Galactiquest

Lorenzo tried to get his mind off of Ranger Kelly’s whereabouts. Thankfully, his brother did what he did best, distracting him.

Emil fidgeted beside him in the elevator. He rarely ever stopped moving, but this time he seemed more jittery than usual.

“There should be a bathroom on this floor if you’re in need of it.” Lorenzo stared at his brother, tapping his feet in place.

The lieutenant chuckled. “That’s okay, I don’t hafta pee.” He paused. “Why didn’t we take the stairs?”

“I thought you would’ve appreciated getting to the conference room faster.” Lorenzo took off his hat and neatened his hair in the elevator’s reflective walls. “Besides, don’t you hate stairs?”

Emil bounced on his feet. “Maybe a liiiittle. But elevators,” he rubbed his arms, “I dunno, I feel like one of these days, one’s gonna stop while I’m on it.”

“I didn’t know you had a fear of elevators.” Lorenzo worried on his brother’s behalf. It was a good thing they were alone right now, because who knew who might’ve taken advantage of this flaw. Still, nothing guaranteed their safety. He glanced at the elevator camera. Anyone could be listening.

“Pshhh, I’m not afraid of ‘em!” Defensiveness might have been hiding behind Emil’s laughter. “I’m just,” his eyes darted around, “concerned.”

“Uh-huh.” Lorenzo didn’t know what to make of that response. He focused instead on smoothing out the wrinkles in his clothes. “I’ll keep your concerns in mind.”

Emil set his chin down on Lorenzo’s shoulder. “What about you? You seem awfully concerned with your looks today.”

“I’m just trying to make the best impression I can.” Lorenzo brushed off his shoulder after Emil stood back up. “I suggest you do the same. We’re César Galhardo’s sons, after all.”

The blond rolled his eyes. “How can I forget?”

“He has enemies.”

“Again, how can I forget?” Emil began pacing. “Y’know, you and Dad keep talkin’ about all the ‘enemies’ we have, but I’ve never heard of any of ‘em.”

“That’s because he does a good job protecting us. But he can’t do that right now.” Lorenzo stopped Emil and began neatening up his uniform and hair. “There are many people who believe we’re not qualified for our positions. This is a chance to prove we’re fit to honor the Interstellar Forces’s legacy.”

The elevator opened to pale halls. The two captains straight ahead down the corridor where the conference room was supposed to be. A guard waited outside, signalling that they were heading in the right direction. Even he was a little older than them.

“Are you headed to the Celestion conference?” he asked.

Lorenzo nodded. “We are.”

“Which group are you guys with?”

“Celestion-5!” Emil answered.

The guard’s smile dropped as he read his tablet. “Sorry, I can’t let you guys in yet. Your captains need to show up first.”

Lorenzo and Emil exchanged glances.

“Uhhh, we are the captains.” Emil pointed at the pin on his jacket. “See?”

Suddenly, Lorenzo realized that after all of his preparations, he hadn’t put his hat back on. He might as well have shown up in tattered rags. What an unforgivable error!

“I’m going to have to see your IDs.”

The brothers both took out their IDs and showed them to the guard.

His eyes widened as he did a hasty salute. “Oh! My apologies, sirs! Go right on ahead.”

“No, the apologies are all mine.” Lorenzo told him, saluting back along with Emil. “You simply did your job.”

They parted ways as the two captains continued down the hallway. Behind them, Lorenzo heard some footsteps and a conversation.

“Hello, sirs, the Celestion conference is right this way. Which ship are you from?”

An older man answered. “Seven.”

“Go right on ahead.”

Lorenzo felt a tap from Emil.

“You hear that?” he whispered in Spanish. “Why didn’t they have to show IDs?”

“Maybe they did, we don’t know. It’s none of our business.” Lorenzo scolded.

Two doors stood in front of them. Lorenzo knew many people would be on the other side, people who already had it in their minds that he and his brother were just two kids who had no business leading this mission. Would he prove them right or wrong?

“Hey. You nervous?” Emil looked at him with concern. The last thing a capable captain needed was concern, especially from his little brother.

Lorenzo took a deep breath and opened the door.

Inside was a circular conference venue of chrome and powder blue. Four thin columns stood in each ‘corner’ of the room. A mixture of polyethylene glycol, ferric magnets, and glow-in-the-dark powder filled each one, the same mixture that kept the Celestion-5’s generator working. It looked like a futuristic blue and black waterfall, so it doubled as decoration.

Only about 20 people stood in the room. Most of the chairs sat in stacks, making it look even emptier. Lorenzo didn’t know whether to feel happy that less people were here than expected or worried that more people would notice him. Most of them grouped around tables near the walls. A few started to stare.

