Nebula

Turning Over

A year came and went before I knew it. Well for me it was only a few months of travelling alone. Lessons were learned, but I was still very young and very inexperienced. I didn't see a lot other than one or two of drop off points and most of Kyspaia. The first few were fun, although after that I wondered most of the time - what was the point? I was alone. Utterly and completely alone.

Like always I thought that it wouldn't be so bad, being the optimist that I was. Little did I know that being alone is like sitting in a void of darkness - in my case that was pretty much literal in the depths of space. The silence is beyond insanity and it's not something that you simply get used to over time. If anything it gets worse, makes you wonder why you're alive if nobody's there to give a damn about you.

It's a harsh universe. A cold one. They do say that nobody can hear you scream, but they never thought the scream would be one of anguish, not fear. I survived it, though, so anyone can survive it, right? Right.

I'd saved enough money to properly get the ship upgraded. I knew the right people to ask to get damn good deals, but only on Mars. Although that wasn't the first reason I was going back. I had someone I needed to get back to.

Ty... She was a different girl.

Well, I say girl. She wasn't a child anymore by the time I got back from my 'amazing' adventures off in other systems and meeting half a dozen different species and people. She was beyond that - a fully grown woman, with a glint in her eye and an apparent growth spurt that had gotten her to eye contact with me. I thought she was a bit short for seventeen and I guess she thought so as well.

It was a surprise - but a nice one. I didn't exactly want to feel like a babysitter going across the galaxy with my best pal.

And what were the first words in a year? What pearls of wisdom did I bestow upon my young apprentice? "You smell of booze."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. And you stink."

"I've had a shower."

"Ever heard of using soap as well?"

"You can talk."

"Can I? Observant of you." Sarcasm, if you missed it.

"Very funny." She didn't.

"Aren't I?"

"Sorry, didn't have time to go to a spa."

"I doubt it would help."

"Like you could do better on the Presley."

"Ten times as much."

Tumbleweeds could've passed between us, red dust clouding around our motionless bodies. Staring the other down. Challenging to a gunfight without the need for words, toothpick in mouth, eyes thin and squinting.

This was it. The stare-down of the century - the millennium. People were around us, wondering if they were about to witness a bitch fight or guns blazing in a huge fire storm and bullets. Either way, shit was about to get very, very real. Everything was stuck in a pretty convincing tableau.

A full minute of this went by. I was doing my flawless angry stare at her; she was giving me a new take on her pouting stare. It was a pretty good challenge, but I didn't think it was quite my level yet. I always won this game, but this time she was giving me a run for my money. Despite my damn fine track record - I was the first to give in.

The hug was warm, dirty and sweaty as hell. But you know what? I didn't care. It felt good to see her again after so long. I was getting my first mate on board the Presley and we were going to fly so far away from that Martian hole. In my head - I had a list of where we would go, what we could do. I'd talk to her about it and we'd be just as it always was, wouldn't it? We'd be fine. We'd be together.