Roshma Book 1: The First Steps
Chapter 10: Haystack

Enter the Enemy

I stood at the helm of the ships. Business was good and we were unstoppable. We collectively being a group of weapons runners. Our job was simple, we transported weapons to the frontline for Yonda and his forces whenever and wherever they may need them. I like to believe that because of our contribution, the Dark Lord had been able to over whelm the Zatt army on every front.

My crew and I had one of the fastest ships in the galaxy, The Raptor. My thoughts were soon interrupted; before me kneeled a Tyberian in chains. Looks like they had already took the liberty of toturing him. I deduced this from the blood trickling donw his forehead. The crew said, “Admiral Karantis, we found a traitor.” He was a pitiful sight.

I laughed, “You know what we do with traitors? We make them walk the plank.” This was such a curious situation and I questioned his motives, “Why are you helping the Zatts anyway?”

The beaten Tyberian expelled bloody sputum before responding, “I was born on Zatara and consider it my home. I’m a spy, the perfect spy. My appearance allows me to hide right under your nose. No one expects a Tyberian to work with anyone especially a Zatt.”

Those dirty Zatts trying to pull the wool over my eyes, “Well there is enough time before we land on Zatara for me to deal with a traitor like you. Get up on that railing and walk.”

He said, “Even if I fall from there it won’t kill me.”

He looked bewildered, but proceeded to get up on the rail and said, “Zatara has their own group of Special Forces. They will hunt you Arcane Pirate scum down and exterminate you all.”

I informed him of the truth, “It would be nice to be challenged every once in a while this is all too easy no fun in that. Walking the plank is too old fashion let’s speed things up a bit.” My trusty revolver the 35 Rugger propulsion loader came out to play. What happened next was instinct. I did what my father and his father before him would have done and shot that dirty spy in the head. There was a beautiful explosion of crimson and he died like to others nothing special about this one. “Hey how much time until we land on Zatara?”

One of the men replied, “We are in the atmosphere right now.”

My orders went out to him, “Dump the body when we land. Also next job we did we were going to leave some crumbs behind. A trail barely small enough to follow.” I had had dealt with their kind before. These “special” Zatts. However, I had always walked away alive and I wasn’t ready to die yet.

Enter Tyerow

I returned back to the safety of my home, to what seemed to be a perfect day. Hot enough to jump in the water if you wanted, but not hot enough to be uncomfortable. Growing up in the desert I had dealt with heat all my life. I saw an older lady fanning herself to keep cool, but it felt nice to me.

Upon arriving at home, there was nice little surprise waiting for me. The surprise in the form of an envelope containing 25,000 Cinni. That’s 5x more than when we saved Mako City; we were going to be living large now. I know they say they money can’t buy happiness. That may be true, but neither can poverty. Poverty can’t buy you anything. Now at least we can pay the bills and enjoy the simple pleasures of life.

We caught a lucky break this time. The city of Maldeves decided to pay for all the damages since their law enforcement division tried to kill us. Honestly, it was the least they could do. I held my breath as I walked into my home expecting it to be in shambles from one of Cierra’s parties. I told Cierra beforehand not to have any house parties, but didn’t expect her to listen to me. To my surprise, this house looked spotless.

She asked, “Tyerow, how did it go this time? I saw you on a broadcast, you guys are heroes.” I guess there wasn’t any news about our supposed betrayal. It was best to not share that with the rest of Zatara. Hope was in short supply.

I laughed, “Don’t believe everything you hear on the news we are just doing our job. Anyone else with our abilities could do the same.” Maybe not but I felt guilty taking too much credit.

She fired back at me, “Well I was just trying to pay you a complement, but I guess I won’t do that again since you’re so ungrateful.” Interacting with people was difficult sometimes, especially when they were family.

I was really tired, but didn’t want to sleep quite yet. There was a program on that I really wanted to see. It was called “An Alchemist”. The story followed a boy that had the power to turn anything he touched into rare precious metal. Some people in his town saw his abilities, and reported him to the governor. The greedy governor locked him up and forced him to use his abilities to make the governor rich. It was sad, but such is life sometimes too.

