Nash sat in the pilot’s seat of the new ship, waiting in the hangar for the rest of them. Just three days had passed since the sun came up at the end of the party, and she had spent the intervening time fervently learning how to fly the thing with some level of competence. It hadn’t been easy getting used to all the automation, and half the time she spent flipping through endless instructional screens trying to figure out how to turn it all off. She wanted as close to an analog experience as possible so that she could enjoy the part of the journey she liked best. All the of the boring background processes like repairs, fuel, and life support could happen without her input, but the flight itself was too much like art to be left up to the whims of something else.
Earlier that morning she handed the vessel back over to the service team and watched them perform the final preparations for the intergalactic voyage ahead. From a balcony in the maintenance bay, she saw two brand-new Vercoden rods being lowered into the ship’s reactor compartment. The sight of it nearly brought a tear to her eye, as she remembered what this was all for. Surely the fate of all space travel and commerce didn’t lie at her feet, but at times it felt that way. Nash shook the feeling and reminded herself of the near endless presence of this, and other energy ventures around the galaxy. The main effort had been marching along for centuries. All she and her little crew represented was an experiment, that’s all; just a tiny, clandestine venture for uninspired post-grads with nothing better to do…
The time had come to set forth. As the intrepid pilot checked the controls and plotted their first trajectory, the less-than-necessary copilot sat in the seat to the right and picked at her nails. Kory hated having to show up early to anything, but since they lived together Nash dragged her out of bed so that she wouldn’t be late. The past few days, they’d barely seen each other. Kory had been quieter than usual and buried herself in her training. With Billy in charge of the gym, the pace was sure to be faster during the long day. Nash assumed the company he kept consisted mainly of foreigners and weirdos, but he was still an Iolite like her, and would have little choice but to run himself ragged during the light. Though she was vaguely aware he kept the place open for at least a few hours during the dark for his more circadian crowd.
“Do you think he’s, different… in that way?” Nash asked, still thinking of Billy.
“Hmm…” Kory mumbled, only half-aware. “Who?”
“Billy,” Nash elaborated, realizing she hadn’t specified. “Do you think he’s got any inclination to be… like me?” She danced around the topic.
“Like you like how? Desperate?” Kory mocked, deadpan.
“No!” Nash rolled her eyes. “I mean like –”
“Telekinetic. I know you hate to say it,” Kory quipped as she turned her attention back to her fingers. “But honestly I have no idea. Zol and I don’t let on about the way that we are. And yeah, we’ve been working with Billy for however many months now, but it’s not like we know him well enough to bring that up. I know how it is for you here.”
“You know, you’re right.” Nash sighed. “I bet the ones who aren’t don’t even know about the ones who are. Allegedly it’s only ten percent of the total population. Did you know that?”
“You may have mentioned it once or twice.” Kory replied, knowing full well it had been more than once or twice over the course of their lifetimes.
“I guess I just thought we could use him,” Nash continued as she keyed in the last details of their trip on the holographic screen projected before her.
“Don’t we have enough for now?” Kory turned to her friend. A slight twinge of urgency crept into her voice.
“I meant more with some kind of… power.”
“How much more power are we going to need?” Kory implored, the panic more apparent now. Her line of questioning was interrupted by the arrival of the third passenger, who entered through the passenger door behind the pilot’s seat as boisterously as he’d entered into their lives.
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“Speak of the devil and he shall appear!” Greg announced, arms outstretched with a duffel hanging loosely off his back. “How’re we doing this morning, ladies? Everything looking good?” He clapped a hand around both of their shoulders and leaned in between them as if he belonged there. “Say, did those extra boxes I sent over get loaded on? I want to make sure we’re all stocked up for –”
“Did you shave your beard?” Kory cut him off. Nash was relieved, not so much for Greg being derailed, but for the tension he had broken. Maybe that was his special power.
“Yeah, I did. Do you like it?” He smiled and ran a hand over his smooth jaw. Losing that inch of hair made him look ten years older and younger at the same time, like one of those good old boy lawyers that drives his forty nine million dollar boat with all the finesse of a preschooler.
“I bet your sister told him to do that!” Nash taunted. Kory scrunched her face into a devious expression of agreement.
“Welp, I better get on back there…” Greg slapped his hands to his thighs as he rose and turned towards the back of the ship. “…pick out one of these nice new rooms before ol’ Z beats me to it. There he is! My man!” He pointed with both hands and left Nash and Kory with Zol, who had indeed just arrived.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Kory looked up and met his stony gaze. “Nash and I were just talking about what a shame it was we couldn’t bring Billy with us too.” Per usual, Zol said nothing, which was for the best considering he disagreed with her. As he stood before them his left ear, bruised, and swollen by none other than the aforementioned Iolite, throbbed in pain; an unfortunate result of all the accelerated training Kory had insisted upon in the past three days.
“I don’t know how you can stand to live with him,” Nash chimed in, not bothering to hide the snark. “Greg, I mean. He never shuts up does he?” Zol grunted and shrugged his shoulders in response before heading back to take his seat behind the two of them. He set his small backpack neatly between his feet, with no concern for where it would end up during launch.
“I guess that’s everybody.” Kory said nervously as she straightened up in her seat and pretended to appear gainfully employed for a minute.
“Nope, just one more.” Nash said, craning her head towards the door.
“Just waiting on one right?” Greg called from the passenger seats. He had found a bunk with space for his giant duffel, apparently. The click of the locks resounded as he fastened his harness.
“One?” Kory asked. “So, he really was being serious when he said he was coming with us?”
“It’s all been arranged.” Nash glossed over her friend’s inquiry, her own eyes still on the door as a faint blur of white appeared at the distant edge of the hangar. “In fact, I think that’s him now. About time, right?”
Kory’s mouth went dry. She turned her eyes straight forward to the console, as if it held some hidden wisdom for her in this moment. In no time at all Sohrab was on the threshold of the spacecraft, vaguely non-apologizing for how he had barely made the train from Laronting that morning. Something about his hinting of work in another city made him out to seem more important than he was.
“Gentlemen,” he said, looking briefly over the two men who eyed him with doubt. He turned back to Kory for a moment and placed a hand on her shoulder. She failed to keep herself from shivering at his icy touch. Even through the thick material of her burgundy jumpsuit, the sensation was undeniable. “Did you happen to bring my coat back, darling?”
“I sent it out to be dry-cleaned, and I’ll have it delivered to you when we land again.” She lied; her eyes still set forward. She assumed he didn’t know it lay crumpled on her bedroom floor amongst a semi-permanent pile of clothes to which she also failed to attend.
“How thoughtful of you,” he squeezed her shoulder ever so slightly, earning him a cold glare from Zol. “I’ll have to see that you get my new address.”
“Will you go and sit down?” Nash groaned, fed up with the endless distractions preventing them from leaving. Sohrab left and took a seat across the aisle from Greg.
“I remember you from the party,” Greg said.
“Now that I think about it,” Sohrab started. “I don’t remember you at all.”
“I got wind that some of the big dogs up top didn’t want me on this little excursion.” Greg lowered his voice, a characteristic frat-boy grin across his face. “But I have a way of making things happen.”
“I’m sure we’ll see,” Sohrab turned his head towards the window and closed his eyes before the launch sequence began. When he opened them again the stars careened by, heralding the coming season of danger.
