Finding Destiny

Chapter 4 - Heading Home

A couple of hours later I got up from my nap and started getting us ready to take off. I left the ship and started disconnecting the umbilical. I headed back inside and set up a flight plan with a departure request for forty-five minutes from now. I then set about fixing something to eat for both of us. While it was cooking, I went to the cabin that Christina had selected and knocked on the door. I heard her call out something so I went back to the galley and finished cooking the meal. A few minutes later Christina appeared and said: "What's up?"

I replied "I just wanted to let you know I was cooking dinner, and that once that's finished, I filed a flight plan to leave in about thirty minutes. I didn't know if you wanted to be up for it or go back to sleep. You are welcome to join me on the bridge or do whatever you want, think of this as your home while you're onboard."

"Thank you" she replied, "I think I want to watch from the bridge, if you want we can alternate cooking and clean up on the way, I will clean since you cooked this time."

I think she saw what I was making, spaghetti with sauce from a can, and decided she better cook some to make sure she had decent meals, so I had to reply "Sure that sounds good." I paused since I didn't know how much of my past she knew about and decided to go with as little information as possible. "I am ok with cooking. I never really had anyone train me, so it's fairly basic when I cook. Instead of taking turns, how about we cook together and I learn some from you while underway. Then maybe I can feed myself better once I am alone again."

She smiled at me and said "That sounds good. I am glad to see you are not one of those macho guys who knows everything and gets offended by an offer to help."

I respond "It's more like bitter experience eating my own food talking."

She laughed at that, and as my meager meal had finished cooking, we sat down to eat. When we finished, we cleaned up the dishes and headed up to the bridge. The entire ship was built around holding three people on board and carrying cargo, so for the cabins mine was only a bit larger than the other two options. On the bridge there were three seat positions, the pilots chair was the center position that was elevated above the other two seats with a slightly better view. The other two seats all had consoles that showed the basic information such as speed, deflector strength, and load percentages. So far they had been turned off since I had been alone, now though I went ahead and booted up the console for the chair she sat at and slaved her console to my pilot's display. I then pinged control for takeoff clearance, and they set us a lane to head out of their airspace. I had the computer follow the guidelines up and out of our landing bay, then we started our climb out of the gravity well and into space. Christina watched it all with rapt attention, so I asked her, "I thought you did this a few times, yet it looks like it's your first time up."

She replied, "In a way it is. Normally when you travel, it's a large passenger liner or freight ship that takes passengers. On those types of ships, the better the view, the more it costs. Plus you would never be able to sit on a bridge like this. To sit like this, with nearly an unobstructed view is amazing. To top it off I know when I lay in my bed I will have a similar view. Just for that alone, this is a great trip."

We had just exited controlled airspace, and I was bringing us about to our new heading and bringing FTL online. I started the countdown, and I told her if she went to the living room and looked out the back window she could watch as the planet shrunk as we moved away. I went back too and sat with her while we waited for the timer to go off, when it did I headed back to the bridge, and she followed me. I engaged the FTL drive and told her "Well my job is done for the next five days, now its busy work and whatever you can find to occupy yourself until we get there."