18 years later, planet K-Tawoor

“Brian, do you still think about your mother?

“Of course,” came his quick reply. He had just entered the main room looking for something but after noticing me there he approached me and smiled “And about your mother too”, he added. I supposed he had noticed the picture in my hands. “She was an incredible girl, AJ, and so beautiful.”

“Yes,” I said smiling probably for the first time that day and looking at my mother’s picture again. “She really was beautiful.”

“You know, sometimes Nick reminds me of her.”

“What? Nick? Are you crazy? First you say that my mother was beautiful and then you compare her to Kaos!”

“Well, they have the same eyes and there’s nothing weird about that; considering that your mother and my father looked very much alike, more than the average brother and sister. And Nick got my father’s look.”

“Okay, I will accept that he has the same eyes, but nothing more.” I saw him smiling and I knew what he was going to say before he even opened his mouth so I quickly added “I know, he is a blond too, but that’s all. No offense to your dad but Nick is an ugly kid,” I joked and decided to put the picture in my pocket.

Brian laughed too and took a seat near me.

“What’s going on AJ?”

I can’t hide anything from my 'brothers', especially from Brian, he and Howie can read me like a book.

“It’s just that…” I doubted for a moment “I’ve been dreaming about her a lot. And last night’s dream was so real. She was worried Rok, she was crying and she was worried about me, about us.”

Brian put his arm around me. I didn’t want him to see me crying but I wasn’t sure how much longer I could hold the tears.

“I have those dreams too sometimes. I see my mother and my father and I see Rachel too.”

“Have they been more frequent lately?”

“No, but you know,” he said looking at me again, “Nick asked me the same question the other day? About my memories of our mom. But then the poor kid hardly remembers her.”

“Well, look at the bright side,” I said with a snort, “that makes his lost easier to overcome. I still have nightmares about that day.”

“I know, we share the room, remember.”

“Bri, could we have done something back there?” I said playing with the chain on my neck.

“Come on AJ, you got to be kidding me. We were just kids.”

“Why they forced us to leave them?”

“They wanted to save us. All parents want their kids safe.”

“Yes, I know that, but sometimes I feel like there was something else.”

“If there was something else don’t you think we would already know it.”

“I still think that Kevin and Howie know something. They just keep everything away from us like we were kids.”

“Don’t say that AJ. Kevin and Howie don’t take decisions without asking for our opinions.”

“Yes, but Train always has the last word.”

“Every family needs someone in charge like every ship needs a captain, bro, he just happens to be both. And don’t go talking like it was easy for him, he has done a lot for us.”

“Yes, I know. Just forget what I said. I think I’m still angry cause he took Nick’s side last night.”

“AJ! It WAS your fault.”

“I know, I know” I accepted putting up my hands. “It’s just that I wouldn’t mind him taking my side.”

“Just leave the kid alone J. You could try not to fight with him.”

“Yeah, that will happen.” I laughed.

“AJ!”

“I’m kidding.”

“Yeah, right,” he said rolling his eyes. “Now, why don’t you help me with the…”

He stopped talking the same minute that I felt it. He had probably felt the same. We both stood up immediately.

“Did you hear that?” he asked me.

“Yes, one of us is in trouble. Where is Nicky?” I asked trying to focus my mind in my little cousin’s energy, I couldn’t felt his presence in the ship.

“It’s him,” he said and my heart sank “He just said my name. He is asking for help.”

We ran to the ship's gate. I was running as fast as I could but Brian was faster. When we were about to leave the ship he stopped and looked at me.

“Stay here, someone has to stay at the ship.”

“Are you nuts? I want to look for him. Two people will find him faster.”

“I will find him. He is calling to me. He will lead me.”

“Yes but…”

“Just do what I said, Alex. Stay here!” he ordered me before leaving the ship. I closed the door after him and took my mother’s picture out of my pocket again, whishing with all my heart Brian would bring Nick home safely.



-------------------------------------------


“Do you want another glass of water?” I asked Brian as I poured one for myself.

“No, I’m okay” he said from his seat at the table, arms folded and staring at his empty glass “How can he be such an idiot?”

I had an answer for that but I didn’t think it was the right moment for jokes. I had never seen Brian so mad with Nicky before, but considering what the kid had just done it was comprehensible.

I took a seat facing him at the table.

“How many Sargons did you say were there?”

“I saw five, but I guess there were more. Can you believe it? He went into a Sargon’s house, a Sargon’s house for God’s sake. He knows how much Sargons hate humans and he went into a Sargon’s house! And there I was, thinking that he was injured or something and entered in there with so much noise. I still can’t believe those guys didn’t see or hear us.”

“I always wondered how those places are inside.”

“Not too different from any human house. It was more like a group of houses though. When I entered I found myself in front of a door and there was a staircase too, since I heard voices behind the door I decided to go upstairs. Once upstairs I looked down from a window and I saw five Sargons in this room drinking and chatting, and just in front of me Nick, standing in this ledge just above their heads. I still don’t know how he managed to stay there that long without being noticed.”

“Well, you know he is the best at doing that, maybe because of his powers. Now, don’t get mad at me for what I’m going to say but I would pay to see Nick there trying not to fall.”

The way he looked at me first made me thought that he had not heard the 'don’t get mad at me' part, but then a smile came to his lips.

“Yes, I guess you could find it funny. Is he still sleeping?”

“Yes, he’s probably just too tired after two hours on that ledge.”

“Can you believe it? He was there for two hours. He said that his first thought was to wait for the Sargons to fall asleep and then jump, since he couldn’t get back the same way he got there.”

“He got there through another window, right?”

“Aha. And a Sargon had closed it without seeing Nick, thank God.”

“Good thing that you were the one going there instead of me. My powers couldn’t have take Nicky out of that situation.” I took a sip of water before asking him the inevitable. “Are you going to tell Kevin?”

“I have too. Nick told me that he will never do something like that again but you know how he is. Nick and his researches. He is always investigating something and getting himself in problems. He only listens to Kevin.”

“Yes, but just because he prefers confront five Sargons than facing your big brother.”

We both laughed.

“Kevin is just overprotective because Nick is the youngest.”

“Yes,” I replied. “He is overprotective with his little brother but then he is overprotective with all of us. He is overprotective with me and I’m his cousin not his brother, he is even overprotective with Howie and he is just his best friend, no kinship there.”

“Where that came from?" he interrupted me and I shrugged. "I don't remember when was the last time I thought about us as anything but brothers, Jay, that's what we are and that's the way it is for Kevin. We all are his little brothers.”

I left out a sight because he was right. “He won't be happy hearing that you used your powers here," I added after a pause. "That was one of the first things he warned us when we arrived.”

“I know” he agreed with me while giving me a worried look.



---------------------------------------------


“Nick, take that garbage away.”

“It’s not garbage.”

“I told you that I don’t want those things in my room.”

“Well, it’s my room and Brian’s too and Rok doesn’t mind so stop bothering me.”

“I don’t care if Brian doesn’t mind. It bothers me so take that out.”

“I won’t. Why don’t you go and visit your girlfriend and just stay away from the ship for a couple of days?”

“Ha ha, very funny…not! And what the hell are you talking about? We have been on this planet a few days only, I don’t have a girlfriend here.”

“Well, I saw you yesterday with that red haired Gris girl.”

“You little shit, you were following me.”

“No, that would be boring, I was just walking and happened to see you.”

“Don’t you dare follow me again unless you are looking for trouble. No wait…you’re already in trouble,” I said smiling. “Kevin is going to kick your ass once Brian tells him your little adventure today.”

Much to my amusement the kid turned pale after my words.

“Brian is not really going to tell him. Is he?”

“Yes, he is. And since they are already here,” I added hearing Kevin’s and Howie’s voices in the main room. “He probably is telling them right now.”

We remained silence for a couple of minutes. Nick’s eyes glued to the door of our room.

“HE DID WHAT?” we heard Kevin’s furious voice.

“I’m dead!” he groaned lying down on his bed. I just laughed.


The next day

“You are joking, right? There’s no way I’m going to use that.”

“You are going to do what I say, Nickolas” Kevin said putting the bracelet on the table. It was too funny to see them discussing but it looked like I was the only one enjoying it. Brian and Howie were observing the exchange of words with a serious look on their faces.

“That’s for babies. I won't have a device that will tell you where I am 24/7. I’m not a baby. Besides, only girls would think of wearing a bracelet like this. Girls and AJ, of course, but we aren't sure if he is a man, are we?”

“You little…”

“Don’t say it Alex.” Kevin warned me. “I’m tired and I don’t want any more problems. And you Nick,” he added looking at our little brother. “After what you did yesterday I can’t believe you are questioning my orders.”

“You already punished me,” he whined. “What’s the point in using that if I can’t even go out. According to you I’m grounded for life.”

“You are using it. End of the discussion.” The tone didn’t leave Nick any option to argue. He took the bracelet, stood up and left the room.

“Lose the smile AJ, or I will ask Brian to make a bracelet for you too.” I knew Kevin was kidding but the smile disappeared immediately.

“Howie and I need to tell you something guys. Brian sit down,” he said to Rok who had been watching everything by the door.

“We found a job here and we are going to spend all the mornings away from the ship,” Howie told us.

“A job?”

“Yes, you know the ship needs some spare parts and we don’t have the money for that. It’s only for a couple of months.”

“A couple of months? You are expecting us to be in this nasty planet for two months. We have been here less than two weeks and I already want to leave this place.” I couldn’t believe that they were really considering to stay that long in K-Tawoor.

“It’s not the first time we spent so much time in a planet AJ.”

“I know that, but this planet sucks.”

“Come on AJ.” Howie tried to convince me. “We have been in worse places, at least we have an atmosphere here. You don’t need oxygen tanks to get out.”

“To tell you the truth,” Kevin finally spoke up since he had left Howie do all the talking till that moment, “the less contact with the inhabitants of this planet you have, the better. I want you to stay in the ship, working on the things we need. Howie and I will bring you everything. And taking care of Nicky of course.”

“Of course”, I said rolling my eyes.

“What’s that Alex? Do you have a problem?” Kevin asked staring at me.

I wanted to say that I had a problem and asked them to tell the truth, I was sure there was something else behind those two months in this planet. But I needed to trust them like Brian had asked me.

“No” I said finally looking down.

“Well, you know the rules. If someone approaches you and asks, you know you can’t tell that we were born on Earth.”

“And just one more thing”, Howie added. I knew what he was going to say before he opened his mouth. “No more using your powers here.”

----
Copyright ©2004
All Rights Reserved
No part of this story may be copied or reprinted without the author's permission.

Three weeks later

Shit, that was too close. I thought as I saw some kind of fruit exploiting in the market stand that a couple of seconds before was at my side. I was running as fast as I could across the filthy market hoping this was the right way to the ship.

It was a joke for God’ sake. How should I know that Sargons don’t have sense of humor. I didn’t even think these stupid creatures would understand English. And why nobody helps me? Of course, how could I forget it? I’m just a human…a human who is being chased by three Sargons. They have guns, people! They are shooting at me, some help would be appreciated. Fuck you all! Damn planet, I want to get out of here. I hate this planet. I hate being running away like a defenseless kid when I’m able to kill those fucking bastards. But no, Kevin doesn’t want us using our powers here, I guess he prefers me dead. It’s not like all these idiots would notice anything. You would think Sargons kill humans every day here for the way nobody even pays attention to me. Maybe I could use my shield. That’s it, I will try to reach a place with less witnesses. I can’t believe what I’m getting through for not using my powers. You are going to pay for this Kev. Yeah, right Alex, that will happen. If those Sargons don’t kill you Kevin will, for going to that place. Just a couple of blocks more and… “Ouch!” I screamed after twisting my hand trying to avoid crashing into a wall. I had left the market behind and was running too fast through the little alleys that were not too far away from our ship.

Concentrate AJ, you almost fall there. And how come Brian isn’t here helping me yet? Right, I almost could hear Howie’s words “you need to practice your telepathy AJ. We can’t never feel you” Fuck! It's not a question of practice, it's just my bad luck, I’m sure. How is that I get a headache “feeling” the screams if one of them crushes a finger with a hammer or shit like that but no one ever sense me when I’m the one in trouble? I could die here and they wouldn't feel a thing. Shit! “Brian!” I screamed the second the laser touched my skin. Okay, if he can’t feel me asking for help maybe he can hear me. That really hurt. That’s it! Kevin can kiss my ass. I’m using my powers right now. I was about to go round a corner when another laser hit me in the ankle and I fell to the floor. I managed to reach the other side almost crawling though.

“Cover yourself!” I heard someone said and then hell broke loose.

------------------------------------

I was still recovering from the fall, not sure which was the sky and which was the floor - I think I hit my head - when the shooting stopped.

“They finally left after I hit one” someone said and I finally saw my rescuer approaching me.

“How come you didn’t defend yourself?” he asked kneeling at my side and pointing to my gun. He was a human, not much older than me, probably about Rok’s age, brown hair and hazel eyes. “You have a gun. How come you didn’t use it?”

“Oh yes, if this stupid old think had worked when I needed it, I could have defended myself. The trigger got stuck.” I answered checking my ankle. It hurt a lot but thank God it was only superficial.

“Are you okay? You lost some blood there.”

“It’s nothing.” I said still holding my ankle with my left hand. “Just a scratch.”

“I wasn’t talking about your ankle but about your other injury.”

“Other injury?” I followed his gaze “Oh, shit!” I had completely forgotten about the first shot. I got alarmed. Having grown up surrounded by soldiers during the Big War, I knew that sometimes deadly injured people didn’t feel the pain at first. It took me some time to gather up the courage to check my right shoulder. Luckily it was just another scratch. Seemed that the old joke about the Sargons being bad shots was based on true facts. I had no idea where all the blood came from though. I quickly checked the rest of my body looking for other injuries.

“I think I’m okay. No serious injuries” I said looking directly to his eyes for the first time and offering him my hand “I’m AJ.”

“Jeffrey, Jeff Vaughn.” We shook hands and I noticed that there wasn’t a bar code on his wrist, no that I was waiting to find a human from the Empire in this planet but year after year it was more difficult to find humans with no bar codes.

“No, I’m not one of the Emperor loyal subjects.” He said winking at me after realizing I was looking at his wrist.

“It’s just an old habit.”

“Don’t worry. I do the same.”

“Did you say your name was Jeffrey?”

“Jeff.”

“Well Jeff, thanks for saving my life.”

“Your welcome,” he said smiling. “Now you only own me a new laser chamber, I think this one saw his last shooting.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Okay” I said trying to stand up, which I finally could do with his help. “You can take the one from my gun. After all it won’t serve for a while.”

“I’m just kidding. You don’t own me a thing. If us humans don’t help each other, who will?”

“Well, you got me there for a moment.”

There was an uncomfortable silence that lasted less than a minute. I wasn’t sure what else I could say but what he told me really took me by surprise.

“Are you with the rebels?”

“Rebels? There are rebels here?”

“Yes, there is a base at the other side of the planet.”

“And everybody knows it?”

“Well, most of the inhabitants of this planet, including the Sargons and the Grises, are not in the best of the relationships with the Empire so they keep it quiet. No that they are happy seeing humans around but they usually don’t look for business with the rebels. Even for the Sargons the rebels are pretty tough people.”

I was trying so hard to avoid thinking what I was thinking but there is not such thing as too much coincidences. I felt the urge to talk to Brian.

“So, if you are not with the rebels. What are you doing here?” His question brought me back to reality.

“Our ship was having some troubles and we ended up here looking for some spare parts.” I said trying to sound as casual as possible. “Are you with the rebels?”

“Me? No. I’m not good for that. I came here looking for a job. You know there are not many places that hire humans, much less humans with no bar codes, and I heard that the Grises’ mines were hiring. I’m just a human trying to survive alone. Yes, that’s it, I’m just a loner. Probably has something to do with the fact that I was born in Earth.”

“Oh.”

“That’s all? Wow. First time I tell someone I was born in Earth and don’t receive at least a weird look. Is not like there are a lot of people like me, except for some of those serving the Empire, of course. Were you born on Earth too?”

Damn AJ. Why didn’t you show surprise. Now you have to fix this. “No, not at all. I wasn’t born on Earth, is just that my father was. I was raised in a military station so I grew up with people from Earth.”

“That explains it. Soldiers were the only ones who left the Earth during the last years. I was raised in a military base too. Which one were you at?”

“Philippians” I replied holding his gaze. I knew what he was going to say. We always got the same answer after mentioning that name.

“The one near Mars? Wow, you probably met lots of heroes there. You were born there?”

”Yes,” I lied quickly “My father was a soldier.” Kevin and Howie had made us memorized this lie. “He died in one of the first battles after Earth destruction but I stayed in the base. How you got out of Earth?”

“My mother hid me in one of the military ships? She was working for the government and that’s probably why she knew that something was going to happen, so she just hid me there.”

“Wow, I think I don’t want to know how soldiers reacted when they found you.”

“Yes, you could tell that they weren’t happy finding a child there. You didn’t see children in those space stations, at least not in the one I ended up. I didn’t know there were stations where soldiers had their families with them.”

“I guess that was not the case for the stations created during the first years before the war but Philippians was an old station. Its soldiers were there years before the first conflicts started and there were lots of families living there.” Well, that really isn’t a lie, except for the fact that my parents weren't there.

For some reason he decided to change the subject that moment.

“Do you need any more help? I don’t think the Sargons will come back but maybe I could walk with you to your ship.”

“No, it's okay, It's not that far away. I can do it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m not really injured.”

“Well, I guess I will be going then. Maybe I see you some other time. We humans tend to stay together in planets like this one.”

“Maybe. We are staying here for some time. Thanks again and good luck with the job.”

We shook hands and I saw him walk away. For a moment I had a weird feeling but didn’t think too much about it; when I saw him left I started to walk as fast as I could until I reached our ship.

“Brian! Brian where are you?” I shouted entering the ship and looking for him. I finally found him in the engine room.

“I’m here” he said still working in the pressure gauges, he was singing a song like he used to do all the time. When he looked up he panicked. “What happened? You are injured!”

“It’s nothing,” I said but he was already next to me, checking my shoulder and trying to make me sit down.

“It’s nothing? There is blood on your shoulder and you say it’s nothing.”

“I need to tell you something.”

“First let me check this. We should call Kevin or Howie so they can heal you.”

“No, I’m okay. Listen to me, this is important.”

“AJ, sit down and let me check that wound.”

“Brian, would you hear me for just a minute?” I shouted. “There is a rebel base here. On the other side of this planet.”

“A rebel base? Cool!” Nick said entering the room carrying some tools. “What happened to you?”

“Nothing. Now get lost, I need to talk to Brian.”

“I’m not going anywhere. You can't tell me what to do.”

“I said I need to talk to Brian.”

“And I said I don’t care.” God he is so stubborn.

“Nick, would you leave us alone for a minute?” Rok’s words surprised the kid. He looked kind of hurt and just murmured a “whatever” before leaving.

“OK, Bone. What’s it?”

“You know what’s it, Brian. I can’t be the only one who is thinking about it. They are working for the rebels, Bri.”

“We are not sure.”

“Come on Brian! It’s not the first time that we end up near a rebel base. And all the people we are always flying in this ship, they are always rebels.”

“I know that, but we do it for the money. They pay and we sure need it. “

“Bri” I pleaded.

“Okay, Bone, what you want me to say? That you are right. Then I will say it. You are right. But that’s not going to change a thing.”

“You mean that you are not going to say something.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I trust them. I will trust my live to them. Damn, I already trusted my live to them. And if they don’t tell us they probably have a good reason.”

“You got to be kidding me. We have the right to know.”

“AJ” He was the one pleading this time.

“No! And don’t tell me to be patient. I’m sick of it.”

“Jay!”

“Screw you!” I said leaving the room and closing the door behind me.


------------------------------------------

“What happened?” I heard Kevin ask Brian.

“He didn’t tell me, Kev”

“You think he will tell Howie?”

Howie and I entered the room that moment and they both stop talking.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes Kevin. I’m okay. Only a couple of scratches.”

“Care to share what happened?”

“No.”

Howie was easier to deal with. Until now I’ve managed to avoid answering the questions while he was healing me, but Kevin is something else. Well, here goes nothing. I thought holding his gaze. Either they start trusting us or…or Kevin is about to kick my ass.

“I will tell you something.” I added watching him giving what we called a 'Kevin’s look'. “I need a new gun.”

“What’s wrong with the one you have?”

“Nothing, except it’s dead. The fu…”

“AJ!” Brian stopped me. He was pretty serious when it came to cursing. Not that Kevin or Howie would like to hear me swearing, they really wouldn’t, but Brian simply hated it.

“It’s broken.” I sighed “I need a new one.”

“I probably can fix it,” Brian said.

“We can’t afford a new one now AJ.” Kevin interrupted him. “I told you to stay near the ship, I still don’t understand what were you doing out there.”

“I was bored.”

“That’s not excuse Alex.”

I didn’t answer.

“You know this place is dangerous.”

“If I could use my powers…”

“I already told you that we can’t use them here.”

“Why? You keep making us practice day and night when we are in outer space and the minute we could use them you tell us not to.”

“They would only attract attention to us.”

“And you and Howie can’t afford that. Can you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know there’s a rebel base here?”

That was it. It was a just a second but I saw the sidelong glance he and Howie exchanged. Brian just shook his head in disappointment.

“What’s your point?”

“You know what Kevin? Forget it!”

And for the second time that day I shut myself in my room.

----
Copyright ©2004
All Rights Reserved
No part of this story may be copied or reprinted without the author's permission.

I felt like shooting something, literally. And since I couldn’t use my powers, a gun was the only other logical choice. Shooting had always relaxed me and I sure needed to relax. The bad thing was that I hadn’t a gun anymore. That led me to Kevin’s room. He had this incredible ATX-5 laser from his days in the militia, which was a pleasure to shoot. He practically hadn’t said a word to me during the last two days, which of course only got me to think that I was right. Otherwise I didn’t understand how he hadn’t forced me to tell him what I was doing in town and what really happened with the Sargons.

I felt rather strange in this room. Every time I went into Kevin’s room it was like I was back on Earth. Not that I remembered too much about Earth but this room in some way was Earth to me.

A pyramid shaped crystal in Kevin’s desk caught my eye. I approached and, as I always did when I was in this room, I sat on the desk and started to look into the sky blue crystal remembering the first time I saw it.

~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~× ~ × ~ × ~

6 year old Alexander was in front of the TV in awe. He was sitting on the floor watching the news anchorman giving some details of the Calaras forces’ attack.

“They have forces near Pladaa and Ximila, the two planets with most human inhabitants after Earth. The first one as everybody knows, being the first planet colonized by the human race more than a century ago. The Milky Way is full of Calaras ships too, and some of them seemed to be approaching Earth after destroying three human spaces stations, Z3, Y5 and Cilaric. Frodisians are fighting along humans near Saturn and the humans forces repelled the attacks in Y6 and Y7 but the last one is not in good conditions. This is terrible. All civilian flight are still forbidden. The only ships leaving Earth are those from the military forces. God help the human race.”

“Brian. I’m scared.”

“Alex, turn that off, you are scaring Nicky” his cousin Brian told him from his place in the couch.

“Tell him to go some place else to play” he answered without even looked at them. That same minute his mother entered the house with a couple of bags full of groceries.

“Alexander, Brian come and help me. And Alex turn that TV off. Why are you even looking at that? Where is your mom Brian?”

“She left an hour ago. Told us that she had something to do and that Kevin was in charge.”

“And where is Kevin?”

“In his room with Howie.”

“Howie is here?”

“Aha” Alex added. “Uncle Howard came today earlier to pick up uncle Ryan and Kev.”

“Then dad and uncle Howard left Kev and Howie before going to work” Brian interrupted.

“Alex go and get them, please” she said walking into the kitchen with Brian carrying one of the bags and Nicky tagging along.

“Aw Mom”

“Do it!”

He ran to the second floor but once there he tiptoed to Kevin’s room. The door was open and Kevin and Howie were sitting on the floor next to Kev’s bed. There was something different about them. Watching them entered the house that morning Alex had thought they looked like they had cried. A small object in Kevin’s hand caught Alex attention.

“Kev?” he finally said entering the room.

“What?”

“My mom is calling you.”

“Rachel is already here?”

“Yes. What’s that?”

“None of your business. And don’t touch it” he answered leaving the pyramid on his desk.

“Come Howie. Rachel probably needs help.”

When Kevin and Howie left the room, the boy turned his attention to the little object sparkling on the desk. It looked like a little pyramid, blue as the sky. He touched it timidly noticing how cold it was. For a moment he thought the pyramid changed its color for a darker one after he touched it, but it was probably because of the light. One last look to the door and he finally decided to lift it. For a little pyramid it sure was pretty heavy.

“Alex!” Brian called him and he let the pyramid drop.

“Damn!” he said picking it up and surprisingly realizing that the crystal didn't have any scratches.

“Alex!”

“I’m coming” he said, placing the pyramid on the desk again and leaving the room.


~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~× ~ × ~ × ~


I found myself looking at the portrait on the desk. It was a picture of Kevin’s 14th birthday party. All the family was there. Kevin, Brian, Nick, Howie, uncle Ryan, uncle Howard, uncle Jared, aunt Ally, aunt Claire and my mother. I remembered that day, just a couple of days before we left Earth. We were all laughing. How could I know that just a week after that Earth invasion would take place. The adults probably knew. That’s why they made us leave the planet. That’s why they forced us to leave them.


~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~× ~ × ~ × ~


“Alex, baby”

“No mommy, please. Don’t make me obey him this time. Uncle Ryan wants me to go in that ship and leave you here.”

“Baby. You need to go into that ship. Everything is going to be okay. We already talk about this. We are going to try to find another ship.”

“Why don’t you come in this one?”

“Baby please, you know we can’t.”

He felt someone pulling his shoulder and turned around to find Kevin.

“Come on Alex”

“How can you do this Kevin? How can you be so calm knowing that we are leaving them here?”

“Alexander, don’t talk like that to your cousin. This isn’t easy for him”

“Mom,” the kid said crying.

“No Alex. Listen to me. There are some things that you don’t understand now but you will some day. You have to listen to Kevin and Howie, baby. Just do what they say and they will explain everything to you.

“Kevin!” someone shouted. Alex turned around again to watch the rest of the family next to the spaceship that was about to leave. There were tears in everyone’s faces. Howie, Brian and Nick were already inside the ship standing by one of the gates. Brian was holding Nick, probably trying to stop the kid from doing the same thing that Alex had just done. They had already said goodbye and the gate was about to get close when Alexander decided to run. Her mother had come after him and now Kevin was there too.

“Alex, my father is calling for us. The ship is leaving. The captain can’t wait for us anymore.”

“Good. Then you can leave. I’m staying here.” he replied folding his arms.

“Go Kevin. Tell your father that we will be there in just a minute.” Rachel said and with that Kevin ran to the ship.

“Alexander James, listen to me. If you love me you are going to get into that ship right now.”

“Mommy” he cried.

“Baby” she added softening her tone “I promise that we will try to find another ship but you know that all civilians' flights are forbidden. Captain Roberts don’t want to take the risk flying us. If someone finds you he will tell that your parents are soldiers. We had gave him forged papers. But is just too risky to fly us. We just have to find another captain who wants to take that risk.”

“And why can’t we stay with you until then?”

“Because we can’t miss this opportunity.”

He looked into her eyes “You know that probably there won't be another opportunity, don’t you?”

She didn’t answered.

“Don’t you?”

“Yes, baby” she said without holding the tears anymore. “There is a chance that we can’t get out of here but you are going to be brave Alex. And you are going to do this for me. I know you don’t care right now and you are only listening to your heart but you have to hear me. There are big things in your future and I am proud to know that you will do them.”

He hugged her and she hugged him back.

“Now take this” she said taking off the chain she had on her neck.

“Your medallion? You had never taken it off before.”

“Every time you doubt about the decision you are making today, just hold this and you will remember that you did it because I asked you and because it was the right thing to do.” She placed the chain and the medallion in his hand.

“I love you mom.”

“I love you too Alex,” she whispered and holding his hand she walk with him to the ship. She gave him a last kiss and saw him climb up the ramp and reach the others by the gate.

He saw the spaceship gates closed and his heart sank watching his family for the last time. Even his uncle Ryan, the man he considered the bravest man over the face of Earth, had tears in his eyes. He heard the others cry. All of them were crying except Kevin but he was clenching his fists so tight that Alex knew that he was trying with all his heart to remain calm.

That night when they were all sleeping in the bunks of the little room Captain Roberts had gave them, Alex saw Kevin leaving the room. He decided to follow him and for the first time in his life he saw his cousin cried uncontrollably in a little corner of the ship.

~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~× ~ × ~ × ~

I knew that entering Kevin’s room wasn’t a good idea. Why am I crying? God, so many memories. I opened a drawer just to found Kevin’s “pilot wings”, the emblem that he wore for so many years. I remembered the day he received them. Captain Roberts looked so proud. Jake Roberts, or like I loved to call him Captain “Jerk” Roberts. He never took care of us. I don’t know if he promised our parents to do it or not, but during all those years in Philippians the only one he showed any interest in, was Kevin. Captain Roberts was impressed by Train’s amazing skills as a pilot. Now that I remember it, Kev was just 14 years old when he was admitted to the Academy in the station. Oh boy, he wasn’t even the age Nick is now. They admitted him two years earlier because Captain Roberts recommended him. Howie and Brian had to wait until they turned 16 like everyone else. Good thing that the war ended before I turned 16 because I didn’t see me in that Academy with all the “yes, sir”, “no, sir”. Not that the little school in Philippians was much better but at least I was Miss Reagan’s favorite pupil. Boy, it seems like all that was centuries ago but it was just years. I played with the wings in my hand. Why am I so angry with Kevin after all he had done for us? I laughed remembering my many little confrontations with Captain “Jerk”. Man, the time Captain Roberts heard me calling him Captain Jerk was the worst. I think I was 10 or 11 years old. Kevin was already a soldier. If I remember it well Nicky was the one who saved me. He saw Captain Roberts grabbing me and went looking for Kevin.

~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~× ~ × ~ × ~

“What’s going on here?” Kevin asked placing himself between his little cousin and the captain.

“This is one of your brothers, Private?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, he seems to be needing to learn some manners. I’m going to teach him to respect his elders.”

“With all respect sir. I’m the only one who punishes my brothers.”

“You have to know that your little brother just called me a jerk.”

Kevin gave Alexander a look and for a moment remained in silence but then he replied “I’m sorry, sir. You are right, he deserves to be punished for that, but as I already told you I’m the one who will punish him, sir." Kevin replied firmly. "Alex,” he added taking the boy by the arm “apologize to the captain.”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

The captain took a look at both of them before speaking again. “Boy you have to thank your brother here for saving you. If he wasn’t such a good soldier I wouldn’t be having these considerations with you.”

~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~× ~ × ~ × ~

I can’t believe that I still get shivers remembering Kevin’s look when the captain left. That probably was the time I had seen Kevin more furious with me, and boy, had he been mad with me many times.

I took the gun from the drawer and left the room. All those memories had changed my mood but I still wanted to practice my aim. I left the ship and found a place near the mountains - Man, this planet is big - and spent a couple of hours shooting at some cans. The mountain side of the planet was full of light too, which was pretty weird considering that K-Tawoor didn’t have a sun, star, or any natural satellite close, to bring light to the planet, but the inhabitants had covered the planet with artificial light.

“Hey!” someone said startling me.

“Jeff” I said after I turned around and found me in front of my 'rescuer'. “You scared the shit out of me. Don’t do that again.”

“Sorry. How is the shoulder? You look like you’ve never been shot.”

“The shoulder is perfect! I told you it was nothing. I didn’t think I would be seeing you so soon. Did you get the job?”

“No. They didn’t have any more places.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t have lasted there anyway, I get bored too fast. Man, I’ve been watching you. You are an amazing shot. You haven’t missed a target.”

“Yes, it’s just something I do.”

“Did you learn in Philippians?”

“In part, in part I was taught by my bro.. my cousin.”

“You were going to say your brother.”

“I always referred to my cousins as my brothers. It’s just that we are like brothers.”

“Oh. Got to be cool to have brothers. Do you have a real brother?”

“No. Only child.”

“Hey, how come I didn’t notice it before; is that an ATX-5 laser?”

“Aha.”

“Wow, those are amazing guns. Your father’s?”

“My cousin’s.”

“So he was a soldier too?”

“Kevin and Howie became soldiers. After our fathers died we stayed at the base. They both went to the academy, being Philippians one of the biggest stations it had its own academy. Brian went to the academy too but the war ended before he had the chance to fight.”

He was looking at me like he hadn’t any idea what was I saying. I realized then that I was mentioning too many names.

“I have lots of cousins” I added smiling.

“I noticed” he said laughing “So, Kevin and…”

“Howie?”

“Yes, Howie. So, Kevin and Howie fought in the war.”

“Aha” I knew that I shouldn’t be telling so many things to a stranger but it was good to have a conversation with other human besides my brothers. “Kevin became a pilot. He ended fighting in Altamira’s battle.”

“Altamira? You mean he is a war hero?”

“We lost the war, remember?”

“Yes, but we won that battle.”

“You grew up in a military base too. Didn’t you go to an Academy too?”

“Nope. The war ended before I was 16.”

“You mean you are … 19?”

“Yes.”

“So you are younger than Rok?”

“Who?”

“Forget it. It’s just that you look older.”

“I’m starting to think that you look older too. How old are you?”

“I’ll be 18 soon.”

He gave me a look.

“Okay, in a couple of months.”

“Oh man” he said laughing again “I remember that 18 was a very important age at Earth.”

Well, for me it’s still a pretty important age. When I turn 18 Kevin won't be able to bind my powers any more. But then, Jeff doesn’t know that.

“Do you remember a lot about Earth?” I asked him.

“Yes. Didn’t your father tell you about it?”

“Not too much.”

“Why don’t we go take a drink in town and talk some more about Earth? You don’t have to be 18 to drink here, or was it 21 the age you needed to be to drink liquor on Earth?” he said laughing.

