A Spec of Light

[Kain Owen]

Outer space was truly something. The vast yet expansive darkness, the glimmering stars scattered throughout the canvas around him, the faint light of a distant sun. He couldn't see any planets around, but there were meteors and other space debris flying around, some of which were barely visible under the dim light, but not really a problem for Kain.

After contemplating the vastness of outer space for a while, there were only a few thoughts in his mind. He needed to get stronger, his current power level wouldn't suffice if another powerful alien came for him. And if he was as strong as he currently was, what stopped others from reaching the same heights as him? He couldn't allow himself to be left like he currently was.

The lack of gravity meant he only needed a tiny shift in space to fly. The meteors were better, pure rocks that needed more strength to be broken apart. But even the bigger ones would get destroyed by a few attacks from Kain.

Destroying space rocks kept him busy for a while. But there was another thought at the back of his mind. What would happen now? He was floating in outer space, who knows how many millions of kilometers away from the closest habitable planet. There was a sun he could see, but it wasn't close by any means. And even if it had a planet he could stop in that he could locate, he still needed to close that distance. He couldn't fly that fast!

Was he... condemned to be lost in space forever?

But maybe... He could regain some of his lost strength, and that would allow him to teleport into a planet. At his peak, he could close enormous distances in a blink of an eye. And it wouldn't matter how long it took, outer space couldn't kill him anyway.

So, he kept breaking apart the space rocks. Some he kicked, others he destroyed by a distance, others he took with his telekinesis and smashed them into each other. He could feel frost forming on his arms and legs, perhaps frozen sweat? Did that mean it was working? Kain couldn't tell, but if he was getting tired of doing it, then maybe it was working.

He repeated this process countless times. He would tear apart the rocks, rest for a while when he got tired, and come back to it later. There was nothing else to do, and even in his more contemplative moments, his answer was to keep going. Eventually, something would happen.

And it did happen, but not exactly what Kain was hoping for.

A ship, much smaller than the one who kept him trapped, came to explore the wreckage that Kain was leaving behind. It had bright beam lights in front of it, which almost blinded him when they shot them at him directly. And when they did, the ship stopped, and so did Kain. They stood still for a while. Kain didn't want to approach the ship, what if they had bad people in there too? What if they were space pirates, ready to sell him again to another nefarious overlord again? But at the same time, maybe this was his way out of being lost in outer space. Even if the people inside were bad, Kain could defend himself now – he only had to threaten them to take him to an habitable planet. He cringed at that. When did he become so eager to threaten people? It didn't matter. This was an opportunity, and yet, Kain couldn't bring himself to approach the ship any further.

At some point, someone came out of the ship. It was someone in a full body suit, but it was a lot thinner than one may expect from an astronaut. Kain couldn't see their face behind the dark visor, but the person held their arm high and waved it. Were they greeting him? Kain did the same. He also tried to shout something, but as soon as he tried to breathe again, he found himself awkwardly choking. There was no air around him.

The astronaut came closer. They waved their hands, pointing with their thumb at the ship. Kain repeated the motion, and the other person nodded. Kain flew closer to the astronaut, close enough to see their face. They started a sudden motion, which startled Kain, quickly flying away from them again, but they calmed things down by waving their arms downwards now, in a soothing motion. With that, Kain came closer again, and together, they entered the ship.

They were inside a small room with a single door, which had a round window. The doors leading to outer space closed behind them, and the room got filled with air, pressure, and gravity. All at once. Kain almost fell on his feet at the feeling of gravity, and he choked on the air. It felt so weird to be back at a habitable place.

The astronaut took their helmet off, revealing an older woman behind. "Easy there," she said.

"I'm fine," Kain said in between coughs.

The door with the window opened, and a few other people came from it. They all wore space suits with a red symbol on them, nothing like the pirates nor miners Kain remembered from Inverxe. These looked more like scientists.

"Who are you?" One of them asked.

Kain's coughing fit finished at last. "I'm Kain."

"Never heard of that," another of the scientists said. "Come in, you look terrible."

Of course he should've looked terrible. Just touching his face revealed a bunch of frost on it, not to mention the dirt and blood he had gotten from the arena and the cells.

Coming inside, the ship looked pretty standard. It had a white cover on the round walls, gray floors, and many cramped shelves with boxes on them. It was nothing like the luxurious space cruise, nor the awful dungeons beneath it. This truly looked like a scientific exploration ship.

