Beware when their eyes glow red….
In a cold sweat, Lithos' eyes shot wide open. He sat up abruptly from beneath his blanketed nest, his undershirt soaked through with sweat. He shivered, rubbed his eyes, and ran his hands down the sides of his face. After a moment, after his hands had lost their chill, he sighed with frustration, struggling to recall the warning that woke him from his nightmare in the first place. As usual, he found himself grasping at straws.
It always felt so urgent, so important.
He lifted his head from the cradle of his hands and kicked his bare feet out from under the covers. He crossed the cabin to the mesh-shaded window, ran a hand through golden hair, and pushed the shade up with a pointer finger. The endless abyss of space with all her stars and swirling galaxies greeted his weary eyes. A small smile danced at the corner of his lips.
Some things simply never got old.
He went to the closet doors and pressed a button on the panel beside it. The doors slid open, blinding him with fluorescent light from inside (as often these doors did). He blinked a spot seared into his vision and frowned against the light, quickly retrieving his uniform and clicking the button frantically to close the doors. They took their time, their hydraulics hissing. He dressed quickly with his back turned to them, adorning himself in the dark colors befitting a commander's status in the CosmoCorps. He stopped to stare at his reflection on the back of the door. He tugged on a lock of disheveled, curtained hair (tried to smooth it back with little success), the small smile returning in a lukewarm memory.
“It’s the color of hay,” she said, eyes twinkling as she ran his hair through her fingers.
“The color of what?” he chuckled back, poking her in the arm.
“Hay!” she said, whacking away his hand.
“Oh, hay,” he said, waving at her.
She smiled at him until she realized he wasn’t being serious (it was the grin on his face that gave it away, of course). “Oh, hush,” she shook her head and rolled her eyes at him. Her aggravation didn’t stay long, that smile and her violet eyes settling back on him. “Gram used to tell us about hay, yeah?”
He shook his head.
“It’s for horses? and other barnyard animals?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said, covering his mouth. “Hay.”
“Ancestors, can you imagine?” she asked, grabbing at his free hand and kissing the hand that covered his lips. “Working on a farm planet your whole life? Being amazed by... ancestors, by communication? and travel? that’ve been around for…”
“...ever?” he finished, dropping his hand.
She pecked him, quickly, while she had the chance. “Mmhmm.”
“Having never traveled through the stars?” he asked, softly.
“Well,” she offered, “you’re here now, aren’t you?”
He shrugged, providing his own offering of a faltering smile.
“I mean, your folks were on Delta, weren’t they?”
“No livestock.”
“Well, no, but Gram got her hay from Delta.”
“Not their district, I guess.”
“Are you alright?”
“Hm?”
“I asked if you were alright,” she repeated, shifting in her chair to face him completely.
The monitor now beside her fell into sleep mode with her inattention.
“Nervous, I guess.”
“Where’d your luster go, cosmonaut?” she rested her hand on his shoulder.
He shrugged, slowly shifting his eyes back up to hers.
“What are you nervous about?”
“I, uh,” he cleared his throat. “I saw how long I’ll be gone.”
“As did I,” she said, giving his shoulder a squeeze. She pursed her lips to the side and knitted her brows in empathy. “It’ll be alright, my love.”
“I saw where you were assigned.”
“Is that your concern?”
He dropped his eyes into his lap.
“Please don’t shut down--”
“Computer shutting down.”
“Oh, come on, computer, abort shut down!”
“Shut down aborted.”
“You think Enzo’s gonna have any luck with this… oh, how did he word that?”
“‘Piece-of-shit cluster-fuck of a program system’?”
“Ah,” she chuckled, “ha, yeah.”
“I hope so.”
“Honey, it’ll be alright.”
“We don’t know that,” he said. “We haven’t mapped any of that system yet.”
He pressed a separate button on the panel by the closet doors. The door to the cockpit slid slowly open. He squinted at the point in the center where it separated from itself, blinking at that spot the closet had seared into his eyes, until it was open wide enough for him to step through into the cockpit of his cruiser.
“Good Morning, Lithos,” spoke a blank, metallic voice. “Day mode or night mode?”
“Night mode,” he said. “Always night mode. Why do you ask every time?”
“I am programmed to ask every... 12-hour cycle.”
“Could you use night mode in the closet?”
“No, sir,” the voice said.
“Technical oversight,” he grumbled (as he had countless times before), under his breath. “PoSC-FPS….” His eyes drifted to the viewscreen, to the small farming planet glowing green in the sun’s reflection. “Do I have any messages?”
“You have,” the voice paused, “one new message.”
