UNIVERSE 69

By: Crystal Child

 

Chapter Five:  Given in Confusion

 

“I had a mis-hap last shift, and now I can barely see.  I don’t know if it will leave me or not, I pray it does, no one wants a blind Captain.  I think I get enough of the darkness, just from looking out the window.”

 

-Secret Captain’s Log of Sarah Dellerz First Official Captain of Universe 69

 

We sail silently, the hum of the engines that have run for hundreds generations still run, non-stop.  Something I can't escape, but something I've never known life not to have.  It's not like I've ever been anywhere else.  I’m only a teen.  And I've never set foot on a planet before.

 

Kind of sad once you think about it.  Okay, it’s REALLY sad.  But hey, that’s life.  And there’s nothing I can do about it.  I sometimes imagine what it would be like to walk on a planet.  But my imagination always falls short as I’m pulled back into my body and realize my feet are firmly planted on a ship in the middle of space.  I see planets every day, we never stop to see if they’re occupied, or if they WERE ever occupied.  We just sail right on by.

 

Today, I think of this as I watch another silent red planet drift passed us.  Next shift, Jay and I’ll be called in to the simulators again.  It’s been three days since we started.  Jay’s barely managed to reach the part where UNIVERSE Jumps.  I’ve gotten far beyond that.  The last time around, I had finished a battle outside of a giant gas planet.  Only had one go around, managed to keep myself from dying.

 

The door to my room slides open, “Rage?”

 

It’s Shade, she stands unsurely at the door, looking in at me, “Yeah?”

 

“I…” She trails off, suddenly finding her fingers very interesting.

 

“What is it, Shade?”

 

“I was talking with…” She pauses again, “with your mother last shift.”

 

“Mom?  What’s she want?  Is everything okay?”

 

“Oh, yes.  Don’t worry.  Everything is fine.  She just wanted to know how you were doing, she said she’d tried to call you a few shifts ago, but you hadn’t answered.”

 

“I don’t have the ringer on.”

 

“Oh.  Anyways, she wants you to stop by sometime.  She misses you, Rage.”

 

“If you talk to her again, tell her I’ll try.”

 

“Sure.”  She turns to go, but pauses, “You’d better hurry, you’ll be late for class.”

 

I’m alone again.

 

~~@~~

 

The Starship comes out of Jump.  A new trick I’d just learned.  Starships aren’t supposed to be able to Jump on their own.  Very interesting.  I’m orbiting a large red planet.  It has a single large storm, brewing on its southern surface.  Its quiet, no danger detected.

 

The Simulator buzzes in my ear.

 

‘Ready to give it a go round?’  A voice asks.

 

“As I’ll ever be.”

 

Squadron Leader appears beside me, “You say something?”

”No, sir.”

 

The world explodes in a flash of light ahead.  I smile.  Let the game begin.

 

~~@~~

 

What I can’t see, is deciding my fate, just outside the simulator…

 

“He’s rather good.”

 

“He’s very good, ma’am.”

 

“Are you sure?  Is he the one?”

 

“Yes, ma’am.  He takes after his father in his carelessness…and he takes after his mother with his boldness and skill.”

 

The woman smiles, “Excellent.  When he’s ready, send him to me.”

 

“Yes, ma’am.”

 

~~@~~

 

My ship explodes as I bank hard to the left.  There is static.

 

“Damn.”  I pull off the equipment on my head, as the door slides open.

 

“Good run, though.”  The technician offers as she helps remove a few of the gadgets attached to me, “And now you can go have lunch.”

 

“Yeah, I guess that’s an upside to it all.”

 

The technician smiles as I stand up and head for the exit.

 

She mumbles something that sounds like, “Just like his father.”  But I can’t be sure.

 

~~@~~

 

Jay stands in the food line, waiting with a tray as I walk in.  He smiles, waves, and jokingly slaps the back of the head of the guy in front of him, one of Jay’s friends from when he was younger.  I’m not feeling too hungry anymore.

 

Shade smiles at me as I lower myself to my customary position beside her, “Are you going to visit your mom today?”

 

“I was planning next shift.  Think two shifts is long enough?”

 

“She’ll probably have you stay through sleep-period.”  She laughs lightly.

 

“Huh.  Probably.  Knowing my mom.”

 

Lunch is relatively quiet.

 

~~@~~

 

The Trans car to Section1’s Upper Towers is slow moving and filled with people.  The Trans car smells like body odor and, for some reason that I don’t want to know, urine.  It’s dirty and makes a lot of noise as it moves.

 

My mom isn’t my favorite person.  She loves me, I know she does, but we just don’t have that mother-son connection.  I don’t feel a whole lot of love to her.  Don’t get me wrong, I love her, but it’s not a STRONG emotion.  Just something wrong with me, I guess.

 

She lives in the Family Development Complex, where families with children too young to enroll in military classes, or the elderly and out-of-service adults live.  She shares her apartment with her sister, since my father died last year.

 

The Trans screeches to a stop on the platform for Upper Towers Number 6, my stop.  I have to force my way to the door, since no one moves for me.

 

My mother’s apartment is just inside and down the hall.  I wonder vaguely, if she’s even home.

