Note: This story starts ten years after the crew escapes Pezu's clutches
and begins with a new crew on the Christa.
"I can't believe that you can't even figure out how to use the jumptubes!" complained Commander Nenmort as he followed Sida to the team room. "Honesty, did you even listen when I said, very clearly, that you always had to check your destination?"
"Sorry Commander. But we forgot. And now Ruby is stuck in the airlock."
"She is WHAT?!"
"I'm just joking. I hope. I think that she's either in the galley, in the corridor near the girls bunkroom, or near the landing bay."
"Oh great. As long as we narrow it down. Sida, do I have to remind you that these areas are practically across the ship from each other?"
"So take the jumptubes, Commander."
"I don't know how to go to all of those places by heart!"
"See?"
"Oh honestly, Sida. Fine. Thelma!"
"I am here, Commander Nenmort."
"Agh! Thelma, do not scare me like that, ok?"
"Like...what, sir?"
"Just don't creep up on me!"
"I was doing so? But I do not know how to creep."
"Just, uh, oh, never mind!"
Thelma appeared confused. "If you say so, sir."
"Thelma, do you know where Ruby is?"
"I can find out, sir."
"How?"
"How...what?"
"How...can...you...find...out...where...Ruby...is?!" snapped Commander Nenmort very slowly, as though he was talking to an idiot.
"I am able to do the sonar sweep scan which therefore allows you to reverse the polarity of the neutron flows which will generate a high voltage..."
"Thelma, shut up and do whatever is needed to find Ruby! OK?! Is that too much to ask around here? I swear, this ship is out to get me."
"A former crew member once said that," Thelma recalled, but then went into her locating mood and said nothing more.
"Who?" asked Sida, but he received no reply. "Figures."
About ten minutes later, Thelma announced that Ruby was in the cargo hold. Commander made sure that the jumptubes worked before using them with Sida to find the Mercurian.
"Ruby, there you are!" he exclaimed. "We thought that we had lost you...what are you doing?" He noticed that she was opening and closing drawers to the cargo hold and had a pile of what looked like old logs on the floor.
"Oh hello, Commander Nenmort! Look what I found! I'm guessing that they're from the old crew."
"Probably a bomb to kill us all. The ship wasn't in the best condition when we found it."
"Sure it was, Sida! Just because Thelma was shut down, and the crystal had a crack in it doesn't mean that the ship is dangerous."
"I wouldn't be too sure. We did go through the circle pretty badly," remarked the commander. "Five years and seven months from home isn't too good."
"But that's not the ship's fault, or Thelma's," argued Ruby. "Anyway, I think that if we find all the logs, maybe we'll know why the Christa was left in space. And check out this letter that I found."
Sida and Commander Nenmort took a closer look.
"It appears to be written in another language. I think that it's in an old one called English. Most likely the person who wrote it didn't speak the universal language, yet, anyway."
"Can you read English, Commander?" asked Ruby excitedly.
"Yeah, enough. Let me see the letter."
Ruby handed him the folded letter and scooped up the logs. "Come on, let's show the others."
The others consisted of the only other adult, a female Martian teacher called Mrs. Samns who got in trouble for poor judgment so much that it was a wonder that she hadn't been fired from the Starcademy yet, a female Saturnian called Tatina, a Earther called Eric Santh, and an female Andromedan called Fuda. They were considered "smart but never apply themselves" and were put in the average class at the Starcademy. They still blamed Eric for getting them lost in space. If he hadn't been insisting that they push Fuda's head in the toilet, they never would have seen the ship. If they hadn't seen the ship, Eric wouldn't have threatened them to come on it with him, saying that if they didn't he would make them REALLY see stars. Eric was a huge bully, but quickly became weaker when he got them trapped in space. If he hadn't insisted on combining the crystals...well, let's just say that they wouldn't be stuck here.
"Wow, this is awesome," gasped Tatina as she saw the logs and letters. "Maybe they left accounts of all the great space stations to shop at!"
"Oh yeah, and the letter is explaining that the reason they took apart Thelma was because she stole all their clothes," replied Sida in a bored tone.
"Hey, maybe!" Tatina replied, green eyes glowing with excitement.
"Maybe the letter is about all the learning they did," Mrs. Samns said hopefully.
"Maybe we should just open it and read it. Did that cross anyone's mind?" remarked Eric, glaring at them.
"Oh, shut up, Eric. You're not powerful here," snapped Tatina.
"Oooh, I'm real scared. Why don't you be quiet, or..." he left the sentence hanging. Tatina just rolled her eyes, not scared of a mere Earther.
"Hey watch it. Have you ever heard a sonic blast?"
"Too many times," Sida replied. "Can we just read the letter already?"
"Yes, it will be very educational."
Everyone rolled their eyes and Commander re-unfolded the letter.
Dear whoever finds this letter,
Consider yourself lucky to be on this ship. We spent our time here, and we all grew a lot in ways that we can only begin to describe. We started off as strangers or even enemies, and ended up friends, some of us even more. ("Sounds like a ad for an overnight camp," Eric remarked. No one listened to him.) But we now know that our trip is almost done. According to the monitor, the new planet is near. After the Starcademy was attacked by Spung and was remade into a base, we knew that we couldn't go back. So now it is your turn, future crew. We can only hope that you will have half as many adventures and growth as we did. In case we ever meet, we will be at the space station Cadelo. But we may change plans. We saved all our logs for you, in case you find any use for them. Goodbye and remember how lucky you are!
Your former crew,
Catalina
Bova
Harlan Band
Rosie Ianni
Radu
Suzee
Ms. Davenport
Commander Seth Goddard
P.S. We purposely disconnected Thelma so that you could have the same beginning that we had. We thought that it would bring you luck.
Part 2
The crew stared at each other in shock. Finally, more to break the uncomfortable silence than anything else, Tatina made a joke that the letter wasn't exactly instructions to the nearest space station for shopping, but it was good enough. The others laughed awkwardly.
"I wonder where they are now," Fuda said quietly. She had always been shy, mainly because Eric had terrorized her ever since she came to the Starcademy, pushing her head down the toilet and putting viruses on her compu pads. Along with lots of other things that only those two knew about. Fuda had straight red hair that was already below her waist. She often wore it in a long braid, like she was wearing today. Ruby and Sida had been her only friends, though Tatina sometimes told Eric to "get a life" when he bugged her. But since Tatina couldn't stand Eric, Fuda could never be sure if Tatina was just doing it to bug Eric, or because she pitied Fuda. Possibly both.
"No duh. Of course we want to know where they are. It would be suspectful if you didn't care where the other crew was," scoffed Eric.
"Eric, you better shut up."
"Or what, rainbow brains?"
"At least I have brains."
"Oh right. Excuse me, but being as smart as an amoeba doesn't really qualify as brains."
"You're not even that smart!"
Sida let out a snicker. Eric glared at him, and Sida just gave him a "sorry but not really" look. Eric dropped the argument.
"What did the other crew mean when they said that the Starcademy had been seized by Spung?" asked Ruby.
"About five years ago, we had a big fight with the Spung, and I use the term fight loosely. To be honest, if the fight had gone on any longer, I have a feeling that no one would be alive to tell about it now."
"Where was this fight?"
"It was mainly a few light years away from the Sol System. But the Starcademy was seized and was made into a base for the Spung. The Spung seemed to be winning the war, but then some others showed up. It was really weird, they claim that were led by this boy, Radu, but there was a Radu on the ship." Nenmort shrugged. "Anyway, these Spung wanted to help us. Them and some other aliens called Hork Bajir. Hork Bajir were almost extinct and were sent to an isolated planet so that they could populate on their own. This Radu double supposeably led the Spung, the good ones.
"For some reason, these Spung hated the others. There was enough of both species to turn the war around. It only lasted for two years, and I assume that it was the Spung and Hork Bajir that turned the war around. The Radu double had some others working for him, at least ten others, and some Andalites. But the Radu double didn't give any explanations and disappeared after the war was over.
"Some people say that the part about Radu and his ten helpers was just a myth, and others say that there was no real Spung Rebellion, that it was just a few traitorious Spung who wanted to join the UPP. I don't know which is true, since I didn't see Radu and his helpers."
"Whoa. But what about the Hork Bajir?" asked Tatina.
Again Nenmort shrugged. "Maybe they came, maybe they didn't. Like I said, there were a lot of rumors about battles. The war was fought from pretty far off from UPP civilization, so we don't know a lot about it. Mainly people just wanted to survive. We call it the second galactical war. So chances are, the crew came near the middle of it, saw the danger they were in, and headed to the first place that they could. I'm guessing that they used autopiolet, but a slow one, for the ship to come back."
"Do you think that the battle of the Radu double, his helpers, and his army of Hork Bajir and Spung is true?" questioned Ruby.
"I really can't be sure. My guess is yes, or at least mostly yes."
"I say that we go through the logs. Maybe they will tell us something," suggested Tatina.
"Ok, sure. You can have classtime, Free Study, and, if you want, your free time to look at them."
He glanced at the teacher. "But you'll have to do a report on the section that you choose."
Everyone groaned.
"You can start now," Nenmort concluded.
Everyone raced to get a log. There was fifteen in all. Nenmort said that each person could look at three, or double up with a partner and do six. The project would be at least ten minutes or presenting, as well as acting out what they found to be the most interesting part, or parts, in their logs. They would have three weeks.
Tatina ended up working with Eric, only because he bribed her. With what, she wouldn't say. Ruby and Fuda thought that Tatina might like Eric, but they weren't sure, and didn't want to risk breaking their bones by asking. Tatina might seem like a mall rat, but she was also smart and could get mean. Generally she was nice, but you did not want to make her angry. Plus, she was extremely skilled at Sonic Blasts.
