Prologue
The girl stood on a high podium in the centre of the metal amphitheatre, trying to keep her head down, to avoid the gazes of the audience. Fifty thousand people were sat in the audience, all excited and hopeful for what was about to happen. In the corner of her eye, a blue planet moved into view through the windows of the room, gently rolling through the space outside the ark, reflecting the sunlight off its great oceans, and shining into the amphitheatre. The rays of light danced around the walls as the ship slowly rotated, as if celebrating the occasion.
“We are gathered here today,” came the voice of her father from behind, dressed in full ceremonial attire, “to witness the beginning of a new era for our people; a new home for our families; a new planet for our species. In but a brief moment, my daughter will press this button,” - he gestured to a pulsating, green button on the front of the podium - “releasing the first seeds onto the planet below. Before the year is up, I promise that humanity will have a new home; a new Earth, free of conflict and disaster and famine; a safe haven for us to live in peace. May we not make the same mistakes our ancestors did. Our journey has lasted over five hundred years… generations and generations were born, lived and died on this vessel, trapped in this metal shell in the endless void for centuries.”
Captain John Melbourne put his hand on his daughter’s shoulder and gently pushed her forward, towards the button. For the first time, she lifted her head, brushed her wavy dark hair out of the way, and saw with her blue eyes the entirety of the population of the ark Niamh, anticipating the moment, the moment she would press the button, the moment the new life of what was left of the human race would begin.
“Go on,” whispered Captain John Melbourne.
“But today, that ends!” The girl spoke for the first time; her high, powerful yet gentle voice echoing around the amphitheatre through massive speakers, sending her words to every pair of ears in the room. “Today, I, Elesa Melbourne, daughter of the captain of the Niamh, on this, the 29th of August, 4480, begin the next chapter in our human story!” And she raised her hands above her head, paused for a moment to build the anticipation of the crowd, and with a shout of “To a new Earth!” brought her hands down to meet the button, and gave it a push.
Six miles down, thirteen thousand pods containing plant seeds, and fungal spores, and all manner of microorganisms, detached from the Niamh and began their journey down to the surface.
Two years later
Elesa Melbourne stared at the cold, clinical ceiling. She’d become familiar with every nook and cranny, every tiny crack in the plaster and every patch of discoloured paint within eight feet of her bed -- it had been three weeks since she last had the strength to leave it. All she could do now was watch the planet slowly revolve beneath her, its once-dark surface now beginning to glitter with the lights of the developing cities below.
She had fallen sick, deathly sick, less than a month before it was her and her family’s turn to descend to the surface of the planet. As her father was Captain, it was his job to watch over the remaining segments of the Niamh until the end. And, truth be told, there wasn’t all that much point. The segments left just contained old machinery that no-one knew how to use, some kind of weather technology that wasn’t considered essential to send down.
But truly the worst part was that the ship’s medical supplies had all been sent down pretty soon. Of course, some essentials were left behind, but no-one could have foreseen that the captain’s daughter would fall so ill. Every day she grew weaker; whilst her parents insisted everything would be alright, she’d seen the dark looks the doctors had given her parents, and the fear and sadness in their eyes.
In short, Elesa Melbourne was pretty certain that she was about to die.
It was ironic, really. The girl who started life on the planet down below would die before she had a chance to land on the planet herself. What did it matter, though; the planet had no name yet, and whilst there had been some suggestions, none were particularly good and none had any real support from the people, who would of course be the ones to decide in the end.
The planet finished its journey past the window of the ship, plunging her bed into shadow as the reflection of the sun disappeared. Left behind were the twinkling dots of the stars in the sky, and the yellow and white spheres of the planet’s two moons. One was desert, but quite cool - Elesa would have liked to have visited one day. The other was small, and irregular, like some kind of cosmic potato, drifting around the planet below in no real hurry.
Elesa sighed. She was simply too weak to visit the other moons, let alone go down to the planet itself. She had been born on this spaceship twelve years before, and now she would die on it. She wasn’t the first, by any stretch of the imagination. This ship had been traveling for half a millennium. Cultures and languages and people had evolved inside it as it voyaged. But it seemed certain like she’d be the last to die here. She rolled over under the sheets and tried to go back to sleep.
The next few hours were a blur; in moments of consciousness Elesa could hear what seemed like arguments, and a lot of people coming in and out of the hospital wing, and more clearly her father saying the words ‘it’s the only way’, before she drifted back into sleep. The days seemed to just blend together after so long here. Elesa was never sure of the day of the week, the time of the day, what meal was next, what had happened yesterday… it had all become a fuzzy incoherent mess in her mind.
Until one Tuesday… or was it a Monday? Elesa woke up to her family standing over her, looking ashen. Her father spoke softly, but Elesa couldn’t quite tell what was being said. It wasn’t that she couldn’t hear, it was just that the words went into her ear and came out the other. She couldn’t attach meaning to what he was saying, and she couldn’t tell if it was because she was so tired, or because she was so ill. Eventually she caught the word ‘cryostasis’ and began to understand what was about to happen.
“This is the only way, Elesa,” Captain Melbourne said. “I’ve spoken to the hospital teams on the ground. We can’t get you down, and even if we could, they don’t have the technology to cure you.” His voice cracked multiple times, as though he was going to cry. “So here’s- here’s the plan. We’re going to put you in stasis - suspended animation. You’ll be frozen in time until a cure is found. We’re gonna put the stasis pod in the machinery segment; we’re then gonna jettison it and have it land far away and bury itself underground, so that you won’t be found until you can be cured. You’ll be able to land safely if you’re in stasis, I promise… but Elesa, this means that- this means that you’ll never see us again!”
Six hours later, Elesa was carried into the stasis pod, and the lid was closed by her mother, visibly sobbing.
“Elesa, darling,” she cried, “remember, always, I love you. We love you.” She pressed more buttons, that Elesa couldn’t see, along the top of the pod. “We will always love you, Elesa.” Pausing for a moment, for there was only one button left to press, she spoke with awful finality. “Good luck, my baby.” And she pressed the final button on the stasis pod lid. Immediately, everything went black.
Eighteen hours later
“CAPTAIN!” yelled the man operating the computer on the bridge. “WE’VE GOT A PROBLEM HERE!”
John Melbourne darted towards the console. “What? What the hell is wrong?” he yelled, panicked.
“It’s the other ark segment -- the machinery segment! We’re losing the signal!” He gestured to a flashing light on the screen.
“Shit!” The captain swore; out of character for such a gentle man. He stared at the screen once more, hoping that the light would stop flashing and stay on, glowing, showing that everything was alright. After a few seconds… the light went dark.
Panic set in. “No, no, no, no!” The light refused to come back on. “Work, you bastard thing! There’s a light right there! Show me!” he yelled at the computer, but in vain. The light remained off.
“I’m going to get her.” he said. “I’ll take the escape shuttle, and I’ll fly it over there, and I’ll get here. And I’ll set this ship to land on autopilot. Yes, that’s what I’ll do!”
And so John Melbourne set off after his daughter in the escape shuttle. He orbited the planet for days, trying to find where she might have landed.
But the little light representing his shuttle, after six days of orbiting, also blinked out.
Two thousand years later
A faint hacking cough could be heard from the changing room near the airlock on level D. This was nothing unusual; the dust from the asteroid moon Dali got everywhere. If you spent five minutes here, you’d be shaking bits of rock and sand out of your hair for weeks. The damn stuff would stick to you, like you were covered in glue, and absolutely refused to be shaken off. It got into the seams of your clothes; every time you washed them, the washing machine would have small dunes of dust at the bottom of the cylinder. It got into your lungs - three months here was enough to give anyone a chronic lung condition.
And three months, was, not entirely uncoincidentally, the amount of time you were allowed to work on this stupid rock. For health reasons, of course; the dust wasn’t the only problem - this far away from the planet’s protective magnetic field, you were at risk of whatever barrage of particles the sun saw it fit to hurl at you that day.
Mack coughed again from behind his helmet. Two months, and twenty eight days ago, he arrived. And in two days time, he’d be leaving. ‘Good money’, they’d said at the recruiting office. ‘We’ll pay you an above average salary for someone who worked a whole year on a planet-based job. And you’ll earn it in three months! What an amazing job, if you come and work for Westford Intermining!’, they’d said. It was true, to be fair. Mack made a good three times his previous salary, working in a cycling shop. The catch was that, unlike at your cycling shop job, you’d be spending all your paycheck on your medical bills. Pneumonia, emphysema, fibrosis… your lungs would be shredded by the time you’d finished here. Your legs would be weak due to the constant microgravity, and you’d be constantly sick for weeks after returning home as your body recovered from the radiation it had been subjected to.
But it wasn’t all bad. Every morning, Mack got to see his home planet rise from behind the crests of the hills. The beautiful blue orb of Arzin rose in the sky over a period of about 18 hours, then slowly sank again on the other side. Pity this rock wasn’t so beautiful. The whole place was just a giant quarry now, exploited by every single corporation with enough money to get a drill in orbit.
Mack coughed once more, and got into the air lock. Pressing a keypad with his right arm, he began the decompression sequence.
But the health problems were nothing compared to the danger that everyday work was here. Falling rocks were common, crushing men and women alike indiscriminately. And if you fell down one of the mine shafts, there wasn’t all that much that could be done. You’d fall down and down and down until you met something solid. Or until something solid met you. And then there were the other mining teams. The disputes about territory on the asteroid rarely lasted too long; most of the conflict was resolved through a drink and a game of cards.
Except the Kyrinians. The Kyrinians were the worst. Every single time someone accidentally crossed into their designated section of the asteroid, they’d send out troops of soldiers armed with guns. With guns! Granted, they hadn’t actually shot anyone yet, because that would probably end in a stray bullet breaching an airlock somewhere and causing untold damage. But the fear was there. The fear you’d accidentally step over some invisible line, the positions of which seemed to change every day, and a squadron of soldiers would descend on you.
But recently, the conflicts had been getting worse. The miners from both sides had been moving further and further into unambiguously someone else’s territory. It seemed inevitable that some larger conflict would break out.
“Two more days, two more days,” Mack grumbled. The thing was, despite the tension, you wouldn’t expect it to be you who’d be there when the whole operation went up in flames. After all, you were only there for three months! That’s no time at all, really, in the grand scheme of things.
Mack took his position with his drill, the same spot he’d been working on yesterday. He was vaguely aware that this wasn’t strictly Westford-controlled ground, but thought nothing of it; he’d been working here for about a week now, and no-one had told him he couldn’t.
After a few hours, he became vaguely aware of someone standing over him. He looked up and his eyes met those of a Kyrinian soldier, staring down at him.
“I hope for your sake you aren’t aware that this is Kyrinian territory.” The soldier spoke in the Kyrinian language, and awfully fast.
Mack spluttered out, in his best attempt at Kyrinian, which he had learned at school some years prior, “No, this Westford land!” The soldier snarled, and grabbed Mack by the shoulders, barking into his radio so quickly Mack couldn’t understand a word.
“This… this is Kyrinian country! Our minerals, our money! You don’t belong here, Westford!” Mack wasn’t in a particularly good position to argue anymore, having been lifted from the ground by a much larger man who also had a gun holstered in his belt.
It was at this point that three other soldiers showed up behind the first one; and also that a pair of friendly miners made themselves known to Mack from behind him. This encouraged him somewhat, and he began to struggle, to break free, to be able to run back to safety, and away from the soldiers.
The soldier dropped him, and he scampered back to his colleagues. One of them picked up a small stone from the floor.
“Get out of here, you pricks! We’re civilians!” He threw the rock at the soldiers, which sailed past them in the microgravity.
This did not sit well with the first soldier. Already angered by the escape of his capture, the rock was just a humiliation. He drew his gun from his belt. Immediately the other Kyrinians jumped onto him, trying to wrestle the gun from him.
BANG!
The miner who had thrown the rock dropped to the floor like a stone. Mack and the other miner began yelling into their radios.
“COMMAND, WE HAVE A CODE SIXTY-FIVE! REPEAT: CODE SIXTY-FIVE! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! REQUESTING IMMEDIATE BACKUP IN SECTOR SIXTEEN F!”
