Young Writers Society

“Damion, you’re embarrassing me,” complained Synergii, folding her arms over her chest and turning her head away from her companion.

The two sat in a tavern. Judging eyes fell on them; beings spoke in whispers about the newcomers. Nervously, a waitress strolled over to the table. Damion didn’t notice at first, being stuck in a ship for months eating nothing but packaged food took its toll. As a reward, Damion decided to order as much food as possible and eat it all.

“Excuse me,” said the waitress.

Damion stopped mid-chew to look up at the waitress. “Yeah?” Disgustingly, food and gravy dribbled out of his mouth.

Synergii rolled her eyes and turned her head towards the waitress. “I’m sorry, are we causing too much trouble?”

“Yes, could you calm down a little?” the waitress asked.

“Yeah, sure, we’re sorry,” said Synergii trying to paint on a smile.

Once the waitress left Synergii glared at Damion. It became suddenly harder for him to chew his food and he began to sweat under the stare of Synergii.

“Alright, alright, I’ll eat normally,” he said, slowing down his mouthfuls.

Synergii sat back in her chair. She sighed as babysitting because Damion was hard work. Her eyes wandered towards the window and she noticed the sky turning orange. Synergii looked at Damion and gestured towards the window.

"Hurry up," she said. "It's getting dark and all we've done is laze about in this place."

Once Damion finished his meal the two went back to the docks. Synergii noticed a group of people murmuring about a kidnapping.

“Yeah, it happened right here,” said one voice.

“People should learn to be a lot more careful around here,” replied another.

Kidnappings were a regular thing on Em. If it wasn’t Synergii would have felt more compelled to yell at the gossipers. No one helped anyone on this spaceport. It was a sad ideal.

“We’re back!” called Damion as he entered the ship. “Hey Niraco! Now I’m well-nourished we should have another scrap. What do ya sa-”

He paused when he noticed Niraco wasn’t in the bridge.

“She hasn’t come back yet,” said Wave, standing at the podium looking through the opened emails sent to it.

“She hasn’t?” said Synergii taking off her glasses and cleaning the dirt from them.

“Nope.”

“What was she going to get?” ask Damion, his voice rather shaky and unable to hide the worry.

Cayleon turned around the pilot’s chair. “She’s most likely still at one of the terminals. I’ve tried to get in contact with her but the datapad seems to be unresponsive.”

Damion clenched his fist; something didn’t fit right in his gut. Normally, Niraco did have a bad habit of being late but this seemed longer even by her standards. Especially since she was only checking the terminals.

“Come on Synergii lets go get her,” Damion commanded, turning around swiftly and walking back out of the ship.

Wave thought Damion was being over dramatic since Niraco was always late. This was no surprise to them. Once she was finished looking at all the opened emails she went towards the cabins. Whenever Niraco was away Wave would take the opportunity to sneak into her room and check out whatever thing Niraco had downloaded onto her computer. Today there was still nothing. No new downloads and she had deleted the only game on the system.

“Seriously,” sighed Wave about to shut down the computer.

She stopped when she suddenly noticed a small blinking light appearing at the corner of the email icon. It signaled about a new unopened email. She clicked the icon and Niraco’s emails flashed up on screen. There was only one. Niraco must have deleted the rest, thought Wave as she opened the newest email. The sender address was only titled ‘S.G.’ The email was only three letters long: ‘I appreciate it.’

Strange, thought Wave. It was mostly junk spam mail which Niraco received; once or twice there was something good, like an email from an old friend asking about how she was. Niraco never replied to them. She didn’t want anyone to know about the group. Cayleon had told her time and time again to change her email but Niraco wouldn’t part with it. She said it held sentimental value. Then why did she have this new address with the only contact being S.G? Wave questioned.

She marked the email as unread so Niraco would know Wave had gone through her emails. Despite the crew being together for many years they all had their own business. Wave knew she would never get any answers from Niraco even if she pestered her. She shut down the system and sat back in the chair, pondering who the S.G. could be.

Outside Damion and Synergii were marching their way towards the terminals. Niraco wasn’t there, but her datapad was. It was lying on the ground; a crack had rendered it useless.

He went to the terminal and checked the last thing Niraco looked at. His eyes flashed open wide and he turned towards Synergii.

“You knew about this didn’t you! there is no way you couldn’t have!” he said, on the verge of yelling.

“He begged me not to, so I did,” she said.

He sighed heavily and rubbed his forehead. “Come on, let’s head back, we’ll get Wave to come look with us.”

Her grabbed Synergii’s arm and yanked her beside him. She winched in pain and pulled her arm away.

“Why are you so mad?” she said, rubbing her slightly bruised arm.

“You should have at least told Niraco,” he said. “I know she’s an idiot but maybe she could have prepared something.”

He turned around ready to march back to the ship when he bumped into a tall cloaked figure. The man mumbled something before quickly scurrying away. Damion yelled profanities at him as the figure faded from sight. Synergii noticed a piece of paper lying on the ground were the two collided.

“Damion look,” she said, handing him the paper.

Damion squinted his eyes. “I can read this, it’s in Semalish.”

She pointed to one of the words. “It says to meet this person at the lowest level and we’ll get information on Niraco,” she yanked the paper back. “Actually it says, Friend is where I know, low level is meeting. So whoever this guy is he isn’t a Semaloid.”

Damion stared off towards where the figure was last seen, a confused look painting onto his face.

***

On a large black ship, light-years from Em, Niraco lay on a crisp white bed. There were no restraints which bounded her to the bed and she found that very confusing. Her head pounded and she feared to open her eyes. Her senses were still dazed from her needle induced sleep. The sheet she lay on hissed soothingly to her touch. Slowly but surely her eyes blinked open. Her head swirled from the blinding white. She tested her strength by leaning on her elbow. Just as she thrusted her elbow onto the bed she suddenly remembered about her bruise there and prepared for pain. It never came. Her bruises were all gone.

“They healed me?” she whispered in confusion. “Why?”

She swung her legs over the bed and stood on her bare feet. The boots she wore were on a metal tray just across the room. Hastily, she slipped them onto her feet. She whispred trying to make her Semaloid Gift work but it wouldn’t respond. The previous fight with Damion really worn her and her powers out. However, she could tell that it would only take a few more minutes before she was at full capacity again.

“Oh, you’re awake.” The door moved open and a female Dethre came in.

Out of all the Outer Species in the cosmos Dethres were considered to be the most deadly. Their skin was hard and scaly, the colours of their scales ranged from murky greens to chilly blues. The female Dethre which stood before Niraco was a pale brown and yellow.

Niraco looked around for a weapon.

“Now there is no need to panic,” said the female, holding up her hands. “Everything is perfectly fine. We apologise that you had to become part of this.”

“Part… you kidnapped my crewmember!” she yelled.

The female smirked, but Niraco couldn’t tell from her hard skin.

“Follow me, and I’ll take you to see him,” she suggested.

The female walked out of the room. Before Niraco followed her she tried once more to get her Gift to work. It failed and she internally cursed.