Star Brigade: Odysseys - An Anthology (20 page)

After the third day of tests, Kasiaph’s doctor found something in his blood—which had never been identified because they weren’t looking for it. This newly-discovered chemical had been causing his dreams, a neurotransmitter found in a small but growing percentage of Union citizens with abilities beyond those of normal sentient beings. The neurotransmitter offered understandable variances depending on the species, but the common name is ‘xenotrophin.’

“Our son is a…
maximum?
” Patee asked their doctor in mild horror.

“Don’t worry,” the elder doctor reassured them. His craniowhisks and gestures were calm and loose with poise, unlike the rigid twitching of Kasiaph and his paternities. “Whatever your son can do is not a danger to himself or you, as far as we’ve seen.”

“What can we do to find out more about…what he can do?” Matee asked, her words dipped in dread.

“Well,” the doctor answered calmly. “It’s good that we have spotted this when his abilities manifested just. But, I would recommend a visit to the Section M office in Poston.”

All he got in return were blank stares. “Er…what is a Section M?” a befuddled Kasiaph inquired.

Section M, according to his doctor, was the Galactic Union’s government agency that handled maximum affairs. Giving the growing number of beings with maximal abilities, there was now at least one Section M branch on every single Union memberworld. “Registering known maximums, helping them cope with their abilities, providing training for maximums with issues controlling their abilities. They are the experts on all things maximum-related,” their doctor hashed out. He smiled affably at Kasiaph. “I think you might benefit from this, youngling.”

At first, Kasiaph’s paternities were hesitant about this Section M. The boy had no objection to meeting with this agency, if they could help about his dreams. “I might not be a maximum even, Matee,” Kasiaph tried to reassure her on the ride back home, which had the opposite effect.

Their doctor took care of the appointment for the next day and sent all types of information into Patee’s data spectacles about this Section M agency.

Bright and early the next morning, Kasiaph left with his paternities on a twenty-macrom shuttle ride to East Poston’s grander, prettier, sister city-state. The Section M office in downtown Poston was not a large building, but Kasiaph thought its hexagon structure was nice-looking from the air.

After a five-macrom wait in the building’s angular and pointy lobby, a rather stern Galdorian with his eyestalks bobbing up and down approached and led the Nnaxan family to a translifter. Kasiaph forgot the Galdorian’s name right after he announced it. Big surprise, since the moniker was overly Galdorian—in short, hard to pronounce—and began with ‘H.’

“You have nothing to worry about when it comes to your son,” the Galdorian assured them in flawless Standard dialect. The translifter zoomed up a few floors and then zipped sideways to the left. “Helping maximums adjust to society at large is our specialty.”

Patee and Matee looked less than satisfied, their craniowhisks twitching nervously. Kasiaph couldn’t help but mirror their actions and feelings. “I read somewhere that Section M had some corruption problems a year prior,” his paternal offered in fluent but rigid Standard. “What happened?”

The Galdorian frosted over. “Management restructuring,” he offered cryptically.

As soon as they got off the translifter, Patee and Matee were ushered into a fancy, hi-tech looking office. Meanwhile, Kasiaph waited outside on a bench in an obsidian-glossy corridor. For a number of macroms, he just sat steeped in worries and fears that had been planted on the shuttle ride to Poston.

What if they take me away from my family?

What if they dissect me to see how my powers work?

What if I’m not a maximum?

When will the next ‘dream’ happen?

“Hi-hi! You must be Kasiaph,” called a chipper, girly human voice from his right, interrupting his paranoid musings. The Nnaxan turned to see a short human female heading his way. She had a surprisingly fleet-footed gait for someone so plump and compact. Kasiaph could tell she was most likely earthborn human. There were no garish pastel colors in the roots of her evenly bob-cut brownish hair, and her beady, almond-shaped black eyes didn’t glitter like minerals. Plus, her skin had a peaches-and-cream color to it.

“Yea?” Kasiaph replied in Standard dialect.

This human, practically bouncing on her flat heels with excessive glee, primly adjusted her formfitting grey dress suit as she sat down next to Kasiaph. “My name’s Cameron Song,” she continued, a megawatt smile in her already chipper voice. “How
are
you?”

The Nnaxan shrugged, taken aback by the human’s cheeriness. “Fine, I guess.” Close up, Cameron’s elfin features looked like a mix of human subspecies, typical of earthborn and Martianborn humans. Kasiaph could tell by the subtle creases around her eyes and forehead that she was older than she looked, but his paternities told him it was rude to ask a female’s age. “Are you a maximum?” he asked instead.