“I have no idea” I said laughing too and decided to accept the offer.

----
Copyright ©2004
All Rights Reserved
No part of this story may be copied or reprinted without the author's permission.

Three or four hours later we left the bar and Jeff walked with me to our ship. I had a good time with Jeff. He told me about his life in Leviticus, the little space station where he grew up, near Colossians. The bar was full of Grises but there were a couple of Sargons too and even one or two humans which for some reason were the ones who made me feel uncomfortable.

I only had a couple of drinks because I wasn’t looking for trouble with Kevin or Howie and I knew they probably already were wondering where I was, but I was in a very good mood. Jeff had told me some good jokes. I was starting to think that he and Brian would get along well.

When we approached the ship I noticed Kevin standing by the gate.

“Shit!”

“What?” Jeff asked me.

“I was supposed to be helping with some reparations of the ship. I don’t think Kevin is too happy.”

“So, that’s your cousin the lieutenant” he said following my gaze “Do you want me to help you with an alibi? We can say that you were somewhere else.”

Yeah, that would help IF I could lie to my brothers. “No, don’t worry. I have to go though. I will see you some other time.”

“Okay. Take care.”

“You too. Bye” I said walking fast to the ship.

“Who’s that guy?” Kevin asked me when I was about to enter into our spacecraft.

“A friend.”

“A friend?”

“Yes Kev. Not everybody is our enemy.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Yeah right!” I said rolling my eyes and starting to leave but Kevin got me by the arm.

“I’m getting tired of this, Alex.”

“What?”

“I’m warning you. Lose the attitude”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“First, don’t swear.” I rolled my eyes again. “And second, I’m talking about that. You rolling your eyes and making a face after everything I say. I’m still in charge here, AJ and I want you to show more respect.”

I just looked him deep in the eyes until he loosed the grip.

“Can I go inside now? No wait, MAY I go inside now?” Man, sometimes I’m such a jerk. Now he is tightening his grip again.

“Have you been drinking?” he said wrinkling his nose.

Ooops!

“Well, I…”

“You know what, save your breath, I really don’t care” he said finally releasing me. “I’m too tired to deal with your shit. It seems that no matter what I say, you are going to do whatever you want.” Okay, that’s not true…well, not always.

He went inside. Now, that’s something I wasn’t expecting.

“Damn!” I said entering my room and lying down in my bed.

“Hey. Do you plan to make more noise? I’m trying to read here.” Rok said from behind a book.

“Sorry, is just that Kevin is getting on my nerves.”

“Why? Did he say anything to you for disappearing all day?” he asked me. “ Or was it all night?” he added looking at his watch. I guess I’m not the only one that can’t get used to a planet that doesn’t have any natural light.

“Kinda. Since we are in this planet he got this “boss” attitude that I hate. We used to have a democracy here. I know he is the captain and the oldest but he never had to remind me that. Now he is all “look at me, I’m Kevin the almighty” and I hate it.”

Brian laughed.

“That’s other thing I don’t like about this planet.”

“Huh?”

“You don’t laugh like you used to. Before we arrived here you were always making jokes and laughing. Now you are so serious. You look just like Kevin and Howie. I’m starting to think you know something too.”

“Come on!” he said placing the book aside.

“Why not? It wouldn’t be the first time. You knew about our powers way before they told me. You knew when we were in Philippians. Kevin waited all those years until we left that place to release my powers.”

“Can you imagine the problems you would have caused if you have gotten your powers back then?” he said laughing again.

“I don’t think that’s funny. Are you sure you don’t know anything?”

“Bone, you are seeing things.”

“Yes, that too.”

“Huh? Okay, now you are just confusing me.”

“I was in town today. I kept having this strange feeling every time I saw these humans, like I knew them.”

“What you mean?”

“Brian, do you think there’s a chance that we could find people like us here?”

“I don’t think so. I mean, there’s a chance of finding others like us somewhere. After all our families were not the only Alomegas back on Earth and there’s a big chance there are more out there in the Universe. But if they were here I’m sure we would already knew it.”

I didn’t answer.

“What exactly did you feel?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe I’m imagining things.”

“Just try to relax yourself Bone. I’m not used to see you in that mood. Usually is Nick the one fighting with Kevin all the time, not you. You and Kev used to get along pretty well and…

There was a knock at the door and Howie showed his face.

“May I come in?”

“Of course D. What’s it?” I said

“Brian, aren't you in charge of the kitchen this week?” he asked Brian giving him a little tap on the leg.

“I was but I changed turns with Frack.”

“Well, I’m not gonna eat whatever it is that Frack is cooking. He’s making a disaster there.”

“Okay, I’m going.” he said putting up his hands.

After he left the room Howie approached to me.

“I think you owe me a conversation” he said taking a seat at the foot of my bed.

“I owe you a conversation?”

“You avoided all my questions the other day. I would like some answers now.”

I just looked at him.

“Who was that guy with you today?”

“Let me guess. Kevin sent you?”

He gave me a look that could be compared to Kevin’s look.

“Jeez AJ, you think of me only as the second in command? A co-pilot that do whatever the pilot tells him to do? Good to know that’s the image you have of me.”

“I’m sorry.” I said realizing my mistake.

“No, Kevin didn’t send me. I was outside working on the some of the panels when you came back. To tell you the truth I haven’t even spoken to Kevin. He left a couple of minutes after you came back.”

I bit my lip. “I’m sorry.”

“I know, you already said that.” He sighed “I’m just worried, okay.”

Sweet D. He was always worried. When we were kids on Earth Howie was my hero. That was before Kevin became a parent figure, at the time when Kevin was just an annoying big brother who was always making fun of Brian and me, never letting us play with he and his friends. Howie was the only one of his friends that would take our side and ask Kevin to let us take part in the games. He spent so much time at home that even then he was like a brother to us. Uncle Howard was uncle Ryan’s best friend and you could always find aunt Claire and aunt Ally together. Of course when they let me know about the powers and all the history of the Alomegas, I realized why they were at home all the time. People like us form families and tend to stay together.

“Alex?” Howie was waiving his hand in front of my face. “Where are you?”

“Sorry.” See, still worrying about me. He’s still my hero.

“You keep saying sorry,” he laughed.

“I was just remembering when we were kids.”

“Brian told me that you have been thinking a lot about that.”

“Yes. I am having dreams about my mother all the time.”

“That’s good. I dream about mine too.”

We remained in silence for a moment.

“Are you going to tell me who was that guy?”

I sighed.

“Okay D. His name is Jeff and he’s the one who saved me from the Sargons the other day.”

“So, we were right, those injures were the work of Sargons.”

“Aha.”

“What happened?”

“I just opened my big mouth when I wasn’t supposed to do it. I was in this bar…”

“Bar?”

I played with the fabric of my jacket as I always did when I was nervous. “I met this Gris girl and we were chatting, nothing serious. But there were three Sargons and I made a joke about them. They heard me and the next minute I was running like mad with three Sargons chasing me.”

“And this Jeff guy helped you?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know what he is doing here?”

“He was looking for a job in the mines but they didn’t hire him. Haven’t you seen him there? You and Train are working there, right?”

“We…” D had never been too good for lying. “No, we haven’t seen him there. But then you don’t believe me, do you?”

“Huh?” Okay, he isn’t good lying but he is the best realizing what I am thinking. As I always say, he can read me like a book.

“You keep trying to find out what Kevin and I are doing all mornings.”

“And you are not going to tell me.”

“We WILL tell you.”

“You will?” I almost shouted.

“We are going to tell you. Just not right now. There’s a time for everything Aje.” he said winking.

“Very funny. Yes, a time for everything. Like you guys telling me and Nicky about our powers just some years ago.”

“Jay, we are not going back to that conversation. You know that we couldn’t afford the risk of people in the base knowing that we were different. There were already too much prejudices and fears among humans. And you and Nick were just kids. Moreover, you know it wasn’t our decision only. Our parents were the ones who bound our powers when we were born. They released Kevin's powers and mine just a couple of weeks before we left Earth and they taught Kevin how to bind and release Brian’s, Nicks and yours.”

“Yes, but you released Brian powers when we were at Philippians.”

“AJ…”

“I know, I know, Brian is older and wiser” I said making quotation marks with my fingers “Yeah right!” I added rolling my eyes. “He is just three years older than me, D. And have you seen him when he is with Nick? They both act like they were the same age.”

As they were taking a cue Frick and Frack entered the room.

“Gentlemen!” Brian said imitating a funny accent. “Your favorite chefs Frick & Frack have elaborated some exquisite dishes that are waiting for you in the kitchen.”

“Oh la la!” Nick added and they both burst out laughing.

We laughed too and I was about to follow them out of the room but Howie stopped me.

“I think we need to talk a little more.”

“Howie. I’m okay, really. I think I was just having a bad week and being stubborn. Maybe I’ve been spending too much time with Nick.” I smiled “I promise that I will come to you if I have a problem.”

“Sure?”

“Sure, D.”

He put his hand on my shoulder and we both left the room.


-----------------------------------

“I can’t believe what I’m going to say but this thing really tastes good.” I admitted eating another fork of the stew Frick and Frack had made.

“Of course it tastes good.” Brian said grinning. “You know we are the best.”

“And we are not only good chefs. We have something else for you,” Nick added placing something on the table. I found myself looking at five little silver devices, no much bigger than buttons.”

“What are those?” Howie asked.

“Communication devices,” Brian said putting on the table other five things that look like tiny hearing aids. “You can use them with or without these, depending on you wanting more or less privacy.”

“Cool!” I said taking one of the communicators. “Wow, these are tiny. And much better than the ones I’ve seen in town. Definitely better than the ones used by the human army. Remember yours Howie? It was huge, and it was always a pain trying to put it in your pocket or in you utility belt. ”

“Of course these are better, we are the best engineers in the universe” they both said making some kind of secret handshake. They looked ridiculous.

“I can’t believe you’ve done these.” Howie finally spoke up. “We really need them.”

“Of course we need them, especially now that you don’t want us using our powers. We assumed that prohibition included our telepathy and decided to make these.” Brian replied.

“Even if we could use our powers Alex would be needing one of these.” Nick exclaimed laughing. I tried to smack him on the head but he hid away behind Brian.

“Jerk!” I said but laughed too. I was already used to them always making fun of me because it seemed that I would never be able to control that particular power.



“Telepathy or not” Howie stated “these are amazing.”

“What’s amazing?” Kevin asked entering the room and taking a seat in front of me at the table. I felt a little uncomfortable, even more when he gave me a smile. Have YOU been drinking?

“Look what Rok and Nick have done.” Howie responded.

“Wow, guys, these look incredible.” Kev commented taking one of the communicators.

“Yes, but do they work?” I said laughing.

“Of course they work AJ.” Nicky defied “You know everything we do work perfectly well.”

“They certainly are a great help. I was looking for some of these at town and they are expensive.” Kev said putting one in the pocket of his jacket.

“You could use it as a pin too.” Brian offered showing him how.

“You are gonna love our next work then.” Nick expressed enthusiastically.

“What is it?”

“A droid.”

“A droid?” we all exclaimed.

“Aren’t droids parts expensive?” I asked.

“Yes, but we are not working with new spare parts. This will be the first droid made from old spare parts that will eventually function as a new one.” Nicky said sounding very proud of himself.

“Well, good luck with that. I for once wish I could be as good repairing things as you are guys.”

“Just wish to be a little better, Howie, and that will be enough.” Brian smiled “You and AJ have blown out half of the things you’ve tried to repair.”

“That’s not true.” I’m not that bad. Am I?

“Of course it’s true.”

“What are you eating?” Kevin interrupted Nicky before he started to make fun of my mechanical abilities as always. “It smells delicious. Man I’m starving.”

“Liquor does that to you.” Ooops. Did I said that out loud?

“What?”

Ha ha, he didn’t hear me, but the rest of the guys did since they all are looking at me.

“I said that you look pretty relaxed. Why are you so happy?”

“Nothing special. Just took a walk and it made me feel good. Exercise does that to me.” he replied paying attention to the plate Brian placed in front of him.

“So, what’s this?” he asked eating a forkful of the orange stew.

“Secret recipe.” Rok smirked.

“That’s Frick and Fracks for 'we have no idea, we just put some ingredients together and this came out'” I grinned and everybody laughed.

We ate the rest of our dinner pretty quiet. Either we were all starving or Brian and Nick had actually learnt how to cook.

After eating, everyone except Kevin and I went to perform chores. I waited for him to tell me something but after an uncomfortable silence I thought he was just going to ignore me and decided to help Howie with the panels.

“Alex” he called me when I was about to leave the room. Why you always have to wait for me to stand up before saying something?

“Yeah?” I replied sounding a little too harsh.

“Can we talk for a minute?”

Talk? Really? Aren’t you just going to yell at me again?

“Of course” I said rolling my eyes and taking a seat again.

“I think I owe you an apology.”

“Huh?” Okay if I open my eyes any wider they are going to pop out and drop to the floor.

“Close your mouth, Alex. Yes, I AM apologizing. I was too rude this afternoon.”

“You were too rude? I was the one who was too...” I hate to have to use this word but I guess it’s the truth. “disrespectful.”

“Maybe. But then that thing I said about not wanting to deal with you anymore.”

Deal with my shit, those were your exact words, Kev.

“It’s okay, Kev, really.”

“I think we both have been acting like jerks lately.”

“No, I was the jerk. You were a pain in my ass.” I said laughing.

“What I mean is that we have always been able to talk, Jay. You have always be very mature for your age, except from time to time when you decide to do something really stupid” he laughed “I really hate to fight with you Alex.”

“I’ve not been acting very mature lately, have I?”

“Not really.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know that you feel we are keeping too much things away from you but I promise you will get to know everything. You just have to wait and trust me.”

“I know Kev, really,” I whispered and for the first time in days I remembered how good it was to be able to talk to him. Kevin was still the man I admired the most.

“And if you have a problem accepting anything just talk with me. We can talk AJ. No matter how much I keep saying I’m going to kill you, you know I wouldn’t do that.” He winked and I smiled and nodded. “But just because Howie and Brian wouldn’t leave me in peace if I kill you, although Nicky would probably thank me.” He joked and we both laughed like we had not done it in a long time.

----
Copyright ©2004
All Rights Reserved
No part of this story may be copied or reprinted without the author's permission.

A week later

Kevin’s going to kill me. “Aw shit!” That just didn’t happen to me. Man, I’m so dead.

“Shit!!!” I shouted watching the purple liquid mass where Kevin’s gun had just disappeared.

I was about to get my hand in there but the strong smell stopped me.

What are you doing, man? You can’t get your hand in there. You have no idea what’s in that place. Why this keeps happening to me? I’m gonna die if I don’t get that laser back. This time Kevin’s really going to kill me.

Suddenly I got an idea and ran back to the ship.

“Brian! Brian!”

He came out from the ship, gun in hand and with Nick just a couple of steps behind him.

“Where are they?”

“Who?” I asked trying to recover my breath after the long run.

“You asshole!” Nick said. “We thought you were being chased or something. You can’t come screaming like that.”

“Great, NOW you react. The other day I was really needing you and you never appeared.”

“Why were you screaming?”

“I…” Wait, if I tell Nick he will make my life miserable. He would probably even tell Kevin just to make me suffer. “I just needed to say something to Brian.”

“Let me guess. You don’t want me to hear it.” he mocked and I just gave him my biggest smile. “Fuck you! Like I care,” he practically yelled.

“Nick!” Brian scolded him but Nicky was already inside the ship.

“Now what’s going on AJ?”

“I had an accident.”

“An accident? You got hurt?”

“Not that kind of accident. I was just investigating and...”

“Investigating? When you became Nick?”

“Very funny! I was just looking around and accidentally dropped Kev’s gun into some kind of lake or whatever they call it here?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Kev’s gun? How do yo… Oh, no AJ tell me that you didn’t take that second laser he keeps in his room?”

“Well...”

“Man, are you nuts? And how you drop a laser in a lake?”

“I was practicing my aim” again “near this lake, I decided to take a look at it because, you know, its purple and smells funny and I was curious, but I stumbled and almost fall and down goes the laser. It was the laser or me, Rok.”

“You are even talking like Nicky. It's purple and smells funny, you know.” he mocked me.

“Brian!” I pleaded.

“What do you want me to say? Practicing your aim? You are already the best shot I know; you are obsessed with your aiming. If Kev hears this you will be joining that laser.”

“That’s why you have to help me.”

“Doing what?”

“Use your powers?” I murmured.

“Naha!”

“Come on Brian you have to levitate that laser.”

“Man, you ARE nuts. You know there’s a big chance Kevin could sense me using my powers.”

“He is not here, he didn’t feel it the other day when you used them with Nick. If you hadn’t told him he had never known.”

“AJ I don’t think ...”

“Please Brian.”

He licked his lips and took a deep breath.

“Okay, show me the place.”

“Thank you, bro.”

“I can’t believe I’m gonna do this” he said walking with me.

“Is this a lake?” he asked some minutes later looking at the big and nasty purple liquid mass in front of us.

“What would you call it?”

“I don’t know. A big purple puddle of yuckiness? Where’s the laser?”

“Near those rocks” I replied pointing to the path of rocks that crossed the lake.

“You were walking there?” He smacked me on the head. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Ouch! What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with you? Why you hit me?”

“Because I can’t believe you were doing that. That’s something Nick would do.”

“Would you stop comparing me with Kaos.”

“Would you stop acting like him?”

“Look who's talking. You are the one who always defends him.”

“No, I don't when he does something dangerous or stupid like the things you are doing recently.”

“Are you going to help me or not?”

“Alright. Tell me where’s the laser.”

“I already told you. Near those rocks, probably close to fourth or the fifth to the left.”

“Exactly where?”

“How should I know!”

“AJ I can’t see a thing.” he complained standing very close to the bank.

“Rok, please just do it.”

I saw him closing his eyes and concentrate.

“Very logical, Rok. First you tell me you can’t see a thing and then you close your eyes.” I grinned.

“Shut up, Bone.”

Why he closes his eyes? He is always closing his eyes, he probably could do the same things without closing his eyes.

Next thing I knew some kind of rock popped up.

“Rok, that’s not the gun.”

“I can’t do it. There are lot of things down there, including some kind of creatures. I have no idea which one is the gun and I don’t wanna know what are those other things.”

“It’s not like you’ve never levitated something without knowing where exactly it is.”

“Tell me what I have levitated like that.”

“Me! Remember that time we had that 'powers war'. I kept scaring you exploiting things around you and you kept levitating me any other minute without even been in the same room. We did it for weeks until Kevin found out and told us not to do it anymore.”

“I can levitate you like that because I can sense your presence. I can’t feel the presence of your laser because it’s a thing. All the things are the same if you are not watching them. I need to know the exact place where it is.”

Damn! “And how can we know it? I wont put my hand in there, less my face.”

“Well, we need eyes down there.”

“Oh no, Rok, you are not really considering....”

“It’s the only choice. We need Nick, AJ.”

“I know. Damn, he is going to make me pay for this.”

He was about to call Nick through the communication device but I stopped him.

“No, let me go to the ship and bring him here.”

“Don’t forget to program the shields.”

“Okay” I said hurrying to the ship.

“Nick! Nicky, where are you?” I almost bumped into him. He was coming out from the kitchen eating some kind of sandwich.

“Be careful! You almost make me drop the plate.”

“Sorry!” I said and looking at him I knew he wasn’t expecting and apology. I didn’t know he could open his mouth and his eyes that wide.

“Did you just say that you were sorry?” He brought his hand to my forehead. “Are you sick, AJ?”

“Ha ha, very funny.” I replied smacking his hand “What wrong with me apologizing?”

“A lot, considering the fact that you never do that,” he answered starting to walk away.

“Nick! Wait a minute.” Here goes nothing. “I need a favor.”

He turned around with a big grin on his face. Aw man, he will enjoy to see me in trouble.

“You NEED a favor? I knew it! I knew there was a reason behind that apology.”

“Yes, I need a favor, and you could at least pretend you are not enjoying it too much. Could you come with me? Brian is waiting for us.”

“Of course.”

Without a single question? He IS enjoying this too much.

“Wait a minute. I’m going to program the shields of the ship.”

“No, let me do that, I’m faster with that kind of things.” he laughed and disappeared in the control room. Why is he the one with the power I need? He is not going to help me for free.

A few minutes later we were next to Brian.

“What’s the problem?” Nicky finally asked. He hadn’t made any questions on the way to the lake. He had just walked with that stupid grin on his face, probably trying to bother me.

“I lost Kevin’s laser in there.”

“Kevin’s laser? Doesn’t he always have his laser with him?”

“No that laser.” I replied and he immediately knew what I was talking about.

“You are kidding, right? You took his ATX-5 laser? Oh man. I have to see his face when he hear this.”

“You are here because you are suppose to help us, that way he will never know it.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Brian can’t levitate the gun without knowing exactly where it is. We need you to get in there.”

“Why don’t YOU go in there?”

“Have you seen that thing? It’s not water Nick. I don’t know what the hell it is but I’m not going in there.”

“And you want ME to go in there? Jeez, thank you. I love you too AJ.”

“Don’t be an idiot. You know what I’m talking about.”

“You mean astral projection?” See, you are not dumb. “You want me to use my powers? Brian?” he said looking at Rok who until that moment had remained in silence.

“Well, Nicky, it seems like the only way...”

“I can’t use my powers without Kev sensing it and you know it. You can do it Brian but neither AJ nor I can.”

“I will deal with that when its time.” I assured him “Kevin will know you are using your powers but he won’t know why. He is on the other side of the planet. When he comes back we will have an excuse prepared.”

“You will lie?”

“Nick, come on, now you have a problem disobeying Kev? You do it all the time.”

“That ain’t true.” He looked offended by my words.

“Just do it Nick” Brian said giving him a reassurance tap on the back.

“Okay. But if something happens it will be your responsibility.”

“Just tell me where it is and I will levitate it, Frack.”

Nick walked to the lake and sat on the bank. The next minute he was in some kind of trance. I think what I like most about Nick’s power is that he remains quiet when he uses it. That means no Kaos chatting and running. Kevin had told us that someday Nick will have enough control over his power and he will be able to remain active during these “astral projection” moments. In the future he will do things at the same time that his astral projection but for now Nick isn’t too good for that. Neither he nor his astral projection are active. He just uses his powers to see things that are too far away or that are impossible to see under other conditions. He likes to travel with his power. He just told me the other day about a visit to Venus.

“He found it.” Brian’s words took me out of my thoughts. Wow, these two really know the meaning of telepathy. The only ones in the family who can have entire conversations without saying a word. “Let’s see.” he added closing his eyes and I saw the laser levitate over the lake. Less than a minute later Rok had easily placed the gun near me.

I picked it up and took a time for examine it. I seemed to be intact, although completely covered with that gross purple goo. “That liquid is sticky” I said trying to clean the gun. “I hope it still works guys or you will have to help me to fix it.”

“Good to see how you follow my orders!”

Shit!

“Kev, what are you doing here?” I said turning around to the direction the voice came from.

“Is that my laser?” he said pointing at the gun I was trying to hide behind me. “Let me guess...” he muttered angrily “AJ?”

“I…”

He started to walk towards me but when he was a just couple of steps away he had to stop.

“AJ!” he groaned.

“I can’t help it. It was a reflex.”

“What? Do you think I’m going to hit you? Man, if you could see your face you would be scared too. “Take the shield off Alex. You are not making things better using your powers.”

“Sorry” I said and the power field disappeared.

“I can’t believe you are taking part in this, Brian.”

“Someone had to get your laser back Kevin. If you were in my place you would have done the same thing.” Rok argued.

“I…shit! Someone is coming. Isn’t that your friend, AJ?”

“Jeff? What’s he doing here?” I asked following Kevin’s gaze.

“Hi guys!”

“Hi Jeff! What are you doing man?”

“Just walking. I never thought I would find you here. What did I say to you when we met the first time? We humans tend to bump into each other, right?” he said smiling to the rest of the guys.

“Let me introduce you to my cousins. This is Kevin, that’s Brian and …” Where the hell is Nicky? That coward. He probably ran to the ship when Kevin appeared. “It seems that Nicky had something else to do.”

“Jeff Vaughn” Jeff said shaking hands with Kevin.

“Kevin Littrell” Kev replied. Did Jeff just turn pale?

“Littrell you said?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Nothing, is just that.... Is that your last name too, AJ?”

“Yes. Littrell was my mother’s last name.”

Kevin was giving Jeff the weirdest look.

“Have you heard the name before?” he asked Jeff.

“Uh? No, not at all. I just noticed that AJ never told me his last name before.”

“Didn’t I? Kevin, stop looking at him like that! Did he just hear me? So NOW my telepathy is working, or else I don’t understand why Kevin is giving ME that weird look.

“Excuse me Jeff, but there are some things I need to do. AJ, I will talk to you later.” Kevin suddenly excused and walked away.

Now, THAT was weird.

“Did I interrupt something?” Jeff said after a while, he hadn’t taken his eyes away from Kevin until he disappeared in the horizon. “I never imagined I would find you here.”

“No, don’t worry.” Brian smiled “So you are the famous Jeff, the man that saved my little cousin here.”

“I guess you could say that.” he laughed.

“Nice to meet you Jeff.”

“Nice to meet you too, Brian. AJ is always talking about you. I feel like I already knew you. Are you sure I didn’t interrupt anything? I think your brother was bothered by my presence.”

Brian and I exchanged a look.

“No, that’s just Kevin being Kevin.” Rok replied. “He hadn’t been in the best of the moods lately. We probably should be going though.”

“I understand. But I would love to have a last drink with you later today or tomorrow AJ, and maybe you can join us Brian.”

“Last?” I asked.

“I’m leaving the planet in a couple of days.”

“Where are you going?”

“I find a place in a Gris’ cruiser which is going to Albatrian. Since I didn’t find a job here there’s no point on me staying any longer. These Grises will take me to Albatrian and in exchange I just have to do some works in the ship. I’m broke and that’s the only way I can travel these days.”

“What’s in Albatrian?”

“No idea but I will find it soon.” he said laughing “What do you say? Tonight?” I looked at Brian but he didn’t say a word.

“Maybe tomorrow” I finally accepted. “I will meet you at the same place from the other day.”

“At 20 hours”

“Perfect.”

We shook hands and Brian and I walked away.

“Are you seriously considering going tomorrow? I don’t think Kevin will accept it.”

“Maybe if you go with me?” I shrugged my shoulders.

“He seems to be a nice guy.”

“He is a nice guy, no matter if Kevin thinks otherwise.”

“Why you say that?”

“Didn’t you notice the way he looked at him.”

“As I told him, it was just Kevin being Kevin.”

“I really don’t think so” I said as we entered the ship.

----
Copyright ©2004
All Rights Reserved
No part of this story may be copied or reprinted without the author's permission.

“You are such a coward, Nick” I said to the kid when, much to my surprise, I found him in our room, just a couple of minutes later.

“Shut up!” he said defensively without even looking at me. He was sitting on his bed playing with one of those little games he and Brian were always inventing. They were pretty similar to the Gameboys we used to have on Earth.

“Just admit it, Nicky, you are a coward. Kevin showed up and you ran.”

“I didn’t run. I just had something to do.”

“Yeah, right!”

“Even if I had run, would you blame me? I don’t like to be around him when he is mad.”

“He was mad at me Nick, not you.”

“AJ, picture this, Kevin mad and you and me in front of him,” he said finally looking at me. “Who’s the one who will end up in trouble most of the time?”

“Oh, come on Nicky. Don’t you dare to play the victim here. Kevin yells more at me. The guy is always defending you.”

“Yeah, he treats me like a baby,” he replied placing the game aside.

“Because you whine like one.”

“Ha ha” he said making a face and for a minute I thought he was about to stick his tongue out at me like he used to do all the time when he was a little kid. Sometimes it was hard to remember that he wasn’t a little kid any more. “I don’t whine” he added. Right, and you are not whining right now.

“You are exaggerating. He doesn’t treat you like a baby, Nick.”

He lifted his arm showing me his bracelet. Okay, you got a point there.

“Okay, he treats you like a kid but he treats me the same way. He just does that because we are the youngest in the family.”

“He doesn’t treat you the same way he treats me.”

“Excuse me, but where have you been the last few days? He is treating me like a baby. The little brother who has to do what the others say.”

“Fine, he treats you like his baby brother. Good for you. He treats me like his son.”

“What?” I said smiling.

“Don’t laugh. He treats me like his son, AJ. Not his little brother. There’s a difference there.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You want an example? When was the last time you had to ask for permission to go anywhere?”

“What? I have no idea. I always have to tell the guys where I am going.”

“You have to TELL them. There’s a difference there, Bone. You just tell them but I have to ASK for permission.”

“Nicky come on. I’m two years older than you.”

“That’s not the point. And don’t call me Nicky. I hate it.”

“How’s that not the point, NICKY?” I can’t help it. I love bothering him.

He just rolled his eyes. “Because you never had to ask Kevin’s permission.”

“Man, you really hate to ask for permission.” I said burying my face on my pillow. The kid got on my nerves pretty easy with his whining. “Ok, I admit that I never ask permission. But except for that you have to accept that he treats us the same way.”

“No way.”

“Yes way. Didn’t we learn about our powers the same day.”

“Man you are obsessed with that. Fine, we learnt about our powers the same day. That’s the only time he treated us the same way.”

“Nick…”

“Is that a gun?” he said pointing at the laser I had placed on our desk.

“What?” Shit, I get it. “Well, it isn’t mine. Mine is ruined and…”

“You get the point, AJ” he rested his head on the headboard. “You got a laser the day you became 14, right? I’m about to turn 16 and Kevin still doesn’t let me have one.”

“You know shooting is just related to my power.” Man, I would be hating Kevin if I were Nick.

“Yeah, whatever.”

Yes, he is right. But there’s probably a good explanation for everything. Kevin practically raised him. Nick passed from the little angelic baby that Kevin always baby-sat on Earth to the little child that became his entire responsibility when we left our parents. I had the chance to create the 'nuisance cousin' relationship first before Kevin took charge of everything.

“Jeez, Nick. I never thought about that.” I said looking at him. “I guess you are right. And here I was complaining about Kevin being too hard on me.”

“Yes. You’re a jerk.”

“Don’t push your luck kid”

“Bone, you ARE always complaining about everything. Man, I would change places with you any day. The others treat you like and adult. They tell you everything.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“Okay, except for that.” he said understanding what I was thinking.

“You said it like it wasn’t a big deal.”

“How am I supposed to know if it’s a big deal or not? You guys never tell me anything.”

We kept silence for a minute.

“You were right about them working for the rebels” he added out of nowhere.

“What?”

“I said you were right.”

“And how would you know?”

“Because I’ve followed them.”

“YOU HAVE WHAT?”

“Followed them. I’ve seen them on that rebel base.”

For some reason confirming that Kevin and Howie are working with the rebels doesn’t seem so important as hearing that Nicky has been there. Maybe because part of me already knew that Train and D were with the rebels.

“You have been in the rebel base? When? How?”

“Not in the rebel base, you dummy. I was following them. I didn’t get inside.”

“Let me ask this again because I don’t think you were listening.” I said leaving my bed and taking a seat in front of him. “WHEN?”

“A couple of times.”

“You have been using your powers without Kevin noticing it. Today you didn’t even want to help me," I complained

“I have been there, AJ, not my astral projection.”

“How? You are always with Rok and you have that bracelet now.”

“This thing?” he said moving his hand “Jay, Rok made it years ago. This thing is old and I know exactly how it works. I can’t do whatever I want with this old thing. And it's not like I’ve been doing it every day, since you were never here and I had to help Brian. But the days you actually stayed here I took advantage of the situation,” he answered giving me one of his patented grins. I remembered that when we were living on Philippians one of those smiles usually made all the women there say something like 'Isn’t he adorable?'

“So every time I’ve been working with Rok and the little monitor he has, showed him you were in your room or somewhere else in this ship…”

“I was really outside.”

“Damn, that’s not fair. You got away with everything.”

“You just love to see me in trouble, don’t you?”

“Like you don’t enjoy watching me in trouble.”

“Well, witnessing Kevin today get mad with you when you activated your shield was hilarious.”

“Man, it really was a reflex. He started to approach and…Wait a minute. I thought you ran as soon as Kevin appeared.”

“Well, I…”

“You were there all the time?”

“Not all the time. I did go away.”

“When? You didn’t leave because of Kevin, right?”

He didn’t answer.

“Then why?” I finally saw it clearly “Jeff?”

He started to play with the gameboy again.

“Nick!”

“There was a chance he could recognize me okay!”

“Recognize you from where?”

“The bar,” he whispered and once again he avoided my gaze.

“The bar? You’ve been into a bar? Are you nuts? What the hell were you doing there?”

“That’s none of your business.” he said looking up defiantly.

“You are just a kid.”

“Fuck you, AJ. If you can go, then I can go. And don’t say what I can or can’t do.”

Man, I feel the urge to hit the boy. Okay, I will try Howie’s approach. Try to stay calm AJ, and maybe he will tell you everything.

“What happened in that bar?”

“I got in trouble and your friend saved me.” He saved him? He saved me and then he saved him? Oh god, there’s a voice on my head screaming 'too many coincidences'.

“He is a good guy.”

“Yes, he is.” Or at least that’s what I used to think. Because if he is such a good guy then why am I feeling so suspicious about him?

“But he has some friends I don’t like.”

“Friends?” Jeff has friends here? Wasn’t he a loner?

“These guys in the bar he was talking to. There was just something about them that I didn’t like. Something that kept me watching them but I’ve no idea what was it. But maybe it was just because they were humans and we don’t see humans too often. I had this strange feeling when I met Jeff too. Strange? Didn’t I had a strange feeling when I met him. What the hell is going on here?

“So, you were in that bar just once?”

“Yes, AJ” he said rolling his eyes again “just once.”

“What exactly happened?”

