4 Sam
I… hate… spaceships.
The week leading up to launch day, I had tried a million times to get through the simulations without wanting to hurl, but I wasn’t cut out for it. I managed to hold it together after the third time I sat in the simulation pod, but half a dozen times after that, I still felt queasy. And I never understood it. I loved roller coasters as a kid. So why did my stomach hate anti-gravity now? Hell, after coming back to Earth, even elevators made me uncomfortable.
On top of the queasiness, I had a cold sweat all over my skin, I was biting my lip so hard it was almost bleeding, and I’d broken my nails on the seat restraints from holding on too tight. My doctor said it was PTSD, but I always thought PTSD would be more dramatic. I thought I’d be screaming and unable to dissociate the present from the past. That sort of thing. Who was I to have PTSD when so many people on that freighter weren’t even alive to have anxiety at all?
And yet they were sending me to space.
Not that I wasn’t excited in a way. I was going to finally get some hands-on experience. I was going to learn from the best. And alien plants fascinated me. Of course, I was used to studying things brought back by people from the Nexus. I wasn’t used to retrieving them myself.
“I’m serious, you know,” Dr. Kiens said, raising her full brows at me. She was pretty in an “I don’t need no man” sort of way with her long black hair and straight bangs. “I can give you a prescription.”
“No,” I shook my head with a practiced smile. “I’m good.”
“Are you really up for this? I know you’ve come a long way since you returned, but going back up there can very well trigger some things you think you’ve gotten over.”
“I know, but it’s a big opportunity and I need to reach for those, right? That’s what you do when you want something. You reach. I’ve never been a reacher before. I want to be a reacher.”
She nodded, a sympathetic shadow moving across her eyes. Thank God the Nexus was funding my time with her. I would have never been able to afford her repetitive opinions and professional nods otherwise.
“If you’re sure,” she said. “Remember your breathing and meditation. I’ve sent your medical records along with the people who are transporting you all to the Nexus in case anything happens. But I’ve cleared you for travel. I hope I haven’t made a mistake.”
“You haven’t. And nothing will happen.”
“Of course. Well, I wish you the best, Sam. I really do.”
“Thanks,” I said quickly, standing from the wooden chair across from her.
Her office was so drab, like everything else on campus. I wasn’t sure why a science school needed to be boring, but a lack of color seemed to be a staple.
While I would have loved to chat any other day about all the problems most people didn’t know about, I was in a hurry to get ready for my trip. I was biting my nails the whole way back to my apartment wondering if I should have taken her offer to refill my meds, but I was a strong young woman and I could do it unaided. With that thought, I straightened my shoulders and walked on with as much confidence as I could muster and for the next hour, I was stuffing some things into a small pack.
“All packed?” Thomas asked, walking through my open door to find me filling a black pack with bunched-up clothes.
We were all allowed one small bag. Big enough for a pair of practical shoes, three pairs of pants, three pairs of shirts, and our essentials. The trip was only supposed to take a week, so no personal items that took up space were permitted.
Not that I had personal items anyway. A childhood with a dad who liked whisky more than his kids and a stepmom that killed herself before you turned twelve made hanging onto sentimental crap meaningless. After that, foster families just made things worse. Only one person ever meant anything during my childhood and he was gone, so no personal items even existed.
“All packed,” I said, zipping up my bag. “And I still have two minutes to spare.”
I picked up my things and turned to face him. He had a proud parent sort of look on his face as he escorted me out the door. And thanks to him having a car, I didn’t have to catch a train to the transport station.
On any day, the streets were packed with cars and people trying to get places. I blocked it all out and stared blankly out the window and up at the sky. With all the smog, it was a brown-tinted canvas with a few wispy clouds strewn throughout. But beyond that was space. Aside from the ships and nausea, space was a wonder. Not so much Sylos where we were going. My memories of that place were foggy and frustrating, but that was where the devil plant was that made my life a living hell for the short amount of time I was there. If I was serious about my future as a botanist, I was going to have to do shitty things like handle devil plants and make new discoveries.
Maybe one day I could name something after me…
“So? You’re heading back to Sylos,” Thomas said. He’d been playing music on our ride to the station until that point. “What are the odds of that?”
I rolled my eyes. “I just want to be glad for the opportunity. Besides, I’ll be equipped this time to be on a different planet. It should be ok.”
“What about you know who?”
I whipped my eyes back toward him. “The chance that Saleuk is there is so slim. He’s probably flying battleships around space.”
“Well, don’t you all need a guide or something? This is the first official group of humans the valerians have ever let on one of their planets. I doubt they’re going to let you all traipse around by yourselves.”
“No, we get escorts, but Saleuk was a pilot and a soldier. I’m telling you I won’t see him, so just drop it.”
“Ok, ok,” he said, lifting his hands in surrender. “Look, no matter what, you’re going to be getting tons of field experience and you’ll be learning from the best. This is huge. The study of alien plants is pretty new. You could be at the head of this new era.”
“I know, I know.”
