~ * ~ * ~
When the boys and girls of the Helysian had donned their pressure suits and boots to fly, they were transported to an area nearby that held twenty-five discarded ships tethered to one another. The cadets were ejected into open space and had to use the boosters on their 3B suits to glide to a ship, open it, seal it, fix it, and bring it home.
3B suits were black and oily in appearance, and they clung tightly to the body so that they looked like a second skin. The masks were very tight fitting, and the goggles were large and bug-like in appearance. However, the pilots loved to wear them leisurely around the ship to show off their perfect bodies, which were the results of years of combat and training.
Now in space, the time for fashion and games was past, and the teens gained a new appreciation for their suits as they glided towards their destiny, propelled by their boots. This mission rang similar to the one Rafian had done in order to get to first grade status. He found out that as a first grade graduate, he was permitted to skip this exercise, but he wanted to participate in order to be sure that he was ready.
When the pilots neared the cluster of ships for the exercise, things took a turn for the worse when two people went for the same ship and decided to fight over it. One of the boys’ thrusters accidentally caught the other during their struggle, and a hole was burnt through the material, freezing and killing him instantly.
Another girl triggered the wrong switch, and her ship shot off into deep space on a predestined path back to its original owner. The problem was that its owner would more than likely be the enemy, and with no light-speed technology working in the vessel, there was no way she would make it out alive.
The rest fumbled along, fixing their individual ships, but a few misfired weapons caused five more future pilots to lose their lives. It was nerve-racking, but Rafian pulled his together in good time to fly out of their stalled circle of death.
Upon docking his ship (a Casanian model), he stood on the deck and waited to see who else would return from the exercise. Vani snuck in under his arm to hug him tearfully, and he kissed the top of her head as he squeezed her close. In the end, only five of the twenty-five cadets returned with their ships, and twelve had to be rescued before their oxygen depleted.
A ceremony was conducted to a crowd filled with tearful young faces and the stoic but proud stares of older space jocks who had been through the same thing in the past. Marce was one of the five pilots who made it, and he came over to shake Rafian’s hand and congratulate him. It was a grand ceremony, and of all the things that went on, the one thing that stuck with Rafian the most was the smile on Kim’s face. She was standing in the crowd, holding a cute newborn and looking proudly up at him.
He wondered at the smile but put it out of his mind just as quickly as it had come, realizing how lucky he was, because it could have gone very badly for him. Kim had missed her chance when she ended up pregnant, and at this moment, he would have felt tremendous guilt if the baby were his. He looked over at Marce, who wasn’t paying her any attention, and felt a twinge of regret for her situation.
Above all , of the other thoughts that ran through his head as he was congratulated, medaled, and promoted, was the fact that he had now realized his dream of becoming an actual Starfighter. He had not skipped the final test, and he had not panicked during the worst. It made him feel enormous and worthy.
As a reward for his service, Rafian was immediately given the rank of lieutenant and allowed to take leave for a week. Before he could leave to start his break, he was summoned to Captain Abe RUS’s office for a meeting.
“Rafian, take a seat, young man,” the commander offered. “Before we begin, I am going to have to ask you to select a legacy name, soldier. I have heard your history and witnessed your rise, and I don’t think it would be right for a man like you to go any further without a name to start your legacy.”
Rafian felt a strange heaviness come about him at the inference, because this was something that had bothered him since he was first allowed into the academy. He had no legacy name—none! His mother had only taught him his first name before she left him, and it was something that the other children never let him forget.
“Sir, my legacy name will be VCA,” Rafian said after some thought.
The captain regarded him and nodded in approval. “You honor our home world, I see. I was expecting you to name some powerful beast or god, but you again surprise me by going with military tradition. Three letters, the sign of service. What does VCA stand for, Rafian?” he asked, seeming to be genuinely interested.
“Well, sir, the V is for Vanguard because that is where I will be in all matters of service. And though I hate it, the cadets gave me the call sign Centuri, so I will own it. A is my commitment to fight for our galaxy, Anstractor. So it is VCA. That will be my name.”
Captain Abe RUS walked from behind his desk and shook Rafian’s hand firmly, grinning. He was an older man whose hair had gone completely white. His skin was as dark as Rafian’s, and his voice sounded like a ship’s engine. Everyone respected the captain because of his lengthy history of war and strategy, but as a man, he had a presence that stayed with you.
His large nose flared as he spoke during the handshake, and to Rafian, it felt as if he were saying good-bye. “We weren’t very nice to you when you came aboard, were we?” he stated with regret in his eyes. “I think these slights against you may have been something that stayed with you throughout these years, and has driven you like some sort of angry spirit. Hell, son, you probably hate my guts for the events of that day—though I suppose many people have let you down in your young life, haven’t they?