I guess no day can be perfect; something is bound to go wrong. After the program was over my eyes turned to the table next to the box, and that’s when I saw it the stain, the blot in my otherwise perfect day. There was one thing I held dear more than anything else in my house. It was a picture of James, Katotta, and I from my teenage years. The frame was cracked and James face was all distorted like a drink had been spilled on it.

I immediately got up and ran into the spare room where Cierra slept. I banged on her door, “Cierra open up it’s important.”

She groggily replied, “Hold on a second.”

I replied, “How about now?”

Slightly less tired she replied, “Give me a second I got to put some more clothes on.” I didn’t want to wait but what choice did I have?

She opened the door, and almost simultaneously I ripped into her, “What did I say about having house parties while I am gone? You ruined my most precious possession.”

She should have known better but she said, “What that? It’s only a picture.”

I exploded, “Only a picture? It’s the only thing I still have from my old life. Back before this war started, back when things were still good, and back before all friends were either killed or ran out of town so yeah I think I have a right to be angry.” Cierra had never seen, me this angry. I didn’t even know if I had seen me this angry.

At this point, she was crying, “You live in the past too much. You have new friends a new life now and it’s not that bad.” She slammed the door on me. Giaka, what had I done? I felt like a monster.

My mind was heavy as I slept. The worst part is I wanted to be mad at her, but I couldn’t see it through. Sure, she shouldn’t have had the party. There was also a part of my mind that knew she was right. I had great friends now too and my job let me see them almost every day. I was stuck in perpetual childhood; I longed to be back in the desert before this war. Before the fate of my people rested on my shoulders. Everyone has to grow up one day and leave the easy life. Whether it is to go work in a factory or do what we do, everyone is called ot do something.

I woke up and made things right with my sister.

She said, “She would party elsewhere from now on.” We didn’t have a mission for the next month and I got to experience a semi-normal life. The only bad part is that there was nothing for me to do. I felt guilty like I should be out on the battlefield instead of taking it easy every day. A war was going on. My daily routine went as follows; I practiced jijitsu, and watched the box. Due to my insomnia, I watched the rest of the season of Action, Suspense and Drama, the best season yet if you ask me.

I decided to pick up some new hobbies like running, and reading; something I hadn’t done since childhood. Writing was among my new hobbies as well. However, I felt like these stories didn’t have the same spark as my old stuff. One such writing short story about a man named Chris who had the ability to read women’s minds. It was an interesting concept but the story sucked so I threw it out.

The highlight of the first week, was going to visit A.J. It was a really nice to see him, he looked good, all of his wounds had healed. I grimaced when he told me, “He had went in for the emerald protocol.” The thought of “Neurofire. Still makes me cringe.

A.J. informed me, “I’m back and ready for action.” This made me so happy. Our little crew was incomplete without A.J. The day held more wonders for me to behold in the form of fan-mail. I feel ashamed to say this, but I enjoyed the praise. On the other hand, some of the mail was downright creepy. One just said, “Dear Tyerow Hawkins, I want to have your babies.” Ugh.

In the second week, the mail stopped coming in. Apparently, Polanski had all of our addresses removed from the homes directory and electronic databases for safety reasons. Probably, a good call, but I missed these letters which gently stroked my growing ego. Also, in this week, Westcon paid me a visit. I didn’t mind, the company was nice.

He told me his favorite part of this new found glory was all the attention he was getting from the ladies. He went into more detail than I care to mention. That day my sister happened to be home and they met for the first time. As soon as he met her he began flirting. Saying things like, “You’re so pretty, it’s hard to believe you’re related to this guy.” So this is how I was treated in my own home?

I usually disregarded it because he flirted with anything female. However, when she left the house he leaned over and told me, “I really like your sister, I don’t know what it is about her. I know a lot of attractive women but she must give off a certain pheromone that only I can smell because I’m really attracted to her. I need her in my life.”

