Beep Beep BeepThe long silence was broken in Calto's empty home. He had been laying there for a while now, awake, and with a racing heart. He was both excited and nervous. He had sold the home earlier that week, and almost all his possessions as well. He would be handing off the keys this morning a 1'00 Heliphlein standard time in one hour. The man he had sold the place to would be keeping the furniture inside, but everything else had been packed into Calto's small suitcase long before in the night. He threw on his new official uniform, a simple thing, and left the building, never to return.
One hour later, an Enrakni awoke from the bench he lay on. He looked around the station waiting area, and was glad that the day had finally come when people would stop taking his picture: at least for a while he hoped. As he pulled himself up, he picked up a newspaper that lay next to him, a headline attracting his eye.
Enrakni Immune to AMI Arrested was what it read. "Typical," he said to himself, but even though he supported being able to catch criminal Enrakni, he was glad that his kind could get around it if they needed to.
The Enrakni got up from the bench, and walked down the road to the shop that sold breakfast, and ordered. It was going to be his last day on the planet, so he decided to treat himself. Dinemu eggs, slices of Pilguan, and a Untin roll. "Scrumptious meal, Laniq," the man behind the counter. "You shure you want to spend this much?"
Laniq smiled at him and said, "My money's not going to be much good for a few years."
"Haha! Way to look on the bright side, Laniq!" the man said with a laugh.
Laniq paid for the food, then went down to a nearby table on the street and began to eat it, keeping his small duffel bag close, and his Cleptisist even closer.
An hour after that, Olix, a round faced Heliphlein who like the other two I've mentioned was filled with antcipation. He ordered a quick bite to eat on the way to the station, something he found relatively simple to him that cost twice that of Laniq's, and made his merry way to the station, honking up the fame of the next step of his life. He, like the others, was part of the crew in the New Gia mission, and he was loving every minute of it.
It was now 3'00 HST, and the crew of the Stalblrfugl was in the waiting area saying a last goodbye to friends and family. Calto was an exception. He had lost touch with any of his real friends after his wife died, and his family had disowned him. His own mother had told him he wasn't her son when he tried to reconcile. It was sad but he had gotten over it. He couldn't think about it. Thinking of it could lead to agony, and the thoughts he thought in agony could lead to torment, and he was not going to have a torment spike today. He tried focusing, and then saw an Enrakni, like him, just standing against the wall waiting. "No family?" he asked.
The Enrakni jumped, started by Calto's attempt to strike up a conversation. Enrakni experience a lot of racism from even the least biased people in the Heliphlien Empire. It wasn't that a Heliphlein that wasn't racist was rare, or maybe even uncommon, but that it wasn't expected by most Enrakni. Laniq especially: he had lot's of experience with the racism. Once Laniq had regained himself, he answered Calto with a, "You could say that."
Calto sighed. "Same here."
"I wish we could just get this show on the road," Laniq snapped.
Calto paused for a second, and said to himself with a little disappointment, "Yeah."
A few minutes passed, and the captain of the Stalblrfugl, Yealina Ivilantar walked to the doors of the ship, and called out, "Alright, I want everyone on the ship within fifteen minutes! We leave in an hour, but we can't start to take off until everyone's on board, and I don't want to start this voyage off with being late." With that, she walked into the ship, followed by Laniq, Calto, and a few others. Thirty minutes later she would send someone out to drag Olix in by his ears, quite literally. Olix left reluctantly, and went to the room he would be bunking in with five other guys: Calto Rubian, Relv Opage, Fant Fanning, Palt Uls, and Gayl Wein. All of them were Heliphlein.
"Evening, gents," he greeted.
"It's only 3'37," Palt said sounding a bit confused.
"Yes, I know that," Olix said.
"Then why'd you say it-"
"Nevermind! Which bunk is mine?" Olix asked.
"The squeeky one next to Calto," Relv answered.
"Oh come on, why do I have to get the sqeeky one?" Olix asked.
"Want to ask the captain? Calto said with a joky ring to his voice.
