by Luigi Robles
Pycca couldn’t help but feel jittery. Could it be that being alone with Fain actually made her nervous? But why?
“Pycca,” Fain said. “Do you think that you will be able to fix the gravity core by tomorrow? You can grab as much help as you want.”
“Uh, yeah,” Pycca said. “But I can do it all by myself. I didn’t dig into it all that much when I opened it. It should be a piece of cake. I’ll have it done by midday.”
Fain and Pycca were the only ones left standing in the corridor.
“Looks like you are a master engineer after all,” Fain said. “But to be clear, I didn’t ask because I doubted you could.” He smiled slightly.
“Then why did you ask?”
“Because I don’t think I can trust anyone else to work on those cores other than you. And plus, you took it apart, so you should put it back together.”
“Really? Not even Kya?”
“Not even Kya… I mean, I don’t doubt that she can put it back together eventually. And she could probably do it expertly. But there’s a lot on her plate. And I trust you and your work.”
“So, am I like your second choice or something?” Pycca pulled a face.
“No,” Fain said as he smiled. “You are my first choice to do the thing you love to do. Getting that Alcubierre drive up and running should be our top priority.”
“Wait!”
Fain stared at Pycca with a curious expression on his face.
“So, you know about the Alcubierre drive?” Pycca finally asked. “Like, you’ve actually read about it? And when the Ochilenes were talking about how Sodenia could travel FTL, you were able to identify the traits of the old theory?”
“Yeah…”
“I’m impressed, Fain Jegga. You’ve actually read scientific papers. And old scientific papers at that. I thought that no one in the room would recognize that the Ochilenes were talking about an Alcubierre drive.”
“There’s nothing to be impressed about, really,” Fain said. “When the Acram first came to Earth, I was just a child. A child minding my own life, going to school, playing video games; I even had friends. But when they came, destroying my city without hesitation, it flipped my world upside down. I lost everything I had, including my parents. Then, when they announced that ESAF would be a thing, I knew that I wanted to be a part of it. So, I tried to learn as much as I could about space, about g-forces, about traveling through space. I wanted to one day show up on the Acram planet and do to them what they did to us.”
Pycca would never have guessed that Fain had this side to him. She had always seen Fain as the perfect soldier: intelligent, fast thinking, agile… But now she saw him as human. A human with a painful past. Much like her own. If Fain only knew what she too had been through, the hurt that the Acram had caused her. If he only knew that they were both from the same city. But she knew that things like this would have to wait. Perhaps, if they lived through this, she could one day sit down next to him and tell him everything. And he would listen, because he would understand it all without trying to understand.
“So, I read up,” Fain continued. “I studied everything I could. When I wasn’t training, I was reading. And the Alcubierre drive was one of those things that stuck.” He pointed to his head.
Pycca nodded with a slight smile. She felt smitten, staring at him and standing so close to him. Unusually close. In that moment, she realized that this was the closest she had ever been to Fain. And he wasn’t moving either. Being so close, Pycca was able to catch his scent; he smelled so good. Everything about him was clean. His breath was minty, his teeth the perfect shade of white. And it was then that she began to feel self-conscious. She knew that she wasn’t one to have bad breath. In fact, Pycca had always thought of herself as an extra clean person. But in this type of situation, she wanted to be sure.
“Well, I won’t keep you any longer,” Pycca said as she put out her hand, calling for a pod. “I am sure you have a lot of things to do.”
“I need to get in touch with Green and maybe even Truman and give them a progress report,” Fain said. “After that, I have to come up with a way to stop the Golden Armada. And I’ll probably work on that until my eyelids close. But first, can I pod you home?”
The comment made Pycca smile.
“I wouldn’t want to bother you,” Pycca said. “Plus, your quarters are the opposite way from mine. But I guess, with the efficiency of the corridor pods, that’s not really a good reason.”
“Yeah, it isn’t,” Fain said. “But I should go. Perhaps another time.”
“If we live through this,” Pycca said. “There will be a time.”
“Oh, that’s good,” Fain said. “But for tomorrow, once you are done, come see me. I need to know how it goes.”
“I will.”
A pod pulled up in the corridor, and without giving it a second thought, Pycca hopped in. In a matter of moments, she was already outside her quarters.
12
Warm-blooded
The next morning, Pycca woke up with a double shot of energy. She was excited to get to work on that old gravity core that she had disassembled. She knew that it would take a few hours at the most.
She went about her morning, showering, eating breakfast, and reading the latest news from Earth. Then she remembered the assignment that Fain had given everyone in their last meeting with the Ochilenes.
“Oh crap, oh crap,” Pycca said as she glanced towards the large clock on the wall. “I don’t have much time left.”
She hurried to her desk and opened the drawer that had good old-fashioned paper. She pulled a few sheets out as she sat down. Pycca kept her quarters neat most of the time and knew where everything was on the first try. She stared at the blank piece of paper for a few seconds and then reached into the pencil drawer and pulled one out.
