Laura's eyes opened to face the sideways view of the world with pebbles around her. The memory of bolting into the chair from behind Gampu into the chair from across him in a desperate lunge to survive. The ship was tugged in toward the gravity of the planet much to her alarm in a bittersweet dose of horror. She rubbed her forehead lifting her body halfway up from the ground. Her mind wandered off as she scanned the area looking for the wreckage. There was wreckage of the seeker laid about the area drifting from the smoke. It seemed to be far away from where she was.
So far away. The crash must have sent her and the commander flying upon impact but the seeker itself didn't survive. There were rows of the bushes in neatly filed rows. She dusted off the sand from her uniform getting up to her feet. She looked around the area gazing about the area searching for a figure. She ran through the field of bushes frantically. Her gaze searching from here to there. There was a sound that sent fear into her bones and threatened to send her hiding. Hide! Hide! Hide! Her basic instincts screamed.
No!, Laura shouted back, Not without Gampu!
"Commander!" Laura cried. "Commander?" She stopped in her tracks looking around. "Commander?"
There was seas of tall rocks contrasting the landscape within the distance.
"Commander!"
So many of those rocks contrasting the recreation bays typically green area that lacked any of those features. So many rocks! It was different compared to all those survival simulations that had been launched by the commander. She paused in her tracks coming to grips with her concern. The primary number one rule of survival post a crash landing was to have a controlled bearing over ones feelings, second rule was to save energy, third rule was to find a means of shelter, fourth rule was to find food and water, fifth rule was to find a means of protection, and sixth rule was to cooperate with anyone kindly. Including the locales. Rule seven was to find any means possible to avoid death. Killing would only be the last solution as it was in diplomacy. Rule eight was to tend to the injured. Until they only slowed them down.
Laura closed her eyes and her terrified demeanor melted away leaving behind a composed officer. She took one step forward then another and kept walking. She looked around each bush in search of the commander. A sudden roaring noise made Laura jump. She looked up spotting a tall green scaled sauropod creature that stood on its back two feet giving out a high pitched roar. The ground trembled with each step that she took fleeing from the creature. She arrived toward the sea of tall rocks and came to a stop beside one then looked over. The creature turned away then returned to where it had came from. Relief swept over as she planted herself against the rock.
"Laura?" Came the commander's voice. "Is that you?"
Laura smiled then raised her figure off the rock thanking the great bird of the galaxy turning away from it.
"Commander," Laura approached the commander. The commander's normally well brushed hair was unkempt and that was the only seemingly off about him. That the situation was more dire and unnatural than how it was normally set to be within the confines of the space academy. His uniform was intact just as he appeared to be except for gently holding on to his leg."Are you okay?"
"Injured, but in good spirits," Gampu said. "A mere crash cannot take the life out of me. And you?"
"I am excellent condition, commander," Laura said.
"Fortunate," Gampu said. "We were spared of the worst." He looked off in the direction of the rising smoke that was beginning to fade from the distance. "And very lucky."
"Academy Control to Deputy Commander Brookes," Adrian's voice came over the console.
Brookes's dark fingers slid on to the button.
"Brookes here,"
"Seeker 2 has gone missing in the black hole,"
"I hear that,"
"Request to send out a new message to the patrol ships,"
"No,"
"No?"
"We have lost enough lives today, Lieutenant. I will prepare to send the condolences messages. Brookes out."
In one morning as acting full commander, half a team had gone missing on her watch. She approached the yellow glass with her hands linked behind her back. She had her fair share of writing condolences letters. But writing one as commander of the academy was more difficult than Brookes had as a ship captain. It was a bittersweet pill to swallow in her career. Her first report as commander wasn't going to be about one loss but about the loss of nearly a entire team to Earth Control.
Brookes picked up a padd from the table and scrolled through:
Commander Gampu:
We have sent a cadet called Paul Jerome. . . The letter started with no alarms then it became alarming once finished reading.
