“Ready?” he asked. Lylia nodded and wrapped her arms tightly around his waist. Though it pained him to do so, because having her there felt so impossibly wonderful, Neutrino readjusted her hands to behind his shoulder blades to ensure they would not interfere with the thrusters.
Lylia nodded at him. Neutrino wanted to say something; anything that might make her feel better, but nothing came to mind. The door shattering under the immense strength of a ylmax halted any thought of conversation. Neutrino reached over to push a button on the nearby monitor that initiated the Slipstream absorption process.
“Here we go,” he said as the Stream came down around them. Moments later they rocketed into the atmosphere just as the ylmax charged.
14. A Perfect Moment
Everything became instantly silent except for the sound of their breathing through the communication connection in their harness.
Neutrino felt Lylia tremble against him. He wanted to tell Lylia something to reassure her, but what could he say? Don’t worry, I promise I’ll try not to get us both killed even though nothing in my personal experience suggests I’ll be successful? He was so terrible at this.
A large break opened in the Slipstream and they went barreling into freespace. Neutrino heard Lylia give a sharp squeak and her breathing intensified.
“Nothing to worry about,” he tried to soothe her, “We knew there would be breaks; this is just the first one.” Apparently that wasn’t the right thing to say because she squeaked again and nearly started hyperventilating.
“I’m gonna be sick,” she whispered.
“Oh, no, you definitely don’t want to do that. Mr. Personal Experience here, remember? You vomit in that air shield and you’ll be miserable the entire rest of this trip. Not to mention it will take weeks to get the smell out of your hair.” He tried to make her laugh, but he couldn’t tell if it was working. It seemed like maybe her breathing had slowed slightly. So, not knowing what else to do and being his habit when nervous, Neutrino began babbling as he steered them back towards the Slipstream.
“I think that was my single worst experience with the Slipstream. Well, you know, up until yesterday anyway. It was only my second time streaming, and, let me tell you, it was awful. I mean, we all take those anti-nausea meds and for most people, that’s it, it works and they’re fine. But not me. Nope. If there’s a way to screw up I’ll find it. Man, the crew of the rescue ship acted like Celebration Season had come early. They laughed at me for weeks; they even left fake vomit in my room, under my pillow, on my lunch tray. The worst kind was the one with real fake puke smell.” Neutrino trailed off as they neared the trail end of the Slipstream. “Take a deep breath and hold on, reentry is tough.”
“I can’t do this,” Lylia gasped as she gripped the back of his shoulders tighter.
“Sure you can,” he said, “If I can do it, you can do it. You’re way tougher than me.”
“No, I’m not,” she whimpered. Neutrino backed off from the Slipstream slightly and settled into a holding pattern. Lylia was shaking so badly, he was afraid she was on the verge of a panic attack.
“Lylia, look at me,” he said. Neutrino brought his hands up to cup Lylia’s shoulders in order to force her face away from his neck long enough to look in her eyes. “Look at me.” He continued when he had her attention, “Every day I do this. Every day I travel the Slipstream. And I am terrified every moment of every trip.”
“That’s not helping,” Lylia gritted out between clenched teeth.
“Just, wait. I have a point to make here, I promise,” Neutrino paused to plan out his next few words. “My point is that, I don’t know you. I don’t know who you are. But I know that you calmly programmed this trip with giant, horrifying monsters beating down the door. And I know that you were willing to face said monsters alone in order to complete your mission. I know that when you stood before the council and everyone in your colony, there was no hesitation, no doubt. You stood tall and proud. You are strong. I’m certain of it. If I can do this, you can do this.” He watched her to see if there was any acknowledgement in her face. Her eyes were filled with tears that would not fall in this absence of gravity. Finally she nodded just a bit.
“Okay,” she whispered.
“Just hold on to me, and close your eyes if that helps. Like I said, reentry will be difficult but it will be over quickly.”
