On the second day, after our first night — that is, if you could call them that — waking up on our tin can felt like a nightmare. It took only a day to break my spirit. The packages of food were supposed to be well rationed, but having nothing to do made me want to eat to pass the time.

Tedet took to his panel to play a simple game on his personal panel. He liked practicing chess, but he wasn’t good at it. He would stare at the pieces for minutes before making any move. His face would turn red after making a move that satisfied him, only for it to turn blue once the computer took its turn.

Martin would try to do the same for a while, then become frustrated that nothing was interesting for long enough. We would chat for a little, while Tedet remained concentrated on his chess games, then break off to drink or eat, and finally take a nap. This would repeat until the equivalent of the night would come on our cozy tin can, the lights dimming, simulating the night.

The next day, which was only four hours after sleeping — and thus actually not being the next day — I woke up to eat once again, then relieved myself. I found my best friend sleeping like a peaceful log, while my boyfriend’s face was illuminated by the light of his personal panel connected by a wire to the spaceship’s computer.

“Whatcha doing?” I asked, scooting myself close into a spooning position. I was the big spoon.

“Watching the news,” he answered nonchalantly.

“Oh,” I said like it was the most rational thing, until it wasn’t anymore. “Wait, what?”

“Yea. Something is happening in Coarligf. Seems like the Terghelt Treaty is pushing in on the Raschetan. It’s been a decade, but one really thinks a war is gonna break lose. However, they’ve been unusually pushy about weapon sales to the small group of partisans and unionists in the smaller nations on their southern border.

“Do you think they might do it? Start a war to protect their interests and security?”

“Martin,” I began and answered him by making a question of my own: “How are you watching the news?”

“I’m connected to the computer. It seems the wireless connection is not working, but the cable manages to send data fast enough to watch on my panel.”

“Of course, the wireless connection doesn’t work, I’m a wizard. I screw up with radio waves. Which brings me to my question: how are you watching the news? How is the ship receiving data?”

Martin looked at me with a short-lived puzzlement. “Oh, wow. I don’t know. It’s just working.”

“Did it change?” I spoke aloud, addressing the air right before me, or maybe it was the far end of the ship’s wall.

“What changed?”

“Our wizard curse — the Witching Curse. It’s a trait that affects us simply by being magic users. It changes through time. Could be anything, like face blemishes, just like in the witch stories from the witch hunts long ago. The latest case is screwing with radio waves. Is it possible it changed recently?”

“The wireless isn’t working,” Martin tried explaining.

“But that could just be a malfunction, like you said.”

“It’s not,” said Tedet, waking up from his nap. “The wireless is working fine. You’re still screwing with it, Ed. I checked when you took a piss yesterday. Now, talk quieter, I want to sleep.”

We nodded our heads in apology and turned to whisper to each other.

“I don’t get it, then,” I said, but quieter.

“Maybe it’s space. A space thing and magic.”

“That could be it!” I said and spoke too loudly. I apologized quietly to Tedet and continued: “Magic requires a medium, space has too little of it. The vacuum of space acts like an isolating material.”

Martin nodded to my eureka moment and smiled with his adorable grim, commenting on how cute I was when it came to the magical world. I retorted with a similar comment, making an analogy between us, about him and science.

“We’re not so different you and I.” He winked and gave me a peck on the cheek.

I spooned in closer to him and I looked at his panel.

The video feed showed a radera speaking into the camera while a string of subtitles overlaid the images. The text explained the geopolitical situation, live, as more news appeared.

“Things don’t look well,” I said.

Martin did not respond to that.

After the first century of humans arriving in Sovail, very little happened when it came to wars. The first century was a time of struggle, integration, and colonization. Many nations were forcefully created by humans, while radera acted in retaliation by making coalitions and unions. The second century started with an incredibly bloody war that culminated in the defeat of radera nations. But after this, humans tried to turn the clock to when peace existed on Earth. If we could simply simulate those conditions, we could make a new world peace. An inter-species peace.

It worked.

But it came at the cost of forcing more people to accept the new world order. Another century passed by and we arrived at the third century, on the verge of the fourth, and the political forces that tried to stitch the world together seem to have finally faltered. Greater unions, treaties, and the advent of nationalism and speciesism brought us to a world that’s hanging on by a thread. Terrorist groups, partisans, religious fervor. All in the name of a better world. All calling for action.

The echoes of our arrival can still be felt almost three hundred years in the future and we cannot see the end of it. Only a few countries or regions, like Bathering, had the benefit of integrating very early on. And even we are struggling with the same issues, although at a much smaller scale, to the point it is considered negligible. Who knows if these conflicts would spark a change in the same communities, on this side of the ocean, that could turn a negligible problem into a significant one, even when remaining small.