"We've been receiving readings that something was out there breaking apart the meteors," another of the scientists said. "We thought it could've been miners, but it didn't add up. Then we thought it could've been a space monster, and, huh..."

"So I'm a monster now?" Kain said.

"I don't know, are you? I don't think I've ever seen a kid survive in outer space like that."

"Maybe."

"He doesn't deny it," the old lady added.

Kain raised his hands. "I don't know, I never thought of myself in that way. But it is a way, now that someone mentions it."

"How did you survive out there?"

"I don't know, I just know I can."

"Fair enough..."

Kain wasn't telling these people that he was supposed to be some sort of divine being, but at least he was happy they didn't look hostile, and their questions seemed like genuine curiosity.

The group took Kain to another room. This one had a bunch of seats on them, all separated by equal distances, with a main one at the center, surrounded by screens and buttons. Someone took a seat on the first chair, and the rest picked up the others. The old lady gestured to Kain to sit as well, which he did without complaining.

"We're gonna go back to the station, since the mission is done."

"Damn, this one was easy."

"Hey, you should be glad we didn't have to do anything dangerous."

"I guess so..."

"Do we have something to eat?"

"..."

The scientists kept talking among themselves about trivial things, while the ship took off into the vastness of space. Kain, for the first time in what felt like weeks, let himself truly sleep.

 

[Kain Owen]

...But his sleep didn't last forever.

"Hey, wake up! We're here."

A wave of tiredness washed over Kain as he was forced to open his eyes. His entire body felt cold and rigid, and just moving a finger took his entire reservoir of strength to accomplish. The chair he was in was too comfortable, he didn't want to leave it in a million years...

"The chief officer will see you now," the old lady said.

"Well, I don't want to see them," Kain finally forced himself to say.

"Don't be like that! I bet she'll be thrilled to meet someone who can fly around in outer space like that."

"Who's going to be thrilled?"

"Chief officer!"

A petite woman was now in the pilot cabin. She was wearing a black military outfit with many golden buttons and tassels. On her breast pocket, she had the same red symbol as the astronauts that took him in. Her posture was uptight and rigid, her head tall, as one would expect from someone giving orders, contrasting with her small frame. Her face revealed some sort of displeasure.

Kain just looked at her, not saying anything.

"So, I was told it was you who was causing some trouble in this quadrant?" The chief officer said.

Kain looked away. "I guess so."

"Why? And how?"

"I just felt like breaking some meteors, it's all. And I have psychic powers, that's your 'how.'"

"I imagined so. Weren't you lost?"

"Not anymore, I guess. But I don't really have anywhere to go."

"Well, as long as you don't make any trouble, you can stay here at the station, until you find yourself another destination."

Kain gave a look to the chief officer, his face still turned away from hers. "Do I get a bed here?"

"We do have the facilities to keep our people comfortable in their stay, yes."

"Alright."

Kain finally left his comfy seat. His entire body felt a bit strange, as if his blood and insides were frozen. It took some effort to stand up and walk. He didn't feel like trying to fly here, just thinking about spending any kind of energy was too much of a task to attempt.

He followed the chief officer, who walked past the ship. Kain couldn't tell exactly where they were, but looking up, the sky looked like they were still in outer space, under a giant transparent dome. Many metallic structures, spaceships, and other machinery dotted the landscape, while people dressed like the astronauts working on them. At the center of the dome, there was a white, blocky building, and that's where they were headed.

Inside the building, and after climbing some metallic stairs, the chief officer gestured towards a room.

"You can stay here for the time being," she said.

The room was fairly small, but it had a capsule-like structure with a bed inside, some shelves, and another door with those round windows he saw on the spaceship.

"Thank you," was all Kain had to say to the woman.

She left him alone.

Kain immediately went into the door, and as he imagined, it led to a tiny bathroom. But it had a shower, which was all he cared about right now. By thinking about it, he could make his clothes disappear, which meant he didn't have to take them off to get undressed.

The hot water was too hot! It burned his skin, which he now realized had a lot of frost in it sinking into his skin. But using just cold water didn't feel good either. Slowly and progressively, he added more of the hot water into the mix, until he had something that felt good and didn't burn him in. There was no longer frost on his skin, and his body didn't feel like it was too rigid to move. Maybe the extreme temperatures of outer space did have an effect on him, even if they couldn't kill him outright.

