Yuri was scrawny. New Wyoming was only one third the gravity of Earth. His limbs were longer, and he was slender than persons raised on standard one-g worlds. A scrawny, short kid just didn’t match up to what people thought someone navigating a starship should look like.
It’d been even harder because he was better than the other students . . . students from well-to-do families in the USS. His instructors favored him too, realized his enormous potential and pushed him.
Then the incident with the flaps during atmosphere flight training earned him the infamous nickname. The nickname followed him to Trident. When he first met Lee, he was intimidated. The lieutenant didn’t talk much. He had this hard stare and seemed almost to growl at people. He even gave Yuri a hard time. Then eventually, Yuri decided not to care anymore what people thought.
It was a satisfying decision.
Eventually, Lee warmed up to him a little. They would sit in silence in the same booth in Trident’s lounge for hours. Lee still didn’t say much at first, and still dropped snide remarks every so often, between their seldom exchange of words.
Occasionally, Lee would look up from something he was reading and ask Yuri’s opinion about it and then go back to his reading. But the thing was, no one else could even attempt to grief the “scrawny helmsman, fresh out of academy”. One look from Lee and off they went. Soon they got the idea. If you had nothing good to say to flyboy Flaps, keep moving.
Lee just randomly said to him one time in the lounge—“you know, Flaps, you have the heart of a lion”—then continued reading. Yuri had never seen a lion. He had to research it. That was probably the nicest thing Lee ever said to him.
Still, it took a while for Yuri to realize Lee’s little retorts were his way of toughening him. He wouldn’t quite call it tough love. But sometimes he’d almost felt as though Lee looked forward to their downtime as much as he did. Lee tried sometimes to get him interested in those boring twenty first-century history books.
What was it about the Commander and Lee anyway that they had this obsession with the twenty first-century? They seemed to know a lot about history in general, but particularly that century. What was so special about it? Curious, Yuri had decided to do some reading of his own. The peculiar slang and some colorful phrases piqued his interest. Most of which he got confused anyway, so Lee had suggested he quit trying.
A “knock” at the flight deck interrupted Yuri’s reflections of the way life used to be. Lee was standing there.
“Mind if I join you here?” Lee asked.
Lee never asked if Yuri minded anything.
“Sure, come on.”
Lee took a seat at the tactical station…naturally. He fidgeted. Lee doesn’t fidget. What makes Lee uncomfortable?
Yuri wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
“The hell do you want?”
Lee’s eyes shifted from side to side. “So, Sergeant Dawes. I spoke to him. He’s not a bad guy.”
Flaps shook his head. “No. Stop. Get lost. I’m busy. I’ve working on some new evasive maneuvers the Commander asked about. Specifically, ones to counter blockades.”
“Flaps . . .”
“Damn you. I said get lost, Lee!” Flaps thundered.
It was subtle, but Lee actually flinched.
“Look here, Yuri. I won’t pretend to know all about the issues you’ve had but . . . ok what Dawes did triggered a raw nerve. I get it. But he’s not got a bone of malice in him. He’s just unhinged. It’s their way of testing people they’ll be depending on to save their lives.”
Lee called him by his first name. He only ever did that when he wasn’t kidding around. “Sounded pretty convincing to me,” Yuri said.
“They’re marines, Yuri. They’re trained to compel you to roll over and die, just by looking at you. Look at the reaction he got from me. A momentary lapse. But I get it. I get his doubt. You and I, we’ve been together a while. We know we’ve got each other’s back. The nature of their special training takes those guys from ship to ship depending on the assignment. Never stopping anywhere long enough. Probably shunned and written off as henchmen. Like doing some dirty deed no one wants to do, but everyone needs done. Must be lonely don’t you think? Put yourself in their boots for one second. Every other starship crew may have just made them feel like they were expendable, you know? Like some kind of dirty dozen.”
“So you’re vouching for him and the others?”
“I am.”
Yuri fiddled with some controls on the flight console. “That stunt made me remember things I never wanted to. Things I haven’t thought about in a long time. Things I thought I’d never have to deal with again. I was back on New Wyoming. My parents were telling me to forget dreaming about space ships. I’m not rolling out any red carpets for Dawes. But I get what you’re saying. Still, he can go fu—”
Lee spoke over him. “Good, no red carpets needed. They’re marines remember.” He turned back and shouted down the hangar deck. “Sergeant!”
Sergeant Dawes came through the hatch grinning like an idiot.
Yuri fixed the sergeant with what he thought was his best “you’re an idiot” stare. It probably looked like a smiling kitten to the marine. “So you think you’re some kind of ultimate warrior or something? Well, then I’m . . . the red baron.”
“Red what now?” Dawes asked, still grinning.
Lee answered. “Forget it, probably something he read in some old dusty book somewhere.”
Yuri started to protest. “I fly better than you can fight, Malcolm!”
Lee visibly winced at the use of his first name.
Dawes’ grin widened. If such a thing were possible. He looked at Lee and back at Yuri. “Well you’re a cocky one ain’t ya. You sure you weren’t trained to fly by marines?”
Yuri stared at Dawes for a moment.
Then they all dissolved into healthy fits of laughter.
Chapter 13 – Twenty Fifth-Century Mr. Rogers
“I am eternally grateful, Max” – Aaron Rayne
Captain’s Quarters
Phoenix
Aaron pulled up the letter from his mother.
He dreaded finishing it. If he could find some excuse not to, he’d probably be better off.
We, the Immortals (as they called us) were defeated. Our planet-side cloning facilities destroyed. We never stood a chance against the combined military of a United Earth. I was in love with Lazarus and we prepared to flee.
Two hundred thousand of us escaped in five colony ships. Fortunately, Lazarus had seen the end, and we had facilities for cloning aboard our ships.
The fledgling United Earth Space Navy decided there would be no more Immortals. They pursued our ships beyond Sol. They were determined to ensure humanity would never fight an existential war again.
Finally, six months later, believing we were safe, we established our future home in Epsilon Eridani, with the false hope that Earth would leave us alone. We were wrong.
They came. An orbital bombardment destroyed our new home. Two colony ships in orbit reduced to slag. We only survived because Lazarus took the three remaining ships to scout for another colony. The news of their destruction reached us weeks later.
We took a vote. Of the one hundred and fifty thousand left, we would use our stasis pods and set a course for the Outer Rim.
Years later, we finally awoke. A new frontier awaited us. Earth’s so-called refugees, who had fled to the Outer Rim more than two hundred years earlier, welcomed us.