A quick note about my free fiction: this is raw draft with little editing. I don’t know where the story is going, or if it’ll even get completed on the blog. But it’s fun to do.

The clips from this story stay up for a limited time and then they will turn back into a pumpkin.

Let’s proceed, shall we?

Deep Space Omega (#3)

by Dawn Blair

Pulling her legs up to sit cross-legged, Mouse settled in to be more at home here than Jadz felt she was doing in trying to put her scant belongings away. It didn’t help that she had an observer.

“So, tell me about that last boyfriend, the one you’re running from.”

“I’m not running,” Jadz lied. “Look, my mom always had two pieces of advice for me: don’t pick in high school, and don’t pick on a starship. She said both ponds of choices were far too small to find true love in considering how vast the universe was.”

“And I take it that you didn’t listen.”

“No, I wish I had though.”

“So who’d you pick in high school?” Mouse leaned forward with a wide, eager grin on her face.

“Tsk, no one. I’d been with most of those kids since elementary school, preschool days for some. My parents never got transferred. I remember watching some of my classmates eat paste or Tersilian worms, and not always separately.”

Mouse blenched, her face pulling like she might vomit at the thought.

“Let’s not forget the huffing of scented markers. There was this one kid, Lalmin… he stuck two, one in each nostril, up his nose and kept them there until he passed out. I was one of the lucky ones that got to help roll him to the infirmary. Yeah, not the people I wanted to date. I knew way too much.”

Mouse shook her head, but it was in total agreeance with what Jadz was saying. In that moment, Jadz decided she liked Mouse, even if the girl was a bit inquisitive.

“That brings us to,” Mouse said, holding onto her legs and rocking slightly back and forth, “who you picked on the starship, if you didn’t pick in high school.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t matter. He was just a guy.” Jadz shrugged.

“Just a guy doesn’t send you fleeing all the way out here. No, you had to get away. Was this before your first transfer, or why you left your second posting?”

“First,” Jadz said, not really sure why she was answering these questions at all. Did she really want to talk about it?

“So what was his name?”

Jadz sighed. “Yeah, I really don’t want to talk about him.”

“Hmmm, ranking officer, huh?”

Jadz wasn’t thrilled that Mouse could obviously read the situation like a book. Did she have mind reading powers or maybe it was in Jadz file.

Mouse laughed. “This is a small space startion, but if you think your story of unique, think again. That lug who was just in here, I’m married to him. I’d rather be out exploring space, but what can I say? I do have a thing for astronomers. He loves it out here. Most people don’t stay long; they get cabin fever. I’ve met a lot of people and heard a lot of stories. In the universe over, love messes people up.”

Deep Space Omega – copyright ©2020 Dawn Blair * Published by Morning Sky Studios