Kain sat on the shower floor, letting the water wash away all the dirt, blood and sweat he had accumulated since he last could clean himself, back at the Inverxe tavern he shared with Fay. It felt surreal that so much had happened since then, but at the same time, a lot of it was spent being locked in a cell. The prospect of being back to a dark, locked space sent shivers down his spine, and he had to force himself to think about something else.

He thought about the game he played with his friend, before coming to this awful world. It was so whimsical and carefree... Just beating up monsters, exploring caves, solving puzzles. The fate of the world was in their hands, yet it felt just like playing a game. Which it was. Now, everything sucked, and for what? He didn't have a bigger purpose here, he was just hanging out with whoever could have him. And through all that, he had faced death more in these last weeks than he had ever in his life.

Ok, no more shower thoughts. He stood up, closed up the shower, dried himself with a nearby towel, and made his clothes appear back into his body. But it wasn't the fancy military outfit he had been wearing since then, it was just a t-shirt with some comfy pants. He didn't even bother to make new glasses, which he should at some point.

And with that, he went to the bed, and let his own tiredness knock him unconscious for the time being.

 

[Kain Owen]

The scientists of this research facility were not so bad, now that Kain took the time to get to know them. For the next following days, the chief officer had told him that if he was gonna stay there, he had to help somehow. At first he was on cleaning duty, then he was sent to the kitchen to wash dishes, but eventually, he found himself at the workshops where they assembled and repaired the spaceships, after an incident where Kain protected a huge shelf from falling off with everything it held with his powers. The cook told the chief officer that maybe he would be more helpful at the workshops, so here he was, lifting huge pieces of metal and space rocks as if they were nothing.

While the others weren't directly hostile to him, Kain still felt like an outsider. These were all certified scientists and engineers, with a few real military men among the crews. While Kain had useful powers, he was still a high schooler at heart. Watching them work with these incredible machines and casually talk about relativity physics and other such advanced topics was alienating in a way, even if they would ask him to help them from time to time with a smile on their faces, and would say "thanks" at every completed task.

But this wasn't all Kain had in his mind. He was still worried that there were still "overlords'' with giant spaceships capturing people and turning them into slaves. When he brought the topic to the chief officer, she said that, while they would try to help those they encounter, they couldn't stop all the space pirates wandering through the Crossroads, and they had no rights to inspect every ship they detected in case they were doing illegal activity. That was for the governments of the many planetary powers to do. This facility was strictly a scientific research one, with the occasional fight against space monsters or pirates that came into their way.

Kain didn't say anything at that, but he stormed off to his room after hearing what the chief officer had to say about that specific topic. So did that mean that they were OK with these awful people forcing others to kill each other off like that? They had the tools to stop it! They had military officers, pilots, engineers, spaceships, everything! Kain couldn't do it on his own, he lacked all the equipment needed to track down these ships and actually fight his way into them. Well, maybe he did have the power to fight his way into them, but that was wrong too. They needed people to arrest them, not to kill them, as much as Kain thought they didn't deserve to live.

Maybe he should've gone with Marius instead of staying behind to blow up the ship. Marius would probably understand better what was at stake with these illegal ships. But could Kain do something about it? He was alone, and he didn't trust the chief officer after what she had to say about the space pirate problem.

So, he sneaked out of the facility, and went directly to the hangar where the spaceships would fly into space. That particular place had no artificial gravity and no air. It connected with the terraformed dome by a series of hallways that worked as buffer zones.

But the personnel guarding the hallways to the hangar wouldn't let Kain pass.

"We can't let you pass that door Kain, you need the appropriate equipment and a permit from the chief officer," the secretary guy had said.

"Does that matter, really? I don't need a space suit to fly around out there!"

"Yes, it does matter. It's the protocol."

"But I'm not a worker here! I'm just a guest, I should be able to leave whenever I want."

"I don't know what relationship you have with the chief officer, but this door is under strict surveillance. You can't just pass whenever you want."

Kain held back the urge to just smash the guy against the wall and force him to say "yes", but that would probably mean he won't be welcome to come back again. He didn't want to antagonize the people who shared their bed with him.

"Fine," Kain said. "So, I just need a permit from the chief officer?"

"Yes, although... Why do you want to go outside? There's nothing there, unless you got a spaceship. Do you have a spaceship, Kain?"

"No, I don't have a spaceship. And why I want to go outside is none of your business."

