Passages From My Rejected YA Trilogy “THE LOST STARBLOGS OF LUNA CX-B17”
by Laura Clark
Photo: © Depositphotos.com/lunamarina
24 – NOVEMBRUARY – 3331
STARBLOGGED AT 61:14 PM
I woke from my troubled sleep with a start. Still on this dumb exoplanet. Thanks a lot, Mom and Dad. NOT.
Then I remembered: The Registration is today.
So lame.
I know the Unified Intergalactic Government needs to scan and catalog our usable Skills for the benefit of Space Nation, okay? I GET it. What I don’t get, is why I have to sit in a cramped gravitorium for four hours with all my fellow 16-year-olds, listening to speeches about the value of sacrifice and the “common good”. Oh my Glorb who even cares?
I rose and made my way down to the food deck, where my parents were solemnly preparing our breakfast simulation, a simple oatmeal program. Because it would kill them to ever get a waffles program, like ever, like one time. Nope, even for The Registration, when they might never see me again, the CX-B17 family has to eat the blandest, saddest breakfast in our whole Dome-borhood.
My mother looked up when I entered, and her face was tense, like she was watching an astro-lamb naively hover into a cave of piranha wolves. She tried to give me a hug, her first attempt in months. I pushed her away like, gross, you don’t know me.
“Luna,” said my father, floating down from the ceiling in his astro-magistrate’s official blue spacesuit. His skill meter said simply, LAW.
“Today is an important day…” Then he launched into some lecture about responsibility or whatever. A-doyyyy, really? It’s an important day? Wow, I never would have guessed that from 12 years of rigorous Registration prep school, DAD.
***
24 – NOVEMBRUARY – 3331
STARBLOGGED AT 63:48 PM
The plaza was crowded. Boring dorks in outdated spacesuits and roving packs of sentient eyeballs blocked my way. At first I thought it was just normal traffic, but as I got closer to the main Registration entrance, I saw what was causing the commotion.
A group of Junior Space Police had cornered an elderly man and were roughly searching his personal effects. I recognized one of them — Drunge CZ-C24, who’d been a few rotations ahead of me at UIG Youth Academy. He’s always been cute, but the authority and uniform of a Junior Space Officer has really sexed him up! I wish I’d worn my ammonia-resistant face gloss.
In the old man’s hand was a tattered old booklet. I almost want to say it looked “waterlogged”, but everyone knows there hasn’t been any water for centuries. (And good riddance.) He seemed to be trying to hand off the booklet to someone, anyone.
His eyes met mine, pleadingly. They seemed to warn of a thousand untold terrors. It was HILARIOUS. I tried recording it on my info-sphere, but the angle wasn’t great.
Drunge and his less-gorgeous colleagues dragged the old man into a shuttle. I could see his skill meter flutter and die from across the plaza. MUSIC – ELECTRONICS – EMPATHY. What a nerd.
***
24 – NOVEMBRUARY – 3331
STARBLOGGED AT 66:24 PM
Rindie and I had just squeezed into our Registration pod when our Registrar, a mantis-woman, tapped on the side and told us to follow her. DATA ANALYSIS, her skill meter blinked. CHEMISTRY. EVENT PLANNING.
We recognized her immediately. That’s Grobulon, Rindie mouthed to me, like she thought I might not have noticed. Poor Rindie. She’s always been a loyal friend, but the other day she said right in front of me she doesn’t think Drunge is hot, even though she knows that I do think he’s hot, so basically she’s just saying she doesn’t even respect my opinion at all, so we probably won’t be friends much longer.
“I’ll be taking you through your Registration today,” the mantis-woman said primly. She peered under her dumb visor at me. “If you have any questions, my name is Grobulon.”
Um, no duhhhhh… Grobulon’s tragedy is common knowledge, trotted out every year at Chairman Blyte’s Registration Picnic. Her husband and son were Harvested for their Skills on the same day, yet Grobulon believes so strongly in the advancement of Space Nation that she’s never missed a day of her government job. But apparently she doesn’t believe in updating her hairstyle. Just saying.