“Okay,” she said again, a little more strongly. They reentered the Slipstream, and it was just as jarring as always, but Neutrino kept them on track. A beacon pinged up ahead and registered his route, then relayed back to him the proceeding course information.
“Well, I guess you were right,” Neutrino said, “The beacons are working again and it looks like the next segment is more or less intact.” Lylia didn’t respond. “Aren’t you going to say ‘I told you so’?”
She snorted, “I don’t see the need to state the obvious.” Another silence followed, but since Lylia seemed a bit more relaxed than she had been before, Neutrino didn’t feel the need to fill the space with small talk. He had embarrassed himself enough for one day.
But Lylia apparently had other ideas, because after a while, and after traversing two more small breaks in the Slipstream, she asked, “What happened your first time?”
“My…my first time?” Neutrino asked. He was so startled about the question he nearly fell into freespace.
“Yeah, you said you threw up your second time streaming. What happened the first time you streamed?” Neutrino breathed a sigh of relief. For a moment he thought she was referring to a different first time.
“Uh, well, my first time I didn’t even break atmosphere. It was a very painful lesson.”
“Stars, I didn’t even think that was possible!”
“Oh yeah, it’s totally possible. But very few Messengers have ever managed it, only the most elite,” he joked. Lylia chuckled quietly.
Neutrino pinged the next beacon and the incoming data was not great. “Lylia, hang on. We’ve got a big break coming up.”
“How big?”
“Big.” He didn’t want to tell her that it was so large he wasn’t even sure if he would be able to see the other end in freespace. Fortunately, his display would maintain the course information, but this could be a long trip by thruster. They fell into freespace and Neutrino felt Lylia lift her head to look where they were going.
“Where is it?” she asked, “Where’s the Slipstream?”
“Dead ahead,” he replied. Neutrino could just barely glimpse the twinkly orange in the midnight sky. There were no planets, no moons, no nebulas, no anything anywhere around them. It was just dark and quiet.
“How long will it take us to cross?” she asked.
“I’m not sure, but don’t worry. We’ll get there, these thrusters are inexhaustible. We just have to be patient.” Neither spoke. They just listened to each other’s breathing for several minutes.
“Talk to me,” Lylia implored. “Please just say something. I can’t stand this nothingness out here.”
“Um, okay. What should I talk about?”
“I don’t know, anything,” she grumbled. “Like, why in all the Universe did you decide to become a Messenger? It’s been bothering me since we met. If you’re so bad at it and you hate it, why keep trying to become one?”
“I’ve been asking myself that question a lot lately. I don’t really know anymore.”
“Then why do it? Why not quit?”
“And then what?” Neutrino sighed. “See, that’s the problem. Some people seem to always know what they want to be when they grow up. They have a plan and know exactly how to get there. Or maybe they even have two or three choices to pick from. Things they are interested in, hobbies that they turn into careers. I never had any. There was never anything I wanted to be. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say, I was equally interested in everything, and had too many choices, that one never stood out more than another. My mother always talked about how important the Slipstream Messengers were. So
I guess I made that my goal. Seemed as good as anything else. But it was never something I actually wanted to do.”
“What do you want to do?”
Neutrino thought about it for a minute. They were nearing the other end of the break. “I want to be useful,” he said quietly, “I want to be good at something.”
They didn’t talk much after that, and before long they were approaching Venthall. It was the longest trip Neutrino had ever done, made even longer by the several breaks he’d had to navigate. But when he felt the familiar tug of a nearing planet and the ping of the landing beacon lit up his display, it seemed like the easiest he’d ever completed. Neutrino slowed his pace and gently brought them into a semi-perfect landing on the Venthall landing pad. He was aware of the many shocked faces looking up at them as they deactivated their air shields and unhooked their harness. He noticed one in particular that was especially pale.
“I bet you didn’t expect to see me again, did you?” he smiled down at the stunned and silent face of Commander Trask.
It was a perfect moment.
