"You seriously haven’t went to a bar before?" Olwen teased. "Next you’re gonna tell me you just sit in your pre-paid room and eat your rations between flights."
"I mean…" Zenith paused, being a bit embarrassed. His friend was just giving him a hard time over the radio, but it was still enough to fluster him a bit. "We’re not supposed to eat at the restaurants, for like--"
"For safety reasons, yep. You’re so uptight about protocol and rules, dude. Tell you what, next stop we have, I’m taking you out for some drinks." Olwen laughed over the radio.
"Will they even serve me? I thought--"
"Everybody does it, dude. Nobody gets reported, and I don’t think command even cares. I’ve ran into superiors at bars before and they just bullshit with me." Olwen snickers. "You need to chill, loosen up a little dude. Take advantage of all this sometimes."
"I suppose you’re right," Zenith sighed, sitting back in his chair as he held the radio key down. "Would do me a bit of good to slow things down a little, heh. Sure, we can get some drinks."
"Only took a few fuckin’ months of wearing you down, for crying out loud." Zenith could feel the grin on Olwen’s face from his tone, chuckling to himself. "Oh, what’s this?"
Zenith’s radar systems picked up the same thing Olwen’s did, a ship on an intercept route with their transport convoy, directly ahead on their route. It looked like it was just waiting for them, almost. "Pirates?"
"Probably. They’ll move in a few seconds, just need to give their shitty radar a chance to pick us up." Time passes, and the distance between them and the pirates halves quite quickly. "Maybe not. You got your gear spun up, Zen?"
Zenith had just finished powering up his weaponry and other defensive gear, settling back into his seat and taking the controls properly. "Good to go."
Olwen called out over a public, short-range channel in a rather commanding, stern tone. "Unidentified ship, you are entering the engagement zone of a Blackwood Security Transport. You must divert course immediately."
A voice radioed back. It was a harsh voice, a snake voice - like a Kismek. Probably. "You have entered our territory, Valen intruders. Your cargo is now forfeit. Surrender the transport and continue your lives." The engaging ship became easy to see as Zenith’s ship pulled up a camera view of it. It looked pretty typical of a pirate’s ship, being quite a sloppily patched up and rough piece of kit. Unusually, however, the ship featured what looked like a large, flat cannon on its bottom. Possibly.
"Olwen, you see that thing on the bottom of that ship? What is that?" Zenith inquired over their secure, private channel.
"Looks like some kind of scrapyard weaponry. Doubt it’s anything to worry about."
"You sure? It’s quite big for a ship that size."
"Probably just compensating for the low fire power. Pirates are all about intimidation, remember. We’re not fools." Olwen’s voice swapped over the public channel, the lower quality and harsher tones on the short-range radio replacing the crystal-clear communication moments ago. "We are fully equipped VSEC units. Choose your next action wisely, you will not get a second chance, pirate."
The transport piped up on private comms. "You need me to make any moves, boys?"
"Nah, stay put Julie," Zenith replied. "If anything happens, just evade and we’ll take the guy out. He’s got fixed weapons; you’d have plenty of time."
"Got it." The transport pilot goes quiet again as the pirate pipes up.
"Last chance, Valen. Leave now with your lives," the voice almost hissed over the radio. This other pilot seemed extremely cocky and confident, which was a bit unnerving to Zenith. Something was off.
"You sure about our stance he—" Zenith was interrupted by Olwen barking commands over short-range.
"You have 10 seconds to divert course, or we will fire on you pirate!" Olwen remains keyed in as he counts down. The pirate’s ship seems to light up rather suddenly, alarms in the cabin going off about a sudden target lock on VSEC-96 – Olwen’s ship. "Five- shit—"
Just as quickly as the ship had lit up it had shot, a direct hit into his friend’s ship which careened backwards, tumbling as it did. VSEC-96 disappeared from his monitors, something that was a bad sign. Radios are very robust on these ships, for them to break would indicate some serious damage. Zenith wasn’t thinking about that, though. He kept off the radio and opened fire on the pirate ship the instant it had fired, his self-aiming weapons locked onto the hull of the larger pirate vessel. It was poorly defended against his artillery, something they had known in the first place. However, it was maneuvering quickly, his evasive actions right on the edge of what was necessary to keep that mystery weapon off of him.
