I sat down on my bed again. I was alone in my dorm. Peggy had gone to her meeting with the Director and Gem had gone to finish her testing so I had nothing to distract myself from anxiety. I was stuck in an empty, silent dorm.

I needed to know what was happening. I’d been pacing back and forth ever since Peggy left for her meeting with the Commander. She said he’d probably tell us then if we’d been flagged for anything.

I’d spent all night awake going over what happened and what I did wrong. I definitely wasn’t flagged. I was sure that Commander Leo was frowning when I landed the ship in the simulation. Maybe. I’d played that moment over in my head so many times that I just didn’t know anymore. I was sure I’d messed up. I wouldn’t be flagged after talking back like that. Maybe they’d kick me out… Surely, they had to punish me?

I couldn't go back to the orphanage. Not after I’d been here and seen what my life could be. The base was so different from the orphanage. So much better. I could do well here, go far.

My thought turned darker as I thought about what I’d do to not go back to the orphanage but this much was clear, I wouldn't survive it. I couldn’t.

Maybe they’d send me to be a Guardian instead. I’d spend my days patrolling cities and being stuck on Nova for the rest of my life.

My leg bounced incessantly until I stood up and start pacing again. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t go back. I checked my wrist monitor again to see if it would tell me whether I’d been flagged or kicked out but it didn’t say anything new. My hands shook until I balled them into fists so tightly I could feel wetness on my fingertips from my nails digging into my palms. It still wasn’t enough to distract me though. I felt like I was about to explode from the anxiety that was racing through me.

The door opening was almost deafening in the silence of the room and I whirled around to see Gem coming in the door, still limping slightly.

“Hey!” She called with a giant grin.

“How did it go?”

She dropped onto her bed, lying back happily.

“So good! That was so fun! It was some older trainees who were running the testing, they said that the tutors were in meetings all morning to sort out who’d been flagged and stuff! Oh, and you inspired me yesterday so I asked if I could try the no gravity because they wouldn’t stop talking about it! They call it zero-G!”

My heart dropped, it was bad enough that I might have messed up my chances of staying here but now I might have ruined Gem’s too.

“What happened?” I asked, chewing my lip.

“They said yes! It was so fun! I mean I went face first into one of the instructors but we laughed about it!”

A small trickle of hope wormed its way into my heart.

“Really?”

“Yeah! Apparently, everyone crashes into people when they first do it because you can’t just stop yourself! You have to grab onto something to stop!” She laughed again.

Before I could respond Peggy walked in, clutching something to her chest.

“How was your meeting?” Gemini called.

“It was good.” She sounded breathy.

“What happened?”

“Umm… we talked about how I’m settling in here so far… and how I did in the tests. I was flagged for… urm engineering and diplomacy somehow, which he said is really rare for someone my age… and,” she paused, glancing at the door anxiously, “he gave me this.”

She unwrapped her arms from around the thing she had been clutching and showed it to us. It was a small rectangle in a hard wrapping with weird writing on it that I didn’t recognise.

“What is it?” Gem asked, looking at me to see if I knew.

I shook my head at her before looking back to Peggy who was staring down at it in awe, like it was the most precious thing she’d ever seen.

“It’s a book. A real book. Like, from Earth. It’s made out of real paper. Commander Gaddon said that he found it in a search and rescue years ago. It should be in a museum but he was allowed to keep it. And he has loads more in his office. He said I could borrow any of them whenever I want!”

“Wait, really?” I said leaning forwards to get a better look at the relic.

I’d seen stuff from Earth before in museums on school trips but I’d never been so close to a real book. We’d been taught about them in school. People from Earth would rip down the trees that helped purify their air and make them into books, so different from Nova. Here, we barely had any books and even the ones we did have were made from bioplastic. We mostly just used screens.

“Yes!” Her eyes shined brightly.

“Can you read Earth writing?” Gem asked, also leaning towards the book.

“Well… no, I couldn’t find anything about it online before but the Commander has given me access to dictionaries and translation guides so I should be able to read it now!” Peggy sat cross-legged on her bed, gingerly placing the book in front of her.

