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Nothing was visible beyond the black covering them. For light years and light years, the super dense fog of the sea nebula obfuscated all visual indications that they were even moving. There was no use in using searchlights at nearly the speed of light, and it was too dangerous to go any faster. Junne was nerve-wracked, he trusted his eyes too much to fly blindly.
“I don’t like this.” He was just a hair under full panic with a tension in his voice that sapped the confidence out of the crew. Quayl, Stevero, and Rob all sat on the bridge to support him, even though it was too quiet and awkward to be anywhere else on the ship. It felt like a house in the dark before the coming of a storm, but inside the house with all the lights on, it didn’t change how the outside world felt. The bridge was at least dark to match except for the lights from the controls, and it was all too quiet.
Rob manned the sensors the best he could. He wanted to help even though there were some readings he didn’t know what to do with. Most of them were errors he learned to nervously ignore, and he was told what to look for. Should anything turn up, the first reaction was to stop on a dime with a hair trigger. The option to stop dialog was perpetually asking ‘Are you sure?’ just in case they needed to be.
Junne did hit confirm to that dialog.
“This is the extent of Doppler scan number 41. Wanna do 42?” Junne asked, each time getting a democratic vote from the crew. If he crashed, he didn’t want to be solely responsible for it. Stevero knew he needed that to function. His nerves were sizzling strips of bacon at this point. Junne turned around and everyone nodded without a mutter of a word.
“Doppler 42 it is.” He slowly turned around and engaged it. In regular waters it was invisible, but the radio waves were a dim brown light wave along the dense dust surrounding them. They watched it move out in all directions, tracing the linings of clouds around them. It didn’t go as far this time though. “We need to wait a few minutes for the distant results. The range is getting shorter and shorter.” Junne needed to mention it, get it off his chest, and let the crew know how soon they would be stopping again. Stevero quietly asked.
“Any chance of doing this faster? We’ve been at it all day.” Junne stared out at the black, blank, and bleak nothingness.
“We’re in proto-planet territory. Pockets of oxygen become cannon balls at light speed, and the Doppler results this time show an increasing amount of them scattered everywhere, and the readings are getting blurrier. If we had military shielding, we’d stand a better chance. Hell, even better sensor scans would be a blessing.” Junne was venting his frustrations and anxiety. Rob stood and stretched, swinging and moving his arms and legs.
“No one has eaten since breakfast. I’m going to go make sandwiches for everyone.” Rob knew to decide on something light and simple for everyone. With the nerve-wracking darkness, no one felt hungry.
Rob left into the hall, the brightly lit hall that felt out of place in the quiet darkness. He continued to stretch and yawn. It was supposed to be evening but the darkness threw off his internal clock.
Something caused Rob to stop in his tracks with his legs still in mid-step. He waited for something, he didn’t know what, but he waited. The ship was eerie and felt haunted. The walls felt claustrophobic even though they were steady in their place. Distantly and faintly, there was a creak, it could’ve been rooms — or even floors — away, but it was heard. Rob turned and dashed back to the bridge.
“Pressure!!!” Rob blurted out and causing everyone to startle. “The ship is under too much pressure!” Junne turned to the controls and confirmed it.
“Crap, he’s right! The ship isn’t built for any of this!” Rob sat down at the sensors and checked the ship’s readouts frantically. They focused too much on what was outside that they didn’t notice what was happening inside. Junne panicked and went with his gut feeling.
“We have to turn back!”
“No.” Quayl interrupted. “If we go to light speed, the pressure won’t matter. The ship’s gravity field will hold it back. Just point us at the coordinates and punch it!” Junne was unsure now, not wanting to waste any more time.
“All in favor of going to light speed?” Quayl raised his hand of course, then Junne looked to Stevero. His vote was the only one he cared about. In a moment, Stevero raised his hand as well.
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“All of Lobora was destroyed for this.” They didn’t need to be reminded, but saying so gave a breath of strength. Junne spun in the captain’s chair and typed in the coordinates.
“Going to light speeds. I hope we make it in one piece.” Junne disengaged the speed safety, then hovered his finger over the trigger. “Last call.” He asked. No one said a word, then he hit it.
The Aerios burst into the black abyss. At these speeds, the differences in the clouds were noticeable and felt like the pure intensity of a hurricane storm. They were in the thick of it in minutes. Rob had gone to make sandwiches anyway to stave his nerves. If they were to die, he wanted to do it on his feet and certainly didn’t want to do it with an empty stomach.
