Page 20 of Across The Stars
“I’ve never met one, but I’ve seen them now and then. They usually stick around during exchanges to escort cargo ships. I know of three. Tulan, Vahko, and Olteas.”
“How do you tell them apart?”
“You don’t,” she shrugged. “They never take off their helmets.”
“So, no one even knows what they look like?”
“Of course, we do. There are profiles for the ambassadors on our Buddies.”
“But not the captains?” Omar spoke up.
“They’re in there, too, but there isn’t nearly as much info on them. They don’t usually come onto the Nexus like that. But the real juicy stuff is on the research deck. There are pictures of the nozun and the gek’tal up there, too. And the monrians. All of it was provided by the valerians years ago.”
“Monrians?”
“Yeah, the drifters. They call them drifters because they don’t have a planet. They live completely in space on their warships and colony clusters. The valerians, however, have three planets.The only ones to have ever challenged them for territory were the gek.”
“I heard they wear the masks because oxygen is hard for them to breathe,” Omar added.
Quinn shrugged like she was getting bored, and continued taking big bites of her sandwich.
“Who knows,” she sighed. “They’re prone to disease or something, too. At least, I think they are. But like I said, they don’t reveal much. And what they do reveal is locked up pretty tight with the biologists.”
In truth, talking about the valerians made my cheeks flush. Not only did I bump into one like a drunk school girl, but now I knew he was a captain. It was surreal and made my body do weird things. Whether those weird things were good or not was still up in the air. All I knew was that I hadn’t exactly made a good first impression. I found myself dying to see the pictures Quinn mentioned were on our Buddies.
But that would have to wait.
I kept scanning the mess hall, part of me wishing I could find a window and eat in front of a view of space. Or maybe I could find Sam and get my bearings. All the new faces were making my head spin.
After dinner... maybe lunch... I really wasn’t sure which meal it was since I’d lost all time after leaving Earth, but it felt like dinner. Once everyone was done, Omar insisted Quinn take us on a tour. Penny was nowhere to be seen and I couldn’t deny that I wanted to explore more of the station. Again, I scanned my surroundings for Sam.
Should have gotten placed in the same jobs,I thought, remembering that we could have put anything on our fake employment documents. For all I knew, Sam was on a completely different level of the Nexus.
Following Omar and Quinn through the station, I tried to soak up as much of it as I could. For the most part, the halls were narrow and led to pilot simulators, giant gyms equipped with weights and other workout equipment, and virtual training facilities. Quinn got particularly excited about those and though the rooms were empty when we arrived, she enthusiastically explained the way the walls projected virtual worlds and simulated situations for training. From performing emergency repairs on equipment to first aid and CPR, to evacuation procedures, the rooms had it all.
Continuing on, we came to a large hallway with enormous windows stretching the length of the passage on one side. Through it, I could see into the endless, speckled space and gawked at it. The way the space station had rotated, I could see Earth, which was shaded on one side where the sun couldn’t hit it. My breath stopped at the sight. Knowing that not too long ago, I was on that now small-looking planet made my eyes water and I didn’t know why. Maybe because from so far away it didn’t look like a filthy, dying landscape. Maybe because I was finally off of it. I never imagined I’d ever shed tears for leaving. The people on that blue orb hadn’t made my life easy and though I didn’t know what my future held on the Nexus, I was glad to be there.
A small glint of light caught my attention and I shifted my gaze up and to the left to see the strange, alien spacecraft departing from the Nexus and heading out into the black. I squinted, remembering the valerian who’d bumped me again.
Idiot,I thought, giving myself an imaginary facepalm.
“Hey, Innifer,” Omar called out from the end of the hall.
I turned to see him waving at me to follow and walked briskly to catch up to him and Quinn. We continued our tour through massive storage rooms filled with crates of supplies, the warehouse, classrooms, game rooms and break rooms, andfinally the dorms. It was then that I grasped how much ground we’d covered. When Quinn started yawning, I realized how tired I was. I looked around for a clock and then down at my wrist cuff on the off chance it acted as a watch along with all of its other high-tech functions. To my luck, it did. In the blue ring, it read10:34 pm.
I supposed we needed a sense of time on the Nexus in order to be places when we had to be. Quinn yawned again with an exaggerated sigh and cleared her throat.
“Whelp,” she said, her eyes heavy. “I’ve been working all day while you recruits were riding the shuttle over here. I gotta hit the hay. Not sure if Penny told you two what’s up because everyone expects you to just refer to your Buddies, but we’re all in the warehouse tomorrow at 7am.”
“Got that,” Omar said with a disciplined nod. “Already memorized the schedule for the next week.”
I already felt behind. I had barely touched my Buddy let alone memorize a schedule.
“Awesome. Then I’ll see you guys tomorrow. My advice? Get rest. This isn’t an army base or anything so there’s no one that tells us when to go to bed or any of that shit, but you’re responsible for your energy levels come time for work. Space has a way of exhausting you when you can’t see the sun coming up over mountains or something. And if you don’t remember the tour, your Buddy can guide you anywhere.”
She turned, walking down the hall of dorms, and slid into one a few doors down. I glanced up at Omar, who was shamelessly checking out Quinn’s assets as she departed. I scoffed, pushing my fist into his shoulder.
“Down, boy,” I said.