15. Hiccups
Neutrino had never before been in the conference room of the Central Stream Port. For the second time in less than twenty-four hours he sat waiting at the far end of the large oval table for Renix, the director of base operations, to speak to him. It was less elegant than he had imagined. The large glowing blue projection screen on the wall gave it a very sleepy feel and, as it was still before dawn, the windows to his right revealed little of the outside. Feeling bruised and exhausted, especially since being woken up after only a few hours of rest, Neutrino considered putting his head down on the table and taking a nap. He thought his part was over; he had already been debriefed and he had turned over the small computer tile Naruk had given him just before he entered the Dark Stair. Renix had assured him that a supply ship would be sent to Arnasi as soon as possible. Everyone was satisfied, so why was Neutrino there now?
“I’m sorry to keep you waiting, Neutrino. It’s been quite a couple of days, as you well know,” Renix said, walking quickly into the room and sitting down at the other end of the table.
“Yes, sir,” Neutrino said as he sat up a little straighter. His commander and an assistant to the director followed Renix in and also sat down on the other side of the table, the effect of which made Neutrino feel little and slightly disadvantaged.
“I’ll get straight to the point,” Renix cleared his throat. “We have met with the Senate and devised a plan to deal with the current situation,” Renix paused and ran a hand through his short graying hair.
Is he figuring out what to say next? Or is he waiting for me to say something? Renix shuffled some papers that he had brought in with him. He looked even more exhausted than Neutrino felt; how long had it been since he had slept?
“That’s great…” Neutrino said when his silence became irritating, “What does it have to do with me?”
“I should think that was obvious. You’re a Messenger, the only capable one we’ve got. We need you to travel to Nikos Speeckian and take…”
“Ha!” Neutrino blurted out unexpectedly. He hadn’t meant to laugh, if you could call it that, it was really more of an uncontrolled utterance, but it was just so ridiculous what Renix was asking him.
“Sorry. Hiccups,” he lied rather unconvincingly. “Please continue, sir.”
“As I was saying,” Renix still looked somewhat irritated, “You’ll need to go to Nikos Speeckian and deliver an info-tile to Dr. Darwyth.”
“Excuse me, sir,” Neutrino’s heart was racing so fast he thought he just might pass out, “Why me? There are many, many, many other Slipstream Messengers that are far more accomplished than I am. Actual Messengers, not just failed cadets.” Renix and Commander Trask exchanged uncomfortable looks.
“Well, Neutrino,” the commander said, “The fact is, no one else, well, of those that came back anyway, has been able to make it through the Stream since it was blasted. You’re it, the only one.”
It took Neutrino a while to make sense of what the commander had just said. There has to be some mistake.
“I can’t be the only one,” the others stared at him blankly, “Star Hopper? Nebula? Comet’s Tail?”
“Everyone on Venthall has tried and failed, including Nebula,” Commander Trask said.
Impossible. Nebula was the current superstar of the Messengers. How could she have failed?
“And Star Hopper, Asteroid and Eclipse? Anyone from my class? What about Bolide even?” Neutrino asked, but he thought he already knew the answer. Bolide was right in front of him on the trip back. He would have taken the full force of the blast.
“Star Hopper tried and failed. Along with Eclipse, Moonbeam, and Pulsar. The others haven’t returned and are presumed lost. Of the other forty-three Messengers currently in service, two are out on medical leave, twenty-eight were on assignment when this happened and have not returned. The remaining thirteen, including Nebula, all tried and failed.” Renix said, “So you see, you are the only one.”
“I seem to be hearing that a lot lately,” Neutrino mumbled.
“What was that?”
“Nothing. Look, I don’t want to be unpatriotic or anything but, I’m not going to stream anymore. I’m quitting. I’m sorry; you’ll just have to find someone else.”
“Two days ago I’d have been thrilled to hear you say that, you’ve been a sorry excuse for a Messenger for the last two years. But there is no one else,” Commander Trask began to raise his voice like he so often did, “Don’t you get that?”