 

I steel myself for any out-burst of emotions as I step up to the door marked U6-109 and take a deep breath.

 

I knock before I can have a second thought.

 

~~@~~

 

The woman who answers has light brown hair and soft, chocolate colored eyes that light up when she recognizes me.  She’s about a foot shorter than me, but pulls me into a hug before I can realize what’s going on.

 

“Carl!”  She squeals, the voice I grew up hearing, the voice I suddenly find I have missed for so long.  I wrap my arms around her waist, she’s thinner than the last time I saw her.

 

She pulls away from me and makes a sweeping gesture into the apartment, “Come in, come in.”

 

The place hasn’t changed much since I left.  There’s a new couch and lamp, but the living room looks the same.

 

“Coffee, dear?”

 

“Hm?”  Too lost in memories…not good, “Oh, yeah.  That would be nice.”

 

My mother disappears into the kitchen, and I look around the room.  It’s small, to say the least.  It has a couch and two chairs and a few lamps, all surrounding a coffee table filled with marks of years gone by.  The fireplace across from the couch is what draws my attention.  It’s mantle is filled with photographs.

 

I walk slowly over to it, my hands in my pockets.  The photos are mostly of me.  There are a few of dad, too.  Mom was always a beautiful photographer, and captured some of Dad’s best qualities.  The one picture that holds my eye, though…is the one sitting alone on the end.

 

It’s my parent’s wedding picture.  They’re standing surrounded by the trees in the arboretum, where Mom had insisted on being wed.  My mom has one arm intertwined with my dad, and the other is holding her bouquet of red and white flowers, looking up at Dad.  She’s wearing a long white gown with off-the-shoulder sleeves and a train that flows out ahead of them, strategically placed there by the photographer.  My dad is wearing his green military suit, and staring lovingly down at his new bride.

 

I pick the picture up, and study it.  I never noticed before how the light is hitting them perfectly, creating a halo around them.

 

I’ve seen the picture a million times before.  I put it back up on the mantle just as Mom re-enters the room.

 

She hands me a mug of steaming coffee before she sits down on the couch.  She doesn’t say anything, just watches me.

 

“Mom?”

 

“Carl.  Honey, you’ve gotten so…”  She loses the words.  An uncomfortable silence fills the room, and I find that I’ve lost any trains of thought and can not find the strength to raise the mug to my lips.

 

Finally, she tries again, “How is training?  I hear from a reliable source that you’ve been getting some kind of special training after classes.”

 

“Shade?”

 

She nodded.

 

“Yeah, the instructor says he was informed that we needed some special training in a simulator I’ve never seen before.”

 

“You’ve trained in a simulator before?”

”If you want to call it that.  That’s how I lost my pilot’s license.”

 

“Again?!”

 

I grin, one thing about my Mom that I DO love, is that she looks so young when she’s taken by surprise, I grin sheepishly, “Yeah.  Had an ‘accident’ in the simulators that they normally use.”

 

“What’s different?”

 

“The quality of the graphics, mainly.  In the new one, it’s hard to distinguish if I’m on UNIVERSE or if I’m in a Starship.”

 

Mom is silent for a long time, staring at her coffee mug, probably thinking.  I don’t mind.  This is how we used to spend our evenings, when I still lived with her.  Silence is rather comforting.  She looks up, her mouth partially open, as if ready to say something.  It closes again and she looks away.

 

This is my cue to go, I think.  I stand, “I’d better get back.”

 

She nods, rising, and takes the mug from my hands, “Alright.  Just wait a minute, okay?”  I nod and watch her go to return the cups to the kitchen.

 

When she returns, her hands are not empty.  She has a faded yellow cloth, wrapped around something.  She hands it slowly to me.

 

“This is for you.”  She gently places it in my hands, “I meant to give it to you sooner, but…I never see you.”

 

“Thank you.”  I say, without knowing what is in my hands.

 

“Don’t.  Don’t say anything you may regret later.”

 

I am confused, and open my mouth to speak, before she breaks in, “You had better keep in closer contact with me.”  She forces a smile and puts a hand on my back, leading me towards the door.

 

“I love you, Carl.”  She whispers, as she hugs me, “and I’m sorry.”

 

She closes the door before I can inquire her meaning.

 

~~@~~

 

The wrapped bundle sits on the desk, still wrapped.  Something about what she said, it makes the package seem like poison.  I don’t want to open it.

 

It’s nearly 12 shifts before Tranq finally asks about it.  It takes me a few minutes to admit I don’t know what it is.

 

“Why don’t you open it then?”  He asks, picking it up and handing it toward me.

 

I reach slowly, my arm suddenly feeling like cement.  Now or never, I decide.

 

The cloth fells ancient, as I unwrap, and falls away to reveal a book.  Not like the other books that we have on UNIVERSE 69’s extensive library.  An old book, with decaying, yellowed pages.  The blue binding is slightly faded, as I run my hand over the golden weavings of leaves stitched into the cover.

 

I do not understand the gift my mother has given me.

 

I am even more confused when I open it, and see the first words, written in eloquent, female script.

 

This is the secret Captain’s Log of Angel DeLora.  Kept in full confidentiality and only to be seen by the eyes of those who will Lead after me.  If you read this, you are One who will follow.