Fuda and Ruby ended up working together, and later convinced Mrs. Samns to let Sida work with them. They were working on the last nine logs, which would take a lot of watching and listening together and writing down various information. All three decided to start their project. Maybe they could just run through all the logs right away.
"Hey, what's this?" asked Sida as he noticed the title on one.
"Hmm, it says, 'Meeting of the computer freak'. Sounds interesting," Fuda replied.
"Let's watch them now. We have about two hours; maybe if we hurry we can get to this one," Ruby suggested. "We can always go back later."
They spent two hours watching the tapes, but only got up to where the crew met Suzee. The tapes were all told in different perspectives, so each adventure was really five times as long. The adults were rarely present in the telling, so the crew had to rely on the information of the kids, much of it that greatly varied. Still, most of the time the facts were close enough.
They didn't get to the computer freak tape that day; they didn't even get through more than one tape. They all scribbled down the main facts, trying to get the general idea. Sometimes this was easy, but other times it was nearly impossible because at least two crew members would distort the truth so much.
Three days later, they made it to the computer freak tape. It was about this computer who wanted to keep Suzee at an alien outpost so that the two geniuses could become friends. Fuda found it somewhat interesting, though she was very bored of Suzee. She looked forward to the tape where Catalina would come back, since her name was signed on the letter.
Soon, the tape was done. "About time," muttered Fuda as she pressed the keys to rewind it. "Let's see how the others are doing. Maybe they have a more recent tape."
But they didn't. Mrs. Samns and Commander Nenmort checked; the Pezu tape was the last one. There was no further information. Even when they checked the cargo hold, there was nothing. If it hadn't been for the letter, the crew would have been sure that the other cadets had been killed. Even though they questioned Thelma about it, she claimed that her memory had been erased of more recent adventures.
"This totally sucks. Now what?" complained Sida.
"We only have one choice. We must find the crew, no matter what. They owe us an explanation," replied Tatina, calmly. "We need to know the end of their story. I think that they want us to know, too. We'll find out what happened to these Space Cases."
Part 3
"Oh really?" replied Eric dryly. "And how in the galaxy do you suggest that we do that?"
Tatina, as usual, had little patience with Eric. "Duh, Eric you idiot. It did say on the letter that they would be at a space station."
"I'll get the letter," Fuda volunteered, and left the room.
"Do you think that we should just go barging in on them?" wondered Ruby. "I mean, they're probably all settled in and trying to dodge the Spung. Then suddenly we show up and say, 'Hi, we're the new crew. We have read your logs. We want to know the ending of the story, please.' "
"Well, that's assuming that they're even at a space station. The war ended a few years ago, so they could have moved on," Eric replied.
"Besides, what idiot" (she glanced meaningfully at Eric) "reads the logs and doesn't care how it ended, or even why the evil Suzee got rereplaced by the incredible Catalina?" Tatina replied.
She had taken an extreme loathing to Suzee, and, while no other crew member hated her with such a passion, they were all pretty sick of her by the time they saw the video called, "The Ionic Storm and Truth or Doom."
Fuda came back then, holding the letter. No one saw her enter, so she just went to one of the chairs and waited for everyone to stop talking before showing the letter, so that she wouldn't interrupt anything. It was an Andromedan habit that everyone was instructed about.
"That is, if they're even alive by now," added Sida, giving more gloom to the situation. "We should just give up."
If anyone had any doubts about Tatina's ability to fight someone and break their arms, they were definitely disproven.
Tatina, before you could say "sonic blast", was across the room and on top of Sida. Her hands were holding his head back, and she was seriously debating to herself whether or not to strangle that "annoying pessimist" to death when a blast of heat hit her back.
Turning around, she saw that it was from Ruby.
"Please, Tatina, don't hurt Sida!" she begged, her arm still poised.
Extremely reluctantly, Tatina released Sida.
"Fine. But if that idiot ever, and I mean EVER, does something like that again, I will throw him out the nearest airlock."
Sida got up shakily.
"Sorry," he muttered.
Tatina just glared at him. He slowly backed away from her, and Tatina turned her attention to the rest of the crew.
"Oh, good Fuda. You have the letter. Let's see the space station."
Fuda handed Tatina the letter and she skimmed over it. This was usually the way things worked on the Christa; Tatina would take charge and be the girls' boss. Eric was the boys' one.
"It's called Cadelo. Let's do a scan to see how far it is from here." Tatina glanced up from the letter a minute later and said this. "Come on, Fuda. You have a good sense of direction, right?"
"Yeah, we Andromedans do," she replied softly.
"Great, well come on. You can wait here, for now."
They left the Team Room and went through the jumptubes, checking their destination this time. It was how the entire mess got started, after all. If Ruby hadn't, they might not have seen the logs. Weird, thought Tatina, realizing this.
At the Command Post, Fuda moved to Navigation. Tatina called up a diagram of nearby constellations, and asked Fuda to familiarize herself with the layout. Next, she zoomed in on them, and added some neighboring area. It took awhile to find Cadelo, but eventually, it was found.
"All right, Fuda. According to the layout, how many light years are we from Cadelo?" she asked.
Fuda shut her eyes and concentrated, muttering under her breath. Tatina waited impatiently, tapping her foot on the floor of her current position at helm.
Fuda finally opened her eyes.
"Well?" asked Tatina, her eyebrows raised with excitement, a common habit for a Saturnian.
"Cadelo is only a few light weeks away from us. If we took two hyperjumps, we would reach it within a few hours," Fuda whispered in shock.
Tatina, had she been an Earther who once stood at the exact same position only a few years ago called Harlan Band, would have been jumping up and down with glee. But Tatina was calmer.
"Check to make sure that there's no other space stations called Cadelo. Also, be sure that Cadelo actually has life on it. Many are abandoned. I'm going to magnify quickly, will you be ready?"
Fuda nodded, concentrating.
Tatina began to say orders at the Christa, asking the ship to give her coordinates several light years away, or as far as a hundred thousand light years away. Fuda said the same thing each time.
"There is no Cadelo."
Finally, after making sure that she had checked over every area that the Christa was able to check, she went back over the spot where Cadelo had existed before.
"Christa, give me the statistics of Cadelo, and print them up," Tatina commanded. The Christa did as she was told.
Cadelo was a space station built by a race called the Ranonites. The station was meant for trade, though recently land was sold on it to build homes and hotels to stay in. The station had been in existence for nearly five hundred years, and went through many battles, including the second galactic war.
Tatina asked for more information about the wars, especially the second galactic one, and typical races found on Cadelo. The Christa paused for a few minutes and then printed out more information. Tatina skimmed through it.
It was all old material for her, things that she had learned about before. Even the information on the second galactic war was the same legend/facts that Commander Nenmort had told them only hours ago. There was nothing new.
"Christa, if you can send me a record of who is currently on Cadelo, do so."
It took the Christa a while to comply, but she was eventually able to. The information was put in groups of how the people had come. According to the records, exactly ten years, five months, and two days ago had an Andromedan, an Earther, a Saturnian with an "imaginary" friend, a Mercurian, and a Uranian boy had set foot on the station. Along with them were two adults, an Earther and a Martian. The names were given, and they were the same. But even if they hadn't been available, Tatina knew that she would have known this crew by the feeling in her gut, the way her heart began to quicken.
"The crew," she whispered. "The crew is here. The answers to our questions."
Fuda glanced at her in astonishment.
"You have found them?" she whispered.
"Yes. The crew is there."
Fuda just stared at her for a few minutes in disbelief. Finally, a smile made its way to her lips.
"We found them. We found the crew," she gasped.
Then they both laughed, and ran to tell the others, shouting, "We found the crew! We found the Space Cases!"
Part 4
Needless to say, the rest of the crew was more than a little excited and surprised. Ruby got so excited that she began to overheat for a few seconds. Even Sida looked happy, and he was a pessimist by nature.
"Now what?" Tatina asked after all the excitement died down a little.
"Well, first we have to ask the adults. Then we'll plot a course to Cadelo," Ruby replied.
Fuda shook her head slightly. Since she never disagreed with anyone before this, everyone turned to hear what she had to say.
"First, well second after we talk to the adults, we have to establish communications with Cadelo. If it were me, I wouldn't want some strangers showing up completely unexpected. They'll need time to plan, especially what they're going to tell us. Some parts they may want to leave hidden. And they're certainly allowed that. This way, we can also have time and not completely surprise them."
Tatina nodded, a sign for everyone to agree.
"Smart idea, Fuda," Eric said.
Fuda reddened a little from the compliment.
"Let's go tell the adults. Do you think that they'll let us?" asked Ruby.
"If we make it seem educational to Old Samns, she'll let us do anything. Remember last year?"
Ruby let out a giggle at the memory. Old Samns, as they called her, had allowed them to do an experiment in the chem lab to test certain chemicals. What they were really testing was how to make itching powder, and they actually found the combination. They put some on her uniform as a thank you present. The best part was that they were never even caught. To this day, Old Samns still thought that it was a few boys who she despised. She gave them detentions and everything. Tatina and another Saturnian called Lemana were the ones involved, but Ruby found out what they were doing. They decided to involve her as a way of bribery. She was the one who found the actual combination.
"And if Old Samns says yes, then chances are Nenmort will agree, too," Tatina continued.
"He probably would be dying of curiosity too if he saw the logs," Fuda mentioned. "That can be our next resort if all else fails."
The spent the next hour planning how they would present the idea. Finally, they took the jumptubes to the Classroom, where they knew that they could find Mrs. Samns. Tatina came in first, seeing the teacher grading some compu pads and nodding her head at one of them. Clearly one student had passed that assignment.
When Samns saw them, she smiled and put down the compu pad. "Hello, everyone," she said as she stood up. "Is there anything that you need help with?"
Tatina spoke for the group. "We've done our research for the projects. We read the compu pads and logs. Every single one of them."
