I loved their love. It was so pure and without conflict. More than anything it made me confident that someday I might find someone to share my life with.
Problem was that I just wasn’t interested. Boys, girls, all so boring and annoying. I was hopeful that someone would change that ideal though, but I wasn’t exactly looking.
“Are you sure everything’s going to be alright here with me gone?”
Father nodded, “Of course, we got through that camping trip, didn’t we?” he said laughingly. But then he remembered something, “The camping trip. That’s right, I knew I was forgetting something. I’ll be right back.” and with that he disappeared back into the house.
I don’t know why he liked bringing up that camping trip so much. So what if I broke off from the group? I was barely missing six months.
He came clinking out of the house a minute later, battle-worn kettle in one hand and a pristine wooden cube with jade dragons engraved in it. I knew immediately what it was and couldn’t believe my eyes.
“Is that..?” I asked as he sat back down beside me.
He nodded, “This is the kettle, dents and all. Got me through all kinds of firefights,” he handed it to me and slurped the last of food before accepting it, “and now it’s yours.”
My face made a giddy smile that I hadn’t had since my tenth birthday. It was so ugly, but that’s what made it beautiful. I practically jumped on my father to hug him without putting down the kettle, “Thank you so much.”
His arms curled tightly around me and I felt a warmth spread all through my chest, “You’re welcome princess.”
We stayed locked together for a minute, neither one of us wanting to give up on the hug, but the time came and we broke apart and I saw the tears curving around my father’s smile, “I’m going to miss you so much. You know that?”
I nodded and felt my own tears starting to form, “I’m going to miss you too. But I promise I’ll be back as often as I can.”
Father chuckled weakly and wiped his eyes, “You better, your mother and I will take on the entire Commonwealth and the Federation to get you back if you don’t.”
It was weird hearing him talk like this, when my brother and sister had left for war it had all been very official, at least that’s what I thought. Maybe it was because I was the last one, the last of the family to leave, or it was because my siblings had been hard-arses and much more adult-y when they’d left. Whatever the reason it made me feel special and, although I hadn’t noticed until then, I really needed that.
“Oh,” my father said before grabbing up the box and handing it to me, “and you won’t want to forget this. I packed it with 150 satchels of Earl Grey, give or take what was left in your cupboard. Won’t taste as good from my- your kettle, but it’s better than the generic black tea you’ll get on-ship, and you can always send for more. As you can tell, it was your mother’s. Fly-boys and Angels never get to see the trenches.” he said with a mix of pride for the infantry and disdain for the air force while regarding the kettle.
“I’m going to miss you so much princess. You know that, right?”
I nodded and gave him another big, but quick, hug, “Me too.”
He smiled, “Unless you join the Angels, then… meh.” he said with a shrug.
I chuckled and gave him a light punch to the arm, “I should. It’d show you.”
That’s when we heard the thunderous roars of the old, twenty person transport’s engines as it dropped out of the sky at an alarming rate toward us.
“Speak of the Devil…” he muttered as we got up and cleared room for the ship to land.
The beast kicked up a field’s worth of dirt as it came to hover over the ground before dropping onto the road with a concerning crunch sound.
It was brown all over except for the faded and chipped orange star on the side, the outline of the bear’s head and features that made up the rest of the primary symbol of the Commonwealth was hardly visible after years of re-entry and battle. I’d be lying if I said the scorch marks and obvious welds-on-welds didn’t make me nervous, but the more I looked at the near-wreckage the more excited about my future I got.
“Are you ready?” my father asked.
“Yes.” I said as I continued to stare at the ship.
My father chuckled, “I wasn’t asking you.” he said before guiding me to the back of the transport, which made a hissing sound before falling open unceremoniously with a loud thunk.
There were five people on-board, all sitting bolt upright in their blue-dyed faux leather chairs with the belts still fastened across their chests. Except for one, Benetzian from the look of him, his rich brown skin, shaved head, medium build, and thick eyebrows were distinctive of the mining colony-turned-warrior planet.
