Jessica awoke to the sound of a loud
buzzing. “Don’t tell me it’s time to get up already,” she groaned. With a sigh,
she got up and prepared herself for school. “Computer, display Azura report.”
The computer console screen came on with a crack of static electricity. Jessica
sat down in a chair in fort of the screen and skimmed over her report. It
began:
‘Azura is the second planet in earth’s
neighboring solar system by that same name. The Azura system was first
discovered 84 years ago in the year 2120 and since then, the five other planets
in the system, Alimicon, Varnic,
Dulsivii, Deshdan, and New
Mars have been discovered and settled by humans. Azura is named after the
valuable blue stone found in mountainous deposits on its surface. Known as
“azurestone”, it emits a soft blue glow while within Azura’s atmosphere and is
used for many purposes, but mostly as a super-efficient power source to drive
ship’s propulsion systems, Earth’s many planetary colonies and Earth itself…’
“Looks good,” Jessica said to herself. “Computer, transfer file to data pad.”
She walked over to her desk and picked up
the flat writing device with a screen and a row of buttons along the bottom,
and put it into her pack. She took her pack and went into the dining room for
breakfast. She set it by the door and sat down at the table. “Good mourning
Jessica,” said Carol and Peter who were already there eating muffins.
“Hi Mom and Dad,” returned Jessica.
“Did you get a good night’s sleep?” asked
Peter.
“Yes. I did, thank you.”
“So are you ready for school today.”
“No, not really, now that you mention it.”
“Let me rephrase that. Are you prepared for school?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“Aw come on. It’s not that bad, is it?”
“Yeah,” Carol broke in. “I know that you
have some very good friends at school. Don’t you want to hang out with them?”
“Sure I do. Just not on Monday.”
“I see. You know, I actually can relate to
that. If fact, I can relate to lots of things that you kids go through.”
“Oh, you mean my parents aren’t from
another planet,” Jessica said smiling. “Oh wait. Technically they are from another
planet than this one. But that would mean that I’m from another planet too. But
wait! If we’re both from another
planet then how can we both be from the same planet? But we are both from
Earth. Hmm…Or are we? I bet you and Dad are really from Azura, and you came to
Earth to take me and
“Well I don’t know about that. You seem to
be born from the very “earth” of Azura, you love this
place so much.”
“Oh Mom. Don’t be weird,” Jessica said,
blushing. At that moment,
“Good mourning,”
“Don’t want to go to school either, huh?”
“Naw.”
“Well, I think I’ll get some more apple
juice now, Jessica announced.”
“Go right ahead,” said Peter. Jessica got
up, went over to the kitchen counter and stepped in front of a machine built
into the wall. “Apple juice. Light. Cool,” she ordered. A cup of cold apple
juice materialized in front of her in the tray of the machine. She took it and
held it up to look at it. “Cool,” she said, smiling wryly and casting her eyes
to the side. She heard
“There’s the fifteen minute warning for
school. Y’all better get going!” said Carol. Jessica and Norman got up from the
table, put their backpacks on and went out the door.
“Bye Mom! Bye Dad,” they said as the left.
“Bye! Have a nice day,” they answered.
They began to walk down the sidewalk to BC3 High. As they passed the mining
offices, they met other students leaving their homes on their way to school.
The Holocomm Mining Company funded and maintained a high school and elementary
school for the families of expatriate miners during their two-year terms on
Azura, in between which the families got a one-year leave to Earth.
It was a quiet clear day, sunny as usual,
but the constant Azuran winds originating from the vast seas several hundred
miles to the east of Base Camp 3, always kept the temperature bearable to
humanoid life forms. Jessica looked around as the birds flew by low to the
ground and she looked out onto the plains, past the borders of the compound
once again to admire their vast extension in all directions as far as the eye
could see.
Suddenly two of
“Ah, we played a whole lot of laser tag
out in the
“We played a few games of hoverball at Joe’s house and then we went to the Azural Plateau and went hang-gliding with Joe’s Dad off the
high end,” said one of the kids, Kyle. He was a stout lad with messy blonde
hair. He wore a pair of baggy cargo pants and a colorful aloha shirt. “After
that, we spent all Sunday afternoon playing electronic games at Joe’s. It was a
lotta fun; you should have come with us.”
