by Jerry Aubin
As beautifully as any half-digested meal floated around without gravity, it always transformed into a disgusting mess once the grav-gen kicked in. After nearly ten years of extensive practice, Zax had earned the title Best Cleaner of Vomit among all of humanity. This distinction no longer carried the weight it might once have, though, since the remnants of the human race were either breathing the Ship’s air, moldering in cryosleep in one of its storage holds, or clinging to life on one of the hardscrabble colonies left in its wake during 5,000 years of the Mission.
As good as he was at cleaning up by hand, Zax had long dreamed of ditching the bucket and towel. It was this desire that inspired him to become the youngest person in anyone’s memory to design and build a fully-functional machine using the Ship's Replicator. The device was a meter-long alloy tube with a wide mouth on one end and a pistol grip and trigger on the other. A pull of the trigger generated enough suction to capture the floating contents of even the largest stomach and send them down the tube into a plastic pouch where they would be sealed for handy, touch-free disposal. Zax’s favorite aspect of his design was the red flames shooting down the sides of the tube that surrounded its name—PukeSucker 3000. It would have been easier (and far cheaper) to make the device small enough to fit entirely within the palm of his hand, but if he was stuck living with such a mortifyingly public affliction, he wanted to have a little fun with it.
Zax had dared to dream the other cadets would admire his Replicator template, but everyone thought it was an elaborate and expensive joke. He knew the only way to silence the haters would be an actual demonstration, so he had been excited when the morning newsvid finally announced an FTL Transit was scheduled after lunch.
Whenever a Transit was announced ahead of time instead of popping up in the middle of a battle, Zax skipped real food in favor of nutripellets (bleh). He had disregarded that strategy earlier knowing the PukeSucker’s creation was imminent. Instead of sitting off in a corner by himself like usual, Zax piled his plate high and grabbed a table smack in the middle of the mess hall. He expected abuse when Aleron sauntered by with his posse of suck-ups, but heard nothing from the passing conversation except a "Puke Boy" followed by sycophantic laughter.
Once the Ship completed its Transit and his lunch rolled in the air above him, Zax grabbed his fully armed and operational PukeSucker 3000. Chants of "Puke Boy—Puke Boy—Puke Boy" echoed around the compartment, just as they typically did, once the other kids in Zeta shook off the mental fog induced by the FTL engine.
The berth held twenty rows of twenty grav-chairs, and each was occupied by one of the fourteen- to sixteen-year-old cadets who made up Zeta Cadre. Zax was "encouraged" to pick a spot in a corner surrounded by empty grav-chairs due to his upchuckiness, but since Zeta’s berth had been full for a couple of weeks there were unlucky cadets stuck squarely within range. Zax hadn't deposited anything on the newcomers yet, but past experience suggested it would occur sooner or later. The massive size of the cloud which floated above them guaranteed it would be sooner if the PukeSucker 3000 proved ineffective during its first deployment.
Zax unbuckled his straps. He had programmed his wristcom to start a one min countdown once the three bells sounded and the tiny display ticked off the secs until gravity returned. Zax clutched the handle on the side of the grav-chair and hauled himself onto his feet upon its padded seat. Years of practice had honed the zero-g scramble required for him to bucket up as much of the muck as possible to minimize the mess when gravity’s return tumbled any leftovers to the deck.
Zax aimed, pulled the trigger, and grinned as his device drew in the largest constellation of free-floating stomach contents. Zax murmured “bye-bye noodles” as they hit the plastic pouch with a satisfying SLURP. He pulled the trigger again and sent a flying mass of chewed-up vegs down the tube. With the eagle-eyed precision of the best fighter pilots, Zax hunted down the swirling remains of his lunch. The PukeSucker 3000 worked even better than imagined and a perfect recovery rate seemed within his grasp until disaster struck. Chunks of breakfast floated out of his reach and into a slow roll directly above Kalare's grav-chair.
