*DING* “Halo Proxima has begun our descent. All personnel should stow any cargo or personal items and proceed to duty stations. Prepare for re-entry in thirteen minutes, and congratulations on an event-less flight. Enjoy your leave, everyone.” *DING*
With the announcement over the ship’s PA, a cheer roared through the crew. The noise and activity level continued to rise for the next few minutes, and then silence. Except for the boots of one last crewman running to his station, it was eerily silent. He was just about to let curiosity get the better of him and take a little peek when the rumble started. It was very faint at first, but before he knew what was happening, the entire ship was shaking so fiercely that he was sure it was going to get ripped apart and send him flying out into space.
“Any second now,” he said to himself as he grit his teeth, closed his eyes, and braced himself against the walls of the small box he was hiding in.
He wondered if his uncle had made a terrible mistake, trusting the strange guy back at Tuscanuchi. They seemed to know each other. At any rate, he knew as long as the lid was closed, the shipping container would automatically seal. But would it keep him safe in the emptiness of space? Unlikely. Just as he was contemplating dying, everything stopped. No more banging, no more alarms, nothing, just silence. The silence lasted for eternity. “Oh no,” he thought, “did it happen? Did the whole ship explode and send me hurtling through the blackness of space?”
*DING* "Congratulations again, and welcome to Abriva, the capital planet of the J’abri Vah." *DING*
Relief washed over him. They hadn’t exploded after all, and now it was just a matter of time. Everyone would be off the ship within half an hour except a few crew members. And in a couple of hours, his would-be deathtrap of a box would arrive in a storeroom. At which point, he would finally be free from the thing. While initially amazing, it wasn’t what he expected when Parson said they could take his transport from Tuscanuchi.
In his life back at home, Savros had heard and learned many incredible things, but he’d never had the chance to see or experience any of it. It had all been stories and lessons. Education could only take him so far. Now it was time to use some of those years of studying. He knew that a new world was just beyond the doors that towered over him. A place that, until now, he’d only read about: he could hardly contain his excitement!
He could still hear his father’s voice, “Abriva is the central trade depot for nearly all artisans, craft workers, and specialists, where handmade items can be bought or sold and are shipped all around Living Space. Thanks in part to an agreement between The Creators Alliance, the guild that ensures fair practice between traders on Abriva, and The EdenFire Empire. Abriva also serves as the commerce hub for EdenFire and central shipping for their products. EdenFire is one of the oldest corporations still functioning. And for over 900 years, one of the wealthiest. It’s no wonder they make everything. In fact, if you have a product, it was either made by EdenFire, or they have an alternative version available at a range of prices.”
“Between The Artisans and EdenFire, nearly 100 million people visit the planet each day, looking to purchase or trade for the item or service they desire. Thanks to Halo Proxima, travel to and from the planet is relatively easy. The Halo, as it’s known, encompasses the entire planet. Residing just beyond the upper reaches of Abriva’s atmosphere. It serves as landing, hospitality, and transportation for all incoming travelers via ship or pod. Not long after its completion, they even transported the ‘Gate of Az’Reign’ to the Central Chamber, even though no one alive had ever seen the gate open.”
“Only pre-scheduled delivery transports and local J’abri Vah citizens’ vessels may bypass the Halo. However, Halo Proxima still controls the descents. Visitors going through the Halo are treated to a level of luxury that is scