Flying with Mother
“Just jump.”
Kraz does not look down. He isn’t scared of heights: far from it. Raised in a spaceship hovering over planets, cliffs and continents, he’s never been worried by any of the different viewpoints he’s seen through his entire life. His mother stands—more like hovers in front of him, hands on her hips, feet hanging in the air, waiting. He hasn’t felt that stupid in a while. Some fears, while illogical and unfounded, can not be explained.
He’s safe on the shuttle’s open boarding ramp, and is confident should he fall, Pénurie will grab him before he can even scream her full name—which is the reason he’s not even hanging on to anything right now.
And why it’s so stupid he can’t just. Make the jump.
Right now Pénurie shows more patience with him than she does with anyone else. Kraz knows because he’s here when she snaps at others and sneers and hisses at them to just hurry up already.
But for now she has yet to utter a word, and is simply watching him. For now.
“What if my pack doesn’t work?” Kraz asks.
“It won’t.” He should know better than to try such a blatant delaying tactic with her.
“But what if it does?”
“Then I’ll catch you. I’ve done it before.”
“Yes well! Maybe you won’t this time!”
Pénurie squints at him, a sign she is not buying any of it and that her patience with his little act may actually be running thin. A miscalculation on his part. “Yes Kraz, I’ve spent the past seven years taking care of you only to let you plummet to your death now. Because that is a sensible argument.”
He knows he’s only a few more diversions away before she asks the real question so Kraz snaps his mouth shut and bites back his snippy comment. Although them fighting would probably at least save him from the situation he’s in, he does want this. He wants to be able to fly on his own—he’s done the training, the exercises, all of it. What’s worse—he knows how to. He really does. It’s not like Pénurie is asking him to just walk off the ship without any practice. Often she takes him on flights on her back or her stomach, and he flies above or below her, and he does fine. Peachy, even. Cannot feel any trace of fear at all.
So why can’t he jump on his own? Pénurie is right here!
“Will you just walk out of the damn ship?” His mother asks, and he grits his teeth in embarrassment. He’s a couple steps away from the ramp’s edge and below, Earth ground is 60,000 feet down.
Again, not that the altitude bothers him. Neither does the cold or the lack of oxygen, because well. Being a Parasite helps with that.
“Kraz.”
It’s quite windy though.
“Krazt!”
The boy looks back at his mother, who’s flying closer until she’s back on the ramp. “Are you even going to try, or should we use our time more wisely than with you looking at the clouds while I stand there and wait for your epiphany?”
“I’m not scared!” He blurts out and she blinks in faux-surprise. He hears the smile in her voice when she speaks next.
“Well I did not say that. But if you bring it to the table…”
“’Cause I’m not!”
“Because you are not. Glad we cleared that up. Jump.”
He takes a step by contestation, and for a moment Pénurie hopes that if not by his own volition than her son will finally jump out of spite, but nope. It was just the one step.
Now Pénurie is never one to accept defeat and she did not raise a quitter. When she opens her arms for Kraz to jump into, her child shows no hesitation. She walks off the ramp for the both of them.
High in the sky, with only the two of them like this, is when they feel the more at peace. No enemies in miles and only the relaxing sound of speedy winds. They don’t have to squint their eyes, cover their ears or hold their breaths—they’re not sensitive humans. Pénurie flies with her back to the ground and her son on her stomach.
One day Kraz saw a documentary about some kind of weird mammal that does this on water surface, either with its babies or to handle food. They even use tools if he recalls correctly. Somewhat impressive for an Earth species.
Those animals are considered adorable by Earth standards, however, and he would never dare use such a word to qualify his mother. Murderous, yes, but cute, far from that.
“Didn’t you want to learn flight maneuvers? Because staying here is not how you do that.” Pénurie prompts him.
Kraz nods and stands. With a small impulse from his ankles he takes off and starts hovering a few feet above her as they move through the clouds. Like always his pack works just fine and so does his suit. Pénurie wonders why his child thought she would buy such a lame excuse, but she figures that’s a characteristic that comes with being young.
