The Life, Death and Life of Amelia Hollow

  ***

  Kel did not say anything. His black and yellow eyes suggested he was more amused than anything.

  “Although that sounds great,” he began with a smirk, “I think my answer is… no.”

  I shot a glance at Veck to say ‘I told you so’, yet she didn’t notice. She just shifted her position and crossed her arms sassily.

  “What’s a matter Kel,” she began mockingly, “afraid you wouldn’t be able to control me?”

  “He’s having enough trouble controlling me right now.” I mumbled.

  The other four members of my dub crew sat across the table awkwardly. We had most likely ruined their leisure hour, but I did not feel too sorry for them at the moment.

  Donn watched from his table a fair distance away. He hoped Kel would accept the offer. The fish boy would have made the same offer if he hadn’t liked Or so much. I was fine with that. The two of us would actually get no work done if we were allowed to be in the same dub crew.

  Kel scoffed in Veck’s direction: “I have one-thousand wives. Handling you would be easy.”

  The main reason Kel did not want moi to trade with Veck was because it would look bad on his captain’s record. In the future the USM would see on his record that I had requested to move dub crews in the first weeks. Then if Veck challenged him for power, the USM would see that Kel was unfit to be captain of his own crew and ship.

  “Veck may be strong-minded,” Chorst began calmly, “but she will find a way for your dub crew to function properly.”

  Kel’s eyes narrowed: “How very kind of you to offer my crew help.” He said sarcastically. “But what’s in it for you?”

  “The exchange would mean all dub crews worked and that we would all have a better chance of graduating from Starside Academy. Am and you don’t coincide because of the difference in your belief systems. Veck has more experience with… bigamists on her planet.” Chorst said, almost as if he regretted adding in the final sentence.

  “I have two husbands.” Veck laughed.

  The algrin was somehow more offended by Veck than moi. Sure, I was unnaturally produced and was raised by a man who married a cross-dressing man, and yet he could not comprehend the idea that a woman could have two husbands. What annoyed him more was the fact that Veck and her husbands could change their gender at any time so there was no dominant sex in the relationship.

  “And I presume you think that Am will work better in Mar because she fawns over you?”

  Not only was I offended because Kel had implied that I had a crush on the pale boy, but he had asked Chorst about his thoughts. Everyone knew you did not ask a trinard about their thoughts or feelings. I reacted with some sort of oh-no-you-didn’t look that made Kel smile.

  Chorst was lost for words… literally. He opened his mouth to speak and then quickly closed it. Trinards had to be careful about how they answered questions without revealing their thoughts or feelings. Chorst had to really think about what he was going to say.

  I decided to save him from answering. My hands slapped the table as I stood up.

  “That’s it.” I snarled. “Me and you in the battle room now.”

  Kel was surprised, but he kept his cool. He figured I was bluffing. – I was not.

  “The battle room isn’t open till class starts.” He said nonchalantly before taking a sip of his strange drink.

  I leaned closer to him: “We will get it open.”

  “What exactly do you expect to do?” The algrin asked in a haughty voice that masked his actual curiosity. “Are you going to challenge me for supremacy or something?”

  “You would have to be supreme for me to do that.” I said with haughty voice to match his. “No, I’m just going to beat you to a pulp to get the answer I want out of you. And if you still don’t agree with the trade after I’m finished, I’ll beat you again.”

  Silence fell in the cafeteria. I had drawn everyone’s attention as soon as I slapped the table. Most of the cadets knew me and Kel’s relationship was going to end in a showdown. What they did not know was who was going to win.

  Cadets could message their teachers whenever they wanted, so I sent Alk a message requesting for her to open the battle room. She responded by saying that we were not having our lesson in the battle room today, but I explained my plans for a showdown with the phallic and she hesitantly agreed. – The teachers had been taught to not intervene in cadet matters because we needed to learn that they weren’t always going to be around to help us.

  “Fighting is not necessary.” Chorst informed moi as I grabbed my armour briefcases from the chambers.

  “Nah,” I muttered, “but somebody’s got to teach the phallic a lesson.”

  It was awkward how mine and Kel’s chambers were next-door to each other because he heard everything I said. There was a small smile on his face. Obviously he found his impending ass-kicking to be hilarious.

  “Perhaps the captains should duel instead.” The Frenchy suggested.

  “I got this.” I reassured him. He gave me the usual impassive look, but I got the feeling he was displeased.

  Most of the cadets turned up to watch the duel. Alk let them into the overview room so they would not miss anything. Judging by their gestures some of them were taking bets on who would win.

  It was surprising to look up and see Frek standing next to Alk. It was even more surprising to see the Amazonian woman put her hand on the harsnic’s head and ruffle his dark orange hair. Frek did not seem to really notice. He just kept eating his lunch. – Were they friends, dating or married? Who knew? Sadly, now wasn’t exactly the time to ask them.

  “So how do you want to decide who wins?” Kel asked moi when he stepped out of the armour chamber. He chose to walk ahead of moi as we headed for the battle room.

  “Either you beg for mercy or I knock you out.” I said sternly. “That’s how you know you’ve lost.”

  Kel smirked behind his helmet. I believe that both of our egos were so big that we were both sure we would win. The algrin’s muscular build did not intimidate me, although I knew he could throw a hard punch. I could have taken away that advantage by allowing stun guns in the battle, however then the fight would’ve gone too quickly.

  “Now are you sure this is going to be going to be a proper duel and not just a senseless brawl?” Alk asked us over the loudspeaker.

  “I can neither confirm nor deny what this will be.” I called back. She looked displeased.

  Frek didn’t seem to be very interest in the fight. He just continued to slurp down his strange noodles. I knew he was only here to keep an eye on moi. – What a creep. Obviously looking into the space time continuum meant that I had to always be watched. I could have told Frek I was feeling fine, but that wouldn’t be true as proven by the fact I was about to battle another cadet.

  “So how do we start the fi–?” I tried to ask before Kel tackled me.

  I was caught off-guard by the algrin’s attack so I lost my balance. Before I even hit the floor the phallic was repeatedly hitting my chest. See? This was another situation where it was good that I had had my breasts reduced. It still hurt like hell, still could have been worse, though.

  “Bitch.” I snarled before throwing Kel to the side.

  Kel instantly jumped to his feet. He drew back his black armour-covered boot and slammed it right into my side. – One of the few places the armour did not cover.

  You can’t lose to him. I told myself. If you do, no Frenchy for you!

  Spontaneously, I ignored the pain and instead smashed my wrist computer. If only I could have seen the look of surprise on Kel’s face when I flew across the floor. The algrin ha not realized we were allowed to use flight in this battle.

  My body twisted upwards just in time to miss the white wall of the battle room. I did not get a break, though. Kel shot at me fist-first. I flew out the way just in time and his fist smashed into the wall, leaving a dent. I would be surprised if that method had not caused him to hurt his hand and wrist. r />
  I heard him snarl in frustration behind his helmet. Kel really wanted to hurt me. Hell, if he was given an opening he would probably try and kill me as well.

  This duel was not just about moi wanting to trade with Veck. We were taking our anger out on each other. I was angry because I felt homesick, Kel pissed me off and I desperately wanted to remember what Bennu/Tak had shown me. Kel was just angry in general. He felt so uncomfortable at Starside Academy.

  As Kel and I battled in the air, I had an epiphany. One of the algrin’s many issues could be supressed homosexuality. Why? Because that would explain his disgust for women and his general frustration. You would grow to hate the opposite gender if you did not even like their genitals. And if Kel had been forced to have sex with women he did not find attractive daily on his home planet then I could see why he couldn’t stand women.

  Due to the circumstances, I doubted homosexuality was acceptable on his home planet. Kel would have been confused about why he didn’t like women which would lead him to think there was something wrong with him. He probably would not have even realized his sexuality until he reached Starside and met other boys. The only other man he would have known up until the academy was his own father, and he hated his father. – Maybe there was something between the father and son that explained their hatred for one another. Something very dark that I chose not to think about seeing as this was all theory. Hell, for all I knew the reason Kel was angry was because this was the longest he had gone without sex since he hit puberty.