Emil winked and waved to some, then turned to his brother. “Huh. We must be pretty early.”

“Good.” Lorenzo moved toward an empty table. “Maybe we can find someone to ask about our eighth crewmember.”

“That someone’s not gonna be over there! Where are we goin’?”

“To find… a vantage point.” It wasn’t quite a lie, he just didn’t think of things that way when he said it. Truthfully, he needed some time to get himself together before talking to other people.

Emil tugged on Lorenzo’s sleeve, which the latter had to re-straighten, lest the other star rangers think he was some unkempt, sloppy teenage boy.

“I think we should check out that table.” Emil tilted his head toward a group of people he’d waved at on the other side of the room.

“I don’t know if we should--”

Before Lorenzo could finish, the doors opened again to reveal two older men. He’d never seen them in person before, but he knew who they were. So did everyone else…

...except Emil.

“Who are those guys?” he asked. “The whole room went quiet when they came in.”

“Captain Stone and Commander Myers from the Luna 13.” Lorenzo’s eyes stayed locked on the legendary star rangers. “You remember learning about it, don’t you?”

“Oh, isn’t that that mission from waaaay back where their ship nearly exploded like 15 times?”

“And almost crashed. If they were any less skilled, they wouldn’t have made it out alive.”

The group from the table Emil wanted to visit immediately flocked Stone and Myers. Lorenzo suddenly realized the voice in the hallway belonged to one of them. He stood mere feet in front of icons and didn’t even realize it!

Another realization dawned on him. “Of course they’d be on the Celestion-7…”

“Well if it isn’t Little Cesar!” A familiar voice jolted Lorenzo out of his thoughts, but it wasn’t Emil’s.

A group of star rangers came over to their table, led by none other than Captain Vanderbilt of the Celestion-6, grandson of Colonel Hans Vanderbilt of the Army. He wouldn’t let anyone forget it. Lorenzo and Emil often crossed paths with him growing up. Emil could barely stand him. Lorenzo tolerated him more, but that didn’t translate to any fondness for the man.

“Hello, Captain Vanderbilt.” Lorenzo struggled making eye contact with most people, but Vanderbilt’s piercing blue eyes might as well have been stabbing him. They shook hands.

Vanderbilt went on to shake Emil’s hand. “Nice to see ya, Roger!”

“Please. Call me Emil.” Behind Emil’s smile, Lorenzo knew that being called by his second name made him seethe.

“Roger that!” This had to be Vanderbilt’s tenth time making that joke, at least. He shook his hands from Emil’s grip. “I guess you can see the men of the hour over there, Captain Stone and Lieutenant Meyers.”

“So they’re the captains of the Celestion-7…” mused Lorenzo.

“Apparently so! I can’t believe Command managed to keep them a secret until now.”

“Wait.” Emil looked between the two of them. “Wouldn’t they have had to compete against you guys in that tournament test thingy?”

The tall woman beside Vanderbilt blinked awake and adjusted her glasses. “Wha… Sorry, what test??”

“Geez Jenny, have you been asleep this whole time?” chided Vanderbilt. He then turned to the Galhardos. “I’m sorry, this is our ship doctor Jennifer, she just got her license recently.”

“The exams did a number on my sleep schedule.” she explained sheepishly.

“Ah, I see.” Lorenzo responded, not knowing what else to say. “Pleased to meet you, Dr….”

“Jones.” She shook his hand. “You can call me Dr. Jones.”

“Nice to meet you, Doc!” Emil greeted.

Vanderbilt motioned to the shorter, bespeckled man beside him. “And you two are already aware of my trusty sidekick, Lt. Joshi!”

“Nice seein’ you around, fellow lieutenant!” Emil winked and pointed.

The eldest man chuckled. “It’s nice seeing you two again.”

“It’s good to see you too, Lt. Joshi.” The first and last time Lorenzo had met Joshi was after the tournament results were announced. Speaking of which--

“What was that about a tournament again?” Dr. Jones kept blinking to stay awake.

“Contrary to popular belief, the Celestion crews aren’t chosen by random selection.” began Lorenzo.

“ ‘Unstructured’ selection, they call it.” Joshi chimed in.

“What’s the difference?” asked Emil.

“They opted…” Lt. Joshi suppressed a smile, “they opted not to expend the effort to make it truly random. That’s why you might get people who already know each other.”

That sounded like calling the command team lazy, but Lorenzo decided to continue without saying anything about it. “When they decided who all of the potential captains would be, a tournament was held to determine how well we could pilot the new Celestion ships. The results decided which ship we would get.”

