Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2021 08:26:38 +0100
From: Andrew Passey <andypassey69@gmail.com>
Subject: Andromeda Three Part One (Young Friends) (Science Fiction)

I'm still working on finishing the Mekong Delta sequel of sorts but took
some time off on holiday to write a new story. It started as a pretty
vivid dream I had and I've developed it from there. I know some readers
prefer my more true life/realistic stories so be warned this is
futuristic with sci fi elements so it might not be for you if that's not
your thing.

Please consider donating to Nifty at the link below:

http:/donate.nifty.org/donate.html

The other boys called me Starboy. It was a stupid name but then again I
never knew what my real name was. If I even had one. I suppose I must
have had a real name but when you can't remember your past then so much
is unknown. I knew how I'd got to this hellhole but not much else.  I'd
been abandoned on a transport ship between a space station orbiting one
of the outer colonies at the far end of the solar system and Earth. I
wasn't the first child that happened to nor would I be the last. Life
was tough off planet and the horrible moment when parents realised they
couldn't feed their children or indeed themselves often led to an
abandoned child turning up once all the passengers had disembarked.

How I'd got onboard and whether my parents were with me or not I
couldn't remember. In fact I couldn't remember anything before I was
picked up by the border guards making sure everyone was off the ship. It
was like my memory had been wiped which as it turned out was almost
certainly true. Memory wiping in that situation wasn't the most
complicated thing to do, young minds are pliable and overloading them
could cause a shutdown and reboot like a computer. The tech was easy to
get and fairly easy to use.

It tended not to work on adults but on the young mind? Well that was very
handy in a lot of situations. Criminals using children for their
nefarious ends, no loose ends left behind with a simple brain zap and
memory wipe. So it seemed that was what had happened to me. Why they did
it though is something that I ask myself a lot. Is that what my parents
wanted? Was it to protect me or protect them? Or was it just that I was
an inconvenience and wiping my memories meant I wouldn't come looking
for them.

I guess it's possible they weren't even on the ship. Maybe they'd paid
someone to escort me to Earth? Maybe they were on this planet like I was,
watching me from afar. I really doubted that although a boy could dream.
No, the most likely outcome is that they left me here without a moment's
thought. Wiping my memories as they wiped me from their lives.

My life here on Earth was shit but I suppose it was better than being
sold into slavery in the outer colonies. Of course that was officially
banned but all the rumours said that they were fairly lawless at times.
I'd read about the odd expose of child prostitution and child on the
colonies. There would be hand wringing by politicians and then everyone
would forget about it until the next time it reared its head. So I guess
I should be grateful I wasn't being mistreated like that although at
times it felt like a Pyrrhic victory.

The advertising for the outer colonies reeked of bullshit. "Golden age
of adventure" "Fresh start for entrepreneurial spirits". Ha, don't
make me laugh.  "Lawless slum where our life can be snuffed out in a
second" would be more accurate according to people who'd returned from
there. Bad news spreads even into the most hard to reach places and I was
living in one of the most hard to reach. If I'd heard of it then surely
everyone else had. However it didn't seem to matter though, there was a
ready supply of fresh meat heading off to the outer colonies to be ground
down. It attracted the ambitious, people wanting a second chance and of
course those running from whatever shit they'd left behind them.

Had I lived there? Had my parents? Or was it just a coincidence that I
was on that shuttle? I wish I'd known but wishes don't do anything
apart from gnaw away at your soul in the middle of the night, when you
ask yourself those difficult questions that you know you'll never know
the answer to.

Ultimately I didn't know anything about my life before I turned up on
Earth, barely eleven years old according to the date of birth written on
the piece of paper shoved in my pocket. No name, no birthplace, nothing
else, just a date of birth.  Why did they even bother leaving me that? It
was all I'd got in the world apart from the clothes I was wearing.  The
only thing I managed to convince myself was that whatever life my parents
expected me to have on Earth, well I'm really sure it wasn't this.

At the same time as society was prosperous enough to explore space, build
on other planets and provide every luxury you could think of (provided
you had the money of course), it was scornful of those at the bottom.
Those impoverished boys like me. Once I was picked up and they realised I
was abandoned with no resources or family here they washed their hands of
me. I was packed off to live in a large residential home with other boys
in my situation. Actually I shouldn't use the word "home". That has
positive connotations. This was more like an experiment. What happens if
they have fuck all money to spend on the boys who live there and the
adults who run it give literally no shits and turn a blind eye to
everything. We were the forgotten. Society ignored us. The staff ignored
us when they bothered to turn up. They delegated their responsibilities
to the older kids and let anarchy reign. You did what you had to do to
survive and you lived with the consequences.

