“Wakey wakey Eiry!’ I shouted across the bus, successfully drawing the attention away from Mouse.
She shot me a look, went to say something snarky then stopped, “What do you want?”
“Where are we?”
She shrugged and turned around, “How shoul-”
“There’s a lot of that going around. Just do that thing you do.”
“I’m not a bloody GPS!” she snapped before looking out the window and sighing, “We’re three minutes from the Space Elevator.”
Eira was particularly talented like that. I’d never seen anyone like it, she could look at a map of anywhere and, just like that, build up a 3D model of it in her head. According to the doctors it had something to do with her dyslexia. It was incredible.
Tyr tossed the completed braid over my shoulder, “There you go. I’m gonna go get my eye fixed now, if that’s alright with you.” he said condescendingly.
I didn’t mind it though, my hair was ready, and my headache had started to fade, “Sounds good, I’ll get the rest ready.”
He laughed as he dropped down into his original seat, “Come on Frey, we’re not still doing this, are we?”
I got to my feet and smiled at him, “Why not? It’s a tradition after all, and what are we if not traditionalists?”
I ignored his derisive scoff and started walking down the middle of the bus, “Everyone on your feet! We’re ninety seconds out and I ain’t losing out on my opportunity for you lazy shits!”
A few people grumbled and groaned, but all eventually got to their feet, except for Mouse, who we’d all agreed would be better off hanging back. She handed me my boot and I nodded in thanks before clumsily pulling it on.
Once I’d regained my footing on the constantly moving bus I helped Eira climb over Mouse and pointed to the middle door, “You and Tyr take that one, it’s closer to the Elevator’s exit, I’ll take the front.”
She nodded excitedly, “I honestly don’t care if we get out. I’m just looking forward to a great fight.”
The bus got bathed in darkness for a second as we drove through the Space Elevator’s entrance tunnel, “Yeah, but let’s try our best anyway.” I said with a laugh.
Tyr had gotten his eye reinserted and the medical staff were cramming up in the furthest corner of the bus as possible. Fellow students pushed past me and I them as I made my way to the front of the first door’s pack of teens. Friends, neighbours, gang-members and straight-A students, they were all there and were all brimming with excitement.
“You guys ready?” I asked the crowd as we bunched up near the bus exits.
I got a few scattered nods, and one cheer that died out as soon as no one else joined in. Maybe it was the alcohol, but as the bus ground to a stop and the riot-gear wearing guards made a semicircle around the outside of each of the doors I felt nothing but excitement.
“One at a time, let’s keep it nice and orderly and no one gets hurt.” the leader said in a familiar but garbled voice through his helmet’s mic and through our speakers.
In response we all roared as loud as we could. Barbaric, sure, but it did exactly what we wanted to and made most of the guards practically crap themselves.
Not the leader though, who sighed loudly through the speakers, “Alright then. You all know the rule, you break through our lines and you’re free to go. Open the doors and let’s let ‘em have it.”
We weren’t going down easy, we’d got warnings from previous cadets and knew what to expect. Break through the lines, dodge the beanbags, and then it was a clear shot to freedom.
It wasn’t. It really wasn’t.
Leaving Home
The second the doors opened we came out swinging and the semicircle dispersed, a guard in yellow armour with a firehose popping up from where he’d been hiding behind the rest and aimed the nozzle directly at the door. It was all very fast, but when it hit us, it hit us hard.
After a few seconds of slipping and sliding around as we got blasted with water that felt like it was tearing our skin off, the hose stopped and the guards came to stand over us and laugh.
I wasn’t taking it though, I shot up, as best as I could, and found the one in the yellow armour who was in the process of taking off his helmet, revealing his thickly braided dirty blonde hair that wrapped around his shoulder, “What in the bloody Hells-! Dad?” I said as he turned around slowly to face me.