He had just got done talking about all of his other women and it seems like he already had more than he could handle. Why didn’t he just leave my sister out of this? This is proof that Murphy’s Law exists. All I could do was pray that my dear sister had sense.

In the same week, a man moved into the house next to me. He was disabled, he only had one leg. Word on the street is he was a war veteran. I kept telling myself to go over and visit my new neighbor, but something always held me back.

In the third week, I decided to visit the rest of my squad; Shodon, Jon and Jin and everyone else. Sometime in that week, I got a call from Mott Blixer and what he said surprised me. He asked, do you have time to listen or are you too busy?”

Well, there was no mission so time wasn’t of the essence. I replied,” I’ll listen as long as you need me too.”

He went on, “I get overwhelmed sometimes, I’m supposed to be the leader have it all together, but that’s not the case. The more I think about it the more absurd our situation is. We’ve almost died on multiple occasions since we’ve graduated. Lady luck can only be so kind. I try to hold it together, but sometimes the burden becomes too heavy. Westcon and I are close, but I feel like he wouldn’t understand, but you’re good at understanding and listening that’s your specialty.”

It was an honor he came, I didn’t have much advice for him, “I can’t tell you everything is all right cause that’s a lie, but I‘ll pray for you. That you’ll continue to have strength because you’re the anchor for our tame and we need you.”

He replied, “Thanks for lending an ear, and try calling Katotta when you have a chance. Talking with you is almost therapeutic and I can tell she’s kind of shook up after the last mission even if she doesn’t show it.” With that our conversation came to an end.

Part of me considered calling Katotta, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Looking back on the whole thing I was simply being a coward. However, my worry was I would cross this imaginary line between us. We were friends, if I tried to make it more, it would only end in a broken heart.

In my youth, I would always get my hopes up and fall hard for a girl, she would walk away fine, but me not so much, and the hurt would cling to me for a while. My luck may have slightly improved since I was a hero now. But Katotta was the big leagues and an amateur in matters of the heart like me may be better off starting in the minors. Long story short Katotta never received a call.

The fourth week of this idle period had started out great but things had gradually began to taper off, a decrescendo into disaster. This was capped off when a faceless enemy warlords made a broadcast. Hacked all the networks so there was no escape. Every channels was the same.

Staring at all of us through the box were three creatures in sleek black masks appeared. The one on the left was really tall, the one in the middle was average height, and the one on the right was shorter and appeared to be very round.

The man in the middle, most likely their leader was the first to act. His hands slowly crept into view and towards his face. All of Zatara collectively held their breath as the man in the middle removed the black visor covering his face. He had long black hair, a sharp chin and beady red eyes. These features were accompanied by a large mouth with a wicked smile. The kind that could shake you to your very core. What was most surprising, is that he appeared to be a Zatt. The other two kept their regalia on, so their identity/race remain a mystery.

The sinister Zatt stared at a captive audience for what seemed like forever before he finally started speaking. “The three of us are Raikai. To my right is Caylx, to my left is Xaltus Catorce, and I’m Yonda.”

Wait they just said, they were Raikai. People often debated if Raikai actually existed or if it was simply a blanket term to describe absolute fear, utter chaos. My father spoke to me about them growing up. Naturally, I asked him, “Dad, have you ever seen/fought a Raikai.”

His response stuck with me, “No but I can assure you they exist. The antithesis of Elohim is Abadon, or the evil one. We cannot choose, to believe in one and not the other. There are many works done in the shadows across the galaxy. It would be foolish to assume the Raikai weren’t involved in any of it.” I kind of swept all the Raikai story under the rug as a kid, but as an adult in my field, I’d seen enough weird stuff that I believe anything is possible.

Yonda continued, “My fellow Raikai choose not to reveal their faces, but for me this is personal. I’m a Zatt you like. Well, not exactly like you, I was born in a lab, and created to be a weapon. Well, you all did marvelously. I applaud you for that. However, you screwed up when you treated me like a leper and cast me out. I can understand where you all are coming form, fearing me is a smart choice, you have no idea what I am capable of.”

