A/N: Three new characters of note. Dialoguey. Damn, that just came up as a spelling error. Oh well. I don't care. I like the character of Hanesh a lot, more than any of the others, even if he is annoying. Probably because when I started writing this, Hanesh was modeled after this annoying friend of mine. Who I thought was really cute. I don't any more, but the sentimental feelings for the character remain, I guess. Even if he is covered in scales and could tear a human into tiny shreds if he so wished. Hanesh, not the guy I used to like.
Chapter Two
I stayed at the maintenance and mechanics headquarters for the rest of the shift. There are two shipboard shifts, Amagan and Geradam (that's Old Great for "first" and "second"). I was on Amagan shift, along with Kasseena and most of the people I knew. When time came for the Amagan sleep period, I waited for the Geradam maintenance cadet (a Clapper boy named Daran) to come, then left for bed. In the hall along the way, I ran into Kasseena.
"Long day?" I asked wryly.
She merely buzzed her wings in answer. I think I had annoyed her.
We continued on, past tired Amagan crewmen on their way to dinner or bed, and past yawning Geradam replacements for them. As we passed a pair of security guards on routine patrol, Kasseena turned to me (she was on the ground for a change, which was why she could do this), and said, "Some day, Aniera—some day."
Kasseena's goal in the fleet is to be chief of security on a starship. I have to say, the odds are pretty slim. Flyers are usually not very large or strong, and anyway Kasseena's appearance is not all that commanding. It's kind of hard to be when you look like a graceful, slender dragonfly that could be snapped in two by a Little. Not that I'd want to, of course. Kasseena would have a hard time wearing a laser gun holster strapped to her waist as well, since she is so light. I could safely say that of all the security personnel aboard Keyala, not one of them was a Flyer. But I didn't want to say anything to make her think I didn't believe in her. Unfortunately, others didn't share my caring.
"Oh. Uh-huh. And Bosh is going to grow legs and walk on the ground." We spun around to see Hanesh, another Amagan cadet, walking up to us at the elevator.
"Hello," I said politely, mostly because an officer was walking by at that moment and I didn't want to look childish.
"So, Kasseena," Hanesh, who is a male Great with dark brown scales, started. "Still want to be a security officer?"
"Yes, I do," she said primly.
He nodded, looking unimpressed. The elevator arrived and we all piled in. I pushed the button for deck ten, which is where cadet rooms are (I didn't want Hanesh to try pushing it and end up breaking it—he has before).
"Well," Kasseena said to me," What do you think about that Andalite ship today?"
"Andalite ship? That was an Andalite?" Hanesh's eyes looked ready to pop out. "I knew there was a battle—"
"I thought the meeting went nowhere," I said, enjoying the boy's reaction. He can be pretty annoying sometimes, so it was nice to have him hanging on our every word for once. "I mean, we never even spoke."
"But their Shredders seemed to be in top working order, huh?" Kasseena continued the conversation with a smirk on her almost-unreadable insect face.
"Oh, yeah," I said. "That one big blast—"
"All right, all right," Hanesh said, giving in. "I will ask. I will beg. WHAT happened?"
"Oh, my," Kasseena said to me, "he actually needs information from a Little and a Flyer."
"Please," he cut in, and we were satisfied. We told him the story of the sighting, the target practice, and the exploding asteroid; Kasseena and I took turns telling, as we hadn't both seen the entire encounter.
"Deck ten," the computer voice announced, and the doors opened. We left quickly and walked along the corridor to the Amagan cadets' quarters. They were located in a small room—all right, large room, but home to five people—about twenty meters down the corridor. As we entered, I saw that one of the other cadets on Amagan shift, Abosh the Swimmer, was already in his special sleeping tank at the far end of the room.
"Good evening," he blinked to us. He shifted his emerald and aqua body within the tank. "Do you know what's going on? The water in the tunnels is totally still. Does it have something to do with that battle we had earlier today?"
"Uh-huh. But it wasn't exactly a battle," I said. "There—"
"It was an Andalite ship," Hanesh butted in, as if we hadn't been the ones to give him all of his information. "They were having target practice in the asteroid field, and they blew up this huge asteroid right next to our ship. The shields are blown, and we've landed on this, like, unknown moon to make repairs. All but the electricity and life support systems are turned off."
Abosh made a movement with his fins that I translated as "oh, great."
"Oh, great," he said. "Do you know how nasty water gets if it stays still for—"
"Well, Manieral says that it'll only take about thirty-six hours to fix everything. A day and a half, tops," Kasseena reassured him. She began to hover, stretching out her wings from the walking we'd done.
"Who's Manieral?" Hanesh asked.
"Little maintenance guy. Real nice guy, too. He was working on the shield generators before we landed. All I know is, he's the first person this week to call me 'Kasseena' instead of 'Flyer' or 'cadet.'"
"You know," Hanesh said, assuming his "I just love to annoy you" look, "I can understand that there are no Flyers your age around here. But when you go finding qualities in a different species—"
Kasseena, who had been hovering near the ceiling, made a dive at him. To her credit, he ducked.