I feel I should clarify something, I call Tyr and Eira’s dad ‘dad’, so does Mouse. I call my biological father Dick, and not because his name’s Richard, least I would’ve if I’d seen him in those years since he fled.
“Heya kiddo.”
“Father?” I heard Tyr and Eira say in unison as they pushed past me and went to hug him.
“What are you doing here?” Tyr asked, “Officials don’t usually bother with Call ‘victims’.”
Dad shrugged, “Well, usually my kids aren’t involved. I managed to convince the others upstairs that you all were an insurance liability without me here to see you off. Besides, how else was I supposed to see you guys before you left?” dad said with a laugh.
I smiled and hugged him while the rest of our ‘bus-buddies’ got escorted away to the line for the Space Elevator, “Maybe without a hose?”
He laughed again, “Yeah, what did you think? That was my ide- That’s right! Hey, Mouse, sweetie? Hose is done!”
“T-t-thanks dad.” Mouse said nervously as she got off the bus, almost slipping on the four-inch step to the ground.
“You knew?” Eira asked offended.
“Course she did,” dad said, drawing the attention away from the ashamed Mouse, “let her in on it myself. Can you imagine what that hose would’ve done to her, ‘specially in a crowd?”
He had a point, even I’d bruised my tailbone a bit in the fall.
“Still not fair though,” Tyr grumbled, “could’ve let us know too.”
“Yeah, well, I had a feeling you’d have thought of a way around it if I’d given you the heads up, and I doubt it would’ve been staying on the bus like Mouse.”
“So you want us to go get shot at then?” I asked with a little bit of contempt.
“Course I didn’t,” he said in a hurt voice, “but couldn’t let you get away either. You’d be labelled as cowards, tricky cowards, yes, but cowards nonetheless. You’ve got the family name to look out for Freyja, remember that.”
“Yes sir.” I said with a nod.
Calling him sir wasn’t anything but a sign of respect from us, and it was the sort of thing that only really happened when we were talking about honour or the family. I will admit that we’d all said it at one point or another to spite or hurt him, mostly when he gave us an ‘unfair’ punishment, or told us we couldn’t go somewhere.
It was only when I’d turned sixteen the year before The Call that I stopped doing that and started seeing that everything my dad did or said was to look out for me. That, and I realised that as far as some dads went, mine was pretty great.
“So what do you think?” he said as he started guiding us toward the admissions area, which was essentially twenty long lines of teenagers waiting to be sent to their deaths.
Believe me when I say my morbidity was more than reasonable, I’d already lost over a dozen friends from older age brackets.
Other than that, though, the Space Elevator and the surrounding building was pretty cool. It was like a bus depot mixed with a Starport mixed with an abattoir, except shiny and blue.
“Yeah, it’s not bad. Be better if I was leaving it, but it’s nice.”
My dad sighed and shook his head, “They’re going to have a fun time with you Frey.”
I nodded and looked up at him, “Keep ‘em on their toes.”
“Yeah, well, I think you’ll find that won’t work as well here. They’re gonna try their hardest to beat that spirit out of you, it’s your job to make sure they don’t succeed.”
I chuckled as we came to a stop at the back of one of the lines, the others fa
lling in behind me as they usually did, “You said the exact same thing when I started going to school.”
He laughed a little and gave me a big hug, “Well I promise this’ll be easier. Most of their orders will at least make sense here.” he broke away and held me by the shoulders, barely fighting the tears that were building up. “You’re going to go fight. You’re going to kick some Commonwealth arse, and then you’re going to come home. That understood?”
“Understood sir.” I said as strongly as I could before wrapping my arms around him and locking on tight, “You keep mum safe, make sure she doesn’t cry too much.”
“Heh, I think you’re getting us mixed up there.” he said after failing to sniff away his tears. “Get over here, all of you.” he ordered.
The others had already grabbed on to us by the time he’d said ‘Get’, and dad and I had shuffled around so we were hugging them back.