  A major disputable variable in my theory was Jaedorra. Who was she? Did he really love her or marry her because he knew his father would not approve? Maybe her species did not feel love and they were just friends who would soon share a child, or maybe she had male qualities that would make her more appealing to Kel if he preferred boys. Who knew? Kel did… and so did the USM database. I would have to research her later.

  Gay or not, Kel was a very confused man. Starside Academy was probably not the best place for him to be because of the dramatic changes he faced. I was probably wrong about him anyways. He was possibly just a douche with daddy issues and nothing more… I’m not very good at lying to myself.

  I was a little soft on Kel when I considered this new theory on why he was angry. The algrin noticed my hesitance and took advantage of the moment. He slammed my back into the floor and pinned me down. My head banged around in the black helm as Kel’s fist repeatedly came down. He was so feral I was almost worried he would crack my helmet.

  The cadets up in the overview room gasped when Kel hit my temple and knocked the helm into two pieces. I drew the line there by grabbing the algrin’s neck and squeezing. Not enough to choke him, but enough that he hesitated and I could throw him to the side.

  I reached for both sides of my helm. Kel noticed and grabbed the closest one before chucking it across the battle room.

  “Shit.” I growled before jumping to my feet.

  Kel tried to get another punch in, but I leapt backwards. He was not amused when I put my finger up to say ‘give me one moment’.

  Donn shook his head in disbelief as he watched from the overview room: “Oh, Am. What are you doing?”

  Apparently now was not a great time to redo my hair. I really did not like having my hair in a bun, so I changed it back into my usual perky ponytail.

  “Women.” Kel hissed as he patiently waited for moi to adjust my hair.

  This wasn’t a duel anymore. It was a boxing match. Kel’s only intention was to knock me out cold. I blocked most of his punches, however the ones that got through hit hard. Hitting Kel in the face was easy. Sadly it did not matter seeing as his helm protected him.

  “It would be a shame if I won because you got brain damage.” The algrin said snootily as I took a moment to spit blood out of my mouth like tobacco.

  “I-it would be a shame if you got expelled from Starside of giving me brain damage.” I stuttered. Blood was trailing from my nose and into my mouth. – It was disgusting.

  “If this gets too serious then we have to stop it.” Frek told Alk as they watched Kel and I attack each other like wild animals.

  The Amazonian woman looked down at him: “When does it get ‘too serious’?”

  “When permanent damage is done.”

  Adrenaline kicked in as I threw Kel to side. He reacted quickly by kicking the back of my leg and making my knee buckle. We looked like toddlers as we battled each other on the floor. This was not a very elegant fight.

  The battle room simply became a white blob as my vision blurred. The phallic had most likely given me a concussion. He was not nearly as injured as I was. The only chance I had to even the odds was by removing his helm. Or…

  Hit him where it hurts. A voice that was not my own said in my head. That will win the duel.

  I was not even sure if ‘where it hurts’ was the same for male algrins and humans. Regardless, there was no harm in giving it a shot. I rolled away from Kel before leaping to my feet. The algrin did the same but he took a little more time. Obviously he had hurt his foot at one point in the fight.

  He was surprised when the bleeding girl came right at him and grabbed his shoulders. At first he thought I was going to do something stupid like head-butt him, then he realized too late my real intentions. My armoured knee slammed into his unprotected midsection. – Kel should really wear a codpiece.

  “Oh, Amori.” Frek snarled as started typing on his wrist computer.

  Kel let out a surprised grunt and dropped to his knees. He had not expected moi to play dirty. I wasn’t done yet. We had both agreed that the game would stop when one of us was knocked out or begged for mercy. The algrin was too proud to hold up a white flag, so I was going to have to beat him to a pulp.

  Frek had other intentions. One of the turrets fired up and fired two shots. I didn’t try to move out of the way. Kel and I were probably in trouble for taking the fight a little too far. Chorst was right; neither of us would graduate from the academy if we kept this up.

  Three robots flew into the battle room. Two came for Kel and I while the third picked up both sides of my helm and mopped the blood off the floor.

  Way to go. I thought sarcastically. The thought was directed at whatever voice in my head had urged me to knee Kel in his midsection.

  He had it coming. The other voice in my head said. I did not question how there were two voices in my head. I just presumed I was going insane.

  When I came to in the medical centre, I was a little surprised to see that robots had taken away my uniform. I just lay there in my body-glove staring up at the ceiling. My armour had been put back in the suitcases which were resting on the shelf beside moi. I could not see Kel. He was probably on the other side of the curtain that split the medical centre.

  Alk stood at the end of the bed. She had a mixture of annoyance and amusement on her face.

  “Well,” she began slowly, “that was a very interesting fight. I honestly didn’t know who was going to win until you hit Kel in the groin… Not exactly a fair win, but a win nonetheless.”

  I slowly sat up to look at her properly: “I didn’t win,” I confessed, “Kel and I agreed that you could only win if your opponent got knocked-out or con–”

  “Conceded. I know.” Alk said simply.

  My expression was blank for a moment. Was Alk saying that Kel had admitted defeat? That phallic was too proud to concede!

  “Darn shame really.” Alk laughed. “Frek and I had a bet going. Now I owe him twenty credits.”

  “You bet against me?” I asked, appalled.

  She shrugged: “Frek had dibs on you so I didn’t have a choice.”

  I was Frek’s first choice. I thought with a small smile. I can’t tell if that’s endearing or disturbing.

  “Speaking of you and Frek,” I began cautiously, “are you two… together?”

  Alk smiled: “Depends on what you mean by ‘together’.”

  I dropped the subject quickly. It was not any of my busine
ss.

  Even though the body-glove covered moi from the neck down, I still felt incredibly naked. I closed my legs and crossed my arms over my chest. Alk did not seem to notice.

  “So… What happens now?” I asked after a long pause.

  “We’re currently getting you and Veck new uniforms.” Alk said before sidestepping away from the bed. “I’ll see you in combat. Remember that we’re starting out in the simulation room today and not the battle room. Dub Cap Chorst will give the full details when you get there.”

  “Yes ma’am.” I said, trying to hide my excitement.

  As soon as Alk left I scoped the room for Kel. Despite my pride, it was best that I apologized to the little douche.

  It felt strange to touch the floor without my boots on. The boots usually lifted moi an extra inch off the floor so that I stood at my father’s height. Sure, we had almost exactly the same DNA, but I was still one a little smaller than Sven. Not that I was short… unless you consider six feet to be short.

  My index finger hooked around the white curtain and gently pulled it back so I could see the other side of the medical centre. Kel was on a bed at the far end with Frek beside him… I had not been aware that could algrins cry.

  “I’ve got to go back. H-he’s going to kill her a-and keep the rest for himself.” Kel sobbed.

  Frek put a hand on the miserable boy’s shoulder. He did not look very sympathetic. That was because of his own bias against algrins and their insane belief system.

  “Mel isn’t going to let that happen.” The harsnic said in a soft voice.

  “When was the last time Mel gave a fuck about algrins?” Kel snapped. “The USM and algrins signed the fucking second-class treaty that says they won’t intervene in our issues.”

  Frek kept his condescending voice: “Jaedorra is not an algrin. That treaty doesn’t apply to her. She’s a first-class species so the USM will protect her even if the rules of the treaty are breached.”

  I really should not have been eavesdropping, but I’m a bad person.

  Kel looked at the harsnic in suspicion: “W-what about my other wives?”

  Frek used his free hand to run his fingers through his hair. He really wished somebody else could answer these questions for Kel. But he knew the phallic would not go to either of his other teachers because they were both women and ‘wouldn’t understand’.

  “They’re not protected by the same laws.” He said quietly so I could barely hear.

  “Your uniform, Dub First Off Am” A robotic voice said behind me.

  “Gah!” I leapt away from the curtain and spun around. Hopefully robots did not know what eavesdropping was.

  The robot had not seemed to notice. It just held out my new folded up uniform. The USM logo was the only colourful part. The black diamond in the logo was practically invisible on the lustrous black uniform. Only its silver outlining proved it was there.

  “Hell yeah.” I gasped under my breath as accepted the new uniform.

  I was actually a little too excited and I accidently let the beret and one of the boots slip off the top. The robot bent down to pick up the fallen objects but I got in first and swept them up. A part of moi was worried that the robot would take them away if I let it touch them. Nobody was taking this uniform away from me now!

