Colony Wars 1: War Never Ends

Chapter Fourteen - Into the Unknown

16th June 2076 – 2nd Galactic Step

Viktor's Hope Shipyard

High Earth Orbit

Solar System

Lara gazed out of the shipyards window at her future home. The Explorer class spaceship, which Viktor had named the Armstrong, after the first man who had stepped on the moon, glistened in the yellow sunlight.

The ship had only been partially completed on the day when Xu Sing had invaded New Dawn City, most of its internal sections and many of its upper decks were at the time nothing more than steel girders and wiring. Viktor had said that it had been incredibly risky taking the ship into the atmosphere, where so many things could have gone seriously wrong, but it had been a necessary jeopardy, to save the city. He had also said that the Armstrong must be the luckiest vessel ever, because it came back to the shipyard in the same condition that it left it in.

Now however, the ship was fully completed, its shiny grey surface gleamed brightly, while the blue and red running lights pulsed beautifully. Lara thought that the ship looked very elegant, and she was very excited to be leaving on it very soon with her brother Toby, Viktor, and Adriana. Then she remembered that not all her guardians were coming with her, Lance had said that his place was with the President and the remaining survivors just in case there was any more trouble.

Toby had cried and sobbed the whole time, while they had said their farewells yesterday morning and Lara had also shed a few tears too. Lance had told them to be brave and that he believed in them to be the future of humanity, whatever that meant. Then he had given them both a gift, he had given Toby a toy light gun and told him to use it to practice his aim, while Lara had received a small electronic notepad, which Lance said was filled with stories and texts. The two children had never really been given presents before, so they did not know what to say or do. Lance had then embraced them both and hurried them into the shuttlecraft that was taking the last few passengers up to the shipyard that had been named Viktor's Hope.

"Are you ready?" said Adriana in a soft caring voice. At some point during the past four weeks, Lara and Toby had been adopted by Adriana and Viktor to form a new family of sorts. "We need to go take our seats now, honey."

"Yes Ana," Lara said and pushed off from the bulkhead to float gracefully over to her surrogate mother. Adriana caught her up in her arms and squeezed gently, before kicking off from the ground to send the two spinning forward into the airlock. Lara heard the hissing sound of the air equalising between the two compartments and soon the doorway into the square boarding tunnel opened and they floated over to the Armstrong.

They went through another airlock and entered the cramped insides of the ship. Lara removed her domed space helmet after she watched Adriana take hers off and the coolness of the air made her shiver. The inside of the spaceship always felt colder than it did in Viktor's Hope, but Lara had been told many times that they were the same temperature, it was just her mind playing tricks on her.

"This way honey, quickly," Adriana said lovingly. "Viktor's got us some seats on the command deck so we can watch the Armstrong leave orbit and say goodbye to our Earth."

Only certain areas were accessible during the ships flight time, the living quarters in one of the two large cargo bays, the engineering section, and the command deck. All of these locations had been constructed sideways so all the control consoles, tables, chairs and even the houses were attached to the walls with the tops pointing towards the front of the ship. This was because as soon as the massive jet-pulse engines were fired at full capacity, the forward motion would create a sort of artificial gravity that would push objects backwards towards the rear of the ship.