Skylar Mars and the Crystal Claw

by Drew Seren

  “Thanks. I’ll try to figure out what I’m doing.” Skylar finished off his water and set the empty glass back on the table.

  “Now, go to your time in the farm area. You don’t want to be late for that too.”

  “You’re right.” Skylar swung the heavily shielded door open. “See you tomorrow.”

  Filzbalm flew down to his shoulder as he started off down the hall. “I wonder if the cows will have any words of wisdom for me today.”

  Skylar couldn’t figure out where Filzbalm got the idea cows could pass on any kind of wisdom, but he’d stopped arguing about it. He just hoped Solaria, Del, and Melody were all there and they could get their chores knocked out quickly so they could go to dinner. His stomach growled and he felt slightly lightheaded. He was hungrier than normal after his session and couldn’t wait for food.

  2

  An Opportunity Arises

  SKYLAR AND Filzbalm made it to the farm section of Stars’ End without incident. There always seemed to be something going on in the halls to slow him down, but the route he went was drama-free, for once. It never ceased to amaze him that there was a farming area in the space station. It took up a good portion of the center of the station, with the passage through to space dominating the middle, as was the Z-GBall playing area where the students learned to use jet packs, or mover skills to propel themselves through a gravity-free environment. The first time he’d seen the station, Solaria’s uncle Phil had flown Skylar through the middle of it, where the clear metal reinforced by force fields kept the space outside and the atmosphere and occupants inside. It was incredible to be able to see from the station’s interior as well, creating a cross between a wall and a ceiling that was either full of stars, or the gas giant the station circled.

  Bordering the farm section was a large green zone where trees grew, and a stream meandered through. When classes were out, there were normally a fair number of students there, especially ones who came from planets that were more wild than civilized. Skylar had no idea how many hours he, Solaria, Melody, and Del had spent in the area. In some ways, it reminded him of the unpopulated areas of Hummassa, where he’d lived most of his life. Solaria said it was still more civilized than the vast ice fields of Pantheria, but she did like getting away from the overly techie feel of the rest of the school. He figured Del was there just to spend time with the rest of them.

  Nestled on the far side of the park, a series of small buildings made use of the curving dome of the ceiling, which changed its density during the day to act like a planetary sky to help stimulate plant growth and keep the livestock happy. They reminded him of the livestock buildings on Hummassa. The basic rectangular shape, with a pitched roof, and red wood, was the same. When Skylar stopped to think about it, it made him wonder if there was some unwritten rule in the universe that said barns needed to be red to be proper homes for animals.

  A flash of movement caught Skylar’s attention as he approached the nearest building, where the cows came in from their small pasture twice a day for milking. A pale, lanky form walked out the door carrying a large bag thrown over one shoulder.

  “Solaria!” Skylar waved as he broke into a run, dislodging Filzbalm into flight. She was already working, and that probably meant he was late…again.

  She upended the bag into the compost heap before turning toward him. “You’re late.”

  He skidded to a stop, as Filzbalm circled her head once before flying into the building where they were going to be working. “Sorry. Had my training session with Professor Aduncus.”

  “Yeah, and he knows what time we all start this.” She rolled up the bag and put it under her arm. As usual, she had on a sleeveless tunic that showed off her light gray fur interspersed with darker gray rosettes. Her long, similarly marked hair was pulled back in a ponytail that she claimed kept her from getting too overheated while doing manual labor in a galactic norm environment. She was constantly complaining about being too hot. Pantheria was a lot cooler than the temperatures Skylar and most of the other students were used to.

  “He was trying to hurry me along.” Skylar fell into step with her as they went back to the building. “He taught me a new shielding technique.”

  Solaria huffed. “Let’s hope it works better than the other ones he’s been trying to teach you. You’re still too sensitive to everything around you.”

  “I know.” Even though he’d made a lot of headway since bonding with Filzbalm, there were still a fair number things that got through his shields, particularly the thoughts and emotions of the other high-level students who weren’t bothering with control. It wasn’t bad enough to consider putting the dampening bracelet back on, but it did get really old after a while.

