Chapter Perspective: Novarod

McCormick was relatively easy to find in the quad as she and a slimmer guy with closely cropped hair walked along the sidewalk toward the southern berthings.

As soon as I caught sight of them I picked up the pace, hustling just a bit to reach them before they could turn down the south path.

“Hey McCormick, wait up!” I said as I came within earshot and the pair turned, the guy surprising me with a stern look that I couldn’t help but find humorous when accompanied by the overly bushy eyebrows on his face.

“Oh, hey Chester, what’s up?” She said before looking over to the guy and nodding her head down the path, “I’ll catch up with you in the common room Karl.”

“Whatever, don’t take too long, we need to go over the crew reports from the last trial still,” Karl said and I noticed the Captain’s pin on his collar glint in the light as he turned and headed off.

Before I opened my mouth again, I quickly reoriented my thoughts. Throwing a party to celebrate our win was one thing, but Doc and the others were out of their minds if they thought anyone from the other crews would want to come to a party for that. With her Captain nearly out of earshot, McCormick turned her attention back to me, her curly strawberry blonde hair bouncing with the motion as a curious smile spread over her face.

“So, come to ask me out huh?” She said playfully and I found myself coming up short as her joke caught me off guard.

“Huh, I, uh, what?” I stumbled over my words and an honest to god giggle escaped her lips as she slapped her hip.

“Oh stars, you’re actually blushing!” McCormick laughed and had to raise a hand to wipe away a stray tear that had escaped her eyes. “What’s up Chester?”

“I, or uh, we, my crew that is, we’re throwing a party over in our berthing tonight. We figured it’s been a while now, might as well get everyone together for some fun so that we can, I don’t know, hang out and stuff?” I explained, feeling my explanation even came off as lackluster.

“A party huh? Are we even able to have those up here?” She pondered, a finger raising to lightly tap against her chin.

I shrugged, “My crew figures that so much else about this place is like a college so it seems within the realm of possibilities.”

“I wish Karl would see it that way, dude has no chill and coming in last on this last trial has him extra on edge,” she replied with a sigh as her gaze dropped to the ground briefly before the solomn expression seemingly vanished in exchange for the same cheery smile she had sported just a few seconds prior. “I think I can convince him to come, got your datapad on you? What’s your contact ID?”

“CN1338,” I replied quickly, my hand reaching for the pad attached to a clip on my belt. “What’s yours?”

“KM1572,” she answered back as a hand darted across her own pad that she had pulled from a small backpack I hadn’t realized she was wearing. “What time were you guys thinking?” she asked as she quickly slipped the pad back into the bag and a notification popped onto my screen that she had added me.

“It’s what, 6 right now? I think the others were planning around 8ish, gives some folks time to digest and all that, plus whatever debriefing from the trial. It sorta came out of nowhere here at dinner for us and we are scrambling around to get everyone on board,” I explained as I reclipped the pad to my belt.

“It does sound like a good time, plus it might give us some more time to hang out as long as your Second doesn’t stick her nose in.”

“Us? Huh?” I felt the blush creep into my cheeks again. “And here Vicky was convinced you were just being nice to me to try and pump me for information the other day…” I added as I rubbed at the back of my head and tried to fight the nerves back.

While I had been friends with Raven since childhood, I was less than adept at actually dealing with other women and McCormick’s friendliness and seeming interest had me completely off guard.

“Oh I was definitely trying to pump you for information. Karl insisted that all of us try with the other crews, but that doesn’t mean I was only being friendly because of that,” she said with a mischievous smile. “You are pretty cute you know, and a humble pilot is a rarity, so color me interested,” she added with a wink.

Cute? Me? My cheeks grew even warmer as I looked to the ground to try and hide what had to be a scarlet red blush at this point. “Oh um… well I… You’re pretty cute too McCormick…” I said and felt like an idiot. What kind of response was that?

“Rule number one Chester, if you’re gonna compliment a girl, you gotta use her first name,” she said, stepping forward and placing a small kiss on my cheek, “I’ll see you at 8, if for no other reason than to get you to tease you some more.”

“Oh, okay, see you later, um… Kaylee,” I said with a smile as she stepped back and started to turn to follow after her Captain.

I stood there for a minute, unable and simply unwilling to pull my eyes from her until she disappeared behind a turn in the sidewalk that took her behind a few trees before I turned and started to head back toward the Eastern path. Maybe I had spent too much time in sims and ignoring everything outside of that, I wasn’t exactly too sure, but I had a feeling in my stomach that must have been the butterflies others talked about when they felt a crush forming.

As I walked along the pathway, several older students went hustling by with a level of hurriedness that felt out of place for what should have been a Friday. I felt my attention drawn to them but did my best to ignore it, assuming that there was some sort of context that I was just missing at this point. But as I reached the Eastern path that would lead me back to the Kirk building, several of the instructors nearly barreled into me, exiting from one of the many small buildings that were hidden off the edges of the paths that actually led down further into the station.

Something definitely seemed like it was up, but given that none of the instructors had bothered to even stop as I moved to the side, it also seemed like it wasn’t my business either. Curiosity was one thing, but sticking your nose where it didn’t belong had been hammered into me over the years to the point that I waited until the instructors disappeared around a corner that would take them to the admin building and then continued my trek to the berthing.

Maybe Doc had been on to something, sure, we were definitely training for space travel and there was a lot of seriousness that came with that. But at the end of the day, a lot of us were still at the late end of our teenage years, and maybe indulging a crush wasn’t the worst possible thing in the world. And if something was going on on the station that mattered, I’m sure we’d hear about that sooner or later.