Loki watched the black hole shrink from the view screen while standing in Academy Control leaning against the frame. He watched it get small and smaller until it was such a small hole that it was hard to imagine that they had been a good distance near it. There was a bad feeling resting in his gut looking on into at the starry window. What once the cadet knew what was to be in his world for the next few years was taken away. Just like he had came to on Zalon, he knew nothing about what was in his future. Only he had memories of the past that lead him into this situation and it was bitter to be left in the middle dealing with the feelings from being put into the situation again. The academy didn't feel familiar now strange and different in ways that couldn't be described thoroughly in words. Adrian placed a hand on Loki's shoulder then gave it a good squeeze.
"It will be okay, Loki,"
Loki looked up toward Adrian, unsure, his eyes full of doubt.
"Will it?" Loki's voice was smaller, less high pitched even soft, and less loud than normal.
It was a long moment as Adrian slowly grew a spreading and reassuring smile.
"It will be," Adrian said. "In time."
"Will it come soon?" Loki asked.
"It's only. . . a little not right," Adrian said. "It will be."
"But it will become right again," Loki said.
"Right as a planet on a rotation," Adrian said.
"I am going on a walk," Loki said. "Would you like to join me?"
"Not right now," Adrian said. "I have to pay my respects for the others."
"Okay," Loki said.
Loki turned away then went to the door and waved his hand in front of the console. The doors flew open letting him out then to the next set of doors that he waved his hand back at. He went through the doorway coming into the corridor then strolled down the hall. Slowly, but surely, the bad feeling in his gut began to recede retreating into the depths that it arose out of. He came to a stop in his tracks then the side of his shoulder met with the wall. The center piece of his newly made life was taken out and he was falling in the dark, unsure, and very scared about what was going to happen to him next.
"Finding who you are is a process,"
He looked back at the last three so days in the academy.
"It's almost a never ending search through out your lifetime,"
Fleeting moments that were long but short and impactful for him.
"However short or long. There are situations that are available to you. Search yourself if you want to go there. Search really deep."
Loki lifted his shoulder off the wall then resumed his way down the hall walking mindlessly taking turns at random corners.
"Then take those opportunities,"
He was forced to a stop from a loud explosive sound coming from beside him.
"Some good,"
He turned in the direction of the door then waved his hand in front of the door console.
"Some bad,"
The door refuse to open so Loki stepped back then disappeared and reappeared inside of the room.
"And some are in-between,"
A professor was laid on his side in the ruined lab that had material strewn about it from the floor to the wall.
"It's shaped by experiences."
There were material with electricity cackling off it. There were parts of the cieling was swaying from side to side from beneath cords, tubes, and support beams outlining segments of the cieling. Flames were rising in the room eating away at the equipment. Loki ran over to the fallen cadet's side then knelt down, covered his mouth and nose, took their hand then vanished in thin air from the room. He reappeared in the same room coming over to the second fallen cadet and knelt down to their side taking their hand. He vanished in a red spark then returned a moment later performing the same act.
Cadets gathered around the injured then lifted them up to their feet. Loki helped up the last of the injured cadets and followed the rest down the corridor. Nicole was slowly coming to between the cadets raising her head up with blurry vision and the side of her head was throbbing with pain each time that it moved up and down. The head ache made Nicole wince. Loki was tightly holding on to the officer's hand with his other hand on the back below the other cadet's hand who was right beside Nicole holding on to her other hand. They made their way directly into sick bay then together they turned her around and placed her on to the biobed. Nicole's arms were placed on the arm rests of the chair. A nurse came over then slid the recovery blanket along the lower half of her figure.
"Which one of you got the cadets out of the room?" Allen stopped the cadets in their tracks.
Loki stepped forward.
"I did," Loki said.
Allen looked toward the other cadet and the cadet walked past him toward the console.
"You got there just in time," Allen said. "If you came two minutes late . . . there wouldn't be a room or any lives to salvage."
"Really?" Loki asked with wide eyes.
"I have been told by Parsafoot regarding his experiments because they tend to be very destructive if they go wrong. Last year, it took out a entire room and a rear admiral. This rear admiral was the only one in there because Jason and Parsafoot thought it didn't work." Allen said. "Since then, the professor is lawfully obligated to inform me before he starts it. Thankfully no one died. Fortunately, he is not here to hear this good news."