Mrs. Samns beamed with happiness. "Excellent! Do you need help with understanding any of the concepts? There was that one in particular..."
Tatina cut her off politely. She, for one, didn't want to spend all day on the infamous, "this is how light travels" speech that many students of hers learned when they got to Advanced Physics. It was supposed to be torture.
"You see, Mrs. Samns, we discovered something rather interesting after we saw the last tape."
Mrs. Samns rubbed her hands together in anticipation. "And that is?" she squealed with glee.
"There is no ending. The last log was about five years before their journey ended. We, all of us, really want to find out what happened. We would even (she took a deep breath before promising such a horrible but necessary thing) be willing to report on it."
Mrs. Samns's face grew even happier. "Well, now that's a wonderful idea. But how on Earth would you find the crew?"
As though on cue, and it probably was, Fuda handed Tatina the compu pad full of calculations, and the letter which said the name of the station.
"Fuda and I have spent over an hour locating every single space station in existence in the galaxy, called Cadelo. There's only one, and when we did the scan we saw that a crew of the exact same people, traits, and names boarded Cadelo at the same time. They're still there. Cadelo's distance isn't too far, and would have been a reasonable place to try to land in case of the fight. It's neutral territory. If we found the crew, maybe they could publish their findings now that the war is over. The white circle, the encounter with the Spung, all this should make them pretty famous. Would you let us contact them?"
"Of course! I mean, as long as Commander Nenmort allows it. Think about how educational it would be!"
Mrs. Samns was practically skipping with joy. The crew just grinned, all thinking the same thing: That was easy!
Next they went to Commander Nenmort. He was a little harder to convince, since he was interested in getting home as soon as possible, along with how much fuel two hyperdrive jumps would need. Tatina had to point out that Cadelo was known for their resources so they would probably actually benefit from this, and the fact that Cadelo wasn't out of the way by more than a few hours. Once they were done, they would only need to travel for a few more days, since they would probably stay at Cadelo for several days, hearing the untold stories.
Finally, Nenmort gave his permission, smiling at the excited and eager faces. "All right. You may contact the crew."
The crew all cheered and they went to Communications immediately. Sida did a scan which told them the code for Cadelo and the others waited impatiently as he received the data. Finally, the numbers were given. He pushed them in, and grinned for the first time in his life.
"This is Cadelo, station of resources and peace. If you would like to hear our latest meteor information, please hold. If you would like to contact someone from our staff, please press 4-5-5-6. If you would like to get reservations at our inn, please press 2-5. If you would like to contact someone from Cadelo who is visiting or lives here, please press 3-4-7," came the semi friendly mechanical voice.
Sida pressed the numbers.
"Please hold for the nearest assistance," came the voice again.
"Oh, hurry!" squeaked Tatina as she started pacing.
The wait was only a few seconds. Finally a friendly Mercurian came to the screen.
"Hello, and welcome to Cadelo. Who would you like to speak to?"
"We would like to speak to someone who came here about ten years ago, from the ship Christa, the same one that we are currently calling from," explained Sida.
"Can you give any names of commanding officers?"
Tatina took over, telling the Mercurian the names of the adults and the kids.
"Please wait one moment."
Soon, another Mercurian came to the screen. She looked to be about twenty years old, and wore a blue outfit, and a yellow headband. She seemed very energetic and was smiling.
"Hello, crew of the Christa. My name is Rosie Ianni. I was informed that you wanted to speak with my friends and me."
Well, after hearing this it was a wonder that the crew didn't faint in shock. Tatina cleared her throat a little, and Fuda seemed amazed. Ruby was grinning as widely as Rosie, and even Sida seemed happy. For once, the sarcastic look was gone from Eric's face.
In that moment of silence and awe, Rosie looked at the faces of the young crew. What a coincidence, she noted, that they are from the same planets as my crew had been when we had entered the ship. It also occurred to her to wonder if they had gotten trapped so far from the Starcademy the same way that they did. Or maybe they found the ship traveling through space, on a mission. They had used a slow autopilot, after all.
Rosie spoke, breaking the silence. "Well, I can guess why you're here. You probably want to know the rest of our story. We left off at an awkward place, and you probably received the letter and knew that we were at Cadelo. Then you did a scan and saw that Cadelo was the only space station with the name in existence, at least in this galaxy, and did a name and planet scan to find more information. Then you found us."
"You guessed it," Tatina replied, smiling and still trying to take it all in.
Rosie laughed. "We knew that if a crew really wanted to learn what had happened to us, they would work their toes off trying to find us. We decided to make it a little easier, but not too easy. We didn't exactly want a bunch of grownups coming to collect us and give us all loads of assignments that we supposedly "missed" while we were away. We also didn't want to be considered heroes in science, who discovered the existence of a white circle and lived to tell about it."
Again Tatina spoke for her crew. "Makes sense."
Rosie smiled. "We thought so as well. Well, if you want to hear the rest of the story, I guess that you'll need to come to Cadelo. I'll tell the others. They'll be thrilled. How far away are you from Cadelo?"
"With the hyperdrive jumps included, a few hours. Also, we'll need to replenish the fuel that we used for the jumps while we're at Cadelo."
"Makes sense. Catalina, our engineering expert, can tell you what would be the best kind to use on the Christa, and the cheapest. There's a lot of currencies in the cargo hold. Cadeloeons use the yellow and dark blue kind, but if you go to certain places on Cadelo, you'll also need the dark green money."
Tatina nodded, making a mental note to remember all of this.
"We'll need to tell our commander that we contacted you. I guess we'll meet you there tonight or tomorrow. We'll let you know as soon as we figure it out," Tatina replied.
"All right, then. We'll be in touch."
They disconnected and the new crew literally raced down the hallway to find Commander Nenmort, screaming his name at the top of their lungs. After roughly five minutes, they found him in the engine room. Breathless, Tatina explained the entire conversation. Nenmort looked amazed, to say the least. It wasn't every day that a former crew leaves around just enough information for the new one to find them if they looked, or even for a former crew and a new one to meet. He knew that Lumanian ships had personalities, each that was suited for a particular kind of crew. After hearing about the autopilot, Nenmort guessed that the Christa had had some say in it. She probably wanted to go back to the Starcademy, clearly pleased with the current crew.
"Well, it's reasonably late in the afternoon now. I don't want to keep you all for intense training for about four hours at a time, and you would all be needed. So..." he paused, thinking the whole thing through. "...tomorrow morning everyone will rise at 7:30 and we'll begin at 8:00. You can eat on shifts from 11:00 to 11:30 and 11:30 to 12:00, I suppose.
"Then we'll be there and we can get four rooms; one for me, one for Mrs. Samns, and one for the girls and one for the boys. We can meet with the crew soon after, maybe around 14:00, and hear this story that you all want to know. I have no idea how long that will take.
"On the last day, we can buy the fuel that we'll need, and you'll have some free time to, in one group of three and one group of two, walk around Cadelo and explore. I'll give you some money as well, but not a huge amount. From what Rosie said, there's clearly a good deal of currency in the cargo hold. I did notice some trunks when we were down there...they probably need some kind of a number code. When you call Rosie back, ask her about them."
The crew all nodded and went back to the Command post. Sida pressed the numbers and without hearing the choices, pressed the code needed. Rosie appeared a minute later. Sida dutifully repeated all that he had been told, and saw Rosie nod at some parts. Finally, she said that she would have the rooms ready for them. They were staying in separate ones, but there was a sort of floor lobby on level ten. It was clearly labeled. After telling Sida all of this, Rosie then added how much she was looking forward to meeting them, and that she hoped that they would stay in touch even after the story was told. There was always the spacenet, she added with a smile, right before they disconnected again.
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Later, that night in fact, no one was able to go to sleep at first. Sida and Eric were trying to figure out the rest of the story, being problem solvers (or at least Sida was). They had little luck with their guessing.
"Must be something really big," Eric said after a half hour of guessing. "Otherwise they would have just included it. What kind of moron leaves all this information just to say, 'we had a pleasant trip home.' Sounds like one of those tourist traps on Earth, a few hundred years ago."
"How would you know about a tourist trap if the last one was a few hundred years before you were born?" asked Sida skeptically.
"My family had bad luck with them before. It was a joke that my sixth great grandfather was 'most likely to miss a job interview because he went to a tourist trap, thinking he would win a million dollars.' "
"A million dollars is nothing today." (A/N: Due to inflation, a million dollars is worth less than one hundred today)
"Inflation, you idiot. That would be, like, a billion today."
"Oh."
"That's all you can say?! 'Oh' to my family's history?!"
"It's not something I would brag about if I were you, Eric."
Eric exhaled deeply. "My point is that the crew must have had some amazing adventures, or else they wouldn't bother trying to make someone be really interested in order to find it."
Sida made no reply.
"Sida? You awake?"
Again, Sida made no reply.
"Sida?"
Finally, the Uranian said in a disinterested voice, "What?"
Then Eric began to throw pillows at him for the next ten minutes.
"I'm beginning to think that Rainbow Head is right about you," Eric grumbled.
"Her name is Tatina," was all the Uranian said.
In the girl's room, however, there was a much more productive use of the time. Since no one could sleep, they decided to replay old logs, both for the project and so that they wouldn't need to interrupt the crew's story to ask about something as small as, "Who's Elmira?"
They were also quizzing each other on names, dates, and interests of major characters. They learned a lot from doing this, like the fact that it was actually Radu who was the youngest and that Rosie and Bova were of the same race.
"Oooooh! That means that Sida and you, Ruby, are of my race too," exclaimed Tatina. "I never knew that before."
"You didn't? But the Rigellion class was a few years ago."
Tatina shrugged. "I wasn't paying attention. No big deal, I still passed the test."
"Here's something interesting," Fuda spoke up. "According to Elmira, Radu had a prediction that never came true...yet. But he and Elmira are the only ones that know it."