“And you have a leg up on everyone because you’re the only one who’s been to Sylos before.”
“I don’t want to talk about that. I need to focus.”
“Fine. Just remember that when you have an advantage, you should use it.”
We pulled up to the transport station just in the nick of time. The other students were all lined up outside a shuttle with their IDs out and their one bag on the ground by their feet. I said my goodbyes to Thomas and jogged up, smiling brightly at the grumpy guards pacing the lot.
“Worthington,” Professor Fost said in her snooty accent, looking down her prominent nose at me.
“Sorry,” I apologized. “Traffic.”
“ID out, Ms. Worthington.”
I nodded and reached into the front pocket of my bag to get my ID and my permit to travel off-world. I’d gotten a real one since Innifer and I forged papers to get to the Nexus. We were lucky they didn’t throw us in prison. Well, not lucky. When an entire alien race vouches for you, prison is the last place people want to throw you.
Now, it felt good to be standing in line to board a ship and not be worried someone was going to catch me in a lie.
When a grumpy guard in a black uniform finally came to me, I handed over all of my papers for him to scan with a little handheld ID gun. And since I was last to get in line, once I was checked in, we started heading for the shuttle.
Everything started coming back to me and I already felt my stomach rolling. I gripped my bag and stared at the white shuttle like it was the drink I threw up after my 21st birthday. It was sleek and shiny and big enough for two times as many passengers… which would be nice if I had to sprint to a corner and hurl.
The students in front of me were all vaguely familiar. I didn’t really socialize with people at the university and it looked like a couple of them weren’t even local. But, despite me not knowing them, it was obvious they knew me. I caught a few of them looking over their shoulder at me like I was the rich girl in class whose father was the head of the school.
What? So I had been to Sylos before, but it wasn’t like I was picked to be an intern because of it. I was the backup applicant for crying out loud.
But I was used to keeping to myself so they could stare and whisper all they wanted. The real person whose attention I wanted was standing at the boarding ramp in a well-tailored pair of pocketed fatigues and a jacket. Mr. Hemburg. Everyone in my field knew about him. He’d made so many discoveries, it was like he knew the future. Some of his discoveries aided in making vital medical enhancements that saved lives. If I could impress him, it would really open some opportunities for advanced learning programs.
I straightened my shoulders and as I walked past him, I boldly stopped to greet him. Most people didn’t do handshakes on Earth, which was something I missed about the Nexus, so I just stood there gawking.
“Mr. Hemburg. I’m Samantha Worthington. I just wanted—”
“Get on board,” he said, not even looking up from the data pad in his hand.
The guy wasn’t bad looking. Not like you’d expect a science geek to be. He had a handsome face and salt and pepper hair smoothed back from his forehead. He seemed like a cigar smoker. I was going to spark a brief conversation, but he shot me down so quickly, I lost my nerve.
Then his gaze shifted toward me over the rim of his glasses and instantly his expression softened. I smiled brightly, trying to be sweet, which I was good at from time to time. His eyes roamed down my body once and he slid his data pad behind his back.
“Ms. Worthington,” he said. “Forgive me. It’s been a long day.”
“And it’s about to get longer. I just wanted to introduce myself,” I reattempted. “I was a last-minute recruit since another girl couldn’t make it. I hope I can prove myself.”
“I’m sure we can find ways for you to be useful.”
I cleared my throat and nodded, my cheeks heating under his stare. When I caught a couple of the interns at the top of the ramp whispering amongst each other, I realized I wasn’t doing anything for my reputation.
“Looking forward to it,” I said, continuing into the shuttle.
Fuck. Fuckety fuck. Was it the way I looked at him?
It was high school all over again and I hated it. I straightened my jacket and avoided eye contact with everyone as I found my seat. I stuffed my bag under it and strapped myself in, wasting no time trying to get to know my fellow interns. They all seemed to have made up their minds about me anyway and I was there to learn, work, get extra credit, and impress the ones who could help me find a good position after graduation.
After twenty minutes of going over safety protocol and getting everyone situated, the shuttle’s engines purred to life. The floor vibrated with that familiar sound and I gripped the arms of my seat trying to relax. Soon, we’d be at the Nexus where we would get a little time to settle before we were transferred to another ship headed for Sylos. It was all so familiar and yet it was all unexplored territory for me. Before, I was pretending. Now, I was official. I was making a name for myself and I wasn’t going to waste the opportunity like I’d wasted so many others.
I only wished I didn’t have to ride on so many ships to get places.
The trip through the atmosphere was marginally less jarring than the first time I left Earth and while the jostling of the shuttle did bring back a few reservations, I was holding together much better than I expected. I didn’t puke, so that was good. I wanted to pass out, though. It would have made things easier. I was happy to know one of the other interns was in the same boat, though. Unlike pilots, engineers, and military personnel, science geeks weren’t acclimated to space travel, so I felt a little less embarrassed to be among them.
