A Black And Gold Infinity
Chapter One
Ara scrambles up the ladder of the flight school’s tower, heart in her throat. She focuses on the aluminum rungs, one at a time, until her fingers curl around the smooth edge of the roof. A few eager hands emerge from the darkness and tow her into the crowd. She searches for familiar faces in the mass of cadets cradling their bottles of wine, capturing images with only a blink.
She weaves through the crowd, ducking her head, until she reaches the side of the building. When she sits at the edge, a gust of wind rushes through her dense, brown curls. Most Verdanians live in a colony of wooden domes that clings to the planet’s widest river, a turquoise slash in its grassy surface. But the section of Verdania beneath Ara’s ballet flats is reserved for the architecture of interplanetary travel: launch pads, launch pads, and more launch pads.
The stark white shuttle comes alive, rising from the platform in an eruption of fire. The roof shakes as cadets pound their feet and clap their hands. Ara hears the same whistling and cheering coming from the colony below. She wonders if they’ll ever cheer for her ascent into the stars. Every week, she rushes to the observatory to search for her name on the list of cadets chosen for a mission. And every week, she is disappointed.
For a few minutes, the shuttle lingers in the sky, a golden arc against a black infinity. But then it is gone, and the cadets stare, in silence, at the canvas of ringed planets and shimmering stars.
Ara might never find her name on that damned list, but she knows she made the right decision in applying to Celestial United.
Enrolling at Celestial United is Victoria’s greatest regret.
The only thing she doesn’t hate about this place is her massive dorm room. Being the Colonel’s daughter was good for something, at least.
Victoria’s windows rattle, signaling the shuttle’s launch — yet another mission leaving her behind on Verdania.
The shuttle’s departure also means she’s running late. D’rek is waiting for her on the tower and he’s going to be pissed if she bails on him a second time this week.
She runs a brush through her auburn waves, carefully pushing her long bangs in front of the ridges on her temples that mark her as Ciekaid. This year’s rookie class has too many humans for her liking and she’s sick of them ogling her like she’s the strange one.
Victoria presses her palm next to the lift and waits for the car to reach her room at the very top of the dormitory. The doors open and she slides in, taking a deep breath as she relishes the last few moments of silence she’s going to get tonight.
The evening air crackles in excitement, the scents of rocket fuel and rum filling her nose the moment she grasps onto the final rung of the tower’s ladder. The metal is cool, a welcomed contrast to the night’s heat.
She braces herself for the crowd, desperately looking for a familiar face the moment her feet reach solid ground. But the first one she locks onto isn’t someone she’s spoken to in class, let alone at a party.
Ara’s profile is illuminated by Verdania’s trio of moons, longing in her eyes as she stares skyward. Perhaps she was hoping to be part of this week’s mission. Victoria understands, even if that’s the only thing that makes sense about this girl.
The sound of shattering glass brings Victoria back to the moment. She isn’t surprised when she turns to find the culprit: D’rek, surrounded by his usual group of inveterate bootlickers.
D’rek lets the empty bottle of Volak moonshine fall from his hands, the glass shattering like a burst of stars on the jet black metal roof of the tower. As if that weren’t enough to turn heads towards the sound, his jubilant roar draws everyone else’s attention.
With his mother’s green skin, and four arms, he already gets enough stares from his mostly human cohort. But it doesn’t feel so bad when he invites their eyes first, gives them a real show to watch. At least his half-Hyinth heritage gifts him a fast enough metabolism that he can drink everybody under the table, and keep his eight-pack from turning into a beer belly even if he didn’t practically live in the academy gym.
In his excitement, he rips his uniform shirt open to show off, flexing for the adoring crowd. Right as his girlfriend arrives.
Victoria gives a subtle shake of her head. He deflates. It’s the third uniform he’s destroyed in as many months. But that’s the least of his worries.
There’s no point in hiding nervousness from a Ciekaid. And yet, he can’t help but flash a sheepish grin, anyway.
After his surrounding bros are done hooting and hollering, for now, they scatter looking for mischief elsewhere, talking up the nearby cuties.
Victoria grabs a glass of champagne before coming to greet him. No kiss, because he’s in trouble.
“You just got un-grounded,” she says. “If you keep this up, you’re never gonna fly again.”
“Chill out,” says D’rek. “I’m just keeping up morale.”
She wanders off, going to mingle with some of the other cadets instead of wasting the party arguing. Even though she’s right.
Alone, for the moment, before one of his bros or a competing love interest grabs his attention, he glances up at the night sky, at the white ghost of a trail the shuttle left behind.
Valentina rests her elbows against the makeshift bar, cradling her boring human head, and sighs. What’s the point of throwing a party if no one notices your effort?
To her right, her companion Luther pumps the keg and fills red solo cups for fidgety cadets, tapping their feet to the thumping bass. No one thanks Luther either. Perhaps because Ruppies with their otter faces and humongous, muscular bodies are unable to communicate beyond whistles, yelps, and growls.
Due to devastating deforestation on Luther’s home planet of Kashmatash, he’s never met another of his kind. As such, his vocabulary has evolved to include a variety of clicks and grunts only Valentina can decipher.
“Some party, huh, Luther?” Valentina says out the side of her mouth. “I thought sophomore year was gonna be different. How come people still don’t seem to know who I — I mean, we — are?”
A sad little huff shakes Luther’s whiskers. He lays a friendly paw on Valentina’s shoulder and gives her a little squeeze. His claws pierce the gauzy sleeve of her fuchsia party dress and she recoils.
“Careful Luther,” Valentina warns him. “I can’t afford another dress this semester.”