“I entered the bar after I lost Kevin and Howie one afternoon. I was following them but they just disappeared. Once there, I noticed nobody was paying attention to me, so I decided to have a drink and this stupid drunk Gris started to make fun of me. He made a joke about me and you know me, I wasn’t going to leave him make fun of me without saying anything, so I kind of made a joke about him too, which wasn’t difficult considering the guy WAS a joke. He didn’t like what I said and I think he was about to hit me when Jeff intervened. Not that I needed his help. I was bigger than that Gris.” I rolled my eyes.

“Did you two talk?”

“No, he just told me that maybe that wasn’t the right place for me to be. I thanked him and left.”

I really don’t like any of this. He just bit his bottom lip before answering my question. There’s a good chance he is lying but if that’s the case there’s no way he is going to open up to me. Man I don’t want to think about what Jeff could be really looking if all this is not a simple coincidence. It has to be a coincidence. This planet is making me ill. There isn’t a single night I don’t feel like there are people following me. And those dreams…

“Nick, I have to ask you something. Are you by any chance having strange feelings since we came to K-Tawoor?”

“Strange feelings like what?”

“I don’t know. Have you had strange dreams? I’m not dreaming about my mother anymore but last night I’ve dreamed about my father. I don’t know how he looks and I didn’t even saw his face in my dream but I’m sure it was my father and for some reason that dream scared me.

“No. But what I’ve noticed is that you are acting weird.” Great! I shouldn’t have asked.

“I’m acting weird?”

“Yes, you are acting weird ever since we are in this planet.”

“Why do you say that?”

He didn’t reply.

“Well, maybe you are right. For some reason I don’t want to be here. I hate to see Sargons on every corner and I hate not being able to use my powers.”

“Not that again!” he muttered standing up and going to the door.

“What?”

“Man, you ARE obsessed with your powers. Is not the first time we are planet side and unable to use them, AJ. Why is this time so different? You are becoming really annoying,” he complained before leaving the room.

----
Copyright ©2004
All Rights Reserved
No part of this story may be copied or reprinted without the author's permission.

An hour after Nick left the room I was still thinking about what he had said.

Why everyone keep saying that I am obsessed with my powers. I’m not obsessed with anything. But then, why I’m feeling the need to use them so much since we are here. It’s something about this place? Nicky is right, we have spent time in other planets with orders of not using our powers before, and I have always accepted it. After all my powers are still something new. Man. I can still remember the day I learnt about them…

~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~× ~ × ~ × ~

“Why couldn’t we stay with Stuart and Jimmy?” an hyperactive AJ asked as he kept on walking across the kitchen of the ship that a couple of days earlier had become their new home.

“AJ, stop it. I’m starting to get tired of your constant whining.”

“I don’t whine. It’s just a reasonable question, Howie. Why didn’t we go with them? We could have afforded a bigger and better ship and I wouldn’t be stuck with Brian and Nicky in the same room.”

“You probably would, AJ, considering that it would mean more people in just one ship. And don’t say that you are stuck with them. You have the biggest room. If the other rooms were a little bigger I wouldn’t mind share a room with you like we did it on the base. If you want you can have my room and I will sleep with Frick and Frack.”

“Thanks. It’s okay, I think. I do like to room with Rok. The only problem is when he’s acting like Nick. Then they just laugh about everything and they get on my nerves. But you didn’t answer my question. Why couldn’t we stay with Stuart and Jimmy? They are your friends. Stuart is Kevin’s best friend and those other guys are probably with them too. It’s not like we have a different plan. We are not going anywhere special. We are just going to try to avoid planets with too much presence of the Empire forces, and that’s what Jimmy and Stuart had planned too. Why Kevin wanted us to be on our own?”

“You are going to know it right now AJ, so stop complaining,” Kevin said entering the room and making AJ jump. “I want you all take a seat.”

“Don’t do that again, Kevin, you scared me. Hey, who’s flying this thing?”

“There’s something called automatic pilot, AJ.”

“This ship is old. Are you sure it works?”

“Shut up, Alex. And take a seat,” he commanded after taking a seat at the table. “Nick, Brian, sit down,” he added speaking to the other two boys who had just entered the room behind Kevin.

Everyone took a seat but a couple of minutes passed without Kevin saying a single word.

“Jeez Kevin, that’s really interesting. Keep talking,” AJ joked making Brian and Nick laugh.

“Shut up, Alex,” the young man replied before taking a deep breath and continued. “Alex, Nicky, there’s something I have to tell you.”

“Alex and Nick?” AJ’s eyebrows rose after hearing those words “Then why are Brian and Howie here. What is it?”

“Already?” Brian asked at the same time.

“What you mean by already? AJ interjected “Come on, what is it? You guys are making me nervous.”

“Me too.” Nicky murmured.

“Calm down Nicky, it’s nothing bad,” Brian said putting one arm around his little brother who was sitting beside him.

“Alex” Kevin spoke up. “You were complaining about not going with the other guys. There’s a reason for that and it’s time for you to know it.”

AJ sat back on the chair and folded his hands behind his head. A couple of minutes more passed and he checked his watch “Are you planning on telling me this century?”

Howie smacked him on the head.

“Ouch. What did I do to you, man?”

“Thanks D. I was about to do that.” Kevin shot AJ an angry look “AJ, are you going to let me talk?”

“You are the one who is taking forever to tell us whatever you want to say.”

“Is just that there isn’t a simple way of telling it. I have no idea where to start.”

“You did it well when you told me.” Brian tried to help Kevin.

“When he told you what?”

“Yes, I know, but for some reason it looked simpler then.” Kevin took a deep breath.

“When he told you what? Would somebody say anything to me.”

“That we are different,” Kevin spat.

“Different?” Nicky whispered.

“Okay there’s no easy way of saying this so I’m just going to say it. We are different from any other humans.”

“Are you guys drunk?” AJ laughed but seeing the serious look on everyone’s faces he started to feel uncomfortable. “Okay guys, it’s not funny. You are scaring me.”

“Our families were different, bro.”

“In which way?”

“We have powers.”

“Powers? Like super heroes? Yeah right.” AJ was laughing again.

“Are we super heroes?”

“No, Nicky. We are not super heroes. We are just special.”

“Yes, you are special. You are special group of morons if you think I’m going to believe that.”

“AJ! That was uncalled for.”

“Just let Kevin talk, AJ” Howie interfered watching Kevin lose his patience.

“I’m letting him talk, but he is making no sense.”

“What I’m trying to say is that we belong to a different group of people who….”

“Are insane?”

“AJ!” This time it was Brian the one losing his patience.

“This is too much.” AJ started to stand up.

“Sit down!” Kevin ordered and the tone froze AJ. “I’m trying to explain it to you, AJ. You are just not making this easy.”

“Are you guys hearing what you are saying? Powers? Special? It’s something on the air here that’s making you say all this crap.”

Kevin just moved his head. It seemed like the kid wasn’t going to let him talk so maybe he just had to show him.

“Oh my God, AJ!” Nicky stood up quickly without taking his eyes away from AJ whose chair was floating on the air.

“What the hell is happening?” AJ yelled, grabbing the chair.

“Are you going to let me talk?” Kevin asked him with a big grin on his face.

“I don’t know how you do this Kevin but put me down. Now!”

“Are you going to listen to me?”

“Yes, yes, just put me down.”

The chair came back to the ground and AJ started to check it.

“That was a trick. Wasn’t it? This has to have strings or something like that.”

“Why would we want to play a joke like this on you?”

“Revenge? Pay back for all the headaches you are always saying I give you?”

Brian pulled Nick and made him take a seat again. The little kid was looking from one brother to another, not sure what to think.

“Okay, fine. You want to see more?” Kevin spoke up “You will see more. Howie would you show them?”

Howie just smiled and then disappeared.

“Oh my God, where did he go?”

“I’m still here AJ”

“Cool!” Nick said “You are invisible.”

“I’m not invisible.” Howie replied becoming visible again. “I was just playing with your minds. You saw what I wanted you to see. Kevin and Brian were looking at me all the time.”

“Can I do that too?”

“No, Nicky, not now, but who knows, maybe in the future.”

“What can Brian do?” the kid was so excited.

Before Brian could answer Kevin spoke again “We all have different powers, guys. Right now each of you has only one power but with the time you will develop new ones.”

“And Kevin has all of them,” Brian added.

“You have all of them? How is that fair?” Nick complained.

“I don’t have all of them, Brian. If you would let me explain it.”

“But you have them. The telekinesis is my power and you just used it,” Brian continued.

“Tele what?”

“Telekinesis, Nicky. I can move things with my mind like Kevin just did.”

“Cool!. What’s your power, then?” Nicky addressed to Kevin again.

“I guess you can say I have supernatural strength.” Kevin grinned.

“That’s lame.” Nicky made a face and everyone laughed.

“Would you just shut up!” AJ who had spent the last minutes quiet finally exploded. He stood up and started to walk the room. “You guys are talking like this was the most normal conversation ever.”

“It's part of our lives Jay”

“No, you can’t come here and tell me that I have powers like it isn’t such a big deal. You can make Nicky all excited about this but not me. I’m, not 11 years old like him. I’m almost 15.”

“Hey, I’m 12 and going on 13.”

“I don’t get it. Why you guys are doing this? This is a sick joke.” AJ kept talking ignoring Nick.

“AJ, you already know it's not a joke so quit that. You needed to know it.”

“If all this is true, then why didn’t I know it before?”

“It was a decision I took. You could say I bound your powers. I will be able to do that until you turn 18.” Kevin firmly replied. AJ just looked him into his eyes from where he was leaning against a wall, far from the rest of them, who remained sitting around the table.

“What’s my power?” he finally asked.

“There are other things I need to tell you before talking about that.”

“Like the fact that we are not humans?”

“We are humans, AJ”

“Humans with powers? That’s not normal.”

“That’s more common that you would think. It would surprise you to know how many people on Earth had powers.”

“Kevin why don’t you tell them the story.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to do Brian,” Kevin growled.

“Sorry,” Brian muttered.

“No, it’s okay. I know you are trying to help.” Kevin gave him a smile and placed a reassuring hand on his wrist. “Guys,” he continued looking at AJ and Nick. “We come from a race called the Alomegas.”

“See, I told you that we are not humans.”

“Would you let me finish, AJ?”

“Yes, shut up AJ!” Nick growled out.

“Don’t tell me to shut up you little…”

“Alex!” Kevin slammed his hand on the table making everyone jump.

“I didn’t say anything.” AJ defended himself. Kevin just glared at him. “Okay, I’m sorry,” the kid finally whispered.

“As I was telling you,” Kevin continued, “we are descendants of an ancient race called Alomegas. The Alomegas went to Earth thousands of years before our time, AJ. We are just their descendants but we are humans in every sense of the word. Before going to Earth they lived in a little planet not far away from the Milky Way. Lots of Alomegas sought refuge on Earth when their planet was destroyed. They lost their sun so life in their planet became impossible. Since they looked pretty much like humans and had lots of the same needs and the same way of live, Earth was the only logical answer. This happened many centuries before men discovered life in other planets, therefore the Alomegas tried to go unnoticed and, in a way, you can say they fulfilled it. They kind of became humans and not many years after that they had already formed families, they married humans and had kids, who then had kids too. Some of their kids had powers, some lost them. And some of their descendants keep all this knowledge and for the years to come Alomegas descendants tended to form groups.”

“So our parents were Alomegas descendants?”

“Aha. There were lots of Alomegas descendants on Earth. Practically all the people with special powers there.”

“I don’t remember Earth having people with special powers.”

“Telepathy and telekinesis are just two of the powers that you could find on Earth. And what about the witches and wizards?”

“Those are not true. Witches and wizards are legends.”

“All legends had a bit of reality somewhere.”

“I guess.” AJ shrugged.

“But there are bad witches too.”

“Those are children’s stories, Nicky.”

“No, AJ, Nicky is right in a certain way. The Alomegas didn’t go to the Earth alone. That star, their sun, was the source of life for a second planet too, so they help the inhabitants of that planet, their neighbors, and they went together to Earth. But something happened and some of the descendants of the Tracons used their powers to cause damage. They just wanted power. The Alomegas and the Tracons were never real enemies though. But that’s another story.”

“So we are descendants of the Alomegas, the good guys, and we have powers.”

“Yes, you are going to become acquainted with them with the years. I share some of these powers with you because, well, because I’m the leader of the group.” AJ rolled his eyes “Yes, AJ, either you want it or not that’s the way it is. I guess it is a form to guarantee that someone in the group will teach the others how to use of their powers, but the powers I share with you are not my powers, and I will not be as good with these powers as you guys. As a matter of fact, I only share with you your first power. I can’t do what Howie did before. That’s part of the second power he acquired some months ago.”

“Are you going to tell us what power we have?”

“Yes. Nick has the power of….” AJ opened his mouth to say something. “What AJ?”

“Nothing, just that, well, you have to agree that this is a pretty fucked up story.”

“AJ!”

~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~× ~ × ~ × ~

A knock on the door brought me back to reality and Kevin showed his face in my room.

“Alex, we have to talk. Meet me in the main room.”

Why in the main room? He usually just yells at me here, in my room.

It took me a few minutes to make up my mind, I really wasn't in the mood to hear another lecture, but realizing I couldn't avoid Kevin any more I finally stood up and went to the main room.

----
Copyright ©2004
All Rights Reserved
No part of this story may be copied or reprinted without the author's permission.

*Author's note: Since this was a short chapter I decided to add a little note here. I would like to thank all the people that are reviewing my story. Is good to see that someone is enjoying it. And of course special thanks to Mare and Mersey, you rock ladies! *



I went to the main room just to find everyone there, including Nicky. Great he is going to yell at me in front of everybody.

“Guys I need to talk with you. It’s time for everyone to know everything.” That’s not what I was expecting.

“Kevin, are you sure? I mean, they could find us.”

“They already have.” Kevin answered. Is that fear what I see in Howie’s eyes?

“Who can find us, guys?” I said taking a seat next to Brian.

“Guys, there’s a reason why Howie and I didn’t tell you everything before. If someone should be mad with us is Brian. It was just easier that way.” Kevin bit his lips. “Brian” he added looking at Rok “We didn’t want you having to lie to Nicky and Alex, we knew how much you hated the last time when I released your powers before theirs. That’s why we kept you in the dark about this. Nicky and Alex simply couldn’t know it until they were in full control of their powers. The information I’m about to share with you could be dangerous for us if you don’t have complete control over your powers. But now we can’t wait anymore.” He kept silence for a minute. “Man. I don’t know how to say this.”

For some reason I’m waiting for my chair to fly.

“There’re no words to explain this so you will have to find everything the way Howie and I did.”

I had this strange feeling in my stomach the minute Kevin took out the little blue pyramid from one of his pockets.

“I want you to touch this.”

“I’ve touched that thing many times and nothing happened. What is it any way?”

Kevin placed the pyramid on the table.

“You will know in a minute. I want you three to touch it at the same time.”

“Why?” I asked

“Just do it guys. You will understand everything the minute you touch it.”

I saw Nicky and Brian about to touch the pyramid and I just followed them. There are no words for describing what I saw and what I felt. It was like being suck into a dream. Everything went dark first, and then I saw too many images and experienced too many feelings. I saw the first Alomegas that went to Earth, I saw generations of humans and Alomegas living in peace and I saw wars too. I saw my mother, I saw my childhood, I saw what happened on Earth after we left, what happened to my family, and I saw what I assumed could be the future, or at least images of a possible future. I even saw my father, or at least something in me told me I had seen him. He was just a blurry image but it caused me pain. Everything lasted just a few minutes but it felt like hours. I opened my eyes - I didn’t even remember closing them - to find myself in front of my brothers. There were tears in Brian’s and Nick’s eyes and when I touched my face I confirmed that I had cried too. I looked to Kevin and remembered the first day I saw that little pyramid. He and Howie had been crying that day. Did they see the same things? God, did they see our parents dying before it happened?

“Is that…” I tried to speak but the words wouldn’t leave my mouth.

“Take your time guys. I know it's too much information at once,” Kevin said in a low voice.

“Is that the future?” Nick asked, his voice trembling.

“It could be. But the future keeps changing guys. That’s what summarizes everything. We are here to change things. Some of the things I saw the first time I touched the pyramid never happened.”

“How? Why?” I know I didn’t make sense but for some reason Kevin understood what I was asking.

“You could call it a prophecy, some people would call it a legend. Check the bottom of the pyramid” he said.

Brian took the pyramid and I looked at it over his shoulder. I had seen that print on the bottom before but I couldn’t understand what it was then. Now it was like all those lines and points were English because they finally made sense to me. Nick was at my other side now and he read it aloud “And the five will bring back the blue skies”.

“I guess you already know we kind of lied to you. We are not like our parents.”

“We are more powerful” I said, although I still couldn’t understand where all that knowledge was coming from.

“Yes. They had powers but not to the extent we have them.”

“And that prophecy…”

“A story told from generation to generation among Alomegas descendents. Five men who will save the human race.” Howie murmured.

“Alomegas and humans always had a deep relationship. But a group of humans and Tracons got together and tried to control the Universe. They used the Calaras to cover themselves. In the eyes of everybody the Calaras forces were the ones attacking human planets but, as we got to know during the war, there was a human alliance with the Calaras. Humans betraying humans, and that’s how they won the war.

“We already knew that,” Brian replied

“Yes, but nobody knew that alliance included Tracons. Well, the majority of humans didn’t even know about the existence of the Tracons, like they didn’t know about the Alomegas. But there was a group who knew, those that betrayed their own race. Humans and Tracons killing other humans and killing Alomegas. In that search for power the Earth was destroyed.”

“What about the rebels?” Rok asked.

“Howie and I knew about the prophecy. Someday we would be fighting against the Empire. We just thought the rebel force would be a good place to start.”

“Are there any other Alomegas there?” Nick asked in a whisper.

“In all these years we haven’t met a single one” Howie told us.

We remained in silence for a while.

“What about what you said before,” I said to Kevin. “About Nick and I not being in complete control of our powers.”

“The Tracons know about the legend. They want the powers of the five, our powers, and they are looking for us. Some humans from the Empire are looking for us too. We can avoid humans but we can’t avoid the Tracons. They have powers too.”

“Telepathy?”

“Yes. The Tracons can read your mind. We have met Tracons before. Howie and I have been able to hide the truth from them but I wasn’t sure you guys could do the same.”

“And why are you telling us now? As you said, we don’t have complete control over our powers yet.”

“Because they have already found us.”

“How do you know it?”

“Your friend Jeff is one of them.”

What? There was a deathly silence and I felt everyone was looking at me.

----
Copyright ©2004
All Rights Reserved
No part of this story may be copied or reprinted without the author's permission.

“Jeff?” I managed to ask “Jeff is one of them? Are you sure?”

“I knew he was like us the minute I talked to him.”

Wait a minute… “Like us? You said he was a Tracon.”

“I told you this before, J. There’s a deep connection between Alomegas and Tracons. Like there is deep connection between Alomegas and humans too. We all come from the same…” he seemed to be trying to chose the best word to explain it “Lets just say that we all come from the same source. At the beginning the Tracons were our friends but at some point they started to hurt humans. The Alomegas, naturally, didn’t approve it. With the time it became pretty clear that the Tracons only wanted to dominate the human race.”

“But you are sure that he is a Tracon.”

“Yes, I’m sure. I admit that for a minute I thought he could be an Alomega but now I’m positive about this. He is a Tracon, AJ. There is a little group of Tracons in this planet. The rebels already knew about them. No that they were Tracons, of course, but that there was a group of Empire citizens and soldiers rounding the town and pretending to be simple human outlaws. Jeff is one of them. Until now we know for sure that there are 9 “Empies” here.

“Empies?” Nick made a face.

“Empie is the word the rebels use for an Empire sympathizer” Kevin explained. “You probably have already seen some of them when you were with Jeff, Alex.”

I shrugged. “He was always alone.”

“What about those humans in the bar that you mentioned, Bone. The ones that made you feel nervous?” Brian interrupted.

“I know what bar you are referring to.” Kevin nodded “That’s where they usually meet.”

“What is it, Nicky?” Howie suddenly asked and we all looked to our little brother who had a scared look on his face.

“Nothing.” he answered.

“You were about to say something.”

“No, I was not,” he replied sounding a little irritated.

“Nick?” Kevin gave him a look.

“I wasn’t. Really.”

“Why I’m sensing otherwise?” Howie insisted. Not too many days before coming to K-Tawoor Howie had developed a new power, his third one. It turned out that D was an empathic. He still was having problems trying to control this power though. “You are too worried, Nick.”

“Jeez, Howie, aren’t we all?” the kid growled. “I’ve seen my parents’ death. I didn’t even remember them that well and now that image will haunt me forever. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, I’ve seen some terrible things from my future too, all in one minute.”

“I’m not talking about that. You became more worried the minute Kevin mentioned Jeff. No, no when he mentioned Jeff, it was later, when Train was talking about Jeff’s friends.” Realization hit me. It was when Kevin talked about the bar, wasn’t it?

“I don’t even know Jeff, so leave me alone.” he whined. Oh no Nicky, what have you been doing? I know your little secret, remember. You DO know Jeff. He must have sensed what I was thinking because he looked at me as pleading with his eyes.

“That’s true, Howie, Nicky doesn’t even know Jeff. You are just confused.” Brian spoke up.

Howie moved his head and half-closed his eyes, like trying to read Nick’s mind. The kid held his gaze but sank even more in the couch.

“Yes, I suppose, you are right.” Howie finally admitted. “I’m just probably confused by all the mixed feelings in this room. Man, I hate the fact that I still can’t control this new power. It only gives me headaches.”

I was about to say something but Nick looked guiltily up at me and shake his head.

You owe me this one, kid. And you better tell me the truth as soon as we are alone.

“Does Jeff know that you are aware of this?” Brian asked Kevin.

“Probably.”

“Shouldn’t we leave this planet immediately?” Howie said standing up.

“No, D, don’t worry, they are not going to do anything for a while”

“How do you know it?”

“I just know it,” he said using the same tone of voice he had used thousands of times for me and Nick when we were asking too many questions. Great! Are you still going to keep things away from us, Train? There’s more in this story, isn’t it?

“I was supposed to meet him tomorrow” I told them almost in a whisper and already knowin what Kevin was going to say.

“Forget it. You are not going.”

“Don’t worry, Kevin. I really don’t want to see that guy. Man, I can’t believe he fooled me. I was so stupid. I better not see him again because I will probably kill him.”

“AJ, calm down.” Howie was standing in front of me “You couldn’t have known who he really was.” I smiled at him. Sweet D always trying to make me feel better.

“So, we will just stay here?” Nick spoke again.

“Yes, we will stay here for a couple of days. Howie and I have been working with the rebels planning an attack to an Empire base.” Brian, Nick and I opened our eyes in shock. Wow, that sounds dangerous. All this time I’ve been suspecting they were working for the rebels but now that it’s confirmed it doesn’t seem real. “We need some information and are waiting for a guy who will arrive in a couple of days. After that we are living.”

“Are we going to work for the rebels too?”

I rolled my eyes at Nick’s question.

“That’s all you want to know, Kaos?”

“Hey, it’s a valid question”

I snorted.

“AJ, give the kid a break. It IS a valid question” Kevin came in defense of Nick “I suppose that would be the logical next step.” He smiled at Nicky. “But we will take things easy. Howie and I would let you know about the rebel work so far but for now I want you to stay in the ship.” He paused for a second. “AJ, is my laser working?” he asked me scratching his head and looking at the floor. I knew that he was avoiding looking at me as an intent to stay calm and forget that morning’s episode near the lake.

“I haven’t had the time to check it yet.”

“I will do it” Brian offered to help.

“You need a laser, Alex.” Kevin kept talking, still without looking at me.

“I already repaired his laser.” Brian grinned and Kevin looked up at him.

“You did it?” he asked.

“You did it Rok?” Man, I know I can always rely on you.

“Yes. Remember that it was just a little problem with the trigger. It wasn’t such a big deal. I should have done it before but I was busy with the ships reparations. I have it in my room. And I will check the ATX5 too.”

“Thanks, Bri, you rock!”

“I know” he said in one of those funniest voices he was always doing.

“You think they could come here, Kev?” Howie’s question made me feel uncomfortable again.

“There’s always a chance but they won’t be looking for trouble, not right now.” Kevin assured us.

“How do you know that for sure?”

“I just know it, D. Trust me.” he looked at Nicky, Brian and me “Do you have any other questions?”

“Just a million” I snorted and everybody laughed for the first time that night.


-----------------------------------


We spent the rest of the night talking about the things we had seen when we touched the pyramid, about our future and about our “mission”. Kevin and Howie assured us that every single scene from the future we had seen could change. “Nothing is ever certain until it happens”, those were the words they used. They knew it for sure and that really calmed us, especially since it seemed that we had all seen us suffering. In my case, the pyramid had showed me lot of sadness, including a scene with Kevin deadly injured. I chose not to mention it that night though. D advised us to put our ideas in order for later. He said that at some point we would all be needing to talk about the future we had seen.

Kevin, on the other hand, explained me why the pyramid had never showed me anything before. Apparently it only worked when two or more from us touched it at the same time. That was the reason why once, when I was still a kid and Kevin found me in his room checking the crystal, he had just ordered me to put it on its place instead of taking it away from me.

We hardly slept that night. The next morning Kevin told us that we needed to accelerate the reparation of the ship since we would be leaving just a couple of days later. Kevin and D decided to stay home that day and help with the chores. I tried to talk to Nick but he latched on to Brian, probably knowing that I wouldn’t mention the subject in front of Rok, so I decided to leave that talk for some other time and give Kevin a hand with the ship’s weapons.

We had been working on the target detection system for an hour when one of the laser range finders started to give us problems.

“Nickolas” Kevin called him through the ship’s communication system. “Come to the engine room, please. We need your help here.” Nobody answered.

“Nick. We really need your help here.” he insisted, but the only reply was the customary static.

“NICK! Where the hell is he?” he said taking out a little monitor, like the one Brian had, from one of his pockets. I panicked the minute I saw that thing remembering my last conversation with Kaos.

“AJ. Would you look for him?” Kevin asked me. “He is in his room.”

“Okay” I said leaving the room but didn’t have to go that far. I had a hunch and the minute I left Kevin behind I concentrated on Nick’s energy. Damn, he is not in this ship! I’m going to kill you Nick. What the hell are you doing?

I took a deep breath before going back to Kevin.

“He is not in his room, Train.”

“What?” he said looking at the little device again. “Are you sure?”

I was about to answered but Brian entered the room that minute.

“Brian, is this thing broken?” he asked giving it little taps.

“I don’t think so. Why?”

“Kevin.” I whispered.

“Well, it shows that....”

“Kevin!”

“What?” he looked up at me and froze, probably because he saw the concern in my eyes.

“Shit.” he murmured. “He is not in the ship, right?”

I saw him and Rok close their eyes at the same time.

“I can’t sense him” Brian admitted.

“So, this thing IS broken.” Kevin yelled. “Where the hell is he?”

“I don’t know. I don’t understand” Brian replied pulling his own monitor out of his pocket. “This doesn’t make sense.”

“Of course it doesn’t make sense” Kevin was furious. “I wanna know where he is.”

“I have no idea.” Brian was still trying to find an answer in the device.

“Brian, I hope you are not covering him.”

“I’m not.”

“You always...”

“He is not.” I intervened and they both look at me.

“You know something AJ?”

“I know Nick did something to his bracelet so he could leave the ship without you guys knowing.”

Brian gasped and shook his head in disbelief. Kevin reaction wasn’t that quiet. The minute I finished the sentence he hit the wall at his side with his fist.

“DAMN KID. WHAT THE HELL WAS HE THINKING?” he rested his head on the wall and closed his eyes trying to regain calm. “Brian” he said in a lower voice and looking at us again less than a minute later “Do you sense where he is?”

“No right now” he shook his head “But it's a matter of time, I’m sure. He can’t be too far. Maybe Howie...”

“I may know where he is.” I interrupted. I hope I’m wrong. He can’t be THAT stupid.

“Howie” Kevin used the ship’s intercommunication panel again. “We have a problem here.”

“What is it?” we all could hear D asked. He was probably in the cockpit working on the attitude sensors of the ship.

“Nick is not here. He had left the ship.”

“WHAT?”

“Brian, AJ and I are going out to look for him. Stay here and be ready in case we need anything.”

“Copy. Maintain your communicators on and keep me informed”

“Okay. We are leaving” he looked at me. “Let’s go AJ. Show us the place.”

“He has to be okay guys” I said minutes later when we were walking through the little alleys that leave to the central part of the planet’s only town. K-Tawoor was really big but it only had a little population of Sargons and Grises and most of the last ones living near the mines. “I mean, we would know by now if he was in trouble.”

“Yes” Kevin replied walking at my side “He is okay, but that won’t last, because once I find him he won't be able to sit down without pain again since I will be kicking his butt from here to the remains of Earth and back again.”

“Where are we going exactly AJ?” Brian asked me.

“A bar” I whispered. Neither of them said anything. “The same bar I went with Jeff.” I added a little louder.

“You mean the bar were the Tracons meet?” Brian was terrified.

I didn’t answer; I was too busy picturing lots of horrible scenarios.

“Have you been going to that bar with Nick, Alexander?” Kevin voice didn’t show any emotions.

“No, he told me he had been there once but even at that time I thought he was lying to me. I’m sure he had been there several times.”

We walked in silence the rest of the way. Not too much time later I finally saw the familiar facade of the building. “That’s the bar” I pointed out to it. “I don’t think we will find too many people this early in the...”

“Guys.” Brian said stopping and grabbing me by the arm.

“I know!” Kevin answered and started to run. We all had the same feeling at the same time.

“Damn, the kid is in trouble.” I said running behind Kevin with Brian at my side.

We entered the bar and find a Sargon grabbing Nick by the neck.

“LET HIM GO!” Kevin yelled.

The Sargon didn’t show any intention of following Kevin’s orders. Without releasing Nick he faced us.

“Great.” he said in English. What the hell. Do every Sargon in this town know this human language? “More annoying humans to kill.”

Kevin stepped forth and raised his right hand to stop us from following him. “I told you to let him go.”

“Or else?”

“Or else I’m going to kill you.” I couldn’t see Kevin’s face from where I was standing, but by the tone of his voice I was sure he had a defiant smile on his face.

The Sargon laughed.

“Have you noticed that you are outnumbered?” I counted four more Sargons, all stood up in different parts of the room. “You will be dead soon.”

“Maybe,” Kevin answered, his hand hovering his gun. “But you will lead the way.”

Lots of things happened in just a few seconds. The Sargon pushed Nick and reached for his gun but Kevin was faster, in a quick movement he pulled his laser out of the holster and shot the Sargon in the chest. “NICK GET DOWN.” he yelled firing another shot to a second Sargon who was just behind the kid. I drew my laser too and soon enough the room was total chaos. I shot a Sargon in the hand, making him lose his gun, and was looking for another target when Brian fired at the roof. Pieces of concrete and metal fell over two of the Sargons who fell to the floor and tried to cover themselves. “Don’t shoot!” one of them begged realizing he had lost his gun and I was pointing mine at him. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you” I heard Brian spoke loudly and out of the corner of my eye I saw him aiming his gun at the first Sargon I had shot who was now trying to reach for his gun on the floor. The Sargon step back and the room fell silent

“Now why don’t you just leave” Kevin added coming back to where Brian and I were standing. The Sargons finally accepted that they couldn’t win and one by one left the bar without saying a word, the ones unharmed helping their injured friends.

After the last Sargon crossed the door I heard someone clapping.

“Kevin son, that was impressive,” a voice said sending a shiver down my spine. I turned to my left and saw a man, around 40 years old, sitting on a table in the farthest corner. Those eyes. I’ve seen those eyes before. The next thing I noticed was Jeff sitting at his side. There were two other guys at the table and I recognized them from my last visit to this place; they were some of the humans that had made me feel uncomfortable that time.

“Boy, you certainly have grown up.” The man kept talking to Kevin “How old were you the last time we met, 13, 14?

Kevin didn’t answer and I felt uneasy.

“I recognized the boy” the man said pointing out to Nick who was standing up from the floor. “He looks so much like your father. I was sure he was one of Ryan’s kids by just looking at him.” This guy knew uncle Ryan?

“Nick, come here.” Kevin commanded and Nick immediately walked to us.

“What? Come on Kevin, I’m not going to hurt him. Aren't you even gonna say hello, son?” Who’s this guy?

Kevin putted his laser back in the holster and showed a disdainful smirk. “Well, Drew, forgive my manners but what can I tell you, that’s just me, I usually forget the rules of etiquette when I’m around scum like you.”

“Wow, you really believe in speaking your mind. Don’t you?” he laughed.

“Drew?” I said out loud and the man looked at me. I got a severe pain on my stomach and for a second I thought I was about to black out.

“Well, hello there.” he smiled at me and I went weak at the knees. No, God let this be mistake. I have to be wrong. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you Alexander” he added and the minute he said my name I knew it wasn’t a mistake. That man was my father.

No, this can’t be happening. Someone please wake me up.

Kevin took a step placing himself between me and the table.

“Brian, AJ” he said “Take Nick to the ship.”

Kevin’s tone of voice didn’t leave room to argue. Brian and Nick starting to leave but I stood there frozen.

“Alex, go, now.” Kevin told me in a lower voice this time, giving me a reassuring nod.

I looked at him and then I looked one more time to the man who kept smiling at me.

“Alex!”

Part of me wanted to stay there but I reluctantly followed Kevin orders and left the bar.

Brian yelled at Nick all the way to the ship but I didn’t pay attention to anything they were saying. I was trying too hard not to cry in front of the guys who apparently were completely oblivious to what just had happened. God, why? Someone please tell me that it’s all a mistake.

“Guys what happened?” Howie greeted us at the gate of the ship and the minute I saw him I couldn’t control my emotions anymore and all of them came out in the form of a profound anger.

“You knew it? Didn’t you?” I spat out.

“I knew what?” he gave me a confused looked.