The whole room laughed a bit except for Palt who sat there with a confused look on his face and Olix who said, "It's not funny." He walked over to his bottom bunk, and sat down on it with his giant suitcase. he looked to Calso and asked quietly, "Can I trade with you?"
Before Calto could give an answer, the intercom protected the voice of the captain saying, "All crew members meet in the rec hall for announcements on policy, our current status, and other things that may or may not pertain to you. Again, All crew members meet in the rec hall for announcements on policy, our current status, and other things that may or may not pertain to you."
Calto turned to Olix with a bit of a smile and said, "Nope." With that, all of the guys except Relv and Olix made they're way out the door. Olix started to move to Calto's bunk, but Relv stopped him by saying, "I wouldn't do that if I were you: Calto's a torment victim. You don't want to make him mad." With that, Relv left the room for the rec area and Olix scooted back to his squeaky bunk.
"Alright," the captain began with. "My rules here are simple: don't do anything you wouldn't do at home, respect and obey authority, and respect everyone else. Keep things in there designed places, no sleeping outside of you're bedrooms. simple things like that. If you're late for anything, then you can count yourself out of it. That goes for mealtimes as well." The captain lay down many things of what she would and wouldn't allow on her ship, and everyone listened. The captain was someone who most people were instantly scared of.
"Currently we are awaiting liftoff," she continued. Depending on how things go, we could be going in thirty minutes if we're lucky. If not, we could be going in three hours. For the sake of fuel we will not be turning the artificial gravity until we get into space. for this reason I want each and every one of you strapped into the safety seating in the waiting hall. You will be there in fifteen minutes, or we'll be cleaning your guts off the floor when we reach space. Is that understood?"
There was a loud, 'Yes ma'am,' from the audience, but it was tainted by a dozen or so people having said, 'Yes sir,' and corrected themselves halfway through.
"Again, is that understood!" she snapped.
"Yes ma'am!" the crowd said.
"Good. You have fifteen minutes to secure any loose items in you're rooms and get to the waiting hall. Be there," she said. With that, everyone went off to they're rooms to secure their luggage.
Fifteen minutes later Calto was buckled in tight for takeoff with people the same all around him in this tiny room that shouldn't fit so many people. A girl next to him was practically jumping up and down in her seat belts.
This room's going to get really hot, Calto thought to himself. He looked across the room and saw may people he'd recognized, but on in particular caught his eye. It was the Enrakni. He was just looking into his knee with a sort of frustrated expression.
I wonder why he's so mad, he thought.
Suddenly the pilot's voice came on over the intercom giving instructions to the crew. Hold still, stay buckled, the stuff you'd expect. within five minutes the ship was finally ready to take off. The crew would suddenly feel themselves being forced back into their seats harder then they had ever been pushed by anything before. Calto had been right too. The room was very hot, but at this point no one noticed. They were all focused on the sudden up in gravity they were all feeling.
Then after six minutes the ship seemed to slow down. In reality it was going the same speed, but since they were in space it felt like they had stopped moving. The plunge into space that everyone had anticipated was nothing special: just intense pressure and heat with the rest of the crew. What probably will be seen as a monumental occasion to everyone on the moons seemed to be very un-profound to Calto, and a few other crew members. Others didn't care, or just were excited just to be in space.
"Hello everybody," the intercoms announced. "Thank you for following instruction and making this one step of the journey that much easier. We are currently in space heading for the outer area of our universe. Is there anything behind it? We'll be finding out in eighty-four minutes Is it a wall? Is it the beginning of nothing? That question is about to be answered people."
Laniq unbuckled himself and propelled himself across the room. People around him were enjoying the temporary zero gravity, but not him. He just wanted to get to his quarters. He didn't care about any of the other things going on. He was on a mission; a mission that no one, not even the captain, knew of. He was on a mission, and it was personal.
Unlike many of the crewmembers, Calto didn?t instantly have to start working. He was a part of the janitorial staff, and there had been no real messes yet. He wasn't having free time though: the head janitor was taking his staff on a tour of the ship. They were on the bridge when the Pilot announced that they were nearing the Aserical Shadow, and that everyone should hang tight. Calto walked forward and looked out the window at what appeared to be a big black wall, covered in a black misty haze.