He was wearing a fitted white long-sleeved t-shirt, a pair of black cargo pants which were militaristically tucked into his heavy-looking boots. He, unlike the others, was sitting forward and fiddling with a gorgeous looking ring on his left hand’s middle finger, it was thick and silver with a vibrant blue gem set in the middle.
The second I boarded the ship the Benetzian looked up and smiled at me, “Finally!” he said loudly with a laugh, “I thought this was all we were gonna get. Please, sit!”
I was taken aback by his socialness, as a cop I’d gotten quite used to most people having a general wariness about me. That’s when I remembered, ‘You’re not a cop anymore,’ I thought to myself as I walked over to the still smiling Benetzian, ‘you’re a recruit. You’re just like everyone else.’
I must say it felt pretty good to be at the same level as those I was surrounded by. I smiled to myself as I sat down, ‘Gives you the opportunity to rise through the ranks again.’
“Princess?” my father said from the back of the transport, “Your bag?”
I blinked away the stupidity and speed-walked over to my father and grabbed the bag out of his hand, “Thank you so much, I wasn’t thinking.”
“You’d do well to fix that, it will get you killed out there.” my father said seriously.
I gave him a single nod in response before dropping my bag and wrapping my arms around his waist and pushing my head into his chest, “I promise to come home.”
I felt his lungs falter slightly before he grabbed me in a warm embrace, “See that you do. I love you, princess.”
“I love you too father.” I said as I broke away.
My father had a broad smile plastered, but tears had started to well in his eyes, “You fight, and you win. I’ll keep a brew waiting for when you get home.”
I wanted to say something else, anything else to give us some more time, but he’d already bowed at me, which I responded to in kind, and left the ship before I could formulate another sentence.
“Wanna hurry the f-blurrrp… up? This place is outta the way enough as it is” a very obviously drunk voice said over the cabin’s speaker, “Couldn’t’ve gone to the Starport like everyone else in this quadrant, nooo-” the voice cut off abruptly and I took that as my cue to turn around and walk into the transport.
I tucked my bag into the compartment above the seat next to the Benetzian and got as comfortable in my own faux leather chair as I could.
Once I’d found myself in a position to be less stabbed by whatever was in the seat, I noticed someone glaring at me, a Yolarian girl in an expensive looking leather jacket with far too many pockets, buckles, and straps, and pants to match. What made her race so abundantly obvious was her haircut mostly, the sides of her head being shaved and the top a full half a foot long in a combed over pile of white blonde dreadlocks, and she did not seem to like me, something we had in common.
Yolaria was the closest to the old Slavic ancestry worlds that the Commonwealth had as allies, the rest made up the brunt of the Federation army.
Father never trusted the blonde-haired ‘cultists’, as he liked to call them, when he’d been stationed with them. He’d said they always looked like they were up to something, waiting for an opportun
ity to stab you in the back because they hadn’t the courage to stab you in the front. He absolutely despised them and, in that moment, I understood why.
Off to Camp
Our transport stopped at six more houses, four of which no one came out of, before beginning our real take-off. The feeling was jarring at first to say the least, it was so much more intense than when we’d first lifted to cruising height, which, in itself, had not been a pleasant experience. Instead of the steady thrum of the engines, all that could be heard was the creaking metal and roaring wind as we tore sky-ward.
Well, that, and one of the boys who absolutely refused to stop screaming. I was genuinely concerned that he was going to break his fingers as he squeezed his restraints so tightly that his knuckles went white.
“We’re all gonna die! We’re gonna explode!” he cried.
The Benetzian laughed throatily, “None of us are going to die! Not today anyway!”
“He might actually,” the Yolarian girl said, almost laughing, “all that panic’s gonna put a whooole lot of blood in that tiny brain of his, and… well… let’s just say these things aren’t exactly known for their pressurisation!” I had the strongest feeling that I wasn’t going to like her.