He returned with a platter of sub sandwiches rich with meats and toppings — Rob spared no ingredient — and he sat it down on the console to the left of the captain’s chair. Junne saw the delectable sandwiches and felt hungry after all.
“Ah yes, sandwiches, a fine choice for our last meal.” He joked, and Rob chuckled at it, finding humor in it somehow. Perhaps he should have cooked something nicer.
They were at the end of the Doppler’s range and now beyond the blurry parts. It was faith territory. Faith that they wouldn’t collide with a big rock or the parts of one. Faith that they don’t pass through a field of primal gasses or exotic energy. They felt like an egg in a tornado.
Stevero and Rob decided to try to sleep in the chairs beside the sensors and the communications console, choosing not to be alone in their quarters for any reason. Junne and Quayl couldn’t even close their eyes. He sat in the co-pilot’s chair while Junne lounged with his feet up on a cavity in the front console that was once for communications before it was given its dedicated system. The ship was on autopilot going straight by itself to their destination. Junne sighed, checking the clock on the heads-up display.
“It’s 2:15 am. Are we dead yet?” Junne joked quietly.
“I hope not. Seems like we’re in some kind of underworld in these clouds. How much further is it?” Everyone wondered that, but Quayl vocalized it. No one wanted to push their impatience.
“Not too far. We might make it, but stuff is going to be denser from here. We’re headed for the very center of this nebula.” He smiled, which wasn’t as contagious or hopeful as he hoped. Facts killed the sentiments of good news.
A silent moment went by as they stared blankly at the rushing wafts of clouds storming by. Sometimes the nose of the ship would disappear and reappear in the coming clouds. It was that thick in parts. If they stopped, the ship would be crushed instantly from the pressure. It was all or nothing light years ago.
The ship jerked and rumbled for a terrifying moment and it woke Stevero and Rob up. They were relieved not to be dead or crashing. Rob was wide-eyed and his heart was pounding.
“What the hell was that?” He asked. Junne reassured them.
“Just some passed gas.” He informed. Quayl wanted to tell the crew the good news.
“We’re almost at the oh my god that is RANCID!” Junne was hysterical with laughter.
“Perfectly timed too!” Quayl was gagging, Rob was laughing with Junne, and Stevero was pinching his nose and shaking his head at the juvenile sense of it.
Amidst the hilarities, the Aerios came up with something. Junne pointed at a bright light visible through the clouds and they were approaching it fast. It grew closer and closer, until — in a blink — they had arrived. The autopilot shouldered them off a big planet, no, a huge planet! It had a big and distant star as well, as an enormous atmosphere that made the green plants and blue waters feel tiny by comparison, it looked like a painted marble. It had a moon in its orbit, which was rare. Rob checked the sensors and read out some of their strange findings.
“You’re not going to believe this. We’re in… nothing! There’s no water in this clearing in the nebula. It’s just… empty.” Quayl knew the term.
“It’s called a vacuum. You would pop if you went out there, as well as both burn and freeze. So don’t open any windows.” Vacuum space was just a myth, but they were in territory no one had ever explored before. A repetitive beeping came from the communications console. It was a message from the planet and Quayl read it off to the crew. “Welcome to Olympus. Would you like us to engage your autopilot and bring you in?” He read. Junne scoffed.
“Of course, that’s a no, nobody is touching my ship.” He said, and Rob declined the offer. Instead, the planet transmitted a beacon’s location, and Junne flew the ship in towards it. It was blinking on the display, showing him where to land.
They had slowly hovered down from the thin outer parts of the atmosphere. No breaking through the water, no shift from the ocean current to the winds, the air just got thicker and thicker in a smooth transition until it was breathable. They had never known a planet without an ocean surface, or what is known as a Tidesphere.
The landing pad was larger than what was needed for the Aerios. With a thunk of an impact, the landing gear made contact with solid ground at last. The systems went into cool-down mode and had been set to standby. Junne reached under the console before him and pulled out a gun, complete with a holster and a spare clip.
“You talk, I’ll shoot.” He was ready to defend his friends and his ship if necessary. Stevero and Rob nodded, and Quayl was left uneasy with the notions of what he had gotten them into. They all went to the lowest deck to exit the ship from the equipment bay. As the door parted and the loading ramp extended, and once the blinding glare of the sunlight subsided in their eyes, a hundred little goat people had crowded before them. One stepped forward and spoke.
“Our master has been awaiting your arrival.”