"Is that it," Calto asked.
"Eep, yat's eet," the copilot said in an accent that was hard to understand. He was an Iapaq: a tall, biped alien with a hunchback and something like an ammonite for a head.
"Captain?" the pilot beckoned.
"Yes Officer Jemry?" she said coming over.
"We have a problem," the pilot said. "The shadow is scrambling my instruments. I'm flying completely blind save the window." He then showed her his instruments, all going staticy and jumpy.
The captain looked over the instruments, very serious faced. She then looked out the window, and realized something else. Something that could quickly become catastrophic. ?We?re speeding up," she said.
The pilot looked around and saw that, yes, they were speeding up. He sat for a second and tried to make sense of it. The shadow wasn't pulling them in, was it?
No it wasn't. Jemry sighed frustratedly as he realized what was going on. "I was accelerating slightly when the interference started happening. The ship thinks I'm still telling it to accelerate," he said.
"Is that bad," Olix, who was the chief science officer on the bridge, asked.
"Only if the shadow is really a big wall like some guys have said in the past," the pilot said. "Or if there's anything hard in it to crash into like asteroids."
"Are there any ways you could slow it down?" the captain asked.
?Not without the controls working,? he answered.
"Can we send a probe in to see if it's solid?" Olix asked.
"Ee ould ave do ave de condrol modjual do do dot," The copilot said. "Ahnd beesides, dere is no dime."
Olix gave the Iapaq a blank stare, and the captain offered another suggestion. "What if we had an engineer try to slow us down from the engine room?"
"That might work," Jemry said. "But like he said, there's not much time."
"Well how much time do we have?" the captain asked.
The pilot looked for a second then said, "At least two minutes."
The captain walked over to the intercom and announced, "All crewmembers brace for possible impact: we reach the Aserical shadow in T-minus two minutes. The ship's controls aren?t responding and we are accelerating. I repeat, all crewmembers brace for possible impact: we reach the Aserical shadow in T-minus two minutes. The ship?s controls aren't responding and we are accelerating."
"A minute and a half now," Olix said.
"Not helping," the head of the janitorial staff said.
The captain punched another code into the intercom and brought up the engine room. "Palksin, come in Palksin," she said.
"This is Palksin, captain," Palksin said. "What is it?"
"I need you to unlock the engine?s acceleration,? she said. ?Make it stop accelerating."
"All do respect captain, but I don't think I can do that in under two minutes," Palksin said.
"One minute," Olix said.
"That's not what I'm asking you for, Palksin, I'm asking you to try," the captain commanded.
"Y-yes ma'am," Palksin said just before running to the engine.
The captain then went to the janitorial staff and said, "What are you doing?! I said brace yourselves. Get out of here."
The janitors then ran out of the room, but partway through Calto realized he had dropped something. Something important, well at least it was to him. He rushed back into the room and began looking for it.
The captain saw him quickly and ordered, "Sir, I told the janitorial staff to leave."
"I know, I know," he said. "But I forgot something, something important. Just give me a sec to find it."
Captain Ivilantar would have confirmed the order and sent him out again, but time was short and Palksin jumped back onto the intercom. "Captain, I've got bad news. None of my instruments are working either. I can't tell what's going on in there, but it seems it could be engine failure."
The captain was taken back by this. The mission could suddenly be ending, and it had only just began.
"Thirty seconds," Olix said.
The captain sat there for a second, then said, "Alright then. Into the shadow we go." She sat down in her chair, then said, "Full speed ahead."
Calto perked up at this, looking into the shadow as they zoomed toward it. They had hit the point of no return. This seemed like the end, but it could easily be the beginning. All he could do was hope for the best. Calto stared into the face of death, nervous, but hopeful, as everything vanished into blackness around him.
This story continues in
Departure, Part II- Heart of Glasshttp://shatteredplanes.com/forum/index.php?topic=4608.new#new
