Vanguard Word Update

2k words. I wanted it to be more but I'm late for work. I'll see you guys next week!

***

“When do we go?” he sighed.

“You can leave right away. I’ll send word to the gate and tell them you’re expected. Unless you have any more protests, I suggest you both see yourselves out.”

Cadell rose to his feet, Samiha doing the same, the two of them leaving under the reproachful gaze of the Kith’sla. He’d come up here with the intent of giving Samiha the boot, and instead he’d landed himself a whole day of alone time with her. The irony was so heavy he could barely stand its weight.

He called the lift, Samiha tapping her foot as she waited beside him. She was just able to fit in the cart if she hunched over in a sort of half-crouch, Cadell holding the door open while she squeezed herself inside.

Cadell pressed the ground floor button, the doors sliding shut. The tension in the air of the lift was only matched by the awkwardness of sharing the confined space with the alien, and it felt like the cart was moving at a snail’s pace. It soon became too much for Cadell, and he decided to break the quiet.

“Listen, Samiha. I’m sorry about…” he said, stammering as he tried to make it all come out right. “I didn’t know about your meds. That’s no excuse and I’m not saying it is, I was just so… fed up with you that I couldn’t help but think the worst.”

Samiha only looked at him, and for a long while he thought she would stay that way. Then she sighed, the feathers that were her equivalent of hair drooping.

“I am sorry too,” she said. “I have given you no other reason to think otherwise. The Kith’sla always tells us not to judge humans to the same standards as ours, but that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. A reprimand was the least I deserved.”

“I never wanted things to get this far,” Cadell continued. “Fightin’ in front of the others, involvin’ your Clan leader. I admit I was tryin’ to get you in trouble by reportin’ you –  and that’s childish of me I know – but I was also worried that you might have a problem.”

“Is the use of stimulants really so frowned upon?” Samiha asked. “Shouldn’t every advantage be used if it means bettering one’s performance?

“Our bodies aren’t as tolerant of drugs as yours seem to be,” Cadell explained. “People who end up getting hooked develop a lot of health problems in the long run. Diseases, mental disorders, things like that.”

“We were both being ignorant of each other’s customs,” Samiha sighed. “We do not make a very good example of a mixed species unit, do we?”

“Not in the slightest,” Cadell agreed with a humourless chuckle.

They arrived back in the lobby, the receptionist raising her brow as she watched the two of them cross the room and emerge back onto the torus.

“So what now?” Cadell asked.

“What do you think? We follow the Kith’sla’s commands, and visit the rest of the station. While we can,” she added bitterly. “Who knows if our punishment will landslide into something much more severe.”

“You think she’ll find someone to replace us?”

“That’s what I’d do.”

“Then let’s make the most of it,” Cadell said, trying to frame it in a new light. “I’ve been itchin’ to do some explorin’ anyway. Let’s go.”

-xXx-

They followed the tight footpaths of the quadrant upspin, weaving between the facilities, listening to the occasional shouting officer and muffled gunshot as they passed the training grounds. The divider wall that capped this side of the quadrant slowly zoomed into detail as they walked up the torus, until Cadell and Samiha were stood before the gate.

The foot traffic was minimal, a couple of officers and engineers stopping to check their ID’s with the armed guards. They were waved over by a man in combat armour, one hand clutching a tablet computer while the other rested on the sling of his coilgun.

“Afternoon,” he greeted, glancing up cautiously at Samiha. He mustn’t interact with Balokarids much. “Gonna need your names and serial numbers, please.”

They gave them over, and the guard scrolled down his tablet. “Alright let’s see… Ah-ha, there you are. You’re both cleared to go through. Just remember that the next check-in is at midnight, so call your commanding officer or be back here before then. Have a nice night.”

“Thanks,” Cadell said, and they passed through the checkpoint and into the torus proper. He’d glimpsed this part of the station on his first arrival, but without any officers to watch over him, or any duties to attend to, he had a moment to take it all in. The path from the gate forked into two streets, and these ran up most of the station’s band as his eyes tracked them up the sloping horizon, the walkways divided down the middle by a column of continuous structures. Unlike the congested pathways of the quadrant, these lanes served as unbroken highways for pedestrians.

Kilometres of the ringworld were now open to him, and he wasn’t sure where to start. A nearby tapping of the foot reminded him that he had company in this detour, the Balokarid looking just as stumped as she glanced up and down the torus.

“So where too?” he asked. “It’s about midday, so we’ve got twelve hours before we have to be back here.”

“Why are you asking me? Your kind built this place, I have no idea where anything is.”

“This is going to be a long twelve hours,” Cadell muttered. “Maybe I should ask one of the guards if they have a map.”

Samiha raised a hand, stopping him.

“Wait,” she said, looking off into the distance. “I believe I see a food market over there. Perhaps that will be a good place to start.”

“Where?” he asked, following her gaze. All he could see were bright lights beaming out of the residential blocks along the hull. “I don’t see no market.”