“Nah, I felt like I should spend some
quality time with my sis. We didn’t play any laser tag at all last weekend.”
“Geez! You’re
lucky to have
“Hey, you’ve got buddies too, Jessie,”
said Kyle. “Why didn’t you hang out with them?”
“Oh, I just felt that I should spend some
quality time with my bro.”
“Like brother, like sister, eh?”
“Right.” The four continued down the path,
towards the tall high school building that now loomed very close to them. They
passed the outer fence and walked into the arched doorway on the side of the
building, where two of Jessica’s friends were waiting with books and data pads
in hand. The two groups greeted each other warmly in the hallway. “Hey Tammy!
Hey Melissa!” Jessica called to the two girls. Norman and his friends continued
down the hall towards their lockers.
“Did you hear about Mike getting the lead
role in our upcoming school play?” Tammy asked. She was a small girl with her
short black hair pulled back in a ponytail, and pale blue eyes. She adjusted
her denim jacked slightly upon her shoulders as she talked to Jessica.
“No I haven’t,” Jessica said in surprise.
“That’s cool. It was the role he wanted. It seems to fit him too.”
“Yeah, really
fitting,” piped Melissa. She had green eyes and riotous blonde curls fell down
her back to about her elbows. She was wearing a knee-length plaid skirt and a
green sweater. “All of the other candidates are jealous of him, it’s so funny.
They’ll get over it, since they’re all friends anyway.”
“Practically everybody knows each other,
we’re such a small school; only 150 kids.” There were three flights of stairs a
little further down the hall and Jessica, Melissa, and Tammy proceeded up the
stairs towards the third floor where their lockers were located. Jessica
stopped by her locker, which was the fifth one on the row. Melissa and Tammy’s
were two lockers down from Jessica’s. Jessica began to open up her backpack to
take out the data pads that she needed for her first class, when a boy with
light tan hair wearing a black vest, and gray slacks and shirt looked in her
direction as he passed. He was about two inches taller than Jessica and about
the same age. Jessica looked back. Their eyes locked for a split second and
then the boy quickly looked away, humming innocently to himself. “I wonder what
that was for?” thought Jessica. She continued to rummage through her backpack.
She pressed in the combination on the door of her locker. A red light just
below the keypad changed to green and the door came open with a hiss of
hydraulics. Jessica took a couple of data pads and bent down to place them in
her locker. Someone leaned on her door. “Sean likes you. I mean really likes
you,” came
Tammy’s hushed, teasing voice from above Jessica’s head.
“What?” asked Jessica, standing up to see
Tammy and Melissa looking at her with big grins on their faces.
“What makes you say that?”
“Didn’t you see him glance at you? He does
it a lot.”
“Every once in a while.”
“Come on. Admit it Jessica, you are good looking,” said Melissa.
“Come on. I’m only average. Sean was
probably just curious to see what I was doing.”
“Whatever…good look’n”,
said Tammy, as she and Melissa turned to leave. Then they stopped and Melissa
asked Jessica:
“Do you like him? I think he’s kind of
strange.” Jessica seemed surprised at the question but she answered:
“Well…I don’t know. He’s a bit reclusive;
I barely know anything about him, even though he’s been here since the
beginning of last school year. He has one or two friends that he hangs out with
but he’s not really with the “in” crowd. He doesn’t seem to amount to much.”
“That’s the truth. Even his clothes are
plain and uncool. I don’t know if I could like him at
all, he’s so… mediocre.” At that Moment the bell rang and Melissa, Tammy, and
Jessica went to their respective lockers. Jessica took two data pads; the
textbook and note book for the Azuran Weather Patterns elective that she was
taking and closed her locker. She walked with Melissa who was taking the same
class towards room 13. Jessica really enjoyed this class very much. At the
Moment the class was studying the theoretical relation between the presence of
azurestone and ion storms. It had been widely observed that azurestone seemed
to glow more brightly during an ion storm.
* * *
Jessica returned to her locker at the end
of the school day where Tammy approached her. “I think there is going to be a hoverball game after school today at
“Absolutely.”