  Another ‘gah’ escaped my lips when Frek drew the curtains open. He looked displeased. Kel was still on the bed on the other side of the room with his arms wrapped around his legs. He wasn’t crying anymore. However he still looked miserable.

  “You were eavesdropping.” He stated. Surprisingly, he did no sound very annoyed.

  I stared blankly at Frek for a moment.

  “I was… just checking up on him.”

  “Uh huh.” The harsnic muttered. “I think it would be best to avoid Dub Cap Kel for the next few hours.”

  “Did he really concede?” I asked curiously.

  Frek shrugged: “You didn’t give him much choice. If you had damaged his reproductive organs then he would be useless on his home planet. He doesn’t want to risk another fight with you if you’re going to aim for his midsection.”

  I smirked inappropriately. Why should I pity a phallic who tried to give me brain damage?

  I raised the folded-up uniform so it was covering my chest. Body glove or not, I didn’t want my science to have any idea about my chest size.

  “So apparently you bet on me?”

  Frek laughed: “I did indeed. Not to say Kel is incapable of beating you, but you’ve proven to be more of a risk-taker.”

  “And it’s not considered bad for teachers to bet on students?”

  “Not in the USM.” Frek said slyly.

  This place is messed-up.

  23: Back in Black

  It was awkward to run into Kel in the hallway. He had been striding down the corridor until he realized that he would accidentally catch up to moi. The algrin tried to speed past me, but the little mouse-like robot in front of us was blocking him. I did not even know what the little robots were for, but they did remind me that I was on the real life Death Star.

  This awkward walk alongside Kel could have been avoided if I had not wasted time in the chambers. As a gift for Chorst, Veck and my new Dub crew I was giving out those Ray-Ban sunglasses I had taken to Starside in my duffle bag. Who would need sunglasses in space? Awesome people. That’s who.

  “Thanks for letting me swap crews.” I murmured as Kel and I strode. We were both already half an hour late to class.

  Kel did not answer. He just stopped in the middle of the corridor and swung one of his suitcases into my stomach. It was such a spontaneous attack that I didn’t even have time to realize what had happened before I fell backwards. Thank God I had kept all the sunglasses in their cases. Otherwise the lenses would have broken.

  “Fuck!” I coughed when air flew back into my lungs.

  Kel was already walking away again… What a phallic.

  I scrambled to my feet without dignity and quickly picked up my suitcases and the sunglass cases. There was no point in trying to get back at Kel. He knew very well that I could knee him in the groin again.

  “Looking good!” Donn shouted when I arrived at the archway to the simulation room. “Black’s really your colour.”

  “Thanks.” I held out a small black case. “Have some sunglasses.”

  I knew the glasses wouldn’t suit his head shape. Even if they did, his eyes were too large for the Caravan style. Hell, his eyes were even too big any Earthling glasses! I had not planned on giving him a pair, but I had enough to go around.

  Donn accepted them happily. He looked inside the case with a confused expression.

  “What is it?” He asked.

  “Just a souvenir from planet Earth.” I told him as I put on my own sunglasses. – I had the Olympian style.

  (Some of you may think I’m advertising for Ray-Ban, but I’m not. I just like retro sunglasses.)

  I walked into the simulator’s overview room where the other cadets were. Ket was currently doing the spaceship simulation. San was next like always and then Gall. At first I thought about going when Gall did, then I remembered I was in Mar now.

  Alk acknowledged me with a nod as I entered before returning to watching the simulation. I was about to be a tattletale and tell her about Kel hitting me in the hallway, but a robot interrupted moi.

  “May I take your armour?”

  “Sure, whatever.” I said before chucking it both black suitcases and striding toward the overview window.

  Veck suited the Gall uniform. It matched her white skin, black makeup and tattoo. Henn and Gom did not look very happy standing next to her. Henn was tall and Gom was strong, but Veck was tall and strong. Kel just ignored her completely. The only person who was happy to see her was Ams because she wanted somebody to be able to boss Kel around.

  I slipped in-between Henn and Veck to watch look through the window into the simulation room. The layout was exactly like the bridge of the Titonic except
slightly smaller. Four members of Ket were in there while the fifth member was in another room that simulated engineering.

  There were at least ten people besides the four members of Ket in there working the non-officer jobs. At first I thought Alk had brought in people to help with the simulation. Then I noticed Merr pawing at some of the aliens walking by. His hand went right through their sides. They were simulations… This was about to become the most awesome lesson.

  “How ya doing Veck?” I asked after I got a good look at the simulation room.

  The pale woman smiled: “Excellent. Like the new uniform?”

  “Hell yeah.” I held out the black case holding the Balorama sunglasses. “Here, for your troubles.”

  Veck took the gift with an intrigued expression and opened the case to look inside.

  “What do they do?” She asked.

  “Protect your eyes from light.”

  She let out a low laugh. Veck’s black eyes worked better than any sunglasses in bright conditions. Her planet did not rotate as it went around their sun so one side always had day and the other always had night. Veck’s eyes were adjusted to both darkness and extreme brightness… She had no need for sunglasses but she accepted them graciously anyways.

  Chorst and Nor were watching moi from the other side of the room. My new dub crew looked nice. The only one I had problems with was Jee. He was one of those ‘accelerated intelligence’ cadets that I could see easily getting on my nerves.

  “Hello.” I said awkwardly when I reached Mar.

  Nis waved frantically and made a happy squeaking noise. I’m not one for cute and cuddliness. However, Nis was just about the cutest thing even with his big goggles on. Sadly, I knew his own innocence would lead to his destruction. Why would the USM even bring to a naval academy? I had no doubt he would see something horrible while on a USM spaceship. It was unavoidable.

  I stiffened when Nor grabbed my hand with both of hers. She looked similar to Chorst except a lot shorter and more bird-like with her beaky nose. They both shared the same black hair and white skin… Maybe that was a trait among nocturnal creatures.

  “I just know we’re going to be best friends.” She said in an over-enthusiastic English accent. God, she was going to get annoying quickly.

  “What are those?” Jee bluntly while pointing at the black sunglass cases.

  I threw him the Clubmaster pair. Not much point seeing as he had three eyes. He held the sunglasses up and watched them shine in the light. Like expected, he did not seem amused by them once he figured out they were not electronic.

  “Gifts from my home planet.” I joked. If Earthlings were going to be known for anything, it was our sense of style.

  “Ooh.” Nis and Nor said simultaneously.

  Nor got the Wayfarer pair while Nis got the Shooter. The little golden boy probably would never wear the glasses seeing as he had his goggles, yet he seemed amused by their shininess.

  What did I give Chorst? Predator. He did not say ‘thank you’. It was not something his species said because they expected the thankfulness was implied. I was a little sad that I could not see his amethyst eyes, but he still looked damn good with the dark shades.

  “Thank you Dub First Off Am!” Nor squealed. “I needed these.”

  I raised an eyebrow: “Eh?”

  “Nocturnal eyes are sensitive to light.” Chorst explained blandly. “The USM does not provide eye protection to second-class cadets so these will have to suffice.”

  The way Chorst said it made him sound as if he was displeased. Then again, he always sounded displeased so it was hard to tell if he was being gracious or not.

  “You’re welcome.” I muttered quietly.

  It would have been wise to bring gifts for all the cadets. My father offered to buy moi nineteen pairs. My concern was that it may have had made me seem condescending and pompous to give everyone free expensive gifts. Well… I was both those things, but I didn’t want everyone to know that straight off the bat.

  I did not notice Chorst when he snuck away. Nor was busy telling me about how many bones she had broken since she reached Starside Academy. I only realized the pale boy had returned when he grabbed my ponytail and tugged on it. Before I even turned there was a swishing noise and my head felt a lot lighter.

  “What the?” I gasped loudly when I saw Chorst standing behind me with a sharp knife in one hand and my ponytail in the other.

  Okay, I was beginning to get the idea that the trinard was a disturbed creep. Try to give me brain damage in a duel, sure, but nobody touched my hair. And people did not just cut my hair. One time back in third grade a boy pulled my hair in a soccer game and I tackled him to the muddy ground. Poor Sven had to run onto the field and pull me off him. That boy never returned to soccer practice.

  Alk and the cadets turned around when they heard my fist make contact with Frenchy’s cheek He did not try and fight back. Chorst just absorbed the hit and stumbled backwards.