He paused for dramatic effect before continuing, “Still I must carry out my divine vengeance the stars call for your blood. Zatara is weak, and this universe is only for the strong. Nothing can save you from the coming bloodbath. Not you’re weapons, your armies, nor your new found heroes. When the dust settles, it will be the armies of the Panamore Corporation will stand a top your crumbled civilization. Your precious Inner Realm will cease to exist, and no place will be free from conflict till the weak and the powerless have been exterminated.”

The broadcast faded to black there was stillness for a short period of time and then regular programming returned. In our case that was “Keeping up with the Collins” or whatever my sister was watching. I almost preferred Yonda. It was creepy and dark, but it was also gritty and real. This was real life whether people wanted to accept it or not. However, it left a bad taste in my mouth. That face was burned in to the back of my retinas. I didn’t sleep well that night.

Anxiety kept me awake as I expected to be called in to work today since I didn’t sleep all last night. This always seemed to be the case whenever we were assigned to a mission. Luckily, Polanski didn’t hit up my com-link.

My feet sometimes had a mind of their own, and with nothing else to do today, I let my feet take control. They ended up walking the streets of the city for a couple of hours. It was a beautiful day. For all I knew it could be the last beautiful day. I observed everyone, no one was safe from my gaze, but they were all the same, their heads hung low. They finally realized that they had been living in a fantasy world. Their safety and freedom was just a self-perpetuated illusion and it could be taken by these madmen at any time. I slept a little better tonight but not great.

The next morning I woke up to message calling us into action once again. In a weird sense, it was exciting, setting around the house was getting really boring. Who knew what we would have to do today. Storm an enemy base? Charge head first into battle? Maybe fight the Raikai themselves. The whole team met up in the lobby of the White and Zupon “Lawfirm” However, I could already tell it wasn’t going to be a regular mission, something was off.

Everyone was acting normal except for Katotta. Usually she would run up to me and give me a hug or at the least strike up a conversation. She did give me a shy smile but something was off. My mind started to race, was she still shook up form the last mission, or could Mott be right? Maybe she was waiting for me to call and help her through her struggles but I never did, or maybe she was going through her special time of the month, being a girl and all. I desperately hoped it was the later and not something I had done. My mind raced with 1,000 more scenarios and before I knew it we were back in Polanski’s office.

Even Polanski was different today than usual. Before he debriefed us, we were informed that he had to keep his heart rate low so he wouldn’t have a heart attack. Good he couldn’t yell at us anymore. Before he could start Jon asked a question, “Colonel Polanski, what did Yonda mean when he said he was created in a lab?”

Polanski answered the best he could, “I didn’t know about it until the announcement. However, after the announcement a document called the Diamond Protocol was released from the archives. This protocol doesn’t involve you guys getting stuck with needles, which is a real shame cause I get great joy out of that.” Turns out he could be hurtful without raising his voice or increasing his blood pressure

He continued, “According to this document 50 years ago Subject 125, later named Yonda, was made to be the perfect Zatt. His genome was constructed from the genetic material of many notable powerful Zatt lineages. Even some of you standing in this room are part of his dna, Hawkins, Blixer and Shodon’s genetic material were all used. How they got the dna? I don’t know, probably wasn’t legal or ethical, but after many years of tireless research a stable embryo was constructed and fertilized, Yonda was conceived in a lab. Even though the general public now accepts you freaks, the scientist were warry the public with be uncomfortable with this news if it got out. He (Yonda) the science experiment never left the facility. One day the program was discontinued for reasons I’m not fully sure of and he was exiled although he had committed no crime.”

Jin asked, “What was the point, of creating this weapon especially during a time of peace? Would he have ever seen action or would he simply be kept in a lab until he died.”

Polanski answered, “Us Zatts are always trying to push the limits see how far we can go. It wasn’t smart or responsible to make something that couldn’t be controlled, yet curiosity can led us to do a very foolish thing. Science for the sake of science is not science at all, it’s madness.” For once I actually agreed with Polanski.