"Maybe his prediction doesn't involve the rest of the crew." Tatina shrugged. "Could be a story that we'll hear tomorrow."
"Pretty weird how he's Andromedan and Elmira's a Spung, yet they're going to have...or are having...a destiny together," Ruby thought out loud. "If they're married, it could be a cause for the second Galactic War. Remember what Commander Nenmort said? It was a dangerous time but also little was known about it."
"Sounds like the Dark Ages on Earth. For awhile, almost nothing was known. It was only a hundred years ago that more artifacts were found which allowed information to be collected," replied Ruby.
Fuda and Tatina stared at her. She giggled.
"It was an interesting History class," she admitted, face turning even redder.
"Maybe Radu's destiny has to do with saving the Spung. Remember? 'Those who scorn you, you will save,' " reflected Fuda.
"What do the Spung need saving from? Except their natural evilness."
"Could be Andromedans. They never liked Radu, because he was an individual."
"Maybe...I have no idea where this idea came from. I think that I've been paying a little too much attention in Old Samns's classes. But maybe the Spung are not evil at birth, but somehow become evil." She grinned. "As I said, I don't know how I thought of the idea."
Ruby and Tatina raised their eyes, then all three girls burst into giggles.
"And maybe Radu is meant to remove the evil from the Spung. Well, good luck to him. We've been fighting Spung for years and it sure hasn't happened. If that's what he's meant to do, he'll need more than luck can give him," replied Tatina. They all began to laugh again at how absurd the idea was.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----
The next day, they all woke up early, and ate breakfast within minutes. Nenmort was already there, smiling as he saw them take their places. After hours at their stations, and the switch for lunch, they finally made it.
"Well, crew, we're here," Nenmort said after making Ruby and Sida check the location a few times. "Before you go across the spacewave and to Cadelo, I have a few things that I want to remind you of."
Everyone groaned. Nenmort held up a hand and continued.
"Number one. You're representatives of the UPP. Every single one of you. You are need to behave and set a good example. I didn't know this before, but we have been trying to establish a trading system with them. If you all misbehave, it will be much harder. Have fun, but don't go hysterical or rob a store.
"Second, you are to be friendly and respectful to the crew. They're being very nice, letting you hear their adventure. Clearly this means a lot to them as well as you. Be sure to be respectful. In the logs they were your age, but this is ten years later. This means that they'll be somewhere between twenty-one and twenty-eight. Adults, not kids. Everyone understand?"
"Yes, Commander Nenmort."
"Good. Sida, you go to Mrs. Samns and help her with the spacewave. She's been listening to my commands all morning so that we don't all lose our coordinates."
Sida left and five minutes later his voice sounded on the intercom.
"Commander, the spacewave is ready."
"All right, then. Sida, you and Mrs. Samns will board it now." He turned to his team. "Let's go."
Part 6
Taking deep breaths, the crew walked through the spacewave. It was always a little unsettling, since it seemed to be only a thin layer of oxygen and gravity separating them from the harshness of space. But it was really a suspended room, invisible to the naked eye.
The crew's hearts all were beating quickly, all with a mix of nerves and hope. The spacewave wasn't meant for running (it would disrupt the gravity), but the crew walked as quickly as they knew how to. Finally, they were at Cadelo.
Cadelo was huge and beautiful. It was a planet, not a Satellite as most originally thought. Cadelo was once uninhabited, but then the people on a nearby planet altered the atmosphere and set it up as a trade center, as well as a space station. Now grass grew, along with huge trees and small animals resembling Earth's. There were lakes and oceans with pure water, and houses were built from stone and bricks along one side of it. The land ranged from mountains to very flat. In some areas there were deserts, usually where trade and spaceships were placed, and in others the land was perfect for farming.
If someone had only heard about Cadelo and never saw it, one would think that it was a lonely satellite, orbiting a baron planet. The fact was that Cadelo was simply too incredible to describe without sounding commercial. People also didn't want it to become too overpopulated. Even establishing trade routes was a long and hard decision, and was based mainly on the group's records.
The crew gasped when they saw this. Mrs. Samns started taking out some logs, and immediately began to record some information. Everyone moved slowly away from her.
Nenmort turned to Eric and Sida. "Before we start to explore, end the connections with the spacewave and autopark the ship. Got that?"
They both nodded.
"We'll try to find the hotel. We'll send you a report through your compu pads. Ok?"
Once again, the two boys nodded and turned to go back through the spacewave. Now that they were on the planet, they wouldn't need the spacewave, only a starling to go back with. They discovered some helpful technology which allowed this to be done, but it's extremely complicated.
Commander and the others began to go to the large building marked "hotel." Commander Nenmort knocked on the door and told the computer voice the floor that he wanted. The computer opened the door and highlighted the way to the floor and the floor's lobby.
Within minutes, a breathless Sida and Eric came rushing up, calling, "Wait for us!"
The crew waited for them to catch their breaths and then continued on their way. They hadn't thought to use the elevator and now needed to go up many flights of stairs. Fortunately, they were soon there. Unfortunately, they were all carrying lots of luggage, which made the trip take even longer.
Rosie opened the door to the lobby after hearing them knock.
"Come on in!" she greeted. "Everyone else is here, except the twins, who are napping."
"The twins?" asked Tatina.
Rosie beamed with pride. "A girl and a boy; they're each six years old. The girl is named Daisy, and the boy is Tommy. We usually call him Tom for short. Bova told me it's an Earth name, and he liked it. I picked out the name Daisy."
"You mean..." Fuda trailed off.
"Yes, Bova's my husband. We got engaged four years ago, when we were both nineteen."
"Well, congratulations," said Commander Nenmort as he came in the room. "Are there any other couples here?" He was smiling.
"Well, Radu and Elmira are together but not engaged yet. What with Shank being killed and all...or that's what the stories say. But they assure me that he won't be bothering them anymore. And Catalina and Harlan have a little girl, who's also six. Her name is Anna, an Earth name. Suzee's back on Yensid, as you may remember."
"Thank the galaxy for that," Tatina said before she could stop herself.
Rosie just nodded, somewhat saddened. "Yes, after she tried to kill us all, we really couldn't risk it." Seeing their faces, she added, "You'll find out soon enough."
The whole new crew was inside by now, and putting their luggage near a table. Rosie was calling the others, telling them to come in; the crew was here.
"You see," explained Rosie. "Our rooms are attached on two sides to the lobby, and Commander's is right across."
"What about Ms. Davenport?" asked Tatina.
Again, Rosie looked much sadder. "She died when the Spung attacked, right after we wrote the letter to you. Maybe a week after. We were going to Cadelo, and then a Spung ship started shooting at us. We did all that we could but...she didn't make it."
"We're so sorry," gasped Fuda. Even though they didn't personally know the teacher, they had watched enough logs to see how much she had changed. What was she like a few years afterwards? What would she have been like today? There was only the memories of the crew to go by.
There wasn't too much time to grieve over this, since the old crew started coming in then. The new crew gets their first look at the people from the logs.
Catalina still looked similar. She was about the same height, and the main difference is that her hair has grown to her waist. Tatina remembered that as a teen, instead of getting zits and getting a period like Earthers do, Saturnians figured out how to modify themselves simply so that their hair would fall out and only grow to their shoulders. This occurred when they reached the age of twelve. By the time they were eighteen, their hair would grow back. Other cultures were trying to duplicate this technology.
Harlan looked about ten years older, like a young adult. He had grown to be a few inches taller than Cat, and was pretty much bald by now, with a layer of hair at the top part of his head. Tatina remembered an Earth style similar to that called the buzz cut, but wasn't sure if it was the same thing. Harlan looked on the thin side, but not in the anorexic way. Ruby thought that he looked very handsome.
Bova's antennae were now forked at the ends, like his dad's had been. He has grown a half a foot, and was about Rosie's height. His hair was still the same, if not slightly shorter. His face was now optimistic, thanks to his spending so much time with Rosie. Since they didn't wear uniforms anymore, Bova wore a T-Shirt that said, "It's never too late to be happy!" with a big smiley face on it. His family would have been ashamed to see him wearing it.
Radu looked the most different. His eyes held a certain look to them, more confident but feeling as though someone had given him an important task that he couldn't remember. His hair now reached to his toes, tied back as well as he could manage. His ears, as was usually the case, became a little smaller, as was needed to improve the hearing during the adult years. Next to him stood Elmira.
Elmira seemed the happiest of everyone, her eyes shining with delight as she stood near Radu. There wasn't a lot of change with her, only that her hair now reached below her waist and her tail became much thinner. Later, the crew found out that this was perfectly normal. Her scales on her face were a little lighter, which was also perfectly normal. She wore a yellow dress with clouds on it, made especially to fit a Spung Princess. Although she had been given the throne, she decided to wait a little before taking it. There were still some problems between the Spung and the UPP.
Anna was the one person that the new crew had never seen. Her skin was a tan color, not as dark as her father's, though. Her eyes were blue and excited, and her hair was rainbow colored and below her waist. It was pulled into a braided half ponytail, and she wore a light blue dress. She clung to her mom's side as she saw the strangers.
"Don't worry, sweetie. These are our friends," Catalina told her daughter, smiling as she picked her up. "Welcome to Cadelo," she told the new crew. "Please sit down and make yourself at home."
They all sat down in five chairs and the adults sat on the floor. The crew sat in a circle around them, Anna on Catalina's lap. Rosie cleared her throat, tears forming in her eyes.
She smiled, and sniffed, wiping her eyes. "I'm sorry. It's just so sweet, all of us together today." She smiled again. "Well, I suppose that we should begin. Who wants to go first?"
Bova spoke up. "I would like to, if no one minds." There were no objections. "My goodness, it's been awhile, well let's see. We had just escaped from Pezu, the computer freak. We were running low on fuel and..." Bova began to describe the adventure to them...
