Chasing Through Sky

Chapter One- Kaci

When the stranger finally strode into her compartment Kaci didn’t know what to think. Granted, Kaci had been awoken moments before with the angry baby sound beeping from her dashboard, alerting her of this intruder. Blinking back sleep, Kaci hurried to the main entrance to see a stranger catapult them self in. Now she watched drowsily as the stranger took off their red, blue, and white suit after noticing oxygen was available. That narrowed it down to Russia, Chile, France, Luxembourg, and Iceland, to name a few places this person could be from.

       The stranger took off their suit first, slowly revealing a rather rumpled Slavnaya Shkola polo shirt as the zipper snaked down their body. Finally, the stranger took off their helmet shaking loose a small turret of wavy brown hair and letting Kaci get a view of her face. It was a very feline face Kaci decided, with her sunken cheeks and high cheekbones seeming to be the stage for a pair of luminescent blue eyes to shine down on to. Russian, Kaci finalized, after noticing the stranger’s distinctive nose.

       This was a small problem. The Russians and Americans had never exactly seen on an eye to eye basis. Ever since the first new planet with life had been discovered and the Russians immediately sent weapons to obliterate it, that minor distrust had given way to open hostility. Now, the Russian Slavnaya Shkola and the American NASA were in some sort of race to prove to each other that they were better. Nevertheless, Kaci didn’t want to just throw this girl into a cage and be done with it.

       “Ve need to get away,” the girl broke in suddenly. “Introductions later. They are coming.” And as she spoke, Kaci could see a monstrous silver vehicle coming straight at us. It’s blazing jets had knocked away the stranger’s little rover as if it was a mere dust particle. The black windows seemed to be an endless void that glared at Kaci as if they were saying, what do you think you’re doing? I will kill you! This was supported with the fact that the spaceship was carrying a nasty looking bomb and heading straight towards her ship. Kaci could just make out the Slavanya Shkola logo on it’s side.

       “Isn’t this your problem?” Kaci grumbled. Nevertheless, Kaci grabbed her steering consul and turned on the view cameras. Come on Kaci, she thought, this is just another video game that Tunkashila kept on lecturing me about. Yeah, except for the part where this is real! her brain protested. Shut up, not helping here!

       The spaceship was coming up her left propeller. Immediately, her instincts kicked in as Kaci somehow unconsciously drove right and then sprinted downwards to narrowly avoid an astray asteroid. What on earth could you have done? Kaci wanted to ask the stranger. However, the stranger was busy pacing in front of the large viewscreen and Kaci was busy avoiding the, well, bombers.

       A loud whistling from what sounded suspiciously like another bomb made Kaci look fearfully right before nearly falling off her chair. Five torpedoes flew in perfect formation with white hot energy streaming behind them. They looked like new models; the only way to get rid of them was to avoid them by hiding behind something. A quick glance reported that the only object nearby was the enemy ship and the stranger’s tiny rover. The rover now looked less like a rover and more like a twisted piece of garbage. This is it, Kaci imagined glumly, we’re going down. I’m forever going to be known as the only idiot to die on practice test hundreds of miles away from the Solar System because I tried to help an enemy who stormed my ship while I was asleep.

“What are you doing?!” said the stranger, much to Kaci’s indignation.

“Trying to save us because of YOU!”

“We’re going to get killed!”

“Fine! You take over!” Kaci angrily spun herself out of the chair, only to find the stranger already steering the ship gracefully through rockets, asteroids, and the occasional random piece of hurtling space junk. In less than five minutes the ship was gliding through a vast empty space and Kaci’s mouth was open revealing a vast empty space. Who was this girl? She had just steered with the expertise of a captain and she was only fifteenish- nearly three years younger than Kaci. Kaci had never heard of a prodigy in the space field, but this girl was clearly one.

“You should sleep.” the girl said.

“I should sleep?” Kaci asked incredulously. The girl looked as if she had lived through a tornado. That had traveled across her body. Her angular face looked so weary that if she dropped she might sink all the way back to Earth. And the scariest part was the stranger’s eyes. The huge blue eyes looked less like a serenesky and more like a raging storm. No, this girl may be better and controlling Kaci’s ship, but there was no way Kaci was going to let her destroy herself.

“You sleep. Trust me, if a baby looked at you it would probably take some sort of drug to stop screaming.” Well, that was probably not the kindest way to tell this girl that, but oh well.

“Excuse me?”

“Just sleep.” The stranger looked like she wanted to argue, but then she stopped at seeing Kaci’s stern expression. “The bed is that way.”

The girl looked at her for a long time before she finally said, “Luba Manya, thank you,” she said holding out her hand. Kaci took it.

“Kaci Aiyanna Lewis,” she said slowly. “Call me Kaci. Can I ask why you’re on my ship?”

“No,” Luba replied easily. “Maybe later.” she then carefully picked up all of her items and walked on- making every step count. She left a bemused Kaci at the wheel.