BANG!
The other miner collapsed in front of him. The Kyrinian soldier had wrestled off his squadmates, and was now pointing the gun directly at Mack. “COMMAND THIS IS AN EMERGENCY! CODE SIXTY FIVE!”
BANG!
The last thing Mack was aware of was a vague stabbing pain in his chest, before the rocks of Dali faded from view, and the entire world turned to black.
~ Chapter 1 ~
Two million miles below, a dark-haired girl pulled out a chair from under the desk in column C, row 28, and sat down, disguising her yawn behind the noise of shuffling paper and pens from all over the hall. The morning sunlight streamed through the windows, giving the whole room an orange glow, and causing all the dust kicked up from the movement of the chairs and desk to sparkle like the stars in the night sky as it slowly floated through the sunbeam, which gently shone on the dark-haired girl’s back, warming her as she settled into her chair.
But after a few minutes, the rays of light began to become more oppressive than relaxing, less like a gentle touch of warmth, and more like the piercing stare of a strict teacher - the very same strict teacher, a certain Mariana Rogers who was slowly making her way down each individual row and column handing out booklets of paper to each student in the hall.
With a slap the exam paper was almost thrown onto the girl’s desk. History, unit three. Nineteenth of May, 6008. Time allowed: 2 hours. Do not attempt to communicate with other candidates during the exam - you may be disqualified. Glancing up for a brief moment, she heard Mrs. Rogers, who had returned to the front of the hall, begin to read out the instructions on the front of the paper. Unsure of the point, her mind whirled light years away before she’d even reached the end of the first sentence ‘Answer every question.’
Really, she thought, it was a kind of punishment. Teach the kids for three years, get them ready for the most important exams of their life, that would make or break their future. When they’ve spent the last two months with no social life, poring over books and notes from topics they can’t even remember studying, hoping to at least scrape the grades they need to get into university or whatever other career path they may have, and they’re all finally ready to face this last challenge of high school, kill their concentration by telling them something that they’ve not only heard a thousand times before at the start of every exam, but something that’s right there on the paper in front of them, and that everyone in the room already read ten minutes ago.
Idly making a last check of her pockets to check that she had no forbidden materials on her, notes, phones, rail tickets which might for some unknown reason have the entire markscheme written on them, her mind flung itself in a totally different direction to whatever nonsense Mrs. Rogers was on about now; for this evening would be a very special and most important evening indeed, one which she’d been looking forward to for quite some time indeed.
“You may now begin the test,” barked Mrs. Rogers. The girl’s brain suddenly snapped back into gear; she reached for a pen, and reached for a sheet of answer paper.
Please print
Surname: MARTIN
First name: NAOMI
School: SOUTH ISIDIS GALLOWAY HIGH SCHOOL
Stifling another yawn, Naomi Martin opened the first page of the questions booklet, and began to read. Really, most of the questions on these papers were pretty easy. They were a little bit boring, sure, but Naomi had never been one for history. That said, a lot of the course tied into themes of spirituality and religion, which she did actually find interesting. Most folks in Isidis were spiritual if not religious, herself included; she felt it wise to learn more about what people believed about the world and to understand those beliefs.
Even then, some of these questions could elicit boredom from even the hardiest of old history teachers. Describe the cultural significance of a shrine? Not just any old shrine, but the single most important shrine in the country, if not on the whole planet? Even children know this story, a fairy tale told at nurseries by care workers looking to quieten the kids down for just five minutes more. The story was that a long long time ago, the first colonists from a planet called Earth left the Solar System and began to search for a new home. Eventually they came to this planet, and began to land their ships. Whilst waiting to land, the young child of the captain, Elesa, fell gravely ill. The captain sacrificed his life to make sure she landed safely on the planet, but their ships disappeared, and were never found.
That much was fact, but the story then goes on to say that after she died, because she had released life onto the planet, her spirit became one with all new life, and eventually, through centuries of a massive game of Chinese Whispers, the spirit of the planet itself. It was after her that the planet was named Elesa by the first colonists, though this had mutated over time; now, the planet was referred to as Arzin. Her mother, on landing on the surface, built a shrine to honour her after her death, and this became known as Elesa’s Temple.
Naomi’s pen darted across the paper writing down just about everything she knew about this story. It was her favourite story as a child, and she had taken all of it as fact. As she got older she did realise to some extent that the story wasn’t quite as true as her mother had led her to believe, but it was only recently that she stopped wishing to Elesa’s spirit for divine help whenever she felt alone, or down, or troubled.
Of course, there were other reasons why she liked the story, in particular the shrine, very much. About a year and a half ago, her school had taken her class out on a trip to the shrine as an introduction to the course. It was a gorgeous September morning: the sun beating down on your back warming you gently, and a soft breeze keeping you cool, the smell of the sea on the air and the golden leaves of the trees beginning to drift slowly towards the floor with every light push the wind gave. Listening to her teacher talk, and beginning to zone out as all teenagers do when their teacher talks, a glint of sunlight in the corner of her eye caught her attention. Glancing to the right, she glimpsed the gaze of a girl with waves of blonde hair right at her, into her eyes. But just as soon as she’d registered what she’d seen, the girl’s glance was gone, replaced by the back of an enormous straw sunhat.
Naomi turned the page of the booklet. “Great”, she thought. “‘Describe the political consequences of the secession of B’walëpë.’ Oh, wonderful. Politics. Couldn’t have thought of anything more fun. Perfect.”
It was about three weeks later when Naomi was walking to the station to catch the train out of town and back home. There, on the other side of the street, was a certain enormous straw sunhat, and a certain distinctive blonde sweep of hair across her face, and the shiniest, bluest eyes staring right at her. Was she…? No, thought Naomi, that’s nuts. No-one that good looking would ever even glance your way.
“Go on, what’s the good news?” asked the familiar voice of Naomi’s best friend, Anya, sitting down next to her on the train shortly after. Naomi turned to face the taller girl, who was looking at her expectantly.
“Oh, it’s the best news ever! Someone looked at me!” exclaimed Naomi jubilantly. “I was walking to the station, right, and someone actually looked at me!”
Anya was a little bit underwhelmed. “Someone… looked at you?” she asked dryly. Naomi had always been one to blow minor happenings way out of proportion, ever since the two of them were kids, when she’d once memorably decided, at the age of six, that getting full marks on a two-times-tables test was worthy of a school celebration, and had snuck back into her school during break, into her headteacher’s office, stolen the mic for the PA system, hidden in a closet, waited for twenty minutes then announced that a party would be taking place in her classroom and everyone was invited. The headteacher sat immediately outside of the closet opened the doors upon hearing the closet begin to advertise cake and balloons for all the third-years, only to find Naomi sat there talking into the microphone. Unfortunately for the third-years, no cake or balloons were available, and Naomi had the misfortune of being punished by having to spend all lunchtime in a classroom doing maths exercises. Since then, her over-reactions became a little less extreme as she grew older and became a quieter, more introverted person, but it wasn’t unusual for her to flip out over mundane events.
“Hey, don’t look at me like that! She was gorgeous!” Naomi protested. In response to Anya’s eyebrows threatening to become invisible behind her fringe, she began to elaborate. “Alright, she didn’t just look at me, she looked at me! Like she was really seeing me as me, not just as another nameless faceless person walking past! She was walking in the other direction on the other side of the street, towards downtown, and she was wearing this absolutely enormous sunhat that - “
“Hold up a second,” interjected Anya, “a giant sunhat? I think I know the girl you’re talking about. Long, straight blonde hair, blue eyes, quite tall ring a bell?”
“You know her?” Naomi’s mind suddenly began to spin with possibilities. She might actually get to meet this girl!
“Yeah, she’s called Lily. She’s in my maths class. I mean, we’re not really friends, but we do occasionally chat. I don’t know much about her though other than she wears that stupid hat all the time.” Naomi’s eyes seemed to Anya as though they were almost sparkling. “Jeez, she looked at you for a few seconds longer than normal, for crying out loud. Don’t you think you’re overthinking this a bit?”
“My brain says yes but my heart says no,” she stated firmly. Ever since the start of high school she’d been the quiet one who no-one ever noticed. The fact that someone actually paid more attention than just a passing glance at her was, to her, almost incredible.
Anya felt it best to humour her. “Well, if it means that damn much to you, a bunch of us are going into town on Friday night. How about I invite her and you come along too?”
Before she could say anything else a pair of arms grabbed her and hugged her tightly. “Oh my God, yes please!” shouted Naomi eagerly. “Where should I be and when?”
That Friday evening, Naomi found herself with Anya, a few girls from Anya’s school, a girl from her school that she knew of but had never spoken to, and Lily with the sunhat. Despite the sun now being lower over the horizon than the evening clouds over the ocean, Lily was still wearing the sunhat.
Naomi was a little bit overwhelmed by all these new people; she often found it quite intimidating to speak to and make friends with new people - as a result, she didn’t quite talk to Lily as much as she’d have liked. But from what little conversation they did have, Naomi thought they’d gotten on really well. By the end of the evening, much to Naomi’s delight, she’d shared contact details with Lily. A few days later she got a message from the blonde-haired girl asking if she wanted to hang out, and not long after, Naomi found herself in town with Lily trying on summer clothes in every shop on the high street.
Naomi and Lily rapidly became best friends; they would talk until the early hours of the morning about everything and anything, sharing memories and stories and dreams and hopes. Eventually it became almost rare to see them apart outside of school. Naomi loved being with Lily; she was hilarious, and always had a good story to tell; she was considerate, and always went out of her way to help those in need; and she was a good, understanding listener, who always wanted to listen to Naomi’s problems and help her overcome the more difficult times in life. And in the same way, Naomi would always be there for Lily when she needed it too; at her father’s funeral, Naomi was the one with her arm around her shoulder comforting her.
A year later, on New Year’s Eve, Naomi and Lily visited the lakeside close to Concord Valley. It was really unusually cold for the time of year, and the two of them had been forced to don coats and scarves for the first time in many years. Even Lily’s trademark sunhat had been switched for a wooly hat. As was the tradition on New Year’s Eve, at ten in the evening a boat would sail out into the middle of the lake and launch fireworks to celebrate the festival.
It was just before the start of the show that snow began to fall on Isidis County for the first time in twenty years; and when the fireworks started the glowing light from their fanciful displays in the sky, the shimmer of their reflection on the lake, the fairy lights dancing around the beach like a chain of fairies holding hands, all shining through the gentle snowfall onto the crowd of people gathered on the beach in celebration, Naomi couldn’t stop staring at Lily. In this sparkling world of colour and light she looked even more beautiful than she usually did, which was already absolutely gorgeous, the snow landing gently on her nose and hair, and the light dancing across her face like waves slowly rolling up a beach. She found herself unable to look away from her, even to watch the spectacle of the fireworks. It was at this moment when a wave of wonderful emotions hit her and she suddenly came to the momentous realization that she was in love with Lily.
Naomi’s almost hypnotised state came to a sudden halt when Lily turned to her. “You’ve got snow all over yourself!” she giggled. She suddenly noticed that she’d been staring at the older girl for what seemed like forever, but it didn’t seem like she’d noticed, thank God. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Naomi nodded, then felt a hand grab her own and hold it tightly. “You know, I’m really glad we could see this together,” smiled Lily.
“Yeah, me too.” Naomi didn’t say any more. Her emotions had just gone into overdrive and she feared she’d say something she might regret later - after all, they were only friends, no matter what she’d just realised about her feelings. Not long afterwards, the clocks all chimed twelve, marking both the end of their first full year as friends, and the beginning of a year which Naomi hoped would hold something more.
Over the next few days, Anya began to notice changes in Naomi’s demeanor. While she was never outgoing by any sane measure whatsoever, she was awfully shy, even compared to her normal introversion. Having her suspicions, she asked Naomi what was up.
“You know you can talk to me, don’t you?” she enquired. “Whatever’s on your mind, I’m here?”