Come on Howie read my mind, after all you are good at that, aren’t you? You and Kevin knew about my father. MY FATHER! I stood in front of him without saying a word but couldn’t hold the tears anymore.

“Your fa...” Howie choked on the word. I saw realization on his eyes and I couldn’t take it anymore. The next minute I was all over him punching his face. “You son of a bitch. How could you keep that away from me?”

“AJ! What the heck?” I heard Nick and Brian. They grabbed me and finally separated us.

“SOMEONE CARE TO EXPLAIN ME WHAT’S GOING ON?” Brian looked at Howie but he didn’t answer. I saw the blood on his mouth and walked to my room.

“AJ!” Brian called me and the last thing I heard before closing the door was Howie saying “Leave him.”

God, my father is alive. He is alive and he is here. This is a bad dream. God make it stop, this can’t be true. He can’t be one of the Empire assassins. A Tracon. My father is alive and working for the Empire, the people I always considered my enemies, the people who destroyed Earth and killed my family. The ones who killed Kaydee and so many of our friends during the war.

I felt sick and ran to the bathroom where I kept crying like I hadn’t cried in years.

----
Copyright ©2004
All Rights Reserved
No part of this story may be copied or reprinted without the author's permission.

I had no idea of how much time I spent in that bathroom. It felt like hours but I didn’t have the strength, nor the will, to even look at my watch. Lying on the cold floor I tried in vain to put my mind in blank; the eyes of that man, my father, kept coming to me like in a dream and I was almost sure I could hear his voice calling me. I started to think about my mother, which only brought more tears to my eyes. Why didn’t you tell me, mom? How could you keep that away from me. I tried to stand up but my legs weren’t obeying my brain. I felt like I had been punched. I was weak, I was sick. Come on Alex, you have to recover from this. I finally stood up and after splashing some water on my face - Don’t look at the mirror. God, his eyes are like mine. - I managed to return to my bed and I just lied down there looking at the ceiling. Is it cold in here? My head was spinning and my heart was still beating too fast. I heard a knock on the door but I didn’t answer. I assumed it was Brian, or maybe Howie. Much to my surprise Kevin entered the room.

“AJ, we need to talk” he whispered.

Now you wanna talk. “Go the hell away Kevin.” I tried to remain calm and didn’t even bother to look up when I spoke to him. “Just go away,” I added with a softer voice. “I want to be alone.”

“Alex” he pleaded.

“Please Kevin.” I felt like I was going to cry again at any time. “Just leave me alone.”

He ignored my words, closed the door behind him and came closer.

“What do you want from me?” I asked giving him a withering look.

“I…” he bit his lips. “I don’t know Alex. Your forgiveness?”

“How could you do this to me, Kevin? How could you?” I wasn’t yelling, quite the opposite, and for a moment I thought he had not heard me since he just stood there in silence.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” My voice was trembling.

He took a seat at the foot of my bed but didn’t face me. I didn’t move my feet though, I wasn’t going to make him feel comfortable. I gave him a sidelong glance. His eyes were fixed on the wall in front of him. He rested his arms on his knees and folded his hands, and just before speaking he looked at the floor for a minute, as if he was trying to find the courage to do it.

“There are so many things I have been keeping away from you, Alex,” he sighed. “Sometimes I’m not even sure what I am doing. Sometimes I think all this is just a bad dream and sometimes I think I can’t do anything right, but there is one thing I’m sure about...” He finally looked at me. “I won’t ever do anything to hurt you.”

“Maybe it is a dream.” The tears were running down my face and I was looking at the ceiling again. “Is this a dream Kevin? Am I going to wake up soon?”

“No, baby, you won’t.” At any other time that answer would have made me laugh.

“Kevin, when are you gonna stop using that word?” I said wiping my tears with the sleeve of my shirt.

“Never?” he said raising his eyebrows.

I smiled. “You know that even Nick is too old for that.”

“Sorry,” he added “I can’t avoid it. Old habits are hard to break. You...”

“What?”

“Nothing. Is just that I...” he stuttered, “I just remembered that your mother was always using that word. She used to call me baby.”

I breathed deeply and, noticing that I was about to cry again, took one of my pillows and buried my face in it. I felt his hand on my leg, he was trying to comfort me but he probably didn’t know what to say.

“Why Kevin?” I asked placing the pillow aside but without looking at him, one of my arms covering my eyes. “All this time since I know we are different it never crossed my mind that my father was anything else than human. I was fine thinking that he was just a stupid human that abandoned us. Why didn’t you tell me? Yes, I already know you have kept lots of things away from me Kevin but this... How could you?”

“AJ, look at me.”

I wiped my eyes again and sat up. For the first time since he entered the room we were face to face.

“I couldn’t Alex. I was about to do it years ago, the day I told you about our powers, but I couldn’t. I wanted to tell you the other day, when I showed you the crystal, but I didn’t have the courage.” He stood up and turned around but it was too late, I had already seen the tears in his eyes. He wiped them before facing me again. “How do you say something like this? What could I have said to you? That your father was a bad guy? An assassin?”

“THAT HE WAS ALIVE FOR GOD’S SAKE!”

“I NEVER TOLD YOU HE WAS DEAD!”

“BUT YOU LEFT ME ASSUME IT.”

He kept quiet again.

“No, AJ,” he finally answered. “That was your mother. She was one who made you believe he was dead.”

I rested my head on the headboard and closed my eyes.

“I’m so sorry. I...”

“Don’t...” I raised my hand to stop him but I couldn’t keep talking. He understood though and remained in silence for a moment. I saw him look down and play with the ring he wore in the chain on his neck. I had seen him do that thousands of times. I knew that ring was his safe place, like my medallion to me. It had appeared on his neck the day we left the space station but he never wanted to tell us where it came from. I probably was the only one who knew the story.

“I knew he was alive the day you showed us the pyramid?” I finally admitted, not only to him but to myself.

“You saw him?”

“Yes. I didn’t become aware of the true then, but I’ve been thinking about that day and I remembered I saw him in those images the pyramid showed me, and I just realized that he wasn’t only in my vision of the past. I saw him in my future.”

“The images the crystal shows are not clear.”

“I noticed.” I took a deep breath before asking what I wanted to know. “Are all the lies ending today, Kevin?”

“Yes.” I could tell by his voice that he was trying too hard not to cry. “All the lies are ending right now, Alex.”

“I hit Howie” I sighed after suddenly became aware that Howie was probably suffering as much as Kevin.

“I know. I just saw him. He could have healed himself but he didn’t do it. Maybe he thinks he deserves it.”

“Aw God!” I hit the headboard a couple of times with my head, I felt like kicking myself.

“And if you really think that, then maybe you should hit me too.”

“Before you came here that was all I wanted to do,” I uttered, my eyes fixed on him.

“I probably deserve it.”

I decided to change the subject. Part of my wanted to punch him on the face while the other part of me wanted to hug him and cry. “Did Howie tell Brian and Nick?”

“No. They are out there thinking you lost your mind. Or at least Brian is. Nick is probably thinking about his fate. Right now he had other things to worry about.”

“Haven’t you spoken with him yet?”

“No, I wanted to see you first.”

I looked at my watch and what I found took me by surprise. Three hours? I’ve been crying for three hours?

“It took you three hours to came back to the ship?” I asked him. “Were you with him all this time?”

“No. I talked to him but didn’t stay there more than ten minutes. I went to the rebel base after that.”

“So you talked to him?”

“Yes.”

“About?”

“You.”

I closed my eyes and tried to picture that conversation. When I opened them again Kevin was looking at me.

“You can start now, Kevin. You said all the lies were ending today. You can start now.”

He took a seat again and sighed heavily.

“Your mother had just turned fifteen when he met him AJ.” Oh God, that’s younger than Nick. I already knew that she was sixteen when I was born but I have never really thought about it. “She was this beautiful and bright girl. Always playing jokes on people, always laughing. You remember her, right?” He made a pause. “But no matter how intelligent she was, Rachel was an innocent girl who saw no harm in anything, in anyone, not even in Drew.”

“Are there any good Tracons?”

“No that I know.”

I looked down.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered and I had to look up again.

“Don’t. Just keep going please.”

“As I told you before. Tracons weren’t our enemies but they never had a problem hurting humans. Drew wasn’t the exception. Remember that all the things I’m telling you about that time are what Rachel told me,” he stated. “I don’t remember too much, I was only six years old when Rachel got pregnant, but she told me everything a couple of weeks before we left Earth.

I nodded.

“She got pregnant and told Drew,” he continued.

“And he didn’t take the responsibility.”

“You are wrong there. He did take responsibility, or at least he did it in a way.”

“What? “

“He wanted to be with your mother. He wanted to raise you.”

I couldn’t believe his words.

“What are you saying? That my mother was the one who left him.”

“Yes. But hear me before you jump to conclusions,” he added quickly “He did want you and your mother with him but it wasn’t for the right reasons. Rachel, of course, didn’t know this at first and decided to run away with him.”

“Run away?”

“My father didn’t want to let her go with him.”

“Oh.”

“Luckily she realized what kind of guy he was before running away. He heard him talking on the phone one day, about you. He...” He kept quiet and looked at the ceiling.

“What?”

He didn’t answer.

“What is it, Kevin? Tell me.”

He took a deep breath before speaking again.

“The Tracons thought that the child of a Tracon and an Alomega would be very powerful, the power of the two races combined in just one person.”

I’m half Tracon, half Tracon. God. I have been repeating those words for more than three hours and I still can’t believe them. “You mean that what happened with my mother and my father was a first. During all those centuries it never happened before?”

“It happened once.” He stood up again and started to pace the room. “Man, I don’t think I can do this, AJ.”

“Kevin, you told me all the lies would be ending today.” What’s he hiding from me?

“The only time it happened before was before our ancestors went to Earth. And it was the cause why they left their planet,” he said looking at me from the other side of the room.

“I don’t get it.”

“Life in the Alomega and Tracon planets was completely different. The two planets had old fashioned societies with lots of strange beliefs. I think I already told you that the planet of the Alomegas was known as Blazul, the translation in English would be Blue. The Tracons lived in Gründe, which means Green. The blue and the green planets. Blue was full of water...”

“I know, like Earth.”

“More. Earth was 75% water. Blue was 95% water.”

“Yeah, our ancestors were good swimmers,” I snorted with a laugh that probably sounded too false since he didn’t even smile.

“You can say so. Remember that the original Alomegas could live under water too.”

“I already know that, Kevin.” I rolled my eyes. “Remember the first time you told us this. We joked about Nick and his passion for water. Brian said that he probably was half fish like our ancestors.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me if he ends up developing the power to breath under water. But that’s not the point. I’m telling you all this again because I’m trying to explain you something. Gründe was 95% earth.”

“And why wasn’t its name Brown?”

“What?” He looked confused.

“Earth, brown, you know.”

“I have no idea AJ. Who knows if the earth was green there. Like you haven’t seen already how everything can change from one planet to another. Do you want me to continue or not?”

“Jeez. It was just a question.”

“Sorry, is just that this is not easy for me.”

“I know that Kevin,” I growled. “You already said that, just keep going, okay.”

He shot me a glare. I was sure he was trying hard to remain calm.

“Like I was saying,” he finally added, “those were two completely different planets. Two races completely different too, with two old-fashioned societies that didn’t consider appropriate to mix the races. The two planets were close, they needed each other, they depended on each other to live. Alomegas couldn’t live without Trancon’s earth, the same way that Tracons couldn’t live without Alomega’s water. But they just came together for practical reasons. Besides that need, the two races really didn’t frequent each other.”

“I still don’t understand. You are not telling me anything I didn’t know before. What have this to do with my mother?”

“I never told you what happened to Blue and Green.”

“They lost their sun.”

“How?”

He didn’t tell us. “You never said how it happened. You told us that you didn’t know too much about the history of our race.”

“I lied.” Nothing new there.

“Really? But you never lied.” I couldn’t avoid the sarcasm, he didn’t pay attention to my comment, nor to the sardonic tone of my voice, and just kept talking.

“It was destroyed in a war, AJ. A war started by the first child of the two races.”

“WHAT?”

“Azdé. That was his name. He was the son of an Alomega man and a Tracon woman. Being the Alomegas the most conservatives the boy was raised by his mother and the Tracons. He was powerful but when he grew up he tried to dominate the two planets. Some Tracons followed him. The rest of the Tracons and the Alomegas fought him and he was finally vanquished, together with his followers, but not before he destroyed their sun and their planets too.”

“Oh, my God.,” I said standing up after reality suddenly hit me. I am like him.

----
Copyright ©2004
All Rights Reserved
No part of this story may be copied or reprinted without the author's permission.

Kevin probably realized what I was thinking because he came to me and took me by the shoulders. “AJ, listen to me. You are not going to become him.”

“You can’t know that for sure.”

“I know it. You are not like him.” I released myself from his grip and turned around. “Baby, you can be a headache sometimes but you don’t have a mean bone in your body.”

Please, make him be right. “That’s why the two races never mixed again?” I asked changing the subject. I can’t think about that now, I can’t. I feel like I have lost all my strength.

“Yes,” he answered in a soft voice. “The survivors went to Earth and things changed there. For some reason Earth changed the two races and they lost some of their powers. Before that, they were like us, they all had lots of special powers but since the day they went to Earth every Tracon and Alomega was left with only one power.”

“That’s what makes us special”

“Yes.”

“The reaction to the loss of their powers was different among the two races. The Tracons that went to Earth with the Alomegas were the ones that had fought against Azdé and his followers but, as time went by, they changed. They started to see humans as an inferior race, they had children with humans and in some of the cases that meant losing even more power. They hated humans for that, specially because they knew that they needed them. Without humans their race would disappeared. Alomegas on the other hand see humans as their salvation trying to avoid the history from repeating itself. They found themselves having more powers than the Tracons on Earth, no matter they had lost some of their powers too, but the children of humans and Alomegas would be less powerful and they saw that as a good thing. Since some of the children still had powers, they learnt how to bind them. They felt safe thinking that none of their descendants would repeat Azdé’s attempt. It was a well-intentioned thought but little could they know at that time that they would be needing those powers to fight against the people they considered their friends, not only against Tracons but against humans.

I was feeling sick again. I took a seat on Brian’s bed.

“So all the time the Tracons looked for the opportunity to mix their race with the Alomegas.”

“Yes. Since the beginning they wanted more power.”

“They will be disappointed if they get to know me. I can’t even control all my powers.” I tried to joke to release the tension.

“You hadn’t developed any Tracon powers yet, but you would eventually.”

“I think I don’t wanna know which powers those are. I’m not going to grow a tail or anything like that, am I?

“AJ,” he complained.

“What? You can’t blame me if don’t wanna wake up one day with horns or something worse only to hear you say “Jay, I have been keeping something away from you,”” I mimicked him. “I just want to be sure.”

“There’s no need to be harsh.”

“Well...”

“Don’t say it, I already know. I deserve it.” I didn’t mean that. “And it's good to see that you can already make jokes, that means you are feeling better.”

“Is that or crying again and I think I don’t have any more tears. I probably won’t be able to cry in years.” I gave a hint of a smile but he didn’t return it. “Okay, keep going. So they finally saw their plans come reality with my mother.”

“I really don’t know if it was planned but Drew did see in you the opportunity to have more power under his control and that’s the reason why your mother left him. She realized he wasn’t good for him. He told her that he wasn’t like the others but she discovered it was a lie. I know she believed him for a while but then she saw the real Drew. I’m not sure if Drew knows this but your mother saw him killing a man and then...” for the umpteenth time that day he doubted before speaking. There’s more? “he also tried to kill my father.”

“He tried to kill uncle Ryan?”

“Twice.”

I silently thanked the fact that I was sitting because I didn’t think my legs would take my weight.

“Remember how I told you that the things you saw on the pyramid could change?”

I nodded.

“I saw your father killing my father there. He tried to do it two months before we left Earth. I had warned my father and he could defend himself.”

“Why?”

“Why did he try to kill my father?”

“Yes.”

“I suppose he knew my father was trying to send us away and he didn’t want to lose you.”

“You were there when he tried to kill him?”

“Yes. That was the last time I saw him, until today of course.” I remembered what my father had told Kevin in the bar, about the last time they met, when Kevin was 14.

I laid myself down on the bed and closed my eyes. “What now? What’s going to happen?”

“I don’t know. He knows you are special, but he doesn’t know we are the five chosen ones.”

“Are you sure?”

“No, but the rebels are watching your father and the others and they haven’t contacted the Empire yet. He probably spent these past years looking for the five chosen ones and looking for you at the same time, without even imagining that you are part of the legend. But if he doesn’t know yet who we are, he definitely will find it any minute now. It’s not safe for us to stay here much longer.”

An idea crossed my mind and I sat up again. “You didn’t tell us everything about the crystal and our future because the Tracons were about to discover us, did you?”

“Huh?”

“You did it because of my father, right?”

He kept silence.

“That’s how you knew the Tracons wouldn’t be looking for trouble. You told Howie they wouldn’t be looking for trouble yet. What you meant by that 'yet'?”

“I know he doesn’t want to harm you,” he finally admitted. “I knew it was just a matter of time for him to reach you and I wanted you to know who you really were before coming in contact with the Tracons.”

He was afraid of what my father could have told me.

“Kevin.”

“Yes?”

“Could you leave me alone for a moment?” I saw how my words surprised him at first but he nodded.

“Of course,” he said walking to the door.

“And Kevin.” He stopped and looked at me. “Don’t be too hard on Nicky.” That probably surprised him even more.

“I can’t believe you are asking me that.”

“Don’t tell him I’m interceding on his behalf.” I smiled and this time he smiled too but it lasted just a second.

“Do you know what was he doing there?”

“I knew he had been in that bar before but he told me that he had been there just once. I didn’t believe him then. It turned out I was right.”

“What he did was totally stupid and he has to learn that he can’t do whatever he wants, no matter what.”

“I know but please, just let him talk. There’s probably a good explanation for his behavior.” Okay, now I am the one surprised by my words.

“I’ll try.” He smiled at me before leaving the room.

The minute Kevin closed the door I found myself tormented by my thoughts. I still didn’t know what to do, what to think. I didn’t even know what word to use to refer to him. My father. That word kept causing me pain. Someone was yelling outside. It seemed that Kevin had lost his patience pretty fast. I decided to activate one of my shields. I guessed Kevin wasn’t going to object me using my powers anymore. After all, if it was a matter of time for the Empire to find us, what was the use of hiding? I was still learning how to use my second power, the defensive one, but one of the first barriers I had created was the soundproof shield. I had found a good use for that shield long time ago. It was perfect to avoid Nicky’s constant chatting. The lecture outside my room made me think I had found another reason for using my shield. I needed silence to think.

------------------------------------


I don’t know when exactly I fell asleep but I woke up with a terrible headache, probably due to all the crying. For a minute I thought everything had been a bad dream but reality hit me. My shield of course was off, it would have surprised me to know that I could used my powers in my sleep. I was about to go to the bathroom when I heard someone crying. I left the room and just a couple of steps away, at my left, I found Nick, sitting on the floor, his eyes red.

“Kaos, are you crying?”

“No!” he said wiping the tears with his hand.

“You are crying!”

“Go away AJ, leave me alone.”

“Man, what did Kevin do to you?” I asked him, sitting down at his side.

“I said leave me alone.”

He was about to stand up but I pulled him by the shirt. “Come on Nicky, it couldn’t be that bad.”

He took a seat again and hugged his knees to his chest hiding his face. “He told me that I’m not worth of trust,” he hiccupped. Man that was harsh. Kevin can be a real jerk. “That he will not trust me again unless I prove him wrong. And that If I keep acting like a child he will treat me like one and send me away.”

“What?”

“He mentioned something about a rebel base where the rebels keep their children safe. I’m not a child!” Try not to whine every time you say that Kaos.

“Nick, he probably said that to scare you. You know Kevin, his bark is worse than his bite.”

He didn’t answer.

“Come on Nicky. You know he will never send you away. I will never let that happen, nor Brian and Howie.”

“No, you don’t get it,” he said finally looking at me. “I did something really stupid”

“I know, bro. Remember, I was there. I still can’t believe you did something like that.”

“I’m not talking about today, Aje. I’m not talking about the bar.”

“Huh?”

“I’ve already done another stupid thing.”

“What? When? How long have I been sleeping?” I asked looking at my watch.

“Not right now. I did something really stupid a couple of weeks ago, but when Kevin finds out he is going to kill me.”

“Nick if he didn’t kill you today he won’t be killing you anytime soon. What did you do?”

He opened his jacket to show me... a gun?

“That’s Kevin ATX...” I said before noticing a different pattern. This was an ATX-4 not an ATX-5. “Nick, whose laser is that?”

“Mine.”

“Yours?”

“Aha.”

“I don’t...”

“I bought a gun.”

“YOU BOUGHT A GUN?”

“Shhhh! Keep quiet or the others will hear you.”

“You are kidding, right? You don’t have the money. Nick what the hell have you been doing in that bar? How many times have you been there.”

“Plenty. I’ve been going there since we arrived, before having the bracelet. And you know I kept going to that place even after Kevin made me use that thing.”

“And the laser?”

“I bought it on installment. I still haven’t given the guy the two last payments. He said that...”

“Guy? Man, Kaos, that’s gunrunning! You didn’t buy it on a store. Who sold that to you?”

“A Gris.”

“How much did you pay. Where did you get the money?”

“I’ve been doing some jobs, working for some Grises and humans there.”

“Jeff?” I asked him and he looked down.

“Yes and some of his friends too,” he whispered.

I smacked him on the head.

“Ouch.”

“How could you be so stupid? What kind of jobs?”

“Just delivering some messages, and one or two packages.”

“You realize you have been working for the enemy?”

“I didn’t knew they were from the Empire,” he whined. “They didn’t have uniforms or bar codes.”

“Nick you got to tell Kevin.”

“No. He will send me away.”

“He won’t.”

“You didn’t hear what he told me, AJ. I had never seen him so mad before.”

“Nick, if you don’t tell Kevin what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. The Gris that sold me this, I haven’t seen him in days. I’m afraid he could come here looking for his money.”

“How much do you owe him?”

“30 kubrimks.”

I felt like smacking him again.

“What about Brian. He could help us.” Us? Why am saying us? There’s no way Nick will draw me into this.

“No, AJ. Brian would tell Kevin. I know him.” I guess the same goes for Howie.

“I don’t know how to help you Nick. I really think you need to tell Kevin.”

“I was thinking,” he said and I knew nothing good would come from that phrase. “Maybe he will take the laser back.”

I knew it. “You can’t go there again, Nick.”

“It’s the only thing I can do.”

“You are crazy if you think I’m gonna let you go alone to that place again.”

“Come with me.” What?

I was about to say no but an image appeared in front of my. My father.

“Okay. I will go with you.”

“Really?” He couldn’t believe I had accepted.

“Yes, but not today. Lets do it tomorrow.”

“Thank you. Thank you, AJ,” he said hugging me.

“Kaos. Get away.” He kissed my check. He knew how much I hated that and that’s why he was always doing it. “Let me go Nick”

“AJ you are the best brother. I love you man,” he said trying to kiss me again.

“Kaos if you kiss me again I’m gonna kick your ass and I won’t go with you.”

He finally stayed put and I stood up.

“Where are you going?”

“Do you know where Howie is?” I needed to talk to D.

“Howie? Right! I almost forgot. What the hell happened today? Why did you do that Bone? You hit Howie”

“None of your business.”

“I...”

“Another word Nick and I will tell Kevin about the gun.”

He rolled his eyes.

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“Aren’t you going to tell me?”

“Tell you what? You just told me not to say another word.”

“I want to know where is Ho… You know what? Forget it! I will find him,” I said leaving the kid behind.


----
Copyright ©2004
All Rights Reserved
No part of this story may be copied or reprinted without the author's permission.

I finally found Howie in the lasers cockpit. He was helping Brian who was still working on those thermal imagers that were always giving me problems. I was the one in charge of the lasers but I didn’t have an idea of how to repair imagers.

“Howie,” I said when I realized neither of them had noticed me on the ladder. They both looked up at me and I saw expressions completely different on their faces. Howie was sad and the swelling of his upper lip caused me a terrible feeling of remorse. Brian, on the other hand, was simply mad. He shot me a glare that sent a shiver down my spine. Rok was the friendliest man in the universe and that was probably the reason why it was always a shock to see him angry. I had fought with him only a couple of times in my life and I didn’t want to experience that again. The disappointment that you could see on his eyes in those opportunities was enough to make you feel guilty for years. I guessed he would be the next in my list of 'people I needed to talk to'.

“I...” I looked at Brian. “I need to talk to Howie” I sighed.

Rok didn’t say a single word, he just looked at D who gave him a nod and then he left the cockpit. I saw him climb the ladder really fast and then turned my attention to D.

“I’m sorry D.” I had thought I didn’t have any more tears but the minute I said those words I felt I was about to cry again.

“No, I’m the one who should apologize.”

“Why? You didn’t do anything wrong. Everything you did was trying to protect me.”

“That’s what you told Kevin?”

“Huh?”

“Did you tell him that you knew he was trying to protect you.”

“It’s different with him.”

“How it’s different? We both kept the secret Aje, but you are still mad at Kevin and not at me, why?”

“I don’t know,” I said sitting on the floor. “Is just easy to be mad at him, I guess.”

“I know that Kevin is always looking confident and strong but he is suffering big deal. He didn’t want to hurt you, we didn’t want to hurt you.”

I played with the fabric of my shirt.

“He told you everything, right?” he asked me.

I nodded.

“Everything’s going to be alright, AJ.”

“I’m scared Howie.” Tears were already running down my face. He took a seat at my side.

“It’s natural. But I promise you that everything is going to be alright.”

“You can’t promise that, the same way Kevin can’t assure me that I’m not going to end like that guy.”

“That guy? Your father?”

“The guy that destroyed Blue and Green. Azdé or something like that.”

“AJ. Of course you are not going to end up like him.”

“How would you know that?”

“Because I know you. You are far from being a bad guy, Jay.”

“That’s what Kevin said.”

“And he is right.”

“But it's not like I’ve never been mean or anything. I enjoy torturing Nicky.”

“Come on Jay. you know that’s not true. You act like any big brother.”

“What if I change, what if I really end up hurting him or any of you guys. I would die if that happens.”

“It won’t.”

I sighed.

“Did you know him? My father?”

He shook his head. “I saw him a couple of times but that was it.”

“I asked Kevin if...”

“What?”

“Do you think there are good Tracons out there?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know Jay. There’s always a chance. You are half Tracon and you are good.”

“Yeah but that’s the Alomega part in me.”

“No, I’m almost sure it’s not that simple. Alomegas or Tracons, that really doesn’t matter, at the end we are all humans, and that’s the important thing. I think there’s always a chance of finding good Tracons.”

“Kevin didn’t say that.”

“Sometimes Kevin can’t see things clear while talking about the Tracons.”

I looked at him confused.

“The Altamira battle,” he said softly like expecting those words to explain everything but I didn’t get what he was trying to say.

“What about it?”

“Kevin knows there were Tracons there. We knew for years that there were Tracons among the people who destroyed Earth, but one thing is to know it and another thing is actually seeing them killing someone you love.

A beautiful smile came to my mind. “Kaydee.”

He nodded.

“It’s not easy for him AJ. Specially these days.”

“These days?”

“Her birthday.”

Right, her birthday was just a month before mine.

We kept silence. I didn’t want to talk about Kaydee, specially not after the things I had found about my father.

“Are we still leaving in a couple of days?”

“That’s the plan.”

“Where are we going?”

“Trinsuet.”

“Never heard of it.”

“You will like it. It’s a little planet near Carume, in the Valer System. So little and far away of the regular ways that the Empire had never paid attention to it. It’s full of rebels and the people who know the place had told me that it’s really nice. And it has three suns so is full of natural light too. Completely different to this planet.

“Three suns. Let me guess… they don’t have nights?”

“Yeah, that’s the bad part. Its not like they don’t sleep but they do work a lot. And they use Calaras’ time.”

“Days of 32 hours!”

“And considering that an hour for the Calaras is a little longer than an hour for a human we are really talking about 38 hours days.”

“It definitely will be a change after having days of only 25 hours here. But it doesn’t matter. I just want to leave this planet behind. Too bad I can’t leave reality behind too.”

He put one of his arms around me and gave me a reassuring squeeze.

“Howie. Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Could you please heal you. I really regret what I did and I don’t want to see you in that shape.”

He touched his lip.

“I don’t know why I didn’t do it before.”

“You really don’t think you deserved it, right? Because that’s bull. You didn’t deserve it. I acted like a big jerk and I’m really sorry, Howie.”

“It’s okay, AJ. I know.”

I sighed. “I have to talk with Brian. He is mad at me.”

“Don’t worry. He will understand.”


That night

As I had expected, Brian avoided me the rest of the day. He didn’t even look at me when we were eating and that of course turned out to be one of our quietest meals ever. It was just Brian, Nick and me at the table that night, with neither of us saying more than a couple of words. I was still in shock, Brian was mad, not only with me but with Nick too of course, and Nick was too worried to talk or to notice our moods. Kevin and Howie had left the ship soon after I talked to D and after deciding to spend more time in the rebel base, which was understandable considering that they would be needing to finish all their business there more than a month before their original plans.

After cleaning some things in the kitchen, I went to our room looking for Brian. I had decided to give it another try to a possible conversation but he just ignored me, not that I had much time to talk due to the fact that Nick entered the room shortly after me.

“What happens?” he asked noticing the great tension for the first time.

“Nothing.” I replied.

“Are you guys going to bed already? Isn’t one of you supposed to stay on guard or something until Kev and D come back? Just in case, you know.” he said pulling some pajamas out of one the drawers and taking his clothes off.

“On of US?” I laughed. “What about you Nick? You could do it too.” I said seeing the kid put his pajama on and go straight to his bed.

“Naha.” He smirked under the covers. “I’m too tired.”

“AJ will do it,” Rok said without even looking at me. “I have to get up early to finish those laser’s reparations, so he will have to do it,” he added entering the bathroom.

“Man, he is pissed at you too. It is because of your fight with Howie?” Nick asked me sitting up.

“Yeah.”

“But Howie wasn’t mad at you anymore.”

“You know Brian.” I shrugged.

“Are you going to tell me what happened with Howie?”

“Nope.” I gave him a grin.

He was about to say something else but Brian came back from the bathroom so he just murmured a “whatever”, laid his head back on the pillow and closed his eyes.

“Let me guess.” Brian grouched walking to his bed “You don’t want to do the guard.”

“What? No, I will do it. But it's not like I have to be near the gate or anything. The shields are on. I will just stay awake,” I replied taking a seat on my bed.

He didn’t even bother to answer and laid down on his bed, hands folded behind his head, looking at the ceiling.

I opted to wait for Kaos to fall asleep, which didn’t take too much; the long day had left the kid really tired and just a couple of minutes later he was sound asleep.

“Brian,” I hissed. He had closed his eyes but I was sure he was awake. “Brian, I know you are awake. Come on, I need to talk to you.”

He didn’t say a word.

“Come on Rok, please.”

“I’m not going to talk to you until you explain me everything, AJ”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to do.”

“You hit Howie,” he said finally opening his eyes.

“I ....”

He propped himself up on his elbow. “Are you going to tell me what’s happening or not?”

“I didn’t want to hurt him.”

“Tell me what’s going on Bone.” Well, at least he is calling me Bone, that means he is in a better mood.

“That man on the bar.” I sighed.

“Man in the bar? The one with Jeff?”

I nodded.

“Do you know him? I asked Kevin but he didn’t tell me who he was. He knew my father. Did you hear what he said about Nick? And he knew your name too, right?”

“Didn’t you hear his name Rok?

“His name? No, I don’t remember his name. I don’t think I was paying attention to it.”

“His name was Drew.”

“Drew?”

“Doesn’t it say anything to you?”

“That’s your father’s name.”

I nodded again.

“You are not...” He half-closed his eyes. “Are you telling me that he is your father?”

Oh come on Alex, you are not going to cry this time. What are you? A baby?

“AJ?” he said sitting up. “Is he your father?”

I couldn’t articulate a single word due to the lump in my throat, so I just had to nod again.

He stood up and approached to my bed. “How? I don’t get it”

“Now you understand what I felt when I heard it.”

“You mean...Kevin and D knew it and they didn’t tell you?”

“Yes.”

“How could they?”

“They were trying to protect me.”

“That wasn’t the way!” he said out loud.

“Shhh! You are going to wake up Kaos.”

I motioned him to follow me outside the room. Before closing the door I turned off the lights for Nick to sleep comfortably, and once in the corridor I took a seat on the floor.

“My mother was the first one who decided to conceal this from me,” I told him.

“You are not blaming her, are you?”

“Why not? Do you prefer me blaming the guys? A couple of minutes ago you were mad with me because I had hit Howie.”

“Well, now I understand.”

“What? You think it was okay for me to hit him? What’s wrong with you Rok?”

“I’m just tired of them keeping us in the dark.”

“Now you are tired?” I’ve spent the last couple of years telling you that something was going on, and you never listened to me.”

“I chose to believe them!” he spat. Man, how is that I didn’t notice before how Bri had taken all the revelations?

“And now?”

“Now I feel betrayed.” Oh no, tell me is not anger what I see in your eyes Brian.

“Because of this?”

“Because of everything. I feel like I’ve been acting like a fool”

“Rok.”

“Is just that...” he kept pacing the corridor up and down “the things I’ve seen in that crystal...” What? Is this about something he saw in the pyramid? He stopped and stared straight into my eyes. “There’s something that you aren’t telling me, right? There’s no way you would be acting so cool with the guys after finding out something like this,” he asked.

“I told you, they were trying to protect me. And they only did what my mother did first.”

“You were seven the last time you saw her Alex. She probably was simply expecting you to grow a little but not all these years.”

“What do you want from me?” I finally exploited. “You are not helping me Brian. I can’t be mad with Kevin and D. There’s already too much hate in me.” There goes holding the tears.

“Sorry bro,” he said taking a seat at my side and putting his left arm around me. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I'm saying all these things. I guess I’m scared.”