Cameron shook her head. “Nope. Just a regular baseline human.”

“Do you work for Section M?”

“Yep, I do,” Cameron nodded so eagerly her double chin jiggled like that human dessert gelatin. “By the way, I just met your parent—sorry, Nnaxans say ‘paternities,’ yes?”

Kasiaph nodded indifferently.
Does that matter?
“Yea.”

“Okay. Anyway, just met your
paternities,”
Cameron looked so pleased, her eyes sparkled with barely contained delight. “They’re great. Very worried, but really great.”

Kasiaph pictured his doubting paternal’s fury as clear as a holoimage on a wall. And the maternal who wouldn’t side against her partner, puncturing her son’s heart again.  Kasiaph shrugged. “I guess so.”

“I got an idea,” Cameron exclaimed, as if it were the best idea any being had ever conceived. She fingered her choker of thick pearls. “Let’s you and I go for a walk.”

They both rose from the bench, and Kasiaph was struck anew by how
not
tall this human woman was, standing barely half a foot taller than him.

Outside was overcast, but with golden shafts of sunlight piercing through the grey gloom sporadically. They strolled through the labyrinthine gardens in the complex’s northern wing, a crimson-leaved sprawl. Cameron, seeing the boy’s bewildered interest, stated that most of the garden’s plant life came straight from the isles of the oceanic colony world Mekaal. During their walk, the human woman did most of the talking; being born and raised on Terra Sollus by a father from San Andreas in Western Vesspuccia and a mother from the Asian nation of Sino-Formosa; using her mother’s maiden name instead of her father’s due to him being well known in government circles; revealing her experiences working with maximum children.

Cameron seemed overly nice, to the point of phoniness. Regardless, Kasiaph offered her as much of about himself as he felt comfortable with when she asked him questions; talking about his family, the tough transition of moving from the volcanic Hommodus to the rather flat agribiz world Terra Gima. It shocked him how Cameron avoided any mention about his incident, so the boy didn’t bring it up.
She thinks my doctor was wrong, maybe
. Hopefully. Kasiaph really wanted to return to Terra Gima. The boy was also surprised to see so many beings of all ages and species roaming through the gardens; an elderly human male, clearly a stormborn human by his shock of white hair with rusty orange roots, jogged by. A young Kheldoroshii crawled by on all its limbs like a caterpillar with its Galdorian chaperone.

“This Section M Center also serves as a living facility to those maximums who might consider themselves a danger to society until they get their abilities under control,” Cameron explained to Kasiaph.

Seeing so many facility residents, all with chaperones of differing species, sat in the Nnaxan’s stomach like spoiled food.
Could this happen to me?

Kasiaph then noticed another pattern. Every chaperone they passed always acknowledged Cameron Song with distinct reverence…sometimes a touch of fear even. And she always greeted each sentient by name with her huge smile. The Nnaxan boy regarded her with renewed caution. This Cameron Song female was a big deal unmistakably around Section M.

About twenty macroms into the walk, Kasiaph found that he had run out of things to say. So he stopped talking. Cameron quickly filled the silence. “So when I spoke with your paternities…they told me about your ‘dreams.’”

The way Cameron said ‘dreams’ with that happy-bubbly voice sounded mocking. The boy felt his craniowhisks stiffening. “Yeah?” he answered defensively, stopping in his tracks.

“What do
you
think they were?” the human asked curiously.

“I care not if you think I’m making my dreams up—” The Nnaxan’s fatigue and frustration burst to the surface in an ugly eruption.

“No, no! I believe you, Kasiaph,” Cameron held up both hands beseechingly, her voice still irritatingly cheerful. “Your dreams are actually called
precognition
, the ability to see the future.”

Hearing this, Kasiaph unwound a bit. His craniowhisks drooped, but remained a bit tense. “Can all maximums do that?” he asked.

Cameron shook her head, causing a few stray locks of hair to fall past her round cheeks. “Not everyone. The abilities depend on the sentient...even the species.”

“Well, precognition sucks!” Kasiaph spat, kicking out a foot in anger. His craniowhisks went so stiff with anger they throbbed. “I
want
not to see the future!  I want to scare my family no more!” The boy folded his upper and lower arms angrily over his chest and stomach respectively.

