Life on the space station continued with some semblance of a routine, but not without variety. Alexa, Jayken and I were in the training room most days, where, despite our completely different skill sets, our abilities were monitored and we had various tests done on us. As the Halapatovian pilot, Trista, had indicated, one of the tasks we were given involved integrating our powers with their new spacecraft technology. That had been quite interesting; our first sessions had involved basic training that everyone could do, and then later they tested it with our specific powers. I found it exhilarating to extend my mind into a whole spacecraft, and control it with my abilities through the gel matrix, as well as observing the different applications the others had. Jayken, being Weraynian, required further authentication than us in order to use the systems, which automatically recognised Weraynian DNA and consequently prohibited their usage. Once keyed for him, however, the spacecraft and other technology operated with a distinct sense of power that came entirely from his Weraynian makeup, which was fascinating to experience. I wondered the implications for that to the war in general, noting the way the researchers working with us took detailed observations of everything he did. To be fair, he was probably the only Weraynian that they had evaluated this technology with.
Alexa's powers had been a very interesting thing to witness this whole time. Her abilities weren't exactly something she had conscious control over. From what I'd been able to gather, they had originally begun as vivid manifestations of events that she either recognised from previous occurrences or later witnessed come to fruition. This wasn't exactly the easiest ability to test or to try to extend to a spacecraft. A lot of the work she did was them trialling what stimulus, if any, triggered her visions at all, and asking a lot of questions about past experiences. When it came to the ship technology, it seemed that she was able to key her mind into the system in a way vaguely reminiscent of my own, but without the same degree of control or maneuvering involved. Moreso, it increased her spatial awareness, and fine tuned her senses even further. Again, the applications for this were arbitrary at best. Her visions however could hold a lot of significance to the war effort, if she saw anything that could give any insight into Weraynian technology or strategy. I could tell she didn't trust anyone here besides Jayken, so I wondered if she would even divulge if she did see anything. Surely she would, surely her distrust didn't run that deep that she would hold back something like that. Paladanian and Halapatovian authorities may not be perfect but they were striving for the best outcome for the system right now. Hindering that would be pointless. I chided myself for my growing judgements; it wasn't fair of me to try to analyse her like this. I wasn't a child anymore. Understanding people was important, but assuming I knew what Alexa was thinking and feeling was dangerously arrogant. I think I was getting better at recognising that not everyone had the same experiences and worldview as me, but the more time I spent around Alexa and Jayken the more conflicted I got. I'd never really been around Aandriggians, let alone Weraynians, and the obvious disparity between our upbringing was a constant challenge for me. Already I had become acutely aware of the glaring lack of Aandriggians in any position of leadership. I wondered what that was like for Alexa and Jayken. How alone must they feel? Especially Jayken, who was under constant scrutiny in case he turned out to be secretly nefarious. It surprised me how upbeat he was about the whole situation. I could tell, sometimes, that there was trauma there behind his eyes, but his optimism and general amiability always rose to the surface of his personality. He was very open about his past in general, but because all of our testing occurred together, I had learnt things that I wouldn't have from a pure friendship standpoint, and it hurt to hear of the hopelessness of Werayne, and his rearing as a child soldier, like countless on his home planet. After most days I was emotionally exhausted and just wanted to vent to somebody about everything going on. I didn't think Sophie was really in a position to hear about these things, but it was completely inappropriate to unload that stuff on Jayken or Alexa, and I told Sophie everything, so I tried to be careful about what I discussed with her, keeping details vague.
Sophie's side of things was a lot less trying from what I could gather - she was mostly assisting Rojjel with the machines he got tasked with working on. I felt quite sorry for Rojjel actually. He was a genius and very particular and organised when it came to his work, while Sophie... was not. When I'd had downtime sometimes I would sit in the workshop and read their notes while they tinkered, Sophie rather haphazardly and Rojjel with a very focussed neutral expression, paired with occasional furtive glances her way when she made a mess of his toolbox or was decidedly not gentle with a circuit board. Sophie wasn't an easy partner to begin with, and I got the impression he was used to operating alone. He was very quiet and reserved; I was pretty sure he listened to music while he worked, but within his headset, as compared to the very loud Sophie who would have had no qualms about playing her music loudly. Whenever I was there however she managed to babble at me the whole time, and sometimes I would just sit and smile at her while she talked, engrossing myself in whatever I was reading each time she looked up at me. It was strange to just... be around her for weeks on end. It was nice, simply existing in the same space. I was doing my best to not just focus entirely on her, and have some sort of relationship with the others. Jayken and I got along quite well, and Rojjel seemed to like me, despite my association with Sophie. Alexa was very closed off, and only really spoke to Jayken, but I couldn't exactly blame her and I didn't try to push a relationship. Sophie seemed quite oblivious to her standoffish nature and would attempt to chat with her on occasion, whenever they crossed paths. All in all, our team dynamic was a bit awkward; not that we really functioned that much as a team. We'd ventured out on a few more 'missions' with Trista piloting us, to various space stations and vantage points around Werayne. Sophie and Rojjel obviously worked on integrating and trialling the technology they'd been fixing up, while Jayken could help with some of the more physical work and Alexa generally guarded him and kept a lookout. Sometimes there were other duties for us, and it was quite interesting to be on these space stations - a fair few of them were the now defunct force field generators. I felt quite superfluous to these exploits, though the leaders did thoroughly debrief me after each one, to hear my assessment of each site and the task we'd accomplished, no matter how trivial. So our days went - space station, training, spaceship, meetings, Sophie.
