TO CHASE A DREAM

Darkness, endless night, billions of eyes watching her from beyond the void. She'd had this dream too many times to count. Yet it would occasionally change in quality. Sometimes it would be horrifying, drowning her in the heavy eternal silence of space. At other times it would be unreal. Too... dreamy to be a proper nightmare. Now it felt strangely prophetic. As if the dark skinned person she saw at the end would truly be there when she woke up, their dark eyes reflecting her jade green, looking into her soul...

She lay in her bed, staring at the ceiling that was programmed to mimic the sky out side only during daytime.

"I should get up now.", She told herself. But she didn't move.

She eventually rolled off her bed and crawled to her desk. She lazily reached to the chair to check the letter she'd been sent the month before. It was a flat material that was practically paper. That is if you ignore the fact that it didn't give paper cuts and was objectively safer. It could also show moving 3d pictures but that's besides the point.

It was a letter addressed to the human, Love Whitlock accepting her application into the imperial army of the Galaxy Andromeda and giving her formal permission to venture into the star system that was used as a base for the military. She would be leaving in a week and yet she hadn't packed for it. She kept procrastinating. Perhaps because of how conflicted she was beginning to feel.

It'd been almost nine years since she landed on the trash planetoid she'd come to call home. And within that time she could count on one hand the number of times she'd left. The couple she'd been adopted by had told her that it was because the king had ordered that her existence be kept private but still... The old rock only had a handful of people around and few visitors too. There was no one her age around and it was small enough for her to walk round in three days tops. Not much to explore for a curious person like her.

Yet now that she was finally getting what she wanted, she felt a strange attachment to the place. The idea of losing home was embarrassingly frightening. Looking back to how she'd left her first home, earth, it made sense more or less. She just hasn't foreseen it being such a serious problem.

As she lost herself in thought, she realized that she had lost her grip on her own gravity. She was gently floating towards the sky designed ceiling. Stopping herself, she could've drifted gently to the floor. Instead, she fell like a rock.

Finally feeling awake as she groaned from pain, she let her mind wander to one last place before she started her day; how she was barely even human anymore.

A little after landing, she'd discovered that she had and innate control over her body's gravity. It had taken quite a while to control it to the extent she could presently but her parents were quite impressed with how fast she had gotten a hang of it. Her father, who had been not just a soldier but a scientist had theorized that it was due to her exposure to dark matter during the explosion that destroyed earth. She had also been able to slowly adapt to the gases that were respired on that planet. Oxygen was fairly expensive in that galaxy and she'd saved them alot of trouble that way. Her body's muscles were also able to adapt to the extreme changes in weight she imposed on herself and without obvious changes to herself. It was pretty cool but once in a while she'd ask herself if she was still a human after being mutated so much.

"Love, are you awake? Breakfast's ready!"

"I'll be right there!" She replied, snapping out of her thoughts.

She dashed to get ready, taking the device used for oral hygiene there. Her personal assistant AI attached to her pendant had translated it to tooth brush for her. But there was no way a buncha wires, a laser scanner and all that whatnot could qualify.

After doing all a normal person would do in the morning before breakfast (besides any form of care for her blonde hair) she got to the breakfast table. She'd learnt from experience that if she was late to the table she'd have to clear out the dishes and alien food was much harder to wash off than anything she'd had to deal with back on earth.

Her mother, Tomina Kevlav had been a front liner in different wars and had lived for quite a while. She generally appeared human besides the fact that she had lilac skin and violet eyes. She was calm when indoors but was really more of an outdoos person. She might've appeared a little petite but she possessed ridiculous strength and was a really seasoned war veteran. She was about the same height with her adopted daughter but was smaller in build. She wore her usual combat boots that were made of a black heavy metal. They were on full display on the table, crossed over each other, as Tomina read a projection of the morning news.

"Morning Love. Hope you slept well, cause today's gonna be a helluva day for you. I'm gonna have to review all the survival skills I taught you. Can't have you going to the big base half baked."

Tomina had been teaching Love different sorts of battle techniques and tactics almost as soon as she landed. At first it had been to take her mind off home and the whole space trauma but it just eventually became a thing. That was a big factor in her decision to be a soldier. She was probably over sixty yet she appeared omto be in her early thirties. Apparently a fair amount of species in Andromeda had lifespans three times that of the average human.

"Dear, please take your feet off the table. It's really improper you know." Said Weis Kevlav as he walked into the room with trays levitating behind him. He had light blue skin and hair a deeper shade of blue. A pair of lens floated right before his eyes. He stood straight and walked with hands folded behind him.

"Aw c'mon, these old boots never hurt anyone." Complained Tomina though she complied.

"That bloodstain you never managed to get off begs to differ."

The trays landed on the table, one for each person, dishes arranged in an orderly fashion. Love looked at the eggs and bacon and was about to comment about it but Tomina beat her to it.

"I thought you'd gotten pass this human food phase."

"Is that what we're calling it?" Weis asked dryly.

Love giggled as he adjusted his glasses; a sign he was about to have a dramatic science monologue.

"It's much less a food 'phase' than it is a great breakthrough in our science. To be able to replicate the food of beings from a galaxy that is completely undiscovered. And not just any Galaxy but one that has been the cause of many controversial theories. To be lucky enough to witness this food is a life times achievement. I even had to transmutate to create some elements otherwise not found in this galaxy. Just to be able to get this meal. Be grateful that you are blessed enough to eat it."

" Wow that one was actually short." Love said checking her watch.

"All that, just to get a slice of meat, a tiny egg and.. ", she held the slice of bread, " whatever this is. Guess you haven't gotten pass that phase. A foodie is a foodie."

"Did you not just listen to anything I said?!" Weis said looking defeated.

"Of course I did. 'I'm a good cook.' right? Cause that's all I heard."

Weis slumped forward in depression and mumbled something about his genius being wasted while Love burst into laughter.

She found them smiling at her when she calmed down and she smiled back. She really appreciated them.

And just as she was about to say something corny she'd regret later, the house was rocked by ridiculous tremors. She had been with them long enough to know what it probably was. A hermit meteor.

She ran out to see it's proximity to their home. They had a force field to defend against this kinda thing but it couldn't take infinite damage. It had a limit. Luckily that limit hadn't been exceeded. She saw the crater the giant hermit crab-like organism had landed in. It was still too close. It could still easily burrow under the house and destroy it's foundation. She absolutely was NOT going to let their house get destroyed again. Rebuilding took a whole week!Without waiting for her parents to bring out their gear or even inform them, she made for the crab, knowing she was being stupid but enjoying the moment either way.