"You're right, I guess." The secretary leaned towards Kain. "But still, you'll need a good reason for the chief officer to let you leave like that. Do you at least have one?"

Kain looked away. "I don't know if my reason is good enough, but I need to get out right now."

"Alright. Come back when you get that permit, then. Next!"

Kain moved away to let a forklift with a bunch of boxes pass. The people working with the machine exchanged some words and papers with the secretary, and just like that, he let them pass. Kain could try to sneak into one of those boxes, but he felt that maybe, he should try talking with the chief officer to get a permanent permit to go outside whenever he wanted to first.

After all, those space rocks wouldn't break down by themselves. Staying idle at the facility, helping the workers with tasks they could perfectly do without him... No, Kain needed to do something more. He needed to get stronger, so he could fight the space pirates on his own. And maybe other illegal endeavors. If space had this problem, what stopped other wealthy people from doing these kinds of actions on the planets themselves? The governments didn't care anyway.

So, walking all the way back to the main building, he found that the chief officer was too busy to hear his request. "She's in an important meeting right now," a scientist had told him at the entrance of the meeting room when he asked about her.

"But I need to see her too!" Kain said to the scientist. "Why does she have to be busy the exact moment I need her?"

"Why do you need her?"

"I need a permit to go outside."

The scientist raised an eyebrow. "Do you? I don't see anyone stopping you from hanging out at the workshops."

"No, I mean, outer space. I want to go outside the dome."

"Why?"

"That's personal."

"... Alright, I won't ask you about it. But I don't think we have suits your size."

"I don't need a suit to go outside."

"Ah, right. I forgot. Hey, why don't you come with me to the workshop? We'll be doing some test flights on a new ship in a few minutes. Maybe you can go outside then." The scientist blinked one eye at Kain.

"Oh... Sure!"

 

[Kain Owen]

Kain gave a smug look at the secretary when they crossed the hallway to the hangars. He did ask if he got the permit, but Kain had told him "I don't need it anyway, as I said." The secretary wasn't amused by that, but didn't try to stop him again.

So, Kain went towards the hangars with the scientist crew. Before getting there, they entered a room with many space suits hanging on the walls, as well as their respective helmets neatly aligned over a long table.

"Do we have a suit for Kain?" One of the scientists asked.

"I don't need one," Kain answered.

"You do," their test pilot added. "Otherwise, we can't talk with you. I won't allow you to go to outer space without a way to check on you."

"Do you really need to?"

"Yes. How can we make sure you make it safely? You may have superpowers, but you still need to follow the protocols here."

"Well, if we follow the protocols," the scientist said. "He wouldn't be allowed to go outside the ship at all. That's only for certified astronauts, and with the permission of the chief officer."

"That is true..." the pilot said.

"Wait, does that mean I won't get to go outside?"

"Why do you want to go outside?" The pilot asked.

Kain was getting tired of having that question asked to him. No, he wasn't going to tell them his stupid reason for wanting such a thing. Instead of answering, he just looked away.

"He doesn't want to talk about it, for some reason."

"We need the reason though," the pilot said. "As I said, I can't allow anything to happen to him or the ship."

"Fine..." Kain finally said. "I want to blow up some space rocks. That's all."

"That is... Not a good reason."

"Why not?"

"You could hurt someone doing that. The debris may unexpectedly fly into something and break it. I can't allow you to do that so close to the station."

Kain's shoulders deflated. He was this close to get what he wanted, but no, it had to be ruined. That's why he didn't want to tell anyone what he wanted to do.

"Then," Kain added. "Can't we do this elsewhere? Somewhere further away from the station?"

"This is a test flight, we're not flying that far away. I'm sorry Kain, but your thing with the rocks will have to wait."

"I'm not sure if the chief officer will let you do that at all though," the scientist added. "As Hank said, it is dangerous to have something blowing up the meteors in unexpected directions. Which is why we picked you up in the first place."

"Yes," Hank –the test pilot– said. "Why do you need to break the rocks at all? They're fine floating around in space."

Kain looked away, a bit ashamed of himself. He really didn't want to explain himself to these people, as he knew they would think of his reason as dumb.

"You know what?" Kain said. "It doesn't matter. I'll deal without those rocks getting blown up."

"I think that's for the better," the scientist said. "Still, you're coming to our test flight, right? You will need a space suit though." She looked around the suits available. "What is your size? I think 1 is too big..."