He continued, “Peace is an illusion, the absence of war is the prime time to prepare for the next threat over the horizon. When war has started it’s already too late. Ironically in this case, we are now fighting the weapon we made to protect us.”

Authors Notes

There is more to the story than Polanski knows about. Yonda wasn’t born evil. He started out good like every baby born naturally. He was raised with love and care as the scientist treated him like their own kin. They had his best interest in mind. Naturally, when they found out the government planned to end the program, they wanted to protect their son from harm. They took him to a planet in the Outer Realm where they told him he would be safe and left him in the care of some family members of one of the scientist. However the outer realm is a terribly violent place. This family was murdered too. He was 16 with no friends, and no purpose in life he gave up on being good and striving to do right, for what did he owe this universe that had taken everything from him. Nothing at all.

Polanski paused to wipe some sweat from his brow before continuing. “Enough talk about that Yonda. We have plenty other problems to deal with now, there were moles in our operation. The enemy had many spies under our skin so we decided to clean house.

The chemist who took your blood samples turned out to be a spy. He turned himself in. He said, ’” Whatever you do to me can’t be as bad as what they will do to me when they figure out I failed. (I knew it). We’ve took our clean up a step further, we fired about a third of our staff. Anyone who we didn’t have a solid history on was gone, whether they were innocent or guilty. Heck, we don’t even allow tours at the dam anymore. We don’t want another hostile takeover, so we are running a very barebones operation. Everyone is putting in a lot of overtime.”

Jon should have kept his mouth shut. He knew Polanski, but he had to say what was on his mind, “What happened to innocent until proven guilty?”

Polanski exploded, “You insolent squell do you have to try my patients like that? We don’t have time to be fair. In case you have forgotten, we are at war.”

He paused for a second before resuming speaking, remembering he shouldn’t get his heart rate to high. He continued “Some say our job is about replaceing needles in a haystack, but we take it a step farther. We’re looking for certain pieces of hay before they can become needles. That’s why we cleaned house to remove the potential needles. You all aren’t off the hook either. I heard you guys went out and tried to make a name for yourselves in Maldeves. You want to play the hero? In this war where soldiers die on the battlefield every day and you want all the credit?”

I spoke up, “The Chancellor told everyone we were heroes and the whole thing got blown way out of proportion. Personally I don’t want to be a hero.” This was only partially true.

Polanski smirked, “This is supposed to be a secret operation. When the enemy knows who you are they make it personal. I know you don’t understand. Don’t come crying to me when you come home one day and your home is destroyed or your entire family has been murdered.” I didn’t need him to remind me I had already player the scenario 100 times in my own mind.”

Polanski took some deep breathes and went on to brief us about the mission, “The news sometimes sugar-coats things so the people don’t worry, but believe me when I tell you everything is going to hell. In fact, if it keeps up this way, the whole planet will fall in half a years’ time. We will have lost the war.” He paused for a second to let that statement marinate.

“The enemy has a group of weapons runners who are really good at what they do. They get the weapons to the battle field and then get out. Our spies have been trying to track them down for months, but they are almost invisible. Key word is almost, we’ve had no such luck until now. It turns out that these smugglers are a guild of the Arcane Pirates. They are not just good at their job, but dangerous in combat as well. To go up against them in a starcruiser battle would be suicide. They have one of the deadliest ships in the entire galaxy.”

I felt like we may be in over our heads this time. The future was sounding pretty bleak, but he wasn’t even through talking yet.

I was about to open my mouth to speak but Polanski had more to say, “We’ve had dealings with this particular guild in the past, but usually it is only a small scrimmage in space. Tyerow’s father Travis along with some government agents once confronted these Arcane Pirates. Only two men survived. They were attack by a creature who called himself Admiral Karantis. He is a member of an alien race we’ve had little dealings with and know even less about. He stands about three meters tall and is a master of combat. I don’t know much about his current crew, but I would use extreme caution if I were you. I honestly don’t know if you guys will make it out alive, but you’ve surprised me before. Then again, if you all fail then we may lose this war, just think about that.” Personally, I didn’t really want to think about it but that didn’t change a thing.

