• • Sunset: Heroes of the Milky Way
• February 15, 2025

Sunset: Heroes of the Milky Way (Chapter 16)

Alloya Ra’non

Taking in the Scenery

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I follow after Clay as he flies to the middle of this valley we made.

“Clay, stop! Please!” I call to him. 

He lands and powers down. When his arm swings out, I expect to see a fist, but he’s actually holdin ghis hand out to me. “My clothes please?” 

Ah, yes, an understandable, level-headed request. Should have guessed.

After I hand them to him he doesn’t turn to face me as he starts getting dressed. I instinctively want to block from view but… we’re in the middle of nowhere. Whose going to see him? 

“Will you talk to me? This may be the only time we’ll be alone for awhile, much to your dismay.” Even as he finishes patted down his jacket, he still won’t even look at me. “I don’t think we can just ignore what happened between us.”

Clay finally turns around. “What is there to talk about?” he asks me. “You don’t feel the same way I do, I get over it, and we get to work.” 

His words are so… calculated, objective, and so very not him. 

And it seems he knows it.

His stoic expression falls apart a bit

“Obviously, we shouldn’t sleep together anymore, but you’re still my Captain, and my friend. In a few days we can go back to acting… sort of like that. Just, give me time and space… please.”

I want to return his sad smile he sends my way, but it’s difficult to do that when it’s so clearly forced. 

“Clay, I’ve wanted to make sure that we can go back to the way we were, but you were avoiding me. I wanted to know how you feel, and if you think all you need is a few days then you can have it. I just… needed to know that we’ll be good.” 

“I’m sorry I made you worry. I don’t know if I believe that time heals all wounds and all that crap, but it sure should do something.” 

“I think I can understand that,” I assure him.

“Thank you.” 

Aleti Ra’non

I turn off the earpiece in my ear. I know I shouldn’t have eavesdropped on my mom’s conversation with Clay, but I was kind of worried. I’ve never believed that my mom was perfect, but I guess I always did hold her to a pretty high standard. It was hard to realize that in some important ways, she wasn’t even trying to meet it. 

Now… I have to change my expectations, and this meets much lower standards.

Among other things, I’m still stuck on the Rango… alone. 

Up here, all there is, is the sights before me. They aren’t bad or anything, just not what I think about first, but remember forever. Riverteria is the planet of water, even more so than Earth. Reganora has been getting water shipments in since before I was born. Our oceans either dried up or turned toxic long ago. Water… it’s a luxury thing, for the cities, and the people who can afford to see everything and while grew up in that category, it’s just not the same as this.

“Hey Rango!” I call out. “Would it be possible, not to move our position, but to just tilt so I can watch the Noland? To make sure all is going well?”

‘It is quite possible. I will shift our position so you can view the Noland’s transport ships when they become visible,’ the Rango computer responds.

“Thank you!” I tell it. 

It does not respond with a ‘you’re welcome.’

The Rango’s AI isn’t human, it’s not ignoring me, but it might as well be. Ignoring me is what people do.

Most people didn’t want to be friends with me. Being the child of a Guardian does create a kind of mien of jealousy or fear that would drive away kids. Teenagers… at that point, everything starts to get political, it’s when parents beat into our brains the power of making connections. Dad tried to tell me about it since he knew Mom wouldn’t. He warned me that one way or another, people would use me to meet Mom, and if they were really in the know, they would know that he was my dad.

So yeah, kids didn’t want to hang out with me, they wanted to know the Guardian. Mom probably didn’t realize any of this, or the extent. I used to just tell her that my ‘friends’ have their own hangout, and that our apartment wouldn’t really be much more fun. I would go out and hang out in the library, the holo-theater, or the arcade. They were pretty fun, and I didn’t need someone to be with me to hang out there.

Life wasn’t bad by any means, but life with just Mom was lonely. Mom did her best, I’m sure she was lonely too. In fact, I’m more sure, because the woman I see now is far more alive than my ‘work-from-home’ mom.

This life, on the Rango, is has given us both life. Yes, I have been shot at, and a new friend almost died in front of me, but it all happens for something. 

I guess that almost makes it okay for me, as weird as it sounds. I don’t second guess telling Mom that I wanted to go on this adventure. Sure, my life has flashed before my eyes, and I found out my mom likes them young, but I’m still seeing so many things that I never thought I would. 

Just getting to see the horizon another planet is an experience I wouldn’t trade anything. 

Suddenly I feel the Rango start shifting, and I have to grasp my console to not fall out of my seat. It’s nothing to be nervous about though. The sight of the Noland is just going to make the view better. 

‘The Noland’s transportation ships are lowering the Shatter Drive now,’ the Rango computer informs me.

I quickly grab the seat belt to strap myself in, but when I look up, I see the window through a side view. I can’t really see much, then I turn to look at Mom’s chair in the middle, the Captain’s chair. 

Whose gonna stop me?

I use the arm bars to transverse from my seat to the Captain’s chair. I grab the handles and position myself in front, and then plop myself down. 

It’s got a lot more cushion than I was expecting.

‘Do you want to be doing that?’ the computer asks. Apparently even the ship knows who sits where.

“Shush, what my mom doesn’t know can’t hurt her, so don’t.”
Once again, it does not respond.

The window in front of me presents a pretty view, of a cloud. It’s in the way of the Noland and it’s transport ships, and it is quickly becoming a buzzkiller. Then everything comes through.

Maybe it is silly of me, but I fully expected several transport ships to be carrying the Shatter Drive with capable lines. Instead, the huge Shatter Drive is being lifted by it’s own hovering circle.

There’s a high tech pipe-looking device that rests just below the Shatter Drive. It has multiple glowing lights that blur together as the whole thing spins at some enormously high speed. 

I call the computer, “Rango! Patch me into the Captain’s communications!” 

