by Alex Guerra
“Good luck, Arthur Holland. I hope that we meet again when this is all over. Please, take care of each other while you are out there, and know you are fighting for something much more than land; you are fighting tyranny itself, and to that, we show no mercy,” said Commander Nura, giving us a determined look.
Seya snapped a crisp salute at the commander, who returned the salute and bid us farewell on the landing pad.
“Oh, and Arthur,” said the commander.
“Something wrong?” I asked.
“Yes, it looks like you’ve forgotten something,” he said, waving a trooper over. The trooper heaved the power core by its filigree and gave it to Nura. “I believe this is yours.” He presented me with the power core.
“Commander, I—”
“You’ve earned this, I am sorry that our interaction was a bit rigid over the past few days, but I do somewhat understand what you are going through. I hope that this helps you somehow, even if it's only a little amount.”
“Thank you, Commander,” I said, taking the core from him. “For what it’s worth, I am sorry for acting like a jerk earlier. It’s a lot to handle,” I admitted.
“I’m sure it is. But I thank you nonetheless for your help, and those you will help in the future, I am sure. Be well.” He snapped a sharp salute, his clawed fist thumping his broad chest.
Switching the power core to my left hand, I mimicked the simple salute back to him as best as I could. “Good luck to you, Commander,” I said.
“Same to you.” He dropped the salute and turned on his heel, walking off the landing pad and into the crows of troopers working diligently in the compound.
Dagger’s engines came to life in a low hum. The ramp raised, locking into place with a few thumps and a subtle hiss. The sweet air of the planet disappeared, replaced by the the sterile oxygen from the ship, preparing itself for takeoff. Seya and I settled into the cockpit, making one final check that all the equipment was secured properly.
Dotty took over the controls and lifted us off the landing pad. The ship nosed up, and we sunk into our seats. As we gained significant altitude, Dagger reached cruising speed. I looked out the canopy to see the city of Gwei-yon slip away below us. I took in as much as I could as we departed, noting the rolling landscape of heavily wooded areas giving way to large clearings and dirt roads carved throughout the countryside. Punching through the clouds of the coming storm, our view was completely blocked. It would hit this city in an hour or less. Gaining enough altitude now to see the curvature of the planet, the sky gave way to the blackness of space.
We synchronized our orbit with The Pillar, which remained undisturbed during our time planetside. The ship opened its hangar bay doors, the square popping into existence against the starfield. The A.I. edged the transport ship into the opening and landed with a nudge from the shock absorbers. Dotty secured the ship in place with magnetic clamps and the bay door closed behind Dagger, sealing the area and pressurizing its interior with fresh air. The loading bay lifted the ship higher to reach the entrance platform and spun the vessel in a complete one-eighty, so the loading ramp could easily line up with the rest of the loading dock.
“We are here, Captain. You are free to exit at your leisure,” Dotty said and lowered the ramp.
“Thanks, Dotty. Can you assist us with unloading our cargo please?” I asked.
“Yes, Captain,” the A.I. acknowledged. Through the cockpit, flat squares were pulling away from the walls and a few small machines rolled towards the vessel. The machines arms that allowed it to manipulate and secure the cargo as easy as a person would, but with much more strength. One of these machines must have brought me to the healing tank initially, I thought.
“Do you know how to operate that thing?” I asked Seya, pointing to the armored suit.
“Enough to move it out of this ship, Art,” she said cocking her eyebrow.
“That’s Captain Holland, while we’re aboard The Pillar, Princess,” I joked and received a prompt punch in the arm.
“Alright, let’s do this. We’ll get settled in—and Dotty—please load the itinerary to...Vallus, was it?” I ordered.
“Yes, Captain. With our current orbit, our next window for departure is in two hours and thirty-four minutes, although, I can move our departure time up if that suits you,” the A.I. informed us.
“Make it so,” I said, smugly, as I tucked my helmet under my arm and extended my hand to Seya. “Welcome aboard, Seya. Officially, this time, now that we’re not just escaping from bloodthirsty toads.”
She accepted my hand and got up from her seat, smiling back, “Thank you, Art. I look forward to working with you.”
We both had a laugh, realizing how ridiculous the exchange was.
We were well on our way to a new world, but first, I needed a proper shower before doing anything else.
ELEVEN
A nearly finished bowl of “breakfast” sat on the common room’s table with a cup of “juice” sitting next to it. Those were the words I had assigned the items this morning as I casually read a dataslate. My new and official partner had made sure to teach me how to use it a bit more. I wanted something I could control myself, or at least have the illusion of controlling. Dotty was always accessing and navigating terminals and screens on The Pillar, including my HUD. This was me getting some autonomy back.
The dataslate was like a tablet on Earth. It was a thin, durable piece of machinery that lacked any analog buttons. It took me a while getting used to a smartphone with touch screens back home; I seemed to often miss the correct buttons. This used voice commands or swiping gestures to power it on or off. I made movements in the air to access all the functions without ever touching the dataslate itself, which is useful should I need to use it while in full combat gear without taking off a glove.
