Thank You, Mother

The morning air was calm and quiet as ocean waves gently ebbed and flowed in the amber light. The Betelgeuse sat at the ready just outside Havana II while Sylizal and her daughter disembarked from their humble boat onto the floating platform.

Both were roped head to toe with bags and cases covering every extremity on their bodies. Nothing they couldn't handle, but it was cumbersome to walk. Sylizal made sure her young Sam would be supplied for this adventure, so several years' worth of birthday gifts were bought for her, decades even, with clothes to be grown into and jewelry that would look splendid on her as a young lady. She wished she could be there to see her wear it.

"Do you think we'll have the closet space for this, Mom?" Sam asked.

"I've been on this ship a hundred times. They'll put you somewhere nice. I'll make sure of it." 

The security guard checked them in, and a long escalator ride brought them into the slick chrome belly of the vessel. When the ship was new, the place was like a hotel with flawless white walls and a red carpet. Staff bustled about getting final preparations underway, all fresh faces ready for a new stage in their lives. Her mother escorted her to the guest lodgings.

"Until you get alien visitors, you get to claim this room."

While Sam went and explored her lodgings, the mother checked her messages via hologram watch. Urgent messages were popping up by the second. She sighed.

"I'm going to have to get back to mission control for one more check. I hope you enjoy these gifts."

"Thanks, mom. I will!" Sam replied.

Sam slid off the bags and started organizing everything as if it were the only thing that mattered in the world. She was lost in her own little mission. Sylizal watched for a while, her duty urging her to leave, but she couldn't. Not yet. If she did so now, she knew she'd regret it.

"Sam, it's going to take a while for you to get home," Sylizal said.

"Yeah, five years..." Sam hung up a dress. "But I'll come back as soon as I can!"

An eerie silence stood between them, so long that even Sam noticed. Sylizal crossed her arms. There was so much to say, but she couldn't say it to her face.

"You're right. It's not like it's something I haven't done before, either."

"Yeah!" Sam pumped, but silence still remained. She shrunk back, her excitement slowly evaporating, and doubt set in. "Do you…want me to stay? I don't have to go if you don't want to."

"No, out of the question."

"Then...you should come with us too."

Sylizal stayed silent. It was her daughter's wish, but she knew it wouldn't go well. There was no place in this galaxy where she and Jack could work together again.

She couldn't tell if Sam understood this, but slowly, tears began to well up in the quiet bedroom.

"What am I going to do without you?" Sam asked. "What if I don't like it?"

For a second, Sylizal's eyes turned away as if ashamed of herself, as if she was abandoning her daughter to the elements and an uncertain future, and for but one moment, it looked like she would break, but she didn't.

She was stronger than that, so she lifted her daughter with a single hand. Her heart was steeled, and her hair flared and rippled like a raging flame.

"Listen here, child! You are my daughter! You are a Kainian!" 

"Mom, you're choking me!" she wheezed.

"Don't let these Earthlings tell you otherwise! Don't let Jack tell you otherwise! Even if you're just a little girl, you have the blood of a human! You will be a great explorer! Do you understand!?"

"Okay! Okay!"

The flames continued, but her anger subsided. "Sorry about that. I feel like this planet's changed me. Like I'm not myself anymore." 

"Will that happen to me?"

Sylizal gave her a warm smile, and the mother she knew returned. "I hope so. I hope you know that there's so much out there to see and that there are so many people excited to meet you. I want you to find them, to shake their hand and call them friend, and maybe, if you're lucky, you'll find someone to explore that galaxy with you. Do you know what that kind of person is called?"

"...No?"

The mother chuckled, rubbing at her daughter's eyes. "Hey, don't cry."

"What? I'm not crying."

"It'll be alright out there. I love you, my little star."

In the pitch blackness of a desolate world, everything was cold. The only senses left were the taste of copper and the smell of leaking fluids and metal. Everything hurt. The world spun even in the featureless void as Sam clawed and scrambled across the unknown landscape, unaware she was alive or dead or somewhere in between. The only constant was the delirious pain across her muscle fibers as if she was controlling a meat puppet ready to collapse, the last shred of her mortal coil.

But then, she felt his hand, and a light was found, a small glint in the distance hidden behind the debris of otherworldly constructs. With a tug, she felt the warm hand pull his body, and the two figures became one. There was vibration between them, the uncertainty of if who they were feeling was the other, but as if by psychic connection, they knew, and soon everything else fell into place. Hearing returned as their gasps and footsteps echoed across the broken structure. Touch escaped its fuzzy uncertainty, and the girl could reach for bars and ledges for her to climb, and finally, sight, as the light grew and extended, showing the great orange sunset of Pandema stretching across the flat desert sea.

The two may have been beaten. They may have been bloodied, scarred, and beyond exhaustion, but the adventure had only begun as Sam and Vinisnu stood atop Flock 37, alive and together.