‘Done,’ the Rango say.

“Captain?” I ask for my mother.

“Aleti, call me Mom. It’s weird when you call me anything else,” I hear her reply.

“I’ll be the judge of that, Ma’am, I have eyes on the Shatter Drive. You should be able to look up and see it any second now.” As I say so, the Rango has turned practically perpendicular to the ground, and I can see her and everyone else on the ground in the middle of the ocean.

“Thank you, you’re good now, we can handle everything else from down here,” Mom tells me.

“Understood!” 

“Aleti?”

“Yes?”

“We’re not military, you don’t need to be formal, unless that’s your way of telling me you’re still mad.”

“Have you ever considered it’s weird being informal over the coms?” 

“Clay and Hideo do it all the time.”

“Exactly.”

The com is quiet for a bit after that. 

“I see your point,” Mom agrees.

Terra’rork

Womby and I watch from the peak of the cliff as the quiet majestic looking Shatter Drive descends to the hearth of Riverteria. I never got to see one before, but it reminds me much of a 3D splatter painting back on Reganora with all of its protruding spikes. 

I turn to Womby to ask, “Can you lower me down there? I’d really rather not jump.”

He glances at me in his Hydroninad form. With his eyes lacking pupils, he looks surprised once his face finally stops glowering to look at me. 

“Sure, I’ll take you on my back.”

“Wouldn’t that bring too much water in? The whole reason I made these walls was so the Shatter Drive wouldn’t get wet.” I hold my breath as I wait for his answer. When I’m met only with silence, I hammer it on, “It’s really not made to be in water.”

“Hmm,” Womby grumbles, “alright.” 

Mission accomplished. I hide my smile as Womby closes his dragon eyes to concentrate. Massive amounts of water fall away to the ground as gravity starts working the way its supposed to again. It all leaves a spiralling bubble of water before me that begins to form a small person.

The arms and legs pop out, the shape of a small torso begins to form and a little small head on top. Once the form is done the detail and facial features become readily apparent, with even his clothes forming from the water too. 

“What you staring at, Terra?” Womby asks.

“A comforting face,” I tell him.

He holds his chin and poses. “Handsome, aren’t I?” 

Then with some flowing movements of his hands, water comes up under our feet and then solidifies into ice. 

“Don’t step off the edge.” 

Then we are off, levitating high above the ground. Just Womby and me. 

“What are you so happy about?” Womby asks me, chuckling himself. 

“Happy?” I ask him.

“You’re grinning, you got big ole’ rock dimples.”

I turn towards him, and his smirk lowers. “What’s wrong?”

“Wombinal, for you it may have just been a couple weeks, but a moment like this… I haven’t seen you in years, let’s just say that.

“And to make it worse, I’ve been having this feeling that it’s only going to get worse, that something is going to happen. I don’t know if it’ll be between us, or the team, or anything really. I just don’t see anything good happening after today. Maybe I’m just getting paranoid in my old age.”

“I don’t know, I’ve learned to usually trust what you say,” Womby tells me.

“You didn’t just now,” I point out.

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that. The Captain and Clay always said that the new forms change your brain but I didn’t believe them until I did it myself. You use more of that animalistic part of your psyche, and less of the rational portion. 

“Sometimes that keeps me from really thinking about things with emotions. Kind of the opposite of Clay. I thinkg he gets more emotional, like a girl.” 

I can’t help but scoff and that makes him chuckle.

We are getting closer to the ground now near Alloya and Clay, who were no doubt discussing whatever issues they were having back on the Rango.

As the ice circle below moves to make contact with the ground, Womby makes sure to tell me something. “Terra, I know I just said that I trust your judgement, but this time, just ignore it. Even if it does come true, if there’s nothing you can do, there’s no point in being worried. And besides…

“A new day always has the chance to be better than the last..”

I remember that saying, but if my time alone has taught me anything, it’s this. “But the day doesn’t have to come.” 

That cut our conversation short as Clay and Alloya come up to us. 

Alloya and Womby share a stare between them, both unnerving, and unrelenting. Though that in itself is a paradox to say, because one of them has to give in. I can’t keep track of whose face softened first.

Alloya opens her arms to Womby. 

“Get over here shorty,” she says as she walks over to him. He’s slow to consider, looking her over as she comes to bring him into a bear hug, but he accepts it all the same. They embrace as he wraps his arms around her and her arms around his head and neck, him being significantly shorter. “I’m sorry about before,” she whispers to him, meaning to be tender, not secretive. 

When they separate and Womby repeats the process with Clay.

This staredown isn’t going to end in a hug though, anyone can tell.

“Would you two just hug and make-up?” Alloya chides.

Clay and Womby both look between her and each other.

“But arguing with each other is our thing,” Clay tells her.
“Yeah, you can’t get rid of our thing, what will have then?” Womby piles on.

“Anchary, I say!” Hideo yells over the comes. “Anchary!”

We all collectively wince over his voice on the comes. 

Clay is the first to yell at him. “Stop screaming into the mic!”

“Also, it’s pronounced anarchy, anchary is a completely different word,” Womby adds.

We can the bat laughing over the coms as the Shatter Drive finally begins the end of its descent.

We all turn to the side in time to witness the device made to master time and space land firmly on the ground. It stops several feet for a couple seconds, letting all four of us get a good look at it as it pauses before landing. It looks a lot bigger and more intimidating with the wind blowing around it. 

In that same moment, the Shatter Drive drops a few feet with a loud THUD! and within that same instant it powers up and starts working automatically.

“Well our work is done,” Alloya says.

Womby then turns his head at her, rather disappointingly. “Alloya, we’re far from done. You can’t drop something like this and not have an audience with the Prime Minister.”

Alloya groans. “Ugh, I liked the other one better.”