"We are free from Halo influence. Taking us out." Shin said as Savros felt another small bump pushing him back slightly. The Halo began moving toward the left and out of view of the screens. In no time at all, the glare from Abriva's atmosphere was no longer visible either. He was officially flying in space as a crew member of KaiStar, the most fantastic ship he'd ever seen with, he was sure, the most incredible crew anywhere out there. Savros felt right at home, and the anticipation for his virgin trip was building. He was bouncing in his seat, looking back and forth between Polly, Jaen, and the screens.

Jaen looked at the screens in front of her, "Okay, you guys, we should be at Idyll Quies in about half an hour Galactic Time. Shin has our course set. We have just enough time to eat something before we make our delivery. You guys hungry?"

Savros was hungry, but he was also shocked. "Only half an hour? How can that be?"

"Oh, right, we never got to give you the full tour." Polly was already out of her seat. "Wait right there." She bounded off through the door to the galley. Savros and Jaen were still standing up when she leaped back through the door—holding two sealed packages in one hand and one in the other. Using the hand holding two, she tossed a pack to Savros and Jaen simultaneously, looking confident in their trajectories. When they both caught them, she struck a pose. "Ninja skills!" Polly said in a ninja whisper as she broke her pose.

Jaen was already heading to the main corridor off the bridge, so Savros took the cue and followed her. Polly followed up behind as the three hurried out of the room. Savros followed Jaen down the entire length of the corridor, through the door, and down another hall nearly as long as the first. They approached the aft portholes, and he could see movement through them. Jaen motioned him over to one while she watched through her own. He approached the closest one and peered out of it.

Jaen began explaining, "Each wing of the KaiStar remains wrapped around the body, unless we're traveling through deep space. As the wings unfold and come down, they align at a perfect sixty degrees relative to each other and the PD-X3 drive engine." Jaen and Polly watched as well as Jaen described what was happening. She continued, "After they lock in place, the shielding opens, and the two remaining PD-X3's are brought online."

Savros watched as the wings aligned and the shielding opened. As the engines came online, you could visibly see the energy connecting the three machines forming a triangle. Each wing is actually the spine of a smaller class freighter. Polly stripped them and modified a PD-X3 for each. It took over three years to get them to work together."

Polly took over the explanation. "It pretty much creates an isolated black hole and uses its jet streams as a propulsion source. And if that weren't cool enough, because of the nature of extreme gravitation, even though the two jets face the opposite direction, they both propel us forward. So, in a way, these three engines create one engine that makes two engines.

"But that's not enough to get us there that fast. The wings can also rotate around the drive engine, a hundred and eighty degrees from each other. When the field is activated, the circle forms a feedback loop as they continue to rotate. As the gravity inside the ring of light nears the physical limitations of what's possible, we can tear a hole in reality and go waltzing through like we own the place." Polly's voice took on a maniacal tone.

When Savros looked from the porthole, he saw Polly standing there with the cheesiest diabolical grin he'd seen. Jaen and Savros couldn't help but laugh at her.

"That is the worst way to describe it. I hate it when you say it like that." Jaen looked at Savros as Polly rolled her eyes in mock sarcasm. Jaen continued, "it's more like jumping a ditch. This ditch is gonna take another twenty-six minutes to finish jumping. We aren't actually tearing anything, and it causes no damage to 'reality,' as Polly likes to put it."

"Ugh, whatever, which one sounds cooler, 'jumping over a ditch' or 'tearing a hole in reality'? Huh? I rest my case." Savros had to admit, Polly's description sounded cooler, sinister, but cooler. Jaen's kind of made more sense, though. "Besides, I could give a boring scientific explanation too." She cleared her throat and stood up straight, gripping the collar of her shirt.