"You don't need to worry about that," Kain said, as he picked up one of the helmets.

He observed the helmet on his hands, rotating it and analyzing its insides with his Space sense. It had a lot of layered complex materials on top of one another – it wasn't just a plastic outer shell. Then, when he thought he was done doing that, he picked a space suit, and did the same. The suit was also made of a lot of compact layers of materials, but it was enough for what he needed to do.

After that, he thought about the suit and the helmet, and soon enough, his own clothes morphed into a space suit, exactly like the ones that were hanging on the walls, helmet and all. The suit had a black and white scheme, with the Space symbol in the place of the red ARC symbol the other suits had. And it fit him perfectly, unlike the other ones.

"Alright," Hank finally said. "We didn't account for his weird powers. Of course. What do you think, Linda?"

Linda –the scientist– added, "I don't know. How do we know that that suit is up to the protocols?"

"It is exactly like the ones you wear," Kain said. "And I'm not getting off the ship, remember? So, it is safe."

"Well, we wear space suits even inside the ship in case something goes wrong. We're testing this ship, so something could go wrong. But I think it's fine, as you said. It's not like space can kill you, right?"

"Yes."

"Alright, are we ready for the test flight?" Hank asked.

Both Kain and Linda said "Yes!" at the same time. Kain was getting tired of arguing with these people. But still, flying a spaceship sounded fun, and he wanted to go with them anyway.

At the hangars, they walked in long, tall strides, given the lack of gravity, although Kain just flew by himself to their ship. It was on the smaller side, smaller than the one they used to rescue him. Inside, it only had three seats, one for the pilot, and two extra ones. And unlike the other ships he had seen so far, the screen showing the outside of the ship was an actual windshield, not a bunch of monitors receiving the input of what cameras see.

Hank sat on the pilot's seat, while Linda took one on the periphery. Some floating screens appeared on her side, as she activated something. Kain, on the other hand, took the last seat, and put on his seatbelt, since the lack of gravity made sitting a bit awkward. The ship's engines roared into a low rumble, barely audible inside the cockpit.

"Alright," Hank said. "Checking the engines."

"Engines at 20%" Linda said. "30% now."

"Yes, let's fly!"

Slowly, the ship took flight.

Apparently, they didn't have a mission control crew on the facility, as Linda and Hank only talked among themselves, saying a lot of technical things Kain couldn't understand about the ship. They checked the engines, the security systems, the internal computers... After the novelty of flying on a ship passed, it actually became quite boring. At least Kain could see the outside, which was as pretty as he remembered from being lost in outer space, but even that couldn't keep his attention for long. The sky was a monotonous pitch black veil with some stars. Nothing more.

However, after a while of not doing much, they now started going faster and taking sharp turns at random directions. It took Kain by surprise. This small ship had a lot of power, apparently.

"Engines at 50%," Linda said.

"We need to test at 100%," Hank said. "We gotta go fast! Make sure you have your seatbelts on."

Kain adjusted his.

"In 3, 2 ...1!

The ship accelerated, shoving Kain to the back of his seat in a split of a second. They were, indeed, going fast. It was fun!

"How are the engines?"

"Holding steadily at 94%. There doesn't seem to be any issue."

"That's good enough for me."

The ship slowed down.

"Ok, time to go back to the station. Good job, everyone!"

"Test flights have been boring lately," Linda said. "None of these ships need any extra emergency repairs."

"Isn't that a good thing?" Hank said.

"It is, but you know... I want to have to do stuff in the nick of time, to save everyone from a catastrophe. That's more exciting!"

"Have you been in an emergency?" Kain asked.

"A few times. But for the past months or so we hadn't had any. Everything's been so quiet."

You should be glad, Kain wanted to say to her, but he kept his words to himself.

"Anyway..." Hank said. "Hey, Kain, have you ever flown a spaceship?"

"He's a teenager," Linda added.

"Hey, who knows, he also has superpowers. Maybe he did!"

"No, I don't think I ever did." Kain said.

"Wanna try?"

"What?"

"You sure about that, Hank?" Linda said.

"There's no meteors flying around in this part. Even if he screws up, there's nothing to worry about."

"Oh, I will make you worry," Kain said. "So I can give Linda something to work on!"

"Please don't do that."

Kain laughed to himself.

"Come here!" Hank said to Kain.

