Star Brigade: Odysseys - An Anthology (24 page)

Upon arriving at the school’s rear, he saw Jennica waiting for him. “Hi, you,” she ran forward and gave him a quick firm kiss on the lips. Even though it was supposed to be professional teacher’s attire, Habraum audibly marveled at how sexy she looked in a caramel pant suit with her hair in a classy twist.

“Oh relax, you walking hormone,” Jennica laughed. “My students are watching a holovid that’s about to finish, so let’s hurry.” She took Habraum by the hand, and the duo dashed inside with as much stealth as they could manage. Lincoln Elementary, a spread-out building made of azure and gold-colored ferroment, held pre-level through six-level student classes. After jogging through the empty hallways and then taking a two-flight translifter trip upstairs, they were at the entrance of her class.

“We’re here,” she turned to Habraum, clear concern in her eyes. “You sure you’re ready for this?”

He pulled her close and grinned roguishly. “I was born ready. You more than anyone should know.”

“I’m serious, Braum,” Jennica smacked his chest in frustration. She tried her best not to return his smile, but just a glance into the Cerc’s hazel-gold eyes and all her resolve went out the door. “These are second-level kids. They can be rambunctious when we have guests.”

“Sounds like the egomaniac space jockeys in my flight group,” Habraum shrugged. “So what’s the problem?” Peering through the room door’s viewport, Habraum saw the only light source coming from a large ovular holoscreen in the center of the room. It cast a pale illumination over the sixteen students inside. But what really held Habraum’s attention was the picture on the holoscreen. This imagery had been burned into his memory since he was five years old. “Let me ballpark on what they’re watching?”

“Yep, it’s the Terra Firma Massacre documentary produced by IPNN™,” Jennica said quietly. “The one the school shows every year during this week, with occasional updates.” Both fell silent as they snuck into the classroom. Jennica’s desk was in the back, while the children’s desks circled around the holoscreen in the room’s middle. Habraum moved behind Jennica’s desk, but could not take his eyes off the blue and green image of Earth on the holoscreen. The holodocumentary’s narrator became background noise as memories of that planet came rushing back with a clarity that surprised him.

Habraum had been to Earth twice as a child: once to the USA and another time to his father’s home country Nigeria. Of all the planets he had seen, the Earth visits were among his favorites.

The tragedy happened 19 years and two months ago on Avril 8th, 2375. Earth, the original homeworld of Terran humans, was already suffocating under its own overpopulation and pollution. Ever since Earth humans had declared Terra Sollus their new homeworld 150 years prior, the telepathic Korvenites—native race to the planet—had been repeatedly kicked off their lands in favor of the expanding human and GUPR citizenry. It got to the point where the near-13 billion GUPR populace totally outnumbered the 700 million Korvenites on the planet.

By the mid-2300s, the Korvenites had had enough. The reasons were simple. Since day one, Korvenites were never given fair representation in the Galactic Union Bicameral, and the planet they once called home was no longer their own. Their acts of insurgence began with small riots on Terra Sollus. But given that this was the capitalworld of the Galactic Union, the UComm and local Regulat forces promptly contained any disorder. And then the Korvenites were given the large island country of Korvanland just so they would be silenced. Yet the land of their ancestors was no longer theirs, no longer even recognizable. Terra Sollus had been altered into the image that the GUPR wanted it to be. Rolling grasslands were now covered by megacorp plants and sprawling city-states that wormed up into the feet of the mountains. The once clear skies were now littered with arriving and departing space vessels, and an endless crawl of crisscrossing hovercar traffic made sure that one could never fully see a Rynn duskset.

This led to that one fateful morning when a dozen Korvenites sabotaged Earth’s planetary shields, accidentally filling the planet’s CO2-rich atmosphere with thaelarite in its gas state. CO2 and thaelarite gas created a toxic combustion that scorched the atmosphere and sent a poisonous inferno raining onto the surface. Over half of Earth’s populace died, the highest non-war death toll in Galactic Union history.