“You are our best young soldier, Rafian VCA, and I imagine it won’t be long before you’re commanding your own fleet. But for now, I am proud to have you as one of our weapons in this war, son.”
Pausing, the captain handed Rafian a glass of whiskey and nodded at him to knock it back. Then he walked him to the door with some final words. “I would like for you to take a short break.”
This was the most that Rafian had ever heard the big man say, and though it wasn’t an apology, he took it as one and left the office to see about his shrine to Samoo LES. His mentor had not returned after a mission, and Rafian had built a memorial to him. He could see Samoo’s dark pupils and silver-streaked hair in his mind’s eye, as if the man were in front of him issuing congratulations. Samoo was from a long line of warriors in a culture of immense discipline. He was nothing like the other soldiers, and that part of him had stayed with Rafian, his final student.
“Where do you want to go?” Vani asked, startling him as he knelt with eyes closed.
He turned quickly to see her standing there, eyes on fire the way they always were whenever she smelled opportunity. It took everything within him to keep his cool rather than lay into her for the interruption.
“You’re not going to like my answer,” he said quietly.
“Okay, so out with it then, Commander Rafian!” she teased.
“Cute … but it’s lieutenant, and before I take any sort of leave, I want to go look for the cadet whose ship went into autopilot. It has only been a day, and I think I can find her.”
Memory 06 | Aurora Rising
Rafian wondered how it felt to be drifting alone in the cold of space, knowing no one would be there to rescue him. He imagined that for the quiet girl who had gotten stuck with the ship that took off, the universe was beginning to feel like a flood of disappointment sweeping down upon her—a bug stuck on a twig, drifting down a stream, waiting for the flood to finish her off.
He had lied to the chief on the bridge, telling him that his goal for taking his ship out was to familiarize himself with the controls—so that he could utilize her properly in a real mission, of course. Since his graduation they had torn out the guts and replaced it with a regulation cockpit.
“Lieutenant VCA, you have flown beyond acceptable boundaries of the Helysian,” the ship’s controller warned.
“Windry, can you cover for me, please?” Rafian whispered back through his communications device. Windry had been one of the nicer girls in the academy when they were kids, and while she and Rafian were not necessarily friends, she respected him and liked him enough to comply.
“I can get into a lot of trouble for this, Raf,” she whispered. “Please don’t get yourself lost or killed.”
Rafian didn’t reply but turned off the radio and sent a message to her personal CODEV saying that he owed her one. He turned on the radar and wired an AMP to it that he had stolen from the Helysian’s reserves. The tiny radar on his panel normally displayed blips around the perimeter of the ship for up to a thousand thrusts, but the AMP transformed it into a unit that was more suited for large starships and extended its reach to cover a minor sound jump.
“Where are you, Cadet?” he asked out loud as he scanned the radar, but he could not make out anything that would have been her ship. Following the direction of her flight as he remembered it, he increased his thrusters and hoped she had not self-destructed from being panicked and pressing random buttons. He had enough fuel to last a few days, and he was hoping that the chief would forget about his departure and allow him the time it would take to rescue his classmate and bring her back home.
It was a few hours later when he found the ship, but it was abandoned and looked as if it had been torn apart by a trace laser. His ship was a traditional long-nose, similar to those from the Second War. It had wings that curved upwards, a feature that was built for aesthetics over function, and the cockpit had glass that allowed him to see 360 degrees. Rafian believed this feature to be ugly, but it was extremely useful for his search.
Shutting off the engine and using the side thrusters to float around the discarded ship, he tapped the boost lightly to rotate around the debris and wondered where the pilot could have gone. Her mangled body, even if vaporized, should have been drifting near the ship, but it looked as though she had managed to get out before the attack and had somehow vanished into thin air.
He was on his fifth rotation when a vessel materialized in front of him, large and imposing. He had never seen anything like her, not even in his textbooks, and his mouth fell open at the sheer size of her. It was as if a huge wall had appeared, blocking everything as far as he could see. It was good that he had let himself get distracted at the ship’s details because he instantly blacked out, never seeing the lizak ray as it shone into his cockpit and sucked out the air before pulling his craft into a cargo hold.
Rafian awoke with a start, and his eyes grew accustomed to his surroundings. He was quite surprised to be living, and even more so at the fact that the vessel was pumping out breathable oxygen. The temperature was warm, and he looked down to realize that he was lying in a vat of thick, pink liquid deep inside a pit of some sort, with a plantlike growth covering its metallic, cylindrical sides.