"Then who was that professor I just took out?" Loki asked.
"Professor Cledus," Allen said. "Jason and the professor are busy out there foiling Emperor Dragos's current plot of the day."
"Who is Dragos?" Loki asked earning a small smile in return from the doctor.
"That is a lesson for your history teacher," Allen said. "Thank you. You are dismissed."
"Do I have to say oraco?" Loki asked.
"It's part of standard procedure, cadet," Allen said. "It stands orders received and carried out."
Loki nodded thinking over what he had been told.
"Oraco," Loki turned around then walked away from the doorway and made sure to wave his hand in front of the door.
Loki resumed his way down the hall.
If my history teacher ever returns, Loki thought bitterly.
There was a layer of doubt caking his mind. It was in many ways clouding his current thoughts thinking what had happened to the commander and what happened to the rest of blue team one. He was headed down the corridor making his way down the hallway lost in thought when he unexpectedly tripped and fell over a small figure landing on to his face. Loki turned around to face what he had fallen over.
Loki was silent strolling through the corridors of the academy. Loki walked directly into the commissary, slipped out his allowance, then purchased a banana and gave over a little of the money that the commander had handed to him that morning. That money was set to sustain Loki for the entire day while kept in his side pocket from underneath the uniform. There were so many zippers when it came to the uniform. The first zipped started from under the utility belt and from above the other zipper could be spotted from under the collar. The utility belt and the collar made it hard to notice from a average viewer that the side zippers were the only ones on.
He chucked the skin into the biodegradable can then walked out continuing down the hall munching away at the banana until there was nothing left of it to eat. He took out a small packet of wipes from his partially unzipped shoulder zipper and cleaned his hands off. He folded the small wet napkin after cleaning his hands and face up until it could be tucked back underneath the zipper itself. Loki completely closed the zipper then dusted his hands off resuming the walk. Until he collided with a figure and fell back toward the ground.
"Ow!"
"Are you okay?"
Loki turned his attention up getting up to his feet.
"Laura!" Loki brightened. "You are back!"
"Almost didn't make it one piece," Laura said. "I had to make a controlled crash landing. It was rough."
"And Gampu?" Loki asked.
"He got the brunt of it," Laura said. "Just a little hurt."
"Where is he?" Loki asked.
"Tee Gar took him to Sick Bay 77," Laura said.
"I am glad that you and the others came back alive," Loki said. "Thanks!"
Loki ran ahead of Laura.
"Don't run in the corridors, Loki!" Laura called with laughter in her voice.
Loki ignored her comment bolting for the door of the seventy-seventh sick bay. Gampu is alive! Gampu is alive! If he was alive then that had to mean that Peepo was in one piece and if he was in one piece then the manu-droid was with the commander in sick bay 77. His dark world felt right again, Bright as a fruitful summer with life all around and the green standing out brightly against the blue sky. He passed by several of the cadets through the corridor including some personnel. He came to a stop at one of the doors then waved his hand in front of the panel. The door opened then Loki charged through coming into the sick bay. The commander's jacket was set on the table across from the bed neatly folded up.
"Commander!"
Gampu looked toward the boy who came to a stop by his bedside.
"Now, there is a face I like to see," Gampu said.
"You are okay," Loki was grinning from ear to ear.
"Expected me to be in pieces?" Gampu asked. "Loki," he wiggled his index finger looking down upon the boy. "pessimism isn't suited for the academy."
"I am just happy that you came back alive," Loki said. Loki walked alongside of the biobed then leaned forward and hugged the commander. "In one piece."
Gampu had a bell of light hearted laughter as his hand moved to Loki's back then gently patted on it.
"Hey!" Peepo moved forward from behind Loki. "So did I!"
Gampu took his hand off the boy's back as Loki turned toward the small machine.
"You look better than the commander does!"
"I don't get dirty as he does!"
"That is enough of your pointed comments regarding my filth," Gampu said. "That matter will be handled once my leg has been healed enough."