I practiced the alien gang signs to read through the galactic news, which was admittedly, complete gibberish. According to Seya, the empire censored the news and always painted the conglomerate in the worst light imaginable. There were occasional exposés which were synonymous with martyrdom. These whistleblowers often died from mysterious causes or no one heard from them ever again. The two empires controlling the media to push an agenda? You don’t say! I guess some things never changed, no matter where you lived, I thought, cynically.
Seya gave me access to the conglomerate archives, where all the “erased” reports were still available. The conglomerate made sure to compile these reports and release them to the public sporadically in defiance of the empire’s coverups. According to the reports, the Vael Empire was frequently up to nefarious things, most of which was in violation of the alien equivalent of the Geneva Convention and considered crimes against humanity…or alien kind, if they followed such a thing. They were just reports, however, and I didn’t know their credibility for sure. The conglomerate was always at odds with the empire, it was easy to see how venom was written into any reports on similar matters.
I would later find out that there was something like the Geneva codes, but it varied widely with the system or planet you were on at the time.
Would humans enact a universal code of ethics or would we also choose to change details with interplanetary relations and the law of lands? I wondered.
It was a bit too much to think about first thing in the morning and I continued my morning dataslate practice by learning about the planet we were currently on course for.
Vallus was a jungle planet, heavily wooded with areas of swamplands, openings with lakes and at least two seas or possibly oceans. A prominent archipelago dotted the southern pole. It dipped to its lowest temperature of -20 degrees Fahrenheit—relatively warm for the coldest region on the planet. Speaking of temperatures, the rest of the planet maintained a nasty 105 degrees in direct sunlight and an average of 92 under the canopy of the jungle. I would only find comfort at night, with a dip down into the 60’s. The air was breathable for brief periods of time on the surface. However, due to the amount of vegetation present, the
carbon dioxide was a little on the high side.
There was a greater imperial presence on the planet, with many cities carved right into the jungle. Their slate gray buildings appeared as scars among the lush green. While the empire was largely occupying and expanding the cities, they originally belonged to Codari settlers nearly two centuries ago. There was a large population of Codari still on the planet, making up eighty percent of the demographic. The rest was various other races found among the Galactic Conglomerate, making up the other twenty percent. This percentage did not account for the empire’s population, mostly residing in, or around their largest base, nestling against the city of Nadune.
Finishing my light reading, I powered down the dataslate. I got up to dispose of the used containers into a compartment Dotty would wash, allowing us to use as spares later. Seya was an early riser, already finishing breakfast as I just started my day. She occupied herself with studying, along with a disturbing amount of weapons training and martial arts. It was rare to see someone so dedicated to their training like this, but I reminded myself that this essentially was her job.
So far, my time away from Earth was feeling like an extended nightmare of a vacation. The downtime was annoying me a bit more and more each day. I felt the need to do something else to occupy myself for the time being. Back home, I would work between nine to twelve hours on average outside every day. It left me drained enough at the end of the day, that I didn’t have much time to think about anything besides resting and taking care of smaller things. One can equate this to cabin fever. We were stuck in transit for another four days before reaching the Vallus system. It would also take another hour or so to travel inward towards Vallus from the starlane before we made landfall. Once there, we would meet the local council and the conglomerate forces.
I strode through the black, marbled halls of the ship down to where Seya would likely be: the training room. Willing the door open, I stepped through the entry and scanned the room.
“Hello?” I called into the room but received no response. I walked inside to an empty room. Everything was in its assigned place. It didn’t tell me much, as Seya was a neat person and never left anything just lying around. I bet she was here not too long ago, however.
Dotty, where is Seya? I asked.
My apologies. Seya is in the portside observation room.
Where the…okay, can you guide me there? I asked, slightly embarrassed that I had yet to explore all the rooms on my own ship.
Dotty guided me to the new destination. Once there, I knocked at the observation room’s door.
“Enter,” came Seya’s voice, as clearly as if she was standing in the doorway.
I didn’t fully understand how the rooms aboard The Pillar worked, but I imagined it had something to do with the external speakers. Perhaps Dotty was beaming the words into my mind. I added it to a not-so-mental checklist of things I could reference back to, thanks to the A.I. always tracking my thoughts. I went through the new doorway that formed in front of me.
The room was dark, save for the flowing and crashing light that came through the huge viewport. The bright light of the hallway poured into the room, ruining the ambiance before the door blocked it out completely. Once again, the glow of the starlane was filling the room. At its center, Seya sat cross-legged on the floor, the green and purple glow from the window gave her slim figure a glowing corona resembling an aura.
“Sorry to interrupt, I can come back later,” I said in a low voice, sure I had broken her concentration on whatever it was she was doing.
“No, please sit down with me for a moment,” she insisted.
I walked towards her and noticed the floor felt softer, much like the floor of the training room when we sparred.
“Hey—what is this?” I asked.
