Renegade Redhead
RENEGADE REDHEAD
By F.E. Arliss
TABLE OF CONTENTS
The Catalysts
Training
More Training, UZ238
Gearing Up
Unknown Space
Alien Encounter
The Dreasing
The Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend
Not Our Fight
Magic Moment
Unordinary Alliance
Finding the Cavern
The Mother Planet
Rock God
Long Range Sensor
Rest and Rescue
The Mines
To the Rescue
Chapter One
The Catalysts
“What was with today, anyway?” Sasha Kelty wondered. So far, she’d had three people make snide comments about the vee-necked top she wore. “Showing a little cleavage, are we today?” One middle-aged, matronly clerk had sniped at her. Like it was her business to comment on a customer’s barely showing hot-pink lace bra!
One of the machinery contractor’s wives had said almost the exact same thing, but in an even bitchier tone. Lastly, one of the men waiting in line at the Casey’s synth-fuel station had leered down her top and said, “Nice!” Like she wore pretty underwear for that schmuck. The bra hadn’t shown when she put her top on at home. She wouldn’t have even had to go inside if the stupid flash reader on the synth-fuel pump had been working, but as usual, the Midwest got all the last service calls when things broke. Coasts first, interior second.
After six hours sitting in the cab of a combine in the heat, the cotton top had started to sag a bit. A/C and modern technology could only do so much against Mother Nature and her full broiling sun, worsened over the last century by ignorant government leaders and greedy fuel manufacturers. So, it hadn’t been an intentional showing of her under-layer in the first place. Of course, that didn’t matter to the naggers.
The truth was, she wore pretty underwear for herself. She could have chosen to wear the more tech-savvy polymer wraps that most women wore. Days in the seat of a tractor, or smelling like a stevedore after camping for three days, made her crave the delicacy of the pretty under-things. It helped her feel like an attractive woman. Which, she was. That was probably the problem. No matter how long you went without make-up or dressed in old jeans, being beautiful didn’t rub off. No matter what. Maybe it would in a few decades.
She was twenty-seven years old and drop-dead gorgeous. Her slender muscled frame and athletic build, coupled with a nice rack and long legs, made her stick out in any crowd. Her grandmother Dolores often urged her to ‘own her looks’ as she put it. Loads of thick, fine-red hair cascaded down Sasha’s back. Usually, she wore it up to keep it out of the way. Lately, she’d been thinking a lot about what Dolores was saying.
Dolores had received nothing but criticism since she decided to marry again at 70, have a face lift, and buy a hover convertible. It was all so, well…exuberant! Way too exuberant for her age. People over 40 were just supposed to get fat, let themselves go, and stick to routine jobs and even more routine lives.
Dolores told her that the reason everybody nagged at Sasha was because she was beautiful and doing whatever she wanted. It didn’t matter that she was making plenty of money…more in most cases, than the people she was being compared to. What mattered was that she was doing something they could never do, and it bred envy and anger. That was her grandmother’s take anyway, and it was making more and more sense as Sasha thought it over.
Two years ago, she’d been heartbroken when her fiancé, Chad Myers, had joined the Army. Instead of taking her with him as his wife, -- the way they’d planned; -- he’d broken their engagement and married Cheryl Boswell. According to Chad, Cheryl was the ‘right kind’ of woman for an Army officer’s wife. She’d help his career and wouldn’t be constantly second-guessing him. Cheryl was a dainty little thing who would run to fat in her forties, was Sasha’s guess. Let the asshole find that out for himself.
Still, it stung that the insinuation had been that she was too rough and tumble, and not feminine enough. Never mind the silk combo from La Perla that she was wearing beneath her Carhart synth-fabric jumpsuit. Not feminine enough, my eye! Sasha thought.