Naomi sighed, avoiding looking directly at her. “I know, it’s nothing - I’m fine, really!” Anya couldn’t help her. After all, what would she know? The last time she’d liked anyone was when she was 12. Nowhere even remotely the same thing as liking someone at 17. But on the other hand, it might be good to have someone to talk to, just to let the feelings out.
“Is this about Lily?” Whoa, someone’s a mind-reader. Naomi looked up at Anya, meeting her gaze for the first time since she asked what was wrong. “It is, isn’t it! What’s happened? Have you fallen out?” Naomi shook her head. “She’s moving away?” Again, more head shaking. “She’s sick?” Third time, unlucky. “What on Earth is the matter?”
Naomi hesitated for a moment, pondering how best to say what it was she wanted to say. Deflated, she settled with the simplest. “I think… I think I love her.”
Breathing a sigh of relief, Anya laughed. “Well, of course you do! You’re her best friend!” Naomi wasn’t sure what to say. That wasn’t quite what she meant at all. And what’s more it felt like she was being patronized.
“No, you don’t… you don’t understand” she said, still quietly. “I mean, I love her.” Anya looked at her with a blank smile. Naomi looked back frustratedly. “You know. Like, love her.” Somehow this felt like it had been a bad idea. Anya wasn’t taking her seriously at all. Why she ever expected any understanding was beyond her.
“Oh, huh,” said Anya, smile fading rather quickly. A moment’s silence. Naomi’s heart was beating quickly, and she felt almost on the verge of tears. Then, just as quickly, a grin rushed back onto her face. “Well, then! Go out there, and get the girl!” Noticing Naomi’s tension, she quickly added, “Christ, Naomi! You look like you’ve seen a ghost! It’s not that big of a deal, jeez.”
Of course, she was right. It wasn’t that big of a deal. Naomi’s white face slowly changed into a normal colour, then to a deep red in embarrassment.
“You don’t need to get embarrassed, either! She’s gorgeous, and you guys are, well, like that!” She held up her two crossed fingers for emphasis. “It’s perfectly normal for you to feel this way about her. You know, I’d be quite surprised if she didn’t feel the same way about you too, the way she goes on about you.” Naomi looked up at Anya quizzically. “And what’s more, you guys would be so damn cute together!” That didn’t do much to help her embarrassment.
Over the next few weeks, as the snow melted, and winter turned to spring, Naomi was on the verge of confessing her feelings to Lily almost every single time they saw each other. Anya began to push her to ask her out somewhere, in case Lily fell for someone else. But every single time, she was too shy, and her nerves got the better of her. What if she said no? Then it would be really awkward and it might ruin their friendship in the worst case. And what if she said yes? What then? Naomi didn’t know - she’d never been in a relationship with anyone before. Anya hadn’t been in one that counted, and it would be really embarrassing to ask Lily.
Muggy February came and muggy February went, carrying with it the usual morning fogs, the regular afternoon deluges and air so thick with moisture you could drink it, and the warm easterly wind from the inland mountains. In the first week of March, the blossoms bloomed. The high street in Isidis was lined with cherry trees on both sides of the road, marking the path with beautiful clouds of pink and white, which rained down petals on anyone or anything below. Then, in the second week of April, in place of the river of pink petals, the streets of Isidis turned green with the leaves of the broad trees which too lined every street, waiting for their turn to show their stuff in the eternal procession of seasons, giving the city a wonderful forest green aura, speckled with the odd patch of red, or of yellow, or the occasional shade of blue.
May arrived, and with it the blistering summer. The sun beat down on Isidis for fourteen hours every day, scorching all those who dared to venture outside. It wasn’t even possible to use the sea to cool off - everyone else had the same idea as you and the competition for sunbeds on the beach, or even just an empty space for your towel, was practically brutal. But the sun sparkled off the side of the glass spires of Isidis’ skyscrapers, casting brilliant crystalline reflections for miles around. Naomi often sat on the balcony at her home and watched the sunset, which would send sunbeams of every colour from sky blue to deep gold dancing across the meadows.
But as the seasons came and went, Naomi was still stationary. She’d not managed to even come remotely close to confessing her feelings to Lily. Every time the moment seemed right, and she was on the verge of letting her heart out, her mind became suddenly full of a horrible tempest of worries and ‘what if?’s and any sort of confidence she had vanished into the wind.
Even Anya had given up at this point - and she was never one to give up easily. But after five months of trying to convince Naomi to just go for it she was at the end of her will to help. Naomi herself, who once had great faith that Lily liked her back, felt that those days were long gone. The only thing which gave her even any hope was that Lily was still single. But for how much longer?
Tonight, Naomi had decided, was the night. She and Lily were going out to see a film. She had asked Anya to come too, but she had some excuse about needing to feed a neighbour’s dog or something. Naomi wasn’t entirely sure she believed her. But tonight was the night. Naomi was going to confess to Lily. And just the thought of it made her want to bury her head under her pillows and never come out, she was so embarrassed.
“Students studying for the Astrohistory exam, you have one hour left.” Naomi’s reverie suddenly burst, and realising with a sinking feeling in her chest that she still had a good three pages of questions to finish, shook her head, wiping away any thought of tonight, and frantically turned her full attention to the paper in front of her, beginning to write.
“Go on then, how was it?” asked Anya with her usual excited smile on her face as soon as Naomi came out of the exam hall.
“Have you really been waiting out here all this time?” she teased. Anya was still wearing her painter’s apron - she’d clearly been working on a new masterpiece and obviously hadn’t been here for a long time. She even had little splashes of blue and yellow paint on her hands.
“Man, I got here like five minutes ago, so, uh, no, not really,” she laughed. “I was working on a painting of this boat I saw on the lake the other day, but I noticed your exam was almost over and needed a break so I came up here to greet you when you left the exam hall! But forget about me; how was the exam?” Anya pressed the question a little harder this time.
“It was fine, y’know? Pretty standard astrohistory exam, not too difficult... a lot of stuff about the Elesa myths, though, but I knew it all so it wasn’t a big deal.” It was always good to reassure Anya. She had a tendency to worry too much about school and exams.
“Oh good,” she glowed. “Listen, wanna go to the meadows this afternoon? It is a really nice day after all, and you deserve some rest. I may have made a picnic with jam sandwiches and cake…” she smiled coyly. Gosh, you’re far too nice, thought Naomi.
Seeing Naomi’s embarrassed blush, she teasingly hit her on the arm and laughed. “Oh, come on, you’ve just finished your final exams! You can finally stop studying every night and every day! We gotta make use of this summertime before you go to university,” she said pointedly. And she was right, of course. At the end of the summer, Naomi would move a thousand miles away to the capital city. The next seven weeks would be full of tension - if she hadn’t made the grade in her exams, she’d be stuck with nowhere to go or study. If she passed them, then she’d be catching the first plane to Portland to start studying. And the real challenge was what she should study. It took her weeks to even begin to think about what she wanted to do with the next few years of her life. Eventually she decided on geography - her father was a manager for some mining corporation, and her mother worked as an engineer, and she definitely didn’t want to do either of those jobs - but there was a constant doubt in her mind as to whether this was truly the path for her.
“Thanks,” she responded quietly, then more excitedly, “come on then, let’s go!”, and she grabbed her bag with her left hand, and Anya’s hand with her right, and they triumphantly ran into the mid-day sun.
~ Chapter 2 ~
Naomi lowered her bike to the floor, and sat down on the grass at the top of the hill known as Parley Fell, at the very eastern edge of the area called Isidis Meadows, a wild area of hills in a vague horseshoe shape to the south of Isidis City, mostly untouched by civilization, save the occasional wind turbine taking advantage of the height, and the odd village such as Concord Valley, lining the mountain streams.
She and Anya had come to their ‘secret’ place - a lone tree atop the hill which had suitable sunshine and shade for all times of the day. In fact, this tree could be seen for miles and miles around - when Naomi, as a child, saw it returning from a long trip on the motorway, it was a true sign that she was almost home.
She slowly leaned back into the trunk of the tree, gazing over the edge of the bluff at the world down below. The sun, hovering high in the sky, shone into her eyes, but she didn’t mind. A gentle wind from the south rustled the leaves of the trees and softly warmed her back. She let out a deep sigh, and in her mind symbolically let go of all of the stress of the exams, casting it all off to the wind to be blown away and never seen again. The insects chirped. The birds sang. Naomi closed her eyes and began to sing, at first under her breath:
Now I am here, under the sky and the sun
I tell you not to worry; hard work is done.
Let your voice sound out, wherever you may be
Now I soar on the wind, and invite you with me.
After a while, Anya turned to listen. Naomi was always a good singer; her soft tones complimented the beautiful scene perfectly. In her mind she began to envision the whole world turning into a masterful painting, a work of art that she would almost certainly have to start that very evening! Moments of inspiration were rare, but when they came they were the best feeling in the world. Almost involuntarily, she found herself joining in Naomi’s song.
Through the winter, spring, the summer and fall
As long as you’re with me I can cope with it all.
Let your voice sound out, and you will surely see
That you’ll soar on the wind, up high here with me.
The sun will come up and the sun will go down
Over ev’ry last village and every last town.
And my light will shine over every last sea
For I am that golden sun and you’ll rise with me.
The two girls fell into a relaxed, tranquil silence. It felt like hours and hours, and Naomi was almost falling asleep before a brief rustle to her right and the sudden smell of jam sandwiches made with the freshest strawberries entered her nose.
“Sandwich?” Anya asked. Naomi slowly opened her eyes, turning towards the source of the smell.
“Yes, please!” she responded gingerly, before taking an enormous bite out of one sandwich. What sweet, delicious strawberries! What fresh, tasty bread! “Now this is what I call a jam sandwich. Did you make them yourself?”
Anya looked very pleased with herself. “Yeah, made it with strawberries from the garden and baked the bread earlier today. Made them for you! As a congratulations present for finishing your exams,” she added, seeing Naomi’s indignation that someone would go out of their way to make something for her.
“Aw no, you shouldn’t have!” she said with her mouth half full of sandwich. Anya sighed internally. Of course Naomi, of all people, would try and argue her way out of jam sandwiches she’d already half eaten. She swallowed her mouthful of sandwich, then half-jokingly added, “I don’t deserve this kind of treatment!”
Anya sighed exasperatedly, audibly this time. “Don’t be ridiculous - of course you do! You’ve had a tough time studying and worrying recently and it’s time to celebrate that it’s over, right? It’s the least I could do for you. Please, don’t try and argue your way out of a damn jam sandwich!” she smiled.
A bird nearby tweeted at Anya. It had noticed the smell of the jam sandwiches wafting from the picnic basket; she began to throw it crumbs and tiny pieces of crust that she didn’t want. Soon a crowd of small birds had gathered around them, squabbling over miniscule pieces of bread.
“You know, this gives me an idea.” Anya thought out loud. “How about a race from here to home, on our bikes?”
Naomi didn’t even bother to question how on earth pigeons were even remotely related to cycling down hills at stupidly fast speeds. Without even responding to Anya, she stood up, walked over to her bike, picked it up off the floor, and sat on it. She flashed a brief smirk at Anya before she realised what was going on. And with a push of her foot, she was off, streaking down the hillside.
“Hey, wait!” shouted a rapidly quieting voice from behind her. But the adrenaline rush had hit her and even if she could have heard it she would have paid no attention. The glorious sunshine beat down on her head as she quickly accelerated, the still, warm air now blasting through her hair like the gusts of a storm. Truly it was now just her and the wind, the world rushing past before she even knew what had come past her, and the trees and bushes and all manner of birds and whatever else might lie by the side of the path merged into one green blur as she soared past.
Before too long, she heard an ecstatic laugh getting slowly closer from behind. Turning her head back for as long as she dared, Naomi saw Anya getting closer from down the path. She was always a better cyclist than Naomi and it was only a short time until they were neck and neck on the mountain trail. Naomi had counted on her slightly unfair head start to have something of a chance against her, but no luck. Her hair trailed behind her in the wind, reaching almost as far back as it would go because of the wind on her face.