“Meditation. It’s an essential part of training. Focusing the mind is just as important as honing fighting skills or strengthening the body,” she had yet to look at me since I entered, instead, staring with relaxed eyes into the flowing starlane just outside the window.
“I don't—”
“Shh…relax, no more questions,” she cut me off. I had never been into meditation. My stress relief came from watching sports or going out for the evening. Sitting quietly in a room just felt strange to me. “Take this time to focus on your breathing, look out at the flow of space. I can feel that you are troubled, that much is easy to see. You should try this technique, perhaps you will find comfort in it,” she suggested, taking another deep breath.
I sat a bit more comfortable, although my knees were unable to mimic the cross-legged posture my partner assumed, so I chose to grab them lightly instead. I had no idea what I was doing. I stared out the window at the moving shapes and colors of cosmic dust slipping by at incredible speeds. It was a crawl compared to the speeds I would need to ever reach home in the next decade. Besides teleportation or use of wormholes, we were traveling as fast as the technology on this side of the galaxy allowed us.
“Relax,” she said again, “Your face is twisting into an ugly form.”
Pushing the thoughts of home away, I focused on taking a few deep breaths. More comfortable now, my back relaxed into the appropriate position. I looked briefly to my right at Seya, her bright white and gold eyes piercing me through the dark room.
“Keep looking out the window,” she instructed.
“Okay, damn,” I managed to mumble and snapped back to the window. She is scary in this form. Perhaps I should be in the training room, shooting some of our newer weapons, I thought and continued staring straight ahead.
“I want you to concentrate on forming a sphere in front of you, its surface taut and clear,” she instructed. I did as she said and imagined a bubble floating before me. “Bring the sphere into yourself. Notice its emptiness, its weightlessness. Now, imagine filling the sphere with all your negative emotions—your doubts and worries. Next, fill it with the impurities of your body. Rid yourself of all the things that weigh you down as you continue filling the sphere, and envision its weight becoming more apparent with every new addition,” she continued.
I imagined the sphere as the bottom half of an hourglass filling with the sands of negativity and growing heavier with each second that passed—at least. I tried following her instructions as best as I could.
“The sphere is nearly full—your emotions are calm and pure. Remove the filled sphere from your body, placing it before you once more. Tell me, what color is the sphere?” she asked suddenly.
I didn’t think of the sphere as any color, but once she suggested it, I imagined the sphere as having a golden appearance. “Gold,” I replied.
“You care too much about letting go of the negativity, and yet, you let it control you. Dissolve the outer layer of the sphere and continue dissolving, until it disappears completely into a vapor,” she continued with the instruction.
I tried imagining the golden layers beginning to fizz, dissipating into the air. I continued whittling it down more and more, leaving only a marble. I focused my breathing, squeezing my eyes and my core to finish off the remaining bit, but even in my imagination, I couldn’t do it. I balled my fists and tried to finish the technique but still came up short.
“There’s still a remnant, isn’t there?” she asked. “Don’t worry, it would be impossible to get rid of it on your first try. Accept it, it is part of who you are. Continue your breathing and focus on the now. Only you and I are in this quiet, dark room, on a journey to a new land. We are a speck in the galaxy. Your wants and needs are valid but are out of your control now,” she said.
I snuck a peek at her. She raised her arms over her head and brought her hands down in front of her chest, her palms facing each other as if cradling something.
I wasn’t sure what to think of the technique, it was strange, to say the least, but I didn’t want to offend.
“I have been unable to rid myself of the remaining amount, but over the years it has become nearly invisible. Don’t feel upset, only masters
could ever truly get rid of all the sphere—or liars” she said. “Tell me, how much of the sphere was left?” she asked.
Pinching my fingers together, I approximated the diameter of the sphere to between an inch or two.
“Not bad, you may have more talent in this than you originally thought. This technique is all about being honest with yourself and relaxing. There are many forms I may lead you through if you would like to continue the meditation again sometime,” she said, beginning to stand up.
“A-Alright,” I said. I did feel more at ease now than I had before arriving. Perhaps there was something to all this. I made the decision then to join Seya in more of these meditation sessions—it’s not like there was much else to do on the ship. There were many different and strange things I would be running into while I was here, the least I could do was explore it with an open mind.
Seya offered me a hand, helping me get up. We left the dark room and the bright light of the hallway bombarded us once more. It was back to harsh reality for us.
“Sorry to have thrown you into that,” she said, as we continued walking through the corridors.
“Don’t be, you offered something new to try and I accepted,” I brushed it off.
“True, but I have a strong stance on training, and I am dedicated to it,” she said.
“I see that,” I admitted.
“I’ll make you a deal,” she said pausing short of the next turn and placing a hand against the wall, stopping me in my tracks. “You train with me some more—a little sparring, some weapons drills—and we can use this evening to try out your version of downtime. Maybe hook up that entertainment system you’re all excited about.”
“Damn, I forgot about that thing. Thanks for reminding me,” I said with a grin. I took a moment to think it over. “Okay, you have a deal.”