by Drew Seren
“I am sorry,” Filzbalm said loud enough that it made Skylar’s eyes hurt, but he understood he was probably trying to project enough for Solaria to hear him. “I didn’t know what was happening. Something pushed me off your shoulder and I just tried to stay on.”
She looked at him as she pressed the towel over her wounds. “No worries.”
Up and down the hall doors opened and students peered out.
Solaria sighed, then returned the looks. “Nothing to see here!” she roared loudly enough that most everyone ducked back into their rooms.
Ms. Grissom came dashing down the hallway. “What’s going on?” In addition to being the school counselor, she was also the monitor for Solaria’s hallway.
“We didn’t know Filzbalm would set off the biometric shield.” Solaria pulled the towel away and frowned. “Nothing major.”
Ms. Grissom, a human woman with gray hair and piercing blue eyes, stared at all of them. As usual, she was dressed more like a back-world artist than a school counselor. “And why were you trying to get into her room?” She focused her question on Filzbalm.
Since she was a lower-level reader, Filzbalm addressed her with the same volume he had Solaria. Skylar tried to brace himself, but it didn’t help. The mental voice still hurt. “We’re trying to make sure the warm ring Del and Melody made for me works, and Solaria’s room is cold enough it should trigger it.” He held out his foreleg so the ring was easily seen. “We’re trying to get ready for break since Skylar and I are going to Pantheria.”
Ms. Grissom nodded and pushed her glasses up on her nose. “I hadn’t thought of that when I approved you going off station.” She turned her attention to Del as Melody stepped out of Solaria’s room. “I will need to see the schematics on this device before I can approve it for use here on the station.”
Del held out his tablet to her. He didn’t say anything and his gray skin had a dark tinge to it, something that made Skylar wonder if he was embarrassed to be facing Ms. Grissom. He had no idea if Del had ever been in trouble at school before they borrowed the school shuttle.
“I can email them to you if you like, so you can review them at your leisure,” Melody said. “It’s totally safe. We incorporated some of Dad’s micro-tech into it so it would be small enough for Filzbalm.”
With a curt nod, Ms. Grissom handed the tablet back to Del. “With a quick scan, it appears safe enough. Ms. Porsche, I’d appreciate that email. I’ll forward it to Professor H’lld’l and have him look over it. We should have it cleared by morning.”
Skylar’s heart sank. If they weren’t going to be able to test it until morning, they might not be able to get another one made before they had to leave. Or even if they used the spot Del had reserved at the MTU, they might not have time to test and fix a second one. Then he and Filzbalm would be limited in what they could do on Pantheria.
Ms. Grissom glanced at all of them. “Filzbalm, take off the ring for now. You can test it tomorrow.” A thoughtful line crossed her brow as she held out her hand for the ring. “We can probably get permission for you to try it out in the kitchen’s freezer. I’ll come find you when we’re ready to proceed.”
Filzbalm flew over to her shoulder, then stretched down her arm to give her the ring. “Here.” He sounded a little sad as he dropped the platinum trinket in her open palm, then returned to Skylar.
“I’ll find all of you in the morning.” Ms. Grissom turned and strolled down the hall, back toward her personal room at the end near the main open space.
Silence fell in the hall again until the sound of her door sliding closed reached them, then everyone relaxed.
“Okay, I guess I should’ve thought of the ring being unapproved tech,” Del muttered. “But it’s not anything major. It’s not going to hurt anyone…well, other than Filzbalm if it malfunctions.”
Solaria waved away his concern. “I’ll bet Professor Bug wants to talk to both of you as soon as he looks at it. We’ll have the ring before lunch and be back on schedule.” She pulled the towel away from her shoulder again and grinned. “I’ve even stopped bleeding. Being a predator who heals easily is awesome.”
“Is that why Ms. Grissom didn’t seem worried about your scratches?” Skylar asked. There was still a lot he didn’t know about his friends, and none of it seemed really important until something like the scrapes came up, and he had to figure out what was going on. Back on Hummassa, any teacher would’ve had a bigger fit about the scratches than the ring.
