Return of the Space Crazies
22 Aug 2018jmacncheeze
-- PRIORITY SIGNAL DETECTED ---- ALERT --
-- PRIORITY SIGNAL DETECTED --
The alert system aboard The Ryuko Matoi blares throughout its hallways, causing the ship’s Commander to jolt awake in his quarters.
-- SECURE COMMUNICATIONS RECEIVED --
-- DOWNLOADING DATA --
Jmac comes to his senses, only now realizing what this means. “It's about time!” he exclaims to himself, before springing out of bed and quickly heading for the bridge. “We have to go,” he says, while holding his communicator to his lips, “Prepare the hyperdrive for an immediate jump!” He reaches the bridge, promptly takes his seat in the command chair, and enters his authorization codes as the ship whirs to life and begins running its usual system diagnosis.
“Celeste, decrypt and play that last message at once. Decryption code: Charlie Lima Alpha Whiskey.” The assistant proceeds to decrypt and play the message back as a smirk appears on his face for the first time in months.
“Gotcha!” he says as he proceeds to engage thrusters and face the ship towards his newly received destination. “A bit of an unoriginal vacation plan if you ask me, but..." he pauses, "coordinates received. Celeste, engage hyperdrive on my command. It’s time to get the band back together."
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-- PRIORITY SIGNAL DETECTED --
-- ALERT --
-- PRIORITY SIGNAL DETECTED --
"SHUT THE FUCK UP, VICTOR!" Steve yells as he comes to his senses. For the past four months, Steve has been sitting in deep space, floating naked in his cockpit with Nip occasionally floating across his canopy, waiting for Larzok to break Pilot out of that fucking AI.
-- SECURE COMMUNICATIONS RECEIVED --
-- DOWNLOADING DATA --
Steve floats his way over to his command chair, pulls up the message, and raises an eyebrow. "Looks like Larz finally beat that weird ass game of Minesweeper, Vic." He loads up the galaxy map and inputs Larzok's coordinates for the computer to plot, then floats over to his suit and gears up. "Prep the bird for hyperspace, Vic. Spool up all systems and run a weapons check." Steve straps himself in, punches in his command code and then rotates the ship to his exit vector. "No time for a Hawkins Bath, Vic. Hit it." The Raki engages its frame shift drive and soon star lines trace across its surface as it makes its jump from one dimension to the next.
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-- HYPERDRIVE ENGAGED --
-- 5… 4… 3… 2… 1… --
As the stars distort around him, Jmac flips over to his Comms panel and opens a secure line to the last (living) person he spoke with since his departure.
“Steve, do you copy? I'm on my way," he says. "ETA to destination is… 3 hours, 37 minutes. It's gonna take this boat a few jumps to get there. Please tell me you received it too? I feel like been waiting for ages... I'm gonna lose it and blow up something I'll regret if this is another one of Ultra’s ‘pranks.’ I'm still cleaning up the blue shit from the last time..."
"Yeah buddy, I'm here," a familiar voice responds, "I got the message too -- Larz said he was working on something big during my last food run and to expect a message on this channel."
Jmac sighs in relief. "Oh good, so Larz finally got him out. I knew those damn VR pods were a bad idea... I'll tell you, I sure as hell was getting tired of staring at that damn black hole... But I suppose I was a bit overdue for a bath," he says with a chuckle. His eyes widen and a more serious tone comes across his voice. "Have you heard from any of the others yet? I don't even know how long it's been, what with the black hole's time fuckery and all."
"Negative," Steve replies, "I imagine Ultra is still doing Ultra things, and last I spoke to Jake he was out in Colonia."
Jmac begins fiddling with his navigation panel a bit before responding. "Well, let's hope the signal makes it to everyone before too long. I'm taking a shortcut. I'm not too far from the Neutron Highway. Time to speed things up a bit. I'll be seeing you soon."
He servers communications and plots his route for the closest neutron star. "I know it's been a while, but I'm gonna need your help with this," he says to his Corvette with a grin, "it's been much, much too long."