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Interval 1.1~ Welcome to the Black
Note to reviewers: This is the first HALF of the first chapter. My point here was to give a good feel for the basic universe and for the first of a long line of characters. Please consider these questions as you review... 1.) Does the introduced character have depth and dimension? 2.) Is the setting beginning to come alive for you?
Humidity crystallized into expanding colonies of ice around the port landing sector window. The small round casement looked out toward the Terra-Lunar shipping lanes and the earth beyond. The Blue Planet slowly peeked above the gray pockmarked surface of the moon, as if in greeting.
A metal and plastic high-orbit Launch Ring which had years ago replaced the aging International Space Station girdled the Home-world, cutting a clean line in the space junk that littered the sphere. The Ring’s gray and black compartments resembling a spinning link of sausages, speckled with blinking lights, docking cavities and viewing windows. Although the sight of it from solid ground delighted the eye on cloudless nights, it was commonly thought of as the ugliest High-Atmo Ring in the three Galaxies. The people of Earth tolerated the monstrosity in exchange for its necessity. For without it, Earthlings would never have loosed gravity’s clutches.
A few Recovery and Recycling vessels slowly circled the ring, picking apart rusty and over-used twentieth century satellites in an attempt to keep the Ring free from threatening debris, while the endless stream of transport and supply vessels ferried back and forth in an endless loop from the Ring to the various Lunar facilities and communities which dotted the SunSide. The Black had become a very busy place.
Anahera Laraway ran her thin bronze palm across the inner most layer of polymer-coated glass. Despite the atmospheric controls, which pumped warm, lavender scented thick-mix oxygen throughout the facility. The glass was frigid against her callused skin. She stared out at the long line of conveyors as they lingered in choreographed orbit, waiting to dock and exchange their young passengers for graduating Cadets who were earthbound for the first time in years.
The Armstrong Celestial Academy was the best Private University in The Three Galaxies. The school occupied the old United Nations Lunar Station; the first structure built on the Earth’s original natural satellite. That was before the exclusive residence communities sprung up. The Academy came into being when the elite wealthy of earth had grown tired of a military facility “ruining” their view. Hera found it interesting that the facility had not changed its look merely its purpose, yet everyone ceased to complain.
Where once only the moon circled the blue planet, now three bodies narrowly missed each other daily. The earth original moon, a Russian-made weapons platform, and a once wayward astral body ; which had attached itself to earth gravity back in 2012, spiraled on an offset orbit between the two.
Scientists had dubbed the broken mass of rock and ice “Deoluna” in a not-so-crafty way of avoiding the urge to admit to the Niburu Prophesy; a ruse that most educated citizens saw clearly through. When the timing and light was just right, cadets could catch a glimpse of the completely top-secret archeological dig through their living quarter windows. When Hera had first seen it, chills multiplied up and down her back spreading to the top of her scalp. For some reason she could not ascertain, Deoluna scared her.
The University itself consisted of an outer and inner ring which encircled a group of geometric dome nodes. The elongated oval resembled an old Earth game implement known as a football. Shuttle landing docks marked the long sides of the facility. Cadet First Class Laraway stood on the incoming dock, while her roommate and laboratory partner Cadet First Class Hoshiko Yochida stood on the outgoing deck, biding a farewell to the graduating cadets as they returned to Earth or off into The Black to live their lives. It was the farthest two people could get without going out into zero-G, and it was not quite far enough for Hera’s taste.
Between them was a double row of thirty two domed nodes organized into groups of living quarters, recreational, as well as training and laboratory domes. This was her universe. She could see her beloved earth out there among the darkness and after she reached upper classman status she had been allowed to send Communications back home. Beyond that, the white coated tungsten interior walls of the ACA were the limit of her world.
Behind the long line of metal ships, she could see the earth; the home she hadn’t seen but for that cold and sterile vista for twelve seasons. A single tear escaped from her one working tear duct and slid forlornly down her cheek. She thought about how much she missed the feel of an honest natural breeze as it washed across her face and ruffled her chocolate brown hair. There were no breezes aboard the ACA and the required bun and twined braid of the schools official female hairstyle would not move even in a monsoon.
She let her homesick mind wander. She closed her eyes and found herself day dreaming of that far off life. Her younger self stood on a rocky precipice overlooking a green valley. Her body had been soft and round then and her skin still smooth and scar free.
She was dressed in a traditional Maori gown; a grass skirt held her red tunic in place. Her waist-length hair was unbound and danced in the wind. Her feet were bare, toes dug into the soft emerald grass clinging to life between two boulders. Her face was unblemished. Raised by her parents in France, she chose not taken the traditional Maori tattoos. She was the only girl in traditional clothing at her Grandmother’s funeral who had not taken the beloved mark of her tribe. It had been an embarrassment for the family, but not to Hera. She was proud of who she was.
She stood absorbed in that pride, that feeling of being one with the universe. As much as loved her tribe and her sacred valley spread out between her and the sea, she loved the modern world that moved her forward. In fact she knew she would miss New Zealand most of all. She was sad and yet glad to be leaving, both at the same time. She had accepted the newly offered slot at the ACA, much to her mother’s chagrin. She would be the first and possible only Maori to walk on the moon or race into space.
Her dream faded and she found herself back on the station. Wiping her tear free from her face, she smeared it on the glass where it immediately turned to frost. Her hand instinctively returned to her face, where it rubbed her newly fitted optic implant.