“Yeah I get that, I just don’t care. I’m not doing it. Why don’t you do it?” The more the commander yelled the more Neutrino felt like yelling back at him. Usually he just cowered. The commander stood up angrily and paused, panting heavily for a moment.
“Because I already tried and failed too. You are it. You are the only one. Apparently, all of your time flying around in freespace as you failed miserably has prepared you to travel in a broken Slipstream better than anyone else. All of those times you fell out and had to maneuver back in… you have more experience than anyone here with falling. And you could complete this mission, but you just won’t. Don’t you ever get tired of being such a coward?”
“No,” he replied obstinately standing up and knocking back his chair in the process, “I like it. I like being a wimp and a nobody and a loser. That’s what I am, right? You haven’t let me forget that since my first horrible week here. Well, I’d rather be a wimp and alive than brave and dead!”
Commander Trask walked right up to him so that they were nose to nose, (well, really nose to forehead as he was a good fifteen centimeters taller than Neutrino). Neutrino could smell his coffee breath but he didn’t back down.
“You are the most pathetic cadet I’ve ever had. The worst thing about you is that you could be a great Messenger if you just…” Commander Trask paused and shook his head. “You made that impossible jump into the Slipstream, you’re the only one making it through right now, and still, no confidence. To think of where you come from, who your parents are. You should have been outstanding. What a waste! You make me sick!”
“Yeah, well me too.” Neutrino wasn’t sure what he really meant to say, but he couldn’t think of anything brilliant. He was pretty sure he had just insulted himself but he didn’t care. He was too angry to even pick up on the commander’s comment about his parents.
“Commander, ease off please,” Renix interjected, much more calmly than his colleague. The commander looked like he wanted to spit in Neutrino’s face, but he just turned around and walked back over to his side of the table. He sat in his chair and stared at the floor, arms folded.
“Neutrino, don’t you understand the situation here? Did it not occur to you that Arnasi and the Slipstream have not been the only things attacked?” Neutrino hadn’t really thought about it. He was beginning to realize that there were a great many things he never thought about.
“There are other worlds?”
<
br /> “At least two that we know of, thanks to the information Council Leader Naruk was able to gather from her sector.” Renix sighed, obviously disturbed by it all. Neutrino tried to imagine what creature could be so awful, so powerful that it could suck the life off three planets.
“What’s doing this?” he asked.
“I’m not at liberty to discuss it.”
“Why not?”
“It’s classified,” Renix shrugged.
“You expect me to go back out there again and you won’t even tell me exactly what’s going on?”
“What difference does it make?” the commander demanded, “You’re a Slipstream Messenger. Destination: that’s all you need to know.”
“Maybe that’s just not good enough anymore.” Commander Trask inhaled and was clearly about to begin railing into Neutrino again, but Renix raised a hand to silence him.
“I can’t tell you about it, Neutrino. But I can tell you that it is almost definitely headed here. In all likelihood, it will probably do to Venthall what it did to Arnasi. You saw the devastation there first hand, you know what will happen. Can you really still refuse?”
Neutrino had no reply for the director. He walked over to one of the three large windows. Dawn had come, and the world was beginning to wake up. He thought he could see his mother’s apartment building, its crimson color enlivened by the morning sun.
“I couldn’t hardly believe it when the Council leader from Arnasi said she had to force you to come back, especially after what you did to survive when you were stranded,” Renix continued, “I never thought a Slipstream Messenger would so easily give up. I’m not often proved wrong.”
Neutrino sighed and put his forehead against the curved glass. He could feel the warmth of the morning transfer through the window onto his skin. It was soothing and real, not like the conversation happening inside the room. He closed his eyes to think.
Could this really be true? Am I the only one? It was impossible to fathom the great change of circumstance that had occurred.
Slipstream Messenger (Neutrino Book 1) Page 9
