Starry Eyed*

Characters: Arbron, Sofor, Elfangor

The sky port bustled with warriors, holograms carrying thought speak tags for which transport was going where. The atmosphere levels kept the temperature and oxygen levels steady. Up here the sky was a dark crimson to purple, stars blinking unobstructed, while clouds floated miles below. Arisths dotted the place, at the side of their mentors, trainers assigned to them from their schools.

Up in orbit were the three newly built ship. One of them was the StarSword. Elfangor faced all four of his eyes upwards, squinting, hoping to see something of the space craft. It was his first deep space mission, and already he was dreaming up honors and awards: The Shah-War-Prince Elfangor.

{Elfangor! Elfangor!} snapped his mentor.

He shoved the newly made Aristh forward with the flat of his blade. All the young andalite males were lined up as all the other warriors were boarding. While Elfangor was given the basics of tactics, tail fighting, and astronomy. , he was still a far cry from being a fully trained warrior. A fully trained one would be taking over and completing the young Aristh's training—and if he was lucky, he would get a Prince!

One by one, Arisths stepped out in singles or in pairs up to the transports, all filled with both seasoned warriors and their new teachers. Elfangor recited the serial number to his own transport over and over in his mind as he waited. The small, oval shaped ship landed in front of the rough textured floor. Warriors first gathered their belongings, and boarded, while Elfangor nervously waited.

Moments later, after a brief pause, a figure stepped out. The fully grown andalite was of average height, battle scars showing through his deep blue fur. Despite his age, he carried his tail high. However, it took everything in the aristh's meager training to keep his face blank—his new teacher had quite a large scar running down beside one of his lantern green eyes.

{Sofor, just Sofor,} said the andalite warrior. {I am not giving you my full name and dealing with that kiss ass dung that most arisths do when they first arrive.}

Elfangor took a step back, not knowing how to respond. He was alarmed at the introduction, as well as the fact that the old warrior had made no gesture to begin the customary ritual.

{Get in! What are you waiting for?} snapped the old warrior, waving him in with his tail. Then he chuckled, and Elfangor found that he was even more caught off guard with this andalite. Was he mad?

The stunned aristh shook his stalk eyes, and moved in, belongings in arm: though it wasn't all that much. He came into the old transport to stand at the side of his new teacher. The floor rumbled under hoof as it began to warm up and prepare for lift off. The curved edges of the ship glowed, and around the aristh chatted fully grown warriors. The computers blinked and came alive, following the coordinates it was given: to the docked StarSword.

{All right my little aristh, we will begin your training as soon as we get to the docking station. I am too impatient to wait for my other student. Understood? Um...} The old warrior paused for a moment—

{Elfangor,} supplied the aristh.

{Ahh. Yes, of course.} Sofor looked at the young aristh as if for the first time. {My aren't you a big one.}

Elfangor felt his ears heat and his eye stalks widen in embarrassment. It was true that he was a bit tall for his age, but it didn't mean that he liked hearing it all the time. He was still awkward on his hooves, and his tail on occasion got him into trouble. Getting into military gave him hopes and dreams that it would all change.

Sofor waved his fingers in the air. {That means my second student is called Arbron.}

They continued on the transport in silence, leaving Elfangor to listen in to snippets of conversation from the warriors. Catching missions all over the Galaxy, on planets Elfangor had only seen in holos. He listened, fascinated. His eye stalks, meanwhile, moved to look out of the new transparent window, his home now laying below him. The space dock came into view, a flat, curved crescent, and in the curved space, the excited aristh knew, was the StarSword.

Next to him, it appeared, the Prince had fallen asleep. One of his eye stalks remained open. Elfangor eyed him wearily—was he snoring?

After about a half hour, the transport was married to the ship, and people began to shift their weight as they prepared to leave. Sofor woke with a start, pawing the ground with his left hoof, restless. {Come on young aristh,} he said as he forced him to the front of the crowd. Elfangor struggled with his things.

The doorway and tunnel was low, so the aristh had to lower his stalks a bit. Behind him he heard curses and complaints from the people behind him. Sofor walked silently as they moved, and finally the space opened up to the main body of the dock.

This time, his teacher took the lead, while Elfangor gaped at everything around him. The floor moved from the rough texture to a grassy one. It was a hardy grass, he found as they walked. The dock curved subtly as they followed along the outer edge. Warriors bustled, moving in all directions, prideful, swaggering, powerful. There were floors along the side of the crescent held temporary quarters and supplies for the great ships that docked. The ceiling was opaque, glowing with bright light.

{I will take you to your quarters and allow you to settle before we begin. Do you understand?}

{Yes sir,} aristh replied obediently.

Sofor left to meet his second aristh two full days later. Elfangor took it as a well needed break, muscles around his body sore enough to make it hard to walk—muscles he didn't realize that he had. All the while he kept sneaking glances at the Prince's scar on his face. It made the lessons even harder to get through.