"These engines function on two combined principles that, as a unit, I like to refer to as six links of entanglement. You see, any two random points in space, no matter the physical distance between them, can be connected by using no more than six sets of entangled particles. We fire the engines, and they trap a single particle for excitation. Once Shin has located the partner particles, we use the grav drive to trade particles, leaving us in a different part of space holding one of the original particle’s partners. Shin continues to track down particles that connect with the destination particle. We keep trading particles until we reach our destination. Never needing more than six trades." She dropped her collar and leaned into the hull. "See? Boring."

"That's my girl!" Jaen was excited as Polly finished her explanation. "Wait, what? Boring? No way, that was awesome. I love it when you're all brainy like that!".

"Oh, you like that?" she stood up straight again, "Should I keep going?" gripping her collar once more, "After the six trades, the contract will be fulfilled, and we shall rip a hole in the walls of this universe—. "

Jaen rolled her eyes, and Savros chuckled at the two of them. Before looking back out the porthole. The wings were beginning to rotate, and a faint circle outline formed along the engine's path.

"That's intense! So we can travel anywhere in space in half an hour? That's insane!" Savros was staring at them in disbelief.

"It's pretty crazy, but it doesn't work quite like that. A single jump or trade takes about twenty minutes, two trades take a total of forty minutes, three trades will take us eighty minutes, four trades take two hours and ten minutes, five takes four hours, and when needed, six jumps takes six hours, and forty minutes. Once we've connected a chain, we can connect to any particle in the chain with a single jump. So once we've been somewhere, we can usually return in a single jump." Jaen gave one more glance out the porthole window before turning and heading back up the corridor, with Savros and Polly behind her.

"We've got about a minute and a half before we make the trade. Let's go eat in the observatory. We haven't done that in a long time, remember?" she said to Polly over her left shoulder. "Polly and I used to eat lunch every day in the observatory, dreaming about the day we'd finally have KaiStar up here where he belongs."

Savros thought the observatory sounded like a great idea. He wanted to see what it looked like to travel this way. Back in the first corridor, they made a left through a door, and Savros stepped into a beautiful garden, dimly lit by accents scattered through the various plants. To his left and his right, the hull had been made nearly entirely of glass. Only the twinkle of millions of stars illuminated the beautiful inky blackness. They sat on a bench that appeared to be handcrafted from a large tree root and just watched.

Savros had lost track of time when he heard Shin's voice. "Making the trade, to continue the analogy, in three, two, one, commencing trade."

As Savros watched, the space between the stars seemed to grow rapidly darker until it smothered all light from the stars, then an explosion of hues of blues blended with whites filled the observatory's view. Savros stood and walked to the window. The blues and whites seemed to be moving away from him as h stood and looked out the glass.

"It's beautiful and crazy." He just stared for a while.

Eventually, Jaen said, "Look up."

And Savros turned his gaze toward the ceiling and watched the fantastic view. It took him a moment, but eventually, he realized something looked off. It's not like he knew what it was supposed to look like, but something was making him feel uneasy. A slight sense of vertigo was becoming stronger. He walked over to where Polly was gazing out the window on the other side. As he stood next to her, the dizziness was dying down, but when he looked back up, it promptly returned.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"It's difficult for your mind to make sense of at first, but you'll get used to it in no time." Jaen was still sitting on the bench and had opened her little package and was eating something from it.

"No matter where you look, it appears that you are moving away from that direction. It's easy to make sense of when you can only see it from one perspective. But when you can see it from the sides and above, your mind doesn't know how to process it. You can't be moving away from every direction at once." Jaen continued eating.

Polly spun around to face them in an overly dramatic fashion. With a similarly dramatic tone, "My dear, Savory, please allow us to welcome you to,” (dramatic pause with a flourish) “Quantum Space!". She paused again with a sour look on her face.

"Shit. No. No, I don't like it. You were right. It sounds like a bad science fiction story. I just can't put my finger on the right…." She looked at Jaen and shrugged, "Whatev's, it's hard naming things sometimes; we’ll finger it out." She went back over and sat next to Jaen as she tore open her meal pack.