Beautiful and sexy, yes. He’d tried to get a just-for-old-times shag when he was breaking it off with her. Nothing could have caused him to stoop lower in her opinion than that. She wasn’t docile enough to be an Army officer’s wife, but she was good for a lay. Shit-head! After that, she played her grandmother’s archive of ancient music non-stop for days. Especially the one from a century-old artist named Meghan Trainor and a guy named LunchBox Lewis. ‘I Love Me’ blared in the cab of the tractor until her fury and hurt had drained itself out.
It had stung even more that he was headed to the stars and Sasha wasn’t. As she listened to music and ran the combine down the long rows of wheat, her thoughts evolved into a clear plan. She’d find her own way to the stars.
She also decided to just own up and take control of her own sexuality. People were always trying to shame Dolores for wanting to be married again at 70. She was still an attractive woman and Sasha, herself, was only in her twenties. What was wrong with these people anyway. From that point on, she slept with who she wanted, whenever she wanted, and she felt absolutely no remorse.
Mostly she was involved with Vince McCullough, the very tall, very muscular, very good-looking land owner that she worked for as a mech- operator. He wasn’t married and probably never would be. He was a player, but that didn’t bother Sasha one bit. She wasn’t interested in marrying the guy, but he was definitely worth the effort every once in a while.
As for Vince McCullough, he thought Sasha Kelty was the most intelligent, beautiful, gutsy woman he’d ever met. Sleeping with her was like finding oneself in a fantasy with a silky-skinned, nubile, aerial-acrobat from the legendary Cirque Du Soleil. If he had to marry someone tomorrow, it would be her. He never told her, of course.
Sasha decided that she could wear what she wanted, and people should mind their own business. If they didn’t, she’d let them know what was up. That was what she’d resolved today. People could mind their own damn business about absolutely everything in her life.
When she stopped to see her mom, she’d started in. “When are you thinking that you’ll look for a steady job?” her mother, Phyllis, wanted to know. Sasha just stared at her. Seriously? Like she didn’t have a steady job? Somehow Phyllis thought operating a neural-stem powered combine for weeks during harvest season in Kansas wheat-country wasn’t enough. And running a cultivator and planter in spring and working as a ski instructor out in Colorado in winter wasn’t keeping her busy?
As for the skiing, it was simply exciting. She like excitement. She loved the power of the big neural-stem combines and tractors, and she liked the unpredictability of the raging waters on un-dammed rivers. Life was exhilarating when she was doing those things. So, she told her mother that.
She had money in the bank. A lot of it. Sasha was more interested in having adventures or experiences than she was in spending money. She liked riding the tractors, feeling their power channeled through her mind, and seeing the land harvested or planted. She liked knowing that what she was doing had an actual outcome. Plus, the endless fields of glowing, golden wheat under a stormy sky were absolutely beautiful. It was a sight she never got tired of.
Phyllis’ only response was, “Well you can’t keep having adventures forever! It’s too bad that Chad wouldn’t marry you. That would have solved everything!”
What?! What!? Solved everything for whom? What was wrong with her mother, anyway? Chad was a prick. Phyllis should be glad Sasha had escaped that jerk. Sasha shrieked with frustration internally.
 
; Plus, why the hell should people stop having adventures? Why the hell not, Sash wondered. People should have adventures for their entire lives? Whose stupid-ass rule was that anyway?
In school, having to follow the rules, she’d often felt like screaming or exploding, or simply running and never coming back. She hated being told what to do, usually by people who had only a fraction of her intelligence.
What her mother really meant, was ‘when are you going to do something predictable like get married, have kids, or work in a bank’. Like NEVER, was the truth of it. Banks were completely neural in almost every way now. She’d be bored to death in a bank! Her mother could hope all she wanted. It was NEVER going to happen.
Sasha was sick of making excuses to keep the peace with whomever felt they could comment. She was sick of ‘taking it’ when people minded her business for her.
She wanted to break the nose of that guy in the Casey’s store. She wanted to reach out and grab that smarmy tech-cashier in the supermarket by the flab of her throat and tell her to mind her own damn business. From now on she would order her groceries though the tech-terminal the way most people did. Sasha had always liked touching the food and seeing the freshness of what she was going to consume. She might be able to trade that, though, for the isolation of not having to deal with people and their tiny minds.