There a few moments in my life that I can say were truly perfect, and that was most definitely one of them.
We broke apart laughing and wiping away tears, moving down the line once we’d realised that it’d moved a great deal while we were hugging it out.
Eira broke the silence with a laugh, “You reckon they’ll keep us together?”
Dad nodded, “They tend to, we’re not like the Commonwealth, throwing people in together who’ve probably never even seen each other before. The Federation has always worked as a pack system, you know that.”
Eira still seemed concerned, “I know, it’s just… Katie Farlin got separated from her friends.”
Tyr laughed in complete disbelief of his sister’s concern, “That’s because Katie Farlin is an idiot. Everyone at school knows it.”
“She is not! She’s one of my best friends, and you dated her!”
“Yeah, until I found out she was an idiot.”
Eira took a swing at her brother, but he saw it coming and pulled her over his knee and let her fall to the ground. She went to attack again, but then dad grabbed her by the arm and slapped Tyr up the back of his head.
“Say sorry, both of you. You’re acting like children.”
Both of them grumbled for a second, but ended up giving out a weak “Sorry.”
Dad let go of Eira’s arm and let her stay on the ground, “Good. Now Tyr, you know the rules.”
In an act of complete teenager-ness, Tyr threw his head back and groaned before reaching down to his sister and pulling her to his feet, “Are you alright?” he asked disingenuously.
Eira nodded, “Yeah, you?”
Tyr sighed and looked away, “Yeah. Thanks.”
“There we go, don’t we all feel better?” dad said with a triumphant smile.
“Yeah.” the twins groaned back.
See, my dad had this theory, right, that if whoever knocked the other person to the ground then helped them up and asked if they were okay, and the other asked the same, everything would settle down and both parties would leave feeling significantly better than if nothing had been said. It was actually a pretty sound theory, and I haven’t once to this day seen it go wrong.
It was finally my turn to sign away my life to the nice young woman with rich red lipstick, a gorgeous smile, and rosy cheeks, which was all very out of place considering she was wearing the standard Federation blue and grey fatigues. If it’d been any other day I’d probably have asked her out, and not just because I like a girl in uniform, but I really wasn’t in the mood.
“Good morning!” the woman said cheerfully, “Name?”
I smiled weakly, “Freyja Nokri.”
She looked at her computer and typed something in, “Perfect! Got you right here. Would you mind pulling down your shirt?”
I gave her a shocked look and then shared it with my dad, who was standing right behind me and jutted his chin, indicating that I should do as I was told, so I did.
“And juuust lean in…” she said while staring at my cleavage.
I took a few uncomfortable breaths and leaned forward, and before I could stop her she’d pulled out a gun, pressed it just below my collar bone and pulled the trigger.
“Hells!” I barked, clutching at my shoulder, “Why did you do that!”
She smiled cheekily, “I like to surprise people sometimes, only the ones who haven’t seen it yet. Make sure you don’t scratch it, Pledge Nokri.” she said as if it was a compliment.
I looked down at the stinging spot, which was quickly becoming less intense, and saw the black wolf’s head symbol of the Nordic parts of the Federation, a small collection of letters and numbers being spared by the ink in the middle of the symbol. It took some contorting of my head, but I could eventually read what it said, ‘FN-00617D’.
“I’m sorry, but could I ask you to move along? I’ve got a lot of people to go yet.” the woman said in her sweet voice, which was no longer cute, and instead a great annoyance.
“I hope you’re proud, you just tattooed your way out of a really nice dinner.” I said as I walked off.
“I’m sure I’ll live, name?” she asked Eira as she stepped forward.
I made some angry faces and went to say something a few times, and then decided to turn to my father, “Did you know they were going to do that?”
He shook his head, “No, that’s a new one for me. They usually bring in some new way of keeping track of soldiers every couple of years, mine was a small metal device that they conveniently forgot to mention to the doctors when we went for medical. We made that MRI so bloody that they had to get a new one.”
