Teria's Broken Beginnings

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. The vast emptiness can be terrifying to the unprepared, and yet, it can still grip the most experienced with ice-cold hands. Many a being has been lost to it, never to be heard of again. Be that as it may, it is alluring new adventurers to its mystery every day. Teria had been one of those many adventurers. Every night she would stare up at the stars as if something was calling her to them.

But that was a long time ago. She was so excited to volunteer for the space program and was even more excited when they let her. Her excitement reached its peak when she learned that she would be working for Jorx, the creator of the sound engine. It travels at the speed of sound; he even invented the shielding that made it safe to use for commercial travel. And then she met him.

He was nothing like she expected, about 6 foot 2, he had dark brown skin and was as wide as a truck. His thick lips often made it hard to understand him when he spoke languages other than his own. He was a Soramon after all. They lived mainly on their home planet of Landor, a world full of caverns and large areas. Due to the massive amounts of gravity, the dominant species evolved to be the Soramon. Their torsos were mostly taken up by their lungs, which gave them their coveted ability.

They could scream at capacities no one else could. With their massive lung power, they can deafen anyone within a mile of them. Not to mention the screams are so powerful that the waves created from them can blast through rock, vegetation, and other materials. They also hunted in this way, the screams changing to disorient the prey long enough to be overtaken by a Soramon hunter. It explained why Jorx was a sound researcher.

His personal obsession for the last 20 years had been to find a way for sound to travel in a vacuum. Today’s test was for his latest theory: bouncing the soundwave between antennas till they reached the receiver she was holding. She didn’t have the heart to tell him that this was how the basic radio from nearly 70 years ago worked; the waves also needed some sort of medium to travel through and on, which didn’t exist in a vacuum.

Continuing to stare at the stars she tapped the button on her audio set, turning on the short-range frequency. “Jorx, are you sure this is going to work? If it’s going to be as powerful as you say it is, why I am floating here without a tether? If this goes wrong, I’ll make sure YOU explain to Command why you lost another assistant.” She heard the familiar snort followed by a quick huff. The gruff voice reverberated over the receiver, tingling her cheek.

“Yesh, I’m sure. Fail enough timesh, and chu hafe to shucsheed eventually. And we only hafe one tether.” She twitched her ears in annoyance. While Teria greatly respected him for his intellect and amazing creations, she hated the fact how little he tended to care for safety regulations. His last ignorance of it at headquarters put 27 beings in the medical suite for two months. But they couldn’t just get rid of him. It was the last straw, the main reason they had to split their meals and use only one tether in this space station at the desolate edge of the Orius system.

Teria was the 13th assistant to be sent out here in 9 months and was the only one to last longer than 5 months with him. His idea of ‘safety’ at the bare minimum, was not dying. Although he was mindful of using up resources. “And quit witsh the talking. Chu’re ushing up what little air we hafe!” Teria rolled her eyes, making her ears twitch in pain instead of annoyance. A bad habit she had picked up being raised by humans.

“I don’t have a life suit on Jorx; only an audio set and microphone face-cup. Did you forget I’m an AuriaJemni? We don’t need an atmosphere to survive.” Jorx made another snort and huff. They both knew he was too stubborn to admit he had indeed. Despite being as strong and flexible as any other of her species, people often forgot because of how short she is. Compared to her companion, Teria was long and lanky, her thin frame hiding extreme strength and flexibility.

AuriaJemni don’t actually have a specific home planet; they live on asteroids and fragments without an atmosphere in the depths of space. Older generations don’t have traditional lungs like newer generations, able to absorb what they need from the food they eat and from the surrounding environment through their skin. Newer generations have grown them to visit planets temporarily in order to work with Command. Their skin is rather tough, protecting them from the unfiltered rays of stars. Their eyes have a second set of vertical eyelids under their horizontal ones; their special make-up allows them to see through it and still protect their sensitive eyes.

Living in the vacuum of space on rock fragments allowed their eyes to super evolve. They can see in darkness just like they can in light, and can see other things like the heat radiating off a being, and many others. If there is extreme light, or they need to see even better in the dark, their second eyelids close, allowing them to see in blinding light or pitch blackness. Living in a vacuum also means they live without gravity. Average height for an AuriaJemni is 7 to 7.5 feet tall.

Teria, however, was only 6.5 feet tall. The only reason this was the case: she was born and raised on a planet by humans. The only one of her kind to do so, and completely by accident. Her mother had managed to raise her till she was old enough to survive on her own. After that, humans raised her. She had learned a lot from them, mostly not to trust them. Their oversized ego had nearly killed her along with their science after all. She had no time to dwell on it though, as Jorx signaled all was ready.

She turned on the receiver in her hand and waited. For nearly 20 meklins she waited, counting the intervals. “Noshing?” she finally heard in her audio set. “Nothing.” She confirmed. “Another bust.” A snort and huff met her ears, followed by a growl. “Anosher failure. Shtay where chu are Teria. I’m coming to gesh chu.” Not like I can propel myself anyway. Turning off the receiver she waited, Jorx showing up a meklin later.

The two joined hands, making their way back to the small outpost Command laughingly called a station. It was barely big enough to support 5 beings; despite its smaller size, it looked just like a “Stacker Station”. A place where beings of all shapes and sizes live off-world together. As a result, nothing is fully planned out. Whenever more space or a new addition is needed, it is just built onto the existing structure.

Their outpost in particular had addons built over each other and was made with whatever was lying around. The engine room hull, in particular, was a patchwork of different metals and fasteners. She listened to Jorx take deep breaths as the airlock filled with the nitrogen-rich atmosphere. She felt it tickling her small lungs, giving her time to adjust to it as well; since she didn’t technically need an atmosphere to survive, her lungs could breathe off any atmosphere. They just needed time to adjust.

