Richard stared at the massive screen displayed across the curved window of the cockpit. He stood rather awkwardly on the outstretched hand of Kikata. Dinner, or lunch...or maybe it was breakfast, was rather strange. He sat on the edge of a wide plate, Kikata had spooned over some of the strange meat and thick creamy substance that she assured him was a delicacy back on her home planet. In the end he could have eaten just about anything, his taste buds no longer fighting against the terrible food substitutes that he had eaten over the past three years.
A face flickered onto the screen. An old mans dark gray eyes shifted to Richard, a grin turning upwards on one corner of his wrinkled lips. His hair was short and white, his ears, similar to Kikata's, were dark gray in color, longer white hair flowing from the tips and along the inner section.
"Private Bromwell?" His old voice asked through the intercom, the quality surprisingly clear.
"Yes, sir" He responded, straightening his posture.
"I searched your name and contacted the uh, United Nations. They are aware of your existence and send their condolences towards your fallen comrades" Richard nodded his head silently, "But, as you know the time to travel between your current location and Earth would take two months at least"
"Right"
"And we cannot have Kikata leave to go on such a wayward mission to take you home"
"I understand"
"Your commanding officers have also said that they are unsure how soon they will be able to set up a transport for you, they said it could be another month before a ship is heading out in that direction, which would mean that you will be without a ship heading back towards earth for three months at least"
"I see"
"We have discussed some options, if you would like to hear them?"
"You mean for what I can do in the meantime?"
"Correct. Kikata is within close distance to one of our main planet settlements, you will find adequate housing and resources for your stature, though you couldn't hope to do much more than sit and wait for your transport"
"And the other?"
"Well, if you wanted you could remain with Kikata on her ship, she will be out on her own for another six months. You will be paid"
Richard thought for a moment, "What could I do to help here?" He asked.
"I wouldn't mind having someone a bit smaller around" Kikata said from behind, "There are sometimes more delicate situations that could be handled better by someone who is well...smaller than I"
"I see...well" He sighed, "If I am getting paid I see no reason not to stay here, the idea of sitting in a hotel room for three months doesn't excite me"
"Great, I will be in contact with your officers, I am sure Kikata can fill you in on anything you might need to know" He nodded once more before the screen went blank once more.
They found themselves back at the small round table, Kikata had produced a few small manuals that described various procedural things that every Nova Guard has to follow.
"See, we have to respond to every and any distress signal" She started, running her finger down the vertical line of symbols, "Even if the persons are engaged in criminal activity, our job is to collect and keep them from further harm, it is not our job to punish. However if we see the need we have methods to detain dangerous persons under this room" She said tapping her foot on a rectangular section of the floor that stood out from the otherwise flat white surface.
"And then afterwards?"
"I report my findings to my superiors, and then they direct me from there. We have stations set up in nearly every solar system"
"Sounds pretty simple, I guess"
"Yes, that is what I am assigned to do"
"Does anything ever come up? Other than distress signals?"
"Well, I am technically enlisted in the military, if there were an emergency I could be called to duty, but that is such a rare thing"
"I know what you mean, they say on earth that only one out of every one hundred marines will see combat situations during their tour of duty, even less would engage in what we would think of as an actual battle"
"So, I guess you are one of the few?"
Richard thought a moment, "Yeah, I guess I would be...though it is far from what I expected, hell I was only conscious for not even ten minutes of it"
"You are lucky to be alive"
"Yeah" His head lowered as he thought back to his friends, only one of the men in that small group did he consider a friend. He had been paired up with him for two years, all ending in a quick burst of violence, "I guess I never officially thanked you for coming to my aid, thank you" He said with a nod.
She smiled, "It's my job" She eyed him a moment, "Did you lose many friends?"
Richard sighed, "One. But..I'm not sure how I feel"
"Sad I imagine?"
"I guess so" He nodded, "I guess it really hasn't hit me yet. So how long have you been doing this?"
"Uh, well today was my first day going out on my own, I was just recently promoted to a fully fledged Guard"
"Interesting"
"I started training when I was sixteen, I am twenty three now, erm in Earth years that is. By my peoples year cycles I have only lived through fourteen"
"Huh, so you guys run off a completely different system than us?"
