Adrastae

Kaylee

Stone walked along the walls of his ship for a bit, stroking their smooth surface. Aeren leaned against the doorway, watching him, and considering where her life was taking her, and whether or not it would be safe to try go jump out now. Stone suddenly stopped following the curve of the wall, and pathed towards the pilot seat. He inspected it, and then sat in and strapped himself into it. There was a gel prism inset into the right arm of the chair. Stone removed the plexiglass cover for it, rolled up his sleeve, and lowered his arm into it. At once, the lights brightened. The dashboard lit up with bright readouts, and a circle slightly inset into the floor in front of Aeren began to glow a deep purple light. She walked towards it, and then a cylinder of glow shot up out of it. A hologram of the ship they were in now sat in the middle. As she stared into it, various objects surrounding the ship dotted into existence in the hologram. And, at last, a slightly translucent sphere appeared at the very edges of the hologram. Stone began to laugh. He pulled his arm up slightly, and the ship shot up. Aeren saw the objects in the holo move downwards. She walked away from the holo, and moved to the copilot seat. "Go ahead Aeren, sit down! We're about to start flying, and I'm gonna need a copilot. I would rather not have to use the automated one." She gave a soft smile, and entered the ornate chair. She opened up the gel container to her left, and inset her left arm into it. Her implant began to hum, and she saw a readout appear in her vision. It showed the ship statistics, options, and controls. Her smile grew wider. Regardless of the scary stuff that has been happening lately, this was fun. Nothing was as exhilarating in this day and age as piloting a starship. Stone moved his arm forward a bit, and they shot out through an iris in the sphere. As they left, the ship maneuvered to look back at where the had just escaped from. It was a small complex of 5 similar spheres, with small cubes attached. Stone realized that these were the waiting rooms he was in. His gaze drifted up to the stars, no longer hidden by the cloudy atmosphere of Adrastae. Beautiful nebulae stretched out before him. They curved and twisted, drifting so slowly it was imperceptible to the human eye. Various stars winked at him among the clouds of dust and gas, as if sharing some small secret. Stone, for the first time in quite a while, felt at home. Even though he had just arrived in this ship, he felt perfectly comfortable in it. He felt Aeren move her hand, tentatively, closer to his. He decided to quickly change the subject, and raised his left arm up to point at a specific point in space. He highlighted it, so that it would show up in her HUD. "We should go here. We can remove the cameras and monitoring software and hardware, and add some things as needed." Aeren nodded. "That seems like a good idea." Stone set that as the destination, and the computer notified the nearest gate to link to the closest gate to the destination. He maneuvered the ship towards the gate, which hung a few hundred GMs away. The two heard a rumble as the engine discharged it's glowing exhaust. A small readout appeared in Aeren's view: "0. energy reaction initiated". It slowly faded from view. Even at the intense speed they were now traveling, it would take about 20 minutes to arrive at the gate. Stone disengaged from his chair. "Watch over everything for me, will you please? I am going to go check out the rest of the ship." Aeren nodded, and made a noncommittal noise. Stone opened the door, and walked out. It closed behind him automatically. He walked down the silent hallway, the only noise his shoes clicking against the polymer-ceramic floors. He walked with his hands clasped behind his back, casting his gaze along the smooth corridor. He entered a door to his right. It led into a clean, furnished bathroom. A camera in the corner of the room watched him. Stone showed it his middle finger. He walked back out, and explored the other rooms. Another bathroom, and four small bedrooms. A staircase led up to an engine maintanence room, another led down into the cargo hold. He decided to take one of the bedrooms for his own. He pulled a note card and a pen out of his various pockets, and scribbled "stones room" on it. He then retrieved some tape, and attached it to the door. He stood back and looked at his handiwork. He sighed, and walked back onto the bridge. Aeren had moved from the copilot chair, and was staring at the holomodel with her implant hooked into one of the ports attached to the base of the machine. He saw lights flicker in her eyes, as the implant fed images into her retina. She noticed him out of the corner of her eye, and she looked up from the floating model. She smiled as he walked over to stand next to her. "What's new here?" he asked. "Not much," she replied. "The ship is still moving. I tried to access the surveillance, but that was no use. We are almost to the gate, though. It's about to show up on the holoview." Stone peered into the purple tinted field. The ship was pointing up now, according to the orientation of the Edwardian hangar bays. The gate slowly came into view. It was very very large compared to the small-seeming ship, and Stone scaled it back into a better angle. Now the gate was not so large, but the ship was about the size of his fingernail. Stone walked up to the small view afforded by the hardened, transparent shield covering the front part of the bridge. He peered through it. The gate hung in space, slowly increasing in size. Stone was always surprised at the massive size of gates. The larger ones, mostly in the central systems, could fit a mid sized moon. He had no idea what could possibly need that much space. He was not sure if he wanted to know. Stone could almost see the individual deconstruction/reconstruction spires that would soon destroy his and the ship's very atoms, compress them into electronic information, and then transmit them to another gate to be reconstructed. Stone shivered. The idea of his very essence being transmitted like an old-fashioned qfax was just.. unsettling. He wasn't quite sure whether he was the only one who felt this way, but it sure seemed like it. None of the other captains he had ever been familiar with mentioned a problem with it. Oh well. It was probably nothing. He ran his fingers through his hair, exasperated. He was so tired. Stone could not remember the last time he had slept. He went over to the captain's chair, and pressed his hand into the gel basin. When the HUD finished updating, he ordered the autopilot to travel automatically to the asteroid designated ZB798271, nicknamed Zaphod. There were billions, perhaps trillions, known asteroids in the Edwardian catalog. This was simply one of many. He then ordered the autopilot to send an alarm to all rooms, to ring for 5 minutes, when they arrived. Stone lifted his hand out of the gel, with some effort. He looked over to Aeren, who was once again entranced by the holoview. He silently walked up, and tapped her on the shoulder. "We should get some rest. I don't know when the next opportunity for it will be." She nodded, without making a sound, and reached up behind her neck to unplug the cord from her implant. She dropped it on the ground, and trod out of the command center for their small ship. He followed her, and hugged her goodnight in the hallway. When they seperated, Stone could not tell whether the glint in her eyes was from her implant, or from something else. He studied them for what seemed like an hour, until she broke the gaze, and walked off into one of the bedrooms. Aeren closed the door, with a soft click. She turned from the door, to look at the rectangular room. A twin sized bed was attached to the floor, a simple ceramic nightstand beside it. A single, blue rose sat in a single, glass vase. She sighed, and threw off her jacket, revealing a skintight nylon undershirt. She collapsed on the bed with her combat boots still on. Aeren was asleep within seconds.