He thought of how silly he must look lying there in what appeared to be a giant’s serving cup filled with corroded old milk. He stood up and checked himself in case he was missing parts, but he was good. He looked around wildly for any trace of a door or window. The whole situation felt hopeless, and he wished he knew something of his captors so he could gauge his next move.
The walls were smooth to the touch, and Rafian checked the growth to see whether it could hold his weight—no such luck, and he wondered if this would be his end.
The water smelled like old shoes, and he scanned it intently to see if he could figure out what it was. There were lumpy objects beneath its surface, and Rafian reached in and pulled something out to see if he could make sense of it. He dropped the object with a start and gasped despite himself when he saw the eroded flesh falling off the skull he had pulled from the muck.
“This is some sort of slow acid!” he whispered as he looked around again to see if there was a way out. The cylinder was too wide to even consider triangle jumping, which was a technique the soldiers learned that involved springing onto one wall and then using it as leverage to rebound onto the other.
He decided he was not going to panic, no matter what. Even if the liquid began to eat at his feet, he would rely on his training. He kept repeating this to himself over and over again until he was more than certain that he was going to die honorably. He thought about the Virulian super spies who were each given a fake tooth to pop out and eat to commit suicide if caught.
He always loved watching the vids of the spies in training and wished he had one of those fake teeth to make his death quicker than the slow melt of the acid. It was then that he saw the girl; she was on the edge of the cylinder looking down at him—a half-naked, brown-skinned, slender creature with a frightened look in her eyes.
“Rafian?” she whispered and he nodded in response, realizing he didn’t know her name. “Hold on, I’m gonna get you out,” she said, but as soon as he nodded she disappeared again.
In about a half hour’s time, she was back with a rope fashioned from what he realized was her clothes. Hooking the rope to a fixture above the cylinder, the girl threw the free end down towards Rafian. He managed to reach it with a triangle jump and scramble up with much effort.
“Thank you!” he whispered and hugged her as if he knew her.
“I’m Aurora,” she said once they were settled, and Rafian offered her his slimy jacket to serve as a makeshift skirt. As they stood on an expanse of holes that resembled metallic Swiss cheese, he realized the top of the cylinder was one of a few thousand, stretching on as if there was no end.
From the low ceiling hung what appeared to be plant life, and the vines would periodically descend into the holes to feed on the pink fluid that lay within. Rafian looked about for an escape, but all he saw were holes, plants, and the dull, blue light that illuminated the area.
“Aurora, how long have you been here?” Rafian asked.
The girl looked at her feet as if thinking before shaking her head no.
“Aurora, you’ve been missing for half a week! Have you eaten?”
She again shook her head no, and Rafian thought about what he could do to help.
“We need to find my ship so I can get to my rations,” he said.
“Do you know how I got out of my hole?” she asked. “It was by chance, luck, something. One of the vines came down, and I grabbed it as it ascended. Scary stuff. They have teeth, y’know? I—I knew I was dead when I failed the exam, so I made a game of seeing if I could count the holes here. I think the highest I got was about 115…”
The girl trailed off, shivering and looking the worse for fear, so Rafian sat next to her and pulled her close to share his warmth.
“I’m not trying to get fresh with you, Aurora, though you certainly are attractive,” he said and smiled slyly. She unexpectedly smiled back at him. “You need to get some food and warmth. I expected to find you drifting in your ship, not in this place, whatever this place is.”
She had tears in her eyes on hearing this, and he held her close so she could cry. There has to be people controlling the ship, he thought, because someone uncloaked, captured my ship, and took the time to feed me to this greenhouse horror. He felt around in his pockets for some sort of weapon but found nothing.
“Get up, Aurora,” he commanded. “Let’s find a wall and follow it.”
They walked for two hours along numerous pits before reaching a wall, and Rafian realized that it could be several hours more before they might get lucky and find a door. He was wondering how long he had been knocked out after the ship had captured him. It didn’t feel as if much time had passed, and he was not the least bit hungry or thirsty.
He wondered about Aurora and whether or not his mind was playing tricks on him. Was he still drifting out in space? Was he aimlessly lost and without air? If they could survive a few more days, the Helysian would come looking for him, or at least go to the last known location of his ship, and—he immediately felt a panic! The Helysian would not stand a chance against this vessel, given its size, unless they were l
ucky and there were no weapons mounted on it.
“I just want to know who our captors are,” he said, not so much to himself or to Aurora, but more like an announcement. “If I can find that out, I could know what we need to do to get out of here.”
