"You really think I'm ready? I don't even have arm-" I was cut off by her lifting me up, all I was wearing were some pajama pants.
"Forget about the armor already, this is a simple search and rescue. Someone lost their kid in the woods, get dressed." She walked out into the suite living room and plopped down on a the couch. She then began sipping coffee from a cup shaped like a human skull. How long had she been in the suite?
As I got dressed I opened my cabinet to find new clothes. An armored vest, gauntlets, and two pistols with matching holsters. They all fit perfectly; I strapped the holsters to each thigh and secured the pistols. Once I put on the vest covered in gun metal grey plates, a note fell out from somewhere on me. I picked it up from the floor and read.
For all those pesky bullets - Kurt
I couldn't help but read it in his Slavic accent. I miss Kurt, playing chess with him on my back porch, watching Battle Cruisers and Arena Bomb on the Holo-screen. Saying goodbye to him wasn't easy either. "I hope you find yourself out there." was what he said to me. I will never forget that. I have to remember to write him soon, If only to see what he is up to.
I opened my door to a duffel bag flying at my face. I wrapped my arms around it as the weight almost took me off my feet. I was starting to feel that objects flying towards me was going to become very common.
I opened my mouth to say something but Veil began to walk towards the door.
"Hanger bay 4. Dock 2. Look for Antonio," she said before walking though the archway that led to the elevators. I assumed she had something to do before we left. I looked through the duffel bag. Ammo for the pistols, 3 cylindrical bottles full of mineral water. At least that what it said on the bottles. I had never had the stuff before, and the bottles were the same black and grey colors as my armor. I was sure Id find out how it tasted eventually. The bottles had holsters with belt straps as well. There was also some software for my wrist computer. Combat logistics Installing was written on the screen when I put in the 1" x 1" chip. I guess this was my manual. There were some meals ready to eat and fire starting equipment. I packed it all up and headed for the hanger. I went through several six food wide corridors for several minutes. I got a few" good luck" nods and smiles from other people on the station that noticed my shiny new armor. Undamaged armor was a clear sign of being new. The fact that I was wearing it told them I was heading towards my first mission, or at least that It was still very early in my career.
As I walked I saw Dionna standing near an archway heading down another hallway. She waved me over.
"Sorry, Veil can be kind of vague sometimes. The frigate is this way." She started walking. I followed her.
""Frigate?"
"Yeah," she sighed. "We are going out of system for this one. Like most of our contracts, we got this one from the local militia on a colony world. Let me guess, never been in hyperspace before?"
I gulped.
"Don't worry, it is worse than breaking atmo, but its a ton quicker. "
We took a right through a door that slid up into the ceiling and walked out into the hanger on a platform suspended into the air that was covered with a glass arched ceiling. Rather than filling the entire hanger with air, this platform was all they needed for life support. The hanger was massive, my eyes struggled to see the ships in the far distance. If I remember correctly this was one of the six hangers that faced the outside of the station in the middle, making the midsection of Cathedral look like a giant hexagon building block when the hanger doors were closed.
The Frigate was the same sandy color as the station. Grey and brown stripes covered its hull, one stripe around its middle was white leading to a symbol of a downward facing sword with angelic wings growing from the hilt. IMG was written above the sword. The guild seemed to have an obsession with the old world. The ship was designed just as you would figure. It had an angled wedge for a front and the back was sloped. The comm array formed what looked like a mast, and the bridge was on the top. Had I seen it on the water it would look like just another nautical vessel. Were these amphibious to land on water worlds? If they were sealed for space flight, they were sealed for water as well.
"Ah a new face." This man had a Latin accent. He held out his hand.
I shook it. "Matthias."
"Captain Antonio Cappello. Right this way." He gestured towards the door and entered the frigate.
I stepped inside the airlock and we were sprayed by a mist of chemicals before the air was recycled and replaced with an ear pounding hissing. I cringed at the sound.