“It’s gonna be a war,” I said, convinced that my prediction was going to be spot on. “A bloody mortal war.”

“At least it isn’t a supernatural war,” Martin joked bitterly.

“A mortal war is much worse. Because everything revolves around the material realm, where mortals hold much more power and many more individuals, these wars tend to affect the whole world and the spiritual realm. The fact that a supernatural war is also happening at the same time makes me think it isn’t a coincidence. Worse yet, it makes me think that this isn’t something that happened quickly. This has been slowly cooking and has affected the supernatural to the point of bringing it to a war as well.”

“Seems really bad,” he said, his bitter smile disappearing into a frown.

“The other times this happened were during the world wars.”

“Oh, Lord Almighty,” he said, and his face turned pale. “You don’t think…”

“I hope I’m wrong. I hope this is just a coincidence.”

To change the mood, Martin moved on to look at other types of news. The feed showed titles of famous people, advancements in technology, smaller politics of the country. Only when new scientific discoveries were mentioned did Martin stop to read the titles and the small summaries.

I felt his body’s warmth while I watched him scroll up and down. Nothing really stroked his fancy, but hearing his breathing and the sound of his heartbeat made me relax. The rhythmic breathing, interrupted by his occasional sigh, finally brought me to sleep.

About an hour later I woke up in Martin’s arm, a bit of my drool stuck to his shirt pull off in a string from my mouth as I peeled myself from him. The lights did not change, the apparent morning was not yet coming. Martin didn’t seem to be any more entertained than he was a bit ago.

“What are you reading?” I asked.

“Nothing in particular,” he answered.

The panels showed some information on possible new technologies. For him and me, they weren’t really that interesting. The silence finally stretched out for me to bring up another topic.

“They don’t want to take Reira in,” I began. “The Cabal. They don’t want her.”

Martin looked at me and stopped scrolling through the news feed. He has heard about me, the wizarding world, and the Cabal, but he has very little idea of much else besides the most superficial information. Whatever I was telling him, he probably didn’t understand what it all meant. All he could do was hum his reactions and wait for me to keep talking.

“They said that since I was referring her to them, and she was highly involved with me, they couldn’t take the risk right now. I know I’m not on good grounds with them, but I don’t think it’s fine for them to reject her based entirely on her connection with me.”

“She’s a wizard, but they don’t include her in the wizard community?” he asked.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“She isn’t a wizard until she’s ordained. But for that, she needs to go through wizard college, pass a test, and obtain her License for Wizardry, in the form of an itchy grey robe. But she needs to be accepted first.” I finished my little quip with a sigh just before continuing. “I promised her she’d become a wizard, but they don’t want to teach her. It would even make more sense to get new students before the war begins. Not that I want her to fight, but she’ll be in bigger trouble if she doesn’t learn. The supernatural smell the magic. They’ll think she’s a wizard.”

“What about you? Can’t you teach her?”

“You see how busy we are, right now? What about when the war breaks out? And I am not a good teacher, it takes real skill for that. Wizard professors make a living doing just that because they know how to do it.”

Silence spread out like cancer through the artificial atmosphere. Martin clearly looked like he wanted to help but there was very little for him to do.

“What about your wizard friend? Can’t she help?”

“She could, but she’s already on shaky ground for aiding me. I don’t want to bother her anymore with this issue. The best she could do would be to teach Reira, but I doubt Yuna has more time than I do, given she’s a Senior now, with greater responsibilities. And with the war around the corner? Forget about it. Even SAW Ravan rejected it, and she sees me favorably, often.”

Martin didn’t know what to do, it was clear he felt uncomfortable and I knew I was putting some sort of pressure on him. It was as if I was asking him to help me solve the issue, but I just needed to vent some steam. I had a talk with S.A.W. Ravan just before I headed out with my two companions, I was told that there was nothing she could do, that the decision had already been made and the only way to have it changed would be for me to change. Even if I did, it would also take time before the Council finally accepted my growth and trusted me. By the time they finally do, Reira might already be past her thirties or dead.

“I need to find someone to teach her,” I said aloud without realizing. “Someone I can trust.”

Martin came closer to me and kissed me on the cheek, he apologized for being useless and I reassured him with a kiss and a hug that he did not have to do anything but hear me out. His mere presence and acts of affection were enough to give me a boost in confidence.

“I’ll find a way, somehow. Like I always do, right? What’s one more thing? Things either work themselves out or you make them work out.”

“You’ll figure it out in time,” he reassured me.