She was right though, if he didn’t calm down it wasn’t going to end well, “Jurol! Jurol, isn’t it?” I said after vaguely recognising his pale skin, shoddily cut short brown hair, bright red comic-book t-shirt, and khaki shorts from somewhere.
He nodded furiously.
I smiled softly in an effort to calm him down, “Jurol, it’s all going to be alright, you just need to breathe.”
The Yolarian scoffed, “Yeah, get him to have a lungful of air when we break atmo, that’s a great idea!”
I shot her a piercing look, which she took no notice of, “Don’t listen to her Jurol! You’re going to be fine!” I wanted to keep the cool and calm voice rolling, but it had gotten to the point where my shouts were barely getting through to him.
He was already too far gone though, as the roaring grew in intensity and fire began to lick our view-ports he restarted his screams.
Then the roaring died out, my ears popped, and Jurol lolled forward. “Jurol?”I asked hopefully before noticing the steady droplets of blood landing in his lap.
“Told you.” the Yolarian said matter-of-factly.
I hit the button on my chest and the restraints zipped back to their places, “‘Told you’?” I growled as I walked over to Jurol’s still body, by the time I reached him the blood had all but filled the seat between his legs. I turned to face the smug looking Yolarian, “He’s dead because of you.”
“He should’ve calmed down.” she said without making eye-contact while the Benetzian released himself from his seat and walked past me to Jurol.
“He would’ve if you hadn’t spent the entire time psyching him out!” I barked back.
“Hey, guys?” the Benetzian said before the Yolarian started with her own tirade, distracting me.
“There’s no way that I, or you, could know that!” she snapped as she finally got out of her seat.
“Guys.”
“Fèihuà! You’re just trying to cover yourself!”
“Everyon-”
The Yolarian flared up, “Fèihuà? Fèihuà? Are you seriously going to suggest that I deliberately killed him?”
We’d crossed the ship and were practically touching noses when the Benetzian finally broke us up, “Calm down!” he boomed, shocking both the Yolarian and I into silence. “You,” he said as he stared me down, “over there, and sit down. Same goes for you,” he said, snapping his head around to the Yolarian, “back to your seat.”
It took us a few seconds, but we both eventually broke our fuming stares and went back to our seats.
“Good,” the Benetzian said with his hands on his hips, “now that we’re all friends again, he’s alive.”
I spun my head around to face Jurol’s seat and saw him sitting there with his head held high and, other than looking slightly woozy, seemed perfectly healthy.
“But he-”
“Passed out from stress I’m guessing, and I’d also say this’d be the first time he’s been higher than a thousand feet? That’d explain the nose bleed.”
Jurol nodded, and then seemed to be unable to stop.
“My name’s Xario,” the Benetzian said, drawing the attention back to him at the centre of the transport, “what’s yours?”
I sat in silence for a while, mostly just wanting the spotlight to shift to someone else, but it became obvious that that wasn’t happening any time soon, “Kurleida. Most people just call me Kurla.”
Xario smile returned brighter than ever, “That’s a beautiful name. Got a last one?”
I nodded, “Xiao. You?”
He shook his head, “Not one I talk about anyway. And what about you?” he asked, turning his smile to the Yolarian and the option for further inquiry into dust.
She sat there, probably trying to come up with something sarcastic to say, before sighing and saying, unenthusiastically, “Juno Rothbear.”
“See,” Xario said, looking between the two of us, “now that we know who we are, we can start to become frie-”
“My last name’s Daniels!” Jurol blurted out.
We all regarded him with confusion for a while before he followed up with, “I… I just wanted to be involved…”
It took him another few seconds of looking Jurol up and down, but in the end Xario straightened up and nodded politely, “I’m glad to have you Jurol Daniels. Look at us,” he said, gesturing to all four of us, “bonding. I have a really good feeling we’re going to be the best of friends.”