OK, you can do this, Pycca, she thought. You can do this, Pycca Evans… OK, well, maybe you can’t. But you can at least give it a try. A good try. Let’s see… How can we beat one million and one ships? We have six months to come up with a solution. If everything goes right, the Ochilenes will build ships non-stop near the asteroid belt. But six months is an awfully small amount of time. The Ochilenes didn’t say just how many ships they could build in the six months before the Armada came, but! There’s only so much that can be done.
She tapped the eraser side of the pencil against her lips as she thought. Let’s say that the star builders are really successful and almost nothing goes wrong, and they can build, for example, a thousand Sodenia-sized ships.
She jotted the numbers down on the paper.
1,000,001 / 1000 = 1000 and change
That would leave around a thousand ships for each one of our ships, she thought. Last time around when we faced those odds, we made it by a string-like margin. And every one of the ships that goes up against the Acram Armada would have to be just as good as Sodenia and its crew, if not better. And where will we even find such people? It took fourteen years for ESAF to find us. I don’t think our team can be duplicated or even come close to it. And to build a thousand ships the size of Sodenia seems too unlikely. Even for an alien race that specializes in building. We are royally screwed.
Pycca sighed and blew a strand of hair off her face.
Maybe I’m thinking about this the wrong way, she mused. I’m not a strategist. I’m an engineer. So, what would an engineer do?
“Hmmm.”
What if facing them head-on is not something we are required to do. All we really need to do is protect Earth. We need to spread them out as much as we can, attacking from afar. We’ll keep them as busy as we can for as long as we can. We need decoys. Drones, lots and lots of drones. Low-manned ships controlled by people from within Sodenia, if possible.
Feeling satisfied, she wrote it all down, this time using a nearby digital pad and a lot more detail. She sent it to Kya once she was done. She then looked at the time and finished getting ready for her day. She pulled up her hair and made a tight bun. Only a f
ew hair strands were left on each side of her face, but she didn’t mind them. She knew that she would be a mess once she was done putting the core back together.
She hurried to the lower portside wing of Sodenia, where the core she had disabled was. She took the set of tools she would need with her. Sodenia’s wings were large, so much so that if she didn’t know that she was in one of them, it would look like almost any other part of the ship. Except for the docks, housing, and storage rooms, which were considerably more spacious. They only called them Sodenia’s wings because from afar they looked like wings, although they were stubby and short compared to the actual ship. But now the design of the ship was beginning to make sense to her. They weren’t wings, they were in fact part of the drive. Part of what allowed Sodenia to move through space FTL. And maybe, just maybe, she thought, they helped with some aerodynamics when in atmosphere. But she would have to ask Fain that question.
When she got there, she noticed something she hadn’t noticed before. She felt stupid for not seeing it before. The gravity cores allocated in the wing were different from the ones she was used to working on. They were more robust, and larger—quite a bit larger, actually.
She planted the palm of her hand on her forehead and let out a frustrated sigh.
“Why didn’t I notice this before?” she said through gritted teeth.
She took a few deep breaths attempting to cool off then she instantly and expertly got to work. After using several of her tools, she was in the zone. The zone was one of her favorite places to be because to her, it was the place where nothing else mattered, the place where everything made sense, where it was only her and the thing she was repairing.
She went at it for five hours straight, until the last bolt was torqued properly and everything was secured. She began cleaning her hands and her tools once she was finished.
“Kya, can you hear me?” she asked as she admired her finished work and the two lines of gravity cores behind it. So, this will let us travel FTL? She thought the question while she waited for Kya’s response. I wonder how the Herrion were able to harness gravity with such precision. “Kya, can you hear me?” Pycca asked again, this time using her wristband.
“Yes, I can hear you,” Kya said warmly. “Is there anything I can assist you with?”
“Have we figured out a way to operate these cores?”
“I have actually found detailed instructions in the Herrion archives along with an extensive map of the known galaxy.”
“Instructions?”
“The closest thing to instructions, I should say. More of a good idea of how the FTL drive works. I only needed to know where to look, and how to look for it. The Herrion tend to label everything as irrelevant, and when you have a zettabit of information, things often go unnoticed.”
“At least we get to have some good news. Go ahead and switch them on for me. Let’s see if they still work. But don’t activate them while I’m here. I get the feeling that I’m not supposed to be around while they are activated.”
The core’s many lights flickered on slowly at first, but then after a few seconds, they were on solid. Each one of the cores hummed to life softly. Though unmoving, Pycca knew better than to touch. She instantly thought of those warning signs outside a high voltage transformers and wondered why wasn’t one here.
“Yeah, it looks like it worked,” Pycca said into her wristband as she continued cleaning her tools. “Send me a copy of your findings so that I can begin to study up on the Alcubierre drive.”
“Alcubierre drive?” Kya asked. “Is that what you call these cores?”
“Yeah,” Pycca said. “I haven’t even thought of it that way, but we can call it that. If the others don’t have a problem with it, that should be its name. It reminds me of a simpler time, a time when humanity still used to dream.”
“Very well. I will send you the Alcubierre drive’s files. Would you like an original unedited copy? Or the files I have already separated and translated.”
“The last one would be nice,” Pycca said as she finished putting the last of her tools away. “By the way, where is Fain located now?”