Zenith’s ship is struck with a glancing blow by the pirate ship’s weaponry, knocking part of his engines out of alignment and significantly reducing his maneuvering capability. It was a hard hit too, knocking his ship around into a dizzying spin. He fights the newly unpredictable ship’s responses to his inputs, the systems struggling to compensate for the new conditions they operated within as alarms screamed and the cabin grew warm. Zenith was tearing the pirate’s ship to shreds, littering it with holes as he gritted his teeth and held on. He saw the transport making its own moves to get out of range. Zenith made a move to hit the distress button in the ship, interrupted by a bright, green flash, a loud crash, and then darkness.
In a stretch of time that felt like a blink, Zenith awoke in the cockpit of his ship. His head was spinning, the cabin was illuminated an emergency red, and he couldn’t see out the front. Large blast shields had slammed down over his view, and his cameras to look out were simply not functioning at the moment. The pilot fumbled with his restraints and got up.
"COCKPIT COMPROMISE. PATCH PANELS REQUIRED," the on-board computers shouted at him. He hit an alarm mute with a fist and dug the self-applying patch panels out of the back of his cockpit, throwing them into the floor and kicking them into place, pounding the ones in the ceiling in. His eyes would occasionally burn as he did, his vision foggy in the first place. He couldn’t tell if it was smoke, he certainly didn’t smell anything in the cabin.
"Cockpit Integrity Restored, Repressurizing," the computer remarked in a positive tone. Zenith found himself struggling back over to his seat, finding himself fighting the magnetic pseudo-gravity before he collapsed into his chair. The illumination slowly went white as he re-did his seat restraints, noticing the flood of red light in the cabin wasn’t the real reason his hands had looked the way they did.
Zenith looked up from his blood-covered hands and noted that much of the cabin had been smeared in blood from him finding his way through it, and that it was even spilling into the air of the cabin as he looked around in little, wobbling droplets of crimson. This wasn’t immediately alarming to him, for some reason, and immediately his strange attitude to that alarmed him greatly. Something was gravely wrong with him, even though he couldn’t identify what it was. The Valen pilot reached up into the roof of the cockpit and ripped the emergency kit out of the ceiling.
He clumsily slid one of a few "stabilizer" pens out of the side of it, slamming it into his leg like an epi-pen. The pain of that violent injection was invisible to him at that moment. He reached forward and hit the SOS beacon button, but the ship notified him that his radio devices had failed. The ship reverted to simply a distress mode, disengaging its locks as Zenith slumped back into his seat. He felt his vision closing in as the previously adrenaline-suppressed pain rushed in all at once, letting out a weak cry before he’d finally pass out.
"What do you want to be when you grow up, Zen?" Zenith’s mother smiled down at him across the table as the two ate dinner together that particular evening. It was a rather nice, quiet evening. His father was away working with some researchers, as he would be on occasion.
"I wanna be a pilot, like you!" Zenith smiled back at his mother, taking a bite out of a slice of chicken. "I wanna see space. It sounds so cool! You tell the coolest stories," he continued, with his mouth pretty full.
"Swallow before you talk." She snickered. "It’s less exciting than you think, sweetie. You only hear about the best parts."
"Yeah, but." Zenith swallows, setting his fork down. "You get to meet such cool people! Go to such cool places, it’s awesome! We never get to do stuff like that here."
"Guess you’re right." She smiles at him again. "I think you’d be a great pilot."
"Really?"
"Of course! I’ve seen you playing sports with your friends, you’re definitely quick enough. Probably could be one of those security pilots. Far more exciting of a job."
Zenith smiled wide, spearing some of the vegetables on his plate with his fork. "Have to be strong to be a security pilot too, right?"
"Sure do. So, you’d better finish your dinner if that’s what you really want. That’s what all the security pilots I know would do." Zenith went after the rest of his meal after that, getting a little snicker out of his mom.
"Can I help with that?" Zenith had noticed his dad working in the garage one afternoon, just as he’d gotten back from school. He was working on uncrating some sort of big piece of technology.
"Oh, well…" His father stopped what he was doing to think for a moment, before looking back at Zenith. "You’re just about a teenager now, aren’t ya?" Zenith nodded, his father smiling at him. "Well then, suppose it’s time we get you used to working with some real tools!"
"Really?" Zenith almost jumped out of his excitement, tossing his school bag to the wall of the garage as he came over.
"Yup. But, just 'cause you worked on this with me, doesn’t mean you get to use it, Zen. That’s the rule with this thing, for now." His father looked at him seriously.
"That’s okay, I don’t mind. But… what is it?"
"Flight simulator," his father replied. "For your mother." Zenith’s eyes lit up huge.