“There’s no need to be nervous,” she said as we swallowed the wiggling yellow capsules she administered. “When the tracker has detected and analyzed all your Skills, you’ll each vomit a shimmering silver disc that you can hand to me for processing. Until then, just relax and–
But my throat was already convulsing, a silver disc popping out with such force that I thought it would crack my helmet. I wasn’t scared, though. Only a baby would get scared to have a huge metal object fighting its way out of their throat. Probably a familiar feeling for Xryxtal PX-R15, though! She blows robots! Haha, just saying.
Grobulon blinked incredulously. “This… this can’t be right.” She narrowed her eyes at me, snatched the disc from where it hovered at the opening of my face shield, slid it through a reader attached to her forearm.
When the chime sounded on Grobulon’s info-sphere, she didn’t look at the results right away. She looked at me for a second, probably pondering some boring old dork thoughts. Then she lowered her eyes to read. When she looked up, her eyes weren’t suspicious anymore. They were… hopeful?
“It’s you,” she said. “The one we’ve been waiting for. The one with no Skills.”
“What did you just say to me?” I snapped. “You’re just jealous because I’m hot and you’re not, and also lost your family to the government.”
“That’s why I’ve been waiting for you. Why we’ve all been waiting for you.”
***
26 – NOVEMBRUARY – 3331
STARBLOGGED AT 84:99 PM
I’m special! I’m the chosen one! I knew it! It all goes down tonight. Since I can’t be detected by the skill monitors, I’ll go through first and unlock the gates for Globulon, Rindie and Nyrv, who will begin the highly dangerous and time-sensitive search for the planet’s hidden reserves of Skillogen. Should I be sharing this on my public starfeed? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
What’s really important is, Nyrv might be even hotter than Drunge. But I still like Drunge! Oh my Glorb no one ever told me joining a rebellion was going to be so tough, between boy drama, friend drama, witnessing the abject horror of the Skill Harvesting Plant, and hair drama (this ammonia-rich atmosphere is just… no thank you), I think I deserve a nice long soak in a moon pool when this is all over.
***
27 – NOVEMBRUARY – 3331
STARBLOGGED AT 00:14 PM
I regained consciousness in some kind of courtroom. I was vaguely aware that Rindie was being held in unspeakable danger just a few yards away. But I couldn’t think about my closest friend and ally running out of time, I was too aware of this little tickle in my throat. Don’t you hate that? You try to cough it out, but you can’t quite get the right coughing position? It’s the WORST, just like everything on this dumb planet.
As I slowly became aware of my surroundings, I realized I wasn’t alone. A council of gross old nerds were staring down at me from a heavy mahogany bench. The Unified Intergalactic Government chambers! I recognized Chairman Blyte from his gold epaulettes and cat-man face.
I rolled my eyes. That totalitarian dictator thing might scare everyone else, but I’m the chosen one. Plus, I’m apolitical.
“You gave us quite a scare,” Chairman Blyte hissed, toying with an empty can. “But I should really thank you, Ms. CX-B17.”
“Thank me?”
“For exposing the flaws in our security, before it’s too late. For preventing a hemorrhage of valuable Skillogen from the mines. Had your little plan succeeded, we would have needed to Harvest millions of lives to make up the difference. You’ve saved millions of lives, Luna. So thank you.”
I might “have no Skills”, but I recognize leverage when I see it. “Can I get a reward or something? I’d sure love to jump in a moon pool right about now.”
Chairman Blyte stared at me for a moment, like he couldn’t believe how pragmatic I stay under pressure. “I think that can be arranged. Xuno, would you show Ms. CX-B17 to the moon pool?”
A parrot-bailiff took me rather roughly by the cord of my space suit, escorting me toward a door marked SUPER PRISON. Good decoy, then you don’t have everyone always trying to swim in your moon pool.
Soooo I guess the rebellion was trying to kill millions of people, not free them like Grobulon said. Is it possible that both sides have been evil all along? Or that they each started with noble intentions, but gradually morphed into being indistinguishable from one another? Who cares, I’m getting a moon pool.
***
Laura Clark is a writer and dog walker living in Los Angeles.