“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.


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