Living Among the Stars: Young Help

Living Among the Stars:
Young Help

     “I don’t want to talk to any children. Where are the adults on your spaceship? Even if it’s considered night time onboard they shouldn’t have left children in charge,” said Pauvic who appeared on a large monitor in front of everyone in The Control Room. Pauvic looked like a solid flesh rock with bumps, and tiny pulsating red spots at the end of each bump, sticking out all around his head, neck, and shoulders. He didn’t appear to be wearing any clothing.

     “We aren’t children,” said Mallin who stood staring up at that monitor. “From the planet, we come from we are considered Young Ones.”

     “You are thinking about are Younger Ones, said Sanica who stood next to Mallin. “That’s what we call our children. The adults are called Older Ones.”

     “I don’t care what you call yourselves. As long as it’s an adult that I talk to. I want to talk to them right now.”

     “That’s what we have been trying to tell you,” said Mallin. “There are no older ones on board this spaceship. It’s just us young ones and a few hundred younger ones.”

     Pauvic started laughing. “That was a good one. No adults.”

     “We aren’t trying to make you laugh,” said Sanica. “There aren’t any older ones here.”

     “Oh, really! If there aren’t any adults then what happened to them. Did you kill them so you could control the ship? Was it some kind of a sickness that only killed the adults?”

     Mallin sighed. “It wasn’t a killing spree or a sickness. We have always been in control of this spaceship.”

     Pauvic began laughing again. “You have to be lying to me. There’s no way a planet would send their children out into space alone.”

     “They would if they didn’t treat their young ones as nothing but troublemakers like a few planets do,” said Sanica. “We have been out here for almost six hundred years, and we haven’t killed each other off yet.”

     “In fact, we haven’t killed anyone on this ship. There have been several close ones over the years, but no deaths. The only deaths we have had are accidents off the ship or because we tried to help someone like you,” continued Mallin.

     “You are trying to make me laugh again, aren’t you? You sure don’t look like you are that old. Unless for some reason, you don’t age on that ship.”

     “Of course, we age. We aren’t that old,” said Sanica. I'm fifteen and Mallin is seventeen.” Sanica gestured toward Mallin when she mentioned his name.

     “I still don’t believe you. If you can prove to me that you are the only ones on your ship maybe you can help us.” Pauvic didn’t say anything for about a minute. “Actually, your sizes might be the perfect fit to help us.”

     “We don’t need to prove anything,” said Mallin. “The only reason we are here is because we picked up your Help Signal. If you don’t want our help that’s okay with us, but by SpaceLaw we must warn you. We haven’t seen another ship in four months. It could be another four months or more before another ship picks it up. Can your help last that long?”

     Sanica crossed her finger across her neck. A second later Pauvic's image disappear to be replaced by a large spaceship. She turned toward Mallin. “I think we should help him if we can. It sounds like the kind of help we might be able to do.”

     “Maybe we should. I'm just getting tired of always being referred to as children.”

     “So am I. I think we really can help this time, though.”

     “We have helped a lot of ships over the years. It did sound like will could help him. He did say something about us being the perfect fit.”

     Mallin nodded once. A second later the image of Pauvic reappeared. “Do you have a Generic Scanner?”

     “Yes, I do. How did you know I had one?”

     “We just figured you did,” said Sanica. “Most ships in this part of the galaxy do. If you scan us you will see that we have been telling you the truth.”

=====-=====-=====-=====-=====-=====

     Leoni kept glancing around the large corridor they walked down.
Bradin just stared at the tall alien twice his height. He walked next to Leoni. “They really do look like huge rocks in human form.”

     “Except for their gender,” said Leoni. “They don’t seem to have any. The only way to tell between the genders is their voices.”

     “Children,” said Zanide who walked in front of Bradin and Leoni. “You're not afraid to speak whatever is on your minds.”

     Leoni's face looked angry. Bradin took her hand and slightly squeezed it. “We're not children. We are twelve.”

     “I'm sorry. I didn’t realize I was thinking out loud. We aren’t used to getting help from outsiders. Especially ones that are so young.”

     Bradin could see that Leoni’s breathing had slowed and her face no longer looked red. “We are sorry too. We’re a little sensitive about our ages. Everywhere we go we encounter individuals who don’t like us or trust us because of our age.”

     “That’s why we really weren’t going to respond to your help signal, said Leoni. “After four months of not seeing anyone and realizing it could be that long or longer before someone else would hear it we decided to help if we could.”

     “I'm really not like most of the other Goith onboard,” said Zanide. “I am very happy you are helping us. We are almost at our destination.”

     They walked past two more open entrances on one side of that corridor and three on the other before Zanide stopped. Bradin and Leoni stood next to Zanide with eyes wide open and a shock on their faces. They stared into a room full of static electricity. There didn’t appear an inch of space not being electrified.

=====-=====-=====-=====-=====-=====

     “Report,” Sanica addressed Bradin and Leoni on the main monitor in The Control Room. “How bad is it?”