The two girls darted in between each other like a pair of dolphins swimming together in the ocean. It felt like they were the only things that existed in the world, just them and the trail blazing past beneath them. Eventually the trail turned to a track as they passed a farm, and the track to a road not long after. The roads were always quiet in the country, and they had them all to themselves, tearing down the slopes towards Concord Valley village.
Upon reaching the outskirts of the village, they were met with their first real obstacle - a car driving on the road. But the two had just rode the best part of a vertical mile downhill, and they tore past the car no problem. Soon, the brown houses of Concord Valley began to appear in the corners of their eyes. This was their cue to begin to slow down as they entered the village.
Concord Valley was a small village, quite a distance from the city -- there were only a few hundred people who lived there, and everyone knew each other. Every house was built with a pale wood finish, made from the trees around, and completed with a gently sloped green roof to match the forests and fields. Every house had a small wind turbine poking out of their roofs, a graceful hand stretching up into the air to stroke the wind as it blew by, its blades slowly turning in the breeze.
It was a peaceful place, and it always had been; the kind of out-of-the-way town where not a lot actually happened ever. Most people who lived there were retired, or on the verge of retiring, and either had no kids, or their kids were so old they’d moved out long ago. Really, Naomi was lucky to have Anya as a friend; they were the only two teenagers in the village. Without each other, they’d both have been very lonely when they weren’t at school. It was so far from the city that it took a good hour to get there on the countryside train, which didn’t even run at the weekend.
Now barely cycling faster than running pace, Naomi and Anya turned the corner of the street leading to Naomi’s house, and stopped their bikes outside, laying them gently down onto the pavement. Naomi’s house stood with the top of a rather steep slope of the hill only a few yards from the side of the road, letting you see all the way out to Isidis City, twenty-five miles away, and all of the countryside between here and there. It was now late afternoon, and the sun began to reflect off the glass panes of the towering skyscrapers of the city, sending sunbeams directly into the eyes of Naomi and Anya as they began their daily parade across the fells. Shielding her faces from the glare, Naomi opened the front door.
Naomi was vaguely aware for a fraction of a second of a large, fluffy something bounding down the hallway towards her, footsteps booming on the floor as it ran, before it jumped up and hit her on the chest, almost knocking her over.
“Tatty!” she scolded, pointing her finger at the fluffy something in an imperative manner, “bad dog! How many times have I told you not to do that?” The dog, sensing he was in trouble, backed away slightly, looking rather pitiful. Naomi’s expression softened. “Aw… come here, you dumb dog!” She reached down and petted Tatty. He knew he was forgiven.
“Ah, Naomi!” came an older voice from down the hallway. “Anya’s here too!”
“Hi, Mr Martin!” shouted Anya. It was Naomi’s father; a grey-haired man in his early fifties. Making sure not to step on Tatty’s wagging tail, he gave his daughter a hug. “How was the exam?”
“Oh, it went pretty good, you know. Nothing too tricky came up… I think I did pretty well, honestly!” Naomi smiled. “Mum not back yet?”
“No, she’s not back until next week, remember?” Her father shook his head.
Seeing this, she added, “How was work?”
Mr Martin looked grave. “Well… there was an incident at the mine… quite a serious one, in fact…” He scratched the back of his head, trying and failing to look more pitiful. “Just look over here…” He led Naomi and Anya into the kitchen, and gestured towards the screen.
It was a news report. Breaking news. There were a lot of red and orange and yellow bars moving across the screen. A woman wearing a suit was reading the news from a small paper card in her hands.
“BREAKING NEWS: CONFLICT BREAKS OUT ON DALI MINING COLONY” read the ticker. The screen also showed shaky camera footage of what appeared to be groups of small spaceships flying in the sky over the surface of Dali. Occasionally a bright flash of light would light up the cliffs and cause a small explosion.
“Light fighters…” Anya spoke for the second time since entering the house. “My mum used to work on these things. What the hell happened?”
As if answering her question, the newsreader explained: “...reports emerged earlier this afternoon that a small skirmish had taken place between armed forces from the Federation of Kyrine and three miners from the Westford Territories.” The names and faces of the three miners appeared on the screen. Naomi’s jaw dropped. “Allegedly the Kyrinian troops fired upon the miners, who were all fatally injured.”
“Mack Cowbury?” Naomi exclaimed, looking at her father. “The bike repairman? Why was he there?” Naomi was vaguely aware of Mack Cowbury, having met him once after he had repaired her bike, when she accidentally let it fall down a cliff on the side of Parley Fell.
“He signed on with Intermining a few months back. I told him he’d never see Isidis County again… and now look.”
“...the attack was condemned by the Nation Collective and the World Government in Carrai ono Vaitzo. However, the Union of Mining States, an organization which includes the Westford Territories, has mobilised air forces and has begun an assault on Kyrinian bases on Dali.”
“The Westford Government has advised the nation that the conflict is not expected to affect the people of Arzin.”
“Oh, so we’re safe…” said Anya, relaxing slightly.
“We may be safe but trillions worth of mining equipment is lost! The whole place is a wreck now! And since everyone else has now abandoned their bases, the Kyrinians get free reign to take everyone’s share of Dali! These fighters won’t last; if they hang around for too much longer the Kyrinians will send in some heavy guns and there’s not a chance in hell they could fight off a Kyrinian destroyer.”
The three of them stood in silence for a few minutes watching the screen. Even Tatty’s tail had stopped wagging, and Naomi could have sworn he looked worried and concerned.
RING!
The phone on the kitchen counter suddenly went off, making all three of them jump. “I’ll give you twenty if this isn’t the press.” He sighed. “Or my boss.” Hesitating before picking up the phone, he added, “Listen - you can still go out tonight. It’s safe.”
Naomi reached for the remote and turned the screen off.
Two hours later, a different Naomi Martin waited for the five o'clock maglev train in the village station. She’d gotten a bit more dressed up than before, replacing the tank top she wore with Anya with a light blue shirt; and she’d decided to wear her favourite necklace. She’d even done her make-up for the first time in longer than she’d care to remember.
“Who are you trying to impress?” her mother had said. ‘Oh, if only you knew,’ Naomi had thought.
She sipped from a can of pop she’d bought from a vending machine nearby, idly watching the birds fly through the glass roof of the station. They didn’t have to worry about things like Naomi did; it wasn’t them that was finally going to confess to the girl they’d liked for absolutely ages! Naomi felt a little queasy just thinking about it… she’d never confessed to anyone before!
A whirring sound in the distance, getting closer every second, told Naomi that the train was about to arrive. She threw her now-empty can into the bin, and grabbed her handbag. She handed her ticket to the conductor, a feeble-looking man who probably didn’t have the strength to refuse someone even if they did have an invalid ticket. After he gave her the all-clear, she scanned the carriage for seats. The train was almost empty; no-one would be going into town at this time, especially not on a Wednesday.
She found a seat on the right hand side, so the sun wouldn’t shine through the window on her and make her too hot during the journey. The train started to move, turning the landscape outside into a green blur, that allowed Naomi’s eyes to unfocus, and almost make her a little drowsy…
Ding, dong! “We have now arrived at Isidis Central!”
Naomi’s eyes snapped awake. She checked her watch. Five past six! She’d slept through the whole journey! Glancing out of the window she caught a glimpse of a blonde girl sat on a bench, wearing a particularly distinctive sun hat…
Lily Makino smiled and stood up when she saw the train pull into the station. ‘Finally,’ she thought! She’d only been waiting for ten minutes, but ten minutes is a long time when you’re waiting for someone, especially if you happen to be someone as impatient as Lily was.
Naomi disembarked from the train and walked over to Lily, trying not to look too shy or embarrassed, even though right now she’d rather do an entire round of exams again than have to do what she’d promised herself she’d do this evening.
“Hey, Nammy,” Lily said with a smile, pulling the girl who’d liked her for so long into a hug. “How was the exam?”
Naomi couldn’t be annoyed at the question, even though she’d heard it from about ten people so far that day, because it was Lily asking. “Hi, Lily,” she started. “It was, okay, I guess. Not too hard, not too easy. What’ve you been up to today?”
“Ah, well, you know… stuff… I helped my mum out at the boatyard. Some dumbass managed to fill his boat with so many fish that when he beached it, it split in two!” She laughed at the memory. “So we fixed it up for him, and that took most of the day, actually. Wasn’t quite as exciting as it sounds. Anyway, shall we...?”
Naomi took this as her cue to begin walking. As they walked, Naomi was burningly aware of Lily’s hand swinging gently by her side. How she longed to be able to hold it…
“What are we going to see, anyway?” Lily’s question washed away her thought momentarily. ‘That’s right,’ remembered Naomi. ‘We’re walking to the cinema.’
“Oh- um… ‘Pencil Rose’. It’s about two poets who fall in love.” Anya had suggested it a few weeks back as a ‘date’ idea for Naomi and Lily after they got together. Whilst they weren’t yet together, Naomi hoped that Lily would take the hint.
“Ooh, a romance film! What are you trying to tell me, Nammy?” Lily joked. Naomi tried and failed to hide her deep red blush. Fortunately, Lily didn’t seem to have noticed. “I bet it’s cheesy as anything. Like that time we went to see that stupid film with the submarines, remember?” She chuckled.
Pulling herself together, Naomi agreed. “Yeah… they always are though, these romance films? Still, you can’t not love them. Psh, life would be so much easier if it were a romance film! No matter what happened, there’d always be a happy ending!”
They arrived at the cinema building, off the side of the high street in Isidis. It wasn’t very busy, surprisingly. Everywhere was quiet tonight. Naomi wondered why, and then she remembered the news broadcast she watched earlier at home. Maybe everyone was scared and leaving the big cities or something?
“Did you see the news this evening?” she asked Lily, then turned to the cashier and requested “Two for ‘Pencil Rose’, please!”
Lily replied, “Yeah, I did… apparently we’re safe though. They reckon nothing’s actually going to come of it for us folks on Arzin. And my mum says -- if worst comes to worst, we’ve got a little shack with a bunker out in the Garby Hills. Enough space for twenty people, she says! But it won’t come to that, I bet. No-one’s stupid enough to attack the Westford Territories!” She laughed airily.
Naomi trusted her. Lily had studied politics at school. If any one of her friends knew what would happen, it was her.
“Listen, you go get a pair of seats in the cinema,” she said, handing her a ticket. “I’ll go buy us some popcorn.”
Two and a half hours later, Lily and Naomi walked out of the cinema front door, chatting about the ending to the film.
“You were right, you know. It was cheesy as all hell.” Naomi stated. “But having said that, it sure was damn cute! Especially the part when she read the one in the bookshop!”
“Yes, oh my God, it was so adorable! I’m glad you brought me to see this film, I wouldn’t have gone otherwise, and I’d hate to have missed out on something this great,” Lily laughed.
“Do you wanna go and get cocktails at that new beach bar?” Naomi asked, slightly emboldened by their high spirits. She could do it. She was going to do it. She was going to confess to Lily tonight.
“Sure thing! Damn, it’s nice out tonight.” It really was; the sun had gone down, having disappeared over the western horizon whilst they were in the cinema. The stars were now visible overhead, twinkling eternally in the dark sky. The city used special lighting at night, so that the glare from the shops and apartments and offices didn’t affect how well you could see the stars.
A gentle breeze blew down the highstreet from the direction of the sea. It was refreshingly cool, in the warm air, and smelled vaguely of sea salt. It blew past them, making the forest green trees that lined the pavements rustle, like they were being shaken by some mysterious force. It lifted fallen leaves from the pavement and sent them scuttling past the girls’ feet, dancing in invisible eddies and vortices over the ground.
It blew onto Lily’s face, carefully lifting her hair from her shoulders, which gracefully flew behind her. She took off her sunhat, because the wind was causing it to slowly shift itself off her head, and carefully folded it and put it in her bag. Naomi couldn’t stop looking at her hair flowing in the wind…
“Lily… you know, you look really good tonight. I mean, you always look really good,” - she felt herself going red - “but tonight you look really really good.” She smiled through her blush.
“Aw, thanks, Nammy! And you look cute as ever, of course!” Lily winked. Naomi blushed more. “Seriously, though, you always look freakin’ adorable. How do you manage it? You gotta give me some tips!” Naomi blushed even more.