“Right. Most Pantherians heal very quickly. We only really worry about wounds that get to the bone.” Solaria balled up the towel. “Don’t worry about it.”
Skylar had never been around anyone who could heal as quickly as he’d just seen her do. He healed fast, but not that fast. It was cool, and a little scary. It made him wonder what other tricks Pantherians had that he didn’t know about.
4
Final Preparations
GATHERING THINGS together for the break, Skylar crammed clothes into a duffle bag on his bed. After getting final approval on Filzbalm’s ring, he felt a lot better about the trip to Pantheria. He and Del had ended up using Del’s scheduled time with the MTU to get Skylar appropriate clothes for the climate. When they were done, they’d all but depleted Skylar’s MTU credits. Skylar suddenly found himself wanting to spend another couple of days in the farm area before they went so he wouldn’t come back and be unable to replicate anything he needed. Sometimes he really wished he was a corp-brat so his family would provide him with a nearly endless flow of money for the things he wanted.
As Skylar got the last of his stuff shoved into the bag, Del’s dermal com beeped. Del stared at his wrist for a moment.
“Well, aren’t you going to answer it?” Skylar couldn’t remember the last time Del’s com had beeped. Like Skylar, he didn’t have a lot of friends, either on station or off, and most of Del’s family tended to send communications through his grandfather.
“Yeah,” Del grumbled as he tapped his wrist to answer the call. Even though the ring worked the way it was supposed to, and Del and Melody had received a lot of praise from Professor H’lld’l, Del had continued to be grouchy.
Skylar turned away from Del so he wouldn’t look like he was trying to listen in on his conversation. He was nearly packed, but they still had half a day before Phil was scheduled to arrive. Classes had already let out so the students could finish their plans for departure. Skylar wasn’t sure what he was going to do with the time, and was thinking about heading up to the park when Del whooped.
He turned and, for the first time in weeks, Del wore a grin.
“Good news?”
Del nodded. “The best. That was the head curator of the Museum of Time and Space on Nesbit.”
Skylar was never going to forget Nesbit or the Museum. It was on the trip back from the museum that Solaria had taken Filzbalm’s egg away from Pathal, the corp-brat who’d gotten it from someone there. Nesbit had been the starting point of his life taking a major swing toward the positive.
“They want me to come and do a week-long internship,” Del continued. “He was very impressed with the ‘thank you’ note I sent him after our tour. Apparently, he asked Ms. Grissom about me and liked what he heard. He wants me to see what goes on behind the scenes there.” He flopped down on his bed, then immediately got up and started pacing. “This is great. I can’t believe this. Who knew a simple thank you could set something like this in motion? It’s the type of opportunity I’ve been wanting for a long time. If I do great there for this, maybe I can get longer internships when we have other breaks. Then when we graduate, I might already have a job. It would be so great to actually have something to look forward to as opposed to having to go and farm fish for the rest of my life.”
“This is awesome,” Skylar agreed. He knew how much Del wanted to get a job using his intelligence, since his feeler skills weren’t really strong enough to be in high demand on the job market. He was always worried about having to go back to T
ursipia and join the less-gifted members of his family doing aquaculture, although Skylar didn’t see anything wrong with that. Before his mother had died, he’d never planned on leaving Hummassa, and since he wasn’t artistic in any way, he’d just figured on finding something physical to do with his life.
“Yeah.” Del stopped pacing and looked at Skylar. “Hey. I need to say I’m sorry.”
Skylar shrugged. “For what?”
Del swallowed. “For being moody these past couple of weeks.”
“I barely noticed.” Skylar didn’t like pointing out flaws in his friends.
“Yes you did.” Filzbalm countered, and Skylar was thankful Del was just a low-lever feeler and not a reader. Filzbalm didn’t try to communicate with him, and couldn’t openly disagree with Skylar.
“But I’m not going to tell him that. That would make things worse.”