Even though he no longer pondered her magnificence, the reverberations of that first glorious smile guaranteed Zax never wanted Kalare to wear anything which had previously been in his stomach. Without taking a sec to consider the safety or sanity of his plan, Zax coiled his legs and then launched himself towards the floating egg clumps. He bent at the waist and rotated his body 180 degrees away from the deck. Zax stretched his arm to full extension and the PukeSucker 3000 slurped up all of the vomit at the same moment his feet contacted the overhead. His momentum compressed his legs until Zax pushed off and launched back towards his chair. His wristcom flashed red to warn that Zax had ten secs to get back to his chair if he was to avoid a trip to the medbay with a fractured skull or busted ribs.
It required a nasty wrenching of his arm to redirect his mass and pivot his body into the grav-chair, but Zax was safely ensconced an instant before his watch flashed 00:00:00. Gravity returned and was accompanied—as always—by the crashes and thuds from some cadet’s stuff that hadn't been properly secured. Zax rejoiced in the complete lack of plops and splats and "Ewwwwwws" that arose whenever he wasn’t entirely successful with his cleaning efforts.
For a sec, Zax feared he might have unknowingly hit his head on the grav-chair and damaged his hearing because the berth was noiseless. Where typically there was the bustle of cadets popping out of their chairs and the fading remnants of "Puke Boy" chants, there was only stunned silence. Then, more silence. All of the cadets stared at him with mouths agape. Zax sprang up onto his chair to milk the attention for all it was worth. He sported an epic grin and pumped his arms with the PukeSucker 3000 held high over his head in salute.
Zax made a dreadful discovery when he looked up to admire his device. He hadn’t cracked his skull at the conclusion of his acrobatics but instead had wedged his amazing creation between his seat and body. Once the Ship’s gravity returned the PukeSucker had borne the full weight of his mass and its long barrel deformed almost a full 90 degrees. In addition, the collection pouch had ruptured at the seam and Zax recoiled as some of its body temperature contents dripped down his cheek.
The hush was finally replaced with riotous laughter. It originated with Aleron and his constellation of twits, but soon more than two-thirds of the berth hooted and hollered in mock appreciation of the circus act they had witnessed. Zax, crestfallen, collapsed into his seat and discarded the PukeSucker 3000 onto the deck as he reached for a towel to wipe his face. A few secs later the uproar from Zeta Cadre was silenced by the only sound capable of cutting through the din—a shrill klaxon their bodies reacted to on full autopilot. General Quarters.
CHAPTER THREE
We haven’t met yet.
All of Zeta grabbed their gear and clumps of cadets tore off in different directions across the Ship. Zax’s cortisol levels spiked in response to the intense strobing of the yellow lights as they blinked in time with the klaxon. All of the Ship’s alarms were calibrated to physically prepare the Crew to face whatever danger the Captain decided was worthy of calling them to their battle stations.
Zax jumped into the Tube and rocketed a kilometer across the Ship in a few heart-stopping secs. He bolted out the door towards Flight Ops and was surprised when the area outside the Tube remained dim and musty. A pipe had burst a week ago and the steam it vented into the passageway had caused lights to fail. Apparently Maintenance was so swamped with other problems they still hadn’t dealt with this one. It was just one more instance among many Zax had seen in recent years which showed their ancient vessel had long since seen better days.
Footfalls trailed as Zax turned a corner and sprinted down the passageway. He glanced back over his shoulder and was shocked when they belonged to Kalare. He was attempting to stammer out a question when the lights flipped to the solid red which signaled a hull breach somewhere nearby. The brain-lock which froze Zax’s mouth h
ad the opposite effect on his legs—they propelled him at full speed even as Kalare’s eyes went wide and she skidded to a halt.
Of course, he concluded with perfect clarity, she’s seen the emergency bulkhead which must have slammed into place and sealed off the passageway ahead of them.
CRUNCH!
Zax smashed into the bulkhead with enough force that he left his feet and flew backwards more than a meter. The angle of the fall hammered his tailbone with his entire mass. Zax’s world flashed bright white and then momentarily faded to black. He came out of his stupor a sec later and tasted a coppery mouthful of blood from the lip he split when his face slammed against the bulkhead. The physical pain was only a fraction of his overall discomfort, though. Not only had Zax managed to land flat on his own (likely broken) butt, but he had also knocked Kalare down onto hers.