Lastly, she wanted to tell the jealous cow wife at the machinery depot that she wouldn’t have her cad of a husband even if he didn’t stink like three-day old sweat-socks and didn’t have kwat-stained, rotten teeth. He was stoned practically every second of the day – and no wonder with a wife like that. He was all hers. Nothing would induce Sasha to take him off her hands.
Her grandmother had moved to Florida, where there was a lot more acceptance of older people having fun. Ok, so it was rapidly sinking into the sea due to global warming, but her grandmother didn’t seem to care. Good for her, was all Sasha could think.
Before she left, Dolores had given her a really old paperback book. It was called, “A Return to Love” and must have been a hundred years old. The pages were brittle and yellow, almost crumbing to the touch. The author, a woman named Marianne Williamson, really seemed to ‘get’ what Dolores was saying and what Sasha was coming to understand. The sad thing was that the book was written a century ago, and nothing had really changed for women. At least around here.
Things around here hadn’t changed much compared to the ‘outside world’ as her mother called it – as if the rest of the world was some horrible alien country. In cities on either coast the masses rode around in hover trams, solar cars, and transported places. Out here in the boonies, they still had an electric bus and cars that still ran on electric-solar combination. Some farmers still even had what they’d called ‘alternative energy’ cars. Sasha had an ancient ‘alternate energy’ pickup that took a special fuel made from corn. Vince had it shipped in just for people out here that still needed it. He grew one field of corn, just to make the fuel.
There was a transporter station about 75 miles away. Too far and too expensive for most people. Sometimes people from the coasts would come out to buy one of the old ‘alternate fuel’ cars or trucks. Sometimes they just wanted a picture of themselves with one and one of the ‘locals’. Sasha thought it was appalling that people let themselves be vidded like that just for a few minutes of stardom on some s.o.b.’s social media site.
It was just another way the divide between rich and poor grew ever wider. Sasha thought it had now become a divide between city and country. They still needed farms to feed the masses. It was like an old vid her grandmother had shown her called “The Hunger Games”. That imagined world wasn’t far off from what the reality of now had become.
“They thought that type of thing was just a wild fantasy,” Dolores had said sadly. “Not that we’re having games and killing people, but the divide between what we’ve got out here and what they’ve got on the coasts is enormous. Get out of here, girl. Any way you can.” That had been three years ago, as Dolores was packing up for Florida.
Sasha had seen an ad for the Intergalactic Space Guard the other day in the newspaper, and she was going to go down to the recruiting center and have a look at the openings. She didn’t know if she had the skills they needed, but she’d give it a shot. Sasha had a college degree in neuro-machinery and was a top-rated operator. She was sick of people who felt sorry for her that a numb-nuts like Chad had dumped her. It was time to blow this pop-stand under her own guts-driven steam.
Getting in her pickup truck and slamming the door, Sasha said, “Play Van Halen’s ‘Jump’,” revved the engine and pulled out, making a beeline for the recruiting office. Impatience had her flicking her fingers at every red light that slowed her progress. It was something her grandmother did, swishing her fingers towards stop lights to get them to change colors. It always worked.
Sasha was ambiguous about the efficacy of her ‘magic’, as her grandmother put it. Maybe it was just coincidence, but it made her feel better to imagine she was imprinting her will on something. Especially right now, when she was set on changing her life. Dolores said that they were the direct descendants of the Celtic goddess Andraste, whose sole purpose in life was to use magic to overcome her enemies. Sasha was going to see if she could do that. Well, overcome her enemies at least. She was skeptical about the magic part…changing stop lights, or not. She found a space in front of the recruiting office, took a deep breath, and opened the door.
Three hours later she walked out of the recruiting station with enlistment papers in her hands. She was a little stunned and couldn’t believe what she’d just done. She was an officer candidate!