The implant glitched as she rubbed it and her vision doubled, pixilated, and returned to its normal clarity. Four weeks had passed since she’d completed the final stages of treatment and rejection was far from a worry now, but she was still self-conscious about the fixture. She gazed at the ghost of her reflection in the porthole. The malfunction had caused her eye color setting to boot and her left iris was a shimmering silver hue. Her natural eye stared back at her, its brown color the one she knew from childhood; its flecks of green sparkling in the illumination from the overhead lights.
In her shame upon losing the Battle Simulation, she had avoided sending a Com to her parents. How ashamed they would be to have such a scarred daughter, even if they could not see it, she could feel it. That was her fear… so she decided to put off telling them as long as possible.
She heard the hissing of another inbound ship and turned in time to see the first of a long line of newbie cadets begin their long walk down the access tube. The clear nano-shield retractable entranceway was lit by nano-tube lights, and their shadow cast an eerie glow about the heads of the kids as they bravely marched their way toward their new lives.
She snapped out of her reverie and pulled her frame as tall as she could. She inspected her leather and linen uniform and spun her Biometrics ring sitting not-overly-snugly on her left middle finger. She straightened her cap and weapons belt. Instinctively she ran her index finger over the safety of her Electrocharge to make sure no accidents happened. She wished she could have had time to stow it safely in the arms locker; but when the First Class assigned to the new young ones had fallen ill the Commandant had asked for her. She had snapped to the task like a chalk line. She wondered if he knew her little brother was among them. She shook her head to clear it of the old thought process. She opened her square pocket and removed her Reader, switched it on, viewed her schedule for a few seconds, hit the power button and replaced it into its pouch. She was glad that the task was not interfering with anything of import.
Back home, on earth he was her sibling, the toddler she cradled when he had cried at night, plagued by nightmares. Here he was plain Cadet Fourth Class, Bo Laraway from the Australian Provinces. His appointment was still a mystery, even to her. The council did not normally choose such young ones. He had become the youngest Earthling ever to receive training on the ACA and now the second Maori. There was only one soul as young as he; a young female Saura.
Saurans were the only other upright fully sentient civilized beings in the three galaxies. They discovered by the second generation of Terraformers and a war immediately erupted over land rights. After decades of conflict, with devastating casualties, a peace was finally brokered. The ACA hosted eight Sauran Cadets.
The boys and girls, all of them human, filed into the small waiting room. They held slung over their shoulders or clutched tight in their arms, all that represented their lives back on the Home-world; Bags and old suitcases filled with clothing, pictures and even the occasional doll… things that would keep them connected to who they were.
They lined up along the wall across from where she stood, some shivering other held their noses too high for their own good. They would be a challenge. She thanked the universe that it was not her job to break them.
“Alright, Space Trash!” She bellowed, her voice reverberating off the walls and arched roof. “Welcome to the Armstrong Celestial Academy. The instructors here at the ACA will build upon the skills your gravity-bound teachers revealed to you and when you have completed your coursework here you, will be among some of the strongest warriors, knowledgeable scientists and cleverest civil engineers in the three Galaxies. All of which will have spent their own sixteen seasons in this unforgiving metal shell.” She wrapped her knuckles on the wall. It reverberated, making some of the weaker individuals jump at the suddenly harsh clang.
“Now, none of that my little civil engineers.” she said sweetly as she chastised and picked on them at the same time. “How many of you have come here wishing to walk the way of the warrior?” She asked, changing her voice again; giving it as much gravel as she could.
None answered her. She looked each child in the eye, searching for the brother she knew. He was the shortest; he looked years younger than his traveling companions did. She wondered how the council could be sure that this psyche was prepared. She assessed him, showing no emotion.
They shared their mother’s eyes; round, brown and flecked with green. His hair was the same tawny color as long as hers was and held up in a traditional bun, but he owned one trait she did not, his father’s square jaw. Their mother’s second husband was French and he lent his son a completely different look than Hera. Her father was from her mother’s tribe and shared their rounded chin.
He stared up at her with a mixed look of recognition and fear. He took note of her new eye and swallowed a lump in his throat. Time had changed her; she has grown taller, but not much. She was leaner and stronger holding the look of an Olympic track athlete and her face was hard. Was she still his sister inside?
“Well… when an upperclassman asks you a question, you answer!” She bellowed. Several of the children flinched. “How many of you have come here to follow the path of the warrior?”
A few small voices answered, and then repeated themselves louder, and with more confidence.
“Only a few of you?” She turned her back on the children and began to pace. “Well… I hate to disappoint the rest of you, but you all will follow the path of the warrior. The Way of the ancient Samurai is resurrected here. No matter your vocation, you will follow the Code. Above all, you will live life and more importantly your time here by the philosophies of frugality, loyalty, honor, serenity, and wisdom, which you will all acquire in time. Above all you will approach your studies with undaunted veracity! We expect nothing less.”
Hera snapped her heels together and turned back to her audience.
“Now, drop your bags. They will be taken to your room and you will be reunited with them sometime later.”
They hesitantly dropped their belongings, one girl whimpered.
“Now follow me. I will be giving you a tour and personally assure that you don’t flush yourselves into zero-G before the Commandant sets eyes on you.”
Next interval...
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