  “Hey, could one of you come over here and lend me a hand?” Del called from the far stall. He stood against the wooden wall with a shovel in his hand, glaring at the cow who occupied the small area.

  “Sure.” Skylar hurried over to help his best friend—it would help get him away from Solaria’s scorn at his tardiness. She was always explaining how predators were never late, and that humans were predators just like Pantherians, even if they weren’t as well equipped for the task of bringing down prey.

  “What’s wrong?” Skylar asked as he reached the stall door.

  “She won’t move,” Del said, pointing the shovel at the cow. “I’ve tried pushing on her shoulder, yelling at her, scaring her, everything I could think of, but she won’t move.” He sighed, and the way his forehead wrinkled made him look a lot like his grandfather, Professor Aduncus. Although Del had a full head of dark blue hair where the professor was bald, his smooth, gray skin was an almost identical shade to his grandfather’s and their black eyes had the same intelligent sparkle.

  Skylar frowned at the cow. When his reader powers first flared to life, he’d come back to himself in the barn, with a couple of cows thinking about how much they wanted him to feed them. It had been very surreal. He hadn’t been used to hearing the thoughts of others, let alone the thoughts of cows, who he’d always just thought of as a source of food. Since then, he’d had an indifferent relationship with them. They liked him, but he resisted getting too close, knowing they were food there on the station and he might end up eating them.

  The cow currently facing Del down had a series of brown and black spots on her forehead. She was the one most likely to give all of them problems. She was also the one who led the herd, and seemed to take her position very seriously.

  Skylar stared into her large sad eyes as he sent his thoughts at her. “We would appreciate it if you’d go out to the pasture for a little while. You’ll be fed after we get done cleaning.” It was the same pattern every day, and he never could understand why some of the cows remembered the way things went, and some refused to.

  “Yes, I am waiting to be fed. I should be first. Also I am in need of milking.”

  “And that will happen as soon as we get the place clean enough. If you continue to slow us down, we’ll never get it all done.”

  She huffed. “If you won’t feed or milk me, I suppose I should go graze a while.” She turned and sauntered out the back of the stall, past a couple of other cows near the door who looked like they were hoping she’d get fed so they would.

  “Thanks, Skylar.” Del started shoveling out the stall into the wheelbarrow just outside the door. “You know, you really do have a way with cows.”

  Skylar frowned as he grabbed the wheelbarrow handles. “Did you tell your grandfather that?”

  Del paused and a thoughtful line crossed his smooth gray forehead. “I don’t think so, but you know Grandfather. Sometimes if you’re thinking the wrong thing, he’ll pick up on it and it’s all out there.”

  “Yay.” Skylar shrugged. “Life with psychics.”

  “Life with psychics,” Melody echoed as she pushed another wheelbarrow out of the adjoining stall. She seemed to take to the work on the farm area better than any of them—even if she was a corp-brat—although Skylar had stopped
lumping her in with the other human kids from well-to-do families after she helped them on Armstrong’s Rings. She wasn’t nearly as stuck up as the rest of them.

  “It’s part of the world we live in,” Solaria said, carrying another bag past them. “You either learn to live with it, or you live out in the boonies away from everyone.” Then she was gone out the door toward the compost pile.

  “What is she doing?” Skylar asked as Del filled the wheelbarrow.

  Del filled up another shovel full. “Some of the feed went bad. Mrs. Green isn’t sure why. She wants the bags dumped in the compost heap. We’ve already added a general neutralizer to the feed so it hopefully won’t infect the compost.”

  Skylar didn’t know much about compost, other than it was supposed to make soil fertile. When Del finished filling the wheelbarrow, Skylar lifted the handles and headed out with it.

  “You know, the cows are not happy that their dinner is late.” Filzbalm flew down from the rafters and out ahead of Skylar. “The one with the spots on her face is telling the others that it’s your fault they haven’t been fed yet.”

  If there was one thing Skylar really didn’t care about it was how the cows felt about him. “It’s not even feeding time.”

