Naero spoke with Aunt Sleak briefly before going on duty.
Jan retreated to his quarters.
Her face still ached. Not physically, but emotionally from how her little brother had struck her and why.
She blamed herself, not Jan; but she still couldn’t have known.
Her aunt gave her the option to shunt her duty shift onto someone else, given the circumstances. Something Naero had never done before.
She never missed a duty shift.
And she wouldn’t now. Her crews needed her.
“Thanks, but I think I need to stay busy,” she said flatly.
Aunt Sleak respected her decision.
Few details reached them concerning the destruction of The Omaria’s expedition into the Unknown Sectors. No one seemed to know much more yet. Not Spacers nor the Corps.
One phrase stuck in Naero’s mind. All hands lost.
All hands lost.
All joy and gladness felt sucked out of her life–as if into a swirling black hole of despair.
Everything had changed forever. Everything was already different and worse.
She couldn’t dwell on all of that.
Time to sort it out later. For the present she had a mission, an important duty shift to focus on and keep her busy.
Naero sucked in a deep breath and shook herself at the stiff controls of her lumbering transport, checking her autovector on the orange glowing Joshua Tech flight console directly in front of her, angled slightly down on its gunmetal titanadium swing arms. The console swayed slightly. One of the swivel locks was still broken.
Big surprise. The teks hadn’t gotten around to her work order yet. She’d have a word with Tyber.
The tight protective orb of her transport’s flight command pod enveloped her like a protective egg, designed specifically for that purpose. Barely enough room for a pilot, but this time, she welcomed being so closed up. The solitude, the quiet, her heart and mind raced, torn in several directions at once. She needed something to hold herself all in.
That way she didn’t explode, and crumble into little pieces.
Being held in the arms of a ship was second nature to her. Flying a ship through space gave her solace, re-assurance.
According to their readouts, her four-Spacer load team hung suspended at their stations in the cargo bay, charging their glifters in their docking stations. Some of them no doubt had locked up and were snoozing during the ride.
Loaders worked hard. Shifts could be days long at times. Naero had been there right with them performing such duties in the past, before she earned her second of the three blue rank bands on her arms.
She could still recall the stress and satisfying fatigue of those long days. Smart loaders seized the luxury of sleep whenever it came their way
She wasn’t sure herself if she would be getting much sleep in the near future.
Naero kept her clear flight helmet off, even during their approach. Against regs, but she preferred to look ahead and all around clearly, without the distortion of the helmet’s lensing effect at the edges of her sight, and sometimes above or below
Her small, slender left hand, gloved in the same thin black Nytex of her flight togs, reached absently around her stained lix holder for another borbble of Jett, her fave.
She had broken it out of her stash and brought it with her for the trip in an attempt to console herself. But she had already nervously guzzled them all, inhaling the last delicious fruity drop of her hoarded lix fourpak half an hour ago, and had recycled the empty borbble with the other three.
Naero shook her head. Thirst and hunger needed to wait. Not that she was very hungry, despite skipping two meals and throwing up. She had a couple of semi-tasty energy bars somewhere in her togs, but no desire to ferret them out and pick at them.
Thirst remained another matter.
She licked her lips; they felt dust covered. Damnation. Nothing more to drink. And the air still smelled sweet, tangy, and tantalizing with the succulent flavor of Jett–even on her own breath.
An involuntary shudder snaked through her lithe, athletic body, causing her to snap slightly in her form-fitting EV-suit.
Naero sighed, struggling to relax and collect herself. Again. The entire trip telescoped out into a long tunnel of malaise and uneasiness, as if she couldn’t make up her mind how she felt about anything.
The news affected her deeply on so many levels, even through her shock, finally starting to hit home.
She reached back and massaged her stiff neck, and checked her long black hair, clipped up tight in a knot behind her crown with her mother’s gold hair clasp. She wore it Spacer-style to fit into the orbs of their flight helmets.
Great…with her hair pulled back, she could tenderly feel the big inflamed zit swelling up right smack dab in the middle of her forehead like a small blemish volcano. How wonderful.
Well, she might be a mess inside and out, but she still had work to do. On the job, it didn’t matter how bad she looked–pimples, boils, and all. Parts of her cared; other parts did not.
Aunt Sleak would join them shortly after the Merchant Fleet Command Ship–The Slipper–landed only an hour or two behind them.
Naero led a vital but relatively standard delivery mission to Irpul-4’s dumpy, dangerous starport.
Whatever her inner turmoil, duty demanded that she keep good order and fulfill her obligations to her Clan and her team.
She shifted and turned slightly in her green gel-chair, encircling her like a spongy cocoon that mostly filled the inner egg of the flight pod.
She found herself completely incapable of getting comfortable in what was normally a favorite environment for her. She squirmed and shifted all the way.
Piloting anything that moved or flew usually relaxed her, but not today.
Another spell of pain crashed into her skull. Zhen warned her that she might suffer them in random waves. They could hit at any time, night or day, ranging from dull aches to almost knocking her out.
To hell with that.
Naero wouldn’t stand for it. She’d deal with the pain and consequences of her actions, and find a way to muscle through them, just like she always did.
Her hands fidgeted on the flightsticks on either arm of her flight chair. Each stick was covered with delicate controls, allowing her to maneuver in almost any direction.
As mission leader, she piloted the lead transport of seven bulk haulers, with three formed up on her mark in tight formation to either side. Their glifter crews were no doubt snoozing blissfully like her own.
She focused on the three open view screens before her: left, right, and forward and slightly up. Shining slices of reinforced screen with the blast shields open, looking out into the Irpul System.
The fourth planet ballooned at their rapid approach, swirls and patches of deep violet, lavender, several shades of blue, and gray, punctuated by a few spatters of light here and there as they approached on the side of the world shrouded in night.
She switched over to manual controls on final approach. The dual stick controls of her lumbering GV-hauler resisted, stiff and sluggish like her big friend Gallan wrestling with her.
Haisha! Sometimes she kept these old transports up and on course by muscle and force of will alone. Just the way her parents...
She winced and flared her small sensitive nose, drinking in machine smells and the ozone of high energy impulses from advanced electronics. All of her acute senses seemed further heightened in flight, especially because of her elevated emotional state.
Landing shields full-front. They entered the atmosphere, punching through in radiant sprays of sparks and flames.
Stop sulking over them.
She couldn’t do anything about their deaths now. They wouldn’t want that. They’d taught her and her brother better. Go forward. Complete the task at hand.
Who was she kidding?
A gaping, aching hole sucked a cold roaring hurricane of despair and loss straight through where her heart and soul used to be
.
She loved her parents dearly, though she didn’t give voice to that so much anymore. And to make matters worse, when last she’d seen them, they hadn’t parted well. Naero argued and fought with them intensely and repeatedly about her and Jan having to go work for Aunt Sleak again–their less-than-favorite and only aunt.
Cold, demanding, hardnosed Aunt Sleak, who never cut anyone any slack. She always drove them and worked them to the bone, while their parents always went off on some lark, pursuing their dreams, exploring the dangerous Unknown Sectors, like some kind of endless vacation.
Naero regretted her words now. She had always understood what they were doing was risky. Already she missed them more than she could bear.
6