the control consoles were located in front of the front-central seat. But some of them were detachable, capable of being moved to any of the other seats.
The living quarters had been reduced to six but one of them was more than double in size while the others had considerably reduced in size. Anyone staying in them would know they were not welcome on the shuttle. There was still a lot of space left blank. What she intended to fill it with, only she knew.
But when I walked in, she quickly hid what she had been working on.
“The outside again?” I asked, and only got a glower in return. Her middle head hair was standing upright, while the ones to the sides were puffed out. “Relax, I didn’t see anything.”
The amount of control she had on that hair of hers was amazing. Most of the other cat-based hybrids had it too. And a few other base-species, but not as common as in the cats. If asked, I would biasedly say she had the most control I had ever seen. She sometimes outdid the cats themselves. The hair control had begun during her late preteen years and only reached its current degree around her fourteenth year. Late fourteen. And with her puffed out like that, she looked dangerous. Real dangerous. If she had gone full out with the canines, the claws and the lashing tail; it would have been epic. I had yet to see all of them combined, only some. Maybe she could growl like a cheetah too?
“How long before we get to see the finished thing?” I asked as I took a seat as far as I could without appearing like I was afraid. The middle of the conference table. She was still puffed out a little.
“A Month to finish on the design,” she said as she settled down on her seat at the front of the room. At least she hadn’t had it on the presentation board. “Another four to get everything installed.”
“I thought it would take you a Year and half, maybe two, to get done.”
“It would have. But I decided to get some help installing the systems to get done faster,” she said.
“Impatient, aren’t you?”
“I just can’t wait to get out there on it.” She was smiling now. Everything was back where it should be. “Can you imagine it? Out on some resort planet enjoying myself in the beaches, maybe even going for a swim with native water folk.”
“You call them that and you might find yourself making first contact with intelligent water-based species,” I warned her.
“I wouldn’t mind.”
“Please don’t go discovering water-based civilizations.”
“Why not? They would be cool.” She even had the gall to be all dreamy about it. Maybe I should have put in the effort to make her a little less girly. I blamed Pink. And no, I was not responsible for having being the one to introduce her to Pink.
“I don’t want them. Ever.” I decided to change the topic when I saw the look of glee forming on her face. “How did the core test go?”
That’s right. She was already that far ahead. She had made modifications to it. What those were was another secret she kept to herself.
“It went well. I should be done with installation by the end of next Week.”
That was not what I had expected to hear. Not the success of the test, but the other part.
“You could be flying that shuttle in two Weeks-time.” I nearly exclaimed, and I wasn’t sure if it was happiness or pure surprise.
“Not exactly.” She sounded defeated. “I still have to work out the engines themselves.”
“You are not done with the engines themselves? Then what did—”
She interrupted me, “No. I’m done with the engines. It is where I want them on the shuttle that is the problem. Wherever I place them, it will affect the overall design of the ship. I’m having trouble deciding that.”
Well, that was a pickle. With how secretive she was with the outside appearance, she wasn’t going to ask anyone for help with that. It would be something she would have to solve on her own.
“If it’s something you want help with, I’m here and other than going in there and getting thrown around by the sims, I’ve nothing else to do right now,” I told her as pointed past her and into the observation room and simulation room ahead.
“Not with this.” Like I had thought, but it didn’t hurt to offer. She then begun packing up her things. “Let’s go and get thrown around together.”
“What?” I had never collaborated with anyone on the simulations. Never.
“On the sims. I usually do it with Jacy. But since you offered.” And she was already done packing her work. We all had our lockers in the observation room. Except for Sylvia.
“I didn’t offer.”
“You said you wanted to help me.” She was standing there looking at me like I was wasting her time.
“This is not what I had in mind.” I refused to give in to her judgmental look. She should have grown out of it by now. “Besides, I don’t collaborate on the sims.”
“I know. Now, come on.”
“But I said—” and she had already disappeared into the observation room.
…
“There is no fun in fighting like this,” Mondhe said as she got back to the center of the simulation room.
“That’s because you keep finding yourself on the floor,” I said.
“You are enjoying this, aren’t you?” she asked with an annoyed tone to her voice.
“That’s hurtful of you to say,” I said while holding my hand to my chest and putting on a pained expression. “Why would I enjoy throwing around a willful child?”
“I’m not a child!” she exclaimed as she made an attempt at hitting me. Which I easily sidestepped and slapped her hard on her back. She groaned as she turned, rubbing her back lightly. “Besides, I’m nearly as tall as you are.”
“Height doesn’t determine your age. You are still a young fourteen-year old.” She had gotten tall in her mid-teens. Those cheetah legs were finally making themselves known. I suspected she would top at around one meter seventy-five at least. But I didn’t think she would make it to one meter eighty, the tallest cheetah based female. One meter eighty-two was the height of the tallest cheetah based hybrid, a twenty-year old male. Several actually.
“I just don’t understand why I need to learn this. I prefer pounding and tearing into my opponents,” she argued while we slowly circled each other.
“You are a cheetah based hybrid, speed is in your DNA. You need to learn to utilize your natural advantages.”
