Page 7 of Across The Stars
“Breathe? You realize I puked when I had to spin across the stage dressed as a tree in my third grade production of Alice in Wonderland, right?”
I did know that. Sam’s nerves always went straight to her stomach.
We stood in line behind half a dozen others and I quickly felt out of place again. Most of the others were in uniforms, from fancy suits to military fatigues to jumpsuits and they all seemed to know exactly what they were doing. I casually looked around to follow the lead of the others and noticed they all had their documents and IDs out, so Sam and I did the same. We eventually let go of each other, trying not to look so scared, and stood a step apart. I decided to go first since I’d been over procedures a hundred times and figured Sam would just copy me once I finished.
“Hey,” a man said.
I snapped my head to the left toward an adjacent line and saw a lanky young man with a shaved head smiling at me. He was wearing a black t-shirt and military pants.
“Hi,” I said, smiling back at him.
“You guys been up there before?”
“No.” I shook my head. “You?”
“Nah. Been training for a while, though. I’m Locket, by the way.”
He held out a hand in greeting and I glanced down at it but didn’t move to reciprocate. I should have, but it wasn’t often that people extended greetings like that.
“Right,” he said, pulling away. “Proximity. I’ve been in compounds for the last year. Rules aren’t so strict there.”
I nodded. I wouldn’t have minded shaking his hand, but I wasn’t exactly thinking straight at the moment.
“So you’re going up there for…?” I asked.
“Drone programming,” he said. “They need them for the barricades and scouting and such. You?”
“Uh…” I hesitated. I couldn’t say piloting. He was a damn drone operator. He was likely to spew phrases and words I didn’t know and I was likely to get caught in my lie. “Linguistics and communication,” I said.
“Wow! So you’re gonna be talking to the valerians. I wish I had that job. I’m not that smart.”
I laughed awkwardly, scratching my head. “Yeah. It’s a hell of a job. Aliens. And you know... talking to them.”
“I’m Sam, by the way,” Sam cut in, tossing Locket a flirtatious smile. “This is Innifer. We’re here together.”
“Hey, Sam,” Locket said. “What’s your job gonna be?”
“Medical stuff.”
“Nice.”
The line started to move and we drifted away from Locket. He kept tossing us glances, though, and we kept smiling at him. He seemed nice enough. Maybe we’d found a friend.
“Valerians, huh?” Sam said. “Are those the ones that we like? I mean, are they the good ones?”
I nodded over my shoulder, staring ahead as we whispered back and forth to each other.
“My dad told me a little about them,” I said. “They’re humanoid. They live on Sylos and Valer. They don’t show their faces much.”
“Don’t show their faces?”
“They have biohelments or something.”
“Why do we associate with them again?”
“They have syfer. It’s used to fuel the Nexus. It’s more powerful than anything we have here. It’s some kind of crystal that electrically powers the station and the valerians have a whole planet dedicated to mining the stuff. Or something... I don’t know. I’m not an engineer. I just know it’s valuable.”
“And what do we trade for it?”
