2-19

“We are approaching the border of hazardous space.”

“How long until we are home?” I asked Owl from where I was laying on one of the bench chairs in the part of the space station where all the piloting things were.

“Maybe two or three days. That depends on if the space around our home is as hazardous as Guardian Wannaniki has led us to believe.” Owl replied.

I rolled onto my side to face Owl. She was at one of the consoles watching data scroll across it. She understood it but all I saw was numbers and graphs, “So we are getting home then? We are not going to be stuck out here as space vagrants?”

Owl huffed and crossed her arm, not even looking at me, “If I had to I would turn this space station into a giant teleportation beacon, link it to my lab and teleport us home. You are not the only one starting to miss the things from home Suneya.”

I looked away from her to the plated flooring beneath us,” Sorry. Space is surprisingly boring to me.”

“Dont worry, this time next week you are going to be back at your little dojo punching people and teaching people to punch other in the face.”

That was probably a good thing. I had noticed I was starting to look for ways to provoke Guardian Wannaniki into a fight. He was a nice person and I didn't want to break him. The lift doors opened and Guardian Wannaniki walked in followed by Lahrya. Guardian Wannaniki marched over to Owl with Lahrya on his heels, “You are getting close to wild space. You should start slowing down, it will give you time to react and adjust to things ahead.”

“We are fine.” Owl replied, “I enhanced our shields, anything we hit will be deflected or bounced off.”

“That works for space debris but not a twisting of space. I have seen things pass through nodes of twisted space and some out the other side warped and broke. They tend to blow up when pieces happen to exist in the same place on the other side.”

Owl gave a nod, “Spatial overlap tends to end up being very energetic. I am not seeing anything ahead of us. I think your latest scan of the area is very out of date.”

“The last scan was fifty years ago, what do you mean?” Owl waved at the console in front of her and Guardian Wannaniki stepped closer and started watching the graphs and chats.

Lahrya took one glance at the charts and turned around and walked over to me. She plopped down on one of the seats near me, “I have no idea what those charts mean.”

“Dont feel bad. I haven't had any idea of what has been happening for quite a while.” I told her.

“Does this happen alot?” She asked as she pulled her legs to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.

“Almost every time I hang out with her. She can dumb things down pretty well though.”

There was a jerk and I pinwheeled my arms to stop from falling off my chair. Lahrya let out a yelp. I glared at Owl and Guardian Wannaniki, “the hell was that?”

I could see the shield that surrounded the space station ripple like a pond. Owl answered, “We hit an asteroid.”

“A sizable one too” ,Guardian Wannaniki said.

I sighed and Lahrya asked, “What do you consider sizable?”

“About the size of this station.” Guardian Wannaniki answered.

“This one was a little bit bigger.” Owl added.

“Did it hurt the station at all?” I asked Owl.

She waved her hand, “We just changed direction a little. It was more of a speed bump than crashing into something.”

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Lahrya leaned back against her chair. I sat up and watched the two of them stare at graphs and chats scrolling across the screen. When it didn't look like they were going to say anything else I frowned, “So what's going on with the twisting space thing Guardian Wannaniki was worried about.”

“His scans are out of date. The most I am seeing on the sensors of the space station are asteroids and random space bodies.” Owl answered.

“Which shouldnt be possible or happening.” Guardian Wannaniki answered.

He was starting to look pretty worried. Guardian Wannaniki crossed his arms and leaned closer to the charts, giving them all his focus. Owl sighed, “I think I know exactly what happened. How long has this space been like that?”

“A few thousand years. The scan is updated every hundred years or so.” He started pacing back and forth.

Owl raised her hand and jabbed a finger in my direction, “Tell him about the thing you killed in Angle City.”

I pulled my Kiseru from my belt and started chewing on the mouthpiece as I glanced between the two of them. Guardian Wannaniki had stopped pacing and was facing me, Owl hadn't turned from the graphs and charts, “Well… it felt wrong, like it was corrupting the surroundings. It was twisted, wearing the body of a human. Its voice echoed out trying to get in my head and I made sure it died screaming.”

“That is very bad.” He turned to Owl, “How many hosts do you think it had?”

She gave a shrug, “Host? Maybe a few hundred. It has a few thousand dead bodies running around infected with its special brand of disease.”

He let out a hiss and started pacing back and forth with his head held between his hands, “How are you people still alive?”

“Whats so bad about that? They killed it didn't they?” Lahrya asked.

He turned to her and waved his arms around while answering, “Solar Guardians have run into things like that a few times. The most we can do is evacuate the planet and hop the refugees can survive and rebuild on another planet. Those things tend to parasitize the local population then eventually the planet when they get big enough.”

