*** Part 1 - General of Academy ***
Lieutenant James pulled himself across the dirt, trying to ignore the trail of blood he was dragging behind him. The trail would make him trivial to track, of course, but if one of the Terrans got close enough to track him, he was as good as dead anyways.
"You should just give up, Jimmy." He said, his voice breaking as he moved another arm's-length. "Where are you even going Jimmy? Get to that clump of trees, and then what Jimmy?"
*Is it normal to talk to myself like this? Probably not. I'm probably going into shock.* James glanced behind him, surprisingly calm as he carefully looked down at his legs. "Well ain't that a pretty sight! Can you even tell where your legs end anymore Jimmy? Nah, you can't. Twists of meat now, ain't they Jimmy?"
*Okay, stop. I need to pull myself together.* James pushed himself onto his back and stared into the green-tinted sky.
"Deep breaths Jimmy. Focus Jimmy. And for god's sake Jimmy, stop talking to yourself." He lapsed into silence, taking deep breaths and blinking slowly.
The pain repressors would wear off within an hour or so, that was when he would really go into shock. In the meantime, besides the weariness, James felt almost peaceful. Unlike the quiet thrum of the Orbital, the silence on the surface wasn't true silence. Little snips of music reached his ears from far off, made by the animals that lived here. Irregular drones of tiny animals, the insect-class, filled the blanks between them.
"They're playing me a song, that's kind of them." James chuckled. "They should do that up in the Orbit, play some music to send a soul to sleep. Wish I could tell them that, music makes it hurt a little less. Makes the heart hurt, I mean, the legs'll still hurt plenty."
He lifted his head to check on his legs again. It was almost fascinating how much damage they'd incurred in the crash; they were a wreckage of mangled gore.
"Hate that it ends here though, so young and all." He sighed. It was tiring now, filling his lungs with air. "I suppose...S'ppose it must be the same with everyone. Nobody's gonna die like this and think 'well, I suppose I'm done then'. Still, wish I could've..." another arduous, laborious breath "...wish I could've done more with my life."
"What would you do with your life, space boy?" It was such a sweet, feminine voice that James wasn't sure he had actually heard it. He cast his eyes around for some time before his gaze settled on the woman. She was rosy and alert, squatting by a nearby tree with her arms resting on her knees. James was having trouble focusing, and he felt as if he was noticing things in the wrong order. He noticed her matronly air and comfortable confidence before he noticed the knife in her hand, and it took him long moments after he saw her short curls of lavender hair before he put two and two together.
"Terran?" He slurred.
"You say 'I would do more with my life'." The Terran approached, but James was too tired to be worried. He might even still have his pistol in his holster, he hadn't noticed.
"Yea, I think I'd...think I'd do more with it. 'ventually." He tried to shrug. "Not much good now, but I would've gotten...gotten my shit together." His voice was so weak that the Terran had to lean close just to hear him.
*That would've been a great plan, pretending to be dying and killing her when her guard went down.* James thought, absentmindedly staring at her face. *If I weren't actually dying.*
"Tell me, space boy. Talk to me. What would be your 'shit' that you got done?"
James chuckled. His last words were going to be reminiscing about what might have been, and with a Terran no less.
"Actually apply myself." He coughed, closing his eyes. "Get a promotion, get a girlfriend. Nah, fuck it, 'slong as I'm dreaming, I'd get all the promotions. I'd get promoted to Marshal of the Orbit, impress all the smart guys and fuck all the pretty girls. Then I'd fuck all the smart girls and lord it over all the pretty guys."
"That's very ABI(*ambitious, adventurous, motivational*)." The Terran girl's words burrowed into his mind, like an annoying insect's sting, but everything was fading out anyways. "I am Cha, what is your name?"
*And...now...death...* James thought, feeling himself slip under the darkness that had been hovering around him.
"What is your name, space boy?" He barely heard her, barely felt her arms around him.
"James." He mumbled. "James Auspus."
***
General Auspus sank into the depths of his chair, as if he could fall asleep if he got comfortable enough. Every day would always present a new set of challenges, but he didn't see that as a good thing. A day's challenges weren't opportunities, they weren't lovely little possibilities to highlight the strengths of a great leader. Auspus sifted through the messages on his screen, flipping most of them into a lower priority queue. Challenges were enemies to be slain.
"Sara, half of these requests could've been handled by the Captains." Auspus didn't look up from his work, but he knew his assistant would be taking notes. "I've asked you to please be cognisant of what matters you bring to my attention, I only have so many hours in a day." As if brought on by his words, a wave of exhaustion overtook him, and he set the screen down on the desk. Sara watched him carefully, too carefully for his liking. He had a reputation to uphold.