"When it has, you are going to the gymnasium for some exercise," Tee Gar walked up from behind Loki. "Just to give his leg some time to readjust and begin working again after solidifying. Taking a sonic shower will have to wait."
"You don't look dirty to me, Commander,"
"It is a matter of perspective, Loki," Gampu's gaze turned toward the small manu-droid then back toward Loki. "A matter of perspective."
"How did you get back in one piece?"
"Tee Gar, please do me the honors," Gampu said.
"Oraco, Commander," Tee Gar said, making Loki turn away from the commander. "A new member of our team, Paul, distracted a very thin space Godzilla long for us to escape." Peepo followed the two toward the doorway. "My patient needs all the rest that he can get. In a hour, he will be performing the recommended muscle activity that mentioned to help some tissue re-adapt to working so suddenly after being out of the program. Not just his bone needs it. Muscle memory needs to be reinforced."
"I think I get it," Loki said. "You have told me the same thing in two different ways."
"I suppose I have," Tee Gar said. "Run along."
"Loki, want to play a game in the commander's office?"
"He did say anything," Loki said.
"Yes," Peepo agreed. "Affirmative!"
"Let's go!" Loki said, as Tee Gar waved his hand for the duo in front of the panel. The duo went through. "Like me to leave you with the deputy commander?"
The view slowly moved toward the mirror that reflected that the deputy commander was set in the corner of the room with her arms folded.
"Affirmative," Gampu said. "No longer than ten minutes."
"Oraco," Tee Gar waved his hand in front of the panel then he too left.
"So," Gampu said, turning his head toward her. "How was it with Loki in your hands for less than a day?"
Brookes slowly walked over to his bedside.
"I was wrong regarding my assumption about Loki," Brookes turned her gaze up from the floor on to the commander. "You are right." she stopped by his bed side. "This is the best place that he can be."
"What did he do?" Gampu asked.
"He saved a couple of cadets and Captain Nicole from certain doom," Brookes said.
Pride flashed on the commander's face.
"I knew that Loki had it in him," Gampu said.
"We need Loki just as he needs us," Brookes said. "The kind of person that we can forgive for his mistakes. You are also right about calling him a liability. The point you didn't make: we are all liabilities when we make a mistake. Calling a child a liability is more a insult from your time . . . isn't it?"
Gampu had a moment of silence.
"It is sensitive to me when it is applied to a child instead of a adult," Gampu said.
"A adult can process it better than a child," Brookes said.
"That is the difference," Gampu lowered his head then propped his arm up and his hand shook while itself was lowered.
"I didn't think of it that way," Brookes said.
"The thing that gets on me nerves than the idea of war, sabotage, murder, and all those nasty aspects of being a human is a child being thrown out of a safe institution because they make mistakes," Gampu looked up toward the deputy commander. "Of course it didn't cross your mind. You were thinking of the academy's protection. Not of the person that it impacts the most. Since you have learned this lesson, you will be more prepared than ever for a senior rank."
"Your words are humbling," Brookes said. "But, this lesson has taught me one thing."
"What is that?"
"I am not ready for seniority," Brookes said. "I think I won't ever be."
"Then what are you ready for?"
"Rehabilitating space horses at a sanctuary," Brookes said.
"You will make a great rescuer," Gampu said. "If you ever need a word of recommendation. . . "
"I know just who to contact," Brookes said. "If anything, Commander. The one who would be suited for senior rank is you. You are the wisest man I have met."
"Everyone is wise," Gampu said. "After they have learned."
"Permission to be dismissed, commander,"
"Granted," Gampu nodded. "Marilyn. . ." Brookes stopped at the door. "I still believe you are on a great path."
"Thank you." Came out softly then Brookes waved her hand in front of the panel and the door opened so she went through the doorway.
Gampu turned his attention from where Brookes had been facing the mirror then closed his eyes and began to snore. The view detracted from the cieling above him, between wires, thin pipes, the roof, then out into space looking back at the academy from afar as it grew small and smaller from behind, triumphantly.
The end.