The End!
"I can't believe that you can't even figure out how to use the jumptubes!" complained Commander Nenmort as he followed Sida to the team room. "Honesty, did you even listen when I said, very clearly, that you always had to check your destination?"
"Sorry Commander. But we forgot. And now Ruby is stuck in the airlock."
"She is WHAT?!"
"I'm just joking. I hope. I think that she's either in the galley, in the corridor near the girls bunkroom, or near the landing bay."
"Oh great. As long as we narrow it down. Sida, do I have to remind you that these areas are practically across the ship from each other?"
"So take the jumptubes, Commander."
"I don't know how to go to all of those places by heart!"
"See?"
"Oh honestly, Sida. Fine. Thelma!"
"I am here, Commander Nenmort."
"Agh! Thelma, do not scare me like that, ok?"
"Like...what, sir?"
"Just don't creep up on me!"
"I was doing so? But I do not know how to creep."
"Just, uh, oh, never mind!"
Thelma appeared confused. "If you say so, sir."
"Thelma, do you know where Ruby is?"
"I can find out, sir."
"How?"
"How...what?"
"How...can...you...find...out...where...Ruby...is?!" snapped Commander Nenmort very slowly, as though he was talking to an idiot.
"I am able to do the sonar sweep scan which therefore allows you to reverse the polarity of the neutron flows which will generate a high voltage..."
"Thelma, shut up and do whatever is needed to find Ruby! OK?! Is that too much to ask around here? I swear, this ship is out to get me."
"A former crew member once said that," Thelma recalled, but then went into her locating mood and said nothing more.
"Who?" asked Sida, but he received no reply. "Figures."
About ten minutes later, Thelma announced that Ruby was in the cargo hold. Commander made sure that the jumptubes worked before using them with Sida to find the Mercurian.
"Ruby, there you are!" he exclaimed. "We thought that we had lost you...what are you doing?" He noticed that she was opening and closing drawers to the cargo hold and had a pile of what looked like old logs on the floor.
"Oh hello, Commander Nenmort! Look what I found! I'm guessing that they're from the old crew."
"Probably a bomb to kill us all. The ship wasn't in the best condition when we found it."
"Sure it was, Sida! Just because Thelma was shut down, and the crystal had a crack in it doesn't mean that the ship is dangerous."
"I wouldn't be too sure. We did go through the circle pretty badly," remarked the commander. "Five years and seven months from home isn't too good."
"But that's not the ship's fault, or Thelma's," argued Ruby. "Anyway, I think that if we find all the logs, maybe we'll know why the Christa was left in space. And check out this letter that I found."
Sida and Commander Nenmort took a closer look.
"It appears to be written in another language. I think that it's in an old one called English. Most likely the person who wrote it didn't speak the universal language, yet, anyway."
"Can you read English, Commander?" asked Ruby excitedly.
"Yeah, enough. Let me see the letter."
Ruby handed him the folded letter and scooped up the logs. "Come on, let's show the others."
The others consisted of the only other adult, a female Martian teacher called Mrs. Samns who got in trouble for poor judgment so much that it was a wonder that she hadn't been fired from the Starcademy yet, a female Saturnian called Tatina, a Earther called Eric Santh, and an female Andromedan called Fuda. They were considered "smart but never apply themselves" and were put in the average class at the Starcademy. They still blamed Eric for getting them lost in space. If he hadn't been insisting that they push Fuda's head in the toilet, they never would have seen the ship. If they hadn't seen the ship, Eric wouldn't have threatened them to come on it with him, saying that if they didn't he would make them REALLY see stars. Eric was a huge bully, but quickly became weaker when he got them trapped in space. If he hadn't insisted on combining the crystals...well, let's just say that they wouldn't be stuck here.
"Wow, this is awesome," gasped Tatina as she saw the logs and letters. "Maybe they left accounts of all the great space stations to shop at!"
"Oh yeah, and the letter is explaining that the reason they took apart Thelma was because she stole all their clothes," replied Sida in a bored tone.
"Hey, maybe!" Tatina replied, green eyes glowing with excitement.
"Maybe the letter is about all the learning they did," Mrs. Samns said hopefully.
"Maybe we should just open it and read it. Did that cross anyone's mind?" remarked Eric, glaring at them.
"Oh, shut up, Eric. You're not powerful here," snapped Tatina.
"Oooh, I'm real scared. Why don't you be quiet, or..." he left the sentence hanging. Tatina just rolled her eyes, not scared of a mere Earther.
"Hey watch it. Have you ever heard a sonic blast?"
"Too many times," Sida replied. "Can we just read the letter already?"
"Yes, it will be very educational."
Everyone rolled their eyes and Commander re-unfolded the letter.
Dear whoever finds this letter,
Consider yourself lucky to be on this ship. We spent our time here, and we all grew a lot in ways that we can only begin to describe. We started off as strangers or even enemies, and ended up friends, some of us even more. ("Sounds like a ad for an overnight camp," Eric remarked. No one listened to him.) But we now know that our trip is almost done. According to the monitor, the new planet is near. After the Starcademy was attacked by Spung and was remade into a base, we knew that we couldn't go back. So now it is your turn, future crew. We can only hope that you will have half as many adventures and growth as we did. In case we ever meet, we will be at the space station Cadelo. But we may change plans. We saved all our logs for you, in case you find any use for them. Goodbye and remember how lucky you are!
Your former crew,
Catalina
Bova
Harlan Band
Rosie Ianni
Radu
Suzee
Ms. Davenport
Commander Seth Goddard
P.S. We purposely disconnected Thelma so that you could have the same beginning that we had. We thought that it would bring you luck.
Part 2
The crew stared at each other in shock. Finally, more to break the uncomfortable silence than anything else, Tatina made a joke that the letter wasn't exactly instructions to the nearest space station for shopping, but it was good enough. The others laughed awkwardly.
"I wonder where they are now," Fuda said quietly. She had always been shy, mainly because Eric had terrorized her ever since she came to the Starcademy, pushing her head down the toilet and putting viruses on her compu pads. Along with lots of other things that only those two knew about. Fuda had straight red hair that was already below her waist. She often wore it in a long braid, like she was wearing today. Ruby and Sida had been her only friends, though Tatina sometimes told Eric to "get a life" when he bugged her. But since Tatina couldn't stand Eric, Fuda could never be sure if Tatina was just doing it to bug Eric, or because she pitied Fuda. Possibly both.
"No duh. Of course we want to know where they are. It would be suspectful if you didn't care where the other crew was," scoffed Eric.
"Eric, you better shut up."
"Or what, rainbow brains?"
"At least I have brains."
"Oh right. Excuse me, but being as smart as an amoeba doesn't really qualify as brains."
"You're not even that smart!"
Sida let out a snicker. Eric glared at him, and Sida just gave him a "sorry but not really" look. Eric dropped the argument.
"What did the other crew mean when they said that the Starcademy had been seized by Spung?" asked Ruby.
"About five years ago, we had a big fight with the Spung, and I use the term fight loosely. To be honest, if the fight had gone on any longer, I have a feeling that no one would be alive to tell about it now."
"Where was this fight?"
"It was mainly a few light years away from the Sol System. But the Starcademy was seized and was made into a base for the Spung. The Spung seemed to be winning the war, but then some others showed up. It was really weird, they claim that were led by this boy, Radu, but there was a Radu on the ship." Nenmort shrugged. "Anyway, these Spung wanted to help us. Them and some other aliens called Hork Bajir. Hork Bajir were almost extinct and were sent to an isolated planet so that they could populate on their own. This Radu double supposeably led the Spung, the good ones.
"For some reason, these Spung hated the others. There was enough of both species to turn the war around. It only lasted for two years, and I assume that it was the Spung and Hork Bajir that turned the war around. The Radu double had some others working for him, at least ten others, and some Andalites. But the Radu double didn't give any explanations and disappeared after the war was over.
"Some people say that the part about Radu and his ten helpers was just a myth, and others say that there was no real Spung Rebellion, that it was just a few traitorious Spung who wanted to join the UPP. I don't know which is true, since I didn't see Radu and his helpers."
"Whoa. But what about the Hork Bajir?" asked Tatina.
Again Nenmort shrugged. "Maybe they came, maybe they didn't. Like I said, there were a lot of rumors about battles. The war was fought from pretty far off from UPP civilization, so we don't know a lot about it. Mainly people just wanted to survive. We call it the second galactical war. So chances are, the crew came near the middle of it, saw the danger they were in, and headed to the first place that they could. I'm guessing that they used autopiolet, but a slow one, for the ship to come back."
"Do you think that the battle of the Radu double, his helpers, and his army of Hork Bajir and Spung is true?" questioned Ruby.
"I really can't be sure. My guess is yes, or at least mostly yes."
"I say that we go through the logs. Maybe they will tell us something," suggested Tatina.
"Ok, sure. You can have classtime, Free Study, and, if you want, your free time to look at them."
He glanced at the teacher. "But you'll have to do a report on the section that you choose."
Everyone groaned.
"You can start now," Nenmort concluded.
Everyone raced to get a log. There was fifteen in all. Nenmort said that each person could look at three, or double up with a partner and do six. The project would be at least ten minutes or presenting, as well as acting out what they found to be the most interesting part, or parts, in their logs. They would have three weeks.
Tatina ended up working with Eric, only because he bribed her. With what, she wouldn't say. Ruby and Fuda thought that Tatina might like Eric, but they weren't sure, and didn't want to risk breaking their bones by asking. Tatina might seem like a mall rat, but she was also smart and could get mean. Generally she was nice, but you did not want to make her angry. Plus, she was extremely skilled at Sonic Blasts.
Fuda and Ruby ended up working together, and later convinced Mrs. Samns to let Sida work with them. They were working on the last nine logs, which would take a lot of watching and listening together and writing down various information. All three decided to start their project. Maybe they could just run through all the logs right away.