Because of the massacre, Earth was rendered uninhabitable. What remained of its atmosphere was now comprised of lethal toxins. Despite his young age at the time of this tragedy, Habraum never forgot what it did to his father. The relatives, the birthplace, the culture lost to him were blows that Samuel Nwosu never fully recovered from. No one found the actual Korvenites responsible, but that didn’t matter. The entire Galactic Union demanded vengeance for Earth. Within a few months, the whole Korvenite race became public enemy number one, hunted down with extreme prejudice.

Any Korvenite captured alive was whisked away to an unknown conjunction of internment camps. Habraum remembered the Union Chouncilor at the time saying, “
The containment of the Korvenites is for the greater good of the Union. If just twelve can murder so many, imagine what this entire race can do.
”

“Hey, are you awake there, Habraum?” A soft hand rubbed against his forearm, jolting Habraum out of his recollections. He blinked in the darkness and turned to see Jennica staring at him.

“Just thinking, Jen,” he turned away hastily. Jennica, still skeptical, thankfully didn’t push the issue.

“Lights,” she stood up as she spoke. The room lights came back on and the holoscreen completely vanished. The sixteen students in the room painted a diverse picture of what the Union represented. A pair of marooned-scaled reptoid twins that had to be Rothorids sat in the middle of the circle. Closest to Jennica’s desk was a Nnaxan girl with two writhing craniowhisks branching out of her forehead. Next to her sat a snowy-white Kintarian kitten-male scratching his arm out of boredom.

Murmurs and whispers rippled among the students. They all pointed curious glances and fingers at Habraum. “Now class, attention please,” Jennica raised her voice, adding some firmness to its tone. “I have a special guest today to speak with you about Earth Memorial Week. Say hello to Lieutenant Commander Habraum Nwosu from the Union Command AeroFleet.”

Habraum rose to his feet and strode into the circle of desks. “Hullo,” the Cerc glanced around and waved modestly at the class. The classroom went dead silent. All the students just sat there and stared.

“Class,” Jennica prodded. “Say hello to Mr. Nwosu, please.”

The students continued to sit there and stare at him. Just as Habraum looked to Jennica for some help, his eardrums practically exploded. The room erupted in joyous shrieks as the children leaped out of their desks and literally threw themselves at Habraum. He was almost knocked off his feet at the throng of children trying to embrace him, tugging at his hooded sweatshirt.

“Now, class!” Jennica darted forward, already prying some of the more enthusiastic students off her boyfriend. “Back to your seats! That’s it, keep going.” She dragged the young Kintarian kitten-male away before his flailing, prepubescent claws scratched anyone. She blew a stray lock of hair from her face while stuffing the furry boy back into his seat. When she turned to Habraum, her expression said, “I’m sorry, they’re usually better than this.” But Jennica’s surprise was clear upon seeing Habraum’s reaction.

Amid the swelling sea of children tugging at him, yelling with joy, the more undersized kids hugging his ankles since the horde of their peers prevented a hug around the waist, Habraum felt genuinely happy. It wasn’t an ambush of narrow-minded holojournalists or random bystanders invading his privacy. These were just children showing gratitude as best as they knew how. And it totally warmed Habraum’s heart.

After five or more macroms of cajoling from Jennica, her pupils finally settled back into their seats. But their animated energy still buzzed throughout the classroom. Habraum sat in front of Jennica’s desk so he could see the entire class and began the tale of how he became an AeroFleet pilot.

He started simply enough with his life as a youth on Cercidale, briefly speaking on the various planets he visited and the influences of his parents; his mother Vara, a Cercidalean kurokoos breeder and his father Samuel, a Nigerian freighter merchant. Habraum’s deep, Cercidalean lilt was captivating to the children’s ears, causing a small titter among the female younglings.

Then Habraum touched key parts of his teenage years, like the moment when he knew he wanted to make his dream of joining the AeroFleet a reality, and by then the younglings were hooked. Several students gasped in wonder and others whispered “super galactic” as Habraum described his first space dogfight in detail. By the time Habraum got to the abridged version of the Ferronos Sector War and his capture, he glanced around and was pleasantly surprised at the wide-eyed interest on the children’s faces. When he leaned back in his seat and left the story hanging, quite a few disgruntled cries rang out.