As if to drive the nails into the coffin, he elaborated on how he had little faith in us, “Since I don’t put much faith in children; I have equipped your ship with body armor and plenty of weapons. (About time) Our intelligence tells us that the pirates will be at the Chisholm Social Club in Adaven. You will meet up with them and kill them, as simple as that. But I have to warn you that Adaven is in the battle zone. Adaven itself hasn’t been taken over yet, but much of the surrounding area has been completely decimated by the enemy. It is a horrific sight the no one should have to witness.”

With that we left, or I should say we tried to leave. Today’s briefing was a lot of information, almost too much to process. As soon as we were walking out the door Polanski said, “I was worried when I got the news you’d gone rogue and were trying to kill the Chancellor. Later, I found out you’d all been framed. I thought maybe I driven you over the edge with all the men things I’d said. For once I was glad to be wrong.” This was the closest thing to a complement we’d ever received from him.”

Sure, we had fought terrorist and clones of ourselves, but we never had an idea what to expect going into these missions. Expecting was sometimes worse than being surprised. Our previous missions all had very simple premises, but something always went horribly wrong. This mission already sounded really dangerous so I couldn’t even imagine what could go wrong. In fact, I didn‘t want to think about it.

Westcon ended up distracted me from my thoughts with an interesting question. He asked me, “Hey I wonder why they didn’t use any Westcon dna when making that Yonda guy? I’m pretty powerful.”

Jon now questioned Westcon, “Does anyone else in your family have your abilities?”

Westcon scratched his head, thought and then answered. “No I think I’m the only one.”

Dr. Jon gave his diagnosis, “No one else in your family has your abilities except for you so you are an anomaly. You acquired your powers through random point mutations within your genome. Don’t worry I too am an anomaly, but Tyerow, Shodon and Mott all inherited their powers from their parents. Certain families have carried these powers and the most prominent of the families had their dna used in subject 125 aka “Yonda.”

Westcon scratched his head and said, “You would make a good doctor. You really do know everything don’t you?”

A sly smile came to Jon’s face, “I just know what I know.”

We got on the underground train and went to the skyport again, but there was a burning question on my mind that I just had to ask Jin. Here it goes, “Ever since you piloted the ship when we saved Mako City, I been wondering, were your family merchants?”

Jin said, “Yes, I have been piloting merchant ships since I was very young. Praxis 8 is a large trading post in space and the ships we use for our missions are very similar to many of the merchant ships. I don’t have an official license but I’ve got as much experience as the best of them.”

Adaven was much further away from Mako City than Maldeves. In fact, it was going to take us six hours to get there. I went ahead and got comfortable in my seat, it was going to be a long flight. However, I noticed something different about this flight compared to previous voyages. Everyone was talking to each other and interacting with one another. We were becoming not just a team, but friends as well.

There was one exception Katotta. She was still silent, so I decided to man up and replace out what was bothering her.

I said, “Long time no see, is everything all right? Sorry I didn’t call you, stupid stuff kept distracting me.”

She responded, “It was kind of weird, I don’t think its ever been that long, ever since I’ve meet you with kept up good contact. That’s not really what’s getting me down though. It’s true that I’m still not 100 percent sure if I belong here, but it’s more so where we’re going that has me worried. Adaven and I have a bad history.

Intrigued I inquired, “What is so bad about Adaven?”

She sighed, “It’s where my mother was murdered. We were walking down the main strip. The lights were so beautiful. It was the perfect family outing, my dad (Robert ), my mom (Kirsten), and my older sister (Taketto). It was one of the only times we had all been together at once because my dad pretty much worked all the time. This fun family outing was all ended by a snipers bullet. I think it was meant for my dad, but his shot was a little off and it hit my mom.”