“Play it.”
The intercom beeped in the affirmative. “Message one, received... one hour fifty-five minutes ago, from AALIYAH: Hey honey, it’s me. Just calling to see if you managed to get some sleep. She paused, then sighed. I’m glad you are; managing, that is. Call me when you can, ok? Miss you. Love you. ‘Bye.”
He found his lips twitching into a smile that never really manifested. He glanced from the pilot’s chair to the booth (what he supposed was his kitchen nook, out here). Ultimately, he opted for the pilot’s chair; for, there was the best view of Aaliyah’s picture that he’d programmed into the viewscreen. Long raven hair poured down her pale shoulders. A smirk at some quip he’d made while taking it was etched on her lips. Purple irises shimmered into him, enamored completely.
“Computer, call Aaliyah.”
“Calling AALIYAH,” the voice stated. Muted trill tones attempted to connect them.
“Mmm,” her sleepy voice groaned, “hello?”
“Oh, shit,” he felt awful, “oh, honey, I forgot what time it was out there.”
“Hey, it’s okay,” she was suddenly wide awake. “Thanks for calling back.”
“Yeah,” he stared at her photo. “Yeah, all you had to do was ask.”
“Even then,” she chuckled. “Hang on a second,” there was clattering from her end, a few expletives, then, “Shit, honey, I’m sorry, my camera link still isn’t working.”
“It’s okay,” he didn’t bother to hide the disappointment on his face.
“Didn’t sleep for long, huh?”
“No,” he cleared a lump in his throat. “Nightmares.”
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry,” she was quiet a moment, and he swore he heard her sniffle. “What were they about?”
“I, uh,” he sighed, “I don’t remember.”
“If you ever did, I’d be worried something was wrong.”
“I slept better with you nearby.”
They both were silent for a moment.
“Then, you must not be sleeping at all.”
“That’s fairly accurate,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “Uh, that is to say, entirely accurate.”
They both chuckled, sadly.
“I sleep much better when you’re home,” she said, suddenly serious. “I jump awake at every sound, now.”
“I’m sorry.”
They were silent, comfortably for a moment.
“It’s kind of silly, but I jump at every sound now, too.”
“Oh, gotta keep an ear out for those space goblins.”
“They wait ‘til you least expect them,” he smirked, then sat back in his seat. “Hey, uh, Gram says ‘Hi.’”
“I know.”
“I told you already?” Maybe he was more tired than he’d thought.
“She told me she got to see you.”
He smiled down at the planet, trying to relax his shoulders, but failing.
“You made her day. Such a sweetie, bringing her flowers.”
“It was nice to see her. She insisted I stay for dinner, and was insulted I couldn’t stay the night,” he felt trapped for Gram, even though she was content down there. “I told her I couldn’t, but that we’d be back for a social visit sometime soon.”
“I’d like that.”
“She said she’d believe it when she saw it.”
“That’s my Gram, alright.”
“Saw Enzo’s folks, too.”
“How are they?”
“They’re Enzo’s folks.”
“Yeah….”
Silence.
“Are they considering…?”
“No,” he said, more curtly than he intended, “and they’re offended at the,” he air-quoted, “‘constant’ reminders.”
“It’s…” she trailed off.
“Yeah, they weren’t so happy to see me,” he rubbed his face with his hands, sighing, “not in this uniform.”
“Oh, boy.”
“It’ll be alright,” he relaxed his shoulders, only partially, but his neck popped. “All we can do is provide support until they make that decision themselves, or until we’re forced to make it for them.”
She was silent; uncomfortable.
“I know, Aalie. I don’t like it either.”
“Yeah.”
Silence, uncomfortable still.
“I just… we’ve offered to help them,” she sighed, “all of us, personally, as a family favor.”
“It’s not about us, Aalie.”
“I just don’t understand how they can be offended,” she said, clearly quite offended herself.
“When those planets have felt like a prison to us, personally,” Lithos said, watching a thunderhead sparking over a swath of the planet below, “I think it’s hard to understand how they could possibly feel like home to anyone at all.”
She didn’t say anything.
He wished he could see her face. “Do you have a status on your video-link tech-support ticket?”
“Yeah, they’re sending a new one soon.”
“When?”
“Office hours, in the morning,” she said, her voice softening a little. “I miss you, too.
He leaned back in his chair and shifted his gaze to the Great Expanse beyond the farming planet. “I wish you could see this.”
She yawned.
It was late… or maybe it was early.
“Describe it to me?”
“For something as vast and empty as it all is, mathematically speaking,” he pondered aloud, “it’s anything but.”