“No… you don’t need tips from me, I promise! Hey, look,” she quickly added, desperate now to change the subject - if she got any redder, she’d surely explode! “We’re at the beach! I… um… I don’t know where the cocktail bar is.” Being embarrassed because she didn’t know something was preferable to being embarrassed because she liked Lily.
“Ahh… it’s not far from here. Few hundred yards. It’s near that guitar shop, you know the one? The one that old stoner woman runs?” Lily reassured Naomi. “Gosh, what are you so nervous about tonight?”
‘Oh, Lily, you’ll find out soon enough,’ she thought. “Nothing; do I seem nervous? I’m not trying to be nervous,” she laughed, trying to answer the question without really responding to it properly.
“No, it’s just… oh, never mind. Hey, look, we’re here.” Lily gestured to a blue flashing neon sign that read ‘The Beach Bar’. “Imaginative name, huh?” she snarked.
Five minutes later, after they’d gotten their ‘Isidis Scarlet’ cocktails, they lay down on the soft sand, listening to the sound of the waves gently lap on the shore. The stars bathed them both in a gentle light, twinkling in the void of space. Suddenly, for a fraction of a second, Naomi saw a bright streak of light shoot across the sky -- a shooting star.That was right; there was a meteor shower this week.
Surely it was a sign! What better time than now to ask Lily? And so, butterflies in her stomach, almost certainly bright red - but Lily wouldn’t be able to see that; it was too gloomy - she turned to the blonde girl, and began…
“Lily, there’s… there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you for a while now…”
But Lily wasn’t listening. She had quickly got to her feet, and pointed out to sea. “Shit, Nammy, look at that!” Naomi squinted out at the bay. What had she seen? But then she saw it, too.
A large, round white object appeared to be falling out of the sky, directly towards the beach.
~ Chapter 3 ~
Somewhere in orbit, a small, yet sleek and modern spaceship with the words ‘LEO Sparrow’ inscribed on the hull was broadcasting a radio station from a large satellite dish on its underside.
“The time is currently twenty past twelve in the afternoon, universal! I’m Charlotte de Vita and this is Skylink Radio! Finally, from me, is one of my all time favourites… ‘Satellite Three’ by Jackie and the Starslayers!” Charlotte de Vita flicked a switch to her right with a deliberate motion, then pushed a green button on the desk in front. Immediately, a funky dance number began to play:
Show me your moves, we’re on Satellite Three
We’re dancing, and floating and grooving
We’re so far from home we’re in zero-G
Oh, baby, please, won’t you dance with me?
Charlotte spun around on her chair and spoke into a second microphone. “Chloe, what time are we meant to be landing again?”
An ethereal voice came out of the speaker on the console. “Arrival time at Stadium Sakaba Spaceport in one hour and fourteen minutes. It will be eleven thirty-five on landing.”
“Right. How many more songs can I play before we’re transferring to the next presenter?”
“One. If it’s a short one.” the computer snarked. “You should be aware that an incident has occurred on Dali. The Nation Collective has issued a yellow alert for civilian ships in orbit, and recommends you de-orbit as soon as possible.”
“Alright. Thanks for the heads up, babe.” Charlotte winked into the webcam. The AI sighed exasperatedly.
Charlotte lay back in her chair and gazed idly around the room. It was a small room, with dark metal walls, and two chairs. She was sat in one; the other lay propped up against the wall, with no-one to sit on it. Charlotte was sat at a console, with lots of flashing lights and buttons and dials, all with their own special label and function. Behind the console was a set of windows, each tinted slightly pink, which supposedly helped to keep out the glare from the sunlight. On the top of the console were a set of puzzle blocks she was given as a child. Although she’d only brought them with her as something to play with when she didn’t have to do anything, she’d quickly grown attached to them, as she had to her job here, in the two years she’d been working in orbit.
Two years… had it really been that long already? Straight out of university, after completing a degree in Astrophysics, she’d been signed on as a singer for Skylink Records, had released one album, and then quit, deciding that the life of an idol was not the one for her. Too glamorous and too glitzy for Charlotte de Vita. Through a stroke of coincidence she met the woman who’d got her signed in the first place in a bar three weeks later, who got her interested in radio presenting. She applied, and a further three weeks later, she was in orbit in her own radio satellite. Long term, she didn’t particularly want a career in radio; she was here more because she wanted to do something interesting. Sure, studying astrophysics was useful and all, but it lacked a certain spark, a certain life. She didn’t really want to spend her life staring at calculators.
Instead, she’d quite like to spend her life staring at the green sign above her head which read ‘ON AIR’, floating round twelve hundred miles above Arzin. Unfortunately, she was only signed for a two year contract. And that was probably good, too. They say that if you spend too long in orbit, then the radiation from the sun starts to affect you. And she’d rather not go down that route. But even so, there was nowhere Charlotte would rather be than up here with her broadcasting room, her witty AI computer Chloe, the stars shining down on her, and a certain special someone she’d met at a space station a few weeks after signing on...
Footsteps on the metal floor of the spaceship made Charlotte turn around once more - there, leaning against the doorframe of the entrance to the studio, was a young woman with long blonde hair wearing a nightgown, looking slightly disheveled, with messy hair and a tired expression on her face. Her name was Lisa Blake, and she was the pilot of the Sparrow. Not to say that Charlotte couldn’t pilot the ship; it was just that Lisa was far more proficient behind the proverbial wheel. When Lisa was in control, she could make any ship, no matter how big or small, pirouette through the sky like a graceful ballerina. Charlotte’s style was slightly more akin to a sumo wrestler trying the same ballet moves. But, to Charlotte, she was more than just the pilot of the Sparrow. She was her fiancée!
“Morning, gorgeous.” Charlotte greeted Lisa with a smile and a question: “Did you only just wake up?”
Lisa responded quite groggily, “Yeah,” pausing for a second before adding, “Chloe woke me up. Said we needed to deorbit soon. Also, I don’t know if you’ve heard, there’s a yellow alert-”
“I’ve heard. We’ll be okay though, it’s apparently up on Dali. Nothing to do with us.” Charlotte responded.
“Yeah… okay. I don’t see anything going on around here, at least.” She gestured out of the window.
She was right. There was nothing out of the window out of the ordinary. Just the same old stars, twinkling their hearts out in the blackness, and the same old azure planet, rolling slowly below, reflecting light onto Charlotte’s face and turning her skin as blue as her eyes. “We’ll be ‘right,” she remarked.
“Yeah, probably. Are you still on the air?” Lisa asked. “It’s just… I’d kill for some boiled eggs, and no-one makes them as well as you.”
The flattery was surprisingly effective given the circumstances. “Sure, I’ll make you some. I’ve gotta pass this over to Dan in a second, after...” She didn’t need to say any more. Dan was the presenter in the next spaceship along, ready to take over from Charlotte after the Sparrow moved out of range in its orbit, and in this case, ready to take over for the final time.
The song playing through the speakers entered its coda. “It is time,” she announced, in a dramatic voice. She held down a blue, glowing button, and spoke enthusiastically into the microphone: “That was ‘Satellite Three’ by Jackie and the Starslayers. Now it’s time for me to pass you over to Dan Harvey in the LEO Pristine! I’m sure you’re all aware that this is my final broadcast. I’m not allowed to stay up here any longer! So, for the final time, and from the bottom of my heart, thank you all for listening, and please, have a great day! This is Charlotte de Vita, signing off.” She flicked another switch. “Dan? I’m passing broadcast to you now. Have a good show, and thanks for everything!”
She turned to Lisa. “And that, is that!” Then, she pushed her chair away from the console, stood up, and with a sense of finality, closed her eyes and flicked the ‘power’ switch to the off position. She stood there for a few seconds, almost unable to decide if she was sad or happy or even neither, until she opened her eyes again, grinned at Lisa, and laughed. “Now, let’s see about that breakfast of yours!”
Charlotte walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. She took out two eggs, and, making sure they were in date first, cracked them on the side of a pan, and turned the hob on. Then, she filled the kettle with water from the tap to make a cup of tea, and waited for it to boil.
That was it then. Two years of shows, and music, and fans, and callers, and just like that… it was over. Time to go home. In forty-eight hours time she’d be back at home in the Diamond Federation. Safe and sound. What was it all for, really, when it was always going to end like this?
‘Crap, I’m getting sentimental,’ she thought, and quickly started tapping away at one of the computer screens in the kitchen counter. What had caused that yellow warning, anyway? Something to do with Dali? Why did that mean they had put an alert on low Arzine orbit? It couldn’t have been that bad, surely.
She felt a sinking feeling in her chest as she opened the ‘news’ software. ‘Christ,’ she thought, ‘this is serious. Maybe we should actually land early.’
PING! went the kettle and the cooker almost simultaneously. “Hey, Lise? Your cup of tea’s ready!” Lisa came into the kitchen to get her breakfast. “Listen, I’m thinking we land early, right? I dunno if you’ve seen the news, but it looks pretty serious. Something close to a war has broken out on Dali. Surprised there’s only a yellow alert, honestly. I’d have put it to at least orange, if I were in charge.”
Lisa sipped her tea, and spoke with a concerned tone of voice, “Where’s the closest viable landing site? If we’re over Kathelbia now… that’s gonna be what, an hour and a half until we reach somewhere that speaks English? Got it -- Caspamouth, Suttland.” She pushed a button on the wall of the room. “Chloe? Plot a course for Caspamouth International. We’re landing.”
“Consider it done,” said the same ethereal voice from before. “But be warned, there are some nasty weather conditions over Suttland at the moment. Landing may be difficult.”
“Don’t worry, Chloe. I can do it, we don’t need the autopilot.” Lisa stood up, having finished her breakfast, and put the mug and plate in the washer. “I’ve deorbited and landed in the worst conditions Arzin has to offer. Some tiny little storm? Easy peasy.”
Chloe argued, “But two of the atmospheric engines are currently offline and non-functioning; it would be madness to attempt landing without computer guidance. I suggest you transfer control to me.”
“Alright, fine, you spoilsport.” Lisa gave in. There was no point arguing really; the computerized voice was right. Even Lisa couldn’t land a craft with only one working engine.
“I’ll go pack, then.” Charlotte left the room, leaving Lisa to begin planning their route.
Twenty-six minutes later, Charlotte and Lisa strapped themselves into the cockpit of the LEO Sparrow, and flicked on the autopilot switch.
“Take us down, Chloe.” ordered Lisa.
“Proposed landing sequence: Begin retro burn in three hundred seconds, atmospheric entry over the Shona Islands, reach cruising altitude of twenty-three kilometres over Costa Ventoso, thirty-four minute flight at Mach 6 over the Westford Territories, then slow down and land at Caspamouth at twenty-two fifty-six local time.”
“Sounds good to me, Chloe.”
“Understood. Landing sequence confirmed. Please fasten your seatbelt, and keep all arms and legs inside the spacecraft.” The two women laughed, and began their final safety checks for the deorbit burn.
Before too long, Chloe’s artificial voice came out of the speaker again. “Deorbiting in five… four… three… two… one… commencing deorbit burn.”
Charlotte and Lisa were pushed back in their seat as the rocket engines began to fire, with a terrifying roar, like a cry of a wild beast that never seemed to end. The whole ship shook violently, as though it would fall apart any moment. The teeth-rattling vibrations went on for another minute or two, and then suddenly, as suddenly as it started, everything returned to its tranquil, normal state.
“Deorbit burn complete. The seatbelt sign has been turned off in the cabin,” reported Chloe, “and you are free to move around the cockpit.”
But neither of them got out of their seats, for in just a few minutes, Lisa noticed the ‘external temperature’ gauge starting to rise on the control panel. “It’s starting!” she announced.
The intense friction caused when the ship entered the atmosphere and slowed down would cause the temperature outside to reach thousands of degrees. But the Sparrow had some of the latest heat shielding technology, and so the inside would remain the exact same temperature, despite the inferno outside.
Right on cue, the ‘g-force’ dial began to slowly climb up too as the ship began to decelerate, pushing the two women back into their seat once more. The front window glowed red with heat, giving the world below an orange tint as it edged ever closer. The spacecraft shook violently again, wobbling and vibrating as it dived into the sea of air below.