“Leader at the front, obviously.” Pénurie starts the lesson and picks up the speed needed to do just that. When Kraz immediately falls in line behind her, she corrects him : “No hiding behind each other. You’re aiming for my 210°.”
The kid adjusts his position, moving to flank Pénurie’s left side. “To keep eyes on each other?”
“So we do not have to fully turn around to monitor our squad next-in-line, yes. Stay between my 200 and 260° and I can check up on you with visual contact any time.”
“Second in hierarchy goes to the left.” Kraz would be happy she automatically placed him there in her example did he not know it was due to Pénurie missing her whole squad. “Third, to my right. Last one in charge closes the formation by flying directly in my axis, and is the only one authorized to do so.”
“So they don’t mess things up.” Kraz guesses confidently.
“So we can shield them.” Pénurie rectifies. “They also get double the visual checks.” She does smile, though, the corner of her mouth’s tail curling up. “… And they’re kept from messing things up.”
Kraz frowns, puzzled. “The leader must check on two persons, but they themselves are two-for-one? That’s not-”
“Efficient? It is. I am the strongest, so not only do I command, I ensure protection is equally distributed according to who needs it most. I am powerful enough to manage three, and the rear gets triple the protection.”
Kraz nods. It does make sense. Parasites like this kind of hierarchical distribution because it is a form of reassurance for them. It’s why they always fight each other so much as well. Kraz only has his mother and himself, meaning in terms of ranking, there is no uncertainty about who’s in charge. (Yet. Once he’s fully grown he will definitely challenge her leadership. Huh, even though she can be kind of scary and intimidating, and… Well, it’s a work in progress.)
There’s only ever been the two of them and that makes him so curious. He’s only known Pénurie as his mother but she is 9,000 years old. She has done a lot, and sometimes she shares stories (more like snippets really) but Kraz wants to know it all.
“And how was your fourth? Did they act up?” He tries. Normally Pénurie shuts off as soon as he attempts to know more about her squad or how things were when she was still with them.
And as per usual, she ignores the question and instead choses to flip around, now flying with her back to the sky. “This here is the basic formation. I will show you the offensive one next, but first, we are going to do a few drills. For now try to keep up with me and stay in my visible field.”
“But what about your squad? It’s not like we can do real drills with only two fliers!” He’s pushing his luck now. She’s somewhat patient with him on certain topics, mostly when it comes to his education, but Pénurie despises being pushed and never reacts well.
“Did you not want to learn how to fly? Because I can very well leave you here on your own and go back to the ship. See what you can learn on your own.”
“But I only wanna know!”
“And you won’t, so drop it! Now.”
“Not fair!”
“Yes fair! I decide what’s fair! Now if you really want to fly I suggest you turn down the insolence.” She speeds up and dives straight down, and after that all Kraz can do is focus on keeping up with her.
Later that day they find themselves sitting on the space shuttle’s roof. Kraz perched it on the edge of a huge cliff overlooking the ocean Humans call South Pacific (Pénurie co-piloted, something she doesn’t do any day). The day has been a collection of flying lessons, more technical courses about survival, mathematics and linguistics. Typical in other words.
It is very late, past the hour Kraz usually goes to bed. Pénurie provided him with a baseline optimized schedule but he’s the one who choses if he wants to follow it or not. And tonight Kraz’s decided he can stay up longer than usual. Pénurie never reprimands him; the only rule is he has to be inside the ship when she herself decides to take a rest (if she does). If he’s too tired the next day to do what has to be done, then it falls on him to rectify his own behavior.
It’s a lesson he’s learned very quickly. Pénurie doesn’t particularly reach for a super-independent child, but she has to be realistic: if something happened to her, Kraz would need to be able to handle himself on his own. They have allies, but allies are not reliable by principle, so she can not trust anyone to take care of him should she disappear.
As it is, their evening is unusually relaxing and they are not arguing with each other. They are both fresh out the shower (Pénurie is more adamant that he keeps clean than any other daily chores), Kraz drawing on a tablet and her working on some kind of weapon prototype. A small one. Kraz does not ask who it’s for—again, there are questions Pénurie dislikes hearing.
