The Arcadian

Chapter 3

Year 2273
Somewhere in Space

Jade Aracus

"Come out, Come out! I know where you are my little moon", A woman chirped,as she slowly strutted across the room towards a large table.
Little giggles could be heard as she dropped down on her knees and tried to remove something or rather someone from under a table.
"There you are! ", a shriek and loud laughter followed that statement.

"Now, my love, is your time to study. You want to be as smart as mommy when you grow up, don't you? "
"Yes Mama"

"Well then ,Jade"
The image shook and went out of focus.
"Jade", I heard someone shout.
"Jade! JADE-"

"JADE!!", I woke up with a gasp, feeling like my lungs were on fire. I couldn't breathe or process what was happening.
The air around me was hot enough to make my skin burn. My head throbbed like I was having the worst migraine of all time.

"Hey!", my eyes refocused on the source of that sound.
"I-Ivan?"
"Yes!Yes!Are you okay?"
"What-Where are we?Why is it so hot in here?"I grunted, sitting up in my seat.

That's when it all came crashing down on me.The time warp, my dad, the ship.
My eyes widened.
"Why was I unconscious? Does my warp work? What time is it? Where-"
"Slow Down!" Ivan said sternly.
I took a deep breath.

"It's about 3 hours after we left the space station.You were unconscious because we both passed out from the heat that was generated due to travelling at such a high speed." He ran his hand through his now damp hair.

My own brown locks stuck to the skin of my neck. I checked the controls, trying to find a way to cool down the pod.

"This heat is killing me. It could have damaged the pod or even my drive. We're lucky the oxygen cylinders didn't explo-"
"Jade!"
"What?"

Ivan look into my eyes and gave me a bright smile.
"It worked. Your drive worked. Yes we may have passed out due to the heat but that is a fixable problem.Look", he pointed at giant orange planet towards our left.

"Saturn.We're here!"
I remembered now. We started our journey with the speed of light. And after every 15 minutes, we kept increasing the speed.We must have passed out when we got to 6 or 7 times the speed of light.
Thankfully we had set our location correctly.

"If I had to guess, we got here about 30 minutes before. The ship needs time to cool off.Atleast 10-20 minutes more" I gathered looking at the ship's log.
Ivan leaned back on his seat.

"I sent a transmission before I woke you," he groaned massaging his forehead.
"What?"

Looking out I saw the moon, Tethys.It looked about the size of a huge elephant from where we were. I could make out the small atmospheric domes created on the surface to create a livable habitat for us humans.

"To one of our informants down in the Odysseus Crater dome."
"We have a spy in the AES?"
"Of course we do! We need to know if they are planning on causing trouble.As long as they live in harmony they are safe or else....", he didn't finish the sentence.
He didn't have to.
They'd all face the same fate as our mom.

"You seem to know a lot about the AES." I stated.
Ivan tensed.

I could sense there was something he wasn't telling me.
"Ivan?"
He sighed.
"Look, I don't want you to get mad. Remember that Dad and I love you. More than anything.It's just that I am 25 now and Dad was planning on going out on the mission with the Arcadian, so he was training me to take over his duties. Today during the mission briefing, before you came in dad had just announced his decision and the council of Alphas agreed to let me become the next chief"