Page 44 of The Arrival
Pax pouts. “Not all of us can wield the confidence of a handsome Jaden man. The few people I’ve met from your planet are like you in this way. Do you all come out of your mother’s womb self-assured?”
“Aw, you think I’m handsome?” I’m grinning at a rare moment of praise from my friend. But Pax is surly again, grumbling.
“You’re the worst.”
“Do you know what I’ll regret?”
Pax’s eyes brighten as they draw back. “Y-you’re joining me now? This isnota good sign.”
Breathing out, I adjust my spine, a feeble attempt to ease the ache within me and despite the tight belts crisscrossed against my chest. “That I didn’t get to meet the Nohvian dignitary.”
“Me too. The people of Nohvia have refused intergalactic trade and communication for so long. It’s amazing that we’ll be the first CA ship to make cultural contact—and I was excited to have another agender person board. I hear that Nohvians are very beautiful.”
“They’re your opposite. Pink people!”
“I don’t think pink is the opposite of blue. That’s an insular failing on you gendered humanoids.”
This makes me laugh. “If you look at the visible light spectrum, red and blue are at opposite ends, you smartass.”
“If you look at a colorwheel, red and blue are right next to each other—”
Boom.
The racer rumbles all around us, jolting our bodies and making our eyes widen. I whip my head to the side to look out the window. There’s a bubbling orb of red-orange energy expanding behind us. My breath catches as I turn and meet Pax’s gaze.
“The…” I swallow hard. Shit. “The composites exploded, I think?”
The next moment is a blur, because the racer violently propels forward and Pax and I are screaming our heads off. The orange light of the explosion is interspersed with the white gauziness of the hyper-tube, rushing us forward like an ocean wave made with fire.
It’s getting hotter inside the ship. It stifles my breath and skin as the walls rattle and buckle around us.Pop.Something beside me cracks. It’s over this time. We’re really done.
Pax and me… we’ve had a lot of close calls, but I always knew we’d make it out of each one, somehow. I always had faith.
But this is the one we don’t come back from. The final mission.
…and all because I kissed the queen’s hand. Listen, it’s what we do in my culture as a greeting with royalty, and she asked me about it. Yes, I could have told her, but I find it’s better to just… show? Plus, she was striking and I have a thing about hands. Don’t judge me.
With my eyes clenched shut, I’m literally saying my prayers as my body digs into the seat—wishing that I had restrained myself like Ialwaysdo and not kissed the queen’s hand. Wishing I had gone to Jacen’s coming-of-age party at Mt. San Jorlia’s peak that one summer, because it’s been a decade and people still talk about that damn party when I go back home.
Pax’s enthusiastic tone disrupts my lamentation. “It’s theRed Specter—they’re here!”
The most beautiful sight of my life looms before us. Our flagship, theRed Specter. A giant disk, eloquently engineered and designed. The color of a red sunset. My body slowly disintegrates into silver mist just as the heat of flames and shards of glass bristle against my disappearing skin—echoes of injuries never to be inflicted. Not today, at least.
Smiling, I close my eyes and let it take me. When they ask if I thought this wasthe one, I’ll tell them no. I’ll make light of it and say it was just a cosmic entanglement, and that I had faith that we’d make it all along. Somewhere behind me, Pax will roll their eyes. But at least their relationship with Kailani will finally take another step forward? For better or worse.
When I open my eyes, I’m whole and standing on the glassy deck of the teleportation dais. The air is clean, controlled and the perfect temperature as I take a deep breath in.
I’m home.
“Behold, the two idiots have miraculously made it back to theRed Specter. Yet again.”
I grin. “Hello Kailani. It iswonderfulto see you.”
I’m laughing as I step off the platform with Pax trailing sheepishly behind me. I’m partially amused that we actually did make it. The euphoria of being alive. But I’m also chuckling because I do it every time I hear our flagship’s name.
Such a stupid name for a spaceship.
To be continued…
