DIVISION 52 - BOOK III

CHAPTER XII

"I don't know what they are called, the spaces between seconds– but I think of you always in those intervals." 
― Salvador Plascencia 

S C O R P I O N

I punched the Falcon jet out of our base of operations at a speed I usually did. I navigated easily through the endless throng of structures and fusion crafts as I usually did. What gave me pause however, was the awe stricken face of the boy that was almost a man beside me.

It struck me that he had never flown in a military-grade craft... even regular fusion crafts very often at all. Every time the engines threw him back into the co-pilot chair a little his eyes ignited and he devoured every detail around him. It hit so squarely in the chest because I remember that feeling of coming from nothing to suddenly everything.

I remember the world Sylus Dartega thrust me into.

So, instead of the direct route to our new arms dealer, I took a rather different approach.

I pulled harshly back on the controls and sent the jet spiralling upwards in what my previous second and I knew as a combat manoeuvre. Lee's eyes bulged out of his head in shock and something closer to excitement. I allowed the corner of my mouth to curl once more.

Then I sent all four fuel cells into our climb and his excitement toed the line between sheer terror and curiosity. It was always a dangerous fascination. I would know.

"That's five G's of force." I noted calmly, pinned against my own chair as we climbed higher out of the city sky line.

"What–does that–mean-Scorpion?" He grit out, through shallow breaths.

I rolled my head towards him, despite the pressure building.

"It means you're doing pretty well for someone who's scarcely left Sector 50–let alone the atmosphere." I deadpanned.

But I wasn't here to make the kid pass out after all. I suddenly levelled our death spiral upwards until we glided calmly level above the cloud line. I remained silent, gazing out at a familiar blanket of silk that was now stained with the sunset of another day. But his reaction was like the price of my own the very first time.

So I kicked my boots onto the dash and crossed my arms to watch him.

His rigid soldier routine was all but forgotten. Now a boy looked at a world he had never seen before and he lived for it. He came alive to it, just as I had. That hunger for life was just as present as he pinned both palms against the pilot glass and gawked.

"This–this was above us–this whole time?" He murmured in disbelief. Then his eyes turned to the peaks of the tallest sky towers breaking right through that silken cloud and catching the best of the sun set that bled golden beams across the sky. "–I can see why they built them up there." He finally snorted.

This made me smirk for an entirely new reason.

Makayla had the same affinity for recreating this scene on a sketchpad. If not a painting. She had seen this sight a thousand times over and still took the time to build it all over again in different ways. While Lee took in the view I plucked the cord around my neck absentmindedly and felt the cool sapphire ring in my fingers. No matter where she was out there I still had this promise around my neck keeping my mind together. The most reassuring part of it all... was that she would do the same.