"You'll get used to that too, rook." The day was a day of firsts for sure. We walked down a thin corridor took a few corners and Antonio left us in the aft passenger cabin. "Strap in, we are crossing a few tidal rifts this trip," he said before heading to the bridge. I had read about the areas of hyperspace that had dark matter clouds with bolts of dark energy shooting through them. These bolts would create rifts in hyperspace, causing massive turbulence on the ship. Most routes would navigate around these clouds but some were far too vast. Ships would go missing in these tempests.
The aft passenger cabin had eight seats with straps. I sat down between Veil and Issac, Amye and Dionna sat across from us. Veil triggered a switch on the wall and a window slid open. The curvature of the earth came into view above their heads. Though my body told me it was morning, the sun was setting behind the earth. The frigate turned and I could see what was left of the light from the sun carving Cathedral station out of the darkness. It was a beautiful sight.
"Where are we going exactly?"
Amye spoke up. "The Altair System, its a cozy little world a lot like earth." She wasnt wearing her mask, unlike Veil. Amye had very mediterranean features. Amber brown skin, a jaw line carved out of stone and rose red eyes you could lose yourself in. If she didn't know over a hundred ways to kill a man, I might have been attracted to her.
"Yeah. If the earth had mile high rock faces jutting out of its crust in the middle of expansive plains," Dionna added.
"Its early development was, how you say, destructive?" she had a slight Latin accent. Amye tied her shoulder length black hair into a bun. "But its fine now, what isn't ocean is mostly forests." She then put her mask and goggles on.
I could feel the frigate rumble around me.
"Hyperspace acceleration in 10 seconds." It was Antonio's voice over the comm. The sound came from a speaker box on the wall. I instinctively looked at the box as it spoke the words. Its corners seemed to stretch and blur, the circular middle mesh looked as if it was being pulled in on itself. Was this hyperspace? "5 seconds. Portal forming. Four, Three, Two, One." An electric wave went by the window, one side of the wave dimming the curvature of the earth, the other side a black and silver mass of clouds and dust. As the wave enveloped the ship There was an intense tug at my center of mass, my insides felt as though they were turned upside down. The hull of the ship shuddered as it accelerated forward into Hyperspace.
"Nearing the tempest region. All view ports closing and sealing all decks." Just before the window closed I caught a glimpse of a million different portals opening and closing amongst the violet clouds, some of them spouting radiation and fire, others with ice forming out of thin air. Hyperspace portals being created just as fast as they were destroyed. This must be how the drive worked, taping into these openings and keeping them open long enough to get to the exact places they needed to be. The portals I saw seemed completely random. The space between the portals was a separate plane of space, one of the 11 dimensions of our universe known as hyperspace. I never thought I would have gotten the chance to see something like this. I wanted to puke, but that didn't diminish the amazing sight.
"Entering The Tempest Region," A loud screeching could be heard just out of earshot, like small creatures were trying to get inside the ship. A loud thud and then a rumble, the ship shook violently. I wish I could shake the hand of the man who invented safety straps. A cloud crack echoed though the hull and then a low rumble with light vibration.
"Exiting Tempest." Antonio sounded relieved.
"That wasn't so bad," I said.
"You don't even know what just happened, do you?" Veil responded.
Dionna scowled "To quote some of the first explorers, 'We roll the dice, cast fate to the wind, if we emerge safe we will praise the day we came out of the swallowing black'," she sighed.
"The tempest is full of random quantum fluctuations. A lot of ships don't make it through."
"1 in every 5 get swallowed." Issac added.
"Exiting hyperspace, prepare for deceleration." Everyone grabbed the hand holds on the seats next to our thighs.
The wave rolled across the hull again but this time in the opposite direction. My insides returned to their normal state, violently. It was a good thing I didn't eat anything before we left. The windows opened to the blinding light of two suns, I struggled to see anything and my retina burned purple dots filled my vision. A pair of sunglasses landed in my lap. Now I understood why they all were wearing them at all times. I put them on and my eyesight adjusted. I could now see planet Altair, its silvery land and blue green oceans. Everyone began unbuckling their safety belts.
"We gotta take a shuttle down to the planet, no landing pads for frigates." I nodded at Dionna's statement.
My eyes are getting tired. I have tomorrow to finish this post so I think I will hold off on the rest. I will continue this in the morning.
LOG END EARTHDATE 2219 January 1st