“But aren’t the Celestions all basically the same?” asked Dr. Jones. “That’s the whole point of our mission...right?” She yawned. “Same ships, same number of people.”

“Yes, but the number of each ship corresponds to the difficulty of our mission. The higher the number, the harder the mission.”

“And the higher the talent of the captain’s piloting!” Vanderbilt bowed graciously. “That is how I got the honor of leading the Celestion-6.”

“But there’s one exception, isn’t there~?” Emil elbowed Lorenzo as Vanderbilt’s smile all but disappeared.

“Ah, that’s right.” Lorenzo adjusted his hat. “Due to the Celestion-5 and Celestion-6’s missions being so similar, it was hard to determine which mission was more difficult. Eventually, it was decided the winner of the tournament gets to pilot the Celestion-5, since that ship will be required to enter new territory first.”

Dr. Jones smiled. “And that’s you! Congratulations.”

She, Joshi, and Emil clapped for him.

He tipped his hat. “Thank you. This isn’t a responsibility I take lightly. I will try to honor it as best as I can.”

“I have faith that you will.” Lt. Joshi smiled. Whether it was kind or facetious, Lorenzo had trouble telling. He wasn’t the most literate in reading faces. It put him at a regrettable disadvantage when dealing with others, so he learned to be suspicious of everyone at all times.

“For the record!” Vanderbilt pointed a finger. “He only won because he’s not used to making his own decisions, coming out of high school and all that. The judges were expecting us to follow their every order.”

Joshi’s eyes went wide. “I would hope you follow their every order! This is a risky mission.”

Vanderbilt huffed. “I know what I’m doing, Dev. I just want the kid to know that there’s more to being a captain than piloting. You need to know how to make your own decisions.” Something off to the side caught his attention. “Oh, well look at that! If it isn’t Debra and Selene! Come and join us!”

The two women seemed to be in the middle of leaving the area, but Vanderbilt beckoned them over anyway. Lorenzo knew of them as Captain Pryce and Lieutenant Limbaco of the Celestion-4.

“Captain Vanderbilt.” Pryce didn’t even attempt to smile. Lorenzo felt a little more comfortable not being the only straight-faced one there.

“We were just talking about what it means to be a captain. I figured you’d be interested!” Vanderbilt gave them a bright smile.

Lt. Limbaco answered this time, since Captain Pryce didn’t say anything. “Oh, how, uh, considerate of you, Captain.”

“This is Jenny,” Vanderbilt motioned to the doctor, who just snapped out of a daze, “and you should already be familiar with Lt. Joshi, Little Cesar, and his brother Rog--”

“Emil!” Emil interrupted before he could finish. “My name is Emil.” He shook both new captains’ hands.

“Nice to meet you all!” Limbaco greeted.

“It truly is.” Captain Pryce smiled this time. She shook Lorenzo’s hand. “Captain Galhardo, congratulations on being selected to pilot the Celestion-5. You must be so proud!”

“Thank you, Captain Pryce.” He returned the handshake.

Vanderbilt leaned toward Pryce. “I’m pretty proud of the boy, myself. I’ve known him since he was in diapers, not that it was long ago!”

He laughed at his own joke, though it made the younger captain uncomfortable. Emil almost said something, but Lorenzo tapped him on the shoulder. Whatever emotions the blond felt were channeled into rapid leg bouncing.

“We have kind of a mentor-protege relationship going on.”

“We do…?” Lorenzo did not remember Captain Vanderbilt having that much of an impact on his life.

Either way, Vanderbilt did not seem to like that question very much. Emil covered his mouth to conceal his smile, while Pryce didn’t bother. Joshi shook his head, Lambaco looked away, and Jones… was about to fall asleep standing up.

Captain Vanderbilt looked at her and back toward Lorenzo. “Would you be a nice young man and fetch these ladies some chairs? Grab a couple for the rest of us, too.”

Lorenzo did as he was told, happy to get away from everyone laughing at him. He could think about more important things, like finding out about their eighth crew member. In fact, as he grabbed a few chairs from one of the unsteady stacks, he realized that question could be the perfect ticket out of this conversation for good.

The captain returned with a few chairs just in time to hear a question that made his blood run cold.

“I just noticed something.” Emil began. “How come none of the captains are wearing capes today?”

Lambaco giggled. “Capes?” She turned to Captain Pryce. “Imagine if you guys wore capes. Oh my gosh, this kid’s adorable.”

“Yes, it would be very ridiculous to wear capes at a conference meeting.” Lorenzo answered, swallowing his own embarrassment.