Once we left the atmosphere, it was smooth sailing all the way to the Nexus. It was humanity’s first city in space and it had everything. Advanced medical research, exploration programs, pilot programs, trade centers, alien zoology, botany, astrology, and transportation technology. It was stacked and it was an absolutely stunning sight to see. Even though I’d seen it before, this time felt like the first time. It was a titanic structure of three rings stacked on top of each other. In the middle was a cluster of what looked like city skyscrapers mirroring each other. As we neared, I could see the dozens of space crafts coming and going. It was a lot busier than I remembered, but it had the same drone barrier I recalled from my first trip. The little drones surrounded the entire space station scanning for danger or unauthorized spacecrafts.
Last time, they denied us entrance when an unknown craft was too close. I shivered at the idea. I never wanted to be in another space attack again. I’d managed not to think of the freighter and all the people who died that day for a long time, but now, with nothing but the black expanse around us and the eerie silence of open space, the image of that day was all I could see.
I closed my eyes and gripped my seat, doing the breathing exercises. Five counts in, five counts out. It helped, but a little part of me wished I’d taken the medication. Then again, considering my past with pills, I didn’t want to stumble down that road again. It was a bit too hard the first time Dr. Kiens recommended it to me.
A computerized voice spoke over the shuttle’s comms telling us we were on approach to the Nexus.
Thank fucking god.
We couldn’t dock fast enough.
I kept my eyes closed the entire time as we entered the Nexus borders and drifted toward the docking bay. Once the shuttle was locked in and I felt the engines shut down, I opened my eyes and released a long, strained breath. My heart was beating wildly and there was a thin layer of sweat under my clothes, but otherwise, I was proud of the way I handled the whole trip. For hours, I’d managed to disconnect just enough to keep it together.
“You’re alive, Sam,” I muttered to myself, shakily unfastening my seatbelts. “No explosions. No screaming.”
“What?” someone said.
I looked up to see a guy with obnoxiously curly hair looking at me with a brow raised. I smiled at him and pulled my bag out from under my seat.
“Nothing,” I said nicely, wanting to slap that stupid look off his snooty face.
I followed the other interns off the shuttle as soon as the ramp lowered, eager to get on solid ground. Or, as solid a ground as I could without being on Earth. As soon as my feet hit the slick metal of the Nexus, I felt my body shaking. I wasn’t entirely solid myself after my mini freak out while we were docking. I didn’t even want to look over my shoulder at the black expanse behind us, which I knew was visible behind energy barriers that made it look like there was nothing dividing us from space. It had been pretty to me once, but now it was just dramatic and scary and a place where the gek could find you in an escape shuttle and kidnap you. I was much more eager to find out where I was sleeping that night.
Why couldn’t I just stay on the Nexus? The Nexus was nice.
I found myself in the back of the crowd as we marched across the docking bay to the elevators leading to residential areas of the Nexus. I was hoping I could stay mostly invisible until one of the girls glanced back at me. She was a tiny thing like myself with a young face and a rich brown shade in her complexion. A wild head of dark curls was braided on the sides so the middle could be the center of attention. I made the mistake of making eye contact with her and when I did that, smiling was just a reflex. She smiled back and slowed her gait, coming to walk by my side.
“Hi,” she said. Her bag was a worn-out backpack that she had slung over her shoulder with pins and buttons scattered all over it like she was straight out of high school. Hell, she could have been. Most of the people from the university were geniuses. “I’m Candice,” she said, holding out her hand.
I glanced at it, surprised she wasn’t opposed to physical touch.
“Sam,” I introduced, taking her hand in greeting only to realize how much I missed people openly touching each other. I used to be a huge advocate of no physical touch until Innifer and I left Earth and realized it was all bullshit.
“I know. Everyone’s been whispering about you.”
I rubbed my brow awkwardly. “Cool.”
“But I’m from the Alberta campus.”
“Does that mean you don’t know who I am?”
“Oh, I know who you are. I’m from a different campus, but you were on the news, you know.”
“Yeah, I know,” I sighed. “You should know I was rejected up until someone had to drop out, though. I’m not getting any special treatment.”
“Aren’t you, though? NexCom is funding your education, right?”
It was a burn, but it was true.
I crossed my arms over myself and nodded. “What about you?”
“Oh, my dad’s rich. And he doesn’t want to spend time with his kids, so he sent us all off to be big shots like him.”
“So, do you even want to be here?”
She shrugged. “Whatever. It’s easy work. I’m excited to be here on the Nexus, though. Holy shit. We’re in space. How amazing is that? I never thought I’d get here.”
“Yeah. Pretty amazing.”
“Oh, sorry. I know you were in some big tragic accident last year. This probably isn’t as glamorous for you, huh?”
“It’s fine. I actually love the Nexus. It’s ships and open space I hate.”
“Sure, it is. Well, see you around, I guess.”
With that, she started walking ahead of me again, bobbing her head to some song no one else could hear. For a couple of seconds, I thought I’d have a friend on the expedition, but Candice was a little sporadic. It was time to return to my original plan. Focus, ignore everyone else, be my best self, and work hard.