Finn awoke to the sound of someone tapping on his door. For a moment, he thought he was back on J-27. As he peered around blearily, his hand found the handle of his tool bag and automatically attached the first of its clips to his belt. "Busy! Long range sensors aren't gonna fix themselves!"
The door slid open, revealing Sherle.
"Say what about the long range sensors?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.
Finn rubbed his eyes as memories of the previous day rushed through his mind. He was on the Ulasomorf, and J-27 was probably nothing more than floating debris at that point.
"Sorry," he mumbled, still feeling a bit sleepy. "I thought ... never mind. What's up?"
She stepped aside so he could leave the room, "You've been asleep for twelve hours. Jake asked me to check on you. Sorry if I woke you up."
"Nah, it's okay. I shouldn't be sleeping that long anyway." He took a moment to stretch and pop his back and neck. Letting out a sigh of relief, he said, "I'm gonna check and see if there's anything edible in the kitchen."
"Don't bother." She held up a silver-wrapped bar Finn recognized immediately, much to his dismay. "It's pretty much just a few boxes of these."
"Oh boy," Finn said, his voice flat. "Omni-bars."
She shrugged, an apologetic look on her face.
While the building blocks of life were mostly identical in the long run, there were some biological issues that still separated the known species and their diets. A Sikassan, for example, would never get the same nutrition from a banana as a human. Thulann weren't just vegetarian; their systems couldn't process meat at all, leading to indigestion. Omni-bars were developed as a sort of universal foodstuff that any of the known species could survive off of for long space trips. It's a shame most species found them utterly tasteless.
Sighing, he took the bar and ripped it open. After a moment's hesitation, he took a bite and immediately blanched. The packaging claimed it was honey wheat flavored, but Finn would've described the flavor as something closer to soggy cardboard. "Ugh. You'd think they'd at least add some flavor to the damn things."
"I'd imagine it's hard to find something both leva and dextro physiology can digest that doesn't spoil," Sherle said. "Still, it's better than a heaping bowl of nothing, yeah?"
"Hmm." Finn eyed her as he took another bite. "You're awfully chipper today."
"Like you said, there's not much we can do about our situation at the moment. To be honest, I'm kinda glad to get off that dusty old station." She blushed and quickly added, "Not that I'm saying I'm glad it was destroyed. I'm not. I really feel bad for Darsan. I was just trying to say-"
"It's okay." Finn said, holding up a hand to stay her further attempts to explain herself. "I get what you mean. I at least got to go to Krieger's place occasionally; you were stuck on the station since the day you got there."
He chewed the last bit of omni-bar in his mouth and forced himself to swallow the lumpy mess. "You know, I've always been curious; how did you end posted at J-27?"
"It's a long story, really ... very boring." Sherle said, an uncomfortable look on her face. "Unimportant, really."
Finn shrugged. If she didn't want to talk about her past, he was hardly the person to argue. He tossed the wrapper of the omni-bar into a small waste receptacle beside the elevator.
She stood beside him, playing nervously with her hands. "So, you were with Terrastellar."
"Were is the operative word," Finn replied, glancing up at the lift indicator.
YOU ARE READING
The Streamer's Edge
Science FictionA repairman and his robot dog live on a small station in the middle of nowhere until a series of events sees them becoming the target of a shadowy organization. Their attempt to escape turns into a trip into a past they hoped to forget. Joined by a...