“Oh, Aries? He asked me to send you now.”

I continued gazing at the book until I realised that she’d been talking to me. That was my name now. The blood rushed from my face making me dizzy for a second. I blinked hard and clenched my fists, digging my nails in again to try and stay calm.

“Where’s his office?” My voice came out harder than I meant it to.

“It’ll tell you on your wrist monitor but if you head towards the canteen, it’s right near it.” Peggy said, still staring at the book in wonder.

I nodded and started walking, checking the directions on my watch over and over. I couldn’t help but feel as if I were walking towards something bad. I was going to get punished and then kicked out, I knew it.

My wrist monitor buzzed too soon, telling me that I was outside his office. I should have walked slower, savoured being on this base more.

I knocked once, softly, my hands shaking.

“Come in!” He sounded happy, not angry.

I entered and walked towards the desk, unable to look at him. His office was different from what I expected. I thought it would be silver walls, like the dorm, and basically empty but it wasn’t. The walls were dark and clustered with bookshelves displaying books just like the one that Peggy had brought back. He had pictures on display on the screens scattered about. I didn’t want to look too closely but I could see the one closest to me already. It was a picture of a Space Corps crew in front of a ship, their arms around each other’s shoulders as they laughed. I looked away, not wanting to be accused of snooping, my eyes falling onto the big metal panel on the wall behind his ship. It looked kind of like the reflector panels we’d tried to fix in the engineering test yesterday but it was bigger and had “Mersa” sprayed across it in red paint. The name was strangely familiar. I wracked my brain to try and remember why but couldn’t think of anything. I know now, obviously. You all probably do. Andy’s crew was a big deal when they were active. There were endless Council bulletins about them. Well… not endless. They ended one day.

“Sit down.” He said, gesturing to a comfy looking chair in front of his cluttered desk.

I sunk into it, still refusing to meet his eyes. His desk was covered in screens and trinkets. My own face was staring back at me from the screen in a holder to his right with a block of text next to it. It was my identification photo from the orphanage. I looked young and angry. I remember when they were taken, Sallis kept screaming at us to hurry up.

I wanted to read what had been written about me but my eyes wouldn't move from the innocuous looking yet terrifying red dot next to my name. Did everyone have that or was it just me?

“Okay, first things first,” he paused and I winced, waiting for him to tell me the bad news, “have you chosen a name for yourself?”

I swallowed nervously.

“Umm, yes… Aries.” My voice was weak and unsteady.

“Ah! Yes, a constellation named by the Ancient Earth civilisation, consisting of only four bright stars but still extremely powerful, if you believe the ancient fables!”

I nodded without looking up, having no clue what he was talking about.

“Great, I’ll put that into the system and have your name changed official.”

I waited silently whilst he typed.

“Done! You are now formally known as Aries. I’m going to start by telling you a little about how things are run here at the base and then we’ll discuss your results. You’ll spend most of your days in lessons learning how to fly various ships, how to fix them, about the history of our planet and the wars. Obviously, you are paid whilst you’re training here and that gets increased significantly once you start flying missions. It’ll just be little ones at first, search and rescues, that kind of thing but once you graduate or progress they’ll get a bit more intense. You can either join an existing crew or start your own one but most people do not start their own crew because you need a certain number of people to cover all of the positions so it isn’t easy! Then, once you graduate, you can either continue working with the Space Corps or you can retire with the money you’ve made from training and do whatever you’d like. You’ll still need to work but the education you receive here is aimed at giving you the ability to work wherever you’d like or go on to further studies, if you don’t want to continue with us.”

I nodded again, trying to take in all of the information but I was still distracted.

Surely, he wouldn’t be telling me all this if he’s going to kick me out?

“Great! So… your test results. Very interesting.”

I looked up with my heart pounding to see him staring intently at the screen in front of him before looking down again. I wanted desperately to see what my results said but I knew I couldn’t ask to see them.

What’s interesting about them? I needed to know. Interesting didn’t sound good.

“You’ve been flagged for flying, that should be obvious after your performance but also your written test was impressive. You’ve missed some education but you’re obviously very ambitious and curious.”

