Claim the Stars: A Jensa story

Part 2/Chapter 1

Spensa POV:

I fell into nothing. Doomslug screamed. The eyes watched me. I thought hard about Detritus, all the people who needed me. All the people I loved. Jorgen, Kimmalyn, FM, Rig, Gran Gran, Cobb. I focused on the arrow in my mind, still perceivable from when the Delver had been diverted from Starsight. I prayed that it would be enough to transport me back home.

But it wasn't.

I stumbled into daylight and ran into a tree.

It was so abrupt. I kind of lost the ability to think for about five heartbeats (which I could hear pounding in my ears). When I finally cleared my head and got over the full indignity of the situation, I was again shocked by my surroundings.

I'd heard about jungles from Old Earth History in school. At that moment, I realized how inadequate the descriptions had been. Trees that must have been 50 meters at least surrounded me, their trunks covered in moss and other smaller plants. Above me, the canopy was draped with vines and crossing branches from the taller trees. Everything was so...green. Not that I'd had anything to compare it to, but I'd heard that trees came in red and copper too, but the intensity—the dark, yet somehow light tones diving depth and contrasting against the rare patch of dark red or brown that could be seen peeking through lichen and mushrooms growing on the trunks burned my eyes. 

"Oh..." M-Bot said after a minute of me staring up at the leaves in vertigo. "Look at those nice mushrooms."

I was at a loss for words. A personal first. 

"Spensa?" M-Bot asked. "Did you hit your head a little too hard?"

"I..." I managed, sucking in a breath of warm humid air. "Where are we?"

A pause. "I don't know, Spensa. Maybe once..."

Guilt hit me, twisting inside my stomach.. I tried to force it down. "What do we do from here?"

"Your guess is as good as mine, Spensa. I-"

"Wait," I said. "Doomslug! I dropped her when I fell—where did she go?" 

Panic rose inside me as I searched frantically around for Doomslug. She wasn't that small! Did I leave her behind?

"Who?" A voice asked behind me.

I jumped, whirling around to see a person who—at first glance—I mistook for Alanik.

Light purple skin and crystal growths under the eyes marked the tall man as UrDail. He had close-cropped white hair and striking purple eyes looked out at me with curiosity from a sharply angled face.  He had Doomslug under one arm.

"Um," I said. Wow. Warrior Spensa must be on her lunch break. "That's my slug."

The man looked down. "Slug?" he asked, proffering Doomslug.

"Yes," I said, stepping forward to take her. "Am I on ReDawn?"

He cocked his head. "Not understand."

I hesitated. I still had my translator pin. I activated it, then spoke.

"Who are you?"

"My name is Adriel," he responded, my pin feeding his words slightly accented words into my earpiece. "You are human?"

"I am the one who has been in contact with you over the past month or so," I said. "Alanik is on Detritus, my home planet. Her ship exploded and she is wounded. I don't know how severely, but our medics have no idea how to help her." 

"This is very troubling news," he said. "Come with me. I will take you to my sister, Morrean. We will discuss this."

He turned around, walking in the other direction. I had to jog to keep up. Not for the first time I wished I wasn't so short. He paced himself, fortunately, when he saw me struggling to keep up. 

"We UrDail make decisions together," he explained as we walked. "Nothing is certain without consultation. For Alanik to deviate from our plan how she did, that complicated things greatly."

I nodded. "But what if someone doesn't agree with a plan or policy? Do they call in an arbiter?"

He shook his head. "Generally most debates come to a peaceful close, but when they do not, the family or group is expected to resolve the problem on their own. This is a way of truly seeing every option. The more people you involve, the more sides of a problem you will see. When looking from every angle, it is easier to choose the best option, while exercising things like open-mindedness, trust, and cooperation."

I pondered his words until we reached a large tree with a staircase wrapping around it, then connecting to a long rope bridge going over a river. I followed him up and began to cross the bridge. The river roared beneath us, pushing boulders downstream and spraying the air with fine mist. My hair, of course, began to frizz. I looked up, noticing for the first time that there were hut-like homes and taller round buildings stretching up the trees. White-haired heads poked out windows and crystals flashed as people began to notice me. I felt so out of place in the world of large trees, dappled light, and graceful UrDail. 

Adriel and I walked the entire length of the rope bridge to a beige hut with a slightly peaked roof. Inside there were no rooms, though there was a set of stairs in the back. In the back, there were multiple desks and advanced monitors. Closer to me, however, was a living room with three couches arranged to form an 'L'. There was a coffee table in the center with a plate of nuts and a vase of tall green shoots that looked like a lovely green salad. My stomach rumbled. How long had it been since I last ate?

One of the chairs spun around revealing a young woman with an angled face who was obviously Adriel's sister. 

"Morrean," Adriel said. "She was the one who used the portal. She brings news of Alanik."

Morrean stood up. She looked tired. "What is your name?" she asked. 

I looked down. Something in her eyes made me hesitate. I'd seen that look before, in my mother's eyes. Whenever she'd been called into school for something that I'd done, or when she's had a bad day selling wraps. It was the look of someone weary with responsibility. Of someone forced into situations she was unfit to deal with. I shivered. What had been put on this woman's shoulders to give her that?

"Spensa," I whispered. 

"Tell us of Alanik," Morrean asked. 

I paused for only a second before telling them everything I knew, from Alanik being drawn to my cytonic scream, to her ship exploding, to my taking her place in the Superiority. The siblings were silent when I finished, looking at each other. 

"Spensa," M-Bot said, making me jump. "You are being broadcast a message via your bracelet. It's very faint, but - Spensa. It's coming from Detritus!"