As the airlock opened into their living space, she noticed a few leaks on the seal. Need to add that to my list. Jorx didn’t say anything, lumbering off to his lab. She stared after him for only a moment before getting to work herself. She picked up the books she left out the night before, putting them in their alphabetical place on their shelf. She went around picking up the left-over meal boxes, often getting annoyed when a floating pen hit her head. Since the gravity generators have never worked quite right, large objects such as lab equipment and heavy books stayed where they were, while lighter objects like pens, holo pads, and the like floated around the space freely.

She began feeding the meal boxes into the laser disposal bin. Jorx always had a minimum of six per meal, so even though they technically split their meals, it was more like she just had a few of his leftovers. As she was almost done, she heard the banging followed by Jorx’s attempt at a quiet shout; thankfully he knew better than to do anything louder. He’d deafen the both of them in such a confined space. Sounds like Tootie got out again.

Taking her time, she put away the water glasses before grabbing some scrap from the magnetic bin by the airlock, sighing as she headed into the lab. Weaving her way through the haphazardly stacked piles of half-finished inventions and parts, she did her best to not hit her head on hanging tools or floating debris. As she rounded the corner of the three-foot pile of junk on the end of the table, Jorx finally yelled “Put me down chu freak! Bad exshperiment!”

He hung several feet off the floor, wrapped in a long slime tentacle. A product of the last inhabitants of their tiny outpost, Experiment 2DT, or Tootie, as Teria called it, peeked an eye through the many piles; it focused on the metal in her hand, a garbled chirp coming from the beast as another tentacle reached toward it. “Put him down first Tootie.” Jorx fell to the floor instantly, grumbling as dusted the dried residue off.

“You forgot to feed Tootie before we went outside again, didn’t you?” “I did not! Tchat tching ate shome of my welding metal!” Teria was the only one out of the two who could control Tootie; despite knowing nothing about biological science, she was the one who figured out how to tame and shrink Tootie by feeding it Serium metal. A now smaller Tootie crawled out, making its way up her leg to her shoulder.

The little one was peculiarly strong, especially at its smaller size. Roughly the size of a pigeon, Tootie settled on her shoulder, hanging on with ease. It was like a living ball of slime with blue rubber skin and a single orange eyeball. She tickled it with a finger, jiggling the little guy and making it happily produce the sound it was named after. “You know Tootie can only eat Serium if we want them to stay at this manageable size.” Jorx only snort huffed and went back to his work, ignoring his assistant.

Teria’s ears twitched in annoyance as she left the lab, heading for the zero-gravity tube to her bunk. She enjoyed the short moment of weightlessness as she arrived. It was a small, simple room, containing only her bed for sleep, a three-drawer dresser for clothing, and a desk for writing. The single drawer held her journal and a few pens. It had zero personality; no way to make it fun when she had so few belongings.

She sighed again, sitting on the edge of her bed. “Why do I even try Tootie?” She studied her room for a moment, but nothing was out of place to fix. Her eyes settled on the pillow at the head of her bed; reaching underneath, she pulled out an object small enough to easily hide. Her long, nimble fingers rubbed the stained oil cloth, pulling it open a moment later.

The teardrop gem sat in its bed of silver, bands weaving together to create a band. The colors of the gem constantly swirled, like different gases mixing in a nebula. After a moment, she slid it up her arm, coming to rest comfortably on her right bicep. She stared at it for a while, rubbing the gem with a long finger. Eventually, Tootie made a garbled chirp noise to get her attention, making her smile and tickle it again.

“Why do you think this is what Mom left for me? I don’t even know what it is Tootie.” The little slime ball didn’t answer, of course, paying no mind as she sighed; she looked out the small, circular porthole at the end of her bed, lost in her thoughts of the past. She had very few memories of her mother. The ship she had been piloting had crashed on Sister Earth long ago, a place where humans had fled to escape the self-made destruction of their world.

When she initially gave Teria life from the birthing pod, humans had taken her away, their twisted sense of ego and pride almost killing her. Human science had almost ended her life before it even began. Thankfully, they gave her back to her mother to raise her till she could survive on her own. Once she could, humans took her away again. It was a miracle she even had this gem. She didn’t know how she knew it was a gift from her mom; she just did.

She rubbed her face with her hands, groaning. Thinking of the past like this always made her brain hurt. So many unanswered questions. She retrieved her journal and a pen, intending to write out her thoughts to try and make sense of them. However, a loud noise interrupted her, pen poised on the rough paper. Did it come from… outside?

Closing the pen between the pages, she raced to the common area, only to be blinded by the light. On instinct her vertical eyelids closed, allowing her to see. Jorx was somehow already over by the porthole overlooking the outer end of the airlock, observing what was going outside. If it wasn’t for the situation, she would have laughed at the ridiculous color of his sunglasses.

Outside, however, was the real show. A massive starship loomed outside, so large that the entire thing couldn’t be seen. It was bigger than anything Teria had seen before. Stunned by the sudden visit, the two could only watch as a tube began to move toward the airlock, the silhouette of someone inside. Extremely nervous, Teria clutched her journal to her chest with one hand, the other stroking an equally nervous Tootie.

Teria tried to stay calm as Jorx’s favorite phrase repeated over and over in her head, trying to use it to calm herself and failing miserably. Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. She barely heard what Jorx said as the tube locked on with visible puffs of atmosphere. “Chu know vat? Chis is the one chime I wish chu hadn’t just shrunk Exschperiment 2DT!”