Kain flew to the pilot's seat, as Hank left it free for him to take. It felt... weird to be on the pilot's seat, but exciting at the same time. His vision of the outside was 180º, and below the windshield, there were a lot of buttons, as well as a steering handle.

"You keep your hands always on the handle," Hank told Kain. "Even if you have to press the buttons, at least one hand should always be there. You never want to let the ship fly itself."

"Doesn't it have automatic steering?"

"It does, but that's for stabilizing the ship. The one in control is always you, especially on these small crafts."

"Alright."

Ok, now this trip was turning exciting! Even if Kain was not doing anything with the ship, it felt so cool to be on the steering wheel!

"Can I make it turn?" Kain asked.

"Sure. You slowly turn the steering handle– Yes, like that!"

Kain slowly moved the ship to the right.

"How do I make it go faster?"

"You gently push the handle. Be careful that it's very responsive."

It took a bit of pressure to push the handle, but as soon as he broke the tension, the ship sharply accelerated.

"No!" Hank shouted. "You need to do it slowly. Slow it down."

"By pulling the handle?"

"Yes."

Again, it needed a bit of extra pressure to pull the handle, but the ship slowed down in a gentler motion this time.

"Like that, good job!"

Kain smiled. This was fun!

"Can we return to the station?" Linda finally said. "I don't know about you two, but I got work to do."

"Alright, give me back the seat." Hank said. "You did well! Maybe one day you can fly your own spaceship."

Actually, that would be incredibly sick. Flying on his own was always fun, but piloting a spaceship? That sounded so much cooler!

"Can we do this some other time?" Kain asked.

"Sure! In fact, we can do it as soon as we land this ship. I got my own, I can show you how to fly it."

"Yes!"

 

[Kain Owen]

The flight lessons with Hank were the most fun Kain had had since coming to the Crossroads. After helping at the workshops, he and Hank would go to the hangars and practice flying on Hank's own ship. At first, Kain had some trouble translating what he wanted the vehicle to do through the interface, but once he got used to it, flying it felt as natural as his own innate flight ability. In fact, Hank praised him on his spacial senses, saying it wasn't something everyone was good at by itself, after Kain almost crashed the ship by flying too close to another one, but he swiftly changed course and avoided an accident at high speeds. Still, Kain wanted to try something harder than just moving around in empty space, but Hank forbade him to use his ship for practice in more dangerous situations. If Kain wants to do more difficult stuff, he'll have to get his own ship. Kain didn't like that, but he understood where Hank was coming from.

Eventually, the chief officer got to know what Kain was up to. She wasn't amused at having her people do stuff behind her back, but Hank backed Kain up saying that he had talent to fly spaceships, and that maybe they should let him do a proper education on that. The chief officer seemed fine with that.

What she wasn't fine with is when Kain asked her about letting him go outside the terraformed dome. He hadn't forgotten about that, but she, like Hank and Linda said earlier, wouldn't let him do dangerous stuff outside the station. Kain gave up on that idea at that moment, thinking that maybe, becoming stronger was a thing that happened on its own, not something he had to force by training. After all, he did gain some power by staying trapped in a cell, why wouldn't that keep being the case? And he was lifting heavy stuff here at the workshops, so maybe that would be enough with time.

But that idea came back to him when he heard the chief officer talk with Hank at some point. They were walking on a hallway, while Kain was leaving his room to help the engineers at the workshops, a floor above them. When the chief officer mentioned "space pirates", Kain hid behind a corner and tried to eavesdrop on them.

"Yes, space pirates," the chief officer said to Hank. "This mission could turn sour in the blink of an eye, so I need a special crew for this."

"I'm fine steering the ship for this mission," Hank said. "But I'm not sure if we can face pirates. Do we have people who can fight them, worst comes to happen?"

"We do, in fact. I asked General Organa herself to lend me some of her men for this. We just have to wait for their arrival."

"Can we afford to wait? The crew from the expedition could be dead by now."

"They will have to. I can't endanger another crew, so we have to make sure we send the correct people for this task. They knew the dangers of an expedition mission, and while what happened is most unfortunate, we cannot blame anyone here."

They were starting to drift too far away for Kain to keep eavesdropping on them. So, there was an expedition mission, and pirates were involved. Kain had to go with them in this rescue mission.

Closing the gap to the group, Kain approached them.

"Hey Kain," Hank greeted him. "I'm not sure we can fly today."

"Why not?" Kain asked, pretending to not know.