  “What the hell?” I screamed like a little girl.

  “Am!” Alk snapped before she noticed that my hair had shortened dramatically. “Oh, wow.”

  I felt a little bad about my impulsive hit when purple blood seeped from the corner of Chorst’s mouth. He did not seem to notice it. Then again, he didn’t care how badly his body got damaged.

  “It’s requested for USM personnel and cadets to keep their hair short.” The trinard said like he was reading from the USM rule book which I am sure he studied relentlessly.

  “I’ll deal with my own hair.” I snapped. “What makes you think you can just cut my hair?”

  Alk rubbed her temples and breathed in heavily. She was beginning to wonder if I was going to get along with any of the captains. I’d already punched Zand (although she didn’t about that), Kel and now Chorst… Donn was next.

  “Trinards don’t care about bodies.” She explained. “He sees no damage done.”

  I ignored her and kept my eyes on the pale boy. He stuck his purple tongue out and licked up the blood off his lower lip. My hands went to my ghost ponytail to see the damage done. I had to say he would make a great barber. Despite the fact I now looked even more like my father with the boyish cut, Chorst had done a decent job. My hair was short at the back but it got progressively longer as it reached the front and went just past my ears. I didn’t exactly like the new look. However, I could adjust to it.

  “Sorry Dub Cap.” I mumbled formally. It was best to apologize to the man who was going to be my superior for five years. “I overreacted.”

  The trinard didn’t say anything he just strode away to put back the little knife (God knows where he got it from) and to dispose of the chunk of hair in his hand. I felt like Danny Boy should have been playing as my lovely golden hair was tossed in the trash. It would grow back, but it would never be the same.

  Zand and her dub crew did not understand what chaos had broken out in the time they had been in the simulation room. We were doing ‘negotiations’ for today. Ket had had to negotiate boundaries with a ship operated by second-class aliens that were trying to leave their system. In the end Ket had disabled the ship by firing upon its engines and killing two of its crew members. According to Alk, the mission was a success.

  I personally wanted to fire at something. It was all fake anyways so nobody would actually be killed. I had been desensitized to the thought of death, blood and gore. By the time I was six I had already seen the first three Alien movies and its prequels so no simulated aliens were going to scare moi.

  San did not do so well. I was putting my sunglasses away where the suitcases were stored while they failed. Chorst and Nor decided to continue wearing their glasses seeing as they had sensitive eyes. I realized I probably should have saved a pair of sunglasses for Ams seeing as she was nocturnal as well. Although she seemed fine, so maybe her eyes had adjusted to the bright light. According to the spreadsheet Ams was also ‘melancholy’ but I she didn’t seem sad or depressed. Maybe the silly notes were wrong about her.
– Or maybe I had never paid enough attention to little Ams.

  Alk didn’t seem to mind Chorst and Nor’s glasses. She understood the USM did not give second-class cadets the same medical support that they would first-class cadets. They would usually offer either contact lenses or eye surgery for first-class cadets with sensitive eyes. The only exception was Nis, without his goggles he could see something horrible that would put him into ‘grey state’ which was practically considered death.

  When I returned to the overview window I raised my eyebrows. The bridge was falling apart. Fire spreading across the floor, sparks coming out of the dashboards, and Donn trying to maintain control. It was truly a sight. I felt for the fish boy. The San simulation involved ‘negotiating’ with a barbaric species called the kuue. They were a nasty insect race with no remorse. The simulations were generated at random, so Alk had no control. If she did, she would not make San negotiate with such a hard race.

  While watching Donn’s demise, I ran my fingers through my hair. I still wasn’t used to the idea of having short hair and looking perfect to play Peter Pan.

  “They’re doing everything wrong.” Jee mumbled. Stupid purple lizard man. I doubt he could do any better. “If they had transferred the remaining power in their generators to their shields and aimed for the kuue’s bridge then they could still win the fight.”

  San didn’t do what Jee wanted them to do. We were all blinded by a sudden orange light that represented the ship’s explosion. When the light faded the bridge had gone back to normal and the kuue ship was no longer on the monitor. Donn sat in the captain’s chair with his head in his hands. None of us –besides Jee– blamed him for failing. Ket had gotten such an easy one that we all expected San to have one just as easy.

  “Here we go.” Veck said cheerfully as San came out and Gall went in. Gom and Kel ignored her.

  “You did alright, Donn.” I gave the fish boy a hard pat on the shoulder. “None of us could’ve done any better.”

  “Well actuall–”

  “Quiet Jee.” I snarled.

  Donn rubbed his large bulbous eyes and sighed: “I hope I never meet a kuue in real life.”

  Watching Gall’s simulation made me wish I could join my old crew just for this lesson so I could go in and help. They were up against two aggressive ships that refused to uncloak in a ‘no cloaking’ zone. No surprise Gall was fired upon by both invisible spaceships.

  Gom’s tactical skills were actually pretty good. He did what Chorst did back in science class and looked at the curvature of the surrounding stars. The only problem was that this method took too long. By the time Gall had found one ship their shields were down and Ams had lost control of the engine.

  “Fire!” Kel barked at one of the simulated crewmembers.

  A good shot, but not good enough. They hit the lower decks of the invisible ship. Unfortunately the cloaked ship’s shields were up and not much damage was caused.

  The simulation ended when the oxygen ran out in the bridge and the crew ‘suffocated’. Kel closed his eyes and leaned back in the captain’s chair as the simulations choked to death around him. The shields had given out which meant the ship’s atmosphere and the air supply were escaping through the big hole on the left side of the ship.

  Merr leaned towards Zand: “I’m beginning to think we got the easy simulation.” He purred.

  Zand just snarled. She was happy to have succeeded in the first round (I had missed Gall and Ket’s first round so I did not know if they did well), but she didn’t like doing well because she got the easy simulations. The shvesn loved to be challenged. I respected this about Zand. She was not the kind of girl who was going to take easy victories well.

  “We’re up!” Nor said in her peppy voice.

  Nis answered with a happy squeak before skipping towards the door. He had not been allowed to watch the last simulations due to the violence and had instead been treated to the colour show in his goggles.

  Chorst had a little more pressure on him than the other three captains. His wrist computer was connected to Nis’s goggles so he decided when to switch them on. It would be his fault if Nis saw something bad that put him into grey state. It was a good thing I wasn’t captain. Only truly good people could handle that pressure. That was why I had to forgive Chorst for cutting my hair. Although he was strange and creepy, he was the kind of man who would sacrifice himself without question for the life of another. His selflessness was most likely due to his carelessness of his own body, but he was still a great guy.

  I followed my new crew to the doors before suddenly hesitating. A single drop of blood dripped from my nose. It fell in slow-motion before splatting on the floor and separating into even smaller drops. I impulsively rubbed my nose without realizing that I could have stained my body-glove. Surprisingly, no blood appeared on the glove. My eyes panned down to the floor. The blood was gone.

  I’m losing it. My first thought was. Or Tak is…

  “Dub First Off Am?” Jee asked from the other side of the short corridor.

  “Coming.” I mumbled.

  My thoughts of Tak from three seconds ago were already gone. For some reason I just could not hold onto thoughts of Tak or Bennu. Although I knew that I had had those thoughts. It was like trying to remember a dream. Everything was mixed-up and made no sense when I tried to recall them.

  Keep it together Am. The voice that wasn’t my own said.

  Shut up. You’re not helping!

  Sorry.

  Great, now I have multiple personality disorder. That’s just perfect. Fuck Bennu/Tak. I knew that tear in the space time continuum had something to do with my slowly unravelling sanity.

  “Yowza.” Was what I said first when we entered the simulation bridge. Sure, it looked cool from the overview room, but it looked even better when you were inside.

  “Good afternoon, captain.” All the simulations said in cheerful voice to Chorst as they walked by him.

  The briefing for this simulation flashed onto the main monitor. We were apparently going to be dealing with a spaceship at a standard USM border inspection. The ship was carrying unidentified cargo… The scandal!

  “This is going to be good.” Jee sarcastically hissed. For once, I agreed with the slimy bastard.

  The silver ship was pretty fancy looking. It was obviously meant for space and sky seeing as it was so aerodynamic with its warped wings and slender body.