The pair walked for a few more hours, and before long, Rafian had to carry Aurora on his back. When she became too heavy, he would cradle her in his arms and then switch her again to his back when his arms would tire. After a while, the two became so exhausted that they lay next to one another, hugging for warmth and eventually finding a couple hours of uncomfortable sleep. Near the end of what would be the second day of walking, Rafian observed a light breaking through the blue mist from what he hoped was a doorway left ajar.
Aurora was beginning to look pale. Her almond-shaped eyes were barely slits now as she struggled to be strong and make her own way as much as possible. As fatigue settled in, Rafian felt as if their long trek along the ship’s wall was much like running a marathon. Crouching in the shadows near the door, he waited to see what would emerge from the light.
His wait was soon rewarded when a figure floated through the doorway. It looked like a Vestalian octopus with twelve tentacles that appeared to be holding it aloft. Its movements were slow and rhythmic, as if it were dancing whenever it moved. Eyes ran along its body like metallic windows, and it seemed to be surveying the pits.
The movement and iridescent color of the creature were so foreign to Rafian that it sent shivers down his spine just looking at it. He glanced over at Aurora and realized that she was dying; he had to make a move, and it had better be the right one if he was going to save her.
He wanted to be on his ship and off this alien craft. He didn’t know what this creature was or what it was capable of, and most importantly, how many of them were waiting for him through the lit doorway. Rafian waited for the floating creature to move away from the door, and then he swiftly picked up Aurora and bolted into the doorway, ready to take on whatever might come at him.
Luckily for them, there were no more creatures in sight as he ran, but there was not much else, either. The hallway was a massively tall, narrow, lit alley of strange hieroglyphs. It seemed to go on endlessly and defied Rafian’s heart’s capacity with every stride. Before long, Rafian was beyond fatigued, and the hallway dead-ended into what appeared to be a computer room with a curious set of controls.
“This is an algae food and fuel factory vessel, Aurora!”
“Hush, Rafian! He may be coming back!” Aurora gasped, weakly.
“No worries, Aurora. That was no alien. That was actually a machine, a harvest droid, to be exact, and it will be making its rounds for a while to make sure the plant is fertilizing properly.”
Aurora seemed relieved as Rafian set her down on the chair, and she cupped her chin in one hand. “How do you know all of this stuff?”
“Well, I have been doing my fair share of reading in the archives, and when I learned about our fuel, I learned that we buy algae and curlar from the Vinnevux Corporation. This is one of their ships. I can tell by this logo right here!” he explained excitedly.
“So they use human remains to fuel our ships?” Aurora asked.
Rafian stared at her, unable to find an answer to a very perplexing question. The Vinnevux Corporation was a company in Searne, Casan that had figured out how to make fuel from the waste and debris that floated around in space. The thought that some of that fuel might actually be human remains made Rafian sick to his stomach, but he also was equally disturbed by the entire process, too.
“How about I get us off of here?” He smiled at her, and she looked up weakly at him and nodded.
“Yes, let’s quit this dump.”
Rafian poked around at the controls of the vessel, and after a few moments, he figured out how to activate the transmitter. Pulling up the star map, he sent a message to the Helysian and put in the verification codes that were asked of him the minute it went through. Almost instantly, the ship erupted into a screaming alarm, and Rafian steeled himself for combat as several of the octopi came into the room and paused to look at the couple.
“Dvat…sel…un…Rafian…cuor Aurora,” Aurora offered up in her best Searnese.
Rafian understood enough to know she was trying to introduce them to the machines, but he didn’t know whether they would understand her. Before long, the alarms went silent, and even though the robots had seemed ready to vaporize them a second ago, they wheeled away to continue their work.
“To think our thoughtful leaders almost let a brilliant officer like you die in space, Aurora. What you did just now was nothing short of amazing.”
He was sweating like crazy, his fists still clenched but Aurora was not looking well.
“Can you hold on for another hour, Aurora—just one more hour?” he asked. “Can you do this for me, please?”
He was pleading with her as she fought to keep her eyes open and focused while he rubbed her hands to make them warm. As the minutes ticked by, Rafian tore the room apart, looking for something edible to feed Aurora. His search yielded nothing, but luckily for them, it didn’t take long for the rescue ship to appear.
“In a few minutes, you will be on a friendly ship with food, drink, and all of the things that you like, Aurora. What do you think about that, huh?”
Rafian made it a point to keep talking so that she would be forced to respond, and when they boarded the ship to be rescued, she made sure to stay awake in order to acknowledge that it wasn’t all a dream.