Because of her excellent physical conditioning, experience with large, computerized machinery, her ability to use a firearm and level psychological profile, she’d been signed on as an Ensign in the armed-response teams for the security details in deep space. There’d been a long test that Sasha had scored very high on.
When she joked that people underestimated the complexities of neural-computerized farm machinery, she’d really hit the nail on the head. It seemed there were many similarities between weapons systems and machinery. They were going to let her train in mechanized-weapons suits as well.
It was all so exciting, she couldn’t decide whether to jump for joy or worry about telling her family. Maybe she wouldn’t tell them. Maybe she’d just leave and send them a text from the shuttle platform just before boarding the transport ship. Yes, that was what she’d do. She didn’t need the nagging, griping, and guilting she’d get if she did anything other than that. Dolores would be over the moon about it! At least one person would be rooting for her!
As soon as she got back, Sasha did a little research and learned that twenty-five years ago, the first expedition to Uzi, or UZ238, had gone out with a Colonel Bergstrom in command. The first settlement had done extremely well, as Uzi was very similar in composition to Earth. Several new species had also come to light within the galaxy out beyond Uzi’s orbit. That would be her new realm of experience, patrolling space and meeting new species as a protector. This was going to be fun.
Thinking over what she needed to pack, she decided nothing but her bank account. In space none of her clothes would be useful. Well, maybe pajamas, all her beautiful underthings, and her excellent self-care products. That was it. She was going to start ‘owning’ her looks and beauty as her grandmother had urged her to do for so many years. This was her chance to have a total metamorphosis into who she ‘really’ was.
Forty-eight hours later, she’d sold her hybrid, antique pickup truck for a fortune to some hover-car salesman in Boston, and was walking up the ramp to the jump ship that would take her into orbit to board the cruiser waiting above Earth’s atmosphere. That ship would take her first to Frontier Space Station -- why it was named that, she had no idea, since it wasn’t on the frontier anymore -- and then on to UZ238.
Sasha pressed the ‘send’ button on the small tablet she carried. The message she’d
prepared for her family that she was joining the Intergalactic Guard showed ‘sent’ a second later. She then sent a soppy goodbye to Dolores and a rather risqué one to Vince McCullough. Once they’d gone, she clicked the small device off and tossed it in the ‘toxic waste’ bin to the side of the ramp. Cueing up an ancient tune by Katy Perry called, ‘Firework’, she turned towards her future.
Chapter Two
Training
So far, Sasha had been onboard Frontier Station, a large, ugly, floating monstrosity of a station, for about ninety days. It hadn’t been at all what she’d imagined. It smelled funky, sort of like B.O. and machine oil. Nor was it very futuristically sexy like she’d imagined. Instead, it looked sort of like an ancient Lego sculpture with strange knobby protrusions added on.
Her training was progressing very well. She was just waiting to pass the scoring regimen they’d set up for each group of officer candidates after their ninety days of basic training. If her scores were good, she’d become a Lieutenant and have the choice of doing the security detail that they’d promised her, or going even further and being put on an exploratory ship for deployments into uncharted space. That, of course, was what she was hoping for. Her instructor told her that she was well suited psychologically and physically for that challenge.
Sasha really liked her instructors on Frontier Station. The Major that trained her in weapons and combat tactics was the son of the station commander. His name was Major Ishto Donji. He was a bit stoic, but a fantastic weapons and tactics instructor. His father, Colonel Hiro Donji, only taught classes occasionally, but when he did they were always extremely interesting.
The only small downside to the whole Intergalactic Guard experience had been in the first few weeks and it had quickly been taken care of. It had been waiting around during training for others that weren’t as fast. It tried Sasha’s patience. She knew she had to work as a team to be successful, but she wished she was paired with more people that challenged her level of fitness, ability, and intellect. It could be boring sometimes. Her ability to meditate-- a skill learned at a young age from Dolores-- helped her curb her impatience.