"I'm sorry Kain," the chief officer interrupted. "But this is an important conversation. You two will have to wait for your usual shenanigans."

"But you need people who can fight right?" Kain added. "I can fight."

"So you were eavesdropping. That doesn't reflect well on you, kid."

"That's not what this is about."

"Perhaps. But I'm not sending you to fight pirates."

"Why not? I'm stronger than anyone here."

"Fighting is more than just how powerful you are, Kain," Hank said. "Your life is on the line. We don't want you to face something you'd rather not."

"Do either of you know how I ended in outer space?"

The chief officer and Hank remained silent.

"You hadn't told anyone that, from what I know," the chief officer said.

Kain looked away. He didn't want to tell them that exactly, but if it meant he could go and fight the space pirates, he had to. Kain couldn't allow more pirates to roam free, specially when they were threatening innocent research crews.

Kain took a deep breath. "Well, I was trapped in a huge ship, held in a cell. But I freed myself, I fought countless armed guards, they couldn't do anything against me. And not only that, but I destroyed half the ship on my own by forcing the engines to explode. I think it'd be foolish to not let me go on a mission where you know a fight is inevitable."

"Is that how you got that scar?" Hank asked.

"... Yes."

The chief officer didn't say anything for a while.

"It is true that you can lift huge and heavy materials," she finally said. "And I'm sorry you had to go through that. But Hank is right, fighting is more than just being powerful. I can't let a kid like you face such dangers. However... we could use someone like you on a mission like this."

"Does that mean I get to go?"

"You can."

"Yes!"

Hank crossed his arms behind his head. "Guess we'll finally get our first real mission together."

"But we still have to wait for the people the general will send to us. Kain cannot be the only firepower we got. We'll have an official meeting once they arrive. In the meantime, there's still work to do, so I expect both of you to not slack off and do your duties."

"Yes ma'am," both Hank and Kain said in unison.

But this was exciting! He will get to fight more evil people. He couldn't wait to crush them.

 

[Marcus Wright]

Marcus sat on his cot, thinking things through. There was a lot of noise coming from Connor’s base lately. Rumors were floating of the Hyper-Robo team soon and Dante’s Comet was sooner than everyone thought and Connor was being called again for that. A soldier came into Marcus’s room and said “Oh, Sergeant, John says there’s a message from the ARC for you. Says there’s a recruit that wants to talk with you.” Marcus blinked and hopped up “I’m coming right away.”

Marcus followed the soldier through Tech-Com’s hideaway halls and approached the speaker. Marcus was waved into General Connor’s main office, and he sat down, getting handed the comms. “This is the Chief Officer, she's part of the ARC, Marcus I received word that

Space pirates had taken a prisoner boat hostage

. I know you are a trusted name, would you be able to help some of my soldiers up there?” Marcus blinked “Sure, General. Let me find a way back up to the ARC and send me to meet this person. The chief officer nodded to Kain "You're in luck, backup is on their way here. I heard it's one of Leia's trusted soldiers."

Kain raised an eyebrow “Let’s hope they know what they are doing.”

Marcus packed up what he could, grabbed a few weapons out of Connor’s weapon storage area and found a space taxi waiting to take him to the the outpost.

“Connor, hope to hell you fight a good one out there on Dante’s Comet, all of us of watching you, you know that.” Marcus placed a hand on Connor’s shoulder one last time before he left the base toward the space taxi and Kain’s coordinates.

"Take us to there.” He spoke the coordinates to the Outpost where Chief Officer Tarah and Kain resided for the time being.

Marcus stared out in the space taxi once again, mostly stretching out a hint remembering who he was doing this for.

Hours past and Marcus was suddenly within a giant outpost as the space taxi stopped in the hangar. “Here we are, sir.”

Marcus nodded, getting out and walking inside, taking in the outpost’s look.

The Chief Official walked out with Kain and nodded “Ah, you must be Marcus, right?”

Marcus nodded, walking forward, eying Kain with a neutral look, Kain flashing a look as well. Thinking to himself, "Another teenager.. mostly like Kyle Reese right?”

Marcus frowned and nodded “Where are we going, Chief Officer Tarah?”

Tarah nodded “We are heading toward the hangar, Kain will help you on your team along with another.”

Kain blinked “Ma’am, I’m ready to go!”

Marcus eyed Kain and wasn’t sure what to expect but he knew this was going to be an interesting job to be sure of it.