Chapter Eleven Sadie #2
Interesting. They’d made us memorize the planets and moons of the Sol system in school, which always seemed strange to me, because Earth wasn’t even there anymore.
We’d once flown by the place it used to be, during the war—now it was just an empty void between Venus and Mars.
The space was inhabited only by Luna, Earth’s former moon, now traveling in its own orbit.
We’d also had to learn all the continents and many of the countries of Old Earth geography, which wasn’t exactly useful knowledge either, considering the planet had vanished. Turns out a course in alien landscapes would have been a lot more practical.
“Did you learn much about alien planets in school?” I asked Gilaf.
“No,” he said. “The Superiority wanted to keep us isolated, so we learned very little about life outside of ReDawn.”
“That’s disappointing,” I said. “I was going to ask if I could borrow some books.”
“The kitsen have records you could borrow,” Suki said. “Though our knowledge is also limited from isolation, we have kept careful records of everything we did see.”
“We should probably keep better records ourselves,” Alanik said.
“I am working on it,” Suki said, and in fact, I could see the glimmer of light from a tiny datapad shining through the backpack mesh—she wasn’t blocking it as well now.
“Your mom is working on it,” Gilaf said.
Alanik gave him a withering look. The girl could really give a good wither when she put her mind to it.
“Working on it,” Naga agreed from behind Suki. I thought the kitsen might be sitting on her, though I liked to imagine they were snuggling.
“How was that joke?” Gilaf asked.
“Not bad,” I said. “But if you overuse it, it gets less funny.”
“Your dad is less funny,” Gilaf said.
“See, now that doesn’t work at all,” I said.
“I was trying not to overuse it,” Gilaf said, “so I changed it slightly. Why are moms funnier than dads?”
“Sexism, probably,” I said.
Arturo was outpacing us now, possibly to avoid Gilaf’s jokes.
“Sexism is funny to you?” Gilaf asked.
I sighed. “Not when you stop to think about it. Do you not have sexist jokes in your language?”
“We do,” Gilaf said. “Though the most similar joke in my language isn’t about mothers. It’s about trees.”
“That figures,” I said. “Isn’t everything on your planet about trees?”
“Everything on your planet fell out of a tree,” Gilaf said.
I laughed. “That’s so not funny it falls off the other end and becomes funny again.”
“See,” Gilaf said. “If a joke is overused, you just use it more. Eventually it comes back around.”
“It does not,” Alanik said, walking faster to catch up to Arturo, probably also to outpace Gilaf.
“Your mother fell out of a tree,” I said.
“See!” Gilaf said. “You get it. I knew you were my favorite.” Then he also sped up to further annoy Alanik.
Nedd and I fell behind, though we stayed within sight of them.
“I feel like as assistant flightleader, I should offer to walk between you and the forest in case another tree monster attacks,” Nedd said, “but I actually don’t know if we’re in more danger from the forest or accidentally falling in the river. ”
I shrugged. “I don’t think any of these trees are secretly monsters, or that barge crew would be after them. What’s really creepy is the sun, but I don’t know how you’d protect me from that.”
“Seriously?” Nedd said. “You compare monster trees to squirrel poking, but you think the sun is creepy?”
“Yes! The way it stares at you from the sky, watching you all the time. It’s like a nosy neighbor who always peeks in your windows.”
“I didn’t think of it that way before,” Nedd said. “But I do now. Thanks.”
I sounded weird again, but talking to Nedd made my brain fizzy. I knew the others thought I was airheaded at the best of times. Talking to a cute boy didn’t make me any more articulate, that was for sure.
Still. It wasn’t every day I had the totally natural and not at all suspicious opportunity to spend time alone with Nedd. It would be completely normal for me to say a few words to him. Expected, even. In fact, it would be rude of me not to, right?
“I think you should walk behind me, actually,” I said. “That way if a tree pops out of the woods to poke me, you can shout and warn me.”
I liked the idea of Nedd saving me from a tree monster a little too much. It was downright regressive, how sexy it sounded for him to fight off an arboreal monstrosity bent on my destruction. If he got a little sweaty doing it, all the better.
Oh stars. Now I was blushing. I hoped he hadn’t noticed. Was it obvious? At least I hadn’t said any of that out loud.
Had I?
“I don’t know,” Nedd said. “Your callsign is Sentry, so you should be the expert lookout, right? You should see a tree coming a mile away.”
“It may surprise you to know,” I said, “that I’m not an actual sentry of any kind.”
Nedd grinned, and I tried not to look at him.
His grin was infectious, and it was really all for the best if I didn’t get too infected with it.
It was stunning even when it was partially covered by that mustache he had tried to grow a few months ago.
I was rooting for that mustache—an underdog if I ever saw one.
“Why’d you pick Sentry?” Nedd asked.
“Because I thought it sounded fierce,” I said. “Like a guardian who protects people, you know?” I shrugged. “I know, I know. I should have picked something that suits me more, like Chatter or Sunshine or—”
“I like Sentry,” Nedd said. “I think it works for you.”
My head was doing that fizzy thing again.
Which was ridiculous. Even if I was the kind of girl Nedd would see that way, he was assistant flightleader, my superior, and definitely off limits.
That hadn’t stopped other flight members in the past, but I was not the incomparable Jorgen Weight.
He and our old flightmate Spensa were cytonic and therefore barely under military control at the best of times.
I was also not going to be spontaneously promoted to admiral and suddenly outrank anyone who might look at me sideways.
They were special. I was not. So even in an alternate universe where Nedd wanted to date me, it wasn’t meant to be.
We were both silent now—and scud, was it an awkward silence? Was I supposed to thank him for liking my callsign and thinking it suited me? But after this long pause, that would certainly be awkward. Stars, why didn’t I thank him right away?
“Why do you think it suits me?” I blurted out.
Good job, Sadie. Way to not make this weird.
“Because you want to see everything,” Nedd said. “The sentries are the ones who watch, right? The ones who see everything first and get to tell the story.”
“I do like the idea of telling the story,” I said. “In that case, you’d better be the one who gets eaten by the tree, so I can live to tell the tale.”
“Eh, they’d only take a bite out of me anyway,” Nedd said. “I probably taste terrible.”
“That would make for a funnier story if you only got bitten instead of eaten.”
“It would. Though with my luck, they’d get my good arm.”
I smiled. “I bet the story would be more entertaining if you told it.”
“Nah,” Nedd said. “No one has your flair for the dramatic.”