Chapter 2: Orion’s Beginning

What did most fathers and sons do together? I imagined they played catch or built stuff like model rockets. Riker and I never played ball; then again, Riker wasn't my real dad.

He wasn't even a half-breed like me.

If I were ever human, those memories were too distant to recall. I could only recollect as far back as the day I initially awoke with fur and a tail. That was the day my life as an object began. I might have lived out the rest of my existence as little more than a pet had Riker not intervened.

That's why I didn't care if he played catch with me.

Riker, as reckless and ego-driven as he might have been, rescued me. I never expected him to be my father. I never expected him to care for me. Regardless, Riker grew to be the only family I had.

Unfortunately, found families weren't guaranteed to be better than blood ties.

"I told you to grab the red rocks, not the green," Riker scolded me from the front seat without turning to look at my face.

I argued, "I'm color blind," but he said, "then you should have taken both."

"They were shooting at us!" I said.

Riker and I had just finished a heist. Well, it wasn't quite over yet. We managed to escape the mining planet of Vex, but its inhabitants weren't passive. We were chased out of orbit by a small gang of Vex minors. In the back seat of a two-man explorer unit, I operated the guns while Riker flew and evaded shots from all sides.

"You can't be a jewel thief if you're blind, Son," Riker added when he should have been focused on flying.

"I don't want to be a jewel thief," I said.

"Don't say that. You're so good at it. You'd be even better if you knew the difference between red and green."

Our left wing was hit.

"Riker!" I exclaimed.

It didn't matter how many birds I shot out of the sky if Riker didn't avoid their shots at us.

"Calm down. We're almost home," he belittled my concern.

Riker's ship, the one we lived on, was hiding behind the planet's nearest moon. We needed to reach it before we could use a light drop to escape.

As overwhelmed as we might have been, I could tell we were making headway.

Our enemies were flying ships meant for long outer orbit flight. Riker's explorer vessel was meant for getting from ship to ground. We only had guns because Riker put guns on everything. He wasn't a paranoid person, though he should have been. Riker enjoyed firefights. He once told me, " if you ever get caught in a dick measuring contest, cut theirs off before you take out the ruler."

The Vex minors should have caught us already, but Riker was a phenomenal pilot. Not to mention, I was good with most guns. I had to be.

At the rate we were going, Riker and I were sure to escape. We'd been in tougher binds before. But that's why I was caught off guard when my adopted father spoke again.

"Hit the red button," he said.

I lost my focus. There were a dozen multicolored buttons on my console. I never paid attention to their hues, but there was one button I knew as "the red button." It was the only button without a distinct label. It was the most oversized button to the far left of my console. It was under a glass case, so nothing would accidentally push it.

"We don't need it," I said.

"Hit the red button," Riker repeated.

Our right wing was hit. We couldn't take much more before blowing up.

"Hit the button, son."

I didn't want to do it. It was overkill. Killing someone trying to kill us was one thing, but the red button was rarely, if ever, called for. Reluctantly, I flipped open the glass case and pressed the red button on my console.

Of all the things Riker and I did together, using that button brought the most shame.

The red button activated a weapon on Riker's ship capable of destroying planets. It was the same weapon he used to destroy The Zoo when I was younger. After starting the weapon, nothing could stop it. Riker's ship flew out of hiding as we approached it, and with little time for our enemies to evade, we flew out of the way before it happened. Riker's ship blasted a ray of solar energy at the planet Vex. The dwarf imploded and shattered like a frozen balloon hit by a crowbar.

We weren't followed after that. Riker and I flew the explorer into the ship and made our escape using a light drop to teleport light-years away in an instant.

As Riker got out of the explorer, I remained in my seat, clutching at my chest through my orange vest. I could feel the aftershocks of Vex's destruction, though we had already left the scene. How many had we killed? How many had we snuffed out in an instant? There was too much blood. That weapon, The Sunray, it made me sick.

Before Riker could leave the hanger, I jumped out of the explorer to catch up to him.

"We didn't need the red button," I argued.

He told me, "better to be safe than dead, son," while we left the hanger to enter the ship's central corridor.

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"That's the 5th planet we've destroyed this year," I said.

"I know," he chuckled before adding, "I never thought I'd get this much use out of a Sunray, but it's turning into a good investment."

As usual, my father didn't, couldn't take anything seriously. I threw a rock at his head. It was one of the fancy rocks people referred to as emeralds we stole from Vex, but like any other rock, I'm sure it hurt. Riker stopped dead in his tracks but didn't turn around.

I backed away just to be safe.

"You're upset?" He asked and looked over his shoulder at me.

I knew Riker wouldn't kill me, but he put me through enough "punishments" in the past to know I wasn't completely safe. Needless to say, I was hesitant to speak my entire mind. But I had to.

"We killed people," I said.

With a sigh, he finally turned around to face me.

Riker argued, "We kill people every day."

"Thousands of people. Countless people!" I added.

"Your point?" He said with disinterested eyes.

"We didn't have to," I started to explain until Riker turned to start back on his way to the control deck.

"We don't have to do anything, Son. We do what we do because we can or because we want to," he said, and I had to follow to continue the conversation.

Could I call it a conversation if I knew he was unwilling to change his mind?

"But I didn't want to," I said.

"This again," Riker remarked under his breath, but I heard it.

"Stealing, vandalizing, causing general chaos, I can live with that, but," I started but was soon interrupted.

"But you draw the line at genocide?"

"Yes, exactly!"

I was relieved to think he was finally getting it.

We made it to the control deck.

Riker took his usual seat at the helm, where several half-empty drinks were waiting for him on, under, and around the control center.

"Alright, I hear you," he said before taking a swig of a Space Berry beer.

"So we won't use the red button anymore?" I asked.

"No. You won't use the red button anymore. Next time I'll push it myself."

He pushed his beer bottle into the palms of my hands.

"Now have a drink and relax," he said.

I was stunned...until I wasn't. I threw the beer bottle at a wall, and it shattered. Riker, of course, didn't flinch, not even when a piece of glass nicked the side of his face.

I might have overstepped, but almost immediately after my outburst, the ship started going haywire.

"What's going on?" I asked.

The ship's natural lights turned dark, flashing red.

"Our ship is compromised," Riker answered me while using the control center to look into the problem.

"By who? How?" I said.

It should have been impossible to find us, especially after a light drop. Riker's ship was a ghost.

Riker started to instruct me, "get to the armory and," but before he could finish his thought, someone else entered the control deck behind us.

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