“Of something you saw in the pyramid, right?”

“I prefer not to talk about that Jay. At least not now.” Come on Brian! Now you are the one hiding something?

I chose not to insist anymore. I would be trying a different approach to that subject later.

“I saw him in the crystal too,” I finally said after a couple of minutes in silence.

“He?”

“My father.”

“Oh!” he took his arm away and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his legs. I can’t see your eyes Brian, please don’t let me here thinking that you are meaning anything else by this gesture.

“Alex, is he a...” I knew it. I was afraid this could happen but I wasn’t really expecting this from Brian, maybe from Nick, but God not from Brian. More tears fell down my cheeks.

“A Tracon?” I said wiping the tears from my eyes and speaking as loud as I could “Yes. I’m half Tracon.” Wow, that even sounded proud.

I knew he had noticed the tone of my voice because he turned around to look at me and I could see the surprise in his eyes.

“What are you thinking Brian?” I have to know it.

“Huh?”

“I just told you that I’m half Tracon, what’s the first thing that came to your head?”

He leaned back resting his head on the wall.

“I don’t know,” he answered closing his eyes and biting his bottom lip. “Pain?”

“Pain?”

“Your pain AJ” he said looking at me again. I noticed the tears in his eyes. “I’m thinking about how much you have to be suffering right now.”

“You don’t think I...”

“What?”

“You don’t see me different?” Of course he doesn’t, he’s just worried about me. Thank God. I don’t think I could have put up with that.

“Why? Because you know now that your father is a Tracon. You are still the same Alex.”

“I was afraid Bri... I was afraid of your reaction” I admitted. “Part of me was afraid of telling you, of telling Nicky.”

“You really didn’t think I would see you differently, did you?” He was in shocked, really offended.

“Why not, I am different, Rok. Either we want to see it or not, I am different. There are a lot of things that you still don’t know.”

“No, you are still Alex. You are just my brother and my best friend.” he gripped my knee in a reassuring gesture.

“I wish this was a bad dream,” I whispered.

“And I wish there was something I could do.”

“Just be there okay. I’m gonna need you Rok.”

“I will be right here.” He smiled.

“You promise?”

“Of course.”

We kept silence again, our eyes fixed on the wall in front of us.

“There are a lot of things I need to tell you but not right now. I have the biggest headache right now.”

“Why don’t you go and rest a little? I will do the guard.”

“I’ve already slept too much today.”

“Maybe Howie could do something when he comes back.”

“Maybe.”

“Do you want me to bring you anything?”

“No, thank you.”

I closed my eyes before speaking again. “Rok?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

He put his arm around me again but didn’t say a word.

“It feels great to know that I always can count on you.”

“Always,” he whispered.

He stayed by my side more than three hours until Kev and Howie came back. We didn’t say another word in all that time, just sat there in silence, but it was then that I finally experienced the feeling that everything would be okay, no matter what, as long as I had my brothers with me.


----
Copyright ©2004
All Rights Reserved
No part of this story may be copied or reprinted without the author's permission.

The next day

I didn’t want the guys to get worried about Nick and I disappearing or anything like that, so the minute Rok mentioned we would be needing to buy some last minute supplies I volunteered to go and get them and asked Kevin if Nick could come with me. Surprisingly, he accepted. I guessed he was still on a guilt trip and wanted to make me happy.

We walked to the bar without saying too much at first. I tried to act confident but, truth to be told, I was as nervous as him but for different reasons.

“What if that Gris is not there, Nick?”

“I don’t know. I suppose I could ask someone where can I find him.”

We were less than a block away when I heard someone calling me and I froze. It was a booming voice in my head, which kept saying my name, “Alexander”. It’s him.

“Aje, come on.” Nick stopped a couple of steps ahead of me.  “AJ?”

I didn’t answer so he came back and stood at my side. “What is it?”

“I…”

“Something happens?”

“I can’t go in there” I said shaking my head.

“You can’t go? Why?”

“I can’t Nicky.”

“Come on AJ. You promised me.”

“No, you don’t get it, I want to, but I can’t.”

“Why?” he asked intrigued.

I looked into his eyes. “My father is in there.”

“Your father? What are you talking about AJ?”

“My father.” I said slowly as if that would explain everything. Nick looked even more confused.

“Is this a joke?”

“I wish, but no. He is one of them Nick.”

I didn’t know if he had finally understood what I was saying but for some reason he believed me. “Shit! Do you want us to go back to the ship?”

“No.”

“Lets go Bone.” he said going back and pulling me by the sleeve of my jacket. I didn’t move.

“No, Nick. I need to go in there. We are going inside. You have to solve your problem and I need to talk to him.”

“No, AJ. Lets just go back. I will tell Kevin everything.” Great Bone, you already scared him.

“I’m going in, Nick.” I said finding the courage to walk to the bar. When I was about to go inside I heard his steps behind me, he was running and caught me in seconds. The place, as always, was really dark and a strong damp smell was emanating from it. It wasn’t crowded but I saw more people than the last time; it didn’t take me too much to find my father though, he was sitting at the same table on the corner where I had seen him the first time.

“AJ the Gris is not here, lets just go home.” Nick hissed at my side.

“Hello Alexander.” My father greeted raising a glass full with an amber liquid.

“You go if you want Nicky. I’m staying” I answered approaching the table.

“Come on take a seat.” he patted the chair at his side but I chose a chair in front of him. Nick was still at my side without knowing what to do. “Man, you do look like your father kid,” he addressed to Nick “What’s your name again?”

“His name is Nick and he is not staying. Go back to the ship bro.”

Nick just stood there with a worried look on his face. I read his lips: “Are you crazy?”

“Go to the ship Nick.”

“Alex” he pleaded, this time out loud.

“Go Nicky.”

Nick looked at my father and at the other two men at the table and then he looked at me again. “I’m going to tell Kevin that you are here,” he said before running to the door.

“Do whatever you want,” I said under my breath.

My father made a gesture to the other two, who immediately left the table and went to the bar. Jeff was sitting there and he was looking at me. For a minute I had the feeling that he was as uncomfortable as I was.

“Well, Alexander. Wait, it’s Alex, right? That’s what they call you.”

“AJ”

“What?”

“The name is AJ. Only my family calls me Alex and you are not family.”

“Wow kid, you speak like that cousin of yours. Yeah, you sound like Kevin. His father was the same way. I guess that’s Ryan’s blood in you.”

It felt sick hearing he talk about my uncle after what Kevin had told me.

“So you want things pretty clear from the beginning, don’t you?” he asked me.

“Yes.” I tried to act as tough as possible but I was shaking inside. “What do you want?”

“I told you. I wanna talk to you. You are my son.”

“I’m not.”

“Yes, you are. You can’t go against blood. I’ve been looking for you?”

“What for?”

“Because you are my son. Isn’t that enough reason?”

“Not even before knowing who you really are, did I think of you as my father. You are only the man who got my mother pregnant. I was alright without you in my life and I plan to stay that way.”

“Who I really am? You mean a Tracon? You are a Tracon too, AJ. Part of you is Tracon.”

“So what?” I gave a shrug of indifference. “I don’t care.”

“You will, son. You don’t belong with them. You belong here with us.”

I looked at Jeff over his shoulder.

“Here. Have a drink”

“Huh?” I said looking at my father again.

“I said have a drink,” he repeated placing a glass with the amber liquid in front of me and turning around to look at the bar, probably trying to find what I had been looking. He faced me again with a big smile on his face.

“No, thank you.” I said pushing the glass aside. “And don’t tell me where I belong. You don’t know me; you have no clue about me.”

“Help me then. Let me know you Alex.”

“I told you not to call me that.”

“Son, I don’t know what had they told you about me but I’m almost sure they had lied to you. You have to see the things for yourself. I would never hurt you.”

“My family would never lie to me.”

“We are your family too.”

“I have to go,” I said standing up.

“Why? Are you afraid of what I could tell you.”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“But you don’t want to know if they had lied to you.”

I wanted to tell him again that my family would never lie to me but I couldn’t, they had already lied and I hated to admit that he was right. “Fuck you!” was the only thing I could say before leaving the table and turning my back to him.

I have to get out of here before he senses my doubts.

“I will see you again,” he yelled at me before I reached the door. I turned around and gave him a look but I couldn’t manage to say anything so I just left the place.

The minute I found myself on the street I regretted my decision. Why did I leave? I should have stay there longer. There’s so much I want to know. I forced myself to keep walking. I couldn’t go there again. No, just walk away. I don’t have anything to do here. Damn, why I feel like I have to be there with them. I walked as fast as I could and some minutes later I reached the ship. Kevin was sitting on the stairs near the main gate.

“Did you talk to him?” he asked me.

I took a seat at his side. “Nicky told you that I was there?”

“Yes. The poor kid came running like someone was chasing him. I asked D to tell him everything. He’s in there explaining everything to him and Brian.”

“Why didn’t you go and look for me?”

“You needed to talk to him.”

“You didn’t think that yesterday.”

“I wanted to speak with him first Alex. I needed to be sure that he wasn’t going to hurt you. I know now that he wouldn’t do it.”

“He already hurt me the day he came back to my life. And why you are even saying that? You think he won’t hurt me? Don’t tell me you think he loves me.”

“I would like to tell you that but no bro, sorry. I don’t think Drew is capable of loving anyone. What I do think is that you are important for his plans.” And now you decide to being sincere. You are a big jerk Kevin.

“Care to tell me what he said?”

“No.” He call you a liar and I couldn’t defend you. You want to hear that, Train?

“We are leaving tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“What if I don’t want to go?” Where did that come from?

“What?”

“That’s an option, right?” Tell me it’s not. Why I’m even saying these things?

“No, it’s not. You are coming.”

“You can’t make me.”

“Of course I can.”

“Deal with it Kevin. You can’t.”

“Excuse me,” someone said and we both look up to find a little Gris standing in front of us.

“Is there a human kid named Nick in this ship?”

“Who’s asking?” I saw Kevin’s left hand hover his laser. The Gris probably saw it too because he raised his hands for us to see them.

“I’m just a friend.”

“A friend?”

“Okay, not exactly a friend, just someone who knows him.”

“Knows him?” Why are you repeating everything Kev?

“The kid owes me money.”

Oh shit!

Kevin stood up and the guy became really nervous. I had always thought about the Grises as short people but that was probably just because I used to compare them to the Sargons. In reality the average Gris was not that short. The Grises were skinny, quiet creatures just a little shorter than humans. Now, this Gris in particular was probably pretty short for an adult, and in front of my tall cousin I could understand his agitation.

“My little brother owes you money?” The booming voice of Kevin wasn’t going to make him feel less uncomfortable.

“I...” he was definitely scared. “You are one of those rebels, aren’t you?” Kevin didn’t even bother to answer the question and eyed him up and down. Of course, that explains it. It’s not only Kevin’s height what makes him nervous but the fact that he had recognized him. Grises aren’t an example of courage and rebels are known as tough people.

“Sir, I don’t want to bother you but the kid and I made a deal. I sold him a laser and he hadn’t canceled his debt.” Sir? Hmm, I have a feeling that this is a very young Gris. But then again you can never tell with the Grises. They always look the same once they reach adulthood; they never get gray hair or wrinkles like humans.

“AJ” Kevin was clenching his fists, not a good sign. “Go and call Nickolas.” Nickolas? Nick is definitely in trouble.

I walked into the ship and found Nick, Brian and Howie sitting on the main room. They all gave me a weird look and I remembered what Kevin had told me, which made me feel incredible uneasy. They had been talking about my father, about me.

“Nick, bro, your day has come,” I said immediately trying to avoid the uncomfortable feeling their stares had caused me. “That Gris is outside talking to Kevin. He told him about the gun.”

Nick got pale and I though he had stopped breathing.

“Shit! Brian you got to help me.” he was pulling Brian’s sleeve. “Kevin is going to kill me.”

“What are you talking about? And don’t curse!”

“NICK!” Kevin yelled outside.

“Nick what’s going on?” Howie asked standing up, his brow creased.

“NICK!”

“You better hurry up Kaos.” I said feeling bad for the kid.

Nick left the room and approached the gate with the three of us following him. He was walking very slow, like trying to delay the inevitable. Once outside I noticed that the Gris had stepped back from Kevin and was looking at the floor. When he heard us coming he looked up at Nick with those strange black eyes. Grises’ eyes were all black, without the white part the humans had. That was the only big difference between them and humans, that an their gray skin of course.

“Nick, do you know this guy?” Kevin asked.

Kaos didn’t answer and just stood in the door, as far from Kevin as he could, his eyes darting from the Gris to me. If you are looking for help here Nick, you are not going to find it. I’m sorry bro but I have no idea what to say.

“I’m asking you a question. Do you know this guy?”

The kid finally nodded.

“You bought a gun from him?” Kevin was beyond pissed and shot Kaos a frightening glance, it was like fire was about to come from his eyes. He doesn’t have that power, does he?

“Yes.” Nick mumbled.

“How much do you owe him?” Kevin said in a lower voice, the same tone of voice we used to call “the calm before the storm”.

Nicky gave a nervous gulp before answering. “30 kubrimks.”

Kevin shook his head in disapproval. Howie and Brian were witnessing everything in awe.

“Go wait inside.”

“Kevin I...”

“NOW!”

Nick ran inside and Brian went after him. Kevin immediately got out some money from one of his pockets.

“Here’s your money.” The Gris took it quickly. “And now just disappear. If I ever see you again near this ship or near my brother you will regret it.”

“You won’t see me again, sir, I promise.” The Gris told him before running away.

Kevin faced us and for a moment I thought he was about to came up the steps but he turned around again. After a couple of seconds he looked at us for the second time.

“I have to go.”

What?

“You have to go? Where are you going?” Howie asked.

“i need to go for a walk.”

“Walk? Why?”

“AJ, if I go inside I’m going to do something I’ll regret because right now all I wanna do is to knock some sense into that kid. And when I say knock, I’m talking literally.” Oookay

And having said that, he just walked away.

----
Copyright ©2004
All Rights Reserved
No part of this story may be copied without the author's permission.

After we saw him leaving D and I went inside. Nick was in the main room again, he was sitting in one of the couches watching Brian pacing in front of him. They both froze the minute we came in.

“Calm down Nicky. It’s just me and Howie. Kevin left.”

“He left? Where did he go?”

“He said something about trying to calm himself before talking to you because he didn’t want to kill you.”

For an instant I thought Nick was going to cry. Having been innumerable times in trouble with Kevin I felt sympathetic to the kid.

“I’m dead” he whined.

“Come on Nicky, at least he is trying to calm himself; that means he really doesn’t want to kill you,” I told him trying not to chuckle.

“AJ, ARE YOU LAUGHING?”

Sorry, sympathetic or not, watching Nick in trouble is always funny. “No, I’m not laughing Brian.” Or should I say I’m trying not to laugh.

“I don’t understand how could you do something like that.” Brian told Nick, taking a seat by his side.

“THAT’S ME OKAY, I DO STUPID THINGS ALL THE TIME.” That’s our Nicky. You could always count with him losing his temper, no matter the situation.

“Low your voice, I’m trying to help you remember.” Brian growled.

“Let me have this straight.” Howie intervened “You bought a gun from a Gris?”

“Yes.”

Howie smacked him on the head.

“GUNRUNNING? What were you thinking?”

“He wasn’t.” Brian said “That’s for sure.”

“Man, Nicky, this time you went too far.” Howie is the only one who in a moment like this will call Nick “Nicky”.

“And if Kevin wants to kill you, we’re not going to try to stop him.”

“WHAT? You are kidding, right Brian? You heard AJ saying that he had gone for a walk, that means he is beyond mad. He is going to kill me and you are not going to do anything?”

“Whatever he does you deserve it.”

“Why? Since when is a crime to buy a gun? Okay don’t answer that. I know I shouldn’t have bought it on the black market but...”

“You shouldn’t have bought it, period.”

“Why not? I’m not a kid. What’s so wrong with me having a gun?”

“Go and bring it,” Kevin ordered entering the room.

Hey that was too fast. “You calm yourself in two minutes?” I said under my breath just to receive a glance for Kevin - Did I said that too loud? - and being elbowed in the stomach by Howie. Ouch! Yes, I said it too loud.

“Go and bring the laser, Nickolas.”

Nick looked at us but no one else said a single word. He finally did what Kevin was asking and left the room.

“Kevin...”

“Save it, Brian.”

That was it. Brian didn’t try again to talk to him and we just stayed there in silence until Nick entered the room again bringing the laser and handed it to Kevin.

“An ATX? Man you ARE stupid!”

“There’s no need to insult him Kevin” Brian interceded.

Kevin just glared at him.

“Well, since this is already paid. Here AJ” he said giving me the gun. “You have a new laser now.”

“Cool!” Howie elbowed me again.

“That’s not...”

“What Nick? You were going to say something? That’s not fair? How is it not fair? YOU AREN’T EVEN ALLOWED TO HAVE ONE OF THOSE IN THE FIRST PLACE.” Damn, why he has to scream? My ears!

“I will be 16 in less than two months. Howie and Brian went to the Academy when they were 16, you were fighting a war at that age and AJ has a gun since he was 14.”

“I don’t care if you think it’s fair or not. And where did you get the money to buy it in the first place? Brian?”

“Don’t look at me. I don’t know.” Brian shrugged.

“Brian didn’t know anything.” No Nicky, you are not going to solve anything sounding that cocky, kid. “I worked for it.”

“Worked? Where?”

Nick looked down.

“WHERE?”

I saw Nick eyes when he looked up and I knew that he would fly into a temper again. Damn, I better cover my ears because once Kevin finds out, all hell will break loose.

“Doing some errands from the people at that bar. Mostly delivering packages or things like that.” I knew it. I knew he would defy Train. He sounds so proud and he is even narrowing his eyes at Kevin. Sometimes I don’t know if the kid is too brave or too stupid.

“WHAT? YOU WERE WORKING IN A BAR?” It really took me by surprise the fact that Howie was the first one to react, especially because it wasn’t common to hear him yell.

“YOU WORKED FOR THE ENEMY?” Kevin was furious.

“I DIDN’T KNOW THEY WERE PEOPLE FROM THE EMPIRE!”

“Don’t you dare to yell at me, you little...”

“KEVIN!”

“Stay out of this Brian.”

“You worked at that bar. You weren’t even supposed to be there. You want us to treat you like an adult but you act like a child every opportunity you have. How stupid can you be?”

“I told you that there’s no need to insult him Kevin.” Brian stood up.

“And I told you to stay out of this.” Kevin gave Brian only one quick glance before facing Nick again, but Bri wasn’t going to accept Kevin’s orders that easily.

“You better watch what you say, Kevin?” Come on Brian, why are you looking for a fight now?

Kevin turned his head towards Rok. Howie left my side to stand next to Bri and put a hand on his shoulder, probably realizing that Kevin wasn’t the only one about to blow a fuse.

“Guys!” I said.

Kevin just shook his head and kept talking to Nick.

“I really don’t know what I’m going to do with you Nickolas.”

Nicky was calmer now. It was like seeing Brian mad at Kevin had changed his attitude and his tone was softer when he talked.

“Please Kevin, just don’t send me away.”

“Send you away?” Brian was now at Kevin’s side. It seemed that Howie hadn’t had the chance to restrain him. “Nobody is sending you away. What’s he talking about Kevin?”

“I haven’t decided it yet.” Kevin spoke up, folding his arms in front of him and still without even looking at Rok.

“There’s nothing to decide. You are not sending him anywhere.”

“Stay out of this Brian.”

“No. You have no right to do that. We have to stay together. You promised it, remember?”

“I will do whatever I think is the best for him.” Kevin’s eyes were fixed on Nick.

“You don’t have a fucking idea of what you are talking about!”

I gaped. Brian is cursing? I couldn’t believe what I was watching. I had never seen Brian so mad before.

Kevin looked at him. “And you have it?”

“I’m tired of your shit Kevin, of you taking decisions for everyone. Oh no, Rok don’t do this because of what happened to me. “The kid made a mistake.”

“You are tired of my shit? Will you shut up!” Kevin replied, turning his back to him.

Kevin attitude just added fuel to the flames. Rok wasn’t going to accept being treated with indifference and the next thing I knew he was between Kevin and Nick.

“Why don’t you make me?”

I had no idea how things had come to that point but when I saw both of them threw their fists up I had to run to grab Kevin. Howie helped me to hold him back while Nick pulled Brian trying to keep them apart.

“You know what? Just forget it! This is not worth it.” Kevin shouted out loud raising his arms, as if trying to show us that he wasn’t going to fight. After a moment, and noticing that he was quiet, we let him go. “You think you have all the answers, right Brian? Well, then I quit. Just take charge of everything. After all you are better at making decisions. You think you know what’s best for Nick? Well, from now on I won’t interfere with your lives. Hey, maybe you want to be captain of this ship too? DO WHATEVER YOU WANT!”

There was a death silence in the room after Kevin left.

“What the hell was that?” I managed to say.

“Get off me” I heard Brian shout and turned around to notice that Nick was still grabbing him by the arm. After finally releasing himself he ran out of the room.

What the hell just happened?

Nick tried to go after Brian but Howie didn’t let him. “Give him some time alone Nicky.” I stared at Howie looking for an answer but he just shook his head. He was as confused as I was and for some reason realizing that was all that I needed to make up my mind and go after Kevin and Brian. “AJ!” I heard D calling me when I was walking through the door but I didn’t look back. I was determined to talk to them.

Once in the corridor I found myself torn between going after Kevin or looking for Bri. A moment later I was in front of Kevin’s room. I never knew why I chose to talk to him first.

----
Copyright ©2004
All Rights Reserved
No part of this story may be copied or reprinted without the author's permission.

I didn’t knock, just opened the door and found him sitting on the floor looking at the ceiling. He looks so tired.

“Kevin?”

“Not now, AJ. I don’t wanna hear it.”

“Kevin, just...” I said approaching him.

“You guys should be happy. I’m leaving you in peace. Wasn’t that what you wanted? No more Kevin making wrong decisions and interfering with your lives.”

I stood there is silence, not sure of what I should say.

“I’m tired of making wrong decisions, AJ,” he said looking at me for the first time. “I’m tired of all the responsibility and of losing all the people I love.”

Oh God! This was the first time Kevin was openly crying in front of me or in front of anyone for what I knew. I had seen him crying twice, once after we left Earth and the other time the day we heard about Earth’s destruction, but only because I had followed him and saw him crying alone, where he thought nobody could see him. I wasn’t even sure if he had ever cried after Kaydee’s death. And now here he was, in front of me and tears running down his face.

“Kevin you have done a fantastic job taking care of everything, taking care of us.”

“Tell Brian that,” he snorted.

“Brian was just talking shit. Like we all do it sometimes.”

“I wasn’t going to send him away AJ. I would never send Nick away.” He kept talking looking at the floor and wiping his tears “I just wanted to scare him, make him listen to me.” Man, he looks so young.

“I know. Sometimes we say things we don’t mean. Like today when I told you that I could stay here. You know I would never do that, don’t you?”

“I can’t protect the people I love.”

“Kev...”

“I keep making all these mistakes and I can’t afford to make mistakes when the lives of the people I love are at stake. I should have done something.” What’s he talking about? Our parents?

“Kevin we were just kids.” But then it hit me. He wasn’t talking about our parents. He was talking about Kaydee.

“You can’t keep blaming yourself for her death.”

He looked up at me bewildered, probably because I had discovered what he was thinking.

“It was my fault AJ. I should have protected her, I should have made her listen. She shouldn’t have taken part of that battle.”

He played with the ring in his chain.

“It’s that the ring you gave her?”

I saw the surprise in his eyes. “How do you know it? Howie told you?”

“That you were going to marry her? No, she told me.”

“She told you?”

“Yes, remember that we were close.”

“Right.” He smiled “She loved you. She was always defending you,” he added rolling his eyes.

I took a seat by his side. “She was the one who gave me half of my nicknames. I don’t know why because she never used any of them.”

We kept silence for a moment.

“I told her that I was going to give her a real engagement ring one day, with a gem on it. But she said that she didn’t want it. She accepted this little piece of metal like it was jewelry.”

“She was an amazing girl,” I murmured closing my eyes.


~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~× ~ × ~ × ~

“Hello Lexi!”

“Kaydee don’t call me that.” The little boy answered looking up for the homework he was trying to do. “That’s a girl’s name.”

“No, it’s not. Come one Al boy, why the bad mood?” Kaydee said taking a seat at the desk at his side.

“Why are you always shortening my name?”

“Because it is too long, ALEXANDER JAMES.” she smiled and her big brown eyes sparkled.

“Just call me Alex, that’s what the guys call me.”

“No, I want you to give you a special name.”

“Not Al, please.”

“Okay,” she said rolling her eyes “I will think something else. Damn, these desks are uncomfortable. What are these, for midgets?” she added standing up.

“You are just too old for school.” he replied laughing.

“Hey, I’m not too old. I’m 18. These desks are simply wrong. Is this even your class? Because these are too little for you too. No, let me say that again, these are too little for any 12 year old kid. Nick would probably fit here better.

“That would make him a midget?” Alex asked giving a roar of laughter.

“Shhh, I didn’t say that. Nicky is pretty tall for a 10 year old. Why are you still at school, anyway? There’s nobody here, not even the teachers. Are you in detention or something like that?”

“No, it’s just that I can’t concentrate on my homework when I’m in my room with Nicky running and jumping all over the place. And what are YOU doing here?”

“Looking for you,” she said giving him a wink.

“Why? Is Kevin looking for me?”

“Kevin? What did you do now, Alex?”

“Nothing.”

“Yeah right, and you are so nervous because of nothing.” She messed his hear playfully. “And no, Kevin is not looking for you, kid; it’s only that I have a day off and I though about spending it with my favorite brother in law.” She grinned.

“Brother in law? I’m not your brother in law. You and Kevin are not married and he is not even my brother.”

“I’m hurt.” Kaydee pouted jokingly bringing a hand to her hearth “You should consider yourself lucky to have a sister in law like me,” she added in a funny voice.
“You are such a clown.”

“Yes, but a beautiful clown,” she replied moving her head and waiving her chestnut hair in the air.

“How come you have a day off?”

“There are a lot of sick soldiers in my unit, so they just gave the rest of us two days’ leave. Isn’t it wonderful?”

“Sick?”

“Food poisoning or something. It seemed that the 3B dining hall is not a good place. Good thing that Kevin and I prefer to eat with you and your brothers in the east wing.”

“And how come Kevin is still there?”

“How do you know he is still there?”

“Because no matter how much you say you love me, I’m sure you would prefer to be with your boyfriend than with a 13 year old kid.”

She smiled.

“He has other things to do, remember that he is a Staff Sergeant now.” she admitted. “And I do love you sweetie,” she added giving him a kiss on the cheek showing what Alex would call the maternal side of her personality.

“So, do you need some help with that homework?”

“If you don’t mind.”

“Of course I don’t mind but lets just go to your place. I hate these desks.”

“Okay let’s go.” They both walked to the door but suddenly Kaydee stopped.

“Hey, how about AJ?”

“AJ?”

“For you, as a nickname.”

“AJ” The boy repeated the name “Yes, I like it. It sounds cool.”

“Yeah, you are right. I need to come up with something else, that’s too cool for a geek like you,” she said laughing and putting an arm around his neck.

“Very funny.” He rolled his eyes.

~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~× ~ × ~ × ~


“She was like an older sister to me, Kev,” I told him opening my eyes after what seemed like hours. “She kept doing all these things for me and Nicky. With Nick sometimes she acted more like a mother but she allowed herself to be more childish in front of me.”

“And she told you about our plans to get married?”

“Yep”


~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~× ~ × ~ × ~

“Hey A! Where are you?” Kaydee shouted, entering one of Philippians’ hangars.

Fourteen year old AJ appeared all covered in grease behind a land vehicle he was trying to repair.

“Kaydee. You gave me the nickname AJ, then you gave me the nickname Jay and now you only used the first letter of my name.”

“Everyone calls you AJ now, or Jay. I don’t want to use the same names everyone uses. I want to use a special one because I’m special.”

“You are specially insane.” he joked.

“Hey, I’m offended” she frowned at him but the next minute she was smiling. “And what are you doing? You can’t repair things. You are going to leave this useless.”

“I’m not that bad!” he complained. “Okay, I am, but I’m just helping Rok and he left me instructions. Were you looking for me?” he asked sounding too high-pitched.

“Oh God, your voice is changing. That was hilarious.”

“Don’t laugh,” he whined.

“I won’t sweetie. Man you are so big now.” She sighed. “It seemed like yesterday that you were this tall. And here you are now, a handsome young man. Someday you are going to make a girl very happy.”

“Why are you talking like an old lady? You sound like Miss Reagan and you are 20 years old Kaydee. I hate when women see romance in everything.”

“Romance is everywhere, sweetie. And I’m talking like this because I’m excited. So excited that everything seems different today, everything seems brighter. You have no idea how happy I am, Alex. No, happy is not a good word. Man, there is not a word that describes what I’m feeling right now.”

He gave her a weird look.

“Kevin loves me!” listening the tone of her voice AJ had the feeling that she was going to start to jump up and down like a little girl.

“And you just realized that? He had been nuts about you for years.”

“No, I mean he really loves me.”

“Huh?”

“He gave me a ring. We are getting married Alex.”

“WHAT? Married? Kaydee, that’s wonderful. Let me give you a hug.”

“Thank you sweetie but low your voice” she told him looking around while he hugged her. “You can’t tell anybody. It’s a secret.”

“Why?”

“Things are getting very complicated now, Alex. We are losing too many battles and it’s not a secret that we are not going to resist too long. Some of the high rank officers don’t want soldiers starting families now. Kevin is not only the leader of my squadron, he is a First Sergeant, and we are afraid they could send me away, to another military station. That’s why I’m not wearing the ring but I will show it to you as soon as we get back. We are just waiting for a better moment to tell the news.”

“As soon as you get back? Back from where?”

“They are sending us to the Altamira system.”

~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~× ~ × ~ × ~


She never came back.

“It was my fault.” Kevin’s words brought me back to reality.

“No Kev, it wasn’t.”

“She shouldn’t have been there. They shouldn’t have been there.”

He was always taking responsibility for everyone. As leader of the squadron he probably had always blamed himself for the deaths of his men. I never knew what exactly happened the day Kaydence died, the only thing I knew was that he had died saving Stuart.

“Kevin, you have to stop doing this. Not everything is your responsibility.”

“She was.”

“Kaydee was a big girl, Kevin.”

“She was so stubborn, that’s what she was. She wasn’t supposed to be there.”

“It was her squadron too.”

“She wasn’t supposed to be there. They weren’t supposed to be there.”

“Kevin, all those women and men, they were adults, they chose to be there.”

“What?” he said looking at me confused and started to shake his head.

“God, AJ” he licked his lips before continuing “There’s something you don’t know Alex. Not even Howie know this and it’s killing me.”

“Kev…”

“She was pregnant.”

What?

“She was going to have a baby, my baby.”

“I...” I couldn’t articulate a single word.

“We found it out a week before going on battle.”

Oh God, Kaydee was pregnant?

“I asked her to stay at Philippians but she didn’t listen to me. And now I realize that part of me knew something was going to happen to her.” His voice was choked by sobs. “I just knew it. I never saw her in that fucking crystal, there’s no happiness for me there, nothing. The only thing I keep seeing in that damn thing is my own death.”

Please no. Tears were running down my face.

“Kev.”

He wiped his tears and stood up.

“I need to go. There are too much things to do. We need to leave this place tomorrow.” I noticed he was shaking and stood up immediately.

“Kevin, calm down.” I said pulling him back.

He turned to me, fell to his knees and burst into tears. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I can’t do anything good.”

“Kevin, don’t say that, you know that isn't true." I kneeled down in front of him "Remember what you told me yesterday?” I asked putting my hands on his shoulders.

He looked at me confused.

“You told me there wasn’t anything mean in me. Don’t you see it.? Everything I am, it’s because of you. You were always there for me Kev. I could end up pretty fucked up... Man, I’m half Tracon. But you raised me to be what I am now. And look at Brian and Nick. Okay Brian was a jerk today but that never happens, he is the kindest guy in the universe, and Nicky is a pain in the ass but he is a great kid too.”

“You ARE amazing Alex.” He smiled although there were still tears in his eyes.

“I love you bro.”

“Man, when did you grow up?”

“You think I’ve grown up. Take a look at Nick. He is going to be taller than you, man.”

“I wasn’t talking about height, Alex.”

“I know.” I smiled “But he is not a kid anymore, Kev.”

He stood up and wiped his tears away.

“I understand what you are trying to say. I made a mistake, another mistake, trying to protect him.”

“Why don’t we just leave all this behind. A fresh start, no lies and just looking ahead to the future. After all that’s a pretty messy future waiting for us. How are we going to save anyone if we keep fighting?”

He nodded, fixed his eyes on the floor for a minute and then looked up smiling.

“I guess Nick is going to have a gun after all,” he said raising his eyebrows.

I laughed.

----
Copyright ©2004
All Rights Reserved
No part of this story may be copied or reprinted without the author's permission.

We both took a seat on the floor again, this time at the foot of his bed.

“See, and you guys told me I was overreacting when I said that I didn’t like this planet” I grinned.

“What are you talking about?” Kev was still wiping the tears from his eyes.

“So many things happened here, it feels like we could divide our lives in two parts, before and after coming to K-Tawoor.”

He bit his bottom lip. “You want to see him again, don’t you?”

“No” I shook my head. “I thought I wanted but I prefer to leave things the way they are.”

“I’m sorry Alex.”

“I know” I sighed.

We heard a knock on the door and before Kevin could even respond a timid Nick opened it and stuck his head in.

“May I come in?”

Train nodded and Nick entered the room and stood in front of us but didn’t say a word.

“Come here, buddy” Kev said patting the floor at his side.

He seemed to be doubting.

“Take a seat Nick,” Kevin repeated.

Kaos sat down at Kevin’s side without making any eye contact with neither of us.

“Just say it Nick.”