"Hey, what's this?" asked Sida as he noticed the title on one.
"Hmm, it says, 'Meeting of the computer freak'. Sounds interesting," Fuda replied.
"Let's watch them now. We have about two hours; maybe if we hurry we can get to this one," Ruby suggested. "We can always go back later."
They spent two hours watching the tapes, but only got up to where the crew met Suzee. The tapes were all told in different perspectives, so each adventure was really five times as long. The adults were rarely present in the telling, so the crew had to rely on the information of the kids, much of it that greatly varied. Still, most of the time the facts were close enough.
They didn't get to the computer freak tape that day; they didn't even get through more than one tape. They all scribbled down the main facts, trying to get the general idea. Sometimes this was easy, but other times it was nearly impossible because at least two crew members would distort the truth so much.
Three days later, they made it to the computer freak tape. It was about this computer who wanted to keep Suzee at an alien outpost so that the two geniuses could become friends. Fuda found it somewhat interesting, though she was very bored of Suzee. She looked forward to the tape where Catalina would come back, since her name was signed on the letter.
Soon, the tape was done. "About time," muttered Fuda as she pressed the keys to rewind it. "Let's see how the others are doing. Maybe they have a more recent tape."
But they didn't. Mrs. Samns and Commander Nenmort checked; the Pezu tape was the last one. There was no further information. Even when they checked the cargo hold, there was nothing. If it hadn't been for the letter, the crew would have been sure that the other cadets had been killed. Even though they questioned Thelma about it, she claimed that her memory had been erased of more recent adventures.
"This totally sucks. Now what?" complained Sida.
"We only have one choice. We must find the crew, no matter what. They owe us an explanation," replied Tatina, calmly. "We need to know the end of their story. I think that they want us to know, too. We'll find out what happened to these Space Cases."
Part 3
"Oh really?" replied Eric dryly. "And how in the galaxy do you suggest that we do that?"
Tatina, as usual, had little patience with Eric. "Duh, Eric you idiot. It did say on the letter that they would be at a space station."
"I'll get the letter," Fuda volunteered, and left the room.
"Do you think that we should just go barging in on them?" wondered Ruby. "I mean, they're probably all settled in and trying to dodge the Spung. Then suddenly we show up and say, 'Hi, we're the new crew. We have read your logs. We want to know the ending of the story, please.' "
"Well, that's assuming that they're even at a space station. The war ended a few years ago, so they could have moved on," Eric replied.
"Besides, what idiot" (she glanced meaningfully at Eric) "reads the logs and doesn't care how it ended, or even why the evil Suzee got rereplaced by the incredible Catalina?" Tatina replied.
She had taken an extreme loathing to Suzee, and, while no other crew member hated her with such a passion, they were all pretty sick of her by the time they saw the video called, "The Ionic Storm and Truth or Doom."
Fuda came back then, holding the letter. No one saw her enter, so she just went to one of the chairs and waited for everyone to stop talking before showing the letter, so that she wouldn't interrupt anything. It was an Andromedan habit that everyone was instructed about.
"That is, if they're even alive by now," added Sida, giving more gloom to the situation. "We should just give up."
If anyone had any doubts about Tatina's ability to fight someone and break their arms, they were definitely disproven.
Tatina, before you could say "sonic blast", was across the room and on top of Sida. Her hands were holding his head back, and she was seriously debating to herself whether or not to strangle that "annoying pessimist" to death when a blast of heat hit her back.
Turning around, she saw that it was from Ruby.
"Please, Tatina, don't hurt Sida!" she begged, her arm still poised.
Extremely reluctantly, Tatina released Sida.
"Fine. But if that idiot ever, and I mean EVER, does something like that again, I will throw him out the nearest airlock."
Sida got up shakily.
"Sorry," he muttered.
Tatina just glared at him. He slowly backed away from her, and Tatina turned her attention to the rest of the crew.
"Oh, good Fuda. You have the letter. Let's see the space station."
Fuda handed Tatina the letter and she skimmed over it. This was usually the way things worked on the Christa; Tatina would take charge and be the girls' boss. Eric was the boys' one.
"It's called Cadelo. Let's do a scan to see how far it is from here." Tatina glanced up from the letter a minute later and said this. "Come on, Fuda. You have a good sense of direction, right?"
"Yeah, we Andromedans do," she replied softly.
"Great, well come on. You can wait here, for now."
They left the Team Room and went through the jumptubes, checking their destination this time. It was how the entire mess got started, after all. If Ruby hadn't, they might not have seen the logs. Weird, thought Tatina, realizing this.
At the Command Post, Fuda moved to Navigation. Tatina called up a diagram of nearby constellations, and asked Fuda to familiarize herself with the layout. Next, she zoomed in on them, and added some neighboring area. It took awhile to find Cadelo, but eventually, it was found.
"All right, Fuda. According to the layout, how many light years are we from Cadelo?" she asked.
Fuda shut her eyes and concentrated, muttering under her breath. Tatina waited impatiently, tapping her foot on the floor of her current position at helm.
Fuda finally opened her eyes.
"Well?" asked Tatina, her eyebrows raised with excitement, a common habit for a Saturnian.
"Cadelo is only a few light weeks away from us. If we took two hyperjumps, we would reach it within a few hours," Fuda whispered in shock.
Tatina, had she been an Earther who once stood at the exact same position only a few years ago called Harlan Band, would have been jumping up and down with glee. But Tatina was calmer.
"Check to make sure that there's no other space stations called Cadelo. Also, be sure that Cadelo actually has life on it. Many are abandoned. I'm going to magnify quickly, will you be ready?"
Fuda nodded, concentrating.
Tatina began to say orders at the Christa, asking the ship to give her coordinates several light years away, or as far as a hundred thousand light years away. Fuda said the same thing each time.
"There is no Cadelo."
Finally, after making sure that she had checked over every area that the Christa was able to check, she went back over the spot where Cadelo had existed before.
"Christa, give me the statistics of Cadelo, and print them up," Tatina commanded. The Christa did as she was told.
Cadelo was a space station built by a race called the Ranonites. The station was meant for trade, though recently land was sold on it to build homes and hotels to stay in. The station had been in existence for nearly five hundred years, and went through many battles, including the second galactic war.
Tatina asked for more information about the wars, especially the second galactic one, and typical races found on Cadelo. The Christa paused for a few minutes and then printed out more information. Tatina skimmed through it.
It was all old material for her, things that she had learned about before. Even the information on the second galactic war was the same legend/facts that Commander Nenmort had told them only hours ago. There was nothing new.
"Christa, if you can send me a record of who is currently on Cadelo, do so."
It took the Christa a while to comply, but she was eventually able to. The information was put in groups of how the people had come. According to the records, exactly ten years, five months, and two days ago had an Andromedan, an Earther, a Saturnian with an "imaginary" friend, a Mercurian, and a Uranian boy had set foot on the station. Along with them were two adults, an Earther and a Martian. The names were given, and they were the same. But even if they hadn't been available, Tatina knew that she would have known this crew by the feeling in her gut, the way her heart began to quicken.
"The crew," she whispered. "The crew is here. The answers to our questions."
Fuda glanced at her in astonishment.
"You have found them?" she whispered.
"Yes. The crew is there."
Fuda just stared at her for a few minutes in disbelief. Finally, a smile made its way to her lips.
"We found them. We found the crew," she gasped.
Then they both laughed, and ran to tell the others, shouting, "We found the crew! We found the Space Cases!"
Part 4
Needless to say, the rest of the crew was more than a little excited and surprised. Ruby got so excited that she began to overheat for a few seconds. Even Sida looked happy, and he was a pessimist by nature.
"Now what?" Tatina asked after all the excitement died down a little.
"Well, first we have to ask the adults. Then we'll plot a course to Cadelo," Ruby replied.
Fuda shook her head slightly. Since she never disagreed with anyone before this, everyone turned to hear what she had to say.
"First, well second after we talk to the adults, we have to establish communications with Cadelo. If it were me, I wouldn't want some strangers showing up completely unexpected. They'll need time to plan, especially what they're going to tell us. Some parts they may want to leave hidden. And they're certainly allowed that. This way, we can also have time and not completely surprise them."
Tatina nodded, a sign for everyone to agree.
"Smart idea, Fuda," Eric said.
Fuda reddened a little from the compliment.
"Let's go tell the adults. Do you think that they'll let us?" asked Ruby.
"If we make it seem educational to Old Samns, she'll let us do anything. Remember last year?"
Ruby let out a giggle at the memory. Old Samns, as they called her, had allowed them to do an experiment in the chem lab to test certain chemicals. What they were really testing was how to make itching powder, and they actually found the combination. They put some on her uniform as a thank you present. The best part was that they were never even caught. To this day, Old Samns still thought that it was a few boys who she despised. She gave them detentions and everything. Tatina and another Saturnian called Lemana were the ones involved, but Ruby found out what they were doing. They decided to involve her as a way of bribery. She was the one who found the actual combination.
"And if Old Samns says yes, then chances are Nenmort will agree, too," Tatina continued.
"He probably would be dying of curiosity too if he saw the logs," Fuda mentioned. "That can be our next resort if all else fails."
The spent the next hour planning how they would present the idea. Finally, they took the jumptubes to the Classroom, where they knew that they could find Mrs. Samns. Tatina came in first, seeing the teacher grading some compu pads and nodding her head at one of them. Clearly one student had passed that assignment.
When Samns saw them, she smiled and put down the compu pad. "Hello, everyone," she said as she stood up. "Is there anything that you need help with?"
Tatina spoke for the group. "We've done our research for the projects. We read the compu pads and logs. Every single one of them."
Mrs. Samns beamed with happiness. "Excellent! Do you need help with understanding any of the concepts? There was that one in particular..."