The computer buzzed and it woke or sobered everyone up. The alarm indicated that the ship was approaching the halfway point and it would require a maneuver that would point its stern — the rear of the ship — toward the direction of our trajectory, to decelerate. This was meant to reduce all the speed we had gathered up, until now, so that we reached our destination at a more generous speed. We either did this halfway through the trip, or we would require a lot of deaccelerating in a short time, risking high Gs that could kill us, and being exponentially less efficient.

Tedet croaked, his face blue.

“So, halfway there,” he commented, and despite our alien differences, I thought I could hear a bit of anger in his voice.

No one was none-the-wiser to my uncanny ability to understand Tedet’s mood. Few humans could boast of understanding radera, but none would get my best friend.

“You seem grumpy, sleepy head,” Martin told him. “You’re not a morning person, ey?”

“Keep those jokes to yourself, Martin,” he grunted through his angry chirps.

“Just like my Eddy. No wonder you’re friends.”

I eyed my boyfriend as he debunked my early statements of pride. He had grasped my best friend in record time, and I felt defeated, but somewhat proud. I was angry and glad my lover could understand my best friend… and I couldn’t believe I was feeling jealous of it.

Martin turned around, looked at me, and winked.

What is wrong with me?

----------------------------------------

And so, after two more boring nights of the same deal, it was finally time. The computer had estimated an ETA and sounded the alarm to be ready. Despite the deaccelerating maneuvers, the ship still had to sync its speed with its destination, and given we were approaching it at, at least, escape velocity, we needed just as much energy that took us there to slow us down. The forces and Gs would be very strong, most likely comparable to planetary reentry, although involving fewer fireballs.

Ten more minutes before the syncing maneuvers would begin, and so it would give us time to prepare ourselves for it. After lunch, we changed ourselves into other suits, that also serve for EVA — extravehicular activity — made with highly resistant polymers and springy metal alloys turned to threads, to help reduce the effect of a stiff suit due to the high internal pressures. The alloys are used in the articulations of the suit to help people bend and move around in them. However, these suits are made specifically for life support in space not to support the high G maneuvers. The extreme deceleration in these suits means that we, meat bags, would need to put effort into keeping ourselves conscious.

“Everyone ready?” asked Tedet. “Remember to lock yourselves in your seats. Clench your jaws, you don’t want to bite your tongues off.”

“And you said you didn’t know how to fly a ship?” refuted Martin.

“There are basic level precautions. Hold on tight and brace yourselves. Only one more minute.”

“No more talking, let’s focus,” I concluded.

Despite how fast it was during those earlier minutes as we got ready, the last one felt like it stretched for an eternity. The inside of my helmet accentuated the sound of my breathing and the humming of the life support systems, that kept me cool, also vibrated into my eardrums. There was a lot of background noise, but there was still some ringing in my ears as we waited in silence.

I concentrated on the clock as it approached thirty seconds and the alarm sounded again, just like it did every half mark for the past ten minutes. Fifteen seconds later it would sound again, and once the clock counts ten seconds, it will beep every second. Those beeps sounded deeper than usual; I thought the world was slowing down. Despite the launch being much more dangerous, the small excitement I had due to how frenetic the day was made it much bearable. This moment had been slowly cooking up in my mind for the past two days. And now there were only five seconds left.

I took a deep breath. Three seconds left. I readied my body and mind. Two seconds left. My hands tensed and my vision suddenly turned, as if my inner ear felt disoriented. One last second. This was it. I tensed my muscles to be ready and held my breath. The sound of the beep was replaced by a mechanical voice:

“Brace,” it simply said.

Suddenly, the jerk of the ship hit me. The sound of the ship churning as its thrusters pushed everything on the opposite vector. All moving objects adhered to Newtonian Laws of Motion and tried to remain in motion at the same speed, but the new force decelerated us. Relatively speaking, we felt like we were being pushed down as the ship moved upwards. Newton drew the course and Einstein was taking the wheel; something indistinguishable from gravity pulled us into our seats.

I tensed my muscles as hard as I could while I pushed air out of my lungs. Pushing the air out felt like the hardest thing to do. I am making guttural sounds as I forced the air out of my lungs, only to feel the air rush in when I gave up the effort. The maneuver was taking longer than launch and the need to breathe as I grew tired of tensing my muscles threw me for a loop, I relaxed as I was surprised by the rush of new air into me. My muscles went limp and suddenly my neck gave up, my head fell hard and I felt the heat from my body being pulled downward.