Savros joined them, genuinely hungry and curious about the contents of his sealed package. He tore the top off the package as he sat opposite Polly, next to Jaen. Jaen watched him sniffing the top of the pack, "It's just basic ration sticks. We have a cabinet in the galley stuffed with them. Thanks to a mixup with the delivery manifest on one of our first missions. Four years later, we've whittled it down from a crew cabin to a galley cabinet. Still, with Shin around, we don't even need the rations. That cabinet could easily last another four years. But they really aren't bad, so we eat 'em sometimes. Just biscuit sticks and meat sticks, usually with a bag of various dehydrated vegetables." Jaen had finished hers and leaned back, gazing up at the breathtaking yet disorienting view.

"Hey, you guys, we have about three minutes before our 'trade' is complete. We should arrive within a four-minute flight to Idyll Quies."

"Thank you, Shin. Are you guys as excited as I am to see Idyll? I've always dreamed of taking a weeklong vacation at Idyll Quies. The peace, the tranquility, the best food and drink in Living Space. Just a week of golden sunshine, gentle waterfalls, and strong drinks. Ah, perfection!" Jaen gazed out the window.

Polly said, "A week seems like a little much. What would I do with myself? I'm definitely excited to see it, and I could spend a night there, but by the second day, I'd be itching to leave."

Jaen giggled under her breath, "Oh love, you'd probably be 'asked' to leave by then."

Polly started to protest but changed her mind, "that's fair," she laughed.

Savros and Polly had finished their rat-paks, and the three of them stood in unison and headed for the bridge as though they had done it a thousand times.

"Wow, you weren't kidding, Shin." Savros stared at the monitor from his seat on the bridge. Idyll Quies loomed like a monster in front of them. "We really are like four minutes from Idyll Quies." It was a larger planet. From their vantage point, it appeared to be covered in lakes and rivers, as well as mountains. The golden sun cast a glow that made the whole planet shimmer with a golden light. Some of the structures on the surface were visible from even their altitude.

"There will be some turbulence. Without the Halo's grav-field, we get to enter the atmosphere the old-fashioned way. Shielding is at one hundred percent. Shields are functioning at full capacity, and as soon as we break the barrier, I'll fire the drive engine. Turbulence should last no more than a few seconds." Shin was silent for a second, "Clearance granted. Hang on, guys, entering atmosphere."

The KaiStar rattled a few times, and each time was more violent than the one before, and then Savros felt an overwhelming force pushing him into the back of his chair. He smiled as he tried to move his head. The turbulence was gone, and as Shin slowed their acceleration, the force holding him back was beginning to weaken until it was no longer present, and he began to slow the descent even further. Savros now leaned forward in his seat, propping himself against the arms of his chair and relying heavily, if not almost entirely, on the harness attached to the chair. He smiled again as he felt the skin on his facelift away from his skull. It didn't hurt, but it was a feeling you don't get to experience on many other occasions. It had always been his favorite part of traveling with his father as a child.

Shin had them slowed down to a standard cruising speed and assigned altitude as they headed for their delivery destination.

"The Pasithea is only a couple minutes away. The cargo is ready for offloading, and I have alerted the resort to our imminent arrival. We should be finished up in no time at all."

"Welp, we don't get a week, but we might get you a night out of the deal!" Polly looked excited, too, as she tried to eek a little more enthusiasm from Jaen.

"Doesn't just being here fill you with a sense of calm?" Jaen did look pretty relaxed now that he thought about it, so did Polly, and he felt less weight on his shoulders as well.

"It is nice and peaceful," Savros remarked as they flew over the calm, radiant golden waters below. "Is that it?" Savros asked as a large structure came into view ahead of them.

"Yes, that is Pasithea, consistently ranking as one of the top resort destinations in all of Living Space. We'll be arriving in about thirty seconds." The trio watched as Shin spoke, and the resort grew larger and more prominent on the screen as they approached.