"I think I need another injection Miss Sara. Please have Ariel sent in to me.
"Yes sir." Sara gave him a worried look. "This will be your second injection this week sir. Is your condition getting worse? Should we perhaps schedule a visit to Orbital Basura to schedule an appointment?"
"Just the injection I think, but I appreciate your concern." Auspus gave a friendly smile instead of the snarl he wanted to provide. The girl meant well, and it was hardly her fault for being worried. She didn't know that all he wanted was for her to leave the room. None of them did.
"Right away sir." Sara left the room, and Auspus waited for a few moments before sealing the door to his office closed behind her. He loosened the collar of his uniform and leaned back in his chair in earnest, heaving a sigh of relief and letting the anxiety that he had been bottling up wash over him. Politics, war, worry, all on top of the typical challenges that plagued him.
His blood buzzed, as if millions of tiny creatures were inching their way along the inside of his veins. He had no way of knowing the science of what had happened to him, so for all he knew there might be.
*Still,* he thought, *at least I'm more used to it now than I used to be.*
***
"Oh god...my skin...my skin is crawling! There's something wrong with my skin!" Lieutenant Auspus tossed on the pile of furs.
"Shh, hush space boy. There is naught to fear, naught to fear." Cha crooned and stroked his hair, seeming to not mind that it was drenched in sweat. "It is always difficult, the first time." Auspus looked up at the woman, trying to make some sense of what he was feeling. He was lucid enough to know that he was feverish, his clammy forehead and shivering told him that much.
"Where am I? What happened? Why is your hair purple?" Auspus shivered again, swatting his skin, then scratching it.
*Have to get them off of me. Out of me. Scratch them out, get them out, out out out.* There were so many questions running through his mind that it was hard to focus on any one of them. The woman hovering above him was talking again as she held his hands down, something about losing legs and crashing ships, but try as he might Auspus couldn't quite focus on what she was saying. Later in his life, he would remember the last thing she said before he slipped back into fever dreams, although at the time it barely registered.
"You cannot help but achieve your dreams, now that I've given you the gift of magics."
***
Auspus gripped the edge of his desk, shivering at the intensity of the memory.
"Been running myself too ragged lately." He said to himself. Time always got a little slippery for him when it had been too long. He yanked the desk drawer open and removed the Coricia, running his fingers along the edge of the purple crystal without thinking. No matter how long it had been, his stomach jumped at the sight of it, his heartbeat quickened slightly. He hated his dependence on it.
He had already drawn the parallels between his reactions to the crystal and those of a drug addict. Like an addict, when he was running low his body crawled, and the more he put if off, the more intense his need was. Despite the obvious similarities, Auspus didn't like thinking of it that way. Treating the Coricia like a drug was dangerous. Start to think you couldn't live without it, and you would take risks to take another dose of the sparks within.
It had been one of those risks that had resulted in this entire mess, using the Coricia in the sight of two of the rookies. Auspus clenched his fists at the thought of them, but was distracted by the first purple spark that lept from the crystal, burrowing into his skin and leaving a trail of warmth inside of him. He settled back into his seat with a sigh.
***
"But where are the sparks actually going? And what are they made of?" Lieutenant Auspus watched the crystal suspiciously, flinching a little at each spark that jumped from it to land on his skin.
"You wish to know so much, space boy." Cha smiled at him from where she sat at the fire. "Why you not leave the MYA(*the charm, the mystery, the thrill of discovery*)?" Auspus jumped at the words that burrowed into his mind.
"I wish you wouldn't do that. Talk in my head like that."
"You will grow used to it. I try to speak your words, but one day you must get used to ours."
"And someday I'll be able to talk like that?"
"Yes, one day soon. You will be one of us."
Auspus leaned back with a frown. The prospect didn't sound appealing to him. Cha hadn't let him out of her hut yet, but compared to Orbital Academy the Terrans seemed to lead a horrible, primitive life. He flexed his legs again, wiggling the toes that had been regrown. True, magic saved his legs when nothing else would've. Cha clearly had great aspirations for him, and for whatever reason she helped him, but spending the rest of his life on the surface seemed too heavy of a cost. Auspus would've already tried to escape, but...
He opened his hand and focused. In his cupped palm, a purple flame sprang into being, warm and real. He flicked it back and forth between his fingers, trying to ignore Cha's amused look.