Only for a very small frame of time, I had the lucidity to think. I couldn’t tell how long it was but all I could think, as I felt the control of my body slip from my figurative grip, was how that was it for me. My hands, legs, and head were now dangling. My body was at the mercy of physics, and I noticed it now more so than ever. My body was made to oppose these same forces, it was designed with that in mind, the only issue was that these same forces were now an order of magnitude greater and sustained for longer than I could ever handle.

It took no time before the curtains fell over my vision, but not before I could not think anymore. I was gone.

But the lights came back, and I lifted my head, my brain booting up from an emergency saved file that remembered my terrible condition. I lifted my head and I felt all the programs slowly loading back in, my vision came first but I could not understand the images until I fully came through. The sound I was listening to was no longer in the distance.

“Eddy!” I heard Martin talk. “Eddy, are you alright?”

“Yes,” I said on autopilot.

I knew Martin was talking and that he was asking a question that required a yes and a no answer, but my mind could only go that far until it finished loading everything up. Once I was at 90% capacity, my memory told me what I was just asked, and tried to continue accordingly.

“I’m alright. Yes. Just a bit dizzy.”

“Good. We just have to wait for Tedet to come to.”

I nodded, still a bit lost from the lack of oxygen.

“How long was I out? I think it felt like a long time.”

“You passed out the moment it all ended. You woke up almost instantly.”

“Wow,” I answered, not knowing how else to respond.

I took a few seconds to recuperate while I waited for Tedet, who regained consciousness seconds later. His groggy pimples flared a kaleidoscope of colors. Tedet didn’t seem to know what was happening even when asked, but moments later we visually saw him regain himself.

He announced his full reboot by turning to us and announcing, laconically, with an: “Alright.”

There was no time to waste, Tedet showed us with his go-getter attitude. He simply unbuckled himself and asked Martin to turn the ship’s hatch towards the Ark. Martin, a little taken aback by how fast Tedet was acting, took a few seconds to respond while my best friend started towards the hatch… floating.

Space, I thought. We’re in space.

I was still a little out of it, but I held myself as the ship turned on its axis. The windows were not looking in the right direction, there was no way for me to look at the Ark with my own eyes, but the cameras of the ship were pointing towards it. The screens showed a black image with a little patch of light that could’ve been a sunbeam.

“There’s no way for us to see the ship from here,” said Martin. He pointed towards a sunbeam and spoke: “That’s it. But it looks more like a band of pale yellow.”

I frowned. Nothing like what I thought would be. What I was finally aware of was my weightlessness. Again, I thought of being in space. There were things I was hoping to see, some sort of awe-inspiring view that I was not given, but the rest of the experiences were still there, and they were all screaming at me.

I was suddenly feeling anxious again.

“Come on,” Tedet beckoned. “We’re ready. Let’s get this over with so we can go back to Sovail.”

“You don’t like space?” Martin asked, half seriously, half mockingly.

“Yeah.”

And that was all he said.

I unbuckled myself and headed straight to the hatch. The world was suddenly moving fast again, figuratively. My people were so eager to continue, but I just wanted to wait a little while, to work on my feelings and my anxiety. They weren’t noticing me, they weren’t aware of how I was feeling. I reached out to touch my head and became aware of my helmet once again, as well as Tedet and Martin’s helmets, and how I couldn’t see their faces very well even inside the well-lit cabin of the ship.

I floated towards the hatch and held to a railing. My grip was crushing the railing. With all my nervousness, I would likely bend it through the sheer force of my grip. We were moving too fast. This was too much for my liking.

Tedet was reaching for the panel as the door behind us in the airlock closed. The next step was to pull a vacuum. I wasn’t ready for it.

“Wait!” I shouted. “Give me some time. This is happening too fast. The moment you press that button there’s no going back. Don’t you want to take some time to take it all in? We’re about to go on a spacewalk. We’ll be going into — or out to — space. Aren’t you scared? Afraid?”

“Eddy,” interjected my boyfriend. “We’re here for you. We’re not gonna let anything bad happen to you.”

“You have nothing to fear Ed,” continued Tedet. “Whatever happens, we can fix it.”

While Martin was being cute and nice, Tedet talked to my inner self. He addressed me as a mechanic. We know problems, mistakes, and malfunctions can occur, but we exist to fix them. There’s nothing we cannot fix. Tedet knew exactly what I needed to hear and thought I saw sadness in Martin’s eyes when he realized it was my friend who made me feel better, but he also felt reassured and almost glad to have him there. Martin turned to smile at my best friend and Tedet nodded back — something he has learned to do — to reassure him he appreciated the sentiment.

“Okay,” I said. “I trust you guys. We’re gonna finish this job quickly.”

And with a signal, they all turned to the second hatch of the airlock. I was ready for what was out there waiting for us.