"You’ve gotta let me use that thing!" Zenith pouted. "You know I want to be a pilot."
"I know, Zenith, I’m just not supposed to let anyone other than your mother use it." He sighed. "It’s not technically ours, the government’s lending it to your mother and I so we can keep up with training on our off time.
"Yeah, and I’ll be doing that training eventually if I become a pilot! Why not let me do it now?" Zenith folded his arms. His father looked at him, then at the wall, shaking his head a bit.
"You know, yeah. I’ve seen you playing your little flight games." He chuckles. "You almost fly as good as me in those, wouldn’t be surprised if those skills of yours translated well." His father looked back at him, properly. "You’re certain you want to be a pilot?"
"Yeah."
"Very sure?"
"It’s like, all I talk about, dad."
"Well, then. Fine, I suppose we could work something out. Keep it off the network when you use it, and you’ve gotta spend just as much time working out as you do in the sims. That’s how it is in flight school, so it’d be better you be used to that now." His father smiled at him, Zenith returning the look but tenfold. "And only in the evenings, Zen."
"Thank you!" He hugged his dad tightly. Zenith’s father returned the embrace.
"Olwen, check this out." Zenith pulled the covers off the simulator in his family’s garage. Olwen, one of Zenith's best friends, was immediately confused, walking around it with his canned drink in hand.
"What is this thing?" Olwen puzzled over it as Zenith looked at him with a "really?" look. "Oh, shit, this is the flight sim you told me about, isn’t it?"
"It is!" Zenith immediately swung himself into it, sitting in the seat and strapping himself in. "Super immersive too. Like, think about feeling a video game with your full body. It’s incredible."
"Pff, no way." Olwen sipped his drink. "Is this "flight simulator" just some new toy your rich dad got you?"
Zenith rolled his eyes. "No, this is like, Blackwood gear. Look." Zenith pointed to a very nice piece of Blackwood badging on the side of the unit, and Olwen’s jaw dropped.
"Can I, uh, try it?" Olwen looked at Zenith with an expression that almost pleaded. Zenith shook his head.
"No, I had to fight to get access to this thing, dude. No way." Zenith snickered. "You can learn properly once we’re both in flight school. Not that different from Magnus Aces, though, so just keep playing that." Olwen rolled his eyes.
"Sure it is," his friend replied sarcastically. "That game’s easy."
"And flying a ship’s not that much harder!"
"For you! You’ve spent like, what, two years on this thing already?" Olwen laughs. "Of course it’s easy."
Zenith’s dad seemed to suddenly appear behind the two. "You boys aren’t supposed to be messing with this stuff," Zenith’s dad said rather sternly. Zenith’s ears dropped to his head as he unfastened the seat restraints.
"I was, uh, just showing him it. Wasn’t gonna let him use it." Zenith quickly got out of the seat.
"Really?" Zenith’s dad looked at Olwen, who’s ears did a proper spin to lay flat at the look he got.
"Yes, sir, he insisted he couldn’t." Olwen looked away, Zenith’s father nodding.
"Well, you should get going for tonight, Olwen." Zenith’s friend booked it out of there, his father’s gaze returning to Zenith himself. "I thought I told you not to show anyone this thing."
"He’s gonna be a pilot eventually too."
"What makes you so sure of that, Zenith?"
"He’s already signed up for the academy. I didn’t even know you could do that."
"And you believed that?"
"I mean, he showed me the acceptance papers. I was gonna ask you about it later." Zenith looked up for the first time during the confrontation. "I’m sorry, I didn’t think it would be a big deal."
"Just…" His father sighed. "Don’t do it again. And make sure Olwen keeps this thing a secret."
"Why’s it a secret anyway?" Zenith looked at his father curiously, but his father just shook his head.
"Doesn’t matter. Don’t worry about it. Just make sure he doesn't tell people, got it?"
"I just aced all of the assessments on the simulator!" Zenith ran into the house from the garage with a little certificate from the machine, handing it to his mom. She looked at it, raising her eyebrows a bit.
"So you did, Zenith." She looked up at him. "That’s… extremely impressive actually."
"Very impressive." His father stopped messing with whatever broken piece of tech was on the dining room table at that moment. "You know, you could probably get into the flight academy early with something like that."
"You sure that’s a good idea?" His mother said to his father, a bit concerned. "He wants to be security, you know."
"What’s wrong with that?" Zenith felt immediately frustrated. "I’ve worked really hard to get this far, you know."