Kraz focuses on his drawing instead. Today’s lessons have inspired him and he’s doodling drills and soldiers and support squads. Despite his mother’s clear avoidance of the subject, he still scribbles what resembles her, followed in formation by the three soldiers he hasn’t managed to learn anything about.
When Pénurie takes a quick look at his work out of the corner of her eye, her heart pinches. Kraz was right, flying with only two Parasites is wrong, and it only served to remind her of what it used to be like. She feels a little raw. Like she’s literally missing three fifths of her code.
Her hands stop working and she stares vaguely at her work before softly shaking her head and squeezing her eyes shut. Her shoulders sag a little. When she opens them next, it’s to take the pen from her son’s hand. He almost bites her on reflex but one look at her (for once) heartfelt expression and he freezes and stays silent.
She starts painting over Kraz’s drawing after changing the pen color. On the tablet the soldier to her left gets his arm painted red. The one at the rear is blue. The last one she colors yellow.
He thinks of the insignia on the left arm of the under-armor suit currently burrowed under piles of junk deep in their space shuttle—of the three strips of now discolored fabrics she’s sewn on his comfort blanket, and understands.
Kraz knows Pénurie shows maybe half an ounce of feelings every full moon. For her, that’s a big step. She goes back to her work unperturbed while he smiles at the tablet. That’s probably all he’s going to ever know—colors, how ludicrous—yet the boy is thrilled. There is hope that, maybe one day… Kraz can see the parasites they belong to.
Maybe even learn their names…
The sudden squishy noise of a sharp tool cutting through slime flesh snaps him out of his little reverie.
“Ow! Stupid dumb decrepit tools!!” Pénurie curses another Parasite insult and hisses and jumps to her feet, her apparent composure shattering. And just like that the moment is gone. She angrily tosses the half-completed weapon straight at the sea in a dramatic show of frustration he’s come to know from his mother.
When it crashes on the rocky shore 55 feet below, Kraz also gets up as well, dumbfounded: “You threw my gun!?” He shouts, looking down at the ocean.
“It wasn’t your gun! God, how entitled can you be?” Pénurie shrieks back, because there are chances she might feel a little stupid for acting up on her frustration and doing something as idiotic as throwing out resources over a chopped-off nail.
“But I need it. Mine’s old!”
“I made yours last week! It’s not old at all and perfectly capable, don’t be a brat!”
“It’s obviously old if you’re already working on a replacement.” Kraz crosses his arms and juts his chin out, proud of his little deduction. Pénurie can only be mad at herself for raising him to be exactly like her. It distracts her from comparing his pose to someone’s she finds just as infuriating—if not more.
“Don’t you start playing smart with me. I also made you a few years ago. And I might as well rename that work. Brat rolls better off the tongue with how ridiculous of a child you are.”
He looks a little deflated. “You’re no fun.” Pénurie does not retort to the obvious statement. She’s not about to argue with her own child about her funniness or unfunniness. Instead she inspects her finger and the (missing) tip of it she’s just cut clean off with the tool.
“Are you hurt?” Weapon temporarily forgotten, Kraz’s attention snaps back to her when she hisses again. He sounds very interested. “Can I see?”
Pénurie knows it’s not from a place of concern. “Why? So you can probe at it some more like a psycho?” She squints suspiciously down at him, but the effect is somewhat lost when she’s sucking her finger between her full lips, “I thought you were over this.”
“Yeah I am! But I still wanna check it out! You know. To make sure you’re ok?”
The reply has her sighing and turning around, “That’s not what you call ‘being over something’.” Pénurie mutters, petulant, as she walks to the ship’s rear where the access ramp is.
Morbid curiosity forgotten, Kraz grabs his tablet and follows after her without a single thought. “I really wanted the gun though! I’ll go grab it before the waves trash it even more—”
“Like Hell you will! It’s full of gross sea water down there! Walk in that mess and you’re not stepping into my spaceship ever again.”
“But I want the gun!!!” That’s full-on, high-pitched, kid-tantrum starter scream right there. And as always it makes Pénurie flip so instantly the argument escalates even faster than how it started.
But at least she is done with foolish, sentimental reminiscing for the day.