He finally looked at Kevin and took a deep breath before speaking. “I’m sorry Kev. I shouldn’t have done what I did and I understand why you got mad. But please don’t get mad with Brian, I hate when you guys fight. He doesn’t even want to talk to me. He locked himself in our room and doesn’t want to let me in.”

“I’m not mad with Brian, Nick. I’m not even mad with you.” You are not? “You have to understand that I’m mad with what you did not at you.”

“Isn’t that the same?” I commented just to receive a disapproving look from Kevin.

“No, AJ, it’s not the same. At least not for me. The fact that I think you did something stupid, Nick, doesn’t mean I think you are stupid.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You already said that Nick, and I know you mean it but you have to understand that what you did is too serious. You risked your life. I know you think not letting you have a gun is unfair and maybe you are right but you can’t go an do something like that.”

“Did you just say that maybe I was right?”

“Nick!” Kevin scolded. “Is that all that matters to you? Yes, I said it. You are not the only one making mistakes, Nick. I was wrong too but that doesn’t make what you did any more acceptable.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know little man,” Kevin said in a softer tone taking him by the neck in a playful headlock. “And I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did.”

“Hey, maybe we can get something good from Nick’s experience,” I meddled in.

“Something good?”

“He was working for the Empies, right? Maybe he knows something you guys don’t.”

We both looked at Nick who just shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t think I have any important info. It’s not like I did too much for them.”

“Don’t be so sure about that Nick. I think AJ is right. We could compare your info with what the rebels have, just in case.”

“Okay.”

“Tomorrow you will go with me to the rebel base.”

“Tomorrow? I thought we would be leaving tomorrow,” I interjected.

“We are, but I am going to the rebel base for the last time early morning. I have to pick up some things, and more important, some people.”

“People? Aren’t we traveling alone.”

“No. There are some other rebels going with us to Trinsuet.”

It didn’t surprise me too much. We were used to transport people, other outlaws, from time to time, just that this would be the first time we would do it with me knowing for sure those people were rebels.

“Kevin?”

“Yes Nick?”

“You are not sending me away, right?”

“What? Of course not.”

“If you think it’s the best.”

“I don’t think it’s the best Nick. I was talking shit when I said that.”

“Yes you were,” I said and stood up quickly before Kevin could cuff me around the head.

“You are risking your luck,” he said but he was laughing. Just in case he wasn’t joking I took a seat in front of them.

Nick didn’t smile.

“What is it Kaos?” I asked him.

“Brian,” he sighed.

“Don’t worry little man.” Kevin messed his hair.

“I will talk to him,” I offered; after all that’s what I had planed to do since the beginning.

“No.” Kev shook his head. “I’m the one who have to talk to him, and sooner the better,” he added getting up. “ I will go right now.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

We all looked up and found Brian at the door.

“I think I owe you an apology, guys.” Although he had said 'guys' his eyes were fixed on Kevin.

“Aww, someone call Howie and let just have a group hug.” I tried to relax the atmosphere.

“I’m here too, AJ.” Howie said coming from behind Brian and standing at the door.

“We are not having a group hug, are we? I was just kidding.”

They all smiled.

“Why don’t you and Nicky come with me and we let Brian and Kevin alone so they can talk.”

“No,” Brian said taking Howie by the arm so he couldn’t go. “What I said before I said it in front of everyone and now I want to apologize in front of everyone too.”

“Tell me that I’m not going to cry because I’ve already cried too much the last two days,” I joked.

“Shut up AJ!” Everyone laughed.

“You don’t have to apologize Brian.” Kevin voice was very low.

“I have. I acted like a jerk.”

“I acted like I jerk too.”

“Yes, but we are already used to you being a jerk.”

That almost cracked me up but I managed to refrain from laughing.

“That’s what you call an apologize, Rok?” Kevin said smiling.

Brian just grinned and shrugged his shoulders.

“Okay. Then I guess I should say the apology is accepted. Could you forgive me too?”

Brian nodded.

“I have been talking to AJ about starting things again,” Kevin kept talking. “A fresh start now that there are not secrets among us.”

If we were going to leave behind all the secrets there’s something I need to do. “We can’t do that if Brian doesn’t tell us what’s on his mind.”

“What?” If looks could kill I would be lying on the floor dead for the way Bri was looking at me. “AJ!”

“You said it Brian, we are used to Kevin acting like a jerk, not to you acting that way.”

“Hey, I’m still here, AJ,” Kevin complained.

“Sorry Kev but it’s the truth.” I stood up to look directly into Brian’s eyes. “Something is worrying you Rok and it has to do with the pyramid. Why don’t you just tell us?”

“Not now, AJ.” He looked down.

“Now Rok.”

“You guys already told us that we can change everything we have seen there,” Brian said looking at Kevin.

“But that doesn’t make it hurt any less,” Kevin answered probably sensing the same feelings I have sensed while talking to Rok the night before.

There was a deathly silence in the room. Howie took a seat on Kevin’s bed leaving Brian alone at the door, facing us all.

“I know what you all are going to tell me. It’s stupid being mad with you for something you hadn’t done,” he said still looking at Kevin.

“You are mad at me? For something you think I will do in the future? What did you see in the crystal Brian?”

“I really don’t want to say it Kev.”

“Brian!” he commanded.

“I...”

“Ahhh!” Howie suddenly winced in pain bringing his hands to his head and practically collapsing on the bed. We all ran to him.

“Howie, what is it?”

“The pain. I can’t control this power Kevin, it’s really hurting me,” he answered without opening his eyes.

We all looked at Kevin confused.

“It's his empathic power,” he said from his place next to Howie.

“Is this because of me?” Brian asked “Is this because of what I’m feeling right now, right? I’m sorry Howie, I’m really sorry.”

“Don’t worry Brian,” he said but it looked like he was short of breath “Just keep going, I’m okay now.”

“You sure?” Kevin intervened. “Maybe it would be better for you to leave the room.”

“No way,” he said sitting up and leaning forward, elbows on his legs and covering his face with his hands. “I’m the one who is suppose to control the power, not the other way,” he whined.

I couldn’t see his face but I knew he was still in pain.

“Howie...”

“WOULD YOU ALL STOP WORRYING, IT'S NOT HELPING.”

Nick and I took a step back.

“Sorry” he whispered looking at us. “I didn’t mean to yell at you. How ironic it is that I have the power to control minds and I can’t control my own?” He gave us a forced smile. “And what about my healing power? It’s useless too.” I knew what he was doing, all that talking was his way of hiding his pain.

“Okay, that’s it.” Kevin took charge of the situation. “Everybody leave the room, we will continue this conversation later.”

“NO!”

“Howie.”

“I’m okay Kevin, really. Brian, keep talking.”

Brian looked at Kevin.

“Just keep going!” Howie ordered. “The faster you said it, the better.”

Kevin finally nodded.

Brian closed his eyes and took a deep breath before spoken “I saw you hurting AJ.”

“WHAT?” we all asked at the same time.

“Nick was injured at your side and you were trying to kill Alex. You were injured too.”

“So, you think I will hurt Nick and AJ?” Kevin was standing in front of Bri now.

“No, I don’t know what to think.”

“You think I could hurt them?” He wasn’t yelling but you could notice that he was trying too hard to control his emotions.

Brian didn’t reply and just stood there shaking his head.

“You think I could hurt my family, Brian?”

My own visions in the pyramid came to my mind and I finally saw everything clear. Oh God!

“Not you, Kev, but I could.” I spoke so low that I wasn’t even sure they had heard me but everyone looked at me.

“What?”

“I will hurt you guys. All of you.”


----
Copyright ©2004
All Rights Reserved
No part of this story may be copied or reprinted without the author's permission.

“What the hell are you talking AJ?”

“That scene; you are defending Nick from me. You told me you have seen your own death in your visions Kevin. Who else is there with you?”

He closed his eyes and when he opened them again I saw the confusion in them. Fear? Realization?

“I am there, right? I have seen you injured in my visions too and those visions had come together with a feeling that until now I didn’t know what it was. Now I know, it’s guilt. That’s why I am so afraid I can hurt Nicky.”

“Me?” Nick gulped.

I turned to the kid, he was scared but I was more scared than him.

“AJ” Kevin said coming to me, “that’s not going to happen.”

“We all had the same visions.”

“No, you are just making assumptions.”

“I know it's true, Kev. I know it.” And I know what I have to do. “I need to get away from you.”

“What? No way AJ, you are not going anywhere.”

“Brian is right, AJ. Nobody is going anywhere. We stay together.”

“Please” I knew I was about to cry. I’m scared. I’m so scared.

“No. Forget it Alex. You are not making any sense. None of this makes any sense.”

“AWWW GOD!”

“Howie!”

“It’s too much guys.” He had leaned back again but this time he was crying, the pain was too much. “I can’t control it Kev. I need to do something.”

“I’ve told you D. There is an answer for this.”

“It’s not right.” His voice was shaking and you could hardly understand what he was saying.

“You need to do it D.”

“Okay, I will,” he replied after a moment.

“Great.”

“I still don’t think it’s the best idea but I will do it. I don’t think I could take this any more.” He stopped moving suddenly.

“D!”

“Howie!”

“Aw God!” Someone was crying, probably Nick. Probably I was crying too.

“Give him some space guys,” Kevin ordered lifting one arm to keep us away from him.

“Is he dead?”

“What?” Kevin looked at us for a second. “No, of course he is not dead Nicky, he just passed out,” he added checking his pulse.

Thank God!

“Is he going to be alright?”

Kevin placed his right hand on Howie’s forehead and a bright light came out from his palm. It was weird to see Kevin doing that. Most of the times it was Howie the one healing us. I wasn’t even sure if Kevin was able to heal Howie. It looked more like he was trying to find what was wrong with him.

“Yes. He will be alright,” he said after a moment. Then he moved Howie a little and placed him in a more 'comfortable' position.

“Are you sure?” Brian asked.

“I’m sure.” Kevin finally looked at us.

“What was he talking about?”

Kevin raised an eyebrow. Apparently he hadn’t understood my question.

“He said he was going do something although he didn’t think it was a good idea.”

“He was talking about binding his power.”

“Can you do that Kev?”

“Not me, he. You can bind your own powers.”

“You can?”

“Yes, we all can.”

“All his powers?”

“Only the empathy, or at least that’s what he is gonna try. We have never attempted to bind just one power.”

“Hey, maybe that’s what I have to do?” I saw a solution there.

They just looked at me.

“If I don’t have powers I can’t hurt you.”

“Jay stop it. You are not going to hurt us.”

“Can we not discuss this right now,” Brian interrupted us. “Howie is suffering.”

“Howie can’t sense us now. If we are going to finish this discussion lets do it now before he woke up.” I really wanted to know more about that possibility of binding my powers.

“How do you know he can’t sense us AJ?”

“He is sleeping.” Duh!

“He is not sleeping AJ, he fainted.”

“Okay that’s it.” Kevin has the ability to bring a room to silence immediately. “Everyone describes the scene that saw at the pyramid.”

We all looked at him but nobody said a word.

“AJ, you go first. I’m tired of this. What did you see?”

“I… I saw you deadly injured and me crying at your side.”

“So, you are crying after hurting me? That makes a lot of sense AJ,” he snorted.

“I told you I’m feeling guilty, like a reaction after hurting you.”

“Where is Brian?”

“Brian?”

“Yes Brian”

“I don’t know. He is not there.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Then it can’t be the same future. Brian saw us fighting. He had to be there.”

“Maybe I already killed him in my vision.”

“Bull!” I cringed and he softened his tone. “Jay, you think that if you were bad you would be so worry about this. No one can change so much Jay. You are not going to hurt us. Even if we all see the same future that won’t make it real.”

“Kevin is right, Bone.”

I didn’t know what to think.

“And I’m sorry Kevin.” Brian kept talking. “I don’t know why I gave so much importance to that vision. I know you would never hurt us.”

Kevin was looking at the floor, hands on hips.

“Kev?”

“I know. Don’t worry.”

“No, I feel like a jerk. I mean, here you are telling AJ that no matter what he saw you are not going to believe he would ever do something like that, and I chose to believe that you would. After all that you have done for us,” his voice shook.

“Brian don’t...”

“No, let me finish. Part of me knew that you would never hurt us but there was a part of me that was afraid of what I saw.” He was crying.

“I understand Brian.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay Brian, really.” Kevin hugged him.

“Thanks.” Brian's voice was almost a whisper by now but he hugged Kevin back. 

“Okay, now that this conversation is over, you guys better go out. Howie can’t hear us now but I prefer we let him rest.”

I realized Nick hadn’t said a word during the whole discussion. “What about Nick?”

“What about me?” he asked scared.

“You have been too quiet. Did you see anything like that at the pyramid?”

“No.”

“What did you see?”

He licked his lips before speaking. He used to do that a lot when he was nervous. “A girl,” he said almost in a whisper.

“A girl?”

This time I couldn’t control my laugh. “That’s our Nicky.”

Everyone laughed.

“Aww that’s like music to my ears.”

“Howie!” We gathered around him.

“Thanks guys. Those laughs relax me.”

“Are you okay?” Kevin asked helping him to get up.

“Yes, I am but I better do something about this.”

“Yes, you better do it right now.”

“I will.”

“Do you need my help?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know how I’m gonna do it.”

“Let me go with you.”

“No Kevin, don’t worry. I will call you if I need you.”

“You ARE going to do it, right Howie?”

“Yes, Kev, don’t worry. Like I told you, I still don’t think it’s a good idea but you won, I need to do it,” he said before leaving the room.

“Is he really going to bind his power?”

“Yes, we have talked about this a lot. Right now he only has empathic powers when he is with us but he is not controlling them and it's going to get worse the minute he starts to sense others people feelings.” Kevin was still looking at the door.

“How is he going to learn to control that power if he doesn’t keep it?”

“We hope it gets easy with the time. He just needs to control all his other powers first.”

We stayed in silence for some time and then Kevin spoke up again.

“Time to work guys. Lets go.”

Frick and Frack left the room together, Brian was hugging our little brother. I was about to follow them but Kevin called me.

“Alex”

“Yes?”

“Please, take those feelings out of your head.”

“Okay.” It was not that easy but I would give it a try.

“And what you said, about binding our powers...”

“Yes?”

“If I ever start acting strange, remind me to do that, okay?”

You are scared too, right Kev? “Only if you do the same for me.”

“You know it won’t be necessary.”

“Humor me.”

“Okay,” he accepted, and with that we went after Brian and Nick.


-------------------------------------


I didn’t have too much time to keep thinking about those images from the crystal. We spent the rest of the day getting ready to leave K-Tawoor, which meant, among other things, finishing the provision of the ship. It turned out that we would be needing more supplies than the usual amount since Kevin told us that four other rebels would be traveling with us. There was a considerable difference with the number of people we usually flew, which on average would be only two, but we didn’t give too much thought to the news. Usually D and Kev were the ones giving up their rooms. Either they would share a room or D would leave Kevin his room and come to sleep in ours. There had been other times when Kevin had preferred to take a sleeping bag to the laboratory or to any other room on the ship.

We made some plans that night during dinner. There were only four of us at the table because Howie was too tired. Apparently everything had tuned out okay with him binding his power but he was exhausted and went directly to bed.

Kevin reminded us that it would be only a matter of time until the Empire discovered who we really were and therefore the time had come for us to tell the rebels everything about the Alomegas and the Tracons. Nevertheless, he asked us to wait until we arrived in Trinsuet, which meant not using our powers in front of our guests.


----
Copyright ©2004
All Rights Reserved
No part of this story may be copied or reprinted without the author's permission.

Author's Note: Sorry for the delay guys. If there's still someone reading this story ;)


The next day

The first to arrive were a human and a Gazoid. Brian and I were outside, we had climbed on top of the ship and were checking the external housing of the crystal oscillator when we saw them approaching together with Kevin and Nick who had left early that morning to go to the rebel base.

“What the hell!”

“What is it?” Brian asked me.

“From all the people we have transported before the professor was the only one I never suspected to be a rebel.”

It turned out that one of our fellow travelers had already been in our ship once before. His name was Strauss and back then he had claimed to be a scientist doing some private researches. I recognized him immediately, especially because we didn’t get along the first time. He was a very old man who we had flown a couple of years ago to Sarmi and used to complain every day about Nick and me. It seemed that the man didn’t like kids. I hoped he didn’t consider me too young this time.

The Gazoid, like all the Gazoids I had met before, was a scary creature. The average height of a Gazoid was 6,5 and they kind of resembled the Sargons, being very muscular and having a strong long face and a big mouth completed with what you could describe as lion’s teeth. But, unlike the Sargon race, the Gazoid was known as one of the most intelligent races in the Universe.

“AJ, Brian, come here.” Kevin called us and we jumped to land.

“Remember Professor Strauss?”

We shook hands with him.

“Nice to see you again Professor,” I said giving him a big grin.

“Aw yes I remember this one. This is the one that kept getting in trouble, right?” Nick was behind him and rolled his eyes making a funny face, the professor probably had said the same thing to him. “What happened to you? The little one here is now taller than you.” He said pointing his thumb at Nick.

I didn’t even bother to gave him an answer. Great everyone keeps noticing that my little cousin is taller than me, and Nick is still growing, he will probably end up being taller than Kevin. Well, at least I’m taller than Brian and D. Although is nothing to be proud of, everyone is taller than Brian and D.

“And this is Rual.” Kevin said as we shook hands with the Gazoid.

“Rual?”

“My name is Ruaalsidrom Dkilttinszaksingrow,” was the gibberish he added. “Do you prefer to call me that?”

I put my hands up. “Rual it is.” He showed me a big smile and I decided that minute that I would be making friends with the big guy.

“Are the rest already here?” the Professor asked.

“Here? Someone was coming before you?” I didn’t understand why he was asking that coming from the base.

“We left the base a couple of hours ago but stopped to some last minute shopping in town.” Kevin explained and I assumed that either Rual or the Professor were the ones who had bought something since none of my brothers were carrying any packages.

“Someone is coming over there,” Brian said.

That “someone” turned out to be the most beautiful someone I had ever seen. Yes, it was a girl, a blond and petite beautiful girl. Blondes weren’t usually my type, I had always preferred brunettes, but the minute I saw this girl I got stunned by her beauty. She had crystal blue eyes, a perfect body and an adorable smile.

“Hello again Capitan,” she said to my brother once she was next to us.

“Hello Sergeant.”

Sergeant? This girl is already a sergeant? She doesn’t even look older than me.

“Good morning Professor, Rual.” she addressed to the other two travelers.

“Can’t we just drop the formalities? We are going to be together for a very long time so you all can call me Milos.” the professor growled and I was sure that by that 'all' he wasn’t referring to me or Nick.

“Okay,” she nodded.

“All right, then let me introduce you to my other two brothers,” Kevin said leading her to us. “Brian, AJ, this is sergeant Dana Varinsky.”

“You can call me Dana.” She smiled.

Can I call you honey?

“I don’t think T will be here soon, Kevin. I saw him before leaving and he was receiving some last minute instructions from Colonel Katsopolis and you know how much Colonel Katsopolis likes to talk.”

“Did you say T?” I interrupted her. “As in T the famous rebel. The one in charged of the battle of Zmira?”

“Yes, that would be T” There was a sparkle in Dana’s eyes when she smiled and I found myself smiling like an idiot to her. Nick probably noticed it because I heard him giggling. I finally managed to take my eyes off her.

“Is T coming with us, Kevin?”

“Aha.” He was smiling and I knew for sure what he was thinking. It wasn’t common to see me that interested in something. I knew I was acting like a kid on Christmas’ morning but I couldn’t avoid it, T was a living legend.

“Wow! Nick, did you see him at the base?”

“I don’t think so,” he shrugged. “How he looks like?”

“I don’t know Frack. What do you think Brian?”

No answer.

“Brian!”

“Huh?” He jumped like he had been caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to do. It seemed that I wasn’t the only one captivated by Dana.

“Nevermind” I laughed.

“What?” He was blushing.

“Nothing,” I said but leaning closer to him I whispered “Be careful not to drool Bri.”

The look on Brian’s face was hilarious.

“Well, we are not going to wait for T here. Lets better go inside” Kevin said walking to the gate. “Where is D guys? Did he come back?”

“He is back. He went to town but came back and hour ago. He is doing a last minute check of the engines before departure.” I answered as we all proceeded to enter the ship.

“Wait for me guys.” We hear someone yelled and I turned around to see a guy coming to us. The guy looked extremely familiar, he was blond and around Kevin’s age and height. Stuart

“Stuart?” I said out loud when the guy was at our side.

“Hello Brian.” He shook Brian’s hand and then stood in front of me “AJ? Wow, you look so different.”

“Stuart, I can’t believe it. So much time without seeing you man.”

“It’s great to see you again Stuart,” Brian added.

“You are coming with us too? Kevin didn’t mention it.”

“We just did, AJ.”

“You did?” I suddenly realized what was happening. “No way! You are T?”

“Yes, that’s my new name,” he grinned.

“You are T?”

“Yes, AJ. Remember that my last name was Turlington”

“You are T?” What the hell!

“Are you going to keep saying that?” he laughed.

“Sorry, but this is something I never imagined.” No offense to you Stuart but you weren’t the bravest soldier at Philippians.

“I know.” He winked at me. Hero or not he was still the same old Stuart, always smiling and joking. “It’s good to see you again, guys. I saw Nicky on the rebel base but he didn’t recognize me. Don’t you remember me, Nicky?” he greeted Kaos patting his arm.

“Of course I remembered you and is Nick not Nicky,” Nick grumbled.

Stuart’s eyes widen, surprised by Nick’s answer. “Okay.”

I elbowed Nick before Kevin could say something.

“Sorry” Kaos apologized. “I didn’t want to sound that rude it’s just that I don’t like that name.”

“Don’t worry. I understand, I don’t like the nickname T either. Even my friends call me that now but you guys can call me Stuart, like old times.”

“Okay people” Kevin spoke up. “Time to go. We can get back to this conversation once we leave this planet.”

Everybody went inside but I grabbed Kevin by the arm.

“Hey Train, I was thinking that maybe we can change some things, you know, so everybody can be comfortable.”

He stopped and looked at me.

“What do you have in mind?”

“I can share a room with Dana.” I grinned.

“Very funny,” he said laughing and smacking me on the head. “Forget what you are planning AJ.”

“I’m not planning anything. I was just kidding.”

“Joke or not, I don’t want you bothering her. Dana will have my room and the Profesor could have D’s. Stuart and Rual would probably sleep in the living room.”

“Where are you going to sleep?”

“In the lab, I already took my things there this morning.”

“Well, you can’t blame me for trying.” I laughed and we entered the ship, or rather as Kevin pushed me inside.

“Are we ready guys?” Kevin asked once we all were in the main room and receiving in exchange some “yes” and nods. “Okay, lets go. Everybody to your positions. Rual maybe you could go with AJ. Stuart come with me, we will join Howie in the cockpit. Dana, Professor, feel free to follow us.”

Stuart and the others followed Kev while I led Rual to the lasers chamber, Brian and Nick walking behind me, in direction to the engine room.

It was customary for me to stay in the laser room during landings and takeoffs but I wasn’t used to have company there and that’s why I felt kind of nervous at first, after all this was what the guys called “AJ’s box”. It didn’t take too much time for me to get used to Rual’s presence though. He proved to be not only a great guy but an expert on weapons, and that day we had the first of many interesting conversations.


A couple of hours later

“It’s not that little.”

“Huh?” I was giving Stuart and Dana a tour around our ship but I was getting distracted by Dana’s beauty.

“I said that it’s not that little,” Stuart repeated. “I never thought your ship was this big.”

“Considering the size of most of the ships we were used to see in Philippians this one looked small at first, but after some years in the outer space and comparing it to lots of other ships I guess you could say it’s big.”

“That inner deck it’s definitely big. I still can’t believe you guys have a little basketball court here. Remember the competitions at Philippians?”

“Yes, those were fun. And it’s good to have that one in the ship, you know that when you spend so much time in space you need to be able to exercise. What I still don’t understand is why you don’t know the sport Dana?” A couple of minutes before we had been in our sport area and Dana had looked confused in front of the basket.

She was about to answer but Stuart interrupted her.

“Whose room is this? Can we go in?”

“I guess so. It’s mine. I share it with Nick and Brian.”

“You have a guitar?” The first thing you noticed once you entered our room was the guitar on the wall over Brian’s bed.

“That’s Rok’s. Kevin has a keyboard too.”

“Right. Sometimes I forgot that you were born on Earth.”

I looked at Dana. I still didn’t feel completely comfortable saying in front of strangers that I was born on Earth, but considering that it was only a matter of time until the empies realize who we were, there wasn’t any reason to hide it anymore. As Kevin had already explained to us, the only reason for not saying the place we were born was that the legend referred to five men born on Earth.

“You guys were born on Earth? I didn’t know that.” Dana exclaimed “And what’s a guitar?”

“That,” I said pointing to Brian’s most precious treasure and she looked at the guitar like she was looking at a dangerous weapon. “It’s a musical instrument,” I added but for the look on her face I could have said that it was a tropical plant.

“Let me show you.” I took Bri’s guitar, sat down on his bed and started to play a song. I felt magically transported to our past on Earth. Our family was very musical, always playing instruments and singing. My mother used to give us piano lessons. Kevin, Howie and Brian already knew how to play the guitar and the piano when we left Earth and they had tough Nicky and me how to play them.

I sung one of my mother’s favorite songs, the one she used to sing to me when I was little.

“Wow. That was beautiful” Dana said when I finished, taking a seat at my side.

“You should hear Rok.” Great! Why did I said that? The last thing I want is Dana listening to Brian sing and falling in love with him.

“Why?”

“He is the best playing this. And he has a beautiful voice.” I had to admit.

“You have a beautiful voice too.”

Am I blushing? I never blush in front of girls. Who I am? Rok? “Thank you. Alex Littrell, at your service, singer and dancer” I joked trying to put the feeling of nervousness aside.

“And look at all these books. I don’t remember you having any of these things in Philippians, but then I don’t remember going to your room there.” Stuart sounded impressed.

“Those are Rok’s too.”

“Man, I didn’t know of too many people on Earth having so many books.” So many? There are not more than 10 there.

“We had a lot at home on Earth. They were already considered antiques but they were important to our family. Brian’s mother was a writer and those were some kind of family treasure.” I found myself remembering the last days before we left Earth, deciding what things we were going to take with us.

“Brian’s mother? Wasn’t she your mother too?” Dana asked.

“What? Aw, no. Do you really think we are all brothers?”

“You are not? I mean, I was almost sure Howie wasn’t Kevin’s brother, considering that they don’t look alike and have different last names. But then Kevin is always referring to him as his brother, same with you. And you just said you are Alex Littrell, right?”

“Yes, but that was my mother's last name. Kevin, Brian and Nick are brothers. They are my cousins. His father was my mother’s brother.”

“Oh, I get it. And Howie?”

“I guess you can say he is our cousin too.”

“Like I told you, Kevin always refers to you as his brothers.”

“We are brothers, in a way.”

“Have you seen a book before Dana?” Stuart interrupted us again. He was standing next to the shelf turning the pages of one of the books.

“I’m not even sure what a book is. I suppose, since you mentioned Brian’s mom being a writer, that you are referring to those things where people used to write before computers, right?”

“Yes.” Okay that’s strange. I know that these are things from Earth but almost every human has at least heard about them.

“How come?” I asked

“How come what?”

“You don’t know basketball, guitars, books? Don’t they teach about human history where you grew up. Haven’t you heard anything about the things from Earth.”

“I was not raised by humans. I was raised by Gazoids. I have only been among humans for the last year.” That explains it.

“Where you grew up?”

“Dalticon.”

“You were born there?”

“No, I was born in Pladaa.”

“That was your planet too, right Stuart?”

“Yes,” he said without looking at us, still reading a book.

“You said you have been only around humans for a year but you are already a sergeant?” I felt so useless.

“Long story. I’m interested in learning about human things though.”

“Well, then you need to check those. All the humans that come into the ship are interested in our books. We had probably read them thousands of times. The second one at the right,” I said pointing to the little shelf where Brian placed his bunch of books.

“This one?” Stuart said taking it.

“Yes. That was written by Brian’s great-great-grandfather who was a writer too, a very famous writer.”

“Cool!” And then people wonder why I was so impressed this morning. You definitely don’t sound like a hero Stuart.

“What are you doing here?” Brian entered the room.

“Nothing.”

“AJ was telling me about your books,” Stuart answered, again without looking at any of us.

“And that you are a great musician.” Dana added.

“He said that?”

“Yes” I sighed noticing both of them blushing. Dumb me, I did it.


----
Copyright ©2004
All Rights Reserved
No part of this story may be copied or reprinted without the author's permission.

The next days ended up being pretty good for Nick. He didn’t have any of those dreams for weeks and finally his big day came too. The boy had being talking about turning 16 probably as much as I had been talking about turning 18 and the occasion didn’t let him down, especially because he received his first gun that day. Kevin had been teaching him to shoot in the inner deck with the ATX and it seemed that it was that new Z300 what Kevin had sent Howie to buy the last day at K-Tawoor. He received a badge too and I saw him in a much better mood, he was even laughing with Dana, something that I had never seen him do before. The funniest part of the night though was watching Nick’s reaction to the “rules” about the use of his laser that Kevin listed. There were so many that the boy asked at some point if he was going to be allowed to really use it some day or he would have to keep it inside the box.

Sadly the good moment didn’t last. That same night he had another of those “dreams” and this time he not only woke up screaming but crying and with a fever.

“Nick. Are you okay?” Rok was the first one at his side again. He was trying to calm him down but the boy kept rocking himself back and forth. “He is burning hot, Kevin.” were Brian’s worried words to our brother who was just entering the room.

“Let me see,” Kevin said, sitting in front of Nick and grabbing him gently by the shoulders.

“Nick. Nickolas, look at me.” Nick was quiet now but not even Kevin could make him open his eyes.

“He is shaking Kevin.”

“Brian, he’s going to be okay.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, bro, but I need some space now.”

Brian left the bed and came to stand up next to me and Howie.

“Hey little one.” Kevin began taking the kid’s face lovingly on his hands. “I need you to open your eyes for me, okay. Come on buddy, you can do it.”

Nick finally looked at Kevin.

“You are going to be okay, baby. Now you are going to rest a little.”

“No.” The word was almost a whisper but he was shaking his head violently.

“Nick listen to me.”

I looked at Howie but he didn’t look back, his eyes were fixed on Nick and I noticed he was whispering “come on”. Brian on the other hand was biting his nails. I knew that he was trying too hard not to intervene and was probably thinking what I was thinking, that it would be too difficult for Kevin to calm him down; the kid wasn’t shaking his head anymore but he had closed his eyes again.

“Nickolas, I need you to listen to me.”

Come on Nick.

When I saw Nick opening his eyes again I released the breath that I didn’t know I was holding.

“Don’t worry Nick.” Kevin was talking very low but I heard him clearly. “You are not going back there. You are not having those dreams this time, I promise you. Do you trust me?”

Nick nodded.

“Just lay back.”

What followed was something that we all had seen a couple of times in the past; Kevin took one of Nick’s hands on his right hand while placing his left hand on the kid’s forehead. “Close your eyes Nick, and don’t worry, when you open them again we are going to be here.” An intense blue light came up from Kevin’s hand and enveloped Nick. The next minute Kevin was settling Nick’s pillow under his sleeping head.

“Did you see anything?” Howie’s question made me raise my eyebrows.

“You guys see things when you do that?”

“Sometimes,” Kevin replied leaving his place to Brian and looking at us. “The only thing I know is that whatever it was what he saw, it scared him so much that made him sick.”

“Is he okay now?” Brian asked feeling Nick’s forehead. “He doesn’t have a fever anymore.”

“Yes” Kevin sighed. “It wasn’t anything serious, but it’s not the fever what worries me. I can heal him but I don’t know what to do to help him to stay away from that place. He had told me that he doesn’t want to go back, it’s like someone is forcing him.”

“Is he going to sleep all night?”

“Probably, but I’ll stay here just in case. Brian, go back to your bed.”

“I’m staying here.”

“And that’s going to help Nick how? You are just making him uncomfortable Bri. Go back to your bed.”

“I have shared a bed with him before. We have done it sometimes recently too so Howie didn’t have to sleep on the floor. I will stay here and you can use my bed. AJ can share his bed with Howie.”

“Thanks for the offer Bri but this time I really think Nick needs more space.”

Brian sighed and after settling Nick’s covers went back to his bunk reluctantly.

“You can still sleep in my bed if you want Howie.”

“Thanks AJ but I’m okay here” he grinned going back to his sleeping bag and making some space for Kevin who had left the room to bring his.

When Kevin came back we were all quiet looking at Nick from our different places in the room. He didn’t say a single word, he took a seat at the kid’s bed and for a moment just stayed there looking at him. After some minutes he stood up and walked to his sleeping bag next to Howie’s.

Minutes passed and I was almost sure everyone had fallen asleep when I heard Brian’s voice.

“There has to be a way to make this stop.”

“Brian”

“No, Kevin, we have to do something, maybe if Howie…”

“Are you nuts? We already discussed this, there’s no way we are letting Howie do that.” WE already discussed this?

“Wait a minute, you already discussed what? Because I don’t remember having discussed anything.”

“Brian is right Kevin, maybe if I…”

“Forget it Howie!” We were all speaking at the same time, or more like whispering, and once again I was feeling ignored.

“Could someone explained me what’s going on?” I raised my voice just to hear someone reply with a “shhhh”. A hush fell over the room and it looks could kill I would have definitely been dead right there because three pair of eyes were looking at me and the way they were doing it sent a shiver through my spine.

“What’s wrong with you AJ?” Brian sat up on his bed. “Nick is sleeping there, can you be a little more considerate.” The words sounded low but firm.

“Okay that’s it.” Kevin commanded standing up “Everybody out. We need to talk.”

“We can’t leave Nick alone.”

“We are only going to be in the corridor Brian, and he is not going to wake up soon either way, no matter how loud we speak.”