"I know, Zen, it’s just." His mother looked back up at him from the seated position at the dining table. "I don’t really tell the bad stories very much, and there’s plenty of them."
"It’s not all games, I know. People die, sometimes even the security people." Zenith sat down, his 16-year-old self trying to act a bit mature. "I just want to protect people like you, the people flying the transports. Or even just anyone else, you know?"
"I know that." She had a pretty grim look on her face, seeming to have suddenly come to terms with what her son’s aspirations may ultimately lead to. "I’ve seen some bad things out there, Zenith. Magnus is not anywhere near as safe as things are here. You can’t just walk around and not be ready." She paused for a moment, Zenith attentively listening. "I’ve seen people die in front of me over the stuff I’ve been hauling. They let their guard down, get too comfortable, and get themselves killed. It’s not just stuff you hear over the radio."
"That’s rare though, isn’t it? And I’d pay attention, I promise." Zenith felt like his mother was overselling how much of a risk this is. "It’s what I want to do with my life, mom, and I’m not gonna let myself get killed in some stupid way."
His mother sighed. "I can’t stop you, I shouldn’t. Just, you need to stick to that. You can’t let your guard down for a second, because I’ve lost some good friends of mine to that."
His father piped in. "Similar experiences here, Zen. There are some nasty folks out there. You need to cover your own tail, don’t count on others to do that for you." He nodded a bit, digging out his PDA. "I’d stick with Olwen through school. He seems like he’d watch your back. Good friend."
"Yeah." Zenith nodded. He was letting this information sink in a bit. Even though he already knew about pilots getting killed in their ships, he hadn’t ever considered close-quarters stuff like that.
"We going to sign him up then?" Zenith’s father looked to his wife, who nodded somewhat solemnly. "Alright then, here we go." He slid the PDA over to his son. "Got it all filled out already for you. Submit button right there, if you’re certain."
Zenith took up the stylus and hit the button, and his mother looked like she was about to cry.
Zenith woke up on a stiff bed in one of the cleanest smelling rooms he’d been in recently. His head still felt like it was spinning, and the overwhelming pound of his heartbeat was almost deafening. He wasn’t sure where he was exactly – if he was back at command, on a Valen ship, or what. He could hear some nearby voices, although they were difficult to make out at first.
"Do we know who this kid is?" asked one of the Ventara, their signature, smooth avian tone giving that much away.
"Blackwood Security Detail. Shame they’re doing this to him," the other Ventara remarked with a sigh. "Only 20 years old, he’s gotta be so incredibly green."
"That’s for certain. Way in over his head."
"Certainly is." There was a pause, then the same Ventara continued. "Hey, are you awake? Zenith?"
Zenith slowly broke out of his numb, foggy rest and opened his eyes a sliver. His voice strained. "I-I am, yeah." He saw the Ventara that had just spoke standing near him, what looked like a doctor leaned down to face him, with some brilliant blue feathers. Zenith blinked a few times, still extremely disoriented. The doctor stood up straight.
"Thank the stars," the other bird remarked, seeming relieved. "I’m headed back to my post, let us know if you need anything else."
"Of course," the doctor replied. The door into the medical bay closed behind the other Ventara, the doctor’s focus coming back to Zenith. "Does anything hurt?"
Zenith could barely even tell what position his legs were in. "I’m extremely numb, I think." He smiled weakly at the doctor, who nodded to him.
"Yes you are, you’re on some pretty high power pain killers. That, what was it, Stabilizer you used on yourself? That’s probably the only reason you made it to us alive. Quick thinking, pilot."
Zenith managed a slight chuckle. "I barely even remember that."
"You did lose a lot of blood. Given your injuries I’m surprised you were even cognizant enough to do anything. You Valen are tough creatures."
"Guess so." Zenith moved to sit himself up, becoming more aware of the bandaging all over his body. "What’s, err, wrong with me, exactly?"
"Skull was fractured in the back; neck was cut up pretty bad. Ears aren’t perfect anymore either, bud, sorry about that. Left arm was…"
Zenith pushed himself off his left arm just in time for the doctor to start saying anything, wincing loudly before adjusting to use the other arm.
"… broken. Careful." The doctor looked back at the monitors.
"That’s a bit of a list…" Zenith was beginning to feel dull pain spreading in his arm as the pain killer’s effectiveness faltered a bit. "Have you radioed command for me, yet?"
"We did, we let them know we’d rescued you from the wreck of your ship. Would you like to see their reply?" The doctor picked up a clipboard from the bedside, pulling a print-off out from under the clip.