"Everyone does, many races have simply combined their years or at least pay attention to their allegiances set of days and years"
"For good reason, I mean setting up meetings would be rather difficult if no one knew what date anyone was talking about"
She nodded, "Yes, so we too follow both, it is important to our culture to remember the old cycles"
"Right. I guess we humans are still pretty ignorant, after all not so long ago in our history our people were still debating even the possibility for the existence of life outside of our own world"
"A lot has changed then?"
"For me? Hardly, I have only ever known this world, but my grandfather and grandmother had grown up in both ages...My Grandfather had died in the war, some helicopter pilot. My grandmother still pins his medal of honor to her shirt every morning"
"So strange, to me the pre-universal period is such ancient history. That is what I found particularly fascinating about the humans and earth, especially for being so...well...small, if you don't mind me saying?"
"No offense taken, I guess it's pretty true. I don't think I've met an alien who didn't tower over me"
"You have met many?"
"No, I have only had contact with the more um, hairy ones"
She grimaced a little, "Yes, we had much conflict with them, my race had discovered space travel a few hundred years prior to their race, however they were just starting to explore their local galaxies around the time we truly began to expand"
"Have you seen combat?"
She shook her head, "No, something that my mother is very grateful for...she never really wanted me to get into this in the first place. I assured her that I mainly just do rescues and humanitarian efforts. What about you? Do you have family worrying for you back at home?"
Richard shrugged, "I guess so, I have a mother and two brothers. Though I guess communication has sort of slowed" He sighed, "Families after the war were often small and spread apart...I guess we lost some of our family values along the way"
She frowned, "That's unfortunate, I am sure they will be glad to hear you are alive"
"When ever they get to hear from me that is, I guess we could give them a call someday. Your transmissions are so much stronger than our own"
She nodded, "Over a hundred or so years we have gotten pretty good in those respects. Technology slowly trickles to everyone in this universe though" She laughed, "However there are a few races who can't quite, um, handle it...I know thats not correct to say but..."
"You mean you know of other races that have not yet grasped space travel?"
She nodded, "Though some remain on their planets by choice, though others even when given the technology don't really uh, do anything with it" She shook her head, "Sometimes they manage to hit the right button on the distress signals and we respond" She eyed him again, "We actually assumed humans would be among these races when we first heard about you. You see, you share some similarities in regards to your um..."
"Size?"
"Yes" She laughed nervously, "I hope I am not being rude"
"Not at all, so we aren't the smallest things around?"
"Well...I haven't met anyone smaller, but generally they tend to be around this high" She held her hand out over the table, a few feet over his head.
"Damn" He laughed.
"But don't worry, you have more than made up for your size in other aspects, for instance your race holds the record in technological advancement in terms of speed. In a matter of two hundred years or so you have gone from primitive animal transportation and crude engines to space travel"
"Hell yeah!" Richard said raising his arms with a grin, they shared a laugh. There was a small moment of silence, "So...were a team now huh?"
She nodded, "That is the plan, you are officially on the Nova Guard payment roll"
"We should make a name for ourselves"
She smiled, "That would be fun, it is so rare for a Nova Guard to work within a team we could stand out"
"Any ideas?"
She thought for a moment, "Um, how about...Kikata and her little helper" Her grin broadened.
"Yeah, for some reason I don't think that will stick" He tapped his chin, "Man this is hard, um" He rubbed his neck.
"Nova-...hrm...The Guards of...no..." She drummed her fingers across the table.
"Nova Squad?" He offered with a shrug.
"Seems kind of generic"
"Yeah" He laughed.
"Ooohh how about" She held her hands out as if reading from a sigh, "Starship Troopers"
"No...That is too familiar for some reason" He said shaking his head.
"How about Nova Force?"
"Hmm...I like it. It's like Nova Squad, but with a little more power" He grinned.
"So Nova Force it is?"
He nodded, "Cool...so what do we do?"
She sighed, "Wait for another signal I guess"
Richard sat down, he had gotten himself so worked up...he forgot how boring life as a soldier tends to be these days. He wondered if anything at all would happen during these months...
Giantess World
Nova Force by Ginbug