Moon 514 || Blaze and the White Griffon

42 || Moon 514

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Last revision: 6/27/2013

Evelia stood up as she finished her session and walked into the other room where Elayuh lay asleep.  She was silent apart from nearly inaudible breathing sounds that only occasionally escaped the infant’s mouth when she dreamily twitched a little.  As Evelia looked at the quiet and calm babe, she pondered over what future lay ahead for this special child – a child that seemed entirely oblivious to all of the horrible things that had happened around her since Blaze had taken her away from mother, from her entire race, from her home planet. 

But they were headed home again. 

Sort of.

Already, yesterday seemed so very long ago.  The memory of Blaze broadcasting new orders to the crew passed through her mind as if it was part of one of her teaching sessions with this new race of aliens that no one even knew how to name.  They were simply “aliens” and that was it.  Evelia felt a sense of shame that her culture didn’t even value these people enough to give them a name.  The most wonderful woman Evelia had ever met (apart from her own mother) was simply “the magic woman.”  The most intelligent and gracious being she had ever encountered was nothing more than “the alien captain.”  Even had her own people named these aliens, they probably wouldn’t have given them an honorable name.  A simple, thoughtless name would likely have been their fate: “the brainwashers,” “monkey-tailed people,” or “the tattooed aliens” may have been candidates for their fated name.  Humans always tried to oversimplify things to make them easier to remember but often overlooked valuable details when doing so.  To Evelia, these graceful and wise creatures deserved some special term of reverence – they couldn’t be glossed over like other things.  The artist in her wanted to give them a name, an inspiring name.  Perhaps one day, she would do that.  Today, she had no inspiration.  And for now, Evelia was simply trying to survive the day to day grind that the aliens’ teachings introduced into her days. 

And so she recalled yesterday’s climactic event in her mind once more:

“Greydon, engage all linatech panels to transmit a message to the entire crew.  Override all private studio settings, stop any existing programs or transmissions, and include a backup transmission to go to everyone’s personal database; tell me when that is ready.  Vardyn, we are changing course – effective immediately.  Evelia has our coordinates.  She will give those to you while I speak with Greydon.”

“Sir,” Greydon had clapped out in his traditional, snappy militaristic style, “panels are engaged and ready for transmission.  I presume you prefer holographic over audio, is that correct.”

“Yes, thank you Greydon.”

While Blaze began offering instruction to the crew, Evelia passed on the coordinates to Vardyn who responded with no small amount of surprise.  They were going to a moon not too far from where they were already located, a moon that orbited a very lifeless and dead planet, a planet that had been destroyed by exiled aliens many generations before.  There would likely be exiled aliens on this moon as well but Evelia said nothing about that to Vardyn.

She remembered watching the alien ship leave the linatech paneling at the front of the deck, remembered how it seemed like the alien ship was moving instead of her own spaceship, and remembered how her heart felt more than a little empty to have finished this portion of her first journey in space.  It seemed so very anticlimactic in some ways – exhilarating and full of hope in others.

“In addition to all members of Team Grey, everyone interested in researching and colonizing this new moon should meet on deck five in T-minus one hour.” His instructions had given Evelia barely any time at all to review the instructions that the alien captain had given her earlier that day.