“Sure you did. But there’s been so much going on, you probably just pushed things under the rug as opposed to pointing it out.” Del sat on the side of Skylar’s bed. “Look. I’m a feeler—just because I’m not real strong doesn’t mean I don’t perceive things. I know we’re trained to be honest so that others don’t pick up on things, but sometimes it’s really hard to do that. I’ll be honest now. I was going to see if you wanted to come to Tursipia with me and Grandpa, but I needed to make sure it was okay with Grandpa first. We’ve been so busy since Armstrong’s Rings that I just never really had the chance. Then when Solaria got the message from Phil, it was like she’d beaten me to the punch and I didn’t like that. It felt like she was more important than I was.”
Not growing up in a psychic household, Skylar wasn’t used to such openness. It caught him by surprise. He’d known something was wrong with Del, but hadn’t been sure what it was until that moment. “Del, man, you’re just as important to me as Solaria. More so in a lot of ways. You’re my best friend. If I’d known you wanted me to go with you instead, I would’ve definitely gone. Plus, then we wouldn’t have to be worrying about Filzbalm and the temperatures. I bet we’d both love the climate on Tursipia.”
“Yeah, you probably would, being from a tropical planet. Next time?” There was a quiet plea in Del’s voice that Skylar couldn’t ignore. He hadn’t realized how much he meant to Del, and didn’t know how to express how much having Del around meant to him. Without Del, he probably wouldn’t have been on such good terms with Solaria and would still be a constant target for the corp-brats, who had dropped their hostilities to a marginal level. Between Del and Solaria being his friends he was more accepted, and Filzbalm being out in the open gave him an almost revered status with the non-corp-brats. But even Pathal Santos and his crew didn’t go out of their way to find and humiliate any of them anymore, which was a great weight off all their shoulders.
“Definitely next time. You know how much I want to see the universe—I can’t wait to see Tursipia. It’ll be a lot of fun.”
“I bet I can fly underwater,” Filzbalm piped in as he folded his wings tight against his back and wrapped his tail around his legs, a sure sign he was prepping for a nap.
Skylar relayed the comment to Del.
“There are several species who fly underwater,” Del said. “I have no doubt you’ll fit right in with them.”
Del stood from the bed with a jerk. “I’ve got to go talk to Grandpa. Let him know I’m heading to Nesbit in a couple of days. At least I’ve got enough credits to use the MTU to get proper clothes for an internship there. I’d hate to ruin this by looking like a wet-behind-the-fins bumpkin. See you at dinner?”
Skylar nodded. “Sure.”
“Thanks for not being mad ‘cause I got jealous.” Del grinned and stepped toward Skylar, then stepped back as a bit of uncertainty washed off him. “Okay. Later.” He turned and headed out the door.
“Why was he uncertain?” Filzbalm asked sleepily.
“I bet he’s not sure how I’d handle a hug,” Skylar replied as he tossed his duffle bag on the floor at the foot of the bed before stretching out and putting his hands behind his head.
“You’re both feelers. He should know that a hug wouldn’t upset you.”
“He should. But maybe he’s worried about us coming from different cultures.” He knew from observing the corp-brats that a lot of the humans at the school didn’t always act the way he’d been brought up to, but on Hummassa, everyone was very open and friendly. A lot of the corp-brats were closed off and stuck up, or at least that’s how they acted when not around others in their peer group. If Melody had taught them all anything, it was that not all corp-brats were brats, but most of them were.
“Hey, where’s Del?” Connor, Skylar’s human roommate, came bursting into the room. He was a corp-brat who only bordered on brat.
“He went out to see his grandfather and tell him that he’d gotten an internship at the Museum of Time and Space over break.” Skylar sat and looked at Connor. “Why? What’s up?”
“We’re not sure. There’s an armada flying past.”
“An armada?” Skylar jumped out of bed. “Who are they?”
“Nobody knows.” Connor turned back to the door. “They’re visible from the central shaft and some of the portals.”