I winced, curiosity was never a good thing. That had been drilled into us at the orphanage.

“We’ve placed you on the accelerated course for flying which means your timetable will be a little more intense than others, you’ll be working longer hours but have an extra day off each week for rest.”

I stared at the Commander, my brain stuttering to a halt as I tried to process what he said.

“I’ve been flagged for flying? You mean… I’m not being kicked out?”

He looked genuinely concerned and I found myself unable to meet his eyes again.

“Of course not! Why would you be?”

“I spoke back to the tutor.” I confessed miserably.

“I don’t see any mention of that here.” He said gently with a slight smile.

“But I did! I asked if I could try again because I messed up the simulation and didn’t land it the first time!”

Tears burned in my eyes. I tried not to let them fall, knowing that the caretakers in the orphanage hated it when we cried. They said the noise annoyed them. I didn’t want to annoy him more than I already had.

“Were you rude?”

“Yes, I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“But when you asked, were you rude or did you simply ask if you could try again?”

I didn’t know how to answer him. My brain worked furiously. I’d always been taught that speaking to an adult when they don’t speak first was rude but he made it sound like that wasn’t true.

“I don’t… I don’t think so?”

“Why did you ask if you could try again?” He didn’t sound angry or annoyed, just interested.

“Because… I knew where I went wrong and I knew if I tried again, I could fix it and maybe get flagged so I could be a flyer one day…” My voice trailed off.

“You would have been flagged even if you didn’t try again. Your reflexes were good, you learnt from those before you and you did extremely well on your first try. Leo was impressed. You’re on your way to being a flyer.”

My heart pounded in my ears and I struggled to form any words. I didn’t know what to say. He’d just told me I might be able to live my dream, that I was on my way to doing it. Tears dripped down my cheeks but they were tears of happiness and excitement.

“Here, you aren’t punished for speaking without being spoken to. Curiosity is a good thing. If you have a question, you should ask it. I know that’s different from what you’re used to, coming from an orphanage. I spent some time in one when I was a child and I know it is difficult to adjust.”

“You were a draft?”

“Kind of, I was brought up mostly in an orphanage but I was placed with a family when I was eleven. It wasn’t a good fit for me, I was too curious just like you are so I volunteered.”

I nodded, unsure of what to say. Being placed with a family was really rare but I knew they didn’t always go well. Even so, I didn’t expect the Director to be a draft. I knew that some of the Commanders would be, but people weren’t normally so open about it. Even though so many people were brought up in orphanages, there was still judgement around them.

He smiled softly at me again, his eyes wrinkling around the edges and I couldn’t help but smile too.

“I found my place here and decided to never leave.”

“You trained on this base?”

I couldn’t wrap my head around wanting to stay somewhere. Nowhere had felt like home before so I didn’t understand it. I do now. I’ve realised that when it’s already too late.

“I did. I signed up when I was thirteen and worked my way up. I graduated as a pilot then started a crew with my partner. He grew up on this base too.”

“Oh.”

The director gazed down at a picture on his desk that I couldn’t see but, from the love in his eyes, I could tell he was looking at a picture of his partner.

“What happened to him?” The question tumbled out of my mouth and I froze in panic.

“A mission went wrong and he didn’t make it. I managed to get us home but it was too late for him and our ship didn’t make it either. The crew didn’t want to go on after that so I went into teaching instead so I could help to make sure others didn’t make the same mistake that I did.”

He smiled sadly at me but I didn’t know what to say.

“Do you have any other questions?” He asked softly.

I shook my head, not trusting my mouth to speak just yet.

“If you do, you can come speak to me at any time. Your schedule will show up on your monitor after lunch.”

I stood, aware that he was dismissing me.

“Thank you.”

He smiled widely at me as I walked to the door. I turned back just before I stepped through the door and saw that he wasn’t looking at me anymore. He had turned to the scrap of metal on his wall and was resting his hand on it, a small smile on his face. I ducked out, feeling like I was intruding on this moment, and rushed back to my room confusion warring within me.