I made my way up to the bridge from engineering. As I did so, I thought back to the note that Miguel had left in my schedule. I was to monitor the sublight propulsion during our departure and travel out of the gravity well before we jumped up to slipspace. Not something I had ever really had to do before, but oh well. When shadowing the engineering crew on the Cairo, none of the engineers were ever up on the bridge. When the captain or someone else needed something, they would just call down to us. Although, as Miguel had said, it was tradition.

Yesterday Miguel had been the one to bring me onto the bridge, and at that time there were only a couple of people standing watch. Now, we were preparing to get underway, so the bridge would be fully staffed with all the officers and activity that entailed. So, unlike yesterday, I pressed the buzzer next to the door.

I stood at attention and said, “EN3 Manelis, reporting to the bridge as ordered.”

A woman’s voice, one I had heard only briefly yesterday, responded through the intercom. “Come in EN3 Manelis.”

I walked through the door, and saluted as I saw the captain for the first time. She was middle aged, with slightly graying brown hair, and the just barely too pale skin of someone who had spent most of their life in space.

“At ease spacer,” she said, after a moment of studying me. “It is unfortunate that we were unable to meet yesterday, Damien. I am Captain Amanda Bell. I trust that you’ve settled in properly?”

“Yes Ma’am,” I said.

“Good. Now, take up your position at Multipurpose Terminal 3 and slave it to our propulsion systems. I trust that you know what your responsibilities are as we get underway?”

“Yes Ma’am.”

She nodded. “Well get to it then.” She then pressed a button on her chair and spoke into the 1MC. “All hands, we are departing in 45 minutes, make all preparations, I repeat, all hands we are departing in 45 minutes, make all preparations.”

I made my way to the indicated terminal and keyed in the commands that would transfer over the function of the primary control interface for primary propulsion. The holographic screen blinked and the general purpose interface morphed into the dedicated interface normally only present in engineering. I began to run through the slew of diagnostics and self-checks that were needed before the thrusters were brought online. Power was good, fuel was good, coolant was nominal and there were no structural issues. I left some of the more time consuming diagnostics to run in the background as I took the time to scan the bridge.

Sven, who I had seen standing the topside watch yesterday, was manning a sensor station. I honestly had no idea about the technicalities of operating the sensors on a ship, but from what I could view on the display, he was charting out any potential hazards on our planned path into high orbit.

Nearby, the helmsman who I vaguely remembered from the previous night’s dinner was standing ready at her terminal checking over our planned maneuvers. At a station shortly behind her sat an officer, presumably the navigator, going over the same thing. They were carrying on a quiet discussion verifying every detail of our planned course.

Rounding out the crew were a Systems Tech and a Comms Tech, the ST monitoring a constant stream of reports and logs from the AI and the CT relaying messages from the station’s traffic control back to the captain. This continued on for some time, with me moving on from one diagnostic to another before the captain once again spoke into the 1MC.

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“All hands, departure in 5 minutes, I repeat, all hands, departure in 5 minutes,” she said. She then looked over to me. “Engineering, bring primary propulsion fully online.”

“Aye Ma’am,” I said, punching in the commands to bring our thrusters up. I felt the thrum of our propulsion systems build, as I monitored the readouts on my terminal. Everything looked good, and everything seemed ready to go. “Primary propulsion is nominal, Captain.”

There was then a stream of communications between us and the station, verifying that we had authorization to depart, confirming that all hands were aboard and other various final pieces of protocol. Finally, when everything had been sorted, the Captain spoke up once more.

“Detach from the docking tube and bring us into position to execute our maneuvers out of the gravity well,” she ordered. I kept one eye on my terminal, monitoring the status of our propulsion, and another on the window, watching as the station began to recede. After a few minutes of pulling away from the station, the captain gave the order to make our real maneuvers. That’s when the thrum of the propulsion systems truly ramped up and the gas giant began to visibly fall away.

—

It was almost two hours later when the navigator turned to the captain. “Ma’am, we’ve cleared the gravity well, it’s safe to make the transition to slipspace,” he informed her.

She looked towards the ST who had turned towards her in anticipation of the order and said, “Retract the heat fins and bring up the zero albedo shielding, we’re going dark.” The slight rumble of machinery in the background informed me that the fins I had seen when first viewing the ship had been pulled in, and whatever the “zero albedo shielding” was, I assumed that had been deployed as well.

The captain nodded, and pressed another button on her chair, sending her voice directly to engineering. “Lt Michaels, spin up the slipspace drive, we’re jumping in 2 minutes,” she ordered.

I didn’t hear his response, but I began to hear the deep drone of the slipspace drive beginning to do its work, almost the sound of a large string instrument being played in reverse. Through the window, I could see a slight rippling in the black spaces between the stars, as if there was something in my eyes. I had been through a slipspace transition before, but I’d never actually been able to see outside the ship when it happened. It was starting to give me a headache, so I turned my head back to my terminal and focused on the propulsion readouts.

“EN3 Manelis, bring primary propulsion offline,” the captain’s voice sounded behind me.

“Aye Ma’am,” I complied, entering the shut down commands.

A few moments later, the captain once again spoke to the whole crew. “All hands, transitioning into slipspace in 10…9…8…” I turned my head towards the window, where the ripples were getting stronger. I had no idea when or if ever I would be able to witness a slipspace transition with the naked eye, so might as well take the opportunity while it lasted. “...3…2…1…jump!”

The fabric of reality was sundered before my eyes, as stars bled into smears across my retinas, and the blackness of space took on colors that I had no words for. The shapes, and the colors, and the patterns that my mind could barely comprehend screamed through my mind, leaving bloody scars where they left my memory. The onslaught of information that defied reality built and built and built until all at once, it flowed away, leaving only the comforting green swirl of slipspace.

I let out the breath that I was unaware I had been holding and sat in my seat, panting. As I did so, the incomprehensible sensations that I had just subjected myself to seemed to leak out of my mind and the scars they had made were anesthetized, leaving only a headache and the vague impression that it would be a bad idea to look so deep into the space between layers of reality again.

The captain’s voice rang out through the ship. “All hands, transition successful. Set the regular underway watch.” She stood from her chair and turned towards me. “EN3 Manelis, please follow me. I believe we have a meeting to attend to.” I stood up, and with that she walked out of the bridge, with me trailing behind her.