Aphelion

Old World

Author's note: This is the song that Quibilah was listening to a cover of in the last chapter.

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BEEP. BEEP.

"It can't be 0630 in the morning yet...can you turn off, please?"

Rolling over on his bed, a very befuddled engineer stared at a Jeolgeon digital wristwatch reading 0430 and wondered why in the world would he ever get up this early.

"It's not like I'm the military again," he muttered. After all, he had volunteered and done his two years as an engineering officer in the Navy. Chuckling as he ruffled through his extremely short hair, he pondered on when did he get it cut so short.

"Wait."

Realization hit him like a truck as he practically leaped off the bunk bed and bolted towards the window observing cislunar space in its purest form.

"Oh no, no, no, no...why? Why did I choose to be stuck in space? You cannot panic now, Seon. It's just like a boat, OK? It's a ship in space, and instead of water, you have the void...that you'll immediately freeze and die in without a chance to get saved...Aish! Why did I agree to this?", he mumbled, frantically pulling on black sweatpants and heading down to the staff lounge room to get a bit of coffee in him before the Academy Faculty meeting at 0500.

He missed being on Earth so bad...Ugh.

Why did they choose him of all people? He thought he was so well-adjusted to civilian life, from waking up daily at 7 am in the morning to dealing with businessmen and politicians...well that part not so much.

"Time to get on with the day," he stated, sighing as he walked on over to the men's faculty locker room. He had slept through enough of his alarms already which meant washing his raven hair was out of the question, and he would have to rush to make it to the conference room on time as it was on the other side of the academy complex.

It was times like these that made him question his design decisions.

Elsewhere, a cadet woke up with a start, breathing heavy as she struggled to reclaim her senses after having had a terrifying nightmare.

"Why would someone try to kill me?", she whispered in muted tones. Eventually, conceding sleep was lost to her, she decided to review a bit more for the Physics lesson today.

It was her weakest subject and getting help from her bunk mate was not an option.

By the time 0600 rolled around, her roommate woke up with a "HYAH!", and burst into action, throwing clothes around in a frenzy, she searched for her dress uniform, called first for the shower, and ate a contraband candy bar all at once.

Clicking her tongue in disapproval, Cadet Quibilah Abdel slowly gathered her things for the classes today, used a lint roller on her dress blouse, and waited for her roommate to get out of the shower. Around this time, most of the cadets would be getting up because at 0700, Major Gideon would be knocking on all their doors asking them to line up and 0730 is when the monthly assembly at the auditorium would begin.

Last month, the Superintendent had addressed the cadets on Discipline, and Quibilah had given Mary Louise the side-eye when her roommate dared raise her hand and claim she practiced discipline.

Where? At least in her side of the room, it was not so.

Demerits for days, she thought as she watched Cadet Louise stroll into the room with hair still in a towel.

"You can head in now," she quipped as she attempted to quickly dry her hair with a dryer-iron.

"Those things aren't that effective in space", she cautioned, leaving her roommate irritated.