“Then why are we going out and why you shushed me?”

“Because he needs a quiet environment and...” You could tell that Kev was already losing his patience. “Just go out okay.”

Once in the corridor Kevin began looking at me. “We didn’t hide anything from you this time AJ. It’s just a conversation that came up the other day between the three of us but I assumed we had made it clear that it wasn’t a good idea.”

“What wasn’t a good idea?”

“I was considering releasing my empathic power to try to understand what’s going on with Nick.”

“And I told you that was the stupidest idea you could come up with Howie.”

“Fuck you Kevin!”

“Whoa!” Did Sweet D just say that?

Kevin rolled his eyes.

“I don’t see you coming up with another idea.”

“And I can’t believe that you are even supporting this, Brian. Did you see what happened last time? Howie can’t control his power yet. Whatever it is that’s happening to Nick is causing him so much pain and fear that he is getting sick. Do you want the same happening to Howie?”

“Of course not” Brian yelled.

“Well, then what? Because there’s a big chance he won’t find out anything. Nick is trying to block every single feeling and you know it. That’s the way he is dealing with this.”

Brian wasn’t looking at Kevin no matter that he had been addressing directly to him. There was a long silence that only brought memories to my head. I found myself remembering what Howie had experienced some time ago due to his powers, and how scared I had been when he passed out. After a while I was the first one to speak again.”

“I’m with Kevin here. That idea is stupid D.”

Howie breathed a sigh of defeat and sat down. Brian copied his movements and took a seat at his side.

“So what do we do? Keep watching him suffer?”

“Yes.” Kev didn’t sound convincing enough this time. He was tired and I knew he wasn’t sure about what he was saying but he kept going. “As much as it hurts me the best thing we can do now is wait. We will talk to him tomorrow, maybe this time he will open up with one of us, probably with Brian.”

“What if he doesn’t?”

“Something tells me that he will this time.”

“But what if he doesn’t?”

“I don’t know Brian, I don’t have all the answers but I’m not going to allow Howie to go through the same things Nick is going through right now.”

“You are not going to allow me? You don’t have to allow or not allow anything Kev, it is MY decision at the end.”

“Oh hell, you know what I meant Howie.” Kevin throw his hands on the air and then turned his back to us and leaned against the wall, for a moment I thought he was going to bang his head on it but he just took a deep breath and took a seat too, massaging his neck.

“D, come on.” I decided to intervene and took a seat at the other side of the corridor, in front of Howie “You know that Kevin is right this time. We need to wait, it’s the best thing to do.”

He looked down and shook his head. I felt like I was treating with a stubborn Nick or Kevin instead of Sweet D. I turned to Brian for support.

“Rok?”

“They are right Howie.” He put a hand on D’s shoulder. “It’s the best thing to do.”

“Okay. We will wait.” The way he was biting his bottom lip confirmed me that he wasn’t sure about agreeing with us. “I really hope you are right.”

“Lets pray for that.” Brian patted Howie’s leg. “Come on, lets try to rest a little.”

“I really don’t think I can sleep.” D stood up and was the first one to enter the room.

“Me neither.” Brian followed him.

I turned around and saw Kevin still sitting on the floor, his eyes were closed but his face didn’t look relaxed at all, I could almost notice a grimace of pain there.

“Kev”

He opened his eyes and looked at me confused, like he had just woken up from a dream. I pointed the room using my head and he nodded and stood up quickly. We both entered the room at the same time. Nick was still peacefully sleeping.

“I wish we could do something to protect him.” When Kevin turned to look at me I realized I had said that out loud.

“We can Jay.” He put his arm around me. “One way or another, we’ll do it. We will.”

“Are you feeling alright?”

Nick spent the next day locked in our room. The rest of that night had passed with none of us wanting to sleep at first; we didn’t even share another word but it was pretty clear that we had all decided to stay awake and watch the kid sleep. Nevertheless, I woke up that morning to the sound of Howie’s snores and a quick glance at Brian’s and Kevin’s sleeping forms confirmed me that, no matter our intentions, we all had fallen asleep at some point. For a moment I thought that I had been the first one to wake up but when I approached Nick’s bed I noticed my mistake; the boy was fully awake, his red eyes fixed on the wall and the dried tears on his cheeks were proof that he had been awake for a while.

This time he wasn’t crying. I approached him remembering what had happened the night before and getting a knot of worry in my stomach.

“Nick?”

“Huh?” The boy was lying on his bed, hands folded behind his head and still on his pajamas.

“I asked you if you are okay?”

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t hear you. I guess I’m feeling better although I’m still kinda sick.”

“Can’t Kev or Howie do anything?”

“No, because it’s not physical.”

“So you are going to be okay, right?” I took a seat at the foot of his bed.

“I will if I manage to stay away from that place. Although I don’t think I’m going there again.”

“What happened last night Nick?”

“I don’t wanna talk about that Jay.” He replied avoiding my gaze.

“You told Kevin.”

He didn’t reply. That morning after I had found him crying we had asked him about his dream. At first he had refused, once again, to tell us anything about it. He had told us that he didn’t remember it but we all knew he was lying and after we insisted a little he had accepted to talk to Kevin alone. The other guys were kind of hurt by this, especially Brian, but they understood Nick’s request. My reaction was different, I didn’t say anything but I was more than scared and spent the whole time that they were together in our room talking, looking at the closed door. For some reason I was starting to think that all the secrets in our life were connected to me.

“Okay, I won’t insist.” I sighed. “Are you staying in bed all day?”

“Yep, I think I will enjoy a day of nothing but laziness. Long time not doing this.”

“I don’t think I ever have.”

“What? Stay in bed all day? Don’t you remember that time we were sick at Philippians when we were kids?”

“Oh jeez, I’ve forgotten about that. Don’t make me remember what happened next.”

“That was funny.” He smirked.

“Funny? You didn’t think that way then. The guys almost killed us. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Howie that mad.”

“Yup, I think I started to cry when I saw Howie’s reaction. I was thinking ‘If Howie is this mad I don’t want to see Kevin’.”

“Hey, D was more lenient on you since you were just a baby. I had it a lot worse because SOMEONE told him it had been my idea to leave the room. How old were you?”

“I think I was 10, definitely not a baby AJ”

“It doesn’t matter, you still managed to blame me.”

“Hey, you have to do what you have to do.” He gave me once again one of his patented smiles.

I had to laugh this time.

“You know, I don’t think I remember being ever sick again after that. I mean, we were but after that time we would always go to sleep being sick and wake up completely recovered.”

“And having dreams about bright lights.” He laughed.

“Oh God” His laugh was contagious and I started to laugh too. “You are right! I remember those dreams. We didn’t knew at that time why we kept having them.”

“And we didn’t knew why we couldn’t go away lying to Kevin or Howie, they always seemed to know when we were.”

“They did.”

“You know, now that I think about it, I’m almost sure that was the first time I saw that blue light.”

“Yes, I remember you telling me about that.”

“And you thought it was the fever.”


~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~× ~ × ~ × ~


“Alex” The little kid called his cousin’s name for what he thought was the tenth time. He was sure Alex was awake and just ignoring him like always.

“Alex, are you awake?”

“Shut up Nicky.”

“But I had this really weird dream last night Alex. Come on, look at me. It was really weird, Kevin was there and these very bright lights too. There were blue and green lights, coming out of his hands Alex, he was like a superhero with these rays on his fingers. Remember that superman story that Brian used to tell us? It was something like that, really. Are you listening to me? Listen to this, I woke up and Kevin was sitting on my bed looking at me and I swear I thought he was all blue and green, well not really blue are green but there was this kind of blue and green light, not as clear as in my dream and not in his hands of course but…”

“Nick! Shut up!” Alex finally threw a pillow to the kid. “I swear you never stop talking.”

“But it was weird” he whined.

“You are always having weird dreams Nicky.” He said on a softer voice this time. “Now go to sleep.”

“But this was so real.”

Alex sighed.

“Maybe it’s because of the fever Nick. And that’s why you need to rest.” The boy tried to use his best “grown-up voice” with the kid who was just two years younger.

“Well I’m not sleepy anymore and it’s already time to wake up.”

“Jeez, not even when you are sick you can stay quite.”

Suddenly the door got opened and Kevin entered the room wearing a navy blue uniform and carrying a thermometer in one hand.

“Good morning kids, how are you feeling?” he asked taking a seat on Nick’s bed and immediately placing the little device on the little kid’s ear to check his temperature.

“I was feeling okay until Nick started to talk, he is giving me a headache Kevin. Would you tell him to shut up.” Alex complained.

“You shut up” Nick replied.

“No, you shut up!”

“You both shut up.” Kevin intervened. “Is your throat still hurting Alex?”

“Nope.”

“How about you little one?”

Nick shook his head at Kevin watching him read the thermometer.

“Okay, I’ll check your temperature now Alex. Lets hope you are fully recovered like Nicky here who has no more fever.” Kevin said standing up and ruffling the kid’s blonde hair.

“You are going to put that on my ear after putting it on Kaos’ ear?”

“Kaos?” Kevin raised his eyebrows.

“That’s what Brian and I are calling the kid now because, you know, he is a big mess.” Alex showed a big grin.

“Yes, we have some messy kids in this family,” was Kevin’s comeback before sitting on Alex’s bed. “And you know this thermometer doesn’t go really inside your ear but just enough to touch your skin for a moment, so stop complaining kid.”

The door opened again and an hyperactive Brian entered the room almost running.

“Has anyone seen my computer? I need to find my homework.”

“Can he be here already?” Nick asked Kevin.

“Yep.” Brian replied instead of Kevin, opening each and every drawer in the room. “Kev told me that I'm allowed to be here again because you are not contagious anymore, so tonight I’ll be sleeping in my bed again. Now where is my homework?” he continued, opening a trunk and pulling out its contents. He was talking really fast and not really looking at any of his brothers.

“Are you going back to school?” Alex asked him.

“Nope, not until tomorrow. Almost every kid in Philippians has the fever but they said that the ones who are okay have to go tomorrow to receive more homework and I need to take with me the one they gave us the other day but I can’t find it.”

Kevin was now standing behind Brian smiling.

“So you are staying here?” Nick was excited thinking that he would spend more time with his big brother.

“Well, I think I left my computer at Billy’s so…” A tap on his shoulder made Brian turned around.

“What?” he asked.

“It’s not going to work Brian.” Kevin was still grinning.

“What is not going to work?”

“You are staying here.”

“But.”

“No buts. You are staying here.”

“Kevin I need my homework.”

“Then you better look for it where you hided it because I know you haven’t left it at Billy’s.” Kevin’s voice hovered in the air.

“I…” Brian’s expression was one of complete shock. “How did you know it? How do you do that?”

“I know you too well and then, you just confessed.”

“You mean, you weren’t sure?”

Kevin shook his head.

“Great!” Brian throw his hands up in defeat.

“I told you before that I needed you to stay here with the boys today.”

“But they are feeling alright already. Please Kevin, they will spend the day asking me to do things for them and they are not even sick anymore.”

“Forget it Brian.” The smile was long gone from Kevin’s face. “You are not going out. And we will talk about this little lie later. You think I don’t know where you were planning to go.”

“I just wanted to see the soldier’s practice. I’m going to enter the Academy soon, what’s so wrong with me wanting to learn some things now?”

“You will not be a cadet for another year Brian, and those practices are not open to the public so you and Billy going there would only cause trouble. I’m not saying it again Brian, you will stay here today.”

“You want to go to the Academy?” Alexander snorted. “Are you crazy? How can you consider that place fun?”

“Well, I think it’s a cool place too.” Nicky was now jumping on his bed. “Brian, you are so lucky turning 16 next year. I want to go to the academy too.”

“Nicky, quit the jumping” Kevin reached for the boy and made him sit up.

“If you think the Academy is so cool Nick, then you can take my place when my turn comes.”

“I can’t do that Alex.” Nick laughed.

“Well, either way I’m not going.”

“You will have to.”

“Nope, I won’t. I don’t wanna attend that place. I will run away if I have to go.”

Kevin was shaking his head listening to the kid. He was already used to Alexander’s endless complaints about a possible future in the Academy, but between that and Nick jumping at his side again he was getting a headache.

“Okay, that’s it,” he said grabbing Nick around the waist and making him take a seat again. “Nick, I told you to stop jumping. And Alex, I have said this before and I’m saying it again, we will talk about this when the time comes, many MANY years from now.”

“The only reason why I think Brian is lucky is because turning 16 means not having to go back to school, but the academy is really not a place for me Kevin. With my luck Captain Jerk…”

“Alex!”

“Captain Jake” he repeated slowly “would be my teacher.”

“I doubt it” Brian took a seat next to Nick on his bed “He is a Colonel now, right Kevin?”

“He is? Wow.”

“Yes” Kevin took a seat on Alex’s bed “They are sending him to another base which is really far from here”

“Yay! No more jerk.” Alex’s enthusiasm came accompanied with a smack on his arm.

“Ouch, Kevin.”

“Knock it off Alex. We have had this conversation a thousand of times already. Let me remind you that your lack of respect for Captain Roberts has got you in trouble already and I’m not in the mood now.”

Alex bit his lips.

“Are you guys hungry?” Kevin asked the kids after a couple of minutes in silence.

Both Nick and Alex nodded.

“Howie is at the dining hall and will bring you your breakfast soon. I have to go now but I’ll be back early. Brian, I’m counting on you.”

“It sucks.”

“Brian!”

“He doesn’t have to stay if he doesn’t want, Kevin. I don’t need a babysitter and I can take care of Kaos here.”

“Thanks Alex but Brian is not going to baby-sit anyone, just stay here and spend some time with you, right Bri? Come on Brian. You can stay in my room and read something or work on your music. I only need you to be near, in case the kids need anything.”

“Okay” Brian gave in. “I’m sorry for acting this way guys” he addressed to Nick and Alex. “You know I like to spend time with you, is only that I really was looking to a day on the Academy.”

“Let’s make a deal Brian.”

Brian looked at Kevin.

“You stop being a pain in my neck like you have been in the last months…”

“It’s because he is a teenager” Nicky interrupted and Brian put his arm around him laughing.

“Yep, that’s it Nicky” Kevin laughed too before continuing. “You stop being such a nuisance the rest of your teenage years Brian.” Now they were all laughing. “And I will take you with me to the Academy next month.”

“You are? What are you doing in the Academy?”

“I’m helping a teacher with a flight course. I will be teaching Howie’s class and I think they will let me have you there with me for a couple of days.”

“Wow. Would you really do that?” Brian’s eyes were shinning again.

“Of course I would kiddo. But now I really have to go or I would get in trouble.” He added after looking at his watch.

“Good morning guys” Howie greeted as he entered the room carrying a tray.

“What took you so long, D? You are going to be late for your classes.”

“I know.” Alex and Nick were already taking food from the tray. “I had to go to another dining hall because 1D wasn’t opened yet. How are you guys feeling?”

“Much better D, and thanks for the food” Nick gave another big bite to a piece of bread.

“You are welcome Nicky.” Howie winked. “No fever?” He asked Kevin.

“No, thank God.”

“Well, those are good news. Man, I’m so getting in trouble at the Academy for being this late, I should be going now.”

“I’m going with you D.” Kevin said opening the room’s door. “Okay boys, behave and try to rest a little more. I’ll see you in five hours.”


~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~× ~ × ~ × ~


----
Copyright ©2004
All Rights Reserved
No part of this story may be copied or reprinted without the author's permission.

Author's Note: I know I have been kind of late with the updates and I'm sorry for that but at least I'm trying to give you very long chapters like this one which I hope you enjoy. And you know that feedback is always welcome ;)


~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~× ~ × ~ × ~

“Why are you laughing?” Brian asked coming to the room. “And how are you feeling Frack?”

“I’m okay.”

“Really?”

“Really Brian, don’t worry.”

“So?”

“So what?” I raised my eyebrows.

“Why were you laughing?”

“Oh, Nick and I were remembering our little adventure at Philippians.”

“Which one?”

We didn’t reply, I only had to smirk and Brian easily understood what we were talking about.

“Oh, you mean your first pilot experience.”

“Yeah.”

“Man, I was so scared when I found out what was happening.”

“That’s because it was your fault Bri.”

“My fault? How it was MY fault?”

“Well, you fell asleep” Nick winked at him.


~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~× ~ × ~ × ~


“I’m bored Alex,” Nick said jumping up and down on his bed again.

“I thought you and Brian were playing in the other room. Where is he?”

“He fell asleep.” Nick rolled his eyes. “Being sick sucks, these have been the most bored days I have had in my entire life”

“Yeah, I’m kind of bored too. You wanna go out?”

“Can we?”

“Of course we can, we are not grounded or anything like that.”

“But we are sick.” The kid had stopped jumping and was now looking at his big cousin.

“Not anymore. I’m feeling alright, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but I don’t think Kevin is going to like it.”

“Why not? Is not like we are disobeying him or anything.”

“He told us to stay here.”

“He did not. He told us to try to rest and we already tried. I’m going out and when I come back I’m resting a little more.” Alexander gave the other boy a big grin while taking some clothes out of a drawer, and threw him a t-shirt.

“How do you do that?” Nick asked taking his pajamas off and getting dressed with the clothes that Alex had chosen.

“How do I do what?”

“You always manage to twist Kevin’s words and do whatever you want.”

“You will do it someday too, Nickolas. So, are you ready? You are coming, right?”

“Just a sec.” He finished putting on his shoes and ran behind Alex.

“Where are we going?” Nick asked some minutes later trying to keep his cousin’s pace at the corridor.

“Well I really don’t know, everybody is sick so is not like we can go to look for our friends.”

“How about some sport? B-ball?”

“No, I hate sports, except for pool. Do you think we should go to the officers club? I bet there’s no one there this early.”

“I don’t know how to play pool. I’m not even sure what’s that. And didn’t you already get in trouble once for going there?”

“Okay, we just keep walking and we will think about something.”

“Hey, how about…”

“Look out, someone’s coming.” Alex quickly pulled Nick out of the hall making him stand next to him, behind a column. Steps could be heard down the corridor.

“Why are we hiding?”

“Shhh!”

“Why?” Nick whispered at the same time a man in uniform walked in front of them forcing Alex to put a hand over the little kid’s mouth. He didn’t take his eyes off the soldier until the man walked out of sight.

“I don’t think grown ups want to see kids here Nick, we are too close to the military side and they are going to make us questions.” He said finally releasing Nick. “Did you notice?”

“What?”

“That was an S-fighter pilot. I heard some of them landed here a couple of days ago after a battle on Venus.”

“There are S-fighter ships here?” the little kid’s eyes were wide open.

“So I heard.” Alexander replied with a shrug.

“Cool! Those are some of the best and faster ships out there. Lets go to see them Alex.”

“Are you nuts? We can’t go to the west wing hangars, kids aren’t allowed there.”

“Nobody has to know we are there. Lets try, please. It will be fun; we can pretend we are in a special mission. You can be the Captain and I’ll be the Lieutenant.”

Alex rolled his eyes. “You are such a baby Nick.”

“Oh, and you are soooo mature” This time it was Nick the one rolling his eyes.

Alex laughed, he wouldn’t admit it but he had liked the idea of the game since the beginning. “Okay, I’ll play with you but only because I don’t want to hear you whining” he lied just to add in a strong voice “Lieutenant Nick, we need to reach our ship before the Empire spies find us. Follow Me.”

Nick saluted him and both kids hurried to the west hangars.

Once in there, they tried not to get noticed. There weren’t too many people around but they both knew they would be in big trouble if someone saw them in there and therefore tried to be extra careful ducking any other minute behind boxes, vehicles or anything they found in their way to the S-fighters.

“Wow! Look at that Alex, this is really an incredible ship.” Nick said coming close to one of the little S-fighters. “When I grow up I’m so going to be a pilot like Kevin.” He quickly climbed the ladder next to the ship. “Watch this.”

“Nick! Don’t touch that!” Alex almost yelled but it was already too late, Nick had pushed the right button and the cockpit was opening in front of him. The boy entered the ship and took a seat in the pilot’s chair, which made Alex climb fast the ladder trying to catch him.

“Kaos get out of the ship.” He ordered first, but once he reached the last step and looked at the interior of the fighter he remained silent for a moment. “Wow!” He exclaimed finally recovering his voice while still looking at everything in awe. “This thing is really amazing.”

“I told you so. Cool, right?”

“Yes, but get out, if someone sees you.”

“Someone’s coming.” Nick interrupted him and lowered himself into the chair in fear of being discovered. Alex thought first about climbing down the ladder but found himself not having other option and jumped into the ship too.

“Take the copilot seat, Captain.” Nick smirked.

No less than a second later the younger kid was making himself comfortable again after realizing that no one was looking at them.

“We are not playing anymore Nick. Let’s go out of here. And don’t touch that!”

Nick didn’t listen and, much to Alexander’s dismay, the shield got closed.

“Stop playing with this Kaos, you are going to get us in trouble.” Alex uttered. “Oh shit, there are more ships coming.” He pressed his face to the right window for a better look of the three combat ships that had just landed as of the pilots that were already descending into the hangar. “Hey, isn’t that Stuart? Great! Just what we needed, maybe that’s Kevin’s unit. If he see us here we are dead. What the heck!” He yelled turning around after feeling the sudden movement. “Nick what the hell are you doing? Stop this thing.”

“I’m trying” Nick was pushing every single button but people were already noticing the ship moving.

“We are going directly to the gate Nick.”

“At least is open.”

“Stop it now!”

“I don’t know how to do that.”

The older kid tried to help pulling up the first leaver he saw.

“No, Alex don’t touch that.”

The ship accelerated its movement going directly to the gate.

“Fast your seatbelt Nick” Alex yelled trying to buckle his own without taking his eyes off his cousin, checking if the kid was following his orders.

After fastening his belt Nick had gone back to the task of controlling the ship. Alex, fearing the taking off, gripped the armrests until his knuckles were white. Several soldiers were running behind them yelling all kinds of things and a second glance to the gate confirmed to the kids that it was about to get closed.

“Do something Nick.” Was the last thing Alex said before closing his eyes and, taking a deep breath, forcing his head into the seat. When he opened his eyes again they were already in outer space.

“XZ31 identify yourself.” A voice kept repeating through the communication system.

“I’m not answering that.” Alex was shaking his head and looking at Nick.

“Why are you looking at me? I’m not answering either.”

“Nick please tell me that you know how to fly this thing.”

“Well, I think I got it” he replied still holding the wheel. “It’s pretty similar to a gameboy, really.” Nick’s voice confirmed to Alex that, no matter the smile, the kid was about to cry. The fact that he was shaking while trying to control the wheel didn’t serve to calm the older boy’s already frayed nerves.

“We are so dead.”

“Don’t say that Alex.” There were already tears in Nick’s eyes. He had long ago understood the seriousness of the situation and just wanted to go back home.

“No Nick don’t cry, please.”

“I’m not crying” He said wiping the tears with his sleeve “but I’m scared.”

“XZ31 pilot identify yourself. You don’t have permission to fly. Return to the station immediately.”

“Oh God. Alex you have to answer.”

“What am I going to say?”

“Alex answer that!” It wasn’t until that moment that Alex became aware that his cousin wasn’t looking at him anymore, he was looking at something over his shoulder. He turned around slowly fearing the worst when he heard Nick’s trembling voice again “I think they are going to shoot us.”

Three fighter bombers were about to reach them.

“Please don’t fire” Alex panicked and turned on the microphone in a heartbeat to reply the base calls.

“Who is that answering? Identify yourself.”

“Alexander Littrell, Sir.”

“Give me your code and unit, soldier.”

Nick bit his lips and Alexander gulped. “I’m not part of a unit, sir.”

“Who are you? Turn on the video system.”

Not knowing what to do, Alexander looked at his little cousin again. Nick just shook his head and started to sob.

In the radar room everything was complete chaos.

“Who that hell is this person?”

General Simpson was in charge of the radar tower. The 53 year old man was not known for his good manners nor for his nice character. On the contrary, the gray haired, tall general was one of the most feared officers. Known for always yelling to his subalterns, and to anyone who got in his way for that matter, the man was a recognized war hero and the second- in-command in Philippians.

“I don’t have him in our soldiers’ data, sir.”

“Maybe he is a mechanic, Darin. Do I have to think for you?” He yelled at a young officer who looked completely terrified. “I want someone to explain me what the hell is happening. Look into every file from the station and find this Alexander Littrell.”

“We have a Kevin Littrell, sir.” Another officer talked from behind a computer. “I think he is his brother.”

“Now I know where I heard that name before.”

General Simpson turned on his communication line to the ship.

“Alexander, how old are you?”

There wasn’t a reply.

“Alexander, don’t be scared and answer me. How old are you son?”

“12.”

The man closed his eyes and sighed. “This is General Simpson talking, Alexander. I need you to explain me what are you doing in that ship.”

“It was an accident, sir”

Noticing the weakness and tremble in the voice, General Simpson opted for trying a different approach. He didn’t want the kid to break down since he needed him as calm as possible for a quick return to the base. When he spoke again all the people in the radar room got stunned hearing the man who they feared the most talking in such a nice manner for the first time.

“Alexander, I need you to calm down and do everything I say, okay?”

“Yes sir.”

“Don’t worry kid. We are going to help you to come back.” He made a pause before speaking again. “You said you were 12, right?”

“Yes sir.”

“I have a daughter your age kid. You probably know her from school, her name is Rebecca.”

“Ewww Becky Simpson.” General Simpson couldn’t see Nick wrinkling his nose nor could he see Alex hitting the little kid in reply, but no matter that he didn’t hear clearly what had been said he realized there was someone else in the ship and confirmed his suspicions hearing Alex murmured ‘Shut up you idiot!’.

“Is someone else there with you Alexander?”

“My little cousin sir. His Name is Nick, I mean Nickolas.”

A quick glance to the soldier in the computer next to him was enough for the last one to understand what the General wanted. He entered the data in the computer and spoke up.

“Nickolas Littrell, 9 years old, sir.”

The General shook his head and let out a heavy breath.

“Okay son. Can you see those ships next to you?”

“The bomber fighters? Yes, they are surrounding us.”

“Those ships are going to bring the S-fighter back, so I want you to cooperate, okay? I need to do some things but I’ll be back in a second.”

“Yes sir.” Came Alexander’s reply before the General cut out the communication.

“Someone call his parents,” he addressed to no one in particular walking up and down the room.

“The data shows that he has no parents, General,” a soldier answered. “But Kevin Littrell is his guardian, he is on unit 3. Someone is already informing him what’s happening and I sent a cadet to look for the rest of the family in their room.”

“The rest of the family. That would be…?”

“His other brothers.”

“Children?” The General voice’s hovered in the air and in no time he was in front of the soldier who had just talked. The red haired man got paled and looked like he was about to pass out.

“You sent someone to bring children here?”

That same minute Brian stomped into the radar room followed by a very young cadet. They both stopped dead once they noticed everyone looking at them and the cadet blushed in the presence of the General, ashamed of the fact that he had been caught running after the kid.

The General shook his head and directed his attention to Brian.

“Who are you?”

“Brian Littrell, sir”

“Are you Alexander’s brother.”

“Yes, no, I mean, well, I am…” Brian stuttered. “I’m his cousin sir.”

“Oh, I see, come here son.” He said making him a sign and turning the communication line on again while walking to the front part of the room and standing in front of the big window.

“Alexander, do you copy me kid?”

“Yes sir.”

“Listen to me Alexander, we are going to help you to come back to the station. We will need you to turn off the ship’s gravity control and the bomber fighters will tow you. There’s nothing to worry about. Do you understand?”

“Yes sir.”

“Now there’s someone here who would like to talk to you but I want you to do something. Do you see that big screen at your right, there’s a yellow little lever there, pull that up and I will be able to see you…”

The minute the General stopped talking Brian realized that he had turned the communication off on purpose. He saw the General take a couple of steps forward until practically touching the large window in front of them, and decided to follow him trying to see his face. When he did it he understood that something was going wrong.

“What the hell!” The General finally spoke up turning around. “Why are the bombers leaving?”

The question made Brian’s heart skipped a beat.

“There are four enemy ships coming to them, sir.”

General Simpson probably noticed what Brian was experiencing because he put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry son, they are going to be okay.”

“Sir” came Alexander’s voice through the communication system. “Why are the bombers leaving us?”

“Alex, you need to stay calm. We are sending more ships right now but you are approaching an enemy field.”

“What?”

“Alex I’m scared” A little kid’s crying voice could be heard.

“Nick” Brian whispered and a tear ran down his face but noticing the General was looking at him he quickly wiped it with the back of his hand. General Simpson made a gesture to one officer who tried to take Brian out of the room.

“Please General, let me stay here. I swear I won’t bother you. You won’t even notice I’m here. Please sir, those are my brothers out there.”

“How old are you son?” The General asked looking directly into Brian’s eyes.

“I’m about to turn 15 sir.”

“Okay” He finally agreed after a little pause. “But I would prefer you to take a seat on the other side of the room.”

Brian nodded and let the officer who had tried to take him out guided him to another part of the room, passing the control tower computers.

“Nothing is going to happen Alexander.” The Colonel returned his attention to the main monitors and the large window and kept trying to calm Alex from time to time. “We are going to bring you back to the station soon.”

“Send another group to fighters there. I want three ships backing up our bombers and two more to bring the kids back now!”

“Unit 3 is leaving right now.”

“Unit 3? Are you sending that boy’s brother there? Who gave that order?”

“I don’t know sir, Colonel Gallaher I guess.”

“You guess? What the hell is happening here. You group of incompetent idiots. You don’t send family to missions like this.”

No one replied, the room was in complete silence. Brian, who after noticing that no one was paying attention to him anymore had been pacing the room trying to study the situation and looking at the computers over the flight control engineers’ shoulders, took suddenly a seat in one corner and had to close his eyes. He could swear he had just heard his little brother crying and the distant sound of an explosion.


----
Copyright ©2005
All Rights Reserved
No part of this story may be copied or reprinted without the author's permission.

Author’s Note: I’m back with a new chapter like I promised. Let me know what you think. And this one is dedicated to Mare, because in her world of dreams things are extremely funny :)
------------------------------------


“I can’t believe we are about to reach Trinsuet.” Nick and Stuart looked at me from their places at the other said of the table but didn’t say anything. For the last hour we had been cleaning and adjusting all the guns that we had on board while chatting about different topics. Earlier that day Kevin had announced that we would be arriving to Trinsuet in less than 20 human hours assigning last minutes jobs before landing. The three of us, in my opinion, had received the easiest one, while everybody else was going nuts coming in and out the main room putting things in order. The atmosphere had been extremely tense during the last days, not only because of that last conversation some days earlier but because we were already in the Valer System. Although the route to Trinsuet and the planet itself was far from the regular routes used by the Empire, the whole system was a commercial zone, which meant there was always the risk of crossing paths with an Empire ship, or even worse, a little deviation from our original route would mean ending up surrounded by Empire cruisers.

“You know what I can’t believe?” Nick's reply came more than 2 minutes later and in the form of a question.

“What?” I smiled sensing a possible answer.

“I can’t believe Stuart here thinks that the attack to Ilusiamans was the right thing to do.”

“Cut it out Kaos. We had talked about this too much already.” For the last couple of days the three of us had been discussing on and off the Ilusiamans battle. Nick and I both thought that it had been the biggest mistake of the Rebel Force but Stuart had a different opinion.

“But you still agree with me, right Jay?”

“Of course I do, but we are not changing his mind.” I used my head to point at Stuart who smiled without looking at us. “He thinks that Ilusiamans was a good decision.”

“It was, AJ,” Stuart said still working on a laser caliber.

“Tell me that The Empire didn’t come out with a victory Stuart.” I snorted.

“But we achieved something.”

“We achieved zero.” Nick insisted. “General Lucas was dumb.”

“Don’t say that about him. General Lucas is a hero.” Yeah right. Like you T?

“Kevin” Stuart called Train who was entering the room. “Would you please help me here. Your brothers don’t wanna listen to me.”

“What happens?” Kevin asked from the other side of the room where he was placing a box he had just brought in.

“We are talking about General Lucas. What do you think about him?”

“What do I think about General Lucas?” he said coming closer. “I admire that guy. He is a great leader, definitely one of the best soldiers we have out there.”

“Your brothers think he is a joke.”

Kevin laughed shaking his head.

“Well, Stuart, I can’t tell them what to think.”

“But they are wrong.”

“Let them.” He smiled giving Stuart a pat on the back and walking to the door.

“He he.” Nick mockingly laughed at Stuart who was watching the door get closed behind Kevin.

“You are so wrong guys”, he continued paying attention to us again. “General Lucas is the best soldier the human forces have.”

“He is not a soldier. He is an officer who wants to have all the glory for himself. He doesn’t even want to receive help from other officers.”

“Yes” Nick chimed in. “He wants to be the hero. He likes to act like some kind of cowboy coming to save the day riding his chicken.”

I almost chocked on the water I was drinking and burst out laughing.

“His chicken?” I managed to say in between coughs and attempts to control my laughter.

“What?” He really had no idea why we were laughing.

“Man, even I know what chickens are and I wasn’t born in Earth.” Stuart replied before exploding with laughter again.

“What?”

“Horses, Nick.” I tried to stop laughing. “The cowboys rode horses.” Poor kid, he had never seen a chicken nor a horse in his entire life; but then horses had already became extinct by the time we left Earth and Nicky was practically a baby then.

“They did? And which ones are the chickens again?”

“Dude, what has Brian been teaching you?”

To leave Philippians all those years ago meant leaving school too. At first Kevin and Howie had been the ones tutoring us but soon enough they both got tired and the teacher job went to Brian. Poor Rok, they didn’t leave him another option, he got stuck with my lack of interest and Nick’s short attentions spans and innumerable questions.

“Are you sure they weren’t chickens?” Nick was so confused that the look on his face was hilarious.

“Nick chickens were little animals. Birds…”

Nothing. He was still looking at me like I was speaking Sargon.

“The ones with feathers and wings”, I said moving my arms like a bird. “We used to eat chicken on Earth.”