  “I don’t think cows can actually tell time. They just judge by the amount of light, and the station controllers are starting to shorten the light cycle as it gets closer to break.” Filzbalm landed on a post next to the compost pile. “Of course, I haven’t been able to confirm that’s why the light cycle is getting shorter, but I presume if the students aren’t going to be around, they’ll be lessening the amount of light they let into the station.”

  As he upended the wheelbarrow, Skylar shook his head. “I don’t think it has anything to do with that, unless they’re trying to simulate a yearly growth cycle in the plants and are therefore affecting the cows.” He was amazed at some of the ideas Filzbalm could come up with. The little Solar Drake had strange thoughts that were more complex than even Skylar thought about. Sometimes it took him a little bit of thinking to wrap his mind around the ideas.

  Instead of trying to figure out what was on everyone’s mind, Skylar took up hauling duty and wheeled out the manure and leftover hay as Del and Melody filled the wheelbarrows up.

  As normal, Skylar was a bit tired by the time Mrs. Green, the teacher in charge of the farm, called it quits and they scurried off to the cafeteria for dinner. Skylar had found that his appetite increased when he was working, but he was also starting to develop muscles he’d never expected to have. He’d just figured he’d be lanky most of his life, like his mother had been.

  Solaria tapped her dermal com, turning on its more advanced functions. During school hours, they were supposed to have the dermal coms set to in-school communications only, so that if a member of faculty needed a student they could get in touch with them, but they weren’t bothered by family messages or contacts from friends or social media.

  “Hey, I’ve got a message from Uncle Phil,” Solaria said as they made it to the cafeteria. She paused and pulled Skylar to the side of the flow of students going in. “This affects you.”

  Skylar stumbled a bit as he came to a stop next to her. “What?” He had a sudden hope that maybe Solaria’s Uncle Phil, the man who’d brought Skylar to Stars’ End after being part of the team who’d rescued him on Hummassa, had word of Skylar’s childhood friend, Teir, who’d been missing since the attack. The one time he’d seen Phil since being dropped off at the academy, he’d asked for information, but Phil hadn’t heard anything. Even though Phil had left a request with the Intergal Rescue team on Hummassa to be informed if there was any news one way or the other on Teir, nothing had been relayed to Skylar. They hadn’t heard from Phil since he’d brought them back to Stars’ End from Armstrong’s Rings.

  “Hold on. I’ll put it on broadcast.” Solaria tapped her com, and Phil’s voice came from her hand.

  “Solaria, I’ve been thinking. School break is about to happen and I’ll be coming by to take you home, unless you have other plans. Would you like to bring Skylar with you? I think it might be a good idea to expose him to more different cultures.”

  Skylar spaced out on the rest of what Phil was saying. He was getting an offer to get off the station for the break! He hadn’t expected anything like that. He’d just been planning to spend the time hanging out with Filzbalm. At the thought of the Solar Drake, a worry hit him.

  “Well, what do you think?” Solaria asked as she tapped the dermal com.

  “Might be fun,” Skylar said, trying to hide the mixed emotions that were going through him.

  Solaria frowned and crossed her arms. “What’s wrong? Did you already have an offer you haven’t told any of us about?”

  Skylar shook his head. “No, it’s not that.” He reached up and stroked Filzbalm’s head where the little drake rode on his shoulder. “What about Filzbalm? Pantheria is a cold world. Will he be okay?”

  For a moment, Solaria pursed her lips. “I hadn’t thought about that, and I bet Uncle Phil didn’t either. We’ve got time, I bet we can come up with something, if you want to go.” She glanced at Del, who’d, like normal, stopped with them. “What do you think? Can we come up with something?”

  Del shoved his hands in his pockets and looked thoughtful. “Probably. I don’t think we can make him a coat or anything like that. What season is it right now in your family’s settlement?”

  “Spring,” Solaria replied, then walked toward the line of students getting their dinner.

  “So sort of in-between as far as extremes go.” Del fell into step with her as Skylar and Melody followed.