“I’m s-s-so s-s-sorry,” Zax sputtered. He leapt up to grab two supplemental breathers from the emergency bulkhead and tossed one down to Kalare. She was laughing instead of being hurt or angry. Great rolling cackles which were borderline crazy in both volume and tone. Zax’s initial spark of embarrassment flared into hot indignation. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing—nothing—well, yeah, OK—it’s you. A couple mins ago you were flying around in zero-g like no one I’ve ever seen, and now here you are flat on your butt with blood dribbling down your chin.” Kalare choked back a couple more giggles and then closed her eyes and took an exaggeratedly deep breath before she continued.
“I’m sorry. I really don’t mean to be laughing at you, but I can’t help it sometimes. My mentor is always telling me I have to control these outbursts if I want to avoid getting Culled. It’s interesting how he last mentioned this when I was laughing hysterically about a book which had fallen and gashed his forehead. I guess some people run from blood and I laugh in its face. But, am I really laughing at the blood, or am I laughing at what caused the blood? Or, am I just nervous about the sight of blood and using the laughter to calm myself?”
Zax’s indignation faded, but it was replaced by a combination of the confusion he typically felt interacting with his peers and some other unidentifiable discomfort which intensified the longer Kalare spoke. She giggled as she started up again.
“I’m sorry. When I’m nervous, I just run off at the mouth. I sometimes do it when I’m not nervous, too. My mentor says I test off the charts and have the aptitude to become an Omega some day, but my lack of self-control is probably going to get me Culled instead. Oops. There I go again.” Kalare extended her hand in greeting. “We haven’t met yet. My name’s Kalare. What’s yours?”
The silence allowed Zax to finally identify the source of his discomfort—he was breathless. Kalare had seemingly talked for five straight mins without a breath. He was so wrapped up in trying to follow along that he had subconsciously held his own the entire time. He croaked “Zax” with a gasp as he reached over and gave her hand a lame shake. He ran his tongue around his mouth and played with the split in his lower lip while he took a few deep breaths. Zax would have to report the injury to the medics and suffer the significant demerits assessed for such a stupid accident.
“This all happened because I wanted to ask where you were going,” he said with more than a hint of annoyance. “I thought the only battle station assignment for Zeta cadets in this part of the Ship was Flight Ops, and you aren’t on that team.”
“I actually just got bumped to Flight Ops. I’d been trying to make up my mind about where I wanted to go, so I rolled some dice to choose and Flight Ops was the pick. My mentor said I had the scores to go almost anywhere I wanted, but I just couldn’t figure out where so I let chance decide and, now, here I am!”
The words continued to race out of Kalare’s mouth, but it sounded like she was starting to relax as the pace had slowed just a little.
“Wow,” he said, “that is pretty interesting.”
And by interesting what Zax really meant was bizarre. Most cadets would forfeit a kidney to get into Flight Ops, and here this girl was proudly sharing how she chose it at random. What was even more peculiar was how someone so crazy had the scores to qualify for it in the first place.
Zax didn’t know where Kalare stood on the Leaderboard because the Zeta standings had not yet been updated to include her and the other transfers from Epsilon. The Ship carried two Cadres of fourteen- to sixteen-year-olds, and heated competition between Epsilon and Zeta was actively encouraged. It identified the best candidates from this age group to put on the path toward the highest-value positions on the Ship. When Kalare and the others were moved into Zeta for unknown reasons, it had triggered a lot of paranoid speculation around the Cadre. Mass reassignment of cadets was a rare occurrence and generally denied whenever requested by a Cadre’s leadership, but for some mysterious reason the Omegas forced Zeta to accept the Epsilon cast-offs.
Though there was plenty of worried grumbling when the Epsilon transfers were announced, Zax had not shared the concerns. Odds were all of the new cadets would rank lower than him on the Leaderboard, and Zax welcomed any and all additional cushion between him and the bottom of the list. Every bit of Leaderboard fodder might prove important given how the Cull arrived like clockwork every three months. Being near the bottom of the rankings meant you stood the greatest chance of being thrown into cold storage and eventually settled on one of the barely-habitable colonies the Ship established during its Landfalls.
