Cydonia Rising by Dave Walsh

Author:Dave Walsh [Walsh, Dave]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-09-16T16:00:00+00:00

Trella

The physical universe had never quite interested Trella until recently, but she found herself sitting in the co-pilot’s chair of the Pequod watching the cosmos that surrounded them while they throttled across the expanse toward Andlios. Toward Alva. The very thought made her heart skip a beat and her pulse quicken. Everything felt fresh, new and exciting in a way that it had never felt before in her life. There was a cold shell that had surrounded her before, but now it had melted away and given way to a warm trove of sensations that were both overwhelming and welcome.

One of the comm buoys sat off in the distance, an ominous reminder that while the universe was a beautiful and wondrous place, humanity had expanded as far as they could reach and left their footprint wherever possible. Their footprints were not as beautiful as the undisturbed universe, that much was clear to her. She looked down at her body, grown in a lab and augmented with mechanisms to not only make her life easier but also to help her live for many cycles. It had never occurred to her before that it was unnatural—it was simply the Cydonian way.

“What are you doing up here?” Jace’s voice broke her from her daydream, sounding upset but not angry.

“Oh.” She turned to see him standing there, sans boots, as she had learned was usual while aboard the Pequod. “I am sorry, Jace, I simply wanted to look out and spend some time alone.” Her greeting was still mechanical, but she had been working to smooth over some of her interactions with the rest of the crew and to somehow act more natural, whatever that meant.

“It’s fine, I guess.” He sat down into his chair and spun around to face the console. “This is just usually where I come to be alone is all.”

“I am very sorry, if you would like me to leave I can always—”

“No, no,” he held his hand up at her. “It’s fine, you are okay, Trella. So tell me, what is it that has you deep in thought, so deep in thought, in fact, that you didn’t hear me coming?”

“Nothing in particular, I suppose.”

“That doesn’t sound very Cydonian,” he chuckled.

“No, probably not.”

“You weren’t thinking about Princess Alva, then?”

“Among other things, yes, that is correct. You don’t sound surprised.”

“You’ve traveled all the way across the galaxy, away from everything you knew just to find her.” He pulled up a star chart and studied it. “You must really love her.”

“There is that word again.”

“What, love?” He turned to her, confused.

“Yes. It is not particularly a word that is used much by my people, Mr. Krios.”

“If doing what you are doing isn’t love, then I don’t know what is.”

“As you are well aware, love is something Cydonians thought to be a weakness and it was systematically removed throughout years of—”

“You can’t remove human nature from a human, you just can’t.”

“I’m not sure my people would agree with that, Mr. Krios.” She absently tapped her fingers on her knee.

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