Cadets: Short Stories

JONATHAN'S LOG: STAR CROSSED

When me and my sister were little, dad used to sit on our bedside and tell us the story of how he and mom met. We never grew tired of hearing the story. It was in fact the only thing that would put us to sleep. Better than reading a fairy-tale or a warm glass of milk.

My mom and dad were about the same age as us when they first met, but surprisingly they never met at the Academy as Stevie and I did, nor were they lifelong friends. They were originally enemies of conflicting societies.

Long before I was born, the Galactic Federation was at war against a colony of rogue humans who despised non-human species.

As history recalls the Galactic Federation was founded over unification between humans and aliens alike. However, there were some humans who opposed against unifying humanity with aliens. They believed that the unification would bring about the existence of human hybrids which could result in the extinction of the human race. Few of these humans were also members of the Federation.

When they failed to persuade the rest of humanity, they tried to take matters into their own hands. There was illegal deportation against immigrant aliens and seize for control over the Federation government to ban alien unification.

These offenders were eventually banished from Earth and Federation space, along with their entire families.

Couple of years later, the rogue humans returned and invaded the Federation. Their goal was to rid humanity of alien contact to preserve our existence, even if it meant at the cost of innocent lives.

My dad was about my age at the time and was a cadet captain of the trainee vessel Explorer.

The war raged on for several years, and dad had his share of battles with the rogues. One in particular with a human girl named Rebecca, my mother. She was not only part of the Rogue colony; her grandfather was also the leader of them. Her family had led the Rogues for generations, and in that time taught their colony that we the humans of the Federation were endangering humanity's existence and it was their destiny to dominate us and rid humanity of non-human species.

Mom and dad engaged each other many times in battle with neither one resenting. They were the perfect example of how much the Rogues and the Federation opposed one another. It seemed like the war would never end until that fateful day when two enemies were brought together by love.

Mom and dad found themselves stranded on an alien planet, with no hope of being rescued. Mom was the first to hold a gun out at dad, despite him explaining their situation and they needed to work together in order to survive. Mom wouldn't listen and started ordering him about. However, she eventually agreed to a truce when they found themselves running from the predatory inhabitants of the planet.

There was this moment when they were being chased by some kind of alien dinosaur, and they found themselves trapped on the edge of a cliff. Dad acted fast and used a rope to lower mom and himself to the bottom. However, the predator caught up as they lowered themselves down. It tried to pull them up, but mom and dad cut themselves free and fell into the river below.

The current took them further down river till they ended up beached on the shore. When dad regained consciousness, he found himself again at gunpoint by mom. Both of them were drenched, and dad suggested they dry off before they got hypothermia. Mom again didn't listen and ordered him to start walking.

They walked for miles and it was starting to get dark and cold. Dad was leading the way while mom followed with a gun pointed at his back. Dad again and again tried to convince mom to listen to reason, but she wouldn't and threatened to kill him if he didn't stop talking.

However, mom began to struggle with staying conscious and was slowly losing her pace. Eventually, she fainted and collapsed onto the ground.

Mom had hypothermia and was violently shivering when dad held her in his arms.