“They haven’t added you Epsilon cadets to the Leaderboard yet, so I didn’t realize you had those kind of scores. I would've thought if you were good enough to qualify for Flight Ops that Epsilon would have wanted to keep you around.”
A dark cloud of emotion passed across Kalare’s face. Just as quickly it vanished and her grin returned with even greater intensity. “I don’t know—I don’t care—here I am!”
“And here I am. Here we are together. Stuck. Hopefully, this is just a quick drill. I’m guessing the call to battle stations is a precaution given we’ve just entered a new system.” Zax sighed as he sat down on the deck. “With my luck, the Ship has actually run into some trouble and we’ll be stuck here missing out on everything. I know there are hull breach drills like this all the time, but I’ve never been trapped in a lockdown before. Have you?”
“Yes,” Kalare hesitated. “I was ten. I’d only been in Delta Cadre for one month. A group of us were sent out for our first trip around the Ship without an escort, and I got separated from my friends. I was checking an observation compartment for them when the alarm sounded and the hatch sealed behind me. I figured it was only a drill, so after I grabbed a supplemental breather, I flopped onto a couch and pulled out my slate for some extra study. A couple of mins later I noticed something moving out of the corner of my eye.”
Kalare paused for a deep breath, and Zax finally understood she was struggling to maintain her composure. She probably had been throughout the story, but he had missed the emotional cues. She kept herself under control and continued.
“The two girls I’d just been with were floating outside past the panorama. One of them was a super sweet girl who I’d known since my first day in Beta Cadre. She seemed to be grinning at me and I was so scared I peed my pants.”
Kalare shuddered at the memory and her eyes brimmed with tears. Zax had no clue how to react to her emotions so he kept his mouth shut and listened.
“The Delta leadership put me on the recovery team as punishment for getting separated from the others. I was also assigned to help prep them for burial. Their bodies were in horrible shape—the nastiest combination of sunburnt and frostbit. The other girl had her face frozen in a terrified scream. I’ve seen almost fifty dead since then, with thirty-five of those happening during my two years in Epsilon. Even after all of them, it's still those first two I see when I close my eyes.”
Zax let it all sink in before he spoke. “I didn’t realize Epsilon lost so many kids. We’ve only had three dead in Zeta so far, and they were all blown to bits in a shu
ttle explosion so there was no recovery to deal with. I sure hope the Omegas can figure out how to make training safer for everyone.”
Kalare gazed at Zax for a couple of long beats and then asked, “Do you think it’s all worth it?”
Zax’s stomach dropped as he guessed where she was about to go with the conversation. He played dumb. “Is what worth it?”
“Everything. All of it. Have you ever really thought about our lives? We were born into the Crew fifteen years ago and have spent every moment since fighting like crazy for top position on the Leaderboard. Not one of those fifty dead kids was mourned by anyone except perhaps a close friend or two. Instead, they were seen as one less cadet to claw over on the way to the top—or at least away from the bottom.”
Kalare stared down at the deck and then closed her eyes. "Even as I sealed the disposal bags around my two friends, I was already thinking about what it meant for my Leaderboard ranking. I’m ashamed to say it now, but I knew one of the girls was ahead of me and I was happy about moving higher.” She sighed. “More and more I’m starting to believe the Omegas actually want some percentage of kids to die during training so we get numbed to it all as early as possible. You hear about thirty-five dead in Epsilon Cadre and brand our leadership a failure for not keeping them safe, but I’ve got a sneaking suspicion there are Omegas who are handing out demerits to the Zeta leadership because they’ve only had three killed so far.”
Zax had been involved in conversations before where someone nibbled around the negative aspects of Crew training and life on the Ship, but never before had someone laid it out in such vivid and stark terms. He was dumbfounded. It wasn’t as if this type of discussion was officially forbidden, but it was something which could generate demerits in far more career-altering numbers than those he worried about due to his still-bleeding lip.