Occasionally I ended up with whole days in which I had absolutely nothing I was required to do. On one such day, Sophie, Rojjell and Jayken were off on a mission, something with the ship and a satellite that they didn't need the rest of us for - I believe the term for it was a mobile hacking mission - and I found myself wandering the place thinking about the war and my family and everything. Sophie and I were usually pretty good at distracting each other from the more depressing stuff; we had a lot to catch up on in any case. On my own though, my racing thoughts easily overwhelmed me, no matter how far I tried to run from them. A lot of the sections of this base were restricted access, most of them for confidential scientific research, and that just made me think of my dad, somewhere out there, supporting the war effort with his technological prowess. Then that made me think of my mum at home, working to grow food and packaging swathes of it to be sent off and processed into rations, and heading home to an empty house, knowing that my dad and I were off in space somewhere, in the midst of a dangerous war. I wondered if my brother would visit her. Probably not. He had his own job and wife and kids to look after, and this wartime would have shaken them. In the past I might have felt bitter about the distance he put between us and his family, but now I just hoped they would be okay, that everything would be okay.
They were probably all hearing snippets of the news from the warzones. About the ships that had been attacked, and the people who'd been captured or killed. About the growing injuries and establishment of medical zones. At least the blockade was holding, and our side had plenty of achievements behind us. And Sophie felt sure that the Alliance would send help soon. I guess we'd have to just wait and see. Didn't make it any easier, the waiting. After a while of weaving my way through the bits that I could access I went back to my area and worked on some training. An hour or so of throwing things around and testing my aim was all I could stand and I moved into the main room with my bag and lay on the floor, reading some of the medical stuff I had so I could try to move my mind elsewhere. Finishing a bit on suturing, I sat up and rubbed my eyes. For the first time that day, I wondered where Alexa was. She hadn't gone with the others so she should have been here somewhere, and she was normally pretty loud too, with her music or drawing or games or whatever she was doing to pass the time. I could tell that she hadn't been in our quarters since the others had left. I bit my lip, realising that she was probably worrying about Jayken. I remembered the hardness in her eyes when the officers had tried to take him away to go through processing, how she'd put her foot down and insisted we all be tested together. I at least knew that if they tried to do something to Sophie while she was away from me that she'd be able to handle herself, she'd been in similar situations before. But anything Jayken did in self-defence could definitely be interpreted wrongly and incite further action. I trusted the others to protect him, but Jayken was, of course, significant to Lexie in a way he wasn't to me, practically her family. It's a lot harder to think rationally about somebody close to you being in danger, that's the whole thing about the Personal Flaw right? Not that she was Paladanian of course... okay I was overthinking again. I jogged around corridors for a bit to try to clear my head, but only ended up out of breath. Sophie, please get home soon. I stared out the thick window above my head at the snatches of stars that could be seen through it. Please stay alive, all of you.
We had the daily meeting for updates on everything after food a few hours later. I could see Alexa across the room with red rimmed eyes as the Halapatovian running it moved on from general updates to projects specific to us. She went through the research various groups were doing and progress that had been made and then about the communications received. Alert, I shifted my eyes back as she started to talk about my friends.
"A group from the Sindro Project left sixteen hours ago for a mission connecting one of our spacecraft to a satellite around Werayne. What we've heard suggests that they were successful, that the Weraynians paid them no notice, and so they should be enroute to pick up supplies right now, arriving back here within the next cycle."
A glance in Lexie's direction showed her face falling, but then she noticed me looking and tried to mask her expression. I felt a twinge of guilt, as I often did when people noticed me observing them. People assumed I was rooting around in their head, trying to read them, but mainly I was just not good at self-control and simply looking at people. I did my best for the rest of the meeting to not look at her again so I didn't make her uncomfortable, and by the time people were filing out she was already gone. When I got back to our quarters she wasn't there, maybe in bed. I sighed. I couldn't expect everyone to like me, to want my company, but I was lonely and going a little insane from this whole situation.