  “The ship has crossed the border, sir.” One of the simulations sitting at the same control panel as moi said.

  “Hail them.” Chorst replied. His sunglasses glinted under the artificial lighting as he looked back at the main monitor.

  My heart sunk when the ship responded to the hail. Black hair, pale skin and demonic red eyes… Trinords. I glanced up at the overview window to see Alk’s response. She looked rather surprised. There were very few simulations with trinords in them seeing as they were a first-class race with much influence in the USM. What were the odds that Chorst would get one of the few simulations with trinords in them?

  They were a rather dashing species. Although I did love Chorst’s amethyst eyes, the ruby red eyes of the trinord were entrancing. All of the trinords onscreen seemed to be wearing the same sly smile. It was not hard to imagine a trinard like Chorst expressing emotion like the ‘master race’. How I would love to see that Frenchy smile… Nah. There was a good chance he had purple gums that I didn’t want to see.

  Maybe they don’t know he’s a trinard. I mused as I looked at my captain. He was still wearing the Predator glasses so they would not notice his purple eyes. I was unsure if there were any other obvious features that separated trinards from trinords. The crew seemed intrigued by Chorst seeing as they could not tell which species he was… Then again, all they had to do was wait for him to open his mouth and they would know.

  The man sitting in the centre chair crossed his legs and rested his hands on them. “Greetings. I’m Cap Svan of the Armet.” He said. His accent was a little dif
ferent from Chorst’s. It was still French, but there was a twinge to it… French Canadian!

  Chorst did not bother to exchange formalities. – And obvious sign that he wasn’t a trinord.

  “Cap Svan, your ship has just crossed the border of the Dalowit system. We request for you to identify your cargo.” He said coldly.

  The captain of the trinord ship was sly: “We are a first-class race. We don’t have to identify anything. If anything; you should be giving your information to us seeing as you’re second-class.”

  Chorst did not answer. Although he couldn’t show emotions, I knew the trinords terrified him. Despite the races being separated for years, the trinards still suffered from the same psychological issues their ancestors had. That is a sign of how horrible the trinords had to be if they had permanently scarred an entire race.

  I leaned to the ensign sitting at the same panel as moi: “If these guys start really harassing our captain, we fire on them without question.”

  The simulated ensign’s eyes shifted back and forth before he nodded slowly. Obviously the simulation did not like that. However, I’m sure he understood the racial conflict currently going on.

  “Inform the others.” I said before standing up. The ensign followed me with his eyes before returning to the panel and typing my commands into the messenger.

  “New message from Off Jee.” Data informed me as I strolled around the bridge.

  Despite Jee being annoying, he was damn smart. The purple lizard had done an estimate of the life forms aboard. There were more life forms on-board than there would be for an average crew. Almost two-hundred more life forms than needed to run an average spaceship.

  Chorst understood immediately: “I order you to hand over the list of all crewmembers and passengers on-board.”

  “No.” Cap Svan said bluntly.

  “You have to comply under USM law or there will be consequences.”

  “How do you feel about those laws?” The sly trinard chuckled. “They’re mainly set-up to make sure that second-class people like you don’t do anything ‘naughty’.”

  Chorst was paralyzed. The superior race had just asked about his feelings and he wasn’t sure what to do. I literally –and figuratively– stood by his side as he tried to fathom the question.

  “Ma’am?”

  I glanced back to the ensign and nodded. He swallowed, but now agreed with my plan because he feared Chorst’s incompetence around trinords.

  “Don’t mess with my captain, motherfuckers.” I hissed as I watched three light torpedoes (special torpedoes intentionally used to give warnings) head for the silver ship. That may have been an overdramatic thing to say seeing as the light torpedoes only damaged the shield… I don’t care.

  Alk’s face was priceless. She was beginning to think I was irrational. We were barely two minutes into the simulation and I was already firing on a ship without my captain’s permission.

  What was even more priceless was the look on Cap Svan’s face. He too thought I was crazy. The Armet didn’t return fire. They were too ‘civilized’ for that.

  “That was an illogical action I had no part in.” Chorst explained very quickly. He didn’t look at me. He was probably a little thankful that we had gotten him out of answering Svan’s question about his feelings. “However, if this cannot be resolved civilly then we will take further action.”

  Chorst muted the call before Svan could open his mouth. The trinord’s expression changed from sly to annoyed when he realized this.

  “Do not fire upon a ship without my permission.” Frenchy said firmly. “Be cautious of the other life forms aboard the Armet that are not personnel.”

  “Sorry sir.” I paused to consider how to phrase my next words. “Is it possible that the other life forms aboard the Armet are slaves and that it’s a smuggler ship?”

  “Very possible.” He turned the mute off and returned his attention to the monitor where Cap Svan was waiting impatiently. “We are sending personnel over to inspect your cargo.”

  “That’s not legal.” Svan objected, keeping a calm yet intimidating tone. – It was weird to think he was just a simulation because he was so developed.

  “It is legal if a ship has failed to comply with USM law.”

  My fingers went to my throbbing left temple. The day was dawning on my brain. Humans weren’t meant to go this long without sleep. Who ever thought I would yearn for my regeneration chamber? It is hard to remember what it’s like to sleep in a normal bed.

  “I will report your actions to higher authority in the USM Navy if you send any inspectors over.” Svan huffed. “It’s a violation of first-class rights.”

  “You can plead your case to the USM. Right now, you follow orders.”

  Chorst’s I-don’t-give-a-crap side just kicked in. I was unaware that trinards even had that side. He had to be really brave to deal with his ‘father race’. Chorst was going to be a great captain in the future, I knew that for sure.

  The thought of the future made me have a flashback to the dream I had where Chorst and I watched the universe end and he was missing his left hand. The thought only lasted four seconds before it was forgotten. However, I single statement popped into my head: There isn’t going to be a future unless you…

  The second half of the sentence was fogged as if my brain was blocking it out. Again, it was not my own voice musing. The tear in the space time continuum hadn’t just shown me everything about the universe; it had also implanted something in my mind… Or maybe I’m incredibly paranoid. Yeah, that seems like the more logical answer.

  The monitor returned to showing the silver ship when the trinords abruptly cut the connection. Little bastards were probably going to try and fire on us. Funny, I always presumed the trinords would be smarter than Chorst because as they were the father race. It seems that was not the case seeing as they thought they could take on a USM Naval ship.

  No, they had better ideas. The ship turned on its cloaking device. It would have been idiotic to try and cross the border while cloaked seeing as we could predict their direction. Trinords were a little smarter than that. The invisible ship turner around and used their dega-drive to speed away. – Cowards.

  It was a slap in the face when I realized that we had not saved the possible trinards on-board and therefore, had failed the simulation.

  Chorst’s grip on the armrests tightened. We all looked at him wondering if he was physically expressing emotion. He relaxed his fingers after a moment and stood up to leave the bridge.

  “We could try and go after them.” I said softly, but it was too late. The simulations were already dissipating.

  The trinard practically stormed out of the bridge. Man, for a guy who couldn’t express emotion, he expressed a lot of emotion. I ran my fingers through my hair awkwardly before I remembered my new hairstyle.

  Alk bit her lip. She felt guilty about not changing the simulation. That was an unfair simulation for Chorst seeing as it had hit him on a deeper level. The fact he had not been able to save the trinard slaves aboard was a blow to his self-esteem. Her hand trailed to the panel when she decided to note why Mar had failed the simulation.

  “Excellent work.” She said honestly when we all returned to the overview room. “You handled it well.”

  Ket and San had one more go each before the first half of the class was over. Ket got a harder simulation this time and they barely succeeded. According to the statistics; thirty per cent of the crew was dead and fifty per cent was seriously injured. – Zand was displeased.

  Chorst was back to his usual impassive self within a couple of minutes. He was smart enough to know that it was just a simulation. It was more the fact that it could happen in real life. The fact he had gone tense at the end of simulation suggested he may not be fully trinard. It was very likely he had some trinord in him which was the part expressing emotion.

  Donn looked bewildered as he walked back into the overview room. San had gotten another hard simulation which ended in Do
nn having to activate the self-destruct sequence after an alien bug queen decided to use their ship as her nest and implanted her eggs in the crewmembers. Yeah, it was a pretty strange simulation to watch.