Cameron stood stock-still, absorbing his tantrum without flinching. Only after he huffed out most of his fury did the human female speak again. “Kasiaph, your family is alive,” she soothed, taking his lower set of hands into her own single pair. Cameron’s voice sobered, but hadn’t lost its soothing silkiness. “You saved them.
You
, because of your abilities. Being a maximum doesn’t make you a freak. It means that you’re gifted.” She squeezed his hands.

Without thinking, Kasiaph squeezed back. “I know these abilities are hard to handle,” she continued. “But with Section M’s help…and my help…you can control them and maybe save more people. Do you want that?”

The Nnaxan nodded, wanting more than anything in the universe to feel normal again. Cameron smiled broadly. “Me, too. I think you and I are going to become good friends.”

Kasiaph looked up to her. Something about her made him feel so safe. Rhyne finally burned away most of the murky overcast, casting its warm rays across the garden. “I’d like that, Cameron.” For the first time in weeks, Kasiaph smiled.

“Let’s go back and discuss your future with your paternities.” Cameron grasped the boy’s upper left hand with her one right hand and led him back toward the building, leaving all of Kasiaph’s worries and fears behind in that garden.

“Apparently
everybody’s
got a space rocket in their pants for Star Brigade now.”

From the sourness in Sam D’Urso’s words, Habraum Nwosu could picture his second-in-command’s appalled expression over their audio-only transmission.

He would’ve shrugged at her colorful word choice, if not currently doing a handstand in the middle of his common room, both legs pointed straight up. Each of the Cerc’s hands gripped an antigrav balance ball, small and gunmetal colored, both floating three feet off the ground. Rivulets of sweat beaded down his shirtless torso and black trunks. 

“And our new fanfare bothers you because?” Habraum grunted, slowly dipping his strapping six-foot-five-inch frame down until his face and clenched hands were level. Every muscle in the Cerc’s body trembled from the exertion. It felt wonderful, as did being back in sync with Sam on a friendship level and professional level.

“Not three months ago, almost all these agencies
and
UComm were ready to write us off,” Sam scoffed as if the answer was obvious.

“That was three months ago. From what Hollienurax told us, we are UComm’s most valuable asset for the moment. Let’s forge quality alliances instead of nursing old grudges.” Habraum’s recently healed shoulder ached, plus his lower back and right leg throbbed in protest. He ignored the pains, holding his handstand another three nanoclics. The handstand pushups were an improvement from last week, but the Cerc hadn’t completely recovered from Maelstrom’s handiwork on him—physically or emotionally.

“Yeah, yeah,” Sam agreed with less tartness. “Who do you wanna partner with first, flyboy?”

The Cerc already had an answer as he pressed upward for the twentieth rep in his fifth set of handstand pushups. “Whichever agency’s running an active op against the Children of Earth.” He harbored a special loathing for the human supremacist group after their brazen Corowood Zoo attack, which put both Jeremy and Sam in peril. If not for the Korvenite Independence Front threat, Habraum would have focused Star Brigade on that vile group months ago.

“My thoughts exactly,” Sam agreed with a bite of anger. “I want to find every one of those xenophobes so I can personally roast their goddamn skins off.”

Habraum made a face, unsure if he was more enthused or scared by Sam’s ruthless vow. “Probably shouldn’t phrase our request like that,” the Cerc quipped, and lowered his now trembling frame down for another rep. Until a severe ache flared up through his lower back and right leg, making his vertical posture wobble dangerously. Habraum accepted his current physical limits with a growling curse and drew himself into a crunch position. 

“You alright, chief?” Sam asked. “Sounds like a starship died over there.”

The Cerc winced as he gingerly landed on his feet again. “I’m taking advantage of Cortés clearing me for advanced PT and light hand-to-hand training.”

“FINALLY,” Sam exclaimed.

Habraum snorted. “You and me both.”  Spending extra time with Jeremy these past few weeks had been a blessing, but the sooner Habraum could return to field-active shape, the better. His need to get back in the field was a thirst that couldn’t be substituted by just working on his target practice.

“In that case,” Sam purred, “swing by my place before dinner tonight for a few warm-up drills…if you’re up for it.”

The challenge in her low, husky tones sent a jolt through Habraum. He shook it off with a chuckle. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Alright, back to adventures in parenting.” She would have been present for their daily morning briefing, but was still settling into a routine with Tharydane.

Samantha D’Urso, a mother.
Knew you had it in you.
Habraum kept the boast to himself with a smirk, knowing how much she ‘loved’ him proving her wrong.

“Bye, goldilocks.” Habraum ended the transmission, toweling the sweat off his face and bald head.