I stretched myself out in my little room, willing sleep to come. The absence of a natural night and day contributed to my sense of uneasiness, and it was messing with my body clock. I sat up, rubbed some of my mum's herbs on my neck, trying to feel calmer.
Time passed. Sleep declined to make its presence known. I paced the minuscule room and tried not to notice the glaring absence of Sophie. I experimented with a multitude of exercises meant to assist a person with sleeping. No matter what I did, I found no relief. My ruminating continued.
Events from the past weeks swirled vibrantly behind my eyes. The part of my brain that had been trying to figure out the big confidential plan we were an unwitting part of kicked into overdrive. My domineering theory for a while had been that our whole little group was somewhat of a sham, put into place as a distraction for the five of us because they wanted to keep an eye on us. It had been hard to admit at first, but the more scrutiny we were put under, and the more obvious it grew that there wasn't really very much for us to do, the more I found myself surveying the assortment of people in our special team and realising that there was something we all had in common - we were all dangerous. Though it was easy to think of Sophie and I as heroes, after our performance on Flauraan and how we'd been instrumental to ending the ghost situation on Halapatov, I could understand why some people might see us as a potential risk, or more accurately as arrogant thrillseekers with too much past experience wandering around on our own and causing trouble (Sophie had been right, she was very good at that). Plus Sophie had influence and a teleport watch and I had powers. It wasn't too surprising. Then there was Rojjel, who for all his awkwardness and innocence I could tell had the skill and the lack of respect for authority to hack or mess with things that seemed a challenge to him. It was as if his little tinkering project was to divert him from that form of action. As much as I'd like to believe that those in charge would not stoop to prejudice, it did seem as though Jayken also wasn't trusted to be left on his own in Halapatov. They wanted him under their thumb. And as for Lexie-
There was a sharp rap on the door. I jerked back to reality and lifted my head off the floor, bleary eyed. How long had I been deep in thought? A quick assessment told me that it had been several hours since the expected retiring time for our cycle - the equivalent to the early hours of the morning. I wondered who was still awake and calling for me at this hour. Okay, more correctly, I wondered why on Flauraan Alexa Trobit had come to me at this hour.
I gathered myself and opened the door to her defiant stance; she clearly hadn't slept either, and yet she somehow looked worse than I felt, the capillaries in her eyes prominent and her expression completely deflated. What was going on?
As if she'd been steeling herself to talk to me all night and would explode if she didn't do it now, she drew in a breath and began to rant, not looking at me. "Abigail, I'm sorry to bother you - I mean I'm not, I'd rather not be doing this with you but you're the best I've got. I know you've probably been judging me, you'd rather have the others around but Jayken's not here, it's just you and me and all of these official people and I think I'm going to go nuts if I don't tell someone so will you please listen to me."
My eyes widened and I started to stammer out a reply, but she cut me off.
"Look, we don't have to pretend to be friends or anything please just let me speak." I wanted to defend myself again but she looked so tired and defeated that I knew that my ego could survive just listening to her now. I nodded mutely. She ran her hands through her hair and jerked her head towards the door. "Can we go somewhere else just for a minute?"
"Of course." I said and then padded after her as she shouldered out of the room and led me through corridors towards one on the edge of the base with a window that reached floor to ceiling and showed the space outside, stars and ships and what planets we could see from this vantage point, facing away from the sun. She stood, arms crossed, rocking back and forth, seemingly trying to work herself up to speaking. Judging by how isolated this corridor was from everything else, I figured that this was where she'd been all day. What was she about to tell me?
"So," Alexa began, then fell silent again, eyes darting around. I could tell she was regretting trying to talk to me at all. I considered saying that she could tell me, or someone else, another time, but I knew she needed to talk about it right now, and right now... I was her only option. She squared her shoulders and stared resolutely out into space, forced herself to speak. "I- ever since that ghost thing- well you know about my visions and stuff. When they first happened it was terrifying, but I got used to them, after all that stuff with Jayken and the Weraynians and everything calmed down. Anyway, we've been in this place and kept in the dark about everything and I've been so afraid and I still don't know how it works at all but the whole time we've been here, any moment that I'm still, unfocussed- I've just- I've been seeing things... constantly." She choked on the last bit and I noticed she was shaking violently. "When I sleep, all I see is visions. Some stuff I recognise, others I don't. A lot of it is the war, but I don't know whether it's this one or the last one, because sometimes I do see the ghosts and you know, I can't know ever really when it is. I see people injured, people dying, I see the experiments the Weraynians did. Sometimes I see war councils and I've seen... people who aren't Weraynians... doing really messed up things. There's a girl with golden eyes who looks Paladanian but who's fighting for the Weraynians. There's a chick with lightning powers; I don't even know what side she's on. There's someone dying, and all of us there standing around watching, and you and Sophie are holding their hands but I can't make out who it is. One thing I keep seeing, every day, is Jayken, being tortured, and people doing things to him, other times it's just- just him on the floor, screaming, and I don't mknow why and I need to do something about it but I can't and-" Her voice was shaking with anger, with fear, and a single tear breached her eyelids and she lashed out, smashing her fists against the window, sending vibrations throughout the room. I watched silently, not knowing what to do. "Sorry. I just needed to- to say it- to someone. It's eating me up inside."