“But--” Emil began. “I guess so…” He gave up. Thankfully.

Lorenzo desperately tried to change the conversation. “I brought chairs.”

Dr. Jones accepted the first one. “Oh, thank you so much.”

She sat down and rested her head on the table.

Lt. Lambaco received the second one. “Thank you~ What a nice boy you are! So polite for your age.”

Lorenzo tried giving the last one to Captain Pryce, but she handed it off to Lt. Joshi instead. He admired that; putting others before oneself was an essential trait of any good star ranger. She looked so dependable doing it, too.

She crossed her arms and stared intently at where the Celestion-7 captains stood. Lorenzo noticed the people who surrounded them earlier were nowhere to be seen. Before he could dwell on that, Emil’s phone buzzed. He checked it.

“Ah, kids these days.” Vanderbilt sighed. “Distracted by their phones.”

“I knooow.” agreed Lambaco. “My oldest is so obsessed with hers. Make sure you’re not texting while driving the ship~” she warned Lorenzo.

“I wouldn’t think of it.”

“Who could it possibly be?” Vanderbilt waved a hand dismissively.

“One of our rangers had important info to send to us.” Emil sounded oddly professional, which made Lorenzo a little proud. He reverted back to his normal self and whispered to Lorenzo. “Mia and Rookie found Aiden.”

Lorenzo breathed a sigh of relief. Now he only had to worry about the eighth ranger. “Let Ranger Kim and Allen know he’s been found.”

“Got it.”

“Important info?” A smile formed on Captain Vanderbilt’s face. “I wonder if it was one of those mems.”

Emil tilted his head. “...Mems?”

“I believe the correct pronunciation is me-me’s.” suggested Joshi.

“Oh, mehmees?” Lt. Lambaco chimed in. “I love those!”

“Captain Vanderbilt, I’m not looking up memes on my phone.” Emil promised.

“Meem?” repeated Vanderbilt. “That doesn’t sound right at all!”

“Excuse me, Captain Vanderbilt?” Lorenzo figured this was a good enough time to ask his question. “Do you know where anyone who works with Command might be right now? We need to talk to them about something.”

“You should’ve asked earlier.” Pryce answered. “They were flocked around Captain Stone and Lt. Myers.”

“Ah, I see.”

“Now why don’t you busy yourself with the rest of those chairs? My feet are killing me.” Vanderbilt whined.

“Right away, sir.”

Lorenzo excused himself while the others continued to argue about how to pronounce memes. When he returned with the other chairs, Pryce still maintained an elegant stare in the direction of the Celestion-7 captains.

Vanderbilt noticed, too. “A little envious, aren’t we?”

“Envious? No. I’m not related to any big names,” her eyes wandered between Vanderbilt and the Galhardos, “so I’m lucky to have gotten the chance to pilot in the first place.” Her gaze returned to the Celestion-7 captains. “I’m concerned. Knowing how dangerous your missions are, I worry about what Command is putting them up to, especially at their age.”

“They do seem pretty up there in years…” Emil added on.

“I’m sure they know what they’re doing.” reassured Joshi.

Pryce looked back toward the others. “They’d have to, otherwise they would’ve participated in the tournament like the rest of us. Heck, most of us weren’t even captains to begin with; the IF couldn’t pull that many away from their routes.”

“They thought the Celestion project was beneath them anyway.” Vanderbilt leaned back in his chair. “How foolish of them to miss out on a chance to make history. That tournament was a cakewalk for a bonafide captain like me.”

“And yet you still lost to a child.” Her words stung Lorenzo.

Vanderbilt took a deep breath. “Ha! Debbie, you clearly don’t understand. Someone needs to be able to clean up after these kids, and I just happened to get stuck with the job!”

“Big talk about cleaning up from someone who couldn’t even clean up the competition.” muttered Emil.

“Emil!” Lorenzo fought the urge to clamp a hand over his brother’s mouth. “I apologize, I’m sure he didn’t mean to say that.”

“I’m pretty sure I did!” Emil squandered any chances of apologizing. “I get it. Lorenzo’s younger than the average captain. If he got picked just ‘cuzza our dad, I could understand being mad about it. I could understand being mad at me. But I’m not gonna sit here and let anyone pretend that my brother didn’t earn the right to pilot the Celestion-5.” He stood up, smiling. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve had enough of being condescended to for one day~”

Emil left the table.

“Someone’s in a bad mood.” Captain Vanderbilt remarked, not looking much better.

Lorenzo looked down at his brother’s empty chair. “He’s… always been sensitive to how others treat me.”