“Man, I give up. I’m so mixed up.” He laughed heartily and Stuart and I burst out laughing again.

“What’s going on?” Brian entered the room probably attracted by our laughs.

“You are the worst teacher Brian.”

“Shut up AJ!” Nick was trying to sound serious but he was still laughing.

“Why? What happened?”

“Kaos here just said that the cowboys used to ride chickens.”

Brian’s reaction was exactly what I was expecting. He fell to the floor laughing and hooting and for minute I thought that he was about to roll around. You could hear him saying ‘oh my God’ and his laugh was so contagious that it ended up being impossible for me to stop mine. I was laughing so hard that my stomach was aching and tears were running down my face. Stuart and Nick were all in stitches at my side.

The next thing I knew, Kevin and Howie were in the room too.

“What’s happening?” Kevin asked already laughing at the sight of Brian.

“He…he said that cowboys…” Brian was pointing at Nick but couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Nick thinks that people on Earth used to ride chickens.” I replied.

“What?” Howie let out a guffaw. Kevin roared with laughter too but after a couple of minutes he tried to regain composure and looked at Brian.

“Brian?” It guessed I wasn’t the only one who had thought it was Brian’s fault.

“I didn’t do it. I haven’t even taught him about cowboys. It was probably Jay”

What? “I didn’t do it” I defended myself.

“Are you sure guys, because I can so see the two of you teaching Nick something like that just to make fun of him.”

“Okay I know it was funny but would you please stop talking about me like I wasn’t in the room.” I didn’t notice it before but Nick wasn’t laughing anymore, and by the serious look on his face and the tone of his voice he probably had stopped laughing long time ago.

“You are so going back to classes when we get to Trinsuet.”

“Back to classes? No way, Kevin!” Nick protested.

“There isn’t a school there Kev," Stuart pointed out.

“I know. What I meant is that we will have to arrange a timetable to give him some lessons. Nick sucks at Geography and Astronomy.”

By the way Nick was looking at Kevin I thought he was going to yell at him ‘and you suck at everything else’. He was giving him a ‘you are an idiot’ look and definitely trying too hard not to say anything since he was literally biting his bottom lip. He probably felt that I was looking at him since he turned around.

“Hey. What about AJ?” he asked.

“What about me?”

“Why nobody is talking about giving you classes?”

“Because I already graduated” I gave him the most sarcastic grin. Yes, I can be annoying too.

“Yeah right.” He rolled his eyes.

“I did.” He finally realized I was being serious and jumped on me.

“What? When?”

“The last time Brian gave us classes before landing. He even gave me a diploma.” There’s my annoying grin again. I can’t avoid it. I love to bug him.

“A diploma?”

I nodded.

“Idiots,” he murmured.

“Nick” Kevin sighed but Nick didn’t pay attention and keep talking to me.

“You suck at math.”

“There are a lot of people who suck at it. Math is a tough subject,” Stuart said out of nowhere.

“Shut up and stay out of this” Nick fumed.

“Nick.” Kevin called him. You could tell by the smile on his face that Kev wasn’t mad. He was just trying to calm the kid but after Nick spat a ‘WHAT?’ his approach changed.

“What? First if I were you, little brother, I’d muzzle that temper of mine, real quick,” Kevin warned him. “And second.” His voice became softer. “It isn’t such a big deal, so calm down okay.” He gave him a smile but Nick looked down.

Kevin shook his head before continuing, choosing to ignore Nick’s mood. “Okay everyone back to work. We will be landing really soon.” Kevin ordered and everyone except Nick, Stuart and I left. Of course the minute the door got closed I heard Brian saying ‘cowboys riding chickens’ and laughing again.

We went back to our work but this time an uncomfortable silence surrounded us. I looked at Nick who was sulking and realized we shouldn’t have laughed at him the way we did. I was sure that things wouldn’t have ended up with him that furious if it wasn’t for Stuart. He was especially mad at the fact that Stuart had laughed at him and that would definitely had consequences.

“I still think that Lucas is a jerk,” Nick said breaking the silence and confirming my suspicions.

“Drop it Nick.” I fixed my eyes on his.

“Why?”

“I already told you why. We are not changing his mind.”

“And who wants that?” Man, the kid is so stubborn.

“Do you have a problem with me Nick?” Stuart’s question took me by surprise. His voice was monotone and once again he wasn’t looking at us.

“Yes.”

“Nick!” I practically yelled.

“What? I’m being honest.” He faced him with a mocking smile. “I don’t like you.”

“Nick come on.”

“Let him AJ. If that’s the way he feels.” Stuart shrugged and stood up ready to leave the room.

“You are defending that idiot of Lucas because he is just like you.” Nick sat back on his chair and folded his arms in front of him. I felt like smacking him. He was just looking for a fight.

Stuart turned back and came directly to him. I tensed myself and almost stood up ready to defend my little brother.

“What’s that supposed to mean Nick?” He was right in front of him, teeth gritted and his hands gripping the table.

“I’m just telling that it’s easy to be brave when you are not the one risking your life.”

“Come on. You are kidding me, right?” Stuart threw his arms up and then run his fingers through his hair in exasperation. “That man risks his life every day.”

“He is never in the battle field. He sends others to do the hard work, he sends others to their death.”

“That’s what officers do, Nick. It’s not easy to be one, ask your brother. Of course your life is not the only one you risk. Yes, you have to risk other’s lives too, it comes with the territory.”

“Yeah, and you know about that, right?”

“What the heck. What are you talking about?”

“Nothing” Nick said flatly.

“Are you talking about Kaydee?” He had been almost yelling but his voice suddenly dropped to a quiet tone and he looked at me. He looked into my eyes and I felt uneasy, it was like he was asking for my help. “I wasn’t even an officer then, guys. I can’t believe that you…” He looked at Nick again. “I can’t believe that you are even considering… God, she was my friend too.”

Nick rolled his eyes and Stuart shook his head in disbelief.

“Do you think I’m okay knowing that she died because of me? Damn kid, that’s mean.” His voice broke and he practically ran out of the room leaving us with our mouths open in astonishment.

“Was he crying Jay?”

“It looked that way.”

“I don’t buy it.” Nick stood up but I took him by the arm.

“Let it go Nick, you are not solving things this way.”

He released himself from my grip without saying anything and walked fast to the door bumping into Kevin.

“Get out of my way.” Nick tried to push Kev but Kevin’s reaction was to take Nick by the elbow.

“Let go of me,” Nick protested but Kevin narrowed his eyes as his voice dropped to a tone we all knew better than to ignore. “I understand that you are going through a lot lately Nick but be careful to the way you talk to me because I’m not in a good mood either.”

The only replied Kevin got this time was a pair of eyes narrowing at him too. And there they were, a too familiar picture, green eyes meeting blue eyes and both could glare daggers.

“Kevin” I intervened. Kevin looked at me and releasing his grip dropped his hand to his side as he calmly stared at the kid. Nick didn’t look back but left the room muttering something under his breath.

“I swear I'll never understand the two of you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you and Nick, one minute you are happy and the next one…”

“You are the same way Kevin.”

“I am not.”

“Yes you are, and like you said the kid is going through a lot.”

“What about you? Are you okay?” Which in Kevin’s language is ‘you are going through a lot too, Alex’.

“I’m okay.” I tried to smile.

He bit his lips, I was sure he wanted to say something else but just stood there for a while before looking at the lasers.

“Put everything on its place, okay?”

I nodded and he left the room.

Damn! I wonder if it´s too late to turn the ship back.



----
Copyright ©2005
All Rights Reserved
No part of this story may be copied or reprinted without the author's permission.

“Dive into it? You mean we are going with the ship into the water?” What the hell!

“Yes”

“Cool!” The one saying that was, of course, Nick.

“Can we do that Kevin? Can the ship support that?” I wasn’t so sure about that.

“Yes, no problem at all AJ. Don’t worry.” Easier said than done. “Does that mean that the city is underwater?” Welcome to Trinsuet. Sorry if you don’t like water.

“Nope. There’s an underwater hangar where all the ships are kept safe and far from the Empire possible surveillance ships. The city is not there though, it’s inside a mountain.”

“Shit, these people really know how to hide themselves.”

Howie smacked me softly on the head. “Watch your mouth”. I rolled my eyes and kept trying to look over his shoulder.

The first thing that I thought when I saw Trinsuet was that this planet could be called “Green” too, considering that it was full of vegetation like the jungle on Earth. The second thing I thought was ‘shit! I don’t wanna live under water’ when I saw where Kevin was directing the ship after receiving the ‘okay’ from the rebel base. Nick of course was more than excited. I remembered the conversation I had with Kevin about Alomegas living in a planet full of water and childhood memories came to my head. The family had vacationed in the beach more than a couple of times. Everyone used to love it. Brian, Kevin and Howie would be all excited, practicing water sports. Nick couldn’t be left alone for a second or he would crawl directly to the sea, since he was still too little to walk, showing no fear of big waves. And me, well I would be the one sitting on the sand watching them have fun. Right, I’m not like them.

“Take your things guys.”

“Are you sure it’s safe to leave the ship here?”

“Bone, relax.” Brian patted my back.

“Of course it’s safe AJ,” Kevin replied. “Do you know a safer place than under water?”

“Do we already know how much time we are staying here?” I said looking at my backpack and my other bags without really wanting to pick them up.

Kevin stood next to me. “You packed everything necessary, right? We can always come back here if we need something else.”

“Okay.” I sighed.

We left the ship like we weren’t under water. It was a humongous hangar, fully lighted and with all kind of ships in there, but I knew somewhere over my head a dark ocean was threatening me and I wondered how deep we were. I was still trying to get used to the idea of being underwater when someone pushed me.

“What the hell? Nick!”

“You are obstructing the way Jay, move!” He gave me another push, harder this time.

“Idiot!” I said getting mad and elbowing him roughly in the stomach before walking again.

“Son of a ….” I was sure he was coming after me to hit me but since nothing happened I turned my head back to see Kevin had yanked him back by the shirt.

“Cut it out you two. I mean it.”

We took a corridor and I noticed the dark water surrounding us for the first time. For a minute I thought I was going to hyperventilate in a panic attack but I recovered and walked as fast as I could looking just in front of me while Nick was plastering his nose to the glass every now and then. Luckily for me the elevator wasn’t made of a transparent material as the rest of the corridor. The others, on the contrary, looked disappointed when they noticed it.

“See, we are already above sea level” Kevin told us some minutes later pointing to the board that had a gazillion numbers which I guessed were the floors.

“Have you been here before?”

“Once, when we were still in Philippians, but this place was still under construction.”

The place was huge, not as big as Philippians but in a way it reminded me of the station where I have spent so many years of my childhood.

“Captain Littrell. Or should I call you Major? You know we would love to have you back with us”. A dark skinned old man in a uniform similar to the one humans used to wear before the Big War came to greet us when the elevator’s door slid open. Until that moment we had seen several soldiers wearing the same uniform – two of them had even walked with us into the elevator – but the only thing they had done was to salute Stuart, Dana, Rual and even Kevin; none of them had said a single word to us. I looked at the rank badges of this guy and noticed he was a General.

“General Luthor”. Kevin smiled while shaking his hand after saluting him. “I didn’t knew you were here.”

“I am so happy to know that you might be flying with us again, Capitan”, the older man replied smiling too, before shaking the Professor’s hand and saluting Stuart, Dana and Rual.

“It's good to have you back too, Major Turlington.”

“It's good to be back, Colonel” Stuart replied.

“Let me introduce you to my brothers, General.” Kevin spoke again. “You already know Howard.”

“Of course, Lieutenant Dorough.” The Colonel saluted Howie and then shook his hand too.

“Howard?” I repeated making a face.

“Lieutenant?” Nicky asked me in a whisper controlling a laugh. “Howie wasn’t even a staff sergeant at Philippians.”

Brian elbowed me.

“And these are Brian, Alexander and Nickolas.” I cringed hearing the ‘Alexander’. At least he didn’t say Alexander James.

“Nice to meet you gentlemen. I have to admit that I have already seen your faces and not under the best circumstances.”

“Are you talking about that order from the Empire Colonel?” Stuart asked.

“Sadly yes, it seems that you are wanted Kevin and I am more than curious to find out why.” Kevin? He is calling him by his first name. Does that mean that they are friends?

“I will let you know all the details, General.”

“It’s good to hear that Kevin. Colonel Hiro was really worried. But lets gave you first a place to stay. Sergeant Marconi, guide Captain Littrell and his brothers to the place we arranged for them.”

“Yes Sir.” A sergeant around my age saluted him.

“Kevin, go with your brothers and then meet us in room 39. Stuart and I will be waiting for you there with the rest of the Officers.”

I guessed the Proffesor, Rual and Dana had other places for them since they didn’t come with us but said something about seeing each other at some point in the next days. The place arranged for us was pretty similar to the place we had on Philippians during the last years – the first years we shared two separated rooms – which was some kind of little apartment with two small rooms, a bath and a kitchen-living room.

Once in the living room I opened the door to both rooms. “There are two beds in each one of these.” I told the rest.

“Take them,” Kevin said inspecting the couch. “Yes, this one turns into a bed. I will sleep here.”

“Do you wanna share with me, Brian?” Nick asked Bri.

“Okay” Brian answered and they both entered the first room.

“I guess that means we are sharing” Howie said with a wink

“Great” I smiled before taking my bags inside.

“Wow, this is what I call a bed.” I dived into the first bed I saw as soon as I crossed the door. I haven’t noticed until then how uncomfortable the bunks in our ship were.

“How is that they can have all this luxury here when they are living as outlaws Howie?”

“We are in the main station of the rebels, Jay. There are years of work here.”

“Either way. The Empire is everywhere. How is that they haven’t found this place yet?”

“Good hiding. Rebels are good for that.”

“Howie, are you coming?” Kevin asked showing his face in the room.

“I thought you were going alone.”

“No. You are coming with me.”

“What about us?” Brian entered the room with Nick tagging along.

“Let us talk with them first. I promise you will become part of everything soon.”

Once they left Nick and Brian took a seat in Howie’s bed, or in Nick’s case dived into it too.

“I could get used to this place. It’s like home.” Nick was the only one among us who still referred to Philippians as ‘home’.

I noticed Brian looked distracted. “Are you thinking about Dana, Rok?”

“What? No.” He frowned but his cheeks blushed a little.

“Admit it. You are sooo in love Bri.”

He grinned.

“I don’t like her.” Great! I rolled my eyes. Why is that the kid always find something to complain about.

“Come on Nick. Not again.” I should smack him.

“What? I have the right to say it. I don’t like her and I don’t like T, Stuart or whatever you wanna call him.”

“Not again man” Brian hissed. “You have been rude to them every other day since the beginning.”

“Because of Kaydee, right?” Have we mentioned this in front of Brian before?

“What? No!” Nick shook his head but he wasn’t a good actor. Brian’s eyes were wide open but he didn’t say a word.

“Confess it already Nick. The only reason why you don’t like him is because Kaydee died saving him.”

“AJ, how can you say that?” Brian looked more than confused.

“Isn’t that the same reason why you don’t like him AJ.” I should have seen that coming. Nick was pissed.

“AJ?” Brian was in awe. He was so naïve sometimes.

I shrugged. It was sad to realize that we all had secrets now.

“I’m hungry. You think there’s something to eat here?” Nick suddenly said breaking the uncomfortable silence.

“I have some crackers.” I pulled one of my bags from under the bed, ignoring Brian’s eyes which were still fixed on me, and throw the package to him.

“Thanks.”

“Can we go to investigate? Kev didn’t say anything about staying here, did he?”

“No, but I think we should wait for them to come back, Nick” Brian replied finally dragging his gaze away from me as we kept quiet again. The only sound that could be heard was Nick munching on the crackers.

I ended up falling asleep. I got waken up by voices and found myself alone in my room which was pretty dark by that time. The voices were coming from the leaving room so after rubbing my eyes and stretching myself I went out.

Kevin and Howie were back and they were all eating some kind of stew sitting on the three legged high stools at the counter that separated the kitchen area from the leaving room.

“Good morning sleeping beauty.” Kevin smiled.

“Sleeping beauty?” I stopped trying to focus on him since I was still half asleep.

“It’s a story” he explained and I gave him a blank look. “A fairy tale,” he tried again but I still had no idea what he was talking about.

“Never mind. Come take a seat and eat something.” He patted the empty stool on his right.

“Did you say good morning? Did I sleep that much?”

“I was joking Alex. But yes, you slept a lot. It’s pretty late already.”

“Brian and I fell asleep too.” Nick told in between bites of his food.

“Yes and Nick drooled all over Howie’s bed.”

“Ewwww Nick” Howie complained, his face was hilarious.

“I did not.”

Brian laughed. “We woke up just some minutes ago when Howie and Kevin came back. They were making so much noise in this kitchen, I’m amazed you kept sleeping.”

“You were cooking? What is it?” I asked going to the food dispenser that looked more like a modern microwave oven than like the one we had at our ship. After clicking the ‘1 portion’ button I took out a little container with some hot food.

“There are dishes in that door over you and forks in that drawer.” Kevin pointed to the one next to the dispenser, so I took some out and after serving the food on a plate I walked to the kitchen counter taking a seat next to Kev.

“So? What’s this?”

“Something simple. There’s a supply room in the base in case you want to prepare your own meals. You just have to enter a code which is the number of our room. There are dining halls too so don’t worry, we won’t have to cook all the time. Howie and I just thought that you would be hungry and all dining halls where already closed.”

“How was your meeting?”

“It was okay. We were just telling that to Brian and Nick.”

“So…”

“They need us AJ, I told you,” Kevin said matter-of-factly eating another fork of the stew.

“We are going to have another meeting with them tomorrow though. This time you guys are coming with us.” Howie confided.

“So that’s it?” Brian asked. “We will be working for them from now on?”

“At least for a while. What do you think of the planet so far?”

“It’s okay.” I shrugged.

“I like it. It reminds me of Philippians except for that beautiful ocean out there. When can I go there?”

“Nobody can leave the base without authorization Nick.”

“What? Does that mean I can’t go there?”

“Sorry buddy. We will do it at some point, just have to find the right time, I promise.” Kevin stood up and was about to take his plate to the dishwasher but turned around and added. “One more thing Nick. There are places here that are out limit for you.”

Nick rolled his eyes.

“Don’t roll your eyes at me. You know that the only reason why you weren’t grounded all this time after your little adventure in that bar is that we left K-Tawoor and were in outer space where you had no place to go either way. But there are bars here and other places where you are not supposed to be. Same to you Jay.”

I almost choked on my water. “No way”

“Yes way.”

“I’m already 18.”

“So? That doesn’t mean a thing to me Alex. This is not Philippians. Here those places don’t have an age limit considering that there are soldiers your age, even Nick’s age that are allowed in there.”

“And you are not letting us go?” Nick was as pissed as I was. Kevin got to be kidding.

“You got it.” He gave us a sarcastic smile.

“Man that’s fucked up”, I complained receiving immediately a smack to the back of my head from Howie. “What’s wrong with you?” he said.

“Ouch, that hurt.”

“You are complaining about us not treating you like a grown up and then you go and say something like that.” Howie continued.

“Oh give me a break. You and Brian need to relax a little. It's just talking. See, Kevin doesn’t care about my potty mouth.” I pointed to Kevin who had already left his plate in the dishwater and was leaning on one shoulder against the wall, his arms folded in front of him.

“I care, I’m just too tired to kick your ass. But you better watch your mouth AJ. We are in a military base, officers won’t allow that kind of talk in front of them and some of them are going to be more severe than Howie here.”

“Am I following those officer’s orders now?”

“If we stay here we are. And those are not the only orders you will be following. I’m gonna be checking on you, guys. Remember what I just said.”

“Excuse me but this is REALLY fucked up.” I said about to drink some water when another smack on my head made me drop the glass and spill all the water over my shirt and lap. “What the hell. Howie, stop that! I said turning to my right.

“It wasn’t me this time.” He pointed to someone behind me. When I turned around I found Brian looking at me and smiling.

“Hey, you just said that Howie and I gave too much importance to the way you talk so I guessed it was my turn.”

“You idiot” I said practically jumping off the stool and chasing him through the room. “I’m gonna kill you Brian, I swear that I live with a bunch of clowns” I yelled and immediately had to smile because Brian was making funny faces while running backwards, facing me. Of course even that way he was still faster than me so, realizing I wouldn’t ever catch him, I stopped. Kevin, Howie and Nick were laughing heartily.

“Clowns.” I snorted, smiling despite my wet clothes. Yes, they were clowns and a pain in the neck but standing there, that moment, I couldn’t imagine life without them.


----
Copyright ©2005
All Rights Reserved
No part of this story may be copied or reprinted without the author's permission.

The first two months in Trinsuet went by pretty fast to everyone but me. No matter how much I tried I never got to feel comfortable in the Rebel’s Headquarters. Part of me knew that a different place wouldn’t make too much of a difference but that didn’t stop me for hating Trinsuet. I tried to hide how I was feeling but the stress caused by it only brought me lots of fights with my brothers.

The one who experienced more changes during those two months in Trinsuet was Nick. He turned 16 being a lanky, shy kid but with the months he had not only gained some weight and grew up a couple of inches more, but acquired more self confidence too. His powers developed the most during those two months too. Now Nick was able to been active while astral projecting himself. One day I was making myself something to eat in the kitchen and I noticed someone was standing behind me, when I turned around I saw Nick grinning at me, but the next thing I knew, he slapped me. It wasn’t a real slap but a soft one, but either way it got me mad. I was about to reply with a punch when he disappeared. I freaked out for a minute until I heard laugh coming from his room. We learnt that day how much his powers had grown and he learnt never to put them in practice with me, since I blew up the door of his room to get inside and gave him the punch he deserved - yes, my powers were improving a little too. And we both learnt that the ‘no playing with our powers law’ was still in force when we heard Kevin yell at us that night.

After that first meeting with the high-ranking officers that we all had that second day on the base, we decided we would not only be working with them from now on, but making full use of our powers to fight the Empire. D and Kevin directly joined the air force going back to their pilots jobs and accepting the offered promotions. Brian, Nick and I, on the other hand, became some kind of soldiers in training. We still would not be considered part of the rebel force but more like some kind of external aid. That meant, among other things, that we wouldn’t be wearing a uniform nor wouldn’t be having a rank. I realized since the beginning that our situation would have its pros and cons, we wouldn’t start as privates, receiving orders from everybody, but we couldn’t give orders to anyone either. As for our specific jobs, and taking into account our powers, the three of us were designated to different areas. It was agreed that Brian and I would became members of different units in the infantry corps while Nick would be helping the espionage team. Yes, ‘little Nicky’ was an spy now. He was completely ecstatic about the news and couldn’t believe that Kevin had agreed to let him work all by himself, considering that none of us would be on his team. Kevin told us that he trusted him and that made the kid even more happier. His new job became the reason for the first of our fights too, since I had to go and tease the kid.

“I can’t believe you are letting Kaos here work alone for that unit.”

“Shut up AJ!”

“Why should I? A couple of months ago Kevin didn’t want you to carry a gun and suddenly you are a spy. Give me a break!”

That little dialogue was followed by Nick punching me on the face and me returning the favor with a punch to his stomach. Kevin separated us, and since he threatened us to punch ‘our lights out’ we ended the fight there, but it would be just the first to a lot more to come.

The main reason for my moodiness was probably my recent solitude. Brian and I were the only ones that used to stay in Trinsuet for long periods. Howie and Kevin were always in some mission or battle and Nick would be leaving the base any other day too, although he really didn’t go all by himself since usually either Kevin or Howie were part of the team in charge of transporting his unit.

And then, there was also the fact that Brian was spending more time with Dana so in reality I couldn’t count with him either, like I had in the past, to do something fun during our free time. The other guys had made a lot of new friends too – in Kev’s and Howie’s cases reencountered old ones – while I had only two real friends in Trinsuet, one was Rual who was also a member of the land forces, and the other one was Louis, a soldier with whom I became friends not for the right reasons. He was a great guy though, but due to his job in the base he was always busy.

Since there weren’t any signs of a new land battle on the horizon, Brian and I had a lot of free time after training so when I couldn’t go to the only place I would go looking for some sort of distraction, I was usually the one getting ‘home’ first and would just wait there for the rest of the guys, taking a nap on the couch. I was there sleeping one afternoon when the door got opened and Kevin entered dragging Nick in a vice like grip on the scruff of his neck.

“What the hell were you doing there, Nick?” he asked after releasing him from his lock. Nick almost stumbled forward but recovered fast before falling and just walked away from Kevin. “And don’t tell me that you got lost again because I think you can come up with something better. How you get lost and end up with a drink in your hand?”

A drink? Oh this is going to be hilarious. Good thing I have first row seats.

“Come on Kev” Nick whined.

“Come on Kev? Come on Kev? That’s all you are going to say?” He was beyond mad.

“I was having fun with some friends.”

“I told you I didn’t want you going there. You are 16 Nickolas.”

“I know my age, asshole” Nick muttered under his breath.

“What was that?” Kevin’s voice tensed with anger. He had taken two big steps and was now in front of Nick looking down at him threatening.

“Nothing.”

“If you are going to say something say it to my face.”

“Are you going to tell me that you didn’t spend time in one of those Philippians’ bars when you were my age?”

“When I was your age I was also in charge of 4 kids. Do you wanna try that too?”

Nick shook his head and sighed.

“It was just a beer Kevin.” His voice was softer now.

“Don’t you get that is not even that kid.” Kevin lowered his voice too.

“It isn’t?”

“No. I mean…Ugh.” You could tell he was trying really hard to be patient with Nick. “I don’t think you are old enough to drink but if it's curiosity what you are experiencing then you can come to me, little man. If you wanted to know what beer tastes like you could have tell me. I have some beer here and...”

“Yeah, right.” Nick interrupted him. “I’m drinking with you. Yippee! How fun!” he said sarcastically moving his index finger in circles.

“Don’t be such an idiot, kid. I’m not talking about drinking with you. And you just proved my point. ‘It was just a beer Kevin’.” He mimicked Nick’s voice and used his fingers to make quotation marks in the air. “You aren’t curious. You just want to have fun doing something that isn’t appropriate for your age. You think I’m gonna let you go to have a drink in a place where everybody is carrying a gun. When YOU are carrying a gun. You are already too hardheaded without drinking liquor.”

“I can’t get drunk with just one beer.”

“Damn, are you listening to me? I don’t want you there, PERIOD. I don’t care if you are drinking plain water or lemonade. There are others drinking there. It's not a place for a kid.”

“I’m not a kid.”

“Are you sure? Because sometimes you act like a 6 year old.”

“Damn Kevin, all you want is to be the boss.”

“I’m already the boss, KID.”

He stressed out the last word and I smiled because hearing them fighting was bringing back so many memories. It seemed like they hadn’t even noticed I was there and it was like watching a little clip of my life, only that Nick was playing my part. I had been in Nick’s shoes so many times. Living in Philippians I made an art of slipping into the officer’s club, the first one when I was just 9 years old.


~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~× ~ × ~ × ~


Nine year old Alexander was on his knees hidden behind a couple of boxes next to the bar counter of the officers club. Someone had left the door open and he had decided to take a look inside to find out more about the place that had been arousing his curiosity for weeks.

“Alex.” A voice like thunder made the kid jump. “What the heck are you doing here?” Kevin demanded.

Swallowing hard the boy looked up not saying a single word. He had been caught and nothing would save him from a punishment. When he finally spoke up his reply was barely audible.

“I was just looking.”

“Get up.” Kevin ordered and the little kid obeyed immediately. Once he was standing up he nervously shifted his weight from one foot to the other while playing all the time with the end of his shirt.

“Don’t you know that you are not supposed to be here?”

The child didn’t reply.

“Alex?” Kevin scowled, taking the boy’s chin forcing attendance. “I asked you a question. You know you aren’t supposed to be here, right?”

The little boy nodded.

“Littrell!” someone called and Kevin turned around for a second.

“Coming” he yelled before turning his attention back to his cousin.

“I think we need to have a talk when I get back home tonight.”

AJ looked up in fright.

“Now go directly to your room kid. Do I make myself clear?”


~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~× ~ × ~ × ~


“Do I make myself clear Nick?”

Man he still uses the same lines. I started to laugh and they both looked at me for the first time since they entered the room.

“What the hell are you laughing at?” Nick asked.

“Nothing.” I tried to stop but I couldn’t. The fact that they were staring at me wasn’t making it easier.

“Get out AJ.” Kevin pointed his thumb at the door.

“I was here first” I grinned.

“Out!”

Once in the corridor I started laughing again. Man I certainly didn’t notice before how much I miss Philippians.


~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~× ~ × ~ × ~


14 year old Alex entered the officer’s club and walked casually towards the bar smiling to the man who was looking at him from the other side of the counter, where he was cleaning some glasses.

“Not you again AJ,” the bartender complained. “You will get me in trouble.”

“Come on Carl. You know people here won’t even notice me and if someone asks I’ll tell that I’m looking for my father or something.”

“You are just a kid, Alex.”

“It's not like I’m drinking Carl.”

“Of course not. I won’t ever give you a drink kid.”

“Then what’s the problem? I just want to play some pool.”

“What about Kevin, AJ? He always finds out.”

“He won’t come here Carl. He is too busy having a meeting with some Officers.”

“Are you sure? There are people from his unit here.” The man pointed to one of the pool tables where Stuart and Jimmy were playing.

“Great. I found someone to play.” AJ grinned again to the big man before turning around and heading towards the table.

“If someone finds you here I will say I didn’t see you come in.” Carl hissed before going back to his work.

“Hello gentlemen.” AJ greeted the older boys. “What you think about a third player joining you for this game?”

“AJ, what are you doing here?” Jimmy asked while Stuart looked up and smiled without stopping the game. “Ball 3, left corner pocket” he called striking the white ball with the tip of his cue. After the designated ball entered the pocket he walked to the other side of the table and stood up next to Jimmy. “Man, you Littrells are so stubborn. Kevin had kicked your ass more than once for coming to this place kid.”

“He won’t find out this time. I made sure he was busy, so everything’s okay.”

“Lets see if you say the same thing tomorrow and if you are still able to sit down after he kicks your ass again.”

“Ha Ha. Not funny.” Alex made a face to Stuart. “So, are you letting me play or you are too scared because you know I can beat you?”

Stuart threw him a cue, which Alex caught in the air. “You are too cocky for your own good kid.”

“And you are dead.” Jimmy added.

“In your dreams Jimmy. I’m soooo winning this game.”

“I’m not talking about the game kid. Turn around.”

“Man that was fast.” Stuart laughed.

AJ closed his eyes. “You are kidding me, right?” He asked opening them, already noticing that someone was standing behind him. The other two boys shook their heads and AJ let out a sigh.

“I’m dead.” He whined, turning around.

Kevin stood there with his arms crossed over his chest and his feet spread apart. Before saying a word he gave AJ what Nick referred to as “Kevin’s look”.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he groaned.

“I… I was…” Alex stuttered nervously scratching his neck. After a minute of silence and under Kevin’s withering glare he opted for a different defense and smiled broadly before speaking again. “Hello Kevin. How are you? You look tired, want me to go to the bar and bring you a drink. I’ll do it.” AJ was already walking to the bar but Kevin took him by the arm.

“Don’t you dare” he warned him gritting his teeth. “So?” he asked him but AJ looked around like Kevin wasn’t addressing to him.

“I told you would end up in trouble, kid” Stuart laughed again.

“Shut up idiot! He said then abruptly turned to face his brother, his voice more subdued “So, how about that drink?”

“I made you a question, Alexander.”

“You did? What was it? I don’t remember.”

Kevin closed his eyes and took a deep breath trying to calm himself. He ran a hand through his hair while still grabbing AJ with the other one.

“I asked you what are you doing here?” His voice held exasperation.

“Oh that. It was homework, yes, homework that’s it. Miss Reagan told us to do a research about an old sport practiced on Earth and I chose pool.”

Amusement flickered in Kevin’s eyes but he commanded his emerging smile to retreat. It was too difficult for him to lecture Alex since the kid would always come up with a funny excuse every time he got caught misbehaving. Remembering himself that he needed to teach the boy a lesson he pulled a wry face and continued.

“Thought you could came up with something better. Now turn around and get your butt back to you room.”

“Okay. But you will have to tell Miss Reagan why didn’t I finish my homework.”

“Get out AJ! And I better not catch you again inside this place.”

AJ stormed off the bar. Once in the corridor he left out a deep breath thinking that he had somehow escaped punishment. He felt lucky, by the time Kevin would get back to their room he would definitely be much more calm. Not losing anymore time AJ started to walk in direction to the boys room. He hadn’t given more than four steps when he heard the command.

“Freeze!” Kevin yelled walking to him.

Alex turned around. “I was going to my room like you told me.”

“I have a very busy day ahead Alex. By the time I get home you will be sleeping and I’m leaving early tomorrow for a recognition flight so I better tell you this now.”

“Recognition flight? Does that mean you are going to battle again?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

AJ chewed his lip, his focus on the door of the club from where soldiers keep coming in and out.

“Look at me” Kevin ordered. When the kid did it, the older boy was glaring at him.

“This is the last time you will do something like this.” Kevin began. “You better start straighten up your act kid. For now you are grounded. I’m telling Howie what happened here today, so he can keep an eye on you while I’m away.”

“Grounded?” The teen complained.

“Yes. Grounded. And that’s final!” Kevin fumed.


~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~ × ~× ~ × ~ × ~


“And that’s final!”

I could hear Kevin still yelling inside the room and I laughed even more. Yes, still the same old lines. I felt good for the first time in weeks. It had nothing to do with the fact that Nick had gotten in trouble - although watching the kid suffer Kevin’s wrath was always amusing - but with all the memories that had came to my head during the last minutes. I stopped laughing but kept smiling. I fixed my eyes on the door one last time before walking away without suspecting that it would be the last time I would be laughing for a long time.



----
Copyright ©2004
All Rights Reserved
No part of this story may be copied or reprinted without the author's permission.