"Yeah." I said in a whisper, unable to say anything else. She glanced one tense look at me and frowned.
"So that's why I made them test us all together, and why I tried to go with them earlier, and why I've been here all day. I've been doing whatever I can to just, stop thinking but it hasn't worked. Tried to steal some stuff from first aid but it's well locked up..." she said bitterly and I could feel my terror rising in my chest but I needed to stay strong. Please Jayken be okay. I asked the universe then, cursing my own selfishness this whole time. I realised how uncaring I must have seemed to her, how calculating and cruel, standing here not even able to say anything. She probably thought I was completely apathetic, just wanted to get this conversation over with. How could I explain the burden of my own thoughts, and my inability to express my emotions properly? I'd spent so much of my youth training myself to hold my tongue, compose my face, and here was Alexa, who wore her heart on her sleeve and was used to communities of open expression, of emotion. My emotionality was one of my flaws back home, and most people I knew were content simply with exchange of information. There went my thoughts running away with me... Lexie had tensed up again. "Abigail what if he dies?" She said hoarsely, turning with pleading eyes to me. "Please tell me things will be okay."
I hated lying but I forced myself to say it. "Of course, everything will be okay." In a moment of possible brilliance, I remembered the dreams I'd had on Halapatov all those years ago and came up with something I hoped would help her. "You know, if you're having visions while you sleep, it's probable that not everything you see is not necessarily going to happen. I had dreams caused by the ghosts as well, when I was on Halapatov, back then. And they scared me, and they were very vivid, but I think they were just distortions of my own fear. Not all of it came true. And of course, being in this sort of situation, you'd be afraid that someone will hurt Jayken, but we can do everything to protect him; they'll be back tomorrow and I will do everything I can to help you not leave each other's sight." From the look in her eyes, she was surprised at this and I relaxed a little bit. Did I help her? Maybe.
"There's that Paladanian rationality. If only I could make my brain work like that." She muttered. Then she forced a smile and looked at me again. "I've just been so used to the visions that I just... forgot about dreams I guess. Didn't want to give myself false hope. Uh... thanks for listening to me, and for the offer of help. Like I said – just needed to get that off my chest." She screwed her eyes shut and groaned. "God I wish I could sleep. I need something to make time pass so that they can get back."
"I feel the same way." I said, and rubbed the back of my neck. "Is there anything I can do?"
She cast me a slightly derisive look. "Not really. You can go now, if you like."
I glanced toward the end of the corridor, hesitating. I wished I could get inside her head and figure out how to make everything better. Maybe that was arrogant in and of itself. The belief I could fix things. This desire for control. Not waiting for my departure, Alexa slid down the wall and pulled a sketchpad out of her pocket. Easily reading the signal that she wanted to be alone, I hung my head and walked away. I glanced back once, to see her juxtaposed against the starry window before her, eyes focussed somewhere far from here. I was pretty sure the sketchbook was a method to document her visions. "Alexa?" I called gently, desperately hoping she wouldn't think I was heartless. "Everything will be okay, you know."
Her eyes glinted in the starlight. "Yeah, okay."
I bit my lip and retreated back through to mine and Sophie's room, and curled up on our bed, clutching a pillow tightly to my chest, choking back sobs. I don't know whether from the length I'd gone without sleep, or the emotional exhaustion, but I soon disappeared into the depths of sleep.
Alexa and I gained some sense of solidarity after that, despite the turmoil of our interaction. She at least seemed less desperate to escape my presence; we even sat in the space connecting our rooms the next day, occupying ourselves as we waited together for the others to return.
We moved to the docking bay as soon as we received the knowledge that their ship was nearing, far too long later.
Alexa immediately ambled over to join Jayken the moment he appeared, hands in her pockets. He greeted her and squeezed her on the shoulder and I watched her assessing him, ensuring that he was safe and whole. She sent me one relief filled glance. Sophie came out pushing a trolley of supplies, from Flauraan I presumed, then Jayken offered to take it and he and Lexie moved off towards the stores. Sophie nodded in my direction and I ran toward her giddily and flung my arms around her neck.
"Hey." I could hear Sophie smiling into my shoulder. I pulled back and tried not to cry. Her expression filled with concern. "You okay?"
"Rough couple of days." I said simply and she pulled me in for another hug.