At the time I’d thought he was being sarcastic, I certainly would’ve been in his position, but he wasn’t. He meant every word.
In due course, Xario would turn out to be the most genuinely optimistic person I knew, Jurol the most trustworthy and courageous, though certainly not without fear, and Juno would… well, Juno always was a bit of a bitch.
Cold Depths of Space
After about twenty minutes of almost complete silence, I started to notice people pulling out pillows, blankets, and palm sized PAVS from under their seats as the temperature started to drop.
I looked over to Xario, who was the last to do it, and quietly chuckled, “Really?”
He looked around confusedly, “What?” he asked as he tucked himself in and tore open his little packet of nutrients.
“You can’t just wait a few minutes to reach the ship? You’re that hungry?”
Xario still seemed confused. “What do you- oh… Oh, yeah… no…”
Now it was my turn to be confused, “What?”
He seemed to want to keep me in the dark, “It… We… We’re not going to a ship.”
I scoffed playfully, “Oh really? Then where are we going then?”
“…Seros.”
“Seros?” I said with a squeak, “You’re kidding, right? There’s no way this thing’s cut out for interplanetary travel.”
“Well… it’s only interlunar… technically?” he said in a failed attempt to comfort me.
I went to continue my verbal disbelief, but figured it was just a waste of time and internalised it.
Seros. I was flying to Seros. I was literally flying to the moon.
In a transport that could barely handle breaking atmo.
‘This is it,’ I thought to myself as I started pulling the light blue blanket out from under my seat, ‘this is where I die.’
I knew I was being dramatic, Seros was barely even a moon anymore what with the fact that it was capable of supporting life, it was more a small planet, but still, we were hurtling through space in something that I’d barely trust to get us to and from a major city.
To make matters worse, I felt two more PAVS under my seat as I pulled out my pillow, meaning we were going to be in space for at least another twelve hours. The Commonwealth military wasn’t known for splurging on non-essential resources lik
e our food.I didn’t even notice I’d fallen asleep at first, but when I blinked the fuzziness away I saw that everyone was sitting in a circle in the middle of the transport.
“Good morning sleepy!” Xario said happily when he noticed, “How was your rest?”
I rubbed my eyes as I nodded and sat forward, a sharp ache spreading across my neck the moment that I did, “Could’ve been worse. How long was I asleep?” I asked while trying to massage my neck with one hand.
“Two, three hours. Wanna come sit? Jurol brought a pack of Boon Cards, Juno’s really good at it.” he said, turning back to his game.
I smiled weakly, “I’m alright, thank you, never been my kind of game.”
That was only half-true, it really was my kind of game, I used to pull in all kinds of credits when I played. But I had another game that I found far more enjoyable.
People watching.
I figured it was as good a time as any to get to know the people I’d been trapped in space with.
I’d already pretty much got Xario all figured out, warrior from his home planet, athletic, kind, probably smart too. I was much more interested in the others.
Of the seven people on the ship I only recognised two, twin boys from my town, Kevin and Ryoku Cho, both fined by me on separate occasions.
They had the same Asiatic ancestry as me, had black shaved hair, stood at 5’8, and were a little under fifty-five kilograms and incredibly agile. Other than a few minor, and often accidental, vandalism charges, they were good kids. Never thought they’d volunteer though.
Then there were the two unknowns, who I’d clearly not paid enough attention to when I boarded. Both had pale skin, were completely bald, and wore orange monk’s robes that hid their gender remarkably well. It wasn’t until I saw their talisman necklaces that I recognised them for who they were, Warriors of the Seven.
The Warriors of the Seven were a group, many would argue a cult, of monks who took in anyone that was willing to accept their ideology of ‘the one true path’ and fed them, trained them, and, when recruitment came along, sent their best to fight.
Spectres (Æthyrium Rising - Spectres Book 1) Page 3