Camp IX | ✓

4

     Berkely let us go after reminding us to report back the day after tomorrow for a final briefing before the memory procedures began and we started leaving for Earth.

     "Please remember to call home to your families before you leave!" Berkely shouted at us as we left the room and we waved to acknowledge him.

      The Gemini isn't our home, it's only an outpost for operations like the camps. Our real home is a planet many light years away called Andromeda. It's ironically located in what the humans call the Andromeda galaxy.

     Most of the population lives there except for people like Griffin and me, people that want to explore. We're scattered all over space, hovering above planets, conquering them for Nastrus. It's how we run our little empire.

     Sometimes I missed the planet with it's large, sparkling cities that reach into the clouds. The streets filled with people in the day and empty when the moons rise. Parties and festivals every month to let the wealthy flaunt their money. In my early days as a cadet, I attended many of those parties, danced with the girls in their sparkling gowns that flowed around them like water and fire. I danced with the boys, always swept away by the majesty of it all. The high, sweeping ballrooms filled to the top with drunk laughter and music. I remembered how the planet itself seemed to breathe and laugh right alongside us.

     On board the Gemini, however, no such things happened. Where Andromeda was lavish, the ship was plain. Where Andromeda laughed, the Gemini frowned in disapproval of the noise and merrymaking. That was perhaps what I missed most about my old life and often I caught myself daydreaming of those nights spent in complete and utter bliss.

     Thankfully Griffin is around to keep me sane. We met each other on the supply ship carrying us to the Gemini around a year ago. The fifteen cadets all flew in together, not knowing a single thing about each other. Griffin had been sitting on my left and struck up a conversation with me. It was friendship at first sight and we'd been inseparable since. Eating, training, sometimes even sleeping in each other's rooms when the other felt lonely, we did everything together. In fact, this mission would be the first time we'd be apart since arriving at the Gemini and I wasn't sure how I felt about it.

     With the briefing done and plenty of time left until lights out, Griffin and I wandered. We wandered up the ship and back down again, eating up a good amount of that time. The ship was built to hold well over five thousand people and it reflected this in its size. Upon reaching the main deck, Griffin led the way across to the large windows through which Earth stared at us.

     "Look, right there," Griffin pointed at South America which had come into view since we left a couple of hours ago. "That's where I'll be soon."

     I nodded, trying to ignore the cold feeling in my stomach. I recognized it as sadness. As excited as I was to finally be starting the mission, I really didn't want to leave Griffin's side. He'd been my rock, the spot of light when I got homesick, the one thing in life I could count on. I didn't want to lose that.

     "And look up there," I pointed up towards the lower part of Canada, close to the US border. "That's going to be my new home. We're not that far apart."

     Griffin thought I couldn't see him with my face turned towards the window, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw his carefully crafted smile falter. Just seeing that made my eyes sting and I fought to keep my own smile in place.

     "Well, would you look at that. You're right," Griffin's voice sounded normal and I gave him a couple more seconds to make his face match it.

     We stood for a couple more minutes, the two of us fighting off tears but unwilling to tell the other just how much we're hurting inside. When I couldn't take it any longer I turned and started walking back towards my room. Griffin fell into step with me and we walked silently side by side under the levels surrounding the edges of the main deck that are covered in green. It's spilling from the plants growing there. We walked down the elevated ramps to a lower part of the deck and through a small, easily concealed door.

     It isn't until we walked done several halls that I felt like I could talk again without losing control and I only opened my mouth to see if Griffin would come back to my room. Of course, he would, he needed me just as much as I needed him right now.