Transmissions || Dustin Bates

It Has Begun

From how my morning started, I never would have imagined that I would end up on a jump ship to the planet Grotto. I glanced over at Shay, as I had been doing all morning. She was quiet, as she had been since I finally stood up to her. To say the least, this morning had been eventful.

I groaned, knowing today was going to be tough. Ron had been taken a week ago and no one had gone to retrieve him yet. They knew what planet he was on, but nobody was moving. The Senate was refusing to send people since they were trying to work a treaty with the Grottans. Shaylee was pissed, to say the least. She had been drilling the other two rugged and took my training on as a distraction for herself. It was relentless. My body had never felt so sore before. It made me miss Ron even more than I already did.

I pulled myself out of bed and made my way to get ready. I finished quickly, grabbing a zip-up sweatshirt and starting to walk to the kitchen towards the team's area. I walked in to see Shay sitting at the bar, drinking straight black coffee as she did every day. She was dressed in all black, her hair curled and pulled back into a ponytail.

"Morning," she greeted me, not looking back. I grabbed myself a cup of coffee as well, sitting next to her. She spun to look at me. "Bates, are you a jacket slut?" I stopped my coffee midway to my mouth, just staring at her confused.

"What did you just ask me?" I set my coffee back down on the counter.

"Are you a jacket slut?" I thought about it, taking a slow drink of my coffee finally. I came to my conclusion.

"Yeah, I am." I nodded, taking another drink. She hummed in response, taking a drink herself.

"Okay. That's something." She sat watching the clock, the seconds ticking by on the digital screen. "Okay. Let's get to work." She downed the remainder of her coffee and set the mug in the sink. I sighed, following her lead of drinking my coffee quickly. I set it in the sink and jogged out of the room. I made it to my lab, brewing myself a second cup of coffee. I sat working in peace for a while, then, the door opened.

"Yes?" I asked, not even bothering to look up.

"Hey, come to the missions room. I need you to monitor us going to rescue Ron." I looked up to see Shay balancing herself against the door frame, black hair falling behind her as she tilted her head at me. I stood up, walking over to her.

"What the hell are you thinking?" I exclaimed, pushing her out of the lab and into the hallway. "No, I'm not letting you go. You are down a team member, and you know that a three-person team is nowhere near as effective as a four! It's suicide, Shaylee! For all four of you!" Her expression dropped, hurt.

"Come on." She said, turning and walking away. I groaned, turning in a circle, contemplating what to do before groaning and following her. A few feet away from my lab, I noticed a large dent in the wall, as if somebody had punched it enough to create it. It concerned me slightly, seeing as it hadn't been there a few hours ago. I brushed off the thought of the wall, followed her into her room.

Her room had her bed mounted into the wall, almost like a bunk, but no bed beneath hers. There were closets for her clothes built into the sides of the walls at the head and feet of her bunk. The walls were a soft blue, the wall that she and Ron shared riddled with knife holes. On one end of the room was a desk with a swipe tech accessible port and a few bookshelves, the other end having a window to the outside world and a couch. Beside the couch was an antique record player like what the people on earth used a millennia ago.

She walked to the closet close to the foot of her bed, reaching in and grabbing something black. She smoothed it out in her hands.

"The Senate sent this to me the day you joined our team, but I didn't want to give it to you until you proved yourself. I guess this is your chance to prove yourself, but you can't fully do it without this." She sighed, smoothing it over once more, lifting part of the material. "This, you earned it a while ago." She handed it to me, leaning against the wall. I held it up, looking at it closely.