Now, they could get a good view of the tempest above Drottsea on the radar screens. A huge, slowly revolving cloud, with a pinprick eye at the centre, staring at the plummeting spacecraft, almost daring them to enter its windy depths. Lisa silently was glad she let the computer fly this. She didn’t want to risk the landing in that storm by herself. And it sure wasn’t going to be a fun flight in, either. But the sky before that was remarkably clear; all the way from the towns below them, to the distant spires of great cities, clamoring to reach ever higher into the black sky above them, all glittering with lights in the night.
Eventually, the shuddering stopped, and the tint on the window slowly changed from a fiery orange, to red, to purple and finally to pink.
“Re-entry complete. Engaging atmospheric engine.” A whirring behind them let them know it was successful. This engine would have to carry them four thousand kilometres, sailing through the atmosphere to their destination.
Charlotte put her head back on the seat, and began to relax. There really was nothing better than cruising through the sky at this speed, watching the world zoom past you as you blasted through every wispy cirrus cloud, and every contrail, just blurs of white in the corner of your eye. The whirring of the engine was relaxing, reassuring, and Charlotte could do nothing but lie back and chill out.
“Information: Landing permission refused from Caspamouth ATC. Redirecting to Boudicca Landing Strip, Westford Territories. Expected time of arrival: twenty-one thirty-nine local time. Please be aware there may be some turbulence as we adjust our course.” Well, at least they wouldn’t have to go through that hurricane. But surely they were too late to land at Boudicca? They were still twenty kilometres up, and it was so close, she could make the runway lights out in the distance.
“Lisa, how are we going to land there? Aren’t we too close by now?” Charlotte nervously asked.
As if in response, the computer replied, “Unable to land at target destination. Attempting to retry approach.” And then, only a few seconds later, “Unable to retry approach. Insufficient fuel.”
Lisa and Charlotte looked at each other for what seemed like forever, but in reality was only a fraction of a second, before the blonde girl leapt into action, flicking the autopilot off, before pressing a myriad of buttons all over the cockpit. “Shit!” she yelled. “Looks like I am going to have to try and land this stupid thing after all!” She seized the control and turned the craft into a steep dive. Leaving it as late as she dared, she pulled the craft up again to fly horizontally. “I need the thicker atmosphere to slow us down. There’s no chance we can land otherwise. Look, I think we can still make it from here. That city there, if the navicom is right, is Isidis. Boudicca is about two hundred kilometres beyond that. We’ll get there in about five minutes if I’ve timed this right. So long as we have enough fuel…” She glanced at the fuel meter, and her heart skipped a beat. It read ‘3m04s fuel remaining at current usage level’.
“Crap.” was her only response. Thinking quickly, she added, “I… uhm… I’m gonna have to try and bring this down safely in the ocean. It’s the only way. We don’t have enough fuel to make it. If I try and bring us down as close to the shore as possible, we can get to land easily. We’ll take the lifeboat. It’s not a problem. Right, don’t disturb me, I need to concentrate.” She switched the engine to ‘off’, and moved the joystick in such a way that the spaceship flipped one hundred and eighty degrees. Then, she flipped the engine on again, and throttled up to full.
Charlotte glanced at the rear-view camera. A tall, thin, silver shape, delineated by lights in the darkness, tapering up out of view was getting closer and closer. She glanced at the altimeter. One hundred and forty metres above sea level. “Oh no… we’re gonna hit that tower!”
“Not if I have any bloody say in it, we’re not! Christ, Charlie! Have more faith in me, won’t you!” Lisa laughed through gritted teeth. “Alright, here we go! Brace yourself!”
The fuel gauge reached ‘zero’. The engine cut out.
There was a second of deathly silence as the ship dropped like a stone through the last few metres of descent. Then, with an almighty jolt…
SPLASH!
The spacecraft impacted the ocean at significant speed, despite Lisa’s attempts to slow them down. Fortunately, the hull seemed to have held. It rocked and shook as it tried to balance in the ocean water.
“Bloody hell, Lise!” shouted Charlotte, after a moment of silence.
“We’re not sinking,” announced Lisa. After a minute or two, the motion subsided, and Charlotte considered it safe to go and poke her head out of the hatch on top.
“Go on, Charlie. How far have we got to sail?” shouted Lisa, dreading the answer.
“Well, I hope you’re ready for a lot of rowing… we’re a whopping thirty metres or so from the shoreline. How the hell you managed that landing I’ll never know. I’m gonna be shaking for weeks,” she laughed, not entirely untruthfully.
“Damn, that close? That makes me almost uncomfortable. I’d prefer it if you’d told me we were further out! Is there anyone on the beach?” she asked, eager to know if there was help available.
“It’s pretty quiet out there. There’s a couple of girls stood around on the beach over there, some bloke in a beach bar, and a few people further down the promenade. Does that answer your question?”
“I mean,” Lisa responded exasperatedly, “anyone who can help. I don’t mean just any schmuck who happens to witness a twenty ton spacecraft fall out of the sky. Someone who might have fuel. Or another set of engines,” she added, pointedly.
“Oh, yeah, definitely! That girl’s got a toolbox open already! Look, she’s waving a spanner at us!” Charlotte called out, sarcastically.
“Really?”
“No, you dumbass,” Charlotte laughed. “Just looks like a bunch of kids from here. Drop the lifeboat, won’t you?”
Lisa grumbled, feeling silly for having fallen for Charlotte’s obvious sarcasm. She flicked a switch on the roof labeled ‘Lifeboat’. A small orange rubber dinghy popped out of a compartment on the side of the craft, and began to inflate itself. It was only about eight feet long, and didn’t look like it could hold more than about four or five people. Charlotte was unimpressed. “That’s it?” Nevertheless, she grabbed a few items from the ship -- their suitcases, and some identity documents -- and scrambled down the side into the dinghy.
Lisa flicked a few more switches to lock down the control panel, lest anyone get in and start fiddling with it. She pulled a small device out of the panel, labeled ‘Emergency AI Projection Unit’, telling as she did, “Come on, Chloe. We’re not leaving you here.” She climbed out of the hatch in the roof, and into the lifeboat.
After a few minutes of paddling, the dinghy scraped sand as it hit the beach. A tall blonde girl and a short black-haired girl came running down the beach. “Look,” said Charlotte sarcastically. “It’s the rescue party.” She put her hands behind her head, looked up to the sky, and laughed. “Some last day at work, huh. Let me handle them.”
“Holy crap, are you alright?” shouted the tall blonde one.
“Yinä paskaiža tre cu Otomodaino?” replied Charlotte.
“Charlie, they speak English...” began Lisa.
“What the hell happened?” called the short black-haired one.
“Ta sesu ie letkuno na o kitbina?” yelled Charlotte.
Lisa’s patience wore thin. This situation was difficult enough without having to deal with Charlotte’s lack of… well, paying attention to what language other people were speaking. “Charlie, for the love of God, they’re speaking English! Where the hell do you think we are?”
“Oh, huh. Aw, gimme a break. I can’t hear them over the sound of the waves!” Charlotte tried to justify herself, but still went pink. Lisa knew Charlotte well enough to know that she hadn’t misheard them at all.
“What happened?” repeated the tall blonde one. “We were just sat here, and then you guys… are you okay?” She spoke in a frantic voice, fearful someone had been injured, or worse.
“Calm down,” laughed Lisa. “No-one’s been hurt. We’re alright. Ran out of fuel is all. No big deal. Any of you two know where we can get some kerosene around here? And some new engines, as well, if you can get them here.”
KABOOM!
There was an almighty explosion behind them. Turning around, they saw the LEO Sparrow explode into hundreds of tiny pieces, which rained down on the bay, lighting up the water as they slowly smoldered.
“Having said that, I think a new ship would be pretty useful too,” Charlotte joked. It was lucky she’d grabbed their things.
The short, black-haired girl replied, “Well, I don’t know anyone personally… but my dad works at an asteroid mining company. He might be able to help, but he’s not going to be at home until tomorrow evening. You ought to come back with me really...” She turned to the taller girl. “Lily, you can come too if you want…”
“Yeah, I’m there.” She looked cautious about Naomi inviting the two women back to her house on a whim like this.
Lisa looked a bit confused. “Shouldn’t we, you know, tell the police, or something?”
“Trust me, you don’t want to.” Lily began. “You call them up after something like this, and instead of being in and out and on the next shuttle to the middle of anywhere in thirty minutes, they keep you up for forty eight hours asking you the same questions over and over again. Then you have to wait for a slot to open up in the emergency system, and then you have to spend another twelve hours on the slowest plane ever invented just to get out of the damn county, and ugh. Not worth it, at all. We see it all the time at my mum’s shop, people being shipwrecked and such in the bay when they’ve got no right to be there. It’s just easier for everyone to pretend nothing happened. This lot,” she waved at the rubble littering the shore, “will be cleaned up by tomorrow. Nothing to worry about.”
Lisa seemed happier with the explanation. “Well, all right then. You seem to know what you’re talking about, so…”
Charlotte shook the two girls’ hands. “It’s Charlotte. Charlotte de Vita. And this is my fiancée Lisa! Thank you, seriously. You’re a lifesaver.”
“Oh, it’s no problem,” the shorter one said cautiously. “It’s Naomi, by the way. Naomi Martin. And this is my friend Lily.”
And so, Naomi Martin led Lily Makino and the two women who had just dropped out of the sky towards the station to catch the train home.
~ Chapter 4 ~
The sound of the rain falling gently on the windowpane was the first thing Naomi was aware of when she woke up. Lazily rubbing her eyes, she stared between the gap in the blinds at the view across the valley. The vivid green of the fields and forests stretching all the way to the skyscrapers of the city, the grey sky above, and the trails of raindrops that lazily journeyed their way down the glass all gave Naomi the sense that she was missing something, that there was something very important that she needed to remember. Something to do with Lily. And someone else? Or was that just a dream?
Naomi worked up the resolve to get out from under the warm covers on her bed and swung her legs over the side. It was only when she began to slide onto the floor that she realised that something was a bit unusual. For one thing, the floor was about eight inches higher up than it should be. Secondly, it was very warm. And most importantly, it was soft, and seemed to be moving!
“Aah, what the hell!” shouted the warm soft object on the floor. “Nammy, what gives?”
Naomi jumped back onto the bed, startled. She grabbed her glasses, and as she put them on, a figure with light hair came into view on the bedroom floor. Then, realising who it was, the events of the night before came rushing back to her.
“Oh no, Lily; I’m sorry!” Naomi apologised. “I forgot you were there,” she added, sheepishly.
“Oh, it’s fine, don’t worry,” Lily said in a jokingly sarcastic voice. “First two astronauts land on us, and now I have to put up with Naomi Martin herself jumping on me whilst I sleep? What a life, right?” She laughed at her own joke.
“Honestly! I take you out, I let you stay at my house… what more do you want from me!” giggled Naomi.
“Not to be crushed?”
Naomi sighed, and stood up, making sure not to stand on Lily whilst getting off the bed this time. She leaned on the windowsill and opened the blinds to take in the full view of the dismal morning.
“Is it bad out?” asked the blonde girl lying on the bedroom floor.
“Well, we’ve seen better days. Still, it looks like it’s going to clear up! The rain seems to be letting up a little. Looks like those two won’t have a bad first impression of here after all! Speaking of which, I should probably go and like, make breakfast for them? And you, of course; what do you want?”
As Naomi stood in the kitchen in front of the window, she noticed a lick of colour in the sky in the distance. A rainbow? This early in the day? Unusual, but it had happened before. Maybe it was a sign that today was going to be a good day after all. The rain was gloomy, but it seemed to be clearing up; the white clouds slowly breaking apart and being replaced by the deep blue sky; the sun trying its hardest to fight its way through the gaps between fluffy clouds, casting shadows and sunbeams across the moors.