"What do we have to do when we get there?" Savros asked, watching the resort grow larger still.

"What do you mean?" Asked Jaen, "after we drop the shipping container off, we're free to see the sights, experience what Idyll Quies and the Pasithea have to offer. Was there something you wanted to do?" She looked over at Savros with an eyebrow partially raised.

"Oh, no, I just thought maybe we would have to delivery individual packages or something." Savros said, a little surprised, "but as long as we're here, we might as well go to the beach, right?" Savros laughed, rubbing his head.

"Hell. Yes. We. Should!" Polly said, banging hands on the arms of her chair with each word for emphasis.

Savros could feel the force pushing him to the side as Shin made the bank to bring them around.

"Landfall in three, two, one." a hard bump as they landed had everyone looking around curiously.

"Everything okay, Shin?" Jaen looked concerned.

"Yeah, sorry about that, you guys, it's these floating landing pads. More accurately, it's the massive fish that live beneath them. I can account for many things, but—when a giant fish will move—isn't one of them. Everything's good, though, no damage sustained. Commencing delivery." Savros could hear Shin opening the cargo bay doors, and the hoists activate as the container was lowered to the ground. The hoists retracted a few seconds later, and the bay doors closed.

"Receiving transfer manifest. Delivery complete. I have good news and bad news, guys. The Pasithea is under renovations and sends their regards and apologies that they can't offer you the typical one-night stay at this time." Everyones, face dropped, and much of the excitement left the room. "It goes on to say, however, upon completion of the renovations, we would love to welcome you back with a complimentary three-night stay for you and the crew listed on the manifest. We look forward to seeing you then."

"Oh, hey! Three whole days and nights later beats the hell out of no nights! We need to find out when they're supposed to be finished. What do you think, Jaenith?" Polly was watching Jaen, waiting.

"Definitely! That's close enough to a week that I feel like someone heard me!" Jaen laughed, "Okay, guys, where do we wanna go first? I've heard the Fall of God is one of the most beautiful natural places known to exist. Or, there's the Shatey Beaches, enormous palm trees, whose leaves are easily twice the size of the terrapod, pepper the beach. Shin can probably find a lot more places we could visit."

"Can we take a tour? Like just fly around and see different places? Do you guys wanna do that?", Savros looked from Jaen to Polly and back again.

"I was going to suggest the same thing, Savigo! Let's just cruise around and check shit out. What do you say, Jaejae?" Polly peered at Jaen over the goggles she had put under her eyes, on her cheeks.

"KaiStar SkyTours at your service! Shin, would you mind taking us around and showing us some sites, please?" Jaen looked pleased with their group decision.

"It would be my pleasure. I would suggest the observa—oh, that's interesting. You guys may rethink the tour when you see the job offer that just came in. I'll bring it up on the monitor. It's time-sensitive, and if we take it, we'll need to leave very soon. Pick up a diplomatic wartime refuge from the Nog'Racias system and get him to the Galactic Center. He needs to be off-world in less than six hours, and it's five jumps from here. There's no deadline on his arrival at The Center, so we can refuel after we pick him up if we go directly from here. I'd normally disregard a job at a time like this, but this one's offering five times our normal fee. What should we do?" Shin waited as they read the manifest.

"I mean, we are finished with the delivery job, and we get to come back here, anyway. We can see it all then. I say we go." Jaen said as she and Polly looked at Savros for his vote.

"Let's do it!" he said. He'd dreamed of going to Nog'Racias since his uncle told him stories of the war as a child. That was before his mother made Savrotores promise to stop filling his head with war stories.

They looked at Polly, "Let's bounce, baby! This kinda place ain't exactly my scene, anyway. Let's go do some wartime shit." She put her boot on the console. And adjusted her goggles so that one eye was covered by them, "Agast, ye lamb lovers, prepare to set sail!"