Tatina cut her off politely. She, for one, didn't want to spend all day on the infamous, "this is how light travels" speech that many students of hers learned when they got to Advanced Physics. It was supposed to be torture.
"You see, Mrs. Samns, we discovered something rather interesting after we saw the last tape."
Mrs. Samns rubbed her hands together in anticipation. "And that is?" she squealed with glee.
"There is no ending. The last log was about five years before their journey ended. We, all of us, really want to find out what happened. We would even (she took a deep breath before promising such a horrible but necessary thing) be willing to report on it."
Mrs. Samns's face grew even happier. "Well, now that's a wonderful idea. But how on Earth would you find the crew?"
As though on cue, and it probably was, Fuda handed Tatina the compu pad full of calculations, and the letter which said the name of the station.
"Fuda and I have spent over an hour locating every single space station in existence in the galaxy, called Cadelo. There's only one, and when we did the scan we saw that a crew of the exact same people, traits, and names boarded Cadelo at the same time. They're still there. Cadelo's distance isn't too far, and would have been a reasonable place to try to land in case of the fight. It's neutral territory. If we found the crew, maybe they could publish their findings now that the war is over. The white circle, the encounter with the Spung, all this should make them pretty famous. Would you let us contact them?"
"Of course! I mean, as long as Commander Nenmort allows it. Think about how educational it would be!"
Mrs. Samns was practically skipping with joy. The crew just grinned, all thinking the same thing: That was easy!
Next they went to Commander Nenmort. He was a little harder to convince, since he was interested in getting home as soon as possible, along with how much fuel two hyperdrive jumps would need. Tatina had to point out that Cadelo was known for their resources so they would probably actually benefit from this, and the fact that Cadelo wasn't out of the way by more than a few hours. Once they were done, they would only need to travel for a few more days, since they would probably stay at Cadelo for several days, hearing the untold stories.
Finally, Nenmort gave his permission, smiling at the excited and eager faces. "All right. You may contact the crew."
The crew all cheered and they went to Communications immediately. Sida did a scan which told them the code for Cadelo and the others waited impatiently as he received the data. Finally, the numbers were given. He pushed them in, and grinned for the first time in his life.
"This is Cadelo, station of resources and peace. If you would like to hear our latest meteor information, please hold. If you would like to contact someone from our staff, please press 4-5-5-6. If you would like to get reservations at our inn, please press 2-5. If you would like to contact someone from Cadelo who is visiting or lives here, please press 3-4-7," came the semi friendly mechanical voice.
Sida pressed the numbers.
"Please hold for the nearest assistance," came the voice again.
"Oh, hurry!" squeaked Tatina as she started pacing.
The wait was only a few seconds. Finally a friendly Mercurian came to the screen.
"Hello, and welcome to Cadelo. Who would you like to speak to?"
"We would like to speak to someone who came here about ten years ago, from the ship Christa, the same one that we are currently calling from," explained Sida.
"Can you give any names of commanding officers?"
Tatina took over, telling the Mercurian the names of the adults and the kids.
"Please wait one moment."
Soon, another Mercurian came to the screen. She looked to be about twenty years old, and wore a blue outfit, and a yellow headband. She seemed very energetic and was smiling.
"Hello, crew of the Christa. My name is Rosie Ianni. I was informed that you wanted to speak with my friends and me."
Well, after hearing this it was a wonder that the crew didn't faint in shock. Tatina cleared her throat a little, and Fuda seemed amazed. Ruby was grinning as widely as Rosie, and even Sida seemed happy. For once, the sarcastic look was gone from Eric's face.
In that moment of silence and awe, Rosie looked at the faces of the young crew. What a coincidence, she noted, that they are from the same planets as my crew had been when we had entered the ship. It also occurred to her to wonder if they had gotten trapped so far from the Starcademy the same way that they did. Or maybe they found the ship traveling through space, on a mission. They had used a slow autopilot, after all.
Rosie spoke, breaking the silence. "Well, I can guess why you're here. You probably want to know the rest of our story. We left off at an awkward place, and you probably received the letter and knew that we were at Cadelo. Then you did a scan and saw that Cadelo was the only space station with the name in existence, at least in this galaxy, and did a name and planet scan to find more information. Then you found us."
"You guessed it," Tatina replied, smiling and still trying to take it all in.
Rosie laughed. "We knew that if a crew really wanted to learn what had happened to us, they would work their toes off trying to find us. We decided to make it a little easier, but not too easy. We didn't exactly want a bunch of grownups coming to collect us and give us all loads of assignments that we supposedly "missed" while we were away. We also didn't want to be considered heroes in science, who discovered the existence of a white circle and lived to tell about it."
Again Tatina spoke for her crew. "Makes sense."
Rosie smiled. "We thought so as well. Well, if you want to hear the rest of the story, I guess that you'll need to come to Cadelo. I'll tell the others. They'll be thrilled. How far away are you from Cadelo?"
"With the hyperdrive jumps included, a few hours. Also, we'll need to replenish the fuel that we used for the jumps while we're at Cadelo."
"Makes sense. Catalina, our engineering expert, can tell you what would be the best kind to use on the Christa, and the cheapest. There's a lot of currencies in the cargo hold. Cadeloeons use the yellow and dark blue kind, but if you go to certain places on Cadelo, you'll also need the dark green money."
Tatina nodded, making a mental note to remember all of this.
"We'll need to tell our commander that we contacted you. I guess we'll meet you there tonight or tomorrow. We'll let you know as soon as we figure it out," Tatina replied.
"All right, then. We'll be in touch."
They disconnected and the new crew literally raced down the hallway to find Commander Nenmort, screaming his name at the top of their lungs. After roughly five minutes, they found him in the engine room. Breathless, Tatina explained the entire conversation. Nenmort looked amazed, to say the least. It wasn't every day that a former crew leaves around just enough information for the new one to find them if they looked, or even for a former crew and a new one to meet. He knew that Lumanian ships had personalities, each that was suited for a particular kind of crew. After hearing about the autopilot, Nenmort guessed that the Christa had had some say in it. She probably wanted to go back to the Starcademy, clearly pleased with the current crew.
"Well, it's reasonably late in the afternoon now. I don't want to keep you all for intense training for about four hours at a time, and you would all be needed. So..." he paused, thinking the whole thing through. "...tomorrow morning everyone will rise at 7:30 and we'll begin at 8:00. You can eat on shifts from 11:00 to 11:30 and 11:30 to 12:00, I suppose.
"Then we'll be there and we can get four rooms; one for me, one for Mrs. Samns, and one for the girls and one for the boys. We can meet with the crew soon after, maybe around 14:00, and hear this story that you all want to know. I have no idea how long that will take.
"On the last day, we can buy the fuel that we'll need, and you'll have some free time to, in one group of three and one group of two, walk around Cadelo and explore. I'll give you some money as well, but not a huge amount. From what Rosie said, there's clearly a good deal of currency in the cargo hold. I did notice some trunks when we were down there...they probably need some kind of a number code. When you call Rosie back, ask her about them."
The crew all nodded and went back to the Command post. Sida pressed the numbers and without hearing the choices, pressed the code needed. Rosie appeared a minute later. Sida dutifully repeated all that he had been told, and saw Rosie nod at some parts. Finally, she said that she would have the rooms ready for them. They were staying in separate ones, but there was a sort of floor lobby on level ten. It was clearly labeled. After telling Sida all of this, Rosie then added how much she was looking forward to meeting them, and that she hoped that they would stay in touch even after the story was told. There was always the spacenet, she added with a smile, right before they disconnected again.
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Later, that night in fact, no one was able to go to sleep at first. Sida and Eric were trying to figure out the rest of the story, being problem solvers (or at least Sida was). They had little luck with their guessing.
"Must be something really big," Eric said after a half hour of guessing. "Otherwise they would have just included it. What kind of moron leaves all this information just to say, 'we had a pleasant trip home.' Sounds like one of those tourist traps on Earth, a few hundred years ago."
"How would you know about a tourist trap if the last one was a few hundred years before you were born?" asked Sida skeptically.
"My family had bad luck with them before. It was a joke that my sixth great grandfather was 'most likely to miss a job interview because he went to a tourist trap, thinking he would win a million dollars.' "
"A million dollars is nothing today." (A/N: Due to inflation, a million dollars is worth less than one hundred today)
"Inflation, you idiot. That would be, like, a billion today."
"Oh."
"That's all you can say?! 'Oh' to my family's history?!"
"It's not something I would brag about if I were you, Eric."
Eric exhaled deeply. "My point is that the crew must have had some amazing adventures, or else they wouldn't bother trying to make someone be really interested in order to find it."
Sida made no reply.
"Sida? You awake?"
Again, Sida made no reply.
"Sida?"
Finally, the Uranian said in a disinterested voice, "What?"
Then Eric began to throw pillows at him for the next ten minutes.
"I'm beginning to think that Rainbow Head is right about you," Eric grumbled.
"Her name is Tatina," was all the Uranian said.
In the girl's room, however, there was a much more productive use of the time. Since no one could sleep, they decided to replay old logs, both for the project and so that they wouldn't need to interrupt the crew's story to ask about something as small as, "Who's Elmira?"
They were also quizzing each other on names, dates, and interests of major characters. They learned a lot from doing this, like the fact that it was actually Radu who was the youngest and that Rosie and Bova were of the same race.
"Oooooh! That means that Sida and you, Ruby, are of my race too," exclaimed Tatina. "I never knew that before."
"You didn't? But the Rigellion class was a few years ago."
Tatina shrugged. "I wasn't paying attention. No big deal, I still passed the test."
"Here's something interesting," Fuda spoke up. "According to Elmira, Radu had a prediction that never came true...yet. But he and Elmira are the only ones that know it."
