Finding Destiny

Chapter 3 - Road Trip

I woke up gradually the next morning. I had forgotten to set the alarm, and it had stayed quite dark in the cabin. The only reason I think I even woke up was that the planet's light was starting to fill the cabin making it seem like the sun was rising. Once I realized what was going on, I checked with the computer and found it was actually after lunch time. I knew I had programmed into the computer up to the return towards Krysigia, so I did not need to hurry, so I went ahead and took a shower and made some breakfast before heading to the bridge with a cup of coffee. Destiny had only made half the journey around well I guess its Krysigia technically as well, with the advent of colonies and such planetary systems all typically had the same name just number designations for which planet they were. I was currently orbiting Krysigia IV in a slingshot that would take me back towards my homeworld of Krysigia III. It would take another twenty minutes to complete the flight plan at my speed. I was at a distance of around fifty thousand kilometers so well outside the planet and stations controlled space, so I did not even need to talk to them just enjoy the views.

I went ahead and started doing my checklists before starting up the mass converters that when used in conjunction with the main engines would allow the ship to go faster than light. Don't ask me how it works, I have no clue, I know how to diagnose them, and repair them, but the science is beyond me. I start running full diagnostics on all the other systems as well since we have been operating over twelve hours now in a vacuum so anything not working properly should show up. By the time I finished those two tasks it was time to fire up the mass converter and get it synced with the engine. That took another fifteen minutes for the handshakes to complete so left them in ready mode since I had no need for FTL in the system, I just wanted to make sure I was green across the board. Once that was finished I set up a full diagnostics on the FTL system as well and then sat back trying to figure out what to do next. The diagnostics were pretty much a set them and walk away task that would take about three hours to finish. The return trip to Krysigia III would take about eight hours.

I was at a loss. The ship was clean, nothing needed maintenance because it had not been used since it was repaired. What in the world was I going to do for eight hours? For that matter, I would have five days there and five back when I picked up Vanessa and Roberto's daughter Christina. At least when I thought about my passenger, I figured out something to do for now. I had not gotten the two guest cabins ready for occupation. They were clean and had beds, but they needed to be made, the heads needed stocking as well. I went ahead and did those tasks for both rooms, and it took another thirty minutes, after that I went to the living room section and turned on the entertainment center, there was literally nothing on it but three movies. I headed back to the bridge and found three alerts on one of the diagnostics suites, and it had not finished running yet. Luckily it was not on anything critical since it was a secondary air filtration system, but I decided to land to get it fixed, even though the ship would be fine without it. I just didn't think I would be sane after a five day trip with only three movies. I then adjusted my flight plan and started deceleration burns taking my FTL offline. This would put my arrival at Krysigia III at about nine in the evening.

The landing was almost anticlimactic. The ship entered atmosphere with barely even a heat trail, and any shaking was smoothed out by the dampeners. I headed back to the shops landing platform and once over it the vertical thrusters took over and put me down right in the center. I did not even leave the pad, I just put in an order for the parts that I needed and found we had them in stock so I would just need to buy replacements. I decided to start working on Destiny right then so that I would be ready to go in the morning, after all, I had not done a single thing all day long. I also sent off a message to Paul about entertainment options and asking about stuff for Christina, he replied back with Christina's contact information as well as telling me that they would have her see about getting whatever she wanted and having it ready to upload to his entertainment system. I then left Destiny and found the locations where the three parts that failed were at and set about installing them. I finished the installation by three AM, and then instead of going to bed, I started looking at entertainment options. I got a game system mod, controllers, an assortment of games, as well as a series of about fifty movies from the past ten years for just under two thousand credits. I did not like doing this, but I did not relish the idea of ten days like I just spent the last eight hours. The download speed through the umbilical was literally over a terabyte a second, so it took about ten minutes for everything to be delivered. Refueling from my day trip had finished while I was installing the parts.