The Story So Far: Ask For Help
20 Oct 2021Lily Flemmon
The first 19 years of my life, I was always told that everyone had it in for themselves, that nobody’s selfless despite what they say. That nobody “really cares” and I would need to be the same way if I wanted to succeed. How can anyone unlearn that, let alone recover from the trauma of that belief being constantly validated? Turns out, it’s all about the people who feel so small and insignificant against the vastness of the galaxy, even just the bubble, that they don’t worry about making a big impact. In other words, the polar opposite of who I was during my teen years.After the day I left my life behind and met Ronni, I decided to lay low in 21 Draco. Almost forgot I had a Sidewinder for a bit, too. I lived with Ronni for a few weeks while I recovered from the wild events of the 3rd. I felt disoriented, to put it lightly. It even took a few days to settle on what I wanted my name to be. Charlie. I thought of it as an alias, that I was laying low, but it felt like a lot more than that. And Ronni started calling me “tough baby,” and I was still confused enough that I didn’t mind.
Eventually I had regained enough of my senses to move out to my own private living quarters, but not too far from Ronni’s place. I didn’t spend too much time with Ronni, and a lot of my time was spent helping in the gardens, or when I felt like I could take some shock factor, learning about all the things I never learned about as a kid. All those things my dad refused to let me learn.
Eventually I dusted off my old Sidewinder and started doing delivery runs to nearby systems. I was fit to fly most of the time, but some days were rough enough for me emotionally that I didn’t feel confident flying safely out there, even with an empty cargo hold. I just wanted to get back home, and that meant getting a ride from Apex while Inter Astra delivered my ship for me. One time the fare and delivery fee were going to set me back twice what I made on the delivery run, and I was stuck on that station for hours, worrying what I was going to do. I called Ronni, and she told me to do something I really hadn’t thought of.
“Ask for help,” she said.
“What? How will that not cost me even more?”
“Asking for help is free. People aren’t the way you think they are. They don’t usually charge you an arm and a leg if you really need the help, and let’s face it, you need help on this one.”
“Yeah, I- need help. Wow.”
“Way to go, tough baby.”
“Thanks, I guess. Ugh, what would I even ask for?”
“Just… just ask, okay?”
So I asked around the pilot’s lounge, or at least I was about to, but another panic attack hit when I thought I saw my dad, and I got myself out of there, or at least to the corner opposite the bar. Found a shadowy spot before my legs turned to jelly beneath me, and sat against the wall, hiding my face in my knees. It wasn’t long before I heard someone say, “Hey dude, you okay there?” the word “dude” hurt… why did it hurt? Was it because it was too similar to “soldier boy?” Kind of a stretch, but it’s all I could come up with at the time. I looked up to see a young pilot, maybe 25, kneeling down in front of me, and when he saw my face, he looked a bit puzzled, saying, “Hey, aren’t you the pilot who came in with the keelback full of seeds? I’ve heard they’ve already started planting them…” His voice trailed off as he saw the tears on my face. “Wait, what’s wrong?”
“Can’t… get home. Can’t have this happen out in the black.”
“What happened? Are you… are you okay?”
It was getting harder to find words, as the memories kept flashing through my head, burning and stinging with each passing moment. “Memories… of…” I curled up tighter as a particularly painful memory of an AR-50 clip slapping the back of my hand, held by my angry father, filled my head. “Alone…”
“Hey, I don’t know what’s hurting you, but… I’ll stay right here, okay? It’s gonna be okay, I’m not going anywhere.”
He sat next to me and kept people from bothering me while I slowly recovered from the flashbacks. When he heard my breathing become steady again, he turned to me and asked, “Hey, maybe… maybe I could go with you, help you get home in case this happens out there… Where are you headed?”
“21 Draco.”
“Uhh, any chance it’s Chilton Terminal?”
“Wait, why?” I perked up a bit as I heard the name of the starport that I called home.
“I have a Viper there that I guess I could fly back. It could come in handy here, you never know.”
“And?”
“I could ride with you out to Chilton and fly myself back. I’m fine without that Viper here, but I’m fine getting it too, as long as I’m not paying a premium to Apex or Inter Astra.” He drew out the “s” in Astra and made a peeved face as he did. “Chilton is your home, right?”
“Yeah. Yeah, it is.”
“Well then, whaddya say? Time to fly home?”
And while I did have to clean the dust off the second seat of my Keelback, I got home that day, thanks to a stranger who really didn’t gain anything by helping. We had some good conversation after the final jump. He asked if I’d heard of Domino Green, and I mentioned I’d been ignoring a message from someone called that, and hey, turns out she’s an engineer and I “probably should give that one a look.”
Ronni was waiting for me at the concourse, and she greeted me with a look that was a mix of pride and “I told you so.”
10 minutes later I was back home, and 10 minutes after that, you bet I was asleep.