“That sounds about right,” Owl said. “We have mages on our planet, do you two know what those are?”

Guardian Wannaniki nodded and Lahrya asked, “mote users?”

Owl shrugged, “close enough. They have some serious record keeping. I helped translate some when I was younger. When it first showed up there was a big fight, continents shifted when it was all over and they destroyed the body it was in and weakened it for a time.”

“Your people are very lucky. Those parasites are not from this dimension, that you lasted this long is a very deep showing of your species endurance.”

Owl chuckled, “the mages got together and cast a spell, trapping it in one area. Its main body, it still spread some feelers out through the years. They had turned hunting the feelers into a sport, the ashes from the dead bodies make good ritual material from what I know.”

“So you didn't endure it, you turned it into a recourse?” Lahrya asked.

“No.” Owl cut off that line of thought, “I was making tectonic stabilizers for the plates of the planet. In three years I would have had them planted and then I would have teleported the whole city and most of the plate into the sun. The stabilizer would have stopped the earth quakes and the problem would have been solved.”

“That still doesn't explain why you think this area of space is safe now.” Guardian Wannaniki pointed out.

“I think it was twisting space around our home planet to scare off any scavengers. It seemed to be taking its time trying to eat the planet. Suneya killed it and broke whatever it was doing to the space we a re traveling through and it has smoothed out.”

That was enough for me. I let out a sigh then stood up, “What is with you and teleporting things?”

She gave me a look, “It's convenient.”

“You were going to teleport a piece of the planet away. That sounds excessive.”

“It would have worked.” She replied.

“Probably.” I replied as I headed to the lift.

Lahrya stood up and followed after me. The lift doors closed and started lowering us away from Owl and Guardian Wannaniki. Lahrya gave me a glance before facing the doors, “that was scary.”

“The asteroid hitting the station?” When she nodded her head I shrugged, “We were fine. Honestly i expect it to get really rough as we get closer to him. That little bump was nothing.”

“Are we going to make it to your planet? Guardian Wannaniki seems pretty worried.” She asked.

“You have a piece of tech Owl created with little resources strapped to your jaw that lets us talk. She made it at a glance from looking at how Guardian Wannanikis belt does the same. She has had this space station for quite some time and said she was going to rebuild it. I imagine she is almost done with it. Owl didn't seem worried when I asked her earlier and I trust her.”

The lift stopped and the door opened. I stepped out into the dead atrium with Lahrya following me. We didn't stop and headed down one of the side paths. It led us to one of the cafeterias that the space station had. There were those weird dispenser on the wall and Lahryya hurried over to one. I headed to a different one, this one had an OwlBot standing next to it, “give me a smoothie.”

The bot turned and started pushing buttons in the thing. Owl hadn't gotten around to swapping the language and I still couldn't read the stuff. A few days ago she noticed I wasn't eating very much. She grabbed me and pulled me down here and made a few smoothies, telling me they tasted like the stuff from our home planet. She was right, they did and I had been snacking on them when I was bored. I didn't have to eat, I could still feel hunger and thirst but I wouldn't die from starving.

A large cup dropped down into the slot and the machine started humming. A nozzle lowered down from it and it started squirting some pinkish fluid into the cup. It filled up with a swirl on the top and with a click dropped a metal straw into the cup. I watched the straw slowly sink down then reached out and grabbed the cup. It was cold and starting to frost on the sides. I brought the straw to my mouth and took a pull, it tasted of strawberries.

Stepping away I turned to Lahrya, she had a little bowl of what looked like stones. She gave me a smile and we headed for a table. We took a seat and I watched her pick up a single little stone and put it in her mouth. I heard the crunch and asked, “What do those taste like?”

“A little chalky with a hint of sweetness,” She reached into the bowl and grabbed one of the little stones before holding it out to me.

I chewed on my lip a little before reaching out and taking it. I brought it closer to my mouth before pausing. Every piece of food I had tried on this trip hadn't tasted bad; they has all just looked so unappetizing. This one just looked like a small grey rock. I tossed it into my mouth a bit down with a crunch. She was right, it did taste very chalky but that was all she was right about. My mouth instantly numbed as the neurotoxin it was made from went to work.

I let out a sigh and looked at my smoothie, “It tasted sweet to you but it is poison to someone of my species. When you get to our planet you should ask Owl for something that will make sure our food isn't poison to you.”

She looked very alarmed, “Are you going to be ok?”

I waved her off and continued to stare at my smoothie. It would be a few minutes before I could taste again and I was really starting to enjoy the smoothies Owl had made for me.