Finally he would be able to explore the space dock. He walked along the outer cure, counting the moons of his home world—minutes after old Sofor was gone. A part of him was worried that the old prince had a sixth sense for when he was slacking, and it made him feel paranoid as he moved about.

Slowly, he worked his way towards the inner curve. Finally he would be able to see the StarSword. Elfangor would finally be about to see the Done ship up close. Slowly, as he trotted, he was able to identify the famous heroes that would now be a part of his everyday life—he would make himself known. Somehow. Without making a fool of himself. They, of course, took no notice of the lowly aristh, but being in their pretense was enough for him.

Elfangor came around the corner—and almost forgot to breath. Outside, floating like some nature-spirit of ancient myth, the StarSword gleamed. The dome ship hit the distant sun light, and passed it, he was able to look in and see the grasses along the surface of the dome. The stream! The familiar plants! Its slender, yet curvacious body below it was held with the giant three main engines at the bottom. She was beautiful—a proud new home!

{Computer, show me the schematic: Dome ship StarSword.}

An aristh stood a few feet away from him. Elfangor could tell because of how he carried himself, untrained and clumsy like he was. The other aristh was of average height (shorter than Elfangor) and his fur a dark blue. The youth, like him, was gaping out at the StarSword, love sick. His main eyes looked down at the computer below his fingers.

Elfangor took a step forward, eying him. {Are you Arbron?}

The other andalite youth didn't even bother to look at the taller person. {And you're Big Blue, right?} Arbron's eye stalks turned sideways as they eyed him. {Elfangor.} Before "Big Blue" could retort anything about the nickname his peer had called him, Arbron continued speaking, {Here. You have got to look at this.}

Elfangor swallowed his pride, and joined the strange aristh. He looked down at the 3-dimensional image below him, then back up at the ship. {Whoa.}

{I know. It is amazing.} Arbron began enlarging parts of the image. {See here? Those large pods below the Done? That's the bay—that is where all the ships are kept. Breeyar's squadron is going to be aboard.}

{Breeyar?} gasped Elfangor.

{Yeah!} went on the other aristh excitedly.{ He was the top drift ball player in the southern hemisphere, and became captain of the best team. He quit for the war effort. Imagine that?}

Drift ball was not what Elfangor had been thinking. But suddenly the young full warrior's heroic tales made sense.

{And Captain Nescord? They knew each other before the war happened. Sort of like drinking buddies. They never became close until they joined, they became shorms after. An inseparable, undefeated pair!}

Elfangor raised a hand, stopping Arbron in mid thought. {That is just mere gossip, warriors do not gossip. Aristh should not speak about their elders in that way.} It suddenly dawned on the taller aristh that he sounded almost like his father.

Arbron rolled his eye stalks. {Got a serious one here,} he muttered. He shook his head, and pointed below the four pods. {Here? Those are the massive conduits—they get energy all over the ship.}

{Why are they exposed like that?} Elfangor looked troubled. {Couldn't the yeerks attack there?}

{They would never get that close. No. They have to be that way so they can keep cool—or the ship will explode.}

That wasn't a very good image to Elfangor. But the little aristh was very informative. The rest of the shaft were quarters, where all of the warriors stayed—"Where we'll be staying," Arbron had pointed out eagerly. They would be surrounded by Gods. And at the very end, near the engines, was where the captain's helm was contained. Where the ship was controlled. It was very unusual for dome ships, normally the hangers were kept at the engine side, while the orbs below the dome would have been the helm.

The whole time Arbron was explaining the ship, Elfangor was still fixated on images of the ship exploding.

{And Sofor,} said the shorter aristh, {there are rumors that he was there.}

Elfangor didn't get it. {Where?}

{You know... The disaster on the Hork-Bajir home world.} The taller aristh stopped breathing, his main eyes widening, but Arbron wouldn't stop jabbering. He lowered his voice. {He might be a convict. That scar I heard he got when he was jailed, took down five other andalite warriors.}

Sofor stopped behind the two andalite youths, and Elfangor hoped that Arbron had been speaking to him privately. The bigger aristh felt like he was going to faint, and suddenly felt like calling home. Sofor squinted his main eyes at the two cadets as they stood attention. He clapped his hands together, making the youths feel very unpleasant.

{Now shall we start training once more?}

Suddenly the old warrior began to laugh, his head thrown backwards. The laughter echoed all around the space dock, sending shivers down Elfangor's spine. As Sofor clopped along ahead of them, he grinned with his main eyes. Oh yes, he had heard the tail end of the arisths' conversation, and he decided he was going to have fun on this next deployment.

AN:

Thanks for your insightful reviews, Green Armadillo-ette, Carolin942, and HotPinkAliKat! I enjoy reading them! ^_^

Geez, I really hate replacing the thought speak brackets. Very tedious!

I think the next time I update, I will do some from the end of the war (since I already have so many before and during the Animorphs story arc.)