"Maybe his prediction doesn't involve the rest of the crew." Tatina shrugged. "Could be a story that we'll hear tomorrow."
"Pretty weird how he's Andromedan and Elmira's a Spung, yet they're going to have...or are having...a destiny together," Ruby thought out loud. "If they're married, it could be a cause for the second Galactic War. Remember what Commander Nenmort said? It was a dangerous time but also little was known about it."
"Sounds like the Dark Ages on Earth. For awhile, almost nothing was known. It was only a hundred years ago that more artifacts were found which allowed information to be collected," replied Ruby.
Fuda and Tatina stared at her. She giggled.
"It was an interesting History class," she admitted, face turning even redder.
"Maybe Radu's destiny has to do with saving the Spung. Remember? 'Those who scorn you, you will save,' " reflected Fuda.
"What do the Spung need saving from? Except their natural evilness."
"Could be Andromedans. They never liked Radu, because he was an individual."
"Maybe...I have no idea where this idea came from. I think that I've been paying a little too much attention in Old Samns's classes. But maybe the Spung are not evil at birth, but somehow become evil." She grinned. "As I said, I don't know how I thought of the idea."
Ruby and Tatina raised their eyes, then all three girls burst into giggles.
"And maybe Radu is meant to remove the evil from the Spung. Well, good luck to him. We've been fighting Spung for years and it sure hasn't happened. If that's what he's meant to do, he'll need more than luck can give him," replied Tatina. They all began to laugh again at how absurd the idea was.
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The next day, they all woke up early, and ate breakfast within minutes. Nenmort was already there, smiling as he saw them take their places. After hours at their stations, and the switch for lunch, they finally made it.
"Well, crew, we're here," Nenmort said after making Ruby and Sida check the location a few times. "Before you go across the spacewave and to Cadelo, I have a few things that I want to remind you of."
Everyone groaned. Nenmort held up a hand and continued.
"Number one. You're representatives of the UPP. Every single one of you. You are need to behave and set a good example. I didn't know this before, but we have been trying to establish a trading system with them. If you all misbehave, it will be much harder. Have fun, but don't go hysterical or rob a store.
"Second, you are to be friendly and respectful to the crew. They're being very nice, letting you hear their adventure. Clearly this means a lot to them as well as you. Be sure to be respectful. In the logs they were your age, but this is ten years later. This means that they'll be somewhere between twenty-one and twenty-eight. Adults, not kids. Everyone understand?"
"Yes, Commander Nenmort."
"Good. Sida, you go to Mrs. Samns and help her with the spacewave. She's been listening to my commands all morning so that we don't all lose our coordinates."
Sida left and five minutes later his voice sounded on the intercom.
"Commander, the spacewave is ready."
"All right, then. Sida, you and Mrs. Samns will board it now." He turned to his team. "Let's go."
Part 6
Taking deep breaths, the crew walked through the spacewave. It was always a little unsettling, since it seemed to be only a thin layer of oxygen and gravity separating them from the harshness of space. But it was really a suspended room, invisible to the naked eye.
The crew's hearts all were beating quickly, all with a mix of nerves and hope. The spacewave wasn't meant for running (it would disrupt the gravity), but the crew walked as quickly as they knew how to. Finally, they were at Cadelo.
Cadelo was huge and beautiful. It was a planet, not a Satellite as most originally thought. Cadelo was once uninhabited, but then the people on a nearby planet altered the atmosphere and set it up as a trade center, as well as a space station. Now grass grew, along with huge trees and small animals resembling Earth's. There were lakes and oceans with pure water, and houses were built from stone and bricks along one side of it. The land ranged from mountains to very flat. In some areas there were deserts, usually where trade and spaceships were placed, and in others the land was perfect for farming.
If someone had only heard about Cadelo and never saw it, one would think that it was a lonely satellite, orbiting a baron planet. The fact was that Cadelo was simply too incredible to describe without sounding commercial. People also didn't want it to become too overpopulated. Even establishing trade routes was a long and hard decision, and was based mainly on the group's records.
The crew gasped when they saw this. Mrs. Samns started taking out some logs, and immediately began to record some information. Everyone moved slowly away from her.
Nenmort turned to Eric and Sida. "Before we start to explore, end the connections with the spacewave and autopark the ship. Got that?"
They both nodded.
"We'll try to find the hotel. We'll send you a report through your compu pads. Ok?"
Once again, the two boys nodded and turned to go back through the spacewave. Now that they were on the planet, they wouldn't need the spacewave, only a starling to go back with. They discovered some helpful technology which allowed this to be done, but it's extremely complicated.
Commander and the others began to go to the large building marked "hotel." Commander Nenmort knocked on the door and told the computer voice the floor that he wanted. The computer opened the door and highlighted the way to the floor and the floor's lobby.
Within minutes, a breathless Sida and Eric came rushing up, calling, "Wait for us!"
The crew waited for them to catch their breaths and then continued on their way. They hadn't thought to use the elevator and now needed to go up many flights of stairs. Fortunately, they were soon there. Unfortunately, they were all carrying lots of luggage, which made the trip take even longer.
Rosie opened the door to the lobby after hearing them knock.
"Come on in!" she greeted. "Everyone else is here, except the twins, who are napping."
"The twins?" asked Tatina.
Rosie beamed with pride. "A girl and a boy; they're each six years old. The girl is named Daisy, and the boy is Tommy. We usually call him Tom for short. Bova told me it's an Earth name, and he liked it. I picked out the name Daisy."
"You mean..." Fuda trailed off.
"Yes, Bova's my husband. We got engaged four years ago, when we were both nineteen."
"Well, congratulations," said Commander Nenmort as he came in the room. "Are there any other couples here?" He was smiling.
"Well, Radu and Elmira are together but not engaged yet. What with Shank being killed and all...or that's what the stories say. But they assure me that he won't be bothering them anymore. And Catalina and Harlan have a little girl, who's also six. Her name is Anna, an Earth name. Suzee's back on Yensid, as you may remember."
"Thank the galaxy for that," Tatina said before she could stop herself.
Rosie just nodded, somewhat saddened. "Yes, after she tried to kill us all, we really couldn't risk it." Seeing their faces, she added, "You'll find out soon enough."
The whole new crew was inside by now, and putting their luggage near a table. Rosie was calling the others, telling them to come in; the crew was here.
"You see," explained Rosie. "Our rooms are attached on two sides to the lobby, and Commander's is right across."
"What about Ms. Davenport?" asked Tatina.
Again, Rosie looked much sadder. "She died when the Spung attacked, right after we wrote the letter to you. Maybe a week after. We were going to Cadelo, and then a Spung ship started shooting at us. We did all that we could but...she didn't make it."
"We're so sorry," gasped Fuda. Even though they didn't personally know the teacher, they had watched enough logs to see how much she had changed. What was she like a few years afterwards? What would she have been like today? There was only the memories of the crew to go by.
There wasn't too much time to grieve over this, since the old crew started coming in then. The new crew gets their first look at the people from the logs.
Catalina still looked similar. She was about the same height, and the main difference is that her hair has grown to her waist. Tatina remembered that as a teen, instead of getting zits and getting a period like Earthers do, Saturnians figured out how to modify themselves simply so that their hair would fall out and only grow to their shoulders. This occurred when they reached the age of twelve. By the time they were eighteen, their hair would grow back. Other cultures were trying to duplicate this technology.
Harlan looked about ten years older, like a young adult. He had grown to be a few inches taller than Cat, and was pretty much bald by now, with a layer of hair at the top part of his head. Tatina remembered an Earth style similar to that called the buzz cut, but wasn't sure if it was the same thing. Harlan looked on the thin side, but not in the anorexic way. Ruby thought that he looked very handsome.
Bova's antennae were now forked at the ends, like his dad's had been. He has grown a half a foot, and was about Rosie's height. His hair was still the same, if not slightly shorter. His face was now optimistic, thanks to his spending so much time with Rosie. Since they didn't wear uniforms anymore, Bova wore a T-Shirt that said, "It's never too late to be happy!" with a big smiley face on it. His family would have been ashamed to see him wearing it.
Radu looked the most different. His eyes held a certain look to them, more confident but feeling as though someone had given him an important task that he couldn't remember. His hair now reached to his toes, tied back as well as he could manage. His ears, as was usually the case, became a little smaller, as was needed to improve the hearing during the adult years. Next to him stood Elmira.
Elmira seemed the happiest of everyone, her eyes shining with delight as she stood near Radu. There wasn't a lot of change with her, only that her hair now reached below her waist and her tail became much thinner. Later, the crew found out that this was perfectly normal. Her scales on her face were a little lighter, which was also perfectly normal. She wore a yellow dress with clouds on it, made especially to fit a Spung Princess. Although she had been given the throne, she decided to wait a little before taking it. There were still some problems between the Spung and the UPP.
Anna was the one person that the new crew had never seen. Her skin was a tan color, not as dark as her father's, though. Her eyes were blue and excited, and her hair was rainbow colored and below her waist. It was pulled into a braided half ponytail, and she wore a light blue dress. She clung to her mom's side as she saw the strangers.
"Don't worry, sweetie. These are our friends," Catalina told her daughter, smiling as she picked her up. "Welcome to Cadelo," she told the new crew. "Please sit down and make yourself at home."
They all sat down in five chairs and the adults sat on the floor. The crew sat in a circle around them, Anna on Catalina's lap. Rosie cleared her throat, tears forming in her eyes.
She smiled, and sniffed, wiping her eyes. "I'm sorry. It's just so sweet, all of us together today." She smiled again. "Well, I suppose that we should begin. Who wants to go first?"
Bova spoke up. "I would like to, if no one minds." There were no objections. "My goodness, it's been awhile, well let's see. We had just escaped from Pezu, the computer freak. We were running low on fuel and..." Bova began to describe the adventure to them...
The End!