The name Starboy stuck straight away. I'm not sure who used it first but
once it was out there that was it. Over time other boys would say it was
 for a number of reasons. I was well known to love space and everything
about it. I'd spend hours just looking up to the stars and dreaming of
visiting them.  That was one reason. Another was that my shuttle had come
from space so I guess I understood that one. The other reason was that I
had a strange birthmark on my bum in the shape of a star which caused
great amusement the first time I was in the communal showers that first
evening in the home.

"Starboy! The name was definitely right! You've got a star on your
arse!" one boy said much to my embarrassment. I didn't even realise I
did. Mirrors were in short supply and it wasn't like I could see behind
me. But later on, when I positioned myself near a sink with a mirror on I
could see what the boy meant.

After the Starboy comment, an older boy with a big dick came over to me
in the shower, slapping my arse and then peeling my bum cheeks apart.
"He's also got a brown star that wants filling!" He said which
confused me. What the fuck was he talking about? Did he mean a brown
dwarf star? Regrettably I would find out what he meant in due course but
for now I was innocent and naive. That would change quickly but even when
it did I was often still lost in a world of stars. I dreamed of going out
into space. Not just to the outer colonies but further afield. To be a
pioneer. To discover strange new worlds. To be out of this hellhole of a
life I'd found myself in for the last couple of years. And I knew the
ship I wanted to go on. My ticket out of here! Well that was the dream
anyway.

That ship was Andromeda Three. Andromeda One had left before I'd arrived
on Earth and Andromeda Two had left a few days afterwards. They were huge
colony ships unlike any built before. Experimental technology meant they
could travel vast distances with the aim of going to other galaxies. They
would colonise and the human race could marvel at its own magnificence at
having colonies in multiple galaxies. That was the marketing spiel
anyway, the justification for the almost bottomless pit of trillions of
dollars being spent on it. It didn't quite add up to me. The idea that
these new colonies would send resources back to our solar system. How
would they do that? And why would they? Life would be tough and just
surviving might be enough. I suspected it was just political, pandering
to the ego of humanity. A grand obscenely expensive project that inflated
egos and made us feel good about ourselves. How amazing we were to be
able to colonise a new galaxy! It stunk of bullshit but the people seemed
to lap it up.

Andromeda Three was the next ship to make the long journey into the
unknown and I wanted to be on it. Of course I knew this was the biggest
of pipe dreams but it also felt so close. We lived within a few miles of
the shuttle bay where they would be taking up passengers to the ship for
their voyage into the unknown. All I needed to do was get on that shuttle
and then once on board, well the first stop was a different galaxy. If I
failed, I knew that Andromeda Four was apparently only a few months away
from completion. However there weren't infinite resources even if the
mining in the outer colonies was resource rich. We couldn't keep sending
ships out to who knows where. After all they were there to form new lives
for the benefit of all of us, there was probably a limit to how many
could be built. It's probably that if I didn't get on either of these
two next ships I'd be stuck here in hell forever.

It all seemed so incongruous. Up above me was the largest ship ever
built, waiting at the orbital space station to head off into the unknown.
So much expense, so much resource, human and material had gone into it.
Yet in my shitty children's home there wasn't even the money to have
heating a lot of the time. We'd shiver through the cold winters wearing
what little clothes we had. There was no formal education for us, no
lessons to attend. Luckily our rooms were equipped with data tablets
(fixed to the wall with metal chains so they couldn't be stolen and
sold). This opened up a world of knowledge to me and I read everything I
could on the universe and space and the ships they were building. There
was no censorship I could tell of so it allowed me to educate myself on
all manner of topics. Some of them I'd learn first hand in the home but
others I only knew about due to the world of opportunity the tablet
offered me.

I'd shut myself away in my threadbare room with the rattly window and
mildew stained wall and just study study study. I wanted to know
everything there was to know so that when I finally got out of here I
could make sure I never ended up here again and could hopefully find
myself a better life.

It's funny in a sick sort of way. For so long I wanted to remember where
I'd come from. I wanted those memories that had been taken from me back.
I wanted to remember everything I'd forgotten. But in my two years in
this hellhole of a children's home what I really really wanted was to
forget all the shit that had happened to me and all the things

One day soon though I'd be out of here. I'd be on that ship heading out
into the stars. All that shit stuff would be behind me. All those tough
lessons I'd never wanted to learn but I had, well they would be
forgotten. That was the dream. That was my big hope. And sometimes dreams
and hopes are all you have to hang onto.