“Hey,” came a soft voice from behind her. Naomi turned around to see Lily standing there in her pyjamas with messy dishevelled hair. Despite that, she couldn’t help notice how beautiful she was, with her friendly, bright blue eyes looking at her…
“Am I not getting a ‘hey’ back? Wow, Nammy! So mean today!” she joked, snapping Naomi back to reality.
“Hey, sorry,” Naomi blushed. “I’m just… tired. You know how it is.” Naomi replied weakly.
Suddenly, there was a knock at the door, followed shortly by a buzz from the phone in Naomi’s pocket. It was a new message from Anya, which read, “I’m at the front door. Let me in?”
Naomi and Lily made eye contact and smirked. The shorter girl strolled out of the room to go and unlock the door and let Anya in; Lily only had to hear the click of the lock and the frantic yabbering begin to know that the conversation that was about to follow was going to wake up the two astronauts, who, as far as she could tell, were still asleep.
“Honestly, Naomi, I’ve been out of my mind with worry! I expect you two to go out and have a good evening and then I get woken up from my evening nap telling me you’ve been involved in some kind of spacecraft crash and that you’ve rescued two people from halfway across the planet and I don’t know what to think! You don’t half get yourself into some scrapes!”
A round head with a brunette ponytail appeared behind Anya from around the kitchen doorframe. “Is this your mother, then?” she quipped.
“Charlie!” came an unseen voice, reprimanding Charlotte for her joke.
“Sorry,” she apologised sheepishly, “that just kinda, slipped out…”
Despite Charlotte’s apology, Anya looked a little bit put out. Lisa stepped into the room properly and got her attention. “Sorry about her. She thinks herself a right comedian, she does. I’m Lisa; this is Charlotte. And you are?”
By the early afternoon the clouds that plagued Concord Valley in the morning had mostly burned away. The shadows of rain that lay as water on the flags and asphalt outside were beginning to evaporate, and the air smelled damp with petrichor. Once again, golden sunbeams were gleaming across the hillsides, no longer interrupted by the white shroud that covered the countryside in the morning. The rays of light bounced off the pool in the backyard of Naomi’s house, dancing across the facade of the building as they reflected off the ripples and tiny waves. It was starting to get warmer, and the world was beginning to notice - the air was full of butterflies and other insects going about their daily commute; the flowers had decided to show their faces and give the world some colour; and the thermometer on the back wall was gradually edging its way up past twenty-five, nearly twenty-six.
Four of the five girls sat at the patio table: Anya and Lily in an excited conversation about Anya being able to paint the new front for Lily’s mum’s boat repair shop, and next to them, Charlotte and Lisa simply lying back and admiring the landscape. From their position, a glance to the right would cast their gaze upon the slopes of Parley Fell, rolling into the distance in shades of emerald green, golden yellow and ochre. A glance to the left, however, would cast their view over twenty miles of farmland and lakes until the metropolis of Isidis caught their eye. In the afternoon sun, it looked like a forest of crystal, glowing from somewhere unseen as the sun refracted through the glass of its many skyscrapers.
Behind them, on the other hand, were the patio doors, wide open in the afternoon heat. And coming out from inside them was Naomi, struggling with pulling along some kind of appliance along behind her.
“Guys,” she yelled across the patio. “Who’s up for,” she paused a second as she got the barbecue unstuck from the threshold at the back door, “sausages?”
Soon the smell of the morning’s rainstorm in the air was replaced by the smell of sizzling meat on the barbecue. Naomi lazily rolled sausages and flipped burgers on the grill, as Anya and Lily argued over who had to have the task of cutting the onions. Charlotte, meanwhile, was leaning on a patio heater whilst trying to spark up conversation with Naomi.
“So, Naz - can I call you Naz?”
Naomi rolled her eyes. “Sure.” Naz. That was a new one. Did it fit her? Probably not. But she appreciated that it made her sound kind of cool. Like what she imagined a skater’s name to be. Or maybe a surfer? ‘Hey, dude, it’s me, Naz.’ Something like that.
“All right, nice. ‘Naz’ it is, then! What’re you up to these days?”
‘These days?’ Naomi thought. ‘You’ve known me for not even a day! Still, better be polite, right…’ Naomi sighed. “Well, not a lot, really… I just finished my exams. Now the plan is to hang around all summer waiting to see if I’ve actually managed to get a place at university.”
“Yeah? Where’re you planning to study?” she inquired, genuinely curious.
“Well, I was planning to go to the Uni of Western Palisade, but I don’t know if I’ll get the grades…”
“Ah, yeah. What course?”
“Geography,” replied Naomi shyly, as though she should be ashamed. There weren’t many jobs that involved geography these days. Indeed, many of her friends at school had teased her for choosing something that wasn’t particularly scientific. Most students would go on to do physics, or biochemistry, or something like that. But Naomi never found those kinds of things interesting; to her, hard sciences took something of the magic out of the world. Subjects like geography, Naomi thought, preferred to describe the world and how it is, rather than explain every single minute detail and reduce life and nature down to just symbols and multiplication signs.
“Geography, huh… so I guess you know where lots of places are, right?”
The sausages on the barbecue hissed as fat dripped onto the hot coals.
What a stupid question, Naomi thought. What kind of places did she want her to know about? She didn’t appreciate being grilled on her choices, especially not something as big as this.
“Well, yeah-” Naomi began, but before she could try and question Charlotte’s inquiry, the older girl interrupted her.
“Ooh! Do you know where Fine Harbour is?” she said in an excited, raised voice, almost yelling.
“Umm-”
“That’s where me and Lisa are from! A long way, right!”
It was a long way, that much was true. But Fine Harbour wasn’t Timbuktu - most people would have known where it was. In fact, Naomi had been herself once, on some stupid cruise holiday across half the planet when she was eleven. It rained on the days she was there, so Naomi didn’t quite have the most favourable view of the place. On the other hand, she did get to have a truly great spaghetti lunch.
“I’ve been there,” Naomi started. “A long time ago, so I don’t really remember it, but I have been.” She glanced at the grill. “Hey, look, everyone!” she said, in a louder voice. “The sausages are ready!”
She flew gracefully through the air, arms outstretched above her head like a rocket, legs long and straight, hair blowing as she moved through the air, wind on her bare skin. The moment seemed to last forever as she fell. Time came to a standstill, and with every second passing it only seemed like she had moved a minute distance. She felt like a bird, soaring gracefully through the sky high above. The bushes and hills on one side were clouds; the four people sat around the table on the other must be some kind of aeroplane. The breeze was the jet stream, and she was the fastest seabird, making a dive through the skies towards the ocean in search of a tasty fish to eat.
SPLASH!
There were a few seconds of silence as she continued her motion under the surface of the water. She traveled the length of the pool gracefully, without any sign on the surface that she was below the gentle ripples of her entry.
Suddenly, small bubbles started to appear as she slowed down and began to rise within the water. Bubbles, which got larger and larger, followed by a mess of blonde hair, and at long last, Lily Makino’s head bobbed up above the surface of the pool. “Guys! It’s really nice! Come get in, yeah?”
Ten minutes later, all five of them were at least some way in the water. Anya was idly floating on her back, brown hair spread out in the water. Lily was swimming up and down the length of the pool, performing some serious backstroke. All Naomi could see from her position sat on the safety steps into the pool was a dash of blonde hair, a blue swimsuit and a pair of legs kicking up and down. Lisa was sat on the side of the pool just dangling her feet in, because she had no swimsuit. Charlotte also had no swimsuit, but that was not enough to stop her jumping in too. Now, she was floating around in the pool chatting to everybody but Lily, who was mildly annoyed with her for repeatedly floating into her path.
It looked to Naomi that she was about to do it once more, and sure enough the brunette woman drifted ever so slightly away from the side of the pool and right into the path of Lily, who was on her return leg and on a collision course with Charlotte once more.
“Ouch! Can you, like, not?” Lily said angrily, after recovering from smacking into Charlotte at high speed.
“Aw, I’m sorry, friendo.” Charlotte said with an apologetic smile on her face. “I promise I won’t let it happen again. If I do it again, I hereby give you my permission to, you know-” she gently flicked water towards Lily, “-splash me.”
“Yeah? Well, you just splashed me!” Lily retorted with a laugh. “So you just get to splash me with no repercussions, now? We’ll see about that!”
Then, she drew back her hand in the water, and pushed it forward with as much force as she could muster, sending a jet of water directly at Charlotte’s face.
“Hey, whoa!” she spluttered as the water ran off her face. “I didn’t splash you that much! Just a little bit! Do you want to turn this into a war?” she gasped at Lily.
Lily didn’t respond. She just smirked.
“Well?”
“Hit me with your best shot,” she taunted.
Charlotte would not stand for this. Nobody splashes Charlotte de Vita. This was the girl known all over the Central Lands as a famous singer; the girl who’d lived in space for nearly two years! Who was this Lily in her blue swimsuit with her blonde hair who thought she could splash Charlotte de Vita and get away with it?
Charlotte decided to take revenge. Instead of her hand, she pulled back her whole arm along the surface of the water. Just below the surface, she pushed forward, dragging her whole arm around towards Lily. The water built up in front of her arm as she moved it, faster and faster, creating a wave nearly a foot high of solid water, moving directly towards Lily.
Lily tried to duck, but it was too late. Charlotte’s splash, a positive tidal wave of water, struck her right in the middle of her face, leaving her dripping in its wake.
“Yeah?” Charlotte laughed. “Come get some!”
And they were off, all over the pool, darting around, throwing and splashing water all over the patio. They ducked and they weaved. They launched their own aquatic attacks. It was all out war. Nobody was safe from the fallout of Lily and Charlotte’s battle.
Water got everywhere. All over the three pacifists in the pool. All over the patio and the table. All over everything in the garden. In fact, some water almost certainly managed to get over the fence and was now beginning an epic journey of freedom down the fellside.
There was no end in sight to the battle. Every second was wave after wave after wave. Then, a particularly large one hit Charlotte right in the face. When she had recovered, she began to laugh. A hearty, happy laugh.
And so did Lily. The two of them laughed and laughed and laughed, both sopping wet and tired out, stood in the deep end of the pool in Concord Valley.
Charlotte held out her hand; a gesture of a truce.
Lily took it and shook it with an intensely happy expression on her face. Peace.
And from that moment on, the two of them were friends.
It was now late afternoon, and the sun was beginning to make its daily journey below the horizon. Still, the heat of the day showed little sign of dissipating, and the group took the time to dry off on the sun loungers.
They had been lying there for about half an hour, when Naomi heard the familiar sound of a car pulling up on the driveway. Glancing at her watch, she realised it must be her father.
“Guys,” she began, as she heard the car door slam shut, “I think Dad’s home. We ought to, like, you know…” She waved at Anya and Lily’s clothes, on a pile on one of the chairs.
Lily had only just managed to put on her trademark sunhat when Mr. Martin came out through the back door of the house.
“Evening Nams, Anya, Lily…” he started, but the existence of Charlotte and Lisa was clearly a source of confusion. “And, evening to whoever you two are!” He laughed.
“Hey, Dad.” Naomi got up and gave her father a hug. “These two are Charlotte-” she gestured at the taller woman “- and Lisa.” She waved at the other. Meeting her dad’s bewildered expression, she added “Spaceship accident, last night. Nearly hit me and Lily. I figured I should bring them somewhere they wouldn’t get harassed by the cops.”
“Wise, really,” her father commented. “Where have they been staying?”
“In the guest room for last night. I figured you would know the best place for them to stay when you got home… I hope that’s okay.” She tried to cover for something her dad might have been a bit annoyed about.
“Well, what do they need?” he inquired.
“Hmm. A new spaceship would be good. Failing that, a shuttle? They need to get to Fine Harbour, of all places, I think.” She looked at the older women for confirmation, who both nodded.
Mr. Martin took a few seconds of deliberation before coming up with a plan. “Okay,” he began. “Basically, we could get you on a flight tomorrow. However, it would be a really long journey, and you’d have to transfer at least four times. Instead, I reckon you should wait until Monday. A flight runs from Isidis straight to Cova. It’d be cheaper to stay in the inn here until then and get that flight. Once you’re in Cova, well, you can pretty much walk to Fine Harbour.”
