The Way It Is

planet of death - part 2

I enter the Captain's room from the lounge. The lounge is the ship's central location. Almost all areas of the ship connect directly to it. The ship's layout is clever, efficient, and a decent size for a two-person ship.

We will be landing soon, so I decide to take out the new mini handheld Sica had included in my new gear.

A lot changes in eight years. The handheld is super tiny compared to my old one and needs a better name than handheld.

The new ones can also be placed on your forearm, and as soon as it touches your skin, it wraps itself around your arm.

It is maybe four and a half inches wide and three inches long. Perfect for a pocket if needed. Highly durable, flexible and waterproof. It can also replace a communicator.

Granted, communicators are essential when on a mission, and thus this nifty new handheld will never completely replace them.

The new communicators are small earbuds that onlookers can barely see. Perfect for when you need to be discrete. Armada has a bad habit of using outdated technology, so these are fantastic improvements.

I have heard of implants that do everything your handheld and communicator do together. Yet, we are lucky that Armada splurged to provide its military personnel with Universal Language Translator chips. So I will take what I can get.

The best part about the upgraded gadgets is the voice command option. They are coded to only respond to their holder's voice and or unique DNA signature. The voice commands are a convenient feature when occupied with combat.

"Marshal Zea, we are about to enter the planet's atmosphere. Would you like to be in the cockpit when we land?"

"Uh, ya, why not. Thanks, Syndicate."

Leaving my bag of goodies in my room, I make my way through the lounge to the short hallway leading to the cockpit. Ufrik is already there. To my surprise, he has automatically taken the co-pilot seat.

I had honestly expected more of a pissing match with him. After leaving him in the lounge not long ago, it feels too soon to be in his company again, so I am glad he chose wisely.

"Syndicate, how long until we reach our destination?"

I don't even feel the change from open space to the planet's atmosphere. This ship is incredible! We zip down towards the clouds and are skimming over the planet's surface about twenty-five thousand feet above it.

"Approaching destination in five-point two minutes." The ship flies at a blurring speed, and I once again am grateful for the A.I.

I don't even have to pay attention to the ship's displays. But I look at them anyway.

Most of the ship's life support and internal functions run off of solar power. The entire ship's surface is coated in some sort of solar energy harvesting material. The ship's warp drive engine is the exception, needing dark matter, harvested in deep space, to fuel it.

The tech for our warp engines was a gift from the Krog to all space travellers when the universe was still pretty much in its infancy. But all day-to-day functions can happen anywhere we can collect UV rays. It's brilliant!

With most of the ship's functions being solar-powered, we barely use any fuel. It is amazing. The ship could technically run indefinitely if we weren't travelling through dark space. This is fantastic news, considering we have no idea how long it will take to locate the frozen Human.

We had been given the general location, but it just happens to span over two thousand square metres. With all this technology, you would think Armada could have narrowed it down further. And technically, they can. However, they are afraid that their competition will notice their scans.