"Yes, please." Zenith propped himself up, sitting upright. He wasn’t too concerned about these Ventara – chances are they were with The Collective, an organization that was quite close allies with Blackwood. The doctor handed him the note, printed on The Collective’s letterhead. Pretty much a staple of these research stations – their logo was quite extravagant and pretty for no good reason.
Zenith looked through the note, growing more concerned and, admittedly, confused about what he was looking at. It was a perfectly coded and signed message from the Blackwood Military, which would make sense to contact if you had picked up a stranded and heavily injured pilot. That was protocol, after all. What didn’t make sense was what was at the end.
"We inspected the security ships and found no survivors," Zenith read aloud. "You should make sure we are correct in our assessment." He looked at the doctor, who simply nodded.
"What do you make of that?" The doctor asked.
"Certainly nothing good for me," Zenith replied, still puzzled. "'Make sure we are correct?"
"What’s that sound like to you?"
"Like they wanted you guys to let me die, almost."
"That’s what we thought, too." The doctor shook his head, sitting down on a nearby chair. "What’s concerning to me is that seems to surprise you as much as it surprised us."
"Yeah… I mean, the message is from Blackwood. I know that much." Zenith puzzled over the paper. The idea that they would have him killed over pirates was truly confounding. "Did they ever actually come check us out? Or is this whole thing a lie?"
"Blackwood Military ship came through this way shortly before we got the distress signal from your freighter. Hadn’t ever seen a vessel like that round here. They didn’t have their transponder on, don’t think they planned on us spotting them."
"Guess not." Zenith handed the paper back. The doctor slipped it into his clipboard. "But… why?"
"Beats me, kid." The doctor stood up. "Something isn’t right here, though. You’d best watch your back once you’re back out there. If someone in Blackwood Military wants you dead, they aren’t gonna have some change of heart if you show up alive."
"You going to tell them I’m alive again?" Zenith settled back into the bed, fully aware of how incapable he was of defending himself at this moment. Not that the doctor seemed to be any threat. "They asked for a confirmation, you have to reply."
"We’ll lie and say you died. Then, when you’re in good enough shape to leave, we’ll just tell them you fooled us and fought your way out of the station. You’ll get a little head start that way. For now, though, let those meds work their magic on your body." The Ventara smiled. "You should be back up and running in 24 hours or so. We can discuss this more once you’re feeling better. Enjoy the break and get some rest, kid."
The doctor left without saying anything else, simply just a parting wave, leaving Zenith alone in the medical bay of the research station. At least, it seemed to be one of those at this point. Everything made sense, except what Blackwood was doing. He could now recall seeing a military ship on his radar just before he’d passed out, but he wasn’t sure what that could mean. Was this some elaborate cover-up? Some spiteful action that he got caught in the crossfire of? He was going to have to settle this eventually.
Feeling finally caught up with everything, Zenith realized he wasn’t sure where Olwen was. The fact that he wasn’t in the medical bay with him was a bit worrying, especially as he could see all of the beds and knew the rest were empty. There was a very real chance that he wouldn’t ever be seeing Olwen again. The stories his mother had told him just as he’d graduated of security pilots making foolish decisions rung around in his head, almost taunting him as if he’d done something wrong. He ran through all he could remember of the altercation, picking apart everything he could recall. Zenith found himself labelling things he had no control over as his own fault, spiraling into a mess that he promptly had to pull himself out of.
He couldn’t change what had happened, nobody could. As much as he wasn’t certain Olwen had truly died, a building sorrow pushed up into his chest and was almost suffocating. Zenith held back from a sob the best he could, the dull, metallic ceiling tiles all he had for comfort, or a lack thereof. He felt very alone in that moment, more than he’d ever. His world had been fractured by something he didn’t understand. Zenith had no way home and wasn’t even sure if he’d be able to safely see his parents again. He wasn’t sure if he could even trust his Blackwood-employed parents anymore, a thought that cast a dark shadow over even the happiest of memories as he laid there.
His stifled sobs didn’t hold back the tears, the micro-cuts below his coat of fur stinging with salt. Zenith closed his eyes and submitted to the universe, feeling completely and utterly helpless in that hospital bed. He would fight the potential death of his best friend in his head, his scattered thoughts trying to find ways Olwen may have survived as he struggled not to choke on his own breath.
It was eventually too much for the young pilot, slowly succumbing to exhaustion as his body worked overtime to restore itself.