  “Well…” Alk chose not to finish her sentence when she saw Donn’s puzzled face.

  She was saved from telling Donn the results when Frek came in from outside. A thick silver bag was slung over his shoulder and his boyish expression suggested he was excited about what was to come. This worried moi. The last time he had that smile was when he wanted to show us Bennu, and we all know how that had ended.

  “No need for that look.” He laughed when he saw my expression. “You’ll all enjoy this, I promise.”

  His hand went into the bag and came back out with what looked like a bronze-covered chunky old cell phone. And I don’t mean ‘chunky’ as in the cell phones of your time, I mean the brick cell phones.

  “These are mainly for the science officers,” Frek confessed as he and Alk led us down the hall. Two robots followed behind with our suitcases on a hovering cart, “but I think it would be best if you all knew how to use the science equipment in case the chief science officer is not present.”

  The bricks were scanners… Very chunky scanners. I guess new slimmer scanners weren’t in the budget.

  “You all know how to read map coordinates right?” Alk asked when we reached the hangar.

  There was a mumble from the crowd of cadets. People like Jee were very sure of their map reading skills. People like Donn were less confident. That was not Donn’s fault. On his planet maps were not needed because sadamonts instinctively knew the ocean like the back of their hands.

  Alk shook her head condescendingly: “Well all you have to do is let the ship drive. Don’t worry.”

  We all stood around Alk and Frek like children in kindergarten. The harsnic passed out the bronze bricks until all of us had one. Well… almost all of us. Poor Yeek from Ket missed out seeing as Frek was one short of bricks. The green alien’s eye stems hung low in disappointment.

  “You have all been assigned to primitive planets –and moons– in the Dalowit System for your scientific research.” Alk explained. “You are to mainly focusing on geology today. Each group should collect at least three different samples today which you will be examining thoroughly tomorrow in science class.”

  “So get some good samples.” Frek joked.

  I questioned how we could find various samples on a moon seeing as they were just lumps of rock. Oh well, I sure hoped Mar didn’t get a moon.

  Two minutes later: “… Mar, you get the second moon of Eferos.” Frek said casually before sending synopsis of the moon to our wrist computers.

  “Yay.” I muttered sarcastically as I skimmed the synopsis.

  Some would think I had to be quite an arrogant snob to not be gracious for even getting to travel to a moon. I am an arrogant snob, but I’ve been to Earth’s moon. Me, Sven and Geraldine visited the Moon five years ago to visit the Neil Armstrong memorial centre. The memorial centre and the colonies were awesome, but the moon itself was incredibly boring. How different could the second moon of Eferos be?

  “How is this combat?” Donn asked. Good question.

  “Knowing you Dub Cap Donn,” Alk paused for effect, “you’ll run into an aggressive alien race and then it’ll be combat.”

  The fish boy let out a hesitant laugh. It would be just his luck.

  24: Need a Hand?

  I was right about the second moon of Eferos: It was boring. Well, not entirely… The gravity was low so Nis, Nor and I bounced about. Chorst and Jee remained firmly planted on the rocky terrain. This was no time for having fun.

  The natural satellite was more like an asteroid that got caught in Eferos’s orbit than a moon. It would only take two days to walk around the whole body and barely ten seconds to fly around at an average USM speed. Yeah… We weren’t gonna find much on this moon.

  Donn and his dub crew were on one side of Eferos while Ket was on the other. Looking down at it from the moon, it was a ginormous lush planet that was ninety-five per cent water. The grey dust rings that circled the planet were what really reminded me that it was not Earth.

  After the fun of low gravity wore off, I pranced back to Chorst and Jee before taking one final jump. Even though I could not see Jee’s face through the helm, it was he easy to presume he was not amused by childishness.

  “So how much rock do we have to collect before we have enough rock?” I asked Chorst who was already one knee examining the terrain.

  “We need variety.” He said bluntly.

  I wanted to say “the only thing here is rock”, but then the Frenchy would most likely lecture moi on how many different types of rock there were. He seemed like the kind of boy who knew a lot about rocks. I should probably know more about geology. My father studied hundreds of asteroids while he was at the out rim of the Solar System. Sven always wanted me to be a scientist… That probably wasn’t going to happen. Then again, my father had only become interested in space science and extra-terrestrial geology when he went to university so I still had time to change my mind.

  “Digging would be logical.” Chorst stood up properly and brushed the grey dirt off his knees. “Then we could compare the crust to the core.”

  “This may be a small satellite,” I began slowly, “but I doubt we would be able to dig to the core… I don’t think this moon even has a core.”

  “It has a core.” Chorst said simply.

  “Every natural satellite has a core.” Jee growled. He was the chief science officer after all.

  Seeing as I’m in space, I should probably catch up on my astronomy, geology and physics. “Well we still can’t dig to the core.” I muttered.

  The pale boy examined the synopsis on wrist computer. There was not much to be said about the second moon of Eferos. Nobody had even bothered to give it a proper name. Eferos had forty moons. Only the first moon, Dakban, was considered ‘special’ because it was the largest and first discovered.

  “The second moon of Eferos resembles Okevella. The lower layers of Okevella hold a large mineral deposit of dyphon crystals. This moon has conditions necessary for dyphon crystals to form in.” Chorst explained.

  Okevella, it was a moment before I remembered that it was Chorst’s home planet. Wait… his home planet looked like this? Yowza, what a horrid planet it had to be. Even after ‘millions of years of physical and psychological abuse’ all the USM could provide the trinards with was a lifeless rock? The discrimination was crystal clear. Had the trinords needed a new home planet they would have been given something more like Eferos. But their second-class daughter-race got a shitty rock. That’s not okay… I think I need to have a little talk with Mel.

  Without asking for our input, Chorst sent Frek a message requesting a drill. Not a large drill like they had Earth. The sample collecting drills the USM looked more like four feet high syringes. However, the needle part was actually a slender drill bit that could go deep into planetary bodies. These are the kind of things you learn about in USM history class seeing as mining is a very controversial thing in the USM. There are all these laws around it which is why it’s mainly done illegally with slave clones or second and third-class aliens who cannot get work anywhere else in the galaxy.

  “Wait,” I raised my finger to signify my question, “if this moon is like your home planet then can we breathe here?”

  “No.” Chorst replied without elaborating.

  “They live in a dome.” Nor explained as she bounced back to us. Nis pranced alongside her. “A big glass dome.”

  Why would she know that? I thought, a little jealous. Dear God, was I jealous of Nor? Sure, they looked similar and were both nocturnal, but that did not mean they had some sort of special connection. Even they did, I would be fine with it… No, I wouldn’t.

  Shockingly, Frek denied us a sample drill. Chorst explained that seeing as this was our first expedition, we would not be getting equipped with special gear.
However, Frek did praise us for considering other alternatives for collecting samples. That is why Chorst had requested a sample drill in the first place; to get bonus points with Frek.

  “We can still give a prediction of the minerals in the mantle.” Jee stated as the yellow lasers from his scanner searched the foreign rocks. “Science is all about making predictions.”

  I nodded, actually agreeing with the purple lizard.

  “Captain?” A timid voice called from the crater below. “I found something.”

  Chorst dropped the rock he was examining and bounced down toward Nis and Nor. At first it appeared the pair was staring at nothing, yet according to Nor’s scanner they detected an organism. Nor had decided not to investigate until Chorst was there in case the organism was harmful. – A wise choice on her part. I had seen plenty of movies that would suggest the outcome involved a small alien sticking to her helm.

  “Ooh.” Nis squeaked as our captain switched on the goggles. In case anything bad happened Chorst did not want the innocent boy to witness it.

  Like two dogs Jee and Chorst dug through the thick terrain. Sure, there were spades back at the dub ship but these boys did not mind getting their hands dirty (or rather their body gloves dirty).

  After a minute Chorst slowed down as to not damage whatever they were uncovering. It was a strange squishy thing. Hard to tell what it was with all the grey dirt on it plus the apparent burn marks. I saw a hint of dirty orange and figured it was some sort of moon potato… Then I saw that it had four fingers.

  “Oh.” Nor choked when Jee held up the lifeless hand. She tried to take a step backwards but ended up falling.

  Now Jee wasn’t Mr. Smug: “H-how?” He squeaked before dropping the hand.