Tears were welling in the corner of her eyes, “People on the streets screamed and scattered. It was madness, but my father kept his wits about him. He grabbed us girls and ran inside the nearest building. Someone went out on the street and carried my mother’s dead body inside. My dad would have, but that would have been a perfect opportunity for the sniper to get a second shot off on my father. Snipers don’t miss their mark twice.

When I saw my lifeless mother, I couldn’t stop crying but what I remember most was the stain. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever known. She had an elegant figure, long flowing silver hair, red eyes like me. I swore she even glowed sometimes. My mom was one of the last of her race the Avari. I get my eye and hair color from her. That day she was wearing a white dress. It was now defiled by a large red blood stain, the bullet had entered her upper shoulder and came out through her heart.

The whole tragedy had a strange effect on me. I had shot guns before that, but after that I became obsessed with sniping. It was how I filled the hole left by my mother’s departure. I would spend hours on the range with my riffle. I told myself I was different. I would my riffle to protect the innocent, but I guess I’m that much different from the other sniper. We are both looking from the same vantage point.”

I patted her on the shoulder, “ You don’t have to go on this mission, we can turn this ship around right now. Also, don’t even for one second compare yourself to your mother’s killer; you’re not the same as that sniper and you have your mother’s glow.”

Katotta smiled a little bit, I swore I saw her glow.

She said, “Thank you Tyerow Hawkins” you’re too kind, and I appreciate you’re encouragement but some battles we have to fight on our own, and with that she got up and went to another part of the ship. Someone had brought a portable hologram box. It was placed in the center of the room and everyone was watching.

The movie of choice starred emerging actress Kenedee Lynn. The plot was about a guy whose friend bets him 300 Cinni he can’t date 10 women before the hot season ended. He dates Kenedee Lynn’s character, but then dumps her so that he can finish his 10. However, he realizes he really loves her in the end and loses the stupid bet.

It was kind of funny, but was a painful reminder of mine own singleness. I was in the rookie leagues, having never been a part of a real relationship before. Katotta was in the pros for sure, way out of my league. Even if I mustered up the courage to swing the bat, the chances of striking out were high.

I likened the whole situation to book I had read a long time ago called Cecil’s Star. The stories protagonist was a mentally disabled man named Cecil. He worked hard to have a semi-normal, but he would never be normal. He would always be different. Cecil loved a girl, who was way out of his league; she was a server at a local diner. He would walk by the diner everyday just to catch a glimpse of her because to see such beauty was to live and to live is to be alive.

Cecil accepted he would never be with her, but he walked by that diner every day to take one look; a small injection of happiness into his otherwise miserable life. I wasn’t disabled but I too worked so hard at such an impossible goal.

Still, Cecil never acted on his interest. This was probably for the best. The girl at the diner was kind and caring, but in reality she would never see Cecil as more than a friend. It’s not fair, but Cecil was so different from everyone else he’d probably never replace love, at least not of the romantic variety.

This is where Cecil’s and my own path diverge. Cecil couldn’t help his situation, but I could. It may not be today or tomorrow, but one day I’d share my true feelings with her. If not for me, for all the underdogs out there, for all the Cecil’s.

Jin came over the ships speakers, “We’re about to land. I’m going to fly really low if anyone wants to see what a warzone looks like. As morbid as it sounds, I was very curious, and so Jon. Together we went to the small observation room.

I looked out the window and beheld a horrific sight. Everything was gone. There were bodies scattered everywhere although I couldn’t see them in detail. There were abandoned camps and the scraps of battle vehicles everywhere. It almost made me sick to my stomach all of the destruction. Yet, Just like Cecil’s plight, these tragedies drew me in, I couldn’t peel my eyes away.

We had about half an hour before touchdown; I went to the armory and got the new armor it was really cool it was like a silver and black vest. It was stretchy but still hard enough to take impact from steeloaders and tough enough to withstand lasers. Must have been some type of synthetic material. I also, grabbed some guns, not my preferred method of combat but it never hurt to be prepared. There was plasma pistol on my waste and another holster around my leg. I then filled my adventure pack with med kits. I felt prepared for whatever Adaven could throw at us.