“Come on, Filzbalm, we’ve got to go see this.” Skylar had seen some of the Boarisk ships that attacked Hummassa on the night his mother had been killed, and there’d been ships gathered around the docking ports at the Galaxeria when they’d visited the huge shopping space station, but all that was a lot different than an armada flying past the school.
He didn’t wait for Filzbalm to land, just followed Connor out the door and into the hall. It was so crowded they could’ve been getting ready for breakfast. Skylar didn’t bother heading to any of the rooms with windows—he knew Solaria and probably Del and Professor Aduncus would be in the central zone where there wasn’t any gravity. It was where Z-GBall was played and provided the best view of the stars, if what they were looking at was in the right part of the sky.
The elevator that would take them to the top of the dome had a major line, but Skylar didn’t know what else to do, so he stood there waiting for his turn.
“Hey, come on.” Solaria grabbed his hand and yanked him out of the line. “We’ve got a better option.”
Skylar did his best to be stable for Filzbalm. He didn’t want to end up with scratches like Solaria had received. “Where are we going?” He noticed Melody at her side.
“She’s not telling me yet either.” Melody didn’t sound mad—she sounded excited.
“Where’s Del?” Solaria looked around as if surprised to not find him with Skylar.
“Right here.” Del appeared beside Skylar, making him jump slightly. “Grandpa had to go into an emergency staff meeting.”
“Emergency?” Skylar frowned as they all followed Solaria as she headed away from the students in the elevator line. “Do they think the armada is here for us?” After having one home torn away by invaders, he didn’t want to think about it happening again so soon after he had started to get settled into the school.
“Nobody in the galaxy would dare attack Stars’ End,” Melody said as Solaria led them around the corner and down a short staircase Skylar didn’t remember ever having traversed before. “We’re one of the safest places around. I’m sure old Fussy Pants and Ms. Grissom have already sent warnings to the armada to keep cruising on by and not try anything. Even if they did, the conflict wouldn’t last long. Too many psychics to be easily defeated. They’re probably just passing by.”
Del shook his head. “Then why aren’t they using the stargates? We should just have flybys.”
“If they have ships that are too big to fit through the stargates, they’d have to travel directly. For all we know, they’ve been flying for hundreds of years.” Solaria opened a door and gestured for them to slip in.
Del was the last one through the door. “That might explain why Grandpa said it was an unknown armada.”
“That’s what Connor said when he came
to get us,” Skylar said. He’d never heard of an unknown armada before, but if Solaria was right and they were having to take the slow route to get somewhere because they couldn’t fit in through the stargates, that might explain things. He wasn’t sure why the ships hadn’t been picked up by a local patrol or something. If they weren’t traveling by stargate, they might’ve been so old they’d launched before there were stargates, or come from a society that hadn’t been included in the stargate system. Again, it wasn’t anything Skylar had heard of before. It sounded very antique.
Solaria started up another flight of stairs. “We’re almost there.”
“And how did you find out about this route?” Melody asked, keeping close to Solaria.
“I’m a predator. I like to know all routes in and out of places. When I first came to the academy, some of the other Pantherians took the time to show me all the small, seldom-used passages in case I might one day need them. There’s a ton of service tunnels and such around. That’s why we don’t see all the service bots as they travel from floor to floor.” Solaria stopped at another door. “Okay, it’s a bit of a climb from here.” She went through the door and lights came on, running up the wall in front of them. Along the same path as the lights was a series of metal rungs going up a long way.
Filzbalm took off and flew up ahead of them.
“Where does this go?” Del asked as they started up the ladder.
“You’ll see.” There was an excited edge to Solaria’s voice.
Skylar had heard that tone before. Normally it meant adventure, a game, or a fight. Somehow, in that moment, he figured it meant an adventure.
“Wow, there’s a great view up here.” Filzbalm was almost as excited as Solaria.
Skylar didn’t reply. He just kept on going, hoping he wouldn’t give out before he got to the top of the ladder. His arms were starting to ache from the climb, even as the gravity around them grew less and less. About the time he was ready to ask for a pause to give himself a bit of a rest, Solaria stepped off the ladder and onto a narrow platform.