“You all want to know what happens next?” Habraum glanced around the room. The answer was unanimous and loud. The children fell silent again as he finished off the story in earnest. Habraum added an urgency to his voice as he breezed through meeting Marguliese (only calling her “a Cybernarr”) to returning to Cercidale and seeing Jennica again. Every student erupted with applause after he finished.

By the beaming look on Jennica’s face, Habraum could see why she loved teaching so much. He returned her smile eagerly and calmness spread through his heart. Jennica’s smile quickly faded when she glanced up at the elliptical chronometer on the other side of the room. “Wow, time flew. Okay class,” she rounded her desk and went to Habraum’s side. “There are only fifteen macroms left in class (loud groans from the students). So you can ask Lt. Commander Nwosu any questions you want.”

All hands shot up in unison. Most questions were the girls asking when he and Ms. Hoang were getting married, while the boys asked about flying or if his AeroFleet shoulder tattoo hurt when he got it. Habraum answered all the questions as best as he could manage, but laughed at the marriage question. He only said that they hadn’t set a date yet. Jennica, despite her professionalism, turned bright pink when the kids yelled out teasingly, “Oooh!” But the last two questions stood out in Habraum’s mind the most.

“Lieutenant Commander,” hissed Vogohnor, one of the Rothorid twins. “Sssince you have achieved ssso much in the AeroFleet, are you going to ssstay or begin another profession?”

That inquiry from one so young caught him totally off guard. “Good question, Vogohnor,” Habraum replied, nervously fingering one of his small hoop earrings. “At this point I’m weighing my options.”  The truth was Habraum, despite loving AeroFleet, did want to try something new. Shooting a glance at Jennica, the Cerc knew it was something he had to consider for their future together.

“Mr. Nwosu,” it was now the Nnaxan girl. “On the news streams, I’ve seen humans get angry and say bad things about the Korvenites each year during Earth Memorial week. Do you do the same thing?”

“Not at all,” Habraum shook his head. “I’d rather remember Earth’s wonders, not its tragedies.”

“Don’t you hate the Korvenites for what they did?” asked a human boy, a frown on his pudgy face.

“Of course not,” Habraum said quietly. “It’s exhausting. My father hated the Korvenites for years.”

Habraum leaned forward and looked each student in the eye. “I blame those individuals responsible for Earth’s demise. Do any of you think it was right to imprison an entire race for the crimes of a few?”

There were several headshakes and murmurs of, “No.” Only a few, mainly the humans, nodded.

An electronic klaxon signaled the end of the school day, jolting many to their feet in a discordant shuffle of shoes. “That’s all for the day, class. Say, ‘thank you’ to Mr. Nwosu for visiting us.” The classroom rippled with an enthusiastic, “Thank you!” as they began to scamper out the door. Some came up to Habraum and shook his massive hands with as much adult-like gravity as they could muster. “Don’t forget the writing assignments about an ethnicity from Earth, due tomorrow,” Jennica called after them.

She turned to face Habraum after the last student left. “You were amazing!” Jennica squeaked in joy as she bounded up and wrapped her arms around his waist. “That went better than I could have hoped.”

“Hey, I had fun,” he shrugged, stroking her hair. “Got me thinking about having our own sprouts.”

Jennica snapped her head up from Habraum’s broad chest and looked at him dubiously. “You’re serious? This coming from the same man who said ‘No kids, no crying, no thank you?’”

“Yes, but that was then,” Habraum laughed, cupping Jennica’s face in his hands. “I want to start planning for
our
future.” As he gazed at her, Habraum saw the shock on her face, felt her trembling.

Jennica composed herself with a smile and clasped her hands around his own. “I like this new you, Mr. Nwosu. He better stay around awhile. Especially while I have some classwork to do,” she pulled away and moved to her desk. “This should take about half an orv, and then we can get out of here.”

“Of course, Jen.” Habraum walked toward the classroom viewport left of Jennica’s desk. “Take your time.” She sat at her desk and settled into her work, but with this broad smile on her face that Habraum had never seen before. Smirking to himself, he folded his arms and turned to the semi-dusty viewport, watching the swarming traffic of children below exiting the school building. He wondered then what kind of father would he be? And what future beyond being a fighter pilot could he build for his offspring?