Youthful Rebellion

[Hanna-Beth Rieve 0]

Four years ago, in an otherwise nondescript farmhouse on Theta Proxima colony...

 

Tensions were high in the Rieve household, at a level not experienced since eldest brother Bobby's wedding. They had just celebrated Hanna-Beth's eighteenth birthday; they had expected to be celebrating her acceptance to university, and possibly her engagement, when they learned the news. Now, the momentary shock was over, and the bewildered parents were forced to come to terms with their newly "adult" daughter's decision. With most of the lights out and the house quiet, her parents conversed in the living room.

 

"Why didn't she tell us? She could have told us!" Samantha was still in the form of dazed panic that led her to speak in short, uncertain sentences.

 

"She was trying to avoid /this/, Sam," Al said, his voice composed, but his insides as jumpy as Sam's.

 

"We would have had more time to prepare. We could have talked her out of it..."

 

Al let her continue letting off steam at him, as he flipped through the headlines of "The Pioneer Journal."

 

"... and what do we tell George and Jane? And how could she just leave Elroy like that?"

 

Al thought for a moment. "Remember your parents' reactions when you joined the Scouts? You turned out all right." He faked a smile.

 

"That was different. We went camping. We went hunting, cooked, and ate wild game in the mountains. We didn't tear ourselves apart, get reassembled, drop in on far away worlds and get shot at!" Samantha gave her husband a look of consternation that she was sure he would know how to interpret after their thirty-five years of marriage.

 

His wife had a point.

 

"How can you be so calm? Our daughter is throwing her life away!", Samantha simultaneously asked and preached.

 

Al looked away from his newspad for a moment and looked straight at his worried wife. "Don't worry, the first week isn't known as 'hell week' for nothing. Let her have her adventure. When reality hits her, she'll be back at our front door." The thought nagged him -- what if he were wrong?

 

Hanna-Beth knew the trauma she was causing her family and friends. She did not want to hurt her parents. She did not want to cause her siblings angst. And, she had nothing against Elroy Jonset. But, she also knew that she couldn't stay where she was. The place was too stifling. Her destiny was too set in stone. She looked at her opened bags for moment, and ran through a checklist in her head. As much as her departure was an act of rebellion, she did not want to find herself hundreds of light years away without a toothbrush. She pulled a small plush bear out of the bag, and stared at it for a few moments as if in deep thought, then she set it aside. She closed the luggage and pressed the button that engaged the magnetic seal. She then turned out the lights and went to bed for the final time in her girlhood home.