Samiha held out a nail, and raised her finger just slightly above the horizon, directing his attention up spin towards a collection of red and yellow lights, maybe eight or nine hundred meters away.

“How in the world did you see that?” Cadell asked, raising a brow at her.

“Our vision is far superior to yours,” she said, which made sense considered her eyes were nearly twice the size of his. “With the right reagents, even our fighter pilots can see most of their targets by eye.”

“Could have used you when I lost my keys that time,” Cadell replied. “I’m down for a bite if you are.”

“Yes, let’s get this over with,” Samiha said, his begrudging companion loping along after him.

Cadell swung them onto the walkway on the left, the walls of the quadrant fading away behind them. The walkway carried them into throngs of people, what few other military personnel there were slowly being outnumbered in a sea of civilians and engineers, clogging the path until Cadell couldn’t even see the ground ahead of him.

Cadell had never seen so many people in one place before. Even during the colony meetings on Manildra, where most of the populace gathered in and around the town hall to discuss important events, the amount of people didn’t compare to the people clogging the torus. He remembered reading somewhere that the population of the Hub was in the hundreds of thousands.

People gasped at his passing, but they weren’t because of Cadell. People hurrying from place to place suddenly were afflicted with the urge to stop as Samiha strode along by his side, the crowds parting before her like a tide. There reactions ranged from cautious to frightened, Cadell spotting one mother scooping up her child as they strode by.

“Don’t mind them,” Cadell said, trying to offer Samiha some support. “Folk’s will get used to seeing aliens walking around soon enough.”

He thought she’d drive up some complaint about them, but instead she said: “We were much the same, when the first humans came aboard our ships. The entire maintenance crew dropped everything they were doing to come look.”

“You were an engineer?” Cadell asked.

“I think the closest word in your language is artisan. On Dur’shala I was tasked with keeping the equipment running, and when we were exiled, they put me in charge of assembling and maintaining ship parts for the carriers. The two translated well enough.”

“No wonder you put that coilgun back together so quickly,” he noted.

“Compared to repairing a chemical fuel cell, a ballistic rifle is a couple hundred steps easier.”

He wanted to press her further, this was the first time he actually knew something about her, but the more upspin they went, so to did the number of people, and the amount of voices made it hard to communicate without downright shouting.

As they approached the place Samiha had pointed out, the smell of cooking meat rose to his nose, neon signs from the upper floors of the surrounding buildings bathing him in bright and colourful lights. It was a food court, tucked into a wide nook that hugged the lefthand side of the torus, a couple hundred tables with just as many people milling about the area, making the space look more confined than it actually was. It was mostly food stalls and fast-food places packing the three walls of the court, and there were alleys in the corners leading into deeper levels, but there were stairways leading to the upper levels, Cadell spotting restaurants and other places where one could dine-in.

“Let’s check out that steakhouse up there,” Cadell said, knowing by now he should just take the lead.

“Orders are orders…” he heard Samiha mutter.

They made their way to the stairs, which was made easy going thanks to Samiha’s effect on the crowds. The restaurant he’d chosen was thankfully open-planned, so Samiha shouldn’t have too much trouble navigating the floor, the place cantered around a small kitchen ringed with stoves and glass windows, designed so that the diners could watch their meals be prepared if they desired.

There weren’t too many other customers, but enough to give the place a welcoming vibe, and the low murmur of chatter was much better than the chaos outside, Samiha ducking in after his as he pulled the doors open. A waiter passed them by carrying a giant rack of ribs, Cadell noticing Samiha’s eyes zeroing in on the food.

“Good day!” a jovial voice announced. There was a counter on the immediate right, and a man with a smart uniform and a plump belly was stood behind it. “Always glad to see a new face! Welcome to- woah Nelly.”

The greeter’s jaw slacked when he had to visibly crane his neck to look Samiha up and down. She offered a thin smile in greeting.

“You’re a… Balokarid, right?” the greeter asked. “Of course you are, why did I even ask that? Forget I said anything. Had no idea there were any of you on the station.”

“There are not, aside from me and a handful of others,” Samiha explained.

“First time out on the torus, then? Well allow me to welcome you to the best steakhouse on the station. I’m Jim, the owner, I’m guessing you don’t have a reservation?”

At least this one seemed happy enough to meet an alien, and wasn’t staring too much. Cadell guessed he had to be if he wanted happy customers.

“No, we don’t,” Cadell answered. “Just a table for two, thanks.”

“No sweat, mate,” Jim replied, his accent similar to Hunter’s. People from all over the Reaches ended up on the Hub, it seemed. “Might have some trouble getting a seat for you, ma’am, but anything for the boys and girls in blue.”

He must recognise their uniforms, Jim waving them on as he made his way out onto the floor. There was a vacant booth in the far corner, Cadell taking a seat on one side. Samiha sized up her side of the table, and was about to open her beak to say something, when Jim came back lugging a backless stool, the legs shorter than a forearm.

“This is the best I have on hand, ma’am,” Jim informed, setting the stool down and wiping his brow. “Hope it’s to your satisfaction.”