  “Yeah,” Solaria agreed. “Could go either way depending on what’s blowing over the mountains at the time.”

  Del grabbed a tray from the stack at the end of the line. “That means we’ll have to be prepared for everything. This might be a bit of a challenge.” Del glanced at Filzbalm. “It’s also going to have to be size appropriate, unless I can whip up something that can encompass both of you.”

  “But that would limit my actions to staying with you,” Filzbalm complained, finally joining the conversation.

  “I might be able to help,” Melody said. “I’ve been working with some micro-tech lately. My mother says that it’s the next big trend and my father’s company is really interested. I saw some fascinating things when I accessed the company system through the backdoor I set up a few years ago. I like to be able to keep taps on what’s going on without them knowing about it.”

  Del gave his order to the cafeteria worker before responding. “Micro-tech… that could be just what we need.” A note of excitement hit his voice, like it always did when there was something new and interesting to be learned. If there was one thing Del loved, it was learning new stuff.

  “What are you thinking?” Skylar asked as he ordered his and Filzbalm’s meals.

  “Something that can be a portable, self-contained heating unit,” Del replied. “His size is the big hurdle, but if we can get some micro-tech components, that would help.”

  “I am sorry I’m small, but it’s part of being a young Solar Drake. I will get bigger.” Filzbalm leaned forward as Skylar got the cup of raw meat he needed from the woman behind the counter.

  Skylar laughed at his comment. “Filzbalm apologizes for being small and says that he will grow.” Skylar had met The Mother of All Drakes, and he knew how large Filzbalm could get depending on how long he lived. From what the researchers on Armstrong’s Rings told him, Solar Drakes didn’t stop growing until they died.

  “We can work around his size,” Melody assured them.

  “I know we can,” Skylar said as he carried his tray over to their usual table. “With you and Del working on the problem, I bet we have it fixed within a couple of days.”

  “I agree.” Solaria set her tray on the table first. “So, I’ll go ahead and let Uncle Phil know that the three of us will be ready to go when school lets out for break. That way he can get
here a little early so he can dock more easily. There’s often a big rush of ships coming in to pick up students at the start of break.”

  “Tell him if it’s a problem, I can stay at school.” Skylar set Filzbalm’s bowl on the table just to the left of his tray and the Solar Drake ran flapping down his arm to get to it. “I hadn’t really been expecting to do anything for break anyway.”

  Solaria shook her head. “He wouldn’t have offered if it was going to be a problem.” She cut into her raw steak. “This’ll be fun. I can’t wait to tell the tale of how we rescued Filzbalm from the corp-brats and then journeyed to Armstrong’s Rings.” She got a faraway look in her eyes. “My family always loves getting new stories to tell. This is so much better than Uncle Rocko’s hunting tales.”

  Skylar suddenly had a new worry—he wasn’t sure how he’d feel about being a part of Solaria’s tales to her family. The way she sounded, it was like being a minor celebrity. He just wanted a quiet break from school, and this was shaping up to be something entirely different. But at least he was going to get to leave the station for a while and see a world he hadn’t set foot on before. That would make any potential embarrassment worth it. He wanted to see as much of the universe as he could, and a great opportunity had just dropped into his lap. There was no way he was going to let this slip through his fingers if he could help it.

  3

  Technical Glitches

  SKYLAR WALKED into the room he shared with Del and their two roommates, Connor Cosmo and Fin Meres. Filzbalm flew over to his perch above Skylar’s bed. Del was bent over his desk muttering to himself, and Connor and Fin were nowhere to be seen.

  “Hey, you headed back here really quick after dinner,” Skylar said, dropping his shoulder bag with his tablet and other supplies on his desk.

  “Sorry.” Del looked up, frowning as he set down the stylus in his hand. “I just really want to get this design done. We’ve only got another five days before break starts and you need it.” Ever since Skylar had decided to go with Solaria to Pantheria for break, Del and Melody had been working hard on a device that would let Filzbalm visit without risking his health due to the cold. They still hadn’t moved beyond the design stage, and both were getting more and more obsessed with it.