“I’m always fast. You have said so before,” she said, turning back and going anticlockwise. Her gaze firmly fixed to my eyes. That was good.
“You can’t always rely on such kind of speed.”
She moved again, leading with a distractive water punch. I knocked it out of its trajectory as I moved to intercept her with my other hand, catching her by the throat. I used her momentum to turn fast and slam her hard on the floor before she could think to do anything to me. I heard her groan as she slacked down. Pain or displeasure, I wasn’t sure. A bit of both maybe.
“You are too slow. I shouldn’t be able to catch you at all. It is what I’m talking about when I say using your natural advantages.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked as she sat up but still stayed on the simulation room floor. We rarely, if ever visited the other simulation rooms available on the Swift.
“Your muscles have the highest ratio of fast twitch fibers to other fibers that I’ve seen to date. You should be too explosive for just about anyone to keep up with.”
“That’s… I don’t know. I’m giving it my all,” she said as she got up again.
“Then you don’t know how to fully activate all your muscles. I blame myself. How could I not have trained you on that?”
I had been a negligent ignorant teacher. I couldn’t even believe I had never thought to test how much of her power she could actually access. It could be I had focused so much on training her access to the Energy that I forgot about her physical side. In my defense, I worked on those in my own times. I had just assumed she did too.
I suddenly found a hand fast closing in to my throat; she had attacked in my moment of apparent distraction. I slightly twisted my upper body as I inclined my head to the side. The back of her hand glazed my neck on its way past me. I tripped her with my leg, but she used her muscular tail to balance herself as she turned for a claw. She managed to nick my cheek, but I had already caught her by the throat again.
“That was quick recovery,” I told her as we moved back to our positions. “Though, the first attack doesn’t always have to be to the throat or head. You can start with a crippling sternum or kidney hit. You might have landed one of those.”
She took it in, slowly nodding her head. I could see the signs of frustration in her eyes. They had lost the energy they had had when I told her we would be working on something new. It was frustrating her she couldn’t reach me.
“You need to focus a lot of energy to the movement that gets you close. But you still need to hold back some for what comes after.”
That got her a determined look in her face. Temporary washing away the despairing look she had had before.
“Clear your mind of all but what is. See yourself where you want to be, and then will yourself there. Don’t try to move your body, let the brain do that for you. It is much faster than you can think.”
I saw the moment she actually applied what I was telling her too late to do anything about it. One moment she was three four meters away from; and the next moment I was falling to the ground with a hand to my throat.
But she was already slacking her hand and that allowed me turn us as we fell. She landed on the floor with me on top of her and my hand on her throat. She was done, completely exhausted. Her eyes were already lidding over from the exertion.
“Hey! Stay with me,” I told her as I slapped her cheek. But all she managed was a groan.
I brought her up to sitting position. I hoped that would keep her brain going as it tried to maintain her sitting posture.
“Jacy!!” I called to the observation room.
Only seconds later, she, Dominic and Mbithe were already in the simulation room. With a stretcher to take her to the recovery room. It had seen a lot of work ever since the trial room had been turned into a full-on simulation room.
“What happened?” Dominic asked as they loaded her on to the stretcher. Jacy had already injected her with an emergency energy dose. It was developed during my early Days of nanobot trials. And it still saw frequent use in the simulation room. Jacy had slowed down her thirst for her own death in the simulation room, but she hadn’t snuffed it out completely. She still had one or two near suicidal bouts every once in a while. She had even dragged Mondhe into a few of those.
“She drew too much in that last attack,” Mbithe said as she moved to one side of the stretcher. She then turned to me and asked, “What did you tell her?”
“I don’t know. To clear her mind?”
“I don’t think that is what caused this,” Jacy said as she helped Mbithe carry the stretched to the recovery room. With us following behind them. Even I was doubtful that would have done it.
“I was saying a lot of things on the fly. Forgive me for not remembering. Weren’t you guys listening?”
“I was more focused on what you guys were doing and your bioreadings,” Dominic said, and a look at the others confirmed that. I doubted Andrew and Park would have been paying attention to our banter either.
I would have to go through our training session to determine what exactly I had told her. And then I would have to have a talk with her about knowing her limits and not pushing past them. What would be the point of all that power if she ended up killing herself in the process? In one attack even. And it hadn’t even been successful. If she had at least taken me out, then it would have been something. But she hadn’t, only leaving herself defenseless.
But it was good, very good. She had moved faster than I had ever seen anyone move. Not once. With enough training, I could, maybe, keep up with her speed. But that would assume she didn’t train too. If only she could find the energy to keep doing that. And still be able to keep fighting afterwards. That was what a cheetah should fight like. One brutal attack, too fast even for the keenest of prey to do anything about it. There was a reason of all the cats, the cheetah had the highest kill success rate. Even a pride of lions couldn’t compare to that. Of course, a lot had to do with choosing the right prey to hunt. Lions were notorious for going after prey even an idiot would know not to mess with. Over half the prey they went after was capable of fighting back and coming out victorious more often than not.
That episode had brought home the point of how her physical side of training had slacked behind. She would have to make efforts in that regard. And I was sure she wasn’t going to like what I had in mind for her.