“Okay. See you there.” Tammy left and
Jessica donned her backpack and walked down the stairs to leave. As she walked
down the hall, she spotted Sean standing a few feet behind her. She shrugged it
off and walked on out the door. She then dropped her backpack off at her house
and proceeded towards the hoverball court.
When she arrived, about fifteen kids were
already there warming up. Jessica watched as the disk-shaped ball hummed across
the court towards one of the players. The player lunged out and caught it. The
ball never touched his hand but constantly hovered in front of it as he cupped
his hand around it. He then swung his arm around and propelled the ball forward
towards the goal on the other side of the court. Jessica walked up into the
bleachers and began to put her equipment that included repellers
and pads. She ran down to the court and stepped out on to it. The repellers that she wore on her feet allowed her feet to
hover several inches off the floor of the court. The stabilizers placed around
the court made it relatively easy to walk or run across the invisible energy
barrier that kept her afloat. She shuffled to the middle where the other
players joined her.
Soon the elected referee blew a whistle
and the game began. Four players from each team gathered around the starting
circle. The ref tossed the hoverball into their midst.
Jessica caught the ball and raced towards the opposing goal. She started so
aggressively that several of the players jumped out of the way. Up in front of
her, two opposing players moved to block her. Tammy “skated” out to Jessica’s
left flank and shouted for the ball. Jessica passed it to her. Tammy took two
more steps and tossed the ball towards the goal, but suddenly a player beside
her that she had not seen shot his arm out, intercepted the ball and skated
with it back towards the other end of the court. Jessica’s teammates quickly
recovered from the surprise and shuffled after him. He passed it to one of the
girls on his team, who then passed it to the striker, who attempted to hit the
ball, but a player from Jessica’s team stole it as he left it floating in front
and wound up to toss it. Jessica’s teammate threw the ball to about the middle
of the court where Jessica was waiting. The other team had foolishly left but
one person defending their goal area. Jessica skated past her and she gave
chase, but Jessica was much too fast for the girl. Jessica propelled the ball
with much force and it slammed into the goal. The opposing team groaned at
their unwise move and Tammy, Melissa and the other player gathered around to
slap forearms with Jessica. She and Melissa then skated over to the sidelines
to catch a quick drink.
“That was really cool, Jessica,” said
Melissa. “You moved like lightening. What’s the deal? Did you get a really good
grade on something today?”
“Sure did,” Jessica answered with a
flourish. “Mr. Roland really liked my report on Azuran history!”
“Great! Now if only you would be as
aggressive in your conversations as you are on the court. Why aren’t you very
hyper all the time like some of us, anyway?”
“I don’t know. I guess it’s just in my
nature. I like to have a really good reason to jump up and down and scream or
ramble on and on about this, that and the other.”
“There you go. Miss sensible as always.
Sometimes I think you are the most sane of us all.”
“Probably,” Jessica concurred jokingly.
The hoverball game ended with the score five to
three; Jessica’s team the victors. Jessica took off her equipment and flopped them over her shoulder. Still breathing heavily, she
left the court and walked home. Upon arriving, She walked up the two steps to
her door and entered.
“Hey everybody, it was a great game today
you should have seen-,” she began but stopped short as she saw Peter and Carol
sitting with Norman at the table intently staring into the screen of a data
pad. They motioned for her to come over. “Uh-oh. What happened?”
“It’s pirates, Jessica,” Peter said.
They’ve raided Base Camp 10 and plundered their entire azurestone stores. They
think that they must have based out of Dulsivi;
they’ve been experiencing raids on shipping in that area recently.”
“Pirates,” Jessica gasped. “There haven’t
been any pirates around Azura for two years!”
“They are very opportunistic; they can
strike any time without warning, honey.”
“Base Camp 10? Isn’t that pretty much on
the other side of the quadrant?” (The planet of Azura is devised into four
quadrants, each owned by a different mining company.)
“Right. We don’t have to be afraid but we
do need to be very careful,” observed Carol. The authorities will warn us if
the pirates start moving this way but I’ll have to insist that you don’t go out
too far when you play laser tag this weekend, kids. Okay?”
“Alright,” Jessica and Norman complied.
“Well, it’s about time to eat supper. Let
me get the table ready.”