Commander Rosa and the Meteor Parade
The Starling was a small patrol ship, but it was the best ship at Space Academy for one particular reason: its panoramic observation deck, which wrapped around the front hull and gave a full view of space in every direction.
Commander Rosa had requested the Starling specifically because of this deck. She was twelve years old and already knew what she loved: the stars, and looking at them.
On the third night of a training patrol, she was running systems checks on the bridge when Cadet Pip called from the observation deck. "Commander. You need to come up here."
Rosa came.
The meteor shower had already started. Long threads of light—silver, gold, sometimes the faint blue of superheated iron—drew slow lines across the black. They came in waves, quiet and unhurried, dozens of them at a time, then trailing off, then another cluster beginning.
"It's the Aquilid shower," said Pip. "It happens every year when the Academy's orbit passes through this debris field. But I've never been on night watch when it happened."
"Neither have I," said Rosa.
They stood at the observation deck in silence. The light changed as the meteors fell—the whole sky dimming slightly between streaks, then blazing again as a new cluster came.
Rosa went and woke her crew. She knocked on each bunk in turn and said: "Observation deck. Bring your blankets."
They came, grumbling and half-asleep. Then they saw it.
Nobody grumbled after that.
They lay on the deck wrapped in their blankets—four cadets and one commander, all twelve years old, watching the sky catch fire and fade and catch fire again. Cadet Pip named the streaks as they came: iron, magnesium, calcium—each mineral burning a slightly different colour.
"How do you know all this?" Cadet Yuna asked.
"My dad taught me," said Pip quietly. "He's a geologist on Mars. We used to watch meteor showers from the observation dome." A pause. "I haven't seen one since I came to the Academy."
Nobody said anything for a while.
The last meteor faded at 0300 hours. Rosa sent everyone back to their bunks.
She was the last to leave. She pressed her palm flat against the cold glass and looked at the steady stars the shower had left behind.
Same stars. Different night.
She'd remember this one.