“Yeah, that sounds good,” agreed Charlotte. “Where’s the inn, then?”
“I’ll show you after dinner. You will stay for dinner, won’t you? It’s pizza…” he said, trying to tempt them to stay. Naomi could tell he just didn’t want to be rude to them.
“Well, if it’s no trouble,” Lisa replied. “Thank you very much!”
An hour and thirty six slices of pizza later, Charlotte and Lisa picked up their bags from the living room of Naomi’s house, and prepared to leave.
“Naomi - thanks for letting us stay here. You’ve been nothing but helpful and we’re so grateful to you,” Lisa began, shaking Naomi’s hand. “Anya, sorry again for a certain someone’s behaviour this morning,” she continued, glaring at Charlotte, who responded with nothing but a ‘what?’ expression. “Lily: thanks for getting me covered in water before.”
“Any time,” Lily rebuffed.
“Hey, and I’ll get you back for the splash war someday, you know? Don’t think you’re safe until I’ve had my revenge!” Charlotte laughed maniacally. “Seriously though, thanks to all of you for letting us stay. I don’t know what we would have done without you.”
And with that, the two women stepped out of the front door and followed Mr. Martin out of sight along the street in the evening air. It felt almost like a dream to Naomi. What a strange twenty-four hours… two women from space land on top of her whilst she’s on a date, their spaceship explodes, then they hang around in their pool all afternoon, and then when all is done they just stroll out of her front door as though nothing had happened at all. Naomi was sad, in a way. Sure, she didn’t have to worry about them anymore, but the excitement was good. It sure made a change from the usual nothing happening. She began to wish that more exciting things like this happened in her life. Just something new every once in a while. A new story to tell…
“Well, that was odd. Does anyone want my last slice of pizza?” Lily broke the melancholic silence. “Are you alright, Naomi?” she asked, seeing the shorter girl’s vacant expression. “Naomi?”
Naomi came back to earth. “Yeah? What? Pizza? Sure, I’ll have a slice,” she said quickly, covering her daydream.
“Hey, Nammy. Mum’s out on the boat. Wanna come mine tonight?” she asked.
“Ooh! Yes, please!” Anya exclaimed. “I’d love to come.” She beamed at the two of them. “Naomi, come too! Pretty please!”
Lily looked a bit annoyed, but accepted Anya. “Sure, you can come! Naomi, how about you?”
“Yeah… I’m there,” she said, still half zoning out.
Lily reflected that it was probably a good idea that she would have some company later.
By the time night fell, the three of them were sat in Lily’s bedroom in Isidis City. She lived on the second floor of a tower block on the banks of the River Ellis, above her mother’s shop.
Naomi liked Lily’s room. There was a convenient hook on the wall to hang up a certain sunhat, and around it on the walls were various posters and photographs of landscapes and seascapes from across the world. Some of them Naomi never recognized; they were of places she’d never heard of. Maybe they were places on Earth? She didn’t like to ask, lest Lily think she was a bit silly.
The bed in the room was one of the biggest and softest beds Naomi had ever slept in in her life, and it was in the corner of it that she lay right now. Whilst Lily and Anya stayed up talking, she was simply shattered with all of the excitement. The sounds of the city were so quiet tonight, or maybe she was just so tired she couldn’t tune into them. She could barely follow the other two’s conversation! She looked at the clock. 22:13. Not really that late, but when you can’t keep your eyes open…
“Is she asleep?” whispered Anya, gesturing towards Naomi’s motionless body under the covers.
“I think so…” replied Lily. “Awh, she’s so cute!” The more Lily looked at her, the stronger a strange feeling within her heart got. She wished she could just cuddle up to her beneath the covers- what? Why would she feel like that about her friend? How could she want to cuddle with Naomi like that?
Anya could tell something happened. “Lily?” she said quietly but sharply to snap her out of it. “Shall we get into bed?”
“Yeah, we should. Especially if Nammy here is already out.”
Lily stood up and turned off the light, as Anya slipped between the covers of the bed, followed shortly by Lily herself. There was some further rustling of covers as Lily and Anya got into a comfortable place in the bed, then silence.
“Night, Lily!” came Anya’s voice in the darkness.
“Goodnight, Anya,” replied Lily.
“Night, Naomi!” came Anya’s voice again.
“Mnhmnn,” replied Naomi.
~ Chapter 5 ~
Wednesday morning brought with it a fog so thick you couldn’t see the end of the street. Deep grey clouds rolled in from the bay, blanketing Isidis with a blanket that looked almost like cotton wool. There was no rain, but the clouds looked angry, like they were just waiting for one soul to disrespect them before unleashing their wrath upon the citizens below.
Indeed, the sky was so dim that when Naomi woke up at around nine o’clock, she first thought that Lily’s clock must have been set incorrectly, because the room was almost as dark as it was the night before when they’d gone to sleep.
She rolled over groggily before propping herself up with her arms, only to find that both Lily and Anya weren’t even in the bed to begin with. That was strange, she thought, before deciding that they must have gone downstairs to make breakfast. Naomi pulled herself out of bed, and grabbed a dressing gown from the hook on the back of the bedroom door.
Voices from the kitchen let Naomi know that her intuition was right -- pushing open the ajar kitchen door revealed Anya staring at the television and Lily furiously buttering toast on the counter.
Naomi turned right from the shop window with the TV in it, and faced towards the ocean road. She took ten steps gingerly in the direction of the sea, before turning and shooting Lily and Anya an expecting look. “Well? Are you coming, or aren’t you?” she said with a laugh to try and defuse some of the tension.
It was unusual for her to have this level of assertiveness, even around her best friends. Maybe it was because the situation was so strange; nobody knew what to do, so there was no chance of her showing herself up, because nobody else would know any better?
Or maybe it was her love of books when she was younger. All the characters in those kind of books get put in strange situations like this. Everyone in the city vanishes, and the only people left are you and your friends? Nothing out of the ordinary for a book character. Naomi had always wished she could be in one of those situations so that she could prove to herself and her friends that she wasn’t as shy as she seemed to be on the outside, to finally let the extrovert trapped in her heart be free.
And this was certainly one of those situations; the third-largest city in the Westford Territories, with a population of over five million people, and yet how many people had they seen? Two, not including themselves. The phone signal was off, and all these leaves had fallen overnight…
Lily, meanwhile, was a bit put out that her unofficial role as the squad leader had been taken by the shyest girl she’d ever met. That said, it wasn’t like she knew what to do either. Disappearing people was a little bit beyond her depth. On the other hand, give her a boat or a truck or a car…
The roads were littered with vehicles that had been just abandoned at the side of the road. None were damaged, or seemed to have been involved in an accident in any other way. In fact, they looked almost peaceful, as though they were just dozing in the morning sun. Soon, it would get pretty hot, and maybe then the cars would scuttle off to find some shade or somewhere to keep cool in the sweltering heat. Or at least, that was how it looked to Lily.
She looked at the girl in front, boldly leading the way through this post-apocalyptic Isidis. With nobody else around, Naomi Martin seemed like by far the most powerful of the three of them. There was Anya, the painter; and herself, the fisher-woman’s daughter and engineer; both fairly strong and assertive personalities, and yet here was Naomi, leading the way to untold mysteries ahead.
Another car rushed past, blowing Naomi’s dark hair in the wind that it caused. Lily appreciated Naomi’s hair. It may not be particularly fancy, but it was smart, and Naomi wore it well. Shoulder-length, straight, and the deepest brown imaginable, Lily had always liked it. Though recently, she’d seemed to have been appreciating it more than usual. Every time Naomi moved her head a lot, or every time a gust of wind blew through it, Lily couldn’t help but stare. Actually, Lily couldn’t help but stare at Naomi in general. There was something about her that Lily couldn’t tear her eyes away from…
Anya, meanwhile, leading up the rear of the group, could sense that both of her friends were in some kind of deep train of thought. She let her mind drift too, and it landed on a painting she had made a few years back of an abandoned street. In the middle of the scene was a young girl with a backpack running with arms outstretched. The leaves fell gently in the evening sun, and there was a haze to the picture, giving it a pleasant ephemeral feel. That was the intention, at least. Was the execution up to scratch? That wasn’t her place to say, but everyone else seemed to like it.
The abandoned city was quite inspiring; she imagined that in the evening, it would be quite pleasant to walk down the boulevards, watching the orange sunbeams refract off the glass buildings. Would they still be blue monoliths at sunset? Or would the vermilion sky turn the sides of the skyscrapers into blocks of reds and yellows?
Anya resolved herself to paint more this summer. It was her goal to have her pictures displayed in a gallery somewhere. The Isidis Gallery would be good! Especially if most of her pictures were of this city and the surrounding areas. She decided that she would sit with her canvas and paints all summer until she had painted the absolute perfect picture; colours flowing across the picture, hues dancing and blending, a crescendo of shades and tones.
Of course, there were other things that could inspire art, she thought. Not just abandoned cities and sunsets. There was also the ocean to try painting, or maybe the night sky, or maybe something else. Something else, she thought, something else. She looked at Lily and tried to meet her gaze, to almost beg from her silently for the words to finish her sentence. Instead, Lily’s eyes were pointed somewhere else - the girl in front, leading the charge into the unknown.
Well then, thought Anya. I guess that works. I’ll paint those two!
Naomi Martin turned the corner onto the promenade, and immediately noticed the source of all of the disappearances.
In the ocean, just off the coast of Isidis, floated what must have been thirty grey hulks of steel and iron, with dangerous-looking cylinders of metal pointing towards the city, each proudly flying the Kyrinian flag from its mast. Warships.
“Oh, shit,” Naomi said. “Shit.”
“Well, that explains that,” decided Lily, faux-casually leaning on the lamppost. “Who’s up for getting the hell out of here?”
“Guys,” a panicked Anya began, “these, these leaves! They’re not leaves… look!” She handed a triangular object to each of the other two.
Naomi read out loud.
WARNING TO ALL CIVILIANS
EVACUATE YOUR CITY
ATTACK SCHEDULED FOR 1200 HOURS
FRIDAY MAY 20, 5008
“What time is it now?” Naomi asked, checking her phone as she did so. Her already shocked face fell further. “Quarter to eleven. That gives us what, an hour and a quarter? Shit.”
“We can’t get out of the city in an hour and a quarter,” Lily said gravely. “There’s just no way we can cover that amount of ground on foot. It must be eight, nine miles until we’re out of dodge.”
Anya sunk to the floor in silence. “What do we do? What do we do?” she sobbed. “Is this it?” She looked up at the other too, pleading with tearful eyes for an answer.
Naomi and Lily looked at each other, as though a plan or an idea or some kind of escape route would form between their eyes. Yet there was no sign of any way out of this mess. They just looked at each other; the silence was only broken by Anya’s faint sobs.
Naomi felt like a million eyes were glaring right at her. The towers of the city stood silently above her, bravely accepting their fate. The battleships floated silently in the water, guns primed and ready to fire. And here was she, Naomi Martin, stood between what seemed like an unstoppable force and an immovable object. There was a pressure in the air, as though staying there any longer would cause all three of them to be crushed. The tension was building with every second; there was a humming sound in her ears, getting louder and louder every second until-
“What’s that noise?” Anya stopped sobbing to ask a question. “The humming… is that the ships? What’s going on? What’s happening?” She frantically demanded answers that none of them knew.
Suddenly the humming turned into static, and it was obvious where it was coming from. The promenade had loudspeakers attached to every lamppost, so that speakers at events on the beach could be heard all down it. The static grew louder and louder yet clearer until suddenly, silence.
Then, the sound of someone breathing in.
And finally, the voice of a young girl.
“Use the cars!”
Lily looked at Naomi with sudden and complete comprehension of what she had to do. Despite the circumstances, despite floating death itself barely half a mile from where they stood, Lily knew that her skills had led to this moment.
Without saying a word, she ran over to the nearest car, flipped open the bonnet and began to root around with some wires and cables from the bonnet.
“Naomi! Anya! Give me a hand, yeah?” she called. “I need the biggest battery you can find, a hammer, and a screwdriver!”