He emits a chiding growl in response and she laughs.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have spent so much money on booze,” Valentina says. “But what’s a party without it?”
The next face in line makes Valentina perk up a bit. It’s Bullseye Jones, one of her only classmates who shares her passion for comic books and immersive fandoms. He tips his signature sparkly goblet towards her.
“Fill me up, Scotty,” Bullseye says, then chuckles at his twist on the classic sci-fi line.
Valentina rolls her eyes so hard her brows brush the tops of her curly blond bangs. “We’ve got rum and vodka — which do you want?”
What did he want?
Aldous “Bullseye” Jones had never attended one of these shindigs before. He’d only gone to this one because Valentina was hosting, aka the only living soul who knew of his When the Stars Align fanfiction, authored under the name StarryEyedBoy72. And while he didn’t think she would blackmail him, he couldn’t be sure. She did hang out with a space otter, and his father said never to trust humans who fraternized with space otters, or any non-human species. His father was an outspoken speciesist. So why had Truxton Jones allowed his son to attend Celestial United, the school known for its philosophy that all species thrived when they learned together?
The answer stands right in front of him.
Luther has one paw on the keg, the other on the side of a red solo cup, and he’s staring straight at Aldous. Aldous stares back, mouth dry. The peanut in his pocket might as well be a meteorite. Can Luther smell it? Surely a species so incredibly allergic to a single nut has adapted the ability to avoid it, Darwin and all that.
Luther growls. Aldous jumps. But when Luther’s mouth pulls back in an otterly smile, Aldous realizes the growl was a greeting. Luther swings his head to a Nameenian with cyan hair and lavender skin, paw pumping her a cup full of beer.
Aldous presses his sweaty palm to the small lump in his pocket.
It would be so easy. Slip the peanut into Luther’s own red solo cup. And there would go the last space otter.
And his dad would be proud of him. And, more importantly, not banish him to the farthest planet in their universe, the Wasteland, where he’d work to extract mercury and other noxious chemicals from garbage until it killed him.
“Get your head out of the stars, boy.”
Aldous whips his head towards Valentina, who has just made a reference to Aldous’ fanfiction pen name. She drums her fingers on his empty cup. “Rum or vodka?”
“You almost blew my cover,” Aldous hisses. “No one can know. If my father finds out I write,” he doesn’t dare speak the word, “then he’ll…” He clamps his mouth shut.
“What?” Valentina’s eyes widen. “He’ll what, Bullseye?”
“I’ll take the vodka,” Aldous mutters, cheeks warming at his stupid nickname, which he’s had since he was a kid because whenever he got the answers right in school — which was all the time — his teacher would say Bullseye! Naturally, the other kids picked up on it, and Bullseye he became.
Aldous hated Bullseye, but he’d chosen to enroll under the nickname at Celestial Academy because he couldn’t risk using a name that wasn’t second nature to him, or someone might wonder if it wasn’t his name at all and do a little research into Aldous’ real one.
No one at Celestial United could ever know who Aldous was. Or they’d know who his father was.
And if someone did, Valentina, for example, she might decide to kill him.
The bass pounded through multiple layers of nanocrete, all the way down into Lieutenant Colonel Malachi Miller’s room. It may be the strongest and most resilient building material this side of the Alpha Centauri, but it did little to dampen the deep reverberations of an enhanced sound system.
He nurses the slug of whiskey in his glass, eyes locked on the clock. As the numbers tick closer together, a smile unfurls.
Finally, the digital ticks line up. Curfew.
Slamming the rest of the liquid down his throat, he zips his flight suit up. These soft youths may not understand the necessity of discipline, but that’s why they paid him. So that the massacre his unit barely survived never happens again. And he’d make sure every single cadet left here with an iron spine and the hardened perspective to keep every member on their squad alive.
No matter what obstacles a planet puts in their way. Or who.
Miller stalks down the hall towards the stairwell. Up ahead a door opens, and two bodies tumble out.
“White. Duncan,” he says.
The smiles slide off their faces the same second their spines straighten.
“Sir,” they bark, drunk salutes in place.
He frowns at their disheveled appearance. White is barely decent in a sports bra and athletic shorts that are nowhere near regulation. Duncan is at least in her PT uniform.
“Curfew isn’t just for cadets, Majors,” Miller says.
“Yes sir,” they say.
He harrumphs. “Dismissed.”
They scamper back into the room, their mission aborted. Even officers are letting their standards fall these days. Miller makes a note to bring it up during his next meeting with the Colonel. All these loose standards and subpar discipline will lead to more humans being ambushed. Especially with those latest reports coming in from the Extraction Committee. These new planets look docile, but Miller knows from experience how these aliens can be devious. And deadly.
He flies up the stairs, pleased that the exercise barely raises his heart rate. The robotic bones in his leg may come with fancy perks, but Miller never relies on the mechanics. It’s enough that titanium allows him to fly. His will alone can do the rest.
The bass gets louder with each flight up and the music hits him like a plasma blast when he opens the emergency door his rank gives him scanned access to.
His eyes rove the crowd. The only cadet who notices him is Bullseye. Good kid, if a bit soft. Surprised his dad allowed him into the cross-species program. Then again, if there was one thing Miller understood, it was competing agendas.
With a sharp smile, he removes a small device from his pocket and presses the button.
The entire roof plunges offline as the electrical currents are disrupted. Groans are quickly replaced with gasps and bodies arrange themselves into sloppy attention.
“Looks like it’s your lucky night cadets,” he shouts. “Double PT at 0500. I suggest you get your beauty sleep.” He pauses, ensuring the green radiant lines of the security drone captures all their names and ranks. “Dismissed.”