“Ha, well, I was hoping to not get any scars or marks on me until after I deployed, not before.”
Dad clapped me on the back, “Don’t worry, these guys will make sure you get your chance. Now you want me to tell anything to your mother before I leave you?”
“‘She slipped right by me, wasn’t anything I could do’?” I said only slightly wishing that he’d think I was being serious and let me.
“I’ll just tell her you’re gonna miss her.” he said with a smile.
“Yeah, that’s probably for the best.”
He gave me another hug, shorter than the first, and then pointed toward where all the other soldiers were going, “Just follow them, they’re all heading to the Elevator. Then wait on the right side of the door, don’t get on until your brother and sisters get there. I want you to stick together through this.”
“Yes sir... I’m gonna miss you dad.”
“I know, I’m gonna miss you too. Now go on! You’ve got a war to win.”
We saluted each other, and then I walked off, disappearing into the horde of teenagers that were shuffling toward the Elevator, the smell alone made my head spin. But even though I hated it, even though I wished I was staying at home and got to do anything else but leave, I was ready.
I was ready to go to war.
Haircut
I kicked the spotless ground as I leaned against the bus-sized doorway, and was annoyed when no dirt puffed up to greet me. I had a sick feeling that that was what life was going to be like for the coming months, clean. This wouldn’t have been a problem if I didn’t love playing in the dirt so much.
I loved running out into the Outskirt Forest with my siblings and hunting whatever we could find on that day, I loved wrestling with my friends on the field after playing some Federation Handball, which was basically a mix of gridiron and European handball, except without all those boring safety restrictions.
I was about to nod off after twenty minutes of waiting and the killer headache had started to return, when I saw the others walking over, “Hey! What took you so long?”
Mouse looked at the ground and made an embarrassed little sound, “I passed out.”
My expression immediately drooped into a caring one, “Oh sweetie, are you alright?” I asked as I walked over and wrapped an arm around her, leading her toward the Elevator’s doors.
She nodded, “Yeah, Tyr caught me.”
“That’s what big brothers are for, isn’t it?” Tyr sai
d proudly.
The Elevator had just returned a few seconds before my family showed up, but it had already almost reached maximum occupancy. I’ve never seen so many people so eager to go into space before, most at the Starport were just tired and looking at the clocks. These kids though, these future soldiers, they all looked about ready to jump out of their skin.
At first I didn’t get it, at all, but then I got into the Elevator and got reminded of one of the coolest things about it.
It was completely transparent.
We would get to see everything as we went up. Watching the sun rise over the clouds was one thing, but seeing it over the curvature of Kaltjarna as well? It was like something out of a dream, and it was something that only military personnel and those going to war got to see it, the rest had to use the Starport.
In that moment I felt like the luckiest person alive.
But, as with all things, that moment was fleeting. See, for some utterly terrible reason that had something to do with the UV shield not being at 100% and our eyes having the potential to be burned from our skulls, they closed the blast shields on us.
It sucked arse.
I wasn’t an idiot, I understood why it had to be that way, didn’t make it feel any better though. I was going to war, not on a holiday, and I’d accepted that the moment I’d been hit with the hose.
“Aw…” Eira whined, “That sucks. I was really looking forward to this.”
“Yeah… Well, welcome to the army.” I said disappointedly as the doors slid closed behind us. That was it for me. That was when it became abundantly clear that we weren’t going home for a very long time.
“Any of you guys know where we’re supposed to go when we’re aboard the station?” I asked in an attempt to stave off crippling depression.
“I think someone’ll meet us when we’re up there,” a manly voice called from the other side of the teenage horde, “don’t want us wandering about up there on our own. Wouldn’t be surprised if they had an escort for us.”
“Thanks!” I shouted back, “Freyja Nokri, by the way.”
Guardians (Æthyrium Rising - Guardians Book 1) Page 3
