Page 83 of Guardian's Heart

Vraax scoffed, but one look at him stopped any snide remark laying at the tip of my tongue. He might try to appear like this didn't faze him, but he was failing. He was clearly enraptured by our words.

"What do you remember about growing up with the Ohrurs, the training?" Noodar asked.

I shrugged. "Just… living in a dorm with several others. We woke up, ate breakfast, trained…"

"How old are you in that scenario?"

"Old?" My head started hurting, and I looked helplessly from one to another. "I don't know…" I tried to focus. "Sometime before I graduated, about twenty?"

"What about before?" Noodar prompted.

"Stop it. This is ridiculous," Vraax raged, hitting the wall next to him with his fist. "We all grew up the same way. There is no mystery here."

"No? Nova, tell me, what is your earliest memory?"

NOVA

That would have beenthe alligator incident, but I wasn't about to share that particular episode. Instead, after a moment of thought, I said, "My fifth birthday. Daddy and Uncle Boon took Tucker and me toChuck E. Cheese. I ate so much pizza, I threw up." I grinned because that was one of the few times I remembered Daddy being really concerned about me.

"Five, okay," Noodar said, turning to Zoe. "You?"

"I think I was three or four. Dad brought two kittens home for Lizzie and me. General Orange was what I called mine. He was such a good cat." Her eyes turned moist at the memory.

"Well, we already know Luph remembers everything." Noodar didn't seem to want to give up on this game. Then he called, "Vraax?"

Vraax shrugged. "Same as him." He jerked his chin toward Zaarek. "Bunking down with males like you, competing in the training, going out on my own."

"Raasla?"

Raasla shook his head. "Same."

"Nock?" Noodar didn't seem too enthused about including Nock but couldn't exclude him either.

"I don't share Princess Luph's perfect memory, but Kreds are very well-developed as well, so yeah, I remember starting my first holovid when I was four," Nock said, surprising none of us in the least.

Still, I got curious. "How long have you been a streamer?"

Nock's face lit up. I supposed streaming was truly his calling. "Over forty years now."

I would have never guessed him to be forty-four, but what did I know about alien species' aging? For all I knew, his years could be totally different from mine, and I still hadn't figured the whole Galactic Standard Time thing out yet.

"So none of us remembers anything before our age of about twenty? And that doesn't bother you, Vraax?" Noodar pushed, turning the conversation away from Nock.

All eyes moved to Vraax as his face turned from a silver coloring to ashen gray. His eyes nearly rolled back in his head, which, after a few seconds, he cradled in both of his hands.

"Frygg, no. Stop with your questions."

"Something else—who did you train with?" Noodar kept pushing the Space Guardians.

"You?" Raasla asked, looking at Noodar. "We trained together?"

Noodar shook his head. "You and I were on a mission together once, but that's it."

"I could have sworn…" Raasla stared at his friend.

"Frygg!" Vraax shouted again, leaving the room. Zaarek was about to go after him, but Noodar held him back.

"I've got him," he said, pointing at his comm, by which he would keep track of Vraax. "Let him go work some steam off."

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