44. NOVA
NOVA
That would have been the alligator incident, but I wasn't about to share that particular episode. Instead, after a moment of thought, I said, "My fifth birthday. Daddy and Uncle Boon took Tucker and me to Chuck E. Cheese . I ate so much pizza, I threw up." I grinned because that was one of the few times I remembered Daddy being really concerned about me.
"Five, okay," Noodar said, turning to Zoe. "You?"
"I think I was three or four. Dad brought two kittens home for Lizzie and me. General Orange was what I called mine. He was such a good cat." Her eyes turned moist at the memory.
"Well, we already know Luph remembers everything." Noodar didn't seem to want to give up on this game. Then he called, "Vraax?"
Vraax shrugged. "Same as him." He jerked his chin toward Zaarek. "Bunking down with males like you, competing in the training, going out on my own."
"Raasla?"
Raasla shook his head. "Same."
"Nock?" Noodar didn't seem too enthused about including Nock but couldn't exclude him either.
"I don't share Princess Luph's perfect memory, but Kreds are very well-developed as well, so yeah, I remember starting my first holovid when I was four," Nock said, surprising none of us in the least.
Still, I got curious. "How long have you been a streamer?"
Nock's face lit up. I supposed streaming was truly his calling. "Over forty years now."
I would have never guessed him to be forty-four, but what did I know about alien species' aging? For all I knew, his years could be totally different from mine, and I still hadn't figured the whole Galactic Standard Time thing out yet.
"So none of us remembers anything before our age of about twenty? And that doesn't bother you, Vraax?" Noodar pushed, turning the conversation away from Nock.
All eyes moved to Vraax as his face turned from a silver coloring to ashen gray. His eyes nearly rolled back in his head, which, after a few seconds, he cradled in both of his hands.
"Frygg, no. Stop with your questions."
"Something else—who did you train with?" Noodar kept pushing the Space Guardians.
"You?" Raasla asked, looking at Noodar. "We trained together?"
Noodar shook his head. "You and I were on a mission together once, but that's it."
"I could have sworn…" Raasla stared at his friend.
"Frygg!" Vraax shouted again, leaving the room. Zaarek was about to go after him, but Noodar held him back.
"I've got him," he said, pointing at his comm, by which he would keep track of Vraax. "Let him go work some steam off."
The rest of us fell silent until Zoe asked, "What does this mean?"
"It can only mean one thing—the Ohrurs did something to our heads and our memories," Noodar concluded, staring bitterly at the hallway on the other side of the open doors.
"We scanned Zaarek's head for a chip or something that might suppress his memories, but there's nothing." I filled the others in and moved to Zaarek's side, putting my arm around him to let him know I was there for him. "Nock and I have been looking into memory suppression, but so far, we haven't found much. Since they tried the brain chip comm thing, everything mind-related has been scrutinized by the GTU, and not much official research has been done."
"Brain chip comm thing?" Zoe asked.
"A few years back, a company tried out a chip inserted into the brain to access databases and communication, just like our comms," Nock took over. "I did a whole stream on it. Those poor bastards' brains they tried it out on are still fried. They can barely function."
I swallowed. He'd shown me his stream about it. It had been good—really good. It had shown a serious side of him I hadn't known he possessed. Until then, I had thought more of him as a social media streamer on Earth who'd do anything for clicks. Nock still did that, but he also used it to bring awareness to things that mattered to him.
Zoe shuddered. "That sounds ugly."
Nock nodded. "It was. The GTU stepped in and outlawed the chips. It was just too much information overload for normal brains to handle, even super ones like the Rho'Ghatthars."
"Still, that would have been pretty cool had it worked," I couldn't help but say, despite having seen the results. Had it worked… the possibilities would have been endless, and my little hacker brain rubbed its fingers together.
"Let's have Zaarek's ship follow us. Zoe and Raasla will take him back to Astrionis, and the rest of us will go to pick up Luph's new ship and head to Darlam. On the way, we drop Vraax off at the space station," Noodar said, bringing the conversation back on track.
"Not a good idea," Zaarek warned. "He knows too much."
"I'm not taking a hostile with me all the way to Darlam, waiting for him to slit my throat," Noodar stated. By the way his attention moved to Luph, we all gathered that it was more her he was concerned about than himself.
"You're proving my point," Zaarek countered.
"We're not going to kill a fellow Space Guardian," Raasla objected, vehemently shaking his head.
"You don't need to—I'm in," Vraax surprised us before he rounded the corner to rejoin us. He was bathed in sweat from head to toe. He must have been running or hitting a wall, I supposed.
"You're in?" Raasla echoed.
"Just like that?" Zaarek sounded more than suspicious.
"Just like that," Vraax nodded. "I'm not convinced there is something evil going on, but I realize that none of you are the actual traitors the Ohrurs said you were. Plus, the dreams, the headaches—you made some valid points, so… I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and shadow you."
"What about the Ohrurs?" Zaarek asked, crossing his arms over his chest.
"I'll tell them that I'm on your trail. That'll keep them happy for the moment."
"How can we trust that you won't tell them where we are headed?" Noodar challenged.
Vraax shrugged. "You can't. But you'll have to, unless you're willing to," he turned to Zaarek, "kill me. Or try to, at least."