  Chorst did not react. The yellow lasers from his scanner danced across the rotting hand in search of answers.

  “What’s it say?” Nor whispered as if not to ‘wake’ the hand.

  Chorst’s amethyst eyes read along the small screen of the scanner: “There is enough data in the body glove that I can identify him.”

  Him? Was my first thought. How does he know the hand belongs to a ‘he’?

  “Lieu Com Feb of the USM Navy.” Chorst stated. “Disappeared sixty-two days ago on an outer-galactic rim patrol and died two days after his disappearance according to the data in his body glove.” He paused intently. “Yet… according to his bio readings he has been dead five-hundred and two years.”

  “Five-hundred and two years?” Jee mused aloud in disbelief. “So he died… and then went missing years after?”

  “He was very much alive before his disappearance.” The pale boy stated. “The bio readings must be incorrect. The only other explanation would be…”

  “Time travel.” I said coldly. The words ‘Tak’ and ‘Bennu’ popped into my head for a brief moment before vanishing again.

  Another thing we learned in our history class: time travel was utterly illegal. The USM knew how to time travel, but the information was kept secret as it was the most dangerous weapon. Only the monks of Destin-Hey and 4th dimensional minds travelled time in a psychological sense. Lieu Com Feb had obviously not allowed his hand to travel through time on purpose. He knew the consequences.

  “W-where’s the rest of him?” Nor whimpered.

  Our captain did not answer. He immediately dialled Frek on his wrist computer. Man, our classes were just getting weirder and weirder.

  The USM equivalent of NCIS arrived quickly on the scene. Com Lieu Feb was nowhere near the Dalowit System when he disappeared so they questioned how his hand could have made it there. Then there was the question of how the hand had been there for five-hundred years. Chorst’s rinky dink scanner had only been wrong about one thing: Feb had died before his passing through the 4th dimension but the hand had still been there for five-hundred years. This did not exactly make the situation any easier to understand. In fact, it may have been even harder.

  Frek strode up to the head of the investigation. They were digging deeper into the second mood of Eferos to see if they could find any more of the dead scout. They knew it was unlikely that they would find the rest of him, yet they wanted to be sure they had not missed anything.

  “Is it what I thought?” He asked quietly seeing as I was staring at him from a fair distance away with suspicion.

  “Unfortunately, yes.” The head investigator muttered. “The traces of Bennu are undeniable.”

  Neither of them were sure what that meant. They knew Feb’s hand had to have passed through the 4th dimension… but how and why? If something from the 4th dimension was intervening with the universe then the USM would be on DEFCON 1. The Hey-monks had no comment on the matter and neither did Mel. – Not a good sign.

  “Any signs of Lieu Sef?”

  “Sefras?” The head investigator shook his head. “If she suffered the same fate then her body parts are scattered across space and time as well.”

  The harsnic ran his hand across his smooth helm: “You need to do a full sweep of where their shuttle went missing. We need to know how they got in contact with Bennu.”

  I questioned from afar why Frek had so much influence over the NCIS team. He was just a teacher so why was he getting to tell them what to do?

  Frek strolled over to the five of us after a few minutes. We were all sitting in front of our dub ship trying to be inconspicuous save Nor who was having a breakdown. She hated death, she hated bodies, and she hated finding parts of dead bodies on random moons. I felt sympathy for her… but I was sick of her high-pitched sobbing. Yes, she was tired and more emotional than most of us. That didn’t mean we all had to hear about it.

  Nis could not understand why she was sad. He had missed the whole thing due to Chorst switching his goggles on. This crew needed a pair like that for Nor.

  “You kids have two options.” Frek began without even acknowledging the hysterical daga ve. “You can either return to Starside Academy, have an early dinner and get some extra regeneration time in or you can split off into the other Dub crews and collect samples with them.”

  “It would be logical for all of us to return to the academy and regenerate.” Chorst stated.

  I sighed and nodded slowly. Sleeping sounded great… then Donn sent moi a message.

  “Am, we all just heard about the whole hand incident. What are the odds?” The fish did not understand the seriousness of the situation. I liked that about him. “Would you like to come join us on Eferos to finish collecting samples?”

  “Donn’s invited me to Eferos.” I told Chorst and Frek. “I think I’m gonna join him.”

  “An average human needs at least seven hours of sleep.” Chorst said. I don’t know where he learned that. “It would be wise of you to come back to Starside and regenerate.”

  “I’m not an ‘average human’.” Jee rolled his bulbous eyes. The lizard was a hypocrite when it came to other people’s egos. “I was bioengineered to be better than the average human.”

  It doesn’t show, but I really am supposed to be better than other humans. Most other humans right now would be passed out. Not moi. Sure, I did not like how little sleep I got, but I could survive and still go for a run.

  Chorst had to practically carry Nor back into the Dub spaceship. She was a complete mess. I felt for the other three on the flight back with her. Some sleep would do the daga ve good.

  “You should’ve chosen regeneration.” Frek told me. He was going to watch me until Donn arrived. The harsnic was worried I would get involved in the investigation.

  I crossed my arms nonchalantly. “I know this is related to Bennu. I don’t know how it’s all connected, but I will find out.” Frek did not respond. I kept pushing. “What are you hiding from me Frek? Why’s the 4th dimension such a big deal?”

  “Ask Mel.” He growled. “I can’t tell you anything you don’t already know… and you shouldn’t know anything you shouldn’t know.”

  “You’re so conspicuous it’s shocking.”

  Donn ar
rived just in time to break the awkward silence. Jhan danced out after him before jumping on his back. She was light, so the fish could easily give her a piggyback. The pair was so ignorant that they didn’t even take one look at red holographic ‘NCIS’ tape that was floating around the crime scene. They just skipped right through it.

  “You ready?” Donn asked before he noticed the man standing next moi. Because of the helm he couldn’t recognize Frek.

  “It’s Frek.” Jhan whispered in his ear.

  “Oh.” He nodded slowly. “Can Am join us, sir?”

  “I already said yes.” Frek said calmly, but not happily.

  Donn, Jhan and I got out of there quickly. Frek was not in a very good mood. I understood why. A lieutenant commander’s hand had just been found and they were not likely to find the rest of him. Oh well, it wasn’t my problem anymore seeing as it had nothing to do with moi… Who am I kidding?

  “Yowza.” I gasped as we flew above Eferos. It was marvellous. Like something you would see in a decent James Cameron film. The whole planet was buzzing with enigmatic life.

  “You’ll find some good samples here.” Donn smirked. Jhan giggled like a schoolgirl.

  We all tensed when the spaceship was overshadowed. Donn’s fingers danced across the panel to open the first layer of the sunroof. We all gasped when the creature above eclipsed the sun. This world was prehistoric Earth with pterodactyls and all. The giant creature soaring above was amazing and terrifying at the same time. This rinky ship could take on the beast if it was necessary, but the three of us hoped it would not come to that.

  The ship shuttered as the beast pecked at the roof. Jhan wrapped her wobbly arms around Donn like she was going to fall off the ship if she let go. I just had a thought: if those two had kids they would have jellyfish. Get it? I’m a genius!

  “Fuck.” I muttered although I was more surprised than scared at that point. I had seen many aliens in my time at Starside, but this one somehow seemed different.

  Once the giant beast realized the ship was not edible, it let out a thunderous grunt before vanishing in a literal sense. The creature could teleport. Well… I doubt the pterodactyls of prehistoric Earth had the power to teleport so the two species obviously were not related.

  “Tell the others we’ll be there soon.” Donn told Jhan. “Am and I are going to take a scenic tour.”

  “Yes sir.” The blob said in a peppy tone.

  Scenic tour? I thought.

  The side door hissed when Jhan punched the button that opened it. We did not have to worry about any of the ship’s air escaping; the atmospheric shield would keep it in.

  “See you soon!” The sadamont cried cheerfully over the sound of wind rushing past the atmospheric shield.

  “Wha–” I grunted before Donn pushed moi out the door. Yes, Donn just pushed me out the dub spaceship. He was that kind of guy.

  In the chaos I did not remember that I could fly. It was a very surreal feeling falling to my death. I was more distracted by the beauty of Eferos than I was about the fact that I was going to leave a small crater on the planet.