“That’s very sweet of him.” responded Lt. Lambaco.

“Hmph. I was joking about cleaning up after you guys.” Vanderbilt absentmindedly poked a finger into the table. “Didn’t your parents get a handle on Roger’s hotheadedness?”

“His name is Emil.” Lorenzo picked up Emil’s chair as well as his own. “I apologize for his outburst, but I must be going now. We have to talk to Command.”

Vanderbilt perked up. “You know… I think I heard one of them say earlier that they lost something near the entrance. I can’t imagine being so careless.”

Lorenzo couldn’t either.

“Would you take my chair too?” Vanderbilt stood up. “I need to make a call.”

He walked away, leaving Lorenzo with three chairs to carry. When he went to go pick up Vanderbilt’s chair, Lt. Joshi stopped him.

“Don’t worry.” Joshi glanced toward his captain and back at Lorenzo. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Thank you, Lt. Joshi.”

Lorenzo walked over to Emil, standing by himself near one of the chrome, pear-shaped speakers. He didn’t know what to say when he got there, but that didn’t matter because Emil spoke first.

“I’m not apologizing.”

“We have to be professional about this.”

Emil tapped his foot. “Why do we have to be the only ones? Wait, I got it.” He began to imitate their father’s Venezuelan accent. “I am so sorry, my sons, but as my sons, you will be held to a higher standard. If people think you are below that standard, they may try to harm you. Do not let them be lice upon the hair de su reputación.”

It was somewhat unnerving how well he mimicked their father and how well he was able to predict the gist of what Lorenzo would’ve told him.

“Why do we always have to be the ones to suck it up when people mess with us? When they don’t respect us?” Emil began pacing. “You were as polite as could be and what thanks did you get? Humiliated, looked down on, and treated like a servant boy!”

Lorenzo thought for a moment. “We could always file a report against Captain Vanderbilt for harassment.”

Emil stopped and spun to face him. “How well has that worked before?”

“They couldn’t catch everyone who made fun of me.” Lorenzo reminisced back to his early school days. “All they did was call me a robot. It wasn’t that bad. They got tired, eventually!”

“That doesn’t mean you should’ve had to put up with it.” Emil pouted. “And that’s exactly the problem! It’s not just Vanderbilt this time. I don’t think anybody there saw us as equals. You were called a child!”

Lorenzo had nothing to say to that. He thought he’d accepted that being seen as a kid by Vanderbilt, but being treated that way in front of other captains did embarrass him a little, while Pryce calling him a child still hurt minutes later.

Something eventually came to mind, though.

“We could tell Dad.”

The blond squinted. “No! That’s a terrible idea!”

“Why not? If Command won’t do anything about it, Dad will.”

“That’s exaaactly what they’re gonna expect from us. Whiny rich boys crying to Dad. Waaah.” He mimicked crying with his hands. “Besides, that feels wrong! How are we supposed to be equals if we can call on him when things don’t go our way?”

“It’s only a backup plan in case Command doesn’t enforce the rules, which they should.” Lorenzo had utmost faith in the IF to follow and enforce its rules.

“No.” Emil placed his hands on his hips. “If we’re gonna be adults, we gotta handle this like adults. By ourselves.”

“...I agree. But how?”

He tilted his head back and sighed. “I don’t know. Let me think.”

Emil didn’t cause that big of a scene, but Lorenzo could feel the back-and-forth stares of onlookers, realizing something was wrong. Obviously, this situation upset Emil, but he needed to calm down.

Lorenzo decided to approach things his way: Self-isolation.

“They’re not important. We need to focus on ourselves and our mission.” he advised. “Captain Vanderbilt told me that the command team might be on the first floor.”

“And you believe him?”

“We don’t have anything else to go on. You can stay here and calm down while I go back down stairs and look for them.” Searching the entire first floor would take a lot of time, time that couldn’t be wasted going down the stairs.

“I’ll go too!” Emil offered.

Lorenzo shook his head. “I need to take the elevator. It’s the only way I’ll have enough time to look.”

He appreciated the offer, but if anyone overheard their earlier talk on the elevator, they might shut it down just to get to Emil’s head. Lorenzo couldn’t let that happen. He also had something to tell him.

“As your older brother and your captain, it is my job to keep you safe. Not the other way around.”

“Wow, uh, that’s out of nowhere. Thanks!” Emil smiled a chipped-toothed smile, a reminder of the time he fought one of Lorenzo’s bullies. “But there’s no rule that says we can’t look out for each other~” He winked.

Lorenzo sighed, shook his head, and turned to leave. There was no winning with Emil, but Lorenzo appreciated the constants in life.