"Oh, be quiet," she said, buzzing her wings loudly, though she was now standing on her feet. "You know what I meant."
At this point, Yanesh, Hanesh's twin sister, came in the door to our quarters. She looks a lot like him, other Greats say, but personally I can't see it, probably because I'm not a Great. She is the same size as him and has dark blue scales instead of Hanesh's dark brown. Now our little group was complete.
"Important conversation?" she asked.
"Not exactly," I replied, giving Hanesh a glare for Kasseena's sake.
"There was an Andalite ship spotted today," said Abosh, pulling Hanesh's trick.
Yanesh's eyes opened wide. "Andalite? As in, the blue limners?"
"That was approximately Aniera's response," Kasseena said. "And yes, it was Andalite. And no, they were not shooting at us. They were having target practice, and the asteroid near us was their target."
I pushed back my chin-length orange hair and sighed. "We're sitting on a moon in the middle of nowhere right now, waiting for repairs to get finished so we can leave. All systems except electricity for lights and elevators, plus life support, are turned off."
Yanesh nodded thoughtfully. "I thought the ArtiGrav system was feeling a little weak."
"What do you know about this moon?" Abosh asked. "Just out of curiosity."
"It's small," I told him, thinking back to this morning on the bridge. "Cold."
"Average temperature of one hundred forty-four Kelvin," said Kasseena. Science officer's daughter.
Hanesh whistled. "So what does the surface look like?"
"I wouldn't know," I said.
"I've been running back and for the between maintenance people all day," Kasseena said. "I wouldn't know either."
Hanesh smiled. "Well, I'll be the first on something today." He quickly dashed to the outside wall of our room. One of the nice things about our quarters, even though all five of us share the room, is that we have a window to the outside. Mostly the ship is in z-space, so all you can see is blank white, and you have to draw the opaque shade during sleep periods, but when you're in normal space, it is nice to open the shade and see stars at night.
Hanesh opened the shade, and was immediately disappointed. "Nothing," he complained. "There is nothing out there but a horizon line. And a really curved one, at that. No surface features." He turned away from the window as if in disgust. I walked up and looked out, enjoying the normalcy of seeing stars. I found our home star quickly, as I'd been keeping a record of where in the sky to find it everywhere the Keyala traveled.
"Excuse me," Abosh said testily. "But even though it is a very small window, I'd like to be able to see out of it, too." I moved out of the way so that the fish boy could see outside. I looked again for our home star.
It's an interesting fact that most sentient races in the galaxy have a planet to themselves. The Andalites and the Desbadeens are two examples. We five species, the Swimmers, the Flyers, the Littles, the Clappers, and the Greats, all share one planet. It seemed to me that it would be awfully lonely to be all by yourself like many are, but that is how most people live. Weird as it may seem. In fact, that is the reason we usually greet another race by saying, "We are the five. And we are of one." That's why other races call us The Five. We really don't have a name for ourselves, other than the names of the individual species. I guess "the Five" works, though it's a little melodramatic. Like someone looking at us just from the name would think we were these solemn, sophisticated people that all know martial arts and computer hacking skills and all wear color-coordinated spacesuits, or something. I guess they'd be kind of surprised to actually meet us.
A few minutes later, we all became bored with the bleak landscape outside, despite the awesome sky above. Time to get ready for bed. In addition to Abosh's tank, there are two sets of bunks in our room, two bunks in each set. Hanesh and Yanesh sleep on one set, alternating top and bottom—in a system loosely based on who has the best right hook on any given night. Well, there's the martial arts thing, at least. I sleep on the bottom of the other set. Flyers don't sleep on normal beds; they just "stand" (on all limbs) on a hard surface. So the top bunk of our set of beds had been removed, and in its place was a simple wooden board for Kasseena to sleep on.
Yanesh, Hanesh, and I took turns in our adjacent changing room. (Though it is used for *other* purposes, we just call it "the changing room." Just in case you were curious.) Flyers do not wear clothing, so Kasseena didn't take a turn, and Abosh couldn't reach the room even if he did wear clothes.
"You know, you really ought to get to sleep as soon as you can," Abosh said in his "parental" voice that he has an annoying habit of using. "Who knows what will happen tomorrow?"
"We're moving, Mr. Cavisi," I mumbled under my breath as I turned off the room lights.
Or I thought it had been under my breath.
"Ooh, looks like somebody's jealous."
I've always wondered how the computer can sense Swimmer-language in the dark. All I knew was sometimes, I wish it couldn't. Especially when Abosh came out with a remark that was particularly Hanesh-like.
"Oh, you people be quiet. I just want to get to sleep."
"Yes, ma'am, security officer, sir!"
Yanesh reached down and punched Hanesh somewhere that sounded squishy and painful.
Then we all went to sleep.
A/N: I do not own The Matrix. Or any other superhero/cool leather outfits kind of thing out there. Not that they were specifically mentioned, but having a disclaimer is being on the safe side.