  Donn, who was a little surprised that I had not switched on my boots, swooped down and grabbed moi around the waist. This was one of the few situations where I would let somebody ‘hug’ me.

  “I’m gonna kill you!” I screeched in a feminine way.

  Donn laughed: “Switch on your boots.”

  Of course, I complied. With very little flight experience in the battle room, flying above this planet seemed like a big step. Thankfully I have never had a fear of heights. At fourteen I was already skydiving with Sven. Geraldine never came. As he stated he would rather not pee himself.

  “You’re crazy. You know that?” I asked Donn via earpiece as we flew like we were forming a double helix.

  I heard him laugh, but he didn’t answer.

  We dove downwards till were just sweeping the clear ocean below. All the eccentric creatures were easy to see swimming around below the water. There was a huge amount of marine life on this planet. I cannot compare it to the sea life on modern Earth seeing as it is all gone save a few stragglers.

  Centuries ago the whales were the first to go after a Norwegian ship blew the crap out of the last one in existence. Yeah, everyone had been expecting the Japanese to get the final one seeing as they had the most ships looking for that little minke whale. It was a shock when the final battle was between Iceland and Norway. The Icelanders had the whale within their reach and then BAM! The Norwegians fired a torpedo, killing the whale before sailing away with its remains. Yeah… 2098 AD was a hard year with the Nordic recession (which we blame on Finland even though it was actually Denmark’s fault). People had become very desperate for money. Even the extinction of a species seemed logical if money was involved. Same thing happened in Africa on land… Humanity sucks.

  Spontaneously, Donn reached for his wrist computer and switched off his boots. I accidently flew right by him when he suddenly splashed into the water. Once I realized, I reached for Data and dropped in after the fish. It was no real surprise Donn wanted to go swimming. He must have really missed being in water when he’s at Starside Academy.

  “You think I could take my helm off?” He asked me as we swam over a coral bed.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  I could have explained to him how we would need to do a proper test of the water before we could swim or drink it, yet I decided to go with a different answer: “Gotta stay in full uniform while we’re on missions, Donn.”

  The fish muttered something, but it didn’t come across on the earpiece.

  It was a good half an hour before we re-joined the other four members of San. They had already gotten enough samples of non-biological matter on this plentiful planet. Yeah, San got Eferos and Mar got the stupid lump of rock rotating around it.

  We had not really been missed by the others except for Jhan who was happy to see Donn again. The Jell-O girl was worried that with my reputation, I would get fish boy in trouble. – She did not realize that the situation would actually be vice versa. Donn was the one who wanted to take off his helm, after all.

  Or was not very impressed by our wet uniforms, but Us, Marsh and Jhan wished they had been invited to join. Those three came from planets where water was scarce so they never swam. Or came from quite an aquatic planet similar to Earth, so he didn’t feel like he had missed anything.

  “One of the marine creatures tried to eat us.” Donn laughed as if it was no big deal.

  “You okay?” Jhan asked. Her head went up and down as she scanned him for any signs of injury.

  “Yes,” I added to Donn’s statement, “a creature did try and eat us… but it was the size of my thumb so it couldn’t have done any real damage.”

  “It could have eaten your thumb.” Donn smirked.

  It really is best Donn and I weren’t in the same dub crew. Together, we were nitwits.

  None of us were ready to head back to Starside Academy when the time came. We were so uninspired to go that we only left at the very last moment and returned to the academy ten minutes late. – Alk and Frek weren’t pleased.

  The artificial lighting was sickening after we had spent the last hours in the sun. San and I made a pact to all go to Eferos on our first vacation… if there was such a thing as ‘vacation’ in the USM.

  “I wonder how the other dub crews did.” Us pondered aloud as we strode with our suitcases to the chambers.

  I shrugged. “Well, you know how well my dub crew did… with that hand incident and all.”

  “Heh. Yeah.” He muttered.

  And that was the end of that conversation.

  When we reached the chambers we were in for an interesting surprise. I was just chucking my briefcases back in my cubical when the chamber across from moi opened. Out stepped Nor and Chorst who were both still zipping up their jackets. Nor was surprised to see us, but Chorst didn’t react.

  Oh. My. God. I thought, and words were o
bvious in my expression. They just had sex… Sex.

  My first thought was how long they had been going at it. The rest of Mar had arrived back at Starside just under three hours ago. So… had they been ‘doing the nasty’ for hours? Sure, I didn’t know much about these aliens, but could they really go at it for that long?

  “You’re back.” Nor said, her smile was hesitant.

  “I thought you guys were going to regenerate.” I snarled.

  “We were.” Chorst explained blandly. “However, we decided to only regenerate for two hours because we have already scheduled in our calls for tonight.”

  Well… at least they had only been up for a few minutes. Was I jealous? Yes. I thought Chorst was asexual. Why would he need to have sex with Nor?

  The only plus to this situation was that Nor was not a depressed maniac anymore. She was downright cheerful. Even in her embarrassment she could not hide her smile.

  “Heh.” Donn clapped his hands together as he slowly walked backwards. “Well, Am. We’re going to go grab dinner. See you there soon.”

  Donn and the rest of San moved like lightning to get out the shroud of awkwardness. Chorst did not acknowledge moi as he strode out after them. Then it was just Nor and I… ‘Awkward’ was not a strong enough word to describe the situation. I nodded at her casually before turning to leave.

  “Wait.” She whispered.

  I was not very good at pretending to not be annoyed with someone. The smile I sent her was more aggressive than anything. It was my famous I’ll-pretend-everything’s-okay-even-though-I-want-to-hit-someone smile.

  “Can I talk to you?” Nor asked. She had not noticed my famous smile.

  We walked slowly together to dinner. I was not very hungry after having the image of Nor and Chorst having sex was fused into my brain, but I wanted to hear how the other dub crews did on their science expeditions. Hopefully Veck and Kel were getting along.

  “Y-you know how I was stressed and sad b-because of that hand incident?” I nodded, intrigued by where this was going. “Well… I thought regenerating for two hours would help me calm down, b-but I was still not feeling very good.” I nodded again, less understandingly. “You see, my people can become easily anxious and the only relief is… sex.” Is she coming on to moi? “I do not know how, but Dub Cap Chorst what I needed so he offered t–”

  “I got that part.” I said abruptly.

  Nor blushed a strange blue colour: “I’m not sure what sex means to your kind, but for my people the need is purely physical. It does not express any kind of feeling for another. It’s a normal necessity that can be fulfilled by anyone.”

  “Indeed.” I muttered. “Do you know what it means to Dub Cap Chorst?”

  “It means nothing to him.” She said simply. “You know very well that he has no care for his body.”

  I nodded. This was the second most awkward situation I had have ever been in. The first one happened a few months ago and involved waking up to find Iain Weber shirtless in my kitchen making flapjacks. Iain and I were in the high school’s track team together. He was the last person I expected to find in the mansion. All became explained when a jaded Sven and Geraldine came downstairs for breakfast. Sure, I knew Sven and Geraldine were ‘exotic’ and liked to invite other men and women to join them, but shouldn’t my schoolmates be off-limits? The situation became even stranger when Iain asked me when our math homework was due. Truly a scarring moment. That’s probably one of the reasons I have been abstinent for so long; as soon as I had sex, I would go to the dark side and become as wild as my father.

  “He’s not interested in me.” Nor said. A mark of sadness in her voice. “He’s fascinated by you… because of your blood.”

  “Eh?” I raised an eyebrow. That was not something I wanted to hear.

  “Your blood is red like trinord blood. Therefore, you are of a divine race.”

  The human race being divine; that is a hilarious thought.

  “I’m not sure if trinards feel love,” Nor paused, “but however he feels about you must be equivalent.”

  There was no proper way to finish that conversation. I could not act humble because that would make it seem as if I did not care about Chorst, and I could not act flattered because Nor obviously liked the Frenchy. She was kind of like Jhan with Donn around him but Chorst did not play into her smitten actions… Well, besides having sex with her.

  She looked at me as if she wanted an answer. I just smiled at her before looking forward. Luckily, we were only a few steps away from the cafeteria so the silence would be over soon.

  “I could be completely wrong.” Nor whispered. “He could feel nothing for you. We’ll never learn what he’s thinking.”

  “Maybe.” I muttered. God, couldn’t Nor just let it go? I already had dibs on Frenchy.