“Hm,” she grunted, in exhausted agreement.
“There’s a nebula I can make out near where I’m stationed that reminds me of your eyes,” he said, looking back over to her photo. “Deep, endless, glittering violet.” The lump returned to his throat, and he was silent for a moment against it. “There're these rising pillars of star dust that glow and glisten.”
There were no hums of agreement, nor exhausted hmphs of her pondering his words.
He sighed with the realization that she had fallen asleep. “I can’t wait to come home,” he said, gently. “Love you. Miss you. ‘Bye.” He gave her photo a somber smile as he terminated the call, then closed his exhausted, burning eyes.
His mind drifted to Gram, to Enzo’s Pop and Ma, to his own; how the once-proud faces of those he respected deeply now held a wrinkle of fear upon seeing him these days. They saw his uniform first, and it only reminded them that the time of their lives that allowed them to be productive members of such a small, essential community was rapidly coming to the end--and he was the reaper to them, just as he was to his own folks. It twisted his gut into knots; their expectation, their blame, their gross misunderstanding of his position and duty, the fatal loss of a third of them to that mentality. It only offended him that they didn’t seem to care enough to listen, to learn, to try (for some of them, before it was much too late).
He opened his eyes to the Great Expanse once more, shifting the cruiser so that the nebula he mentioned came into full focus.
“Computer, capture photo, send to Aaliyah,” he said, wiping his face.
“Affirmative,” the metallic voice responded. “Photo captured. Transmitting….”
He cracked his knuckles.
“Photo transmitted.”
He sighed and stood, “Initialize morning routine.”
“You are required to sleep for... six hours and fifty minutes before I am authorized to initialize your morning routine.”
“Then could you at least make me a cup of fucking coffee?” he snapped.
“Recipe for... FUCKING COFFEE not found. Please request schematic from your supervisor.”
“Oh, ancestors,” he grumbled, slumping into the dining nook. He cradled his head in his hands, cursing the programming teams of his cruiser series (Enzokuhle, in particular), “Fucking PoSC-FPS.” He took deep breaths, trying to calm his voice before issuing another command, “Computer, make coffee, black.”
“Affirmative,” the voice said, oblivious to the aggravation it caused. “Please proceed to receptacle for your beverage.”
He rolled his eyes beneath his eyelids, and slid open the small silver panel on the wall beside him without needing to look. He pulled out his mug, cautious not to spill the cup always overfilled, and placed it on the table in front of him.
The mug steamed steadily. The cruiser hummed and beeped around him.
He drank deeply of it before resting his head against the table.
“Incoming call from COMMAND. Accept?” the computer interrupted.
He flinched, and was grateful he wasn’t still holding that mug. “Yes,” he said, voice muffled from the hands that attempted to soothe the burning exhaustion in his eyes. He stood and walked toward the view screen.
The gray face of his superior officer obfuscated the view of his nebula. “Lithos,” General Baal-Berith said, his bushy gray brows rising in simultaneous surprise, “you’re awake?”
“Yes, sir. We both are, it seems,” though his tone didn’t translate well.
“You--” the general sighed, visually flustered, “you haven’t been sleeping long enough to respond to this call, Commander.”
Lithos stared at him, blankly, “I’d rather work than stare at the ceiling for hours.”
The general frowned at him.
“...sir,” he added.
“Use the MedPacs that were assigned to you.”
“Sir, I do,” Lithos said, feeling his expression furrowing, “and they don’t help.”
His superior sighed again, frustrated and defeated. “We can’t keep manually authorizing you to work when you don’t sleep, son. You’re going to make mistakes that we’ll be liable for. What would your woman say if you were killed doing something simple because you didn’t sleep but the bare minimum number of mandatory hours?”
Lithos scowled, then remembered all at once (sheepishly) that his camera was not broken, and this was not an audio-only call. “Shall I,” he cleared his throat, “terminate the call so you may leave your correspondence in a message, sir?”
“Mediator, I think that would be best,” Baal-Berith was scowling.
“Terminate call,” Lithos said. He found himself glaring at the space on the screen where Baal-Berith’s eyes had been with his cheeks prickling and boiling.
“Incoming call from COMMAND. Accept?” the computer chirped, again.
“No,” he said. “Fucking asshole.”
You’re being reactive.
I’m so exhausted.
He turned on his heel, walking back towards his cabin, offended now completely (embarrassed, though, mostly, and reactive entirely). “‘What would ‘your woman’ say….’ She’d laugh in your face for assuming she belongs to anyone.”