“He is near the docks, supervising the Ochilenes’ departure. Should I let him know you are on the way?”
“No, that won’t be necessary. I think I’ll head over to my quarters and change before I meet with him. Just please let him know that the core is now up and running.”
Pycca made her way back to her quarters. She took her time to get there, trying to relax on the way. But even without being in a hurry, she managed to make it to her quarters in a matter of minutes.
Once there, she headed straight to the bathroom and turned on the faucet. She splashed warm water on her face and began scrubbing gently. The action of the water removing the oil felt invigorating to her. She then looked at herself in the mirror as she dabbed the excess water off her face.
She reminded herself that she was pretty, at least by the standards that she was aware of. Her eyebrows and eyelashes were prominent and always well kept. Her eyes were round, and on the larger side of things, while her lips were a nice size and always flushed red. Not bad, at all she thought. But then she caught a glimpse of her neck and her hair, and they were both less than pristine. Her hair looked dusty, and there were grease marks all over her neck. “Ahh, dammit,” Pycca said as she hurried to turn on the shower. “Now I’m really going to be late.”
She took off her clothes in a hurry and jumped in the shower while the water was still warming up.
“Screw me,” she yelled as she felt the bracing cold water.
Luckily, it only took a few more seconds for the water to fully warm.
“Yup, and that was me trying to be careful not to get dirty as I worked. You sure did a great job, Pycca,” she muttered.
She hurried through the shower, hoping that she wouldn’t miss a spot of grease somewhere on her body.
“This is definitely better,” she murmured as she dried off and blow-dried her hair.
She threw on a fresh uniform, dabbed some perfume on her wrists and neck, and started to put her hair back into the same bun. But before she fastened the bun in place she thought, I always wear my hair up. But that’s only because it gets in the way of my work. Maybe I should leave it down this time. For a change. Yeah, just for a change. Larissa always wears her long, black, shiny, perfect-freaking-looking hair down, and Eora wears it down also. Although, Eora’s hair is kind of short, and who knows what color this time. Why can’t I wear mine down also?
Pycca let her hair down, brushed and straightened it as best she could, then grabbed a hair band and secured the ponytail mid-way down the hair shaft. She looked in the mirror one last time, instantly agreeing with herself that this hairstyle was more her than the crappy old bun.
“Kya, where is Fain now?” Pycca asked as she tidied things up in the vanity.
“Fain is currently in the cafeteria,” Kya said from the nearest speaker in the wall. “Would you like me to let him know you are coming?”
“No, it’s fine. I don’t need a grand entrance or anything like that. I’ll head over there now. Can you prepare a pod for me?”
“Certainly.”
The pod made light work of the distance between the cafeteria and Pycca’s quarters. As she got out of the pod, the pleasant aromas of various foods filled the corridor. The cafeteria was buzzing with people. The sight of a nearly full cafeteria made Pycca glance at her wristband for the time. It’s was 1415 hours, and that was over an hour past lunch time.
Everyone must be past due a lunch break, Pycca thought as she slowly walked in, scanning the crowd for Fain. They must have been busy all morning, and they are barely catching up with their day. Her own stomach felt a little empty and in need of food.
Out of all the times to get hungry, this isn’t one of them, Pycca, she reprimanded herself. You have much more important things to do, like discuss with Fain just how much you saved everyone from complete and utter annihilation by fixing th
e reverse core drive. The Alcubierre drive is now possible, and with that comes FTL. Ha! Yes, that’s much more important than eating. Except that it wasn’t fixed. She remembered better, and her enthusiasm disappeared. It was merely put back together by the same person who took it apart.
As she scanned the room, she saw a large digital board towards the end of the cafeteria. She couldn’t make out the letters on the board from this distance, but she did see a familiar silhouette standing next to it. It was Fain.
Pycca walked straight over to the large digital board, but halfway there, she noticed that he was not alone. She squinted her eyes to get a closer look. It was none other than Lieutenant Commander Larissa. She slowed her walk once she saw Larissa.
“That bitch,” Pycca muttered under her breath.
Out of all the times, Pycca thought. Out of all the places where she could have been, she had to be right there! The only place I was supposed to be. Dammit. Just look at her stupid, beautiful long hair and her straight posture and perfect smile. How am I even supposed to compete with that? Perhaps I should take her out into the corridor and settle this in a different manner. Then she will be aware of some boundaries. Just look at her, talking to Fain like he’s the only one in the room.
Pycca fumed. She shook her head and then she sighed, trying to calm herself down.
Who am I kidding? she thought. If Larissa and I were to actually go into the corridor and for some stupid reason got into a fight, I think she’d wipe the floor with me, regardless of what I entered the fight with. She’s incredibly smart, strong, pretty, and nice. And pretty… I think maybe she and Fain would actually make a nice couple. It’s only the truth. And the truth doesn’t hurt, does it?
I’m just an engineer. Head of engineering. But still just an engineer. Who would find that attractive? I only know how to put things together and take them apart. Sure, I can figure things out, and I am good at problem-solving. But that’s not a very attractive or even noticeable quality. Right?