     “It’s not as bad as it looks,” said Bradin. Bradin and Leoni stepped aside to show the electrical room behind them.

     Mallin tapped a button on the arm of the chair he sat in next to Sanica. The main monitor admittedly zooms in until the electricity filled the monitor. “It looks pretty bad to me. Are you going to be able to fix their engines with that there?”

     “The engines aren’t their problem,” said Leoni. “It’s the room behind us that is.”

     “According to their scans the engines are okay,” said Bradin. “The problem is this is the only room that leads to those engines. They don’t know why it started. All they know is that it suddenly began about six months ago.”

     Mallin and Sanica looked at each other. “What exactly do they expect us to do about it?” Sanica asked.

     “They want us to stop it,” said Leoni. “The control panel for this room is on the other side of it.”

     “All we have to do is get through that room and switch it off,” said Bradin. “It’s not going to be easy, but we can do it.”

     Mallin looked at Sanica. “This is a private communication between the four of us, right?”

     “Yes, it is. Why?”

     “Are you sure about that? I don’t want them to hear us.”

     “I'm sure. What’s going on?”

     “They can’t be monitoring us without us knowing. I know they said they wouldn’t but they could be lying.”

     “Yes, I’m sure. I made sure we could myself.”

     “Good, because there is something going on with that room. They are hiding something about it. Why is the control to turn the electrical storm off on the other side of it?”

     “I noticed that too. What do you think they are hiding?”

     Leoni cleared her throat. “I think I know what it is. It’s some kind of a protection room protecting the engines and the engine room.”

     “That’s what I thought too,” said Sanica. “That doesn’t explain where the turn-off switch is at, though.”

     “Maybe there was supposed to be someone there at all time but for some reason, they weren’t there when whatever caused the electrical storm to happen,” said Bradin. “It doesn’t really matter why it’s there. We can figure that out later. Right now what we have to do is destroy that storm.”

     “I agree with Bradin about why,” said Sanica. “Do you think you can do it?”

     Leoni smiled. “I know we can. All we need is the death weapon we found a few months ago.”

=====-=====-=====-=====-=====-=====

     “There are two ways to deal with this problem,” said Leoni. “We can either destroy the electrical storm or we can destroy the turn off switch.”

     “The best thing to do is the switch, but it’s also the furthest away. So destroying it won’t be as easy,” said Bradin. “It’s your ship. What do you want us to do?”

     “Neither,” said Pauvic as he began examining the weapon. “We have what was stolen from us.”

     A few seconds later Pauvic nodded toward Zanide. “This is ours.”

     Sanica put her hand flat against the wall next to the opening of the storm. A second later the storm disappeared. “We only used this to get our death weapon back.”

     “Actually, we already figured that out. When we saw the size of this weapon we knew it was yours,” said Mallin.

     “What we don’t understand is why you faked the help signal,” said Sanica. “Which is very illegal. We could turn you in for it. Why didn’t you just ask us if we had it.”

     “It was stolen. We didn’t know if you stole it or not,” said Pauvic.

     “All we knew was a spaceship that looked like yours was in our part of space at the time,” said Zanide. “If we knew you were children we probably would have asked you about it.”

     Leoni looked at Zanide in anger. “You lied to us. All of you have been lying to us right from the beginning.”

     Pauvic started laughing. “Children. I told you your home planet was stupid to send children out into space alone.”

     “I guess you’re right,” said Mallin. “Maybe we shouldn’t be out here after all.”

     “Now that you got your weapon back, what are you going to do with us? Are you going to let us go or kill us?” Sanica asked.

     “We got what we want,” Pauvic replied as he gestured toward four Goiths who came over, picked up the weapon and took it away. “You can leave.”

     A few minutes later they were back in their control room. Mallin smiled. “Actually, we did steal that weapon. Once again, the adults didn’t think we did it because we were young ones.”

     “They never do,” said Sanica. “That’s why we always get away with it.”

     “Speaking of getting away, I think we should leave now. I don’t truth them not to use that weapon against us,” said Leoni.

     “Neither do I,” said Bradin. “How long do think it will be before they test their weapon?”

     Just then the image of Pauvic appeared on the main monitor. “I was going to let you go since you are children, but you mentioned that you should turn us in for faking the help signal. We can’t let you do that. Once again, adults win and children lose.” The image disappeared.

     “They have turned on the death weapon,” shouted Leoni a few seconds later. “We have to get out of here.”

     Bradin looked over the shoulders of Leoni at the scanner. “They are aiming right at us.”

     “We don’t need to run,” said Sanica. “Even if we did it wouldn’t save us. Our top speed couldn’t outrun that death weapon.”

     “They are firing it,” shouted Leoni. Just then the alien rock creature spaceship exploded inward. One second a large SpaceFire could be seen on the main monitor and the next there was only space.

     Mallin smiled. “Who’s laughing now. Young ones one, older ones zero.”

Word Count = 1,998