Within moments, another transmission chirped on Habraum’s personal line from Pilot Pub.

Habraum scratched at his trimmed goatee, feeling a familiar disquiet. There was but one reason the pilot-themed bar was ringing him—again.

“This is Nwosu,” he answered stiffly, bracing himself for a new tale of another Solrao drinking bender.

“Braum!” Solrao’s drowsy drawl filled the common room, completely sober.

The Star Brigadier cracked a smile.  “Solrao! Howzabeen?”

“Every day’s a gift,” was the Ibrisian’s blithe reply.

That amused Habraum. “How very illuminated of you.”

“Free for lunch today at Pilot Pub?”

Having no set meetings during that time, Habraum planned to work through lunch. But he always had time for one of his old fighter pilot mates. “Sure. Midday works best.”

“Luminal! See you then.” The transmission ended, leaving Habraum pondering the lunch’s purpose. Maybe Solrao wanted to discuss getting back on as a copilot for Brigade field missions.
Here’s to hoping
, the Cerc mused as he stretched his sore shoulders.

After a quick breakfast and hydrobathe, the Cerc’s day moved with insane briskness. Habraum oversaw the CT-1 training session in HLHG Suite 2, but didn’t participate. That was followed by a UIB holoconference discussion over tracking down the Korvenite warship
The Libremancer
, still at large after the Battle of Terra Sollus. Next up came a target practice session back in HLHG 2 with Tyris, Sam and the Voton rookie Surje.

Before Habraum knew it, lunchtime had arrived. He made his way down to the small pilot-themed bar named Pilot Pub on the lower levels of Hollus Maddrone starbase. Pilot Pub was every bit the dank and dimly lit watering hole its name implied. Currently, the Pilot Pub’s array of tables and booths were mostly empty, though the sight of patrons already tossing back drinks this early didn’t shock Habraum. The Nnaxan barkeep behind the serving table gave him a welcoming head nod.

“Heya!” The Cerc turned at the sound of Solrao’s voice. The rangy Ibrisian loped up, grinning broadly. Her segmented, ocher skin was pronounced in the dim lighting, as did the many blood-red concentric rings in her colorless eyes.

“Hi Sollie.” The two friends embraced, and Habraum’s nose wrinkled. Midday and already Solrao reeked like a distillery. “What’s this about?”

When they pulled apart, the Ibrisian deliberately avoided his critical glare. “Follow me.” Her hand, with its three fingers and two opposable thumbs, grabbed Habraum’s and led him to the back of the bar.

They reached a private room, with far better lighting than the rest of the bar, and stepped inside.

The black-hued room had a wall stocked with various alien liquors and a small round table with four seats. Two seats were already taken.

One occupant, a human about as tall as Habraum, rose from his seat. By his violet eyes and smooth dark-honey skin, he was clearly crimsonborn, with square-jawed features and wavy chocolate brown hair. The other being, a Kheldoroshii, sported an exoskeleton and rear carapace with muddy green coloring. When Habraum entered the room, his two enormous cherry-red eyes lit up.

Habraum’s heart leaped into his throat. “Rukk! Fll’gwl!”

“Glad that you’re upright, Braum,” Rukk Rigeff marched up and pulled his childhood friend into a fierce bear hug. 

After that, Habraum turned to embrace Xo Fll’gwl as the Kheldoroshii got up on his eight hind legs. “We wanted to check in,” Fll’gwl’s shrill chirruping voice needed an attentive ear when speaking Standard, like with most Kheldoroshii, “so Sollie set it all up.”

“This is a proper surprise,” the Star Brigadier eyed Solrao, more thankful than he could express. By the smile tugging at the Ibrisian’s white lips and how the limbal rings in her irises grew wider, she definitely understood.

Solrao rounded the table and snatched up a nice slim bottle of shireport. “Hope you’re not too busy for a long lunch today.” She shook the bottle like one would a bag of jewels.

“I’m the boss, so I’ll make the time,” Habraum quipped, drawing laughs from his former AeroFleet mates. He’d purposely kept today’s post-lunch schedule clear. Unless some major crisis arose, the Cerc intended to spend the rest of the day with Jeremy when the boy’s school transport returned late afternoon.

The door into the private room closed and Habraum eased himself into a seat as his three other friends did the same. Food came courtesy of Pilot Pub’s floating server mech: frosted tulips and pollen- coated pine bark were served for Fll’gwl while Habraum, Rukk and Solrao devoured healthy servings of yosk steaks with Galdorian sponge dough bread.

