The voyage is a long but tedious one, even trying to look at the landscape didn’t glimpse any new information about the location he was currently in, trying to speak even to the new Corporal called Manfred seemed like a bad idea, although Manfred looked sleepy, the cool pistol on his hip would shoot the next instant if he got funny ideas, that or the masked guy would finish him.
After traveling for most of the day, it was already nighttime, he would be tearing his hair out at why he was traveling to this location, but the near he got the more he could discern the numerous black points in the distance, they were spaceships, and the size was varied, from the smaller ones with 14 m of length with a similar appearance to jets, the average ones with seemingly 500 m of length, and the giant and astounding mother ships, that he simply didn’t know the size, he just know what they were because one had been lowered enough from the space for him to see, what he could take a look at was only a minuscule black object in the sky.
Reaching a heavily blocked region with a seemingly endless wired barbed fence, they reach a border patrol station; the station is big, putting his quarters to shame; the size wasn’t the only surprise though, soldier where carrying heavy rifles, their clothes having a rugged look, caring more about defense than fashion, if that wasn’t enough, turrets with big mini-guns, and batteries of missiles, where being show in any spot the iron wall didn’t protect, that was only he saw, the existence of hidden weapons shouldn’t be discarded.
After that, some soldiers entered the vehicle, doing a sweep of everything. Roberion looks at the windows. They are even checking the bottom of it. After the check was finished, the soldiers exited the bus, For a second I thought they would check us throughly, the plan of using Nulls for suicide missions seems like the way to go, they look like at us like we are part of the seat decoration.
Keeping his Null facade, he waits as finally the giant gates open up and his bus goes though; he forces himself not to stare at the heavy armament. With one of these, the mission would be easier than shaving my head. Roberion controls himself to not pass his hands on his bald head.
After barely 10 minutes of leaving the walls, the floor just ahead of them opens up, showing a giant tunnel, not waiting for the hole to open all the way. The bus passes through it. The tunnel was extremely long. One only could guess the work and manpower needed to create it. After long hours of black and sidelights, the bus finally stops momentarily at a bifurcation that seemingly would lead to a tunnel with a heavy door on its front.
The same would repeat several times until the bus finally takes the side road and passes through one of the heavy doors. The place they show up is enormous, with a line of the same buses he is traveling parked. As the bus reach the line of other buses, it finally stops, the corporal, and the driver leaves it as a group of rugged soldiers shows up and circle the bus, the same sweep happens again, this time however, after finishing the sweep these rugged soldier escort them out of the area, after passing through personnel, machines, and some vehicles, they finally reach an elevator.
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The elevator is massive, the dozens of thousands of Nulls already waiting, were only taking almost a quarter of the area, most of it are occupied by massive boxes and machine equipment, most of this cargo seems to be supplies, but he would wage that half of them are full of guns and ammo. After entering and waiting a couple of minutes, a new batch of Nulls enter the elevator. Being at full capacity, the elevator finally starts to rise noisily. The trip doesn’t take much time. A couple of minutes later, he finally reaches the surface.
On the surface, the Nulls are the first to leave. Damn that’s just absurd!, Roberion lost his breath as his stares the behemoths that are the spaceships. If they were already that big, he couldn’t conceive the size of the mother ships.
Waiting in a near area of the cargo, he waits, They must be kidding, they really want us to transport these massive boxes, to his surprise and astonishment, hulking monstrous figures shows up, they looked like if a dozen of Null was fused and were pumped full of anabolic, near them a contingent of nulls with orange ornaments and protection hats moves with them to the boxes, supervising all is a Sergeant and his troops of corporals. Before he could see more about the process, his time was up and he followed his escorts to the moving staircase.
Before it though, he is again forced to stop as their assigned corporal and soldiers start talking with what he could guess were technicians and the soldiers responsible for the entry on the ship. The process takes a while, finally they star moving to enter the ship, before using the escalator he is forced for a last screening, passing without problems, he finally climbs, trying not to be caught attention he is forced to look ahead, taking a furtive last glance at his home world and, if he had a say in it, his last time here too.
The location the Nulls were forced to be in the ship was worse than the pods he was accustomed to. It was completely utilitarian. As for the seats, the foam was just enough to not get bruises, and near it a set of security belts were seem, just above there were air masks aside from that, there was nothing. The location didn’t have any window, with only passable lightning to avoid accidents, It seems the windows were only reserved for the actual people, we are part of the cargo, the only ‘benefit’ is that we have enough to not die during the trip, my first space travel and I can’t see anything than copies of my bald head everywhere.
Having the lights and his shiny head fellows for company, the only clue that the start for the flying was starting was all air masks falling down. Seeing that the Nulls all started using the masks, he goes with the flow and wears it. The air is better than the one he was breathing on his home planet, although not pure oxygen.
It was not long before he felt a weird sensation on his stomach and head, his entire body starts hurting, I guess the spaceship is moving!, before he could think more about his situation, Roberion was forced to sleep, not long after, his security belts get constricted, not having any chance to move he just sees as a bunch of mechanical arms falling down, having three mechanical fingers with needle in the end, the arm attaches to his neck.
A surge of power invades his body, the hurting and queasiness vanish, but even that isn’t enough to lessen the anesthetic expelled by the mask. Powerless, he sleeps through the entire journey. Later, he wakes up not knowing how much time has passed, feeling fine as he follows the flow of Nulls. While walking, he forces himself not to scream in amazement, because when he left the door of the spaceship, he could see that all around the station, even in this distance, nothing could hide a vast forest welcoming him. And if that wasn’t enough:
Quest: Reach the research station - UPDATED