Unexpected Encounter 14
06 Apr 2016Rebecca Hail
"Wuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh." Even after almost 10 days in zero gravity it was still fun for Ria to fly around the ship. The beginning was hard and she had hit her head against almost everything in the ship. But with each day she spent in space, she learned how to control her movement better.The door to the bridge of the anaconda opened with a quiet swish and Ria, slowly rotating around her own axis, floated into the cockpit. Rebecca sat, like always, in the pilot seat with a ridiculous big headset on her head, listening to music and druming rhythmically onto the throttle.
Ria floated into the warm light of the orange star in front of the ship towards the pilot seat and grabbed the handle at the back. She pulled herself above the seat and waved her tablet in front of Rebecca's face. That was basically all she was doing the past 10 days. Staring at pictures of planets, searching for things like atmosphere, clouds, blueish areas or generally something out of the normal. But she soon found out that most planets in space were basically rocks without atmosphere drifting around in the vacuum. Usually she did this from the port seat, but after six or seven hours straight, she got hungry and went to the relatively big kitchen compartment on the second deck to get something to eat.
Rebecca took her hand off the throttle and pushed her headset down her neck. Loud electronic music blared out of the headset.
"Wait a moment till I'm done with scooping." she said while pushing the throttle up and the nose of the Conda down.
The ship passed the bright orange star and shadows more black than anything Ria had ever seen before fell over the bow of the ship as Rebecca realigned it with the yellow marker for the next jump.
"And what have we in this system?", she asked while looking up to the floating girl.
"We have a rock, some more rocks, another rock, a gas giant circled by, you guessed it, rocks and ... what's this? Ahh, a rock." Ria grimaced while presenting her results.
"Well, that's the universe for a explorer. 99% rocks, 1% stuff worth scanning." Rebecca sarcastically responded.
"Prepare for jump?"
"Prepare for jump."
Ria pushed herself towards the seat on the port seat of the conda bridge, sat down and fastened her safety belts.
"Charging." the electronic voice from the computer almost drowned in the music from Rebeccas headset.
"Are you ready?" Rebecca asked over the sound of her music as the "Throttle up to engage" message popped up.
Ria checked her belts a last time, then she confirmed.
Rebecca pushed the throttle, stars changed into white lines and a whiteblue circle formed around the ship black area where the nose of the ship pointed.
"4... 3... 2... 1... Engage."
The ship lurched as it entered the witchspace and the velocity meter went crazy as they flew through the random light formations.
Then, after a few seconds, the ship dropped out into the light of the next star. Ria pressed the button for the Advanced Discovery Scanner down and after some moments a deep, vibrating sound of a sucessful scan echoed through the cockpit.
67 new objects. Ria groaned.
"Not. Again. Please no."
Rebecca started giggling.
"Maybe you'll find something interesting this time." she responded, then still giggling: "I'm kind of happy that I don't have to look over all those space rocks."
"How long do you plan on torturing me today?"
"Maybe for two or three hours more. Not too long. I'm getting tired."
"Thank goodness."
6 hours later. Somewhere on a unnamed planet past the 50.000 lightyears from Sol line.
Rebecca woke up to the ringing sound of an ancient alarm clock. She opened her eyes and looked onto the PSA around her wrist. 05:40 Earth Standard Time.
"Activate the cameras in the crew quarters." She whispered through her dark cabin.
The PSA displayed the dark silhouttes of four bunks, a few spinds, some chairs and a table in the dimmed light of the crew quarters. Only the bare mattress was laying on three of the four beds. The fourth bed was occupied by Rias slender frame.
"Deactivate."
She stood up and changed into her flight suit. Then she walked down the dark floor towards the communication room.
Exactly at 05:45 Earth Standard Time, she activated the big screen in the communication room.
She didn't even wait for thirty seconds, then the screen began changing.