The wine started flowing, which got the four friends reminiscing. As if by some unwritten rule, no discussion of the Union’s failed Trade Merger with the Kedri or the Chouncilor resigning ever came up. The quartet’s conversations were dominated by war stories and pranks from their shared youth as SACOS fighter pilots. Rukk was the life of the gathering, as always. Solrao, when not detailing her many pranks pulled on their superiors, was giggling so hard, shireport came snorting out of her nose. Fll’gwl, though not as extroverted, made sure to correct his friends if some random fact was erroneous.

Eight years since they’d served together in AeroFleet melted away, with Habraum’s laughter coming more freely and more frequent over the course of their two-orv lunch. By the end, he couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten so well or enjoyed himself so much. It was exactly what he had needed.

Once he’d thanked Solrao, the Cerc saw Fll’gwl and Rukk off at one of Hollus’s hangar bays. The walk back to his office came with a less noticeable limp. He even found enjoyment in manipulating a fifty-inch holoscreen displaying training footage of the Brigadiers.

A chime briefly interrupted the mundane task. “Enter.”

His visitor was Khrome. The burly and squat Thulican lieutenant with silvery metallic skin shuffled into the room.

“What’s new, Khromulus?” he glanced at his CT-1 tech, surprised at the unusual seriousness ruling the Thulican’s deep blue face—the type of serious that promised unpleasant news.

“I found something,” the Thulican announced, his digitized tone cryptic, “updating the Star Brigade dossier like you asked, in the strike file of Addison Raichoudry.”

“Raichoudry?” Habraum recognized the name, but kept his gaze on the holoscreen before him and pulled up training footage for a Voton Brigadier. “The rookie who went batty and washed out, yea?”

Sorrow filled the Thulican’s rounded yellow eyes, so expressive despite lacking pupils or irises, making Habraum regret his rash assessment.

“Right,” the Thulican folded his burly arms. “I found an encryption in Addison’s file that can only be opened by a Brigadier of captain rank or higher. It was created three days before the meltdown that led to her resignation.”

Habraum cocked an eyebrow, curiosity piqued. “Which officer added the encryption?”

“Captain Jovian Ivers.”

The name made the Cerc flinch, like hot coals pressed against his chest. Flashes of slain Brigadiers filled his vision, their maimed bodies strewn in every direction across Beridaas’s charred plains. In a heartbeat, the memory obliterated Habraum’s happiness from moments ago. He turned around slowly to meet Khrome’s gaze, remembering.

Addison Raichoudry, a human maximum teleporter and topnotch shriker from Gavron Colony, the last of Ivers’s young female protégés. Back then her resignation over beating some Galdorian analyst bloody had been a small blip on Habraum’s radar. Still, the Cerc recalled how surprised he and others had been by Ivers’s indifference to his apprentice’s ousting.

A few months before Beridaas,
Habraum realized.
The odd timing grabbed his undivided attention. “Continue,” he urged Khrome after a long moment of silence.

“I wouldn’t have even detected the encryption, which I’m guessing was the point. But I noticed a minor error in Addison’s file and tried to fix it. And a captain-level encryption came up. Now, I could just bust it wide open.” Khrome’s cocksureness came flooding back with that admission. “Because, you know, I’m
me
and all.”

“Until you realized it’d be wiser to tell your superior officer, yea?” Habraum inquired, fixing on the Thulican with a warning look.

An innocent stare replaced Khrome’s cocksure smirk. “Of course, oh fearless leader.”

“Glad we understand each other,” Habraum gestured to the holoscreen before him. “Bring the file up.”

The Thulican strolled up to Habraum’s right and did as ordered. A life-sized holo of Raichoudry appeared before them, adjacent to a brief scroll of stats and bio information.

Addison Priyanka Raichoudry was listed in her profile as Bengalistani Indian, a fact bolstered by her coppery complexion and smooth black hair. She stood just under five-foot-four, petite, compact and limber in physique. Her thin and sharp features conveyed a hardness not aided by her wide nose and humorless line of a mouth. Raichoudry’s close-set eyes conveyed less-than-subtle disdain, as though she’d rather be doing anything other than taking this profile shot. That might’ve made Habraum laugh under different circumstances.

Khrome laughed anyway. “That’s actually her resting ‘happy’ face.”

The Thulican’s booming mechanical guffaw shook more memories loose as Habraum studied the profile.