~ * ~ * ~
The next week Rafian had his belongings moved out of the apartment. He used some of the credits in his account to purchase an officer’s quarters away from where Vani lived.
At first the breakup with Vani and his tryst with the minister weighed hard on his sense of loyalty. He spent longer hours cleaning his ship and hanging out in the café. As time went on, he began to formally spend time with Suwle until he received a note that she was leaving the ship for good. A couple of weeks later, he invited Aurora over to see his new place and to pick her brain on what was going on with Vani.
“Vani is taking this pretty hard,” Aurora said to him as she sat on his couch.
“Is she?” he said as he finished mixing her favorite drink. He handed it to her. “I don’t get why she would be so upset. It was because of her attitude that we broke up in the first place. She killed our relationship with her incessant whining and bullying.”
Aurora shrugged, sipped her drink, and then scanned the apartment. “Soooo, this is nice!” she said. “When I came in here, it was if I was no longer on the ship.” She brushed her hand over his center table and pointed at the staircase in the rear of the apartment. “You even have a glass bed; nobody I know has a glass bed. How much do they pay you Special, whatever’s?”
“I have been getting paid a few extra credits ever since making First Grade. We get bonuses for missions, and I have been in action for, what, five to six years? I haven’t spent it on anything outside of a few gifts for Vani. So, last month I looked at the apartment and was quite surprised that I could afford it.”
Aurora gulped down her drink and then cocked her head to the side. “You’re overcompensating to mend your broken heart. I get it. Vani’s your love and that isn’t something you get over easily. I’m worried about you, Rafian; you don’t have to play tough with me.”
“Yeah, it sucks and it hurts, but I figured you knew that already,” he said. “I refuse to feel guilty for her,” he finally said, and then made himself another drink.
Memory 11 | Camille YAN
Tall and slender, with hair like golden rays of sunlight, Camille YAN was a fighter pilot who had made a name for herself on Star Base Alpha during the often-forgotten Twilight Wars. Like Rafian, she had gone the classical route of star cadet turned ace, but the two had never met until one day, when he walked onto the deck to start his custom of cleaning his ship.
“Nice ship,” Rafian remarked as he regarded her smooth-nosed Vestalian Classic with the triple-winged design. It had been ages since he had seen that model, but Camille’s was in good shape due to her meticulous maintenance, which mirrored his own. She was buffing the surface when he walked onto the deck and didn’t stop as she casually nodded to him.
“I’m Rafian VCA,” he said and walked over to shake her hand.
“Everyone knows who you are, Rafian. I’m Camille.”
“YAN,” he finished, to make sure she knew that he knew of her, too. “Is this the ship you burned through the warship Relethan with last year?”
“Same one,” she replied, and her demeanor softened. The two aces began to speak of missions, ranks, and the love they shared for space-to-space combat. Camille YAN turned out to be the sort of military brat Rafian used to make fun of back when he was a cadet. Children of her background were often teased for having never stepped foot on a planet, and Rafian would call them “spacers.”
Camille YAN was a different spacer, having huge ambitions that went beyond flying and military service. They were both First Grade and they spoke about their respective missions to attain it, and Rafian grew to respect her even more when she told him how she had managed to get off of Geral without any casualties.
She had rigged up a broken-down alliance vessel that was in the forest and flew it off the planet without encountering a single lizard. His story also impressed her, and he could sense the admiration: he had faced the enemy and survived to be standing in front of her talking about it. He found out that she had been personally trained by Lady Hellgate and had been sent on another mission when the assault on Meruda had occurred.
Camille was a mirror version of him in terms of military accomplishments, and the two spoke at length about their lives. After a couple hours of talking while cleaning their ships, the pair said their good-byes, but Rafian didn’t want this to be the last time he saw her.
“Camille, before you go, I didn’t ask. Are you stationed here now, on Helysian, I mean?”
“Actually, I am. You don’t mind the competition ,do you?”
“Not at all, Captain. It’ll be an honor. I look forward to seeing you dogfight in person.”
“Somehow I feel that it is going to be me looking at you, Captain. After all, you’re Helysian’s favorite son,” she said as she bounced away for the exit.