A Lucky Apocalypse I

I’ve always loved flying dreams.

In this one I swept across the choppy waters of a clear blue sea at a leisurely pace, enjoying the rare opportunity to goof around planetside. I was so low I could feel the ocean spray on my face, the wind of my passage whipping the waist-length mass of my hair into a billowing cloud behind me. The sunlight warmed my bare skin, obstructed only by a tiny bikini I wouldn’t have dared to wear in real life. But then again, I never could have filled it out the way I did now either.

A flock of sea birds swirled curiously around me, no doubt wondering what this strange interloper in their world was. I vaguely remembered that this place was a nature preserve, and the wildlife might never have seen humans before.

But something happened, and I was needed elsewhere. An authorization was given, a lock deep inside me clicked three steps towards full release, and warm power welled up from somewhere far, far down in the vast hollow spaces of my soul. My sharpened gaze picked out the gleaming shapes of starships and space stations high overhead, the souls of their crews and the twinkling ghost-light of their reactors shining bright through the emptiness of the void.

I called up my wards, and flung myself into the sky with a crash of thunder.

The sea fell away below me, but not quickly enough. The clean sea air was suddenly a viscous barrier slowing my ascent, keeping me away from… who? A blurry vision of long blonde hair and deep blue eyes, frantically calling my name. Kimeska? No, that was me. Insara. My… sister? Partner?

I couldn’t remember. But she was everything to me, and she was in danger.

I broke through a cloud bank and rose into the upper atmosphere in a violet haze, the wind screaming past my wards as I fought for more speed. I caught sight of the largest station now, floating far above me in geosynchronous orbit. It was the only home I’d known in my short life, and it should have been safe for me and mine.

But the ships clustered about it were lit by flashes of weapon fire at point-blank range. There was a confused babble of panicked voices on the com network, demands for surrender flashing back and forth, a fierce argument over whether to allow me weapon release…

The station exploded.

My connection to Insara was broken.

I screamed. First in sorrow, at the loss of my one true companion. But then a terrible rage filled me, at the temerity of those who had killed her. With the strength of white-hot hate I tore the limiters off my core, smashing the locks meant to regulate my terrible strength. Crackling black lighting filled my heart, the sky, the whole world and beyond. I’d kill them all, for taking away my-

My phone rang.

Still half-lost in the dream, I groped blindly at my nightstand and came up with a lump of hard plastic.

“Hello?” I mumbled sleepily.

“My god, I can’t believe this is working,” came the voice I thought I’d never hear again. “Who is this?”

“Insara?” I rubbed my eyes. No, wait, that was the dream. This was real, wasn’t it?

“No… well, maybe. I don’t know, this is so crazy. My name is Sara Wellman, but that might not really be my name, because no one ever figured out where I came from. But your voice is so familiar, I’m sure I must know you from somewhere.”

My bedroom was dark, but that’s never mattered as much to me as it seems to for most people. The little clock on the front of my cable box read ‘4:00’.

“Do you realize it’s four am?” I mumbled grouchily. “Damn it, I’m on shift in three hours. Call back later!”

“Oh, sorry,” Sara said, embarrassed. “I, um, guess you must be used to this, or something. Sorry. Later.”

She hung up. I sighed, and flopped back down among the pillows. Stupid crank calls. Whatever. I closed my eyes.

The musical trill of my phone dragged me back to consciousness. Had I fallen asleep? I raised it to my ear automatically.

“What?”

It rang again.

Stupid ‘smart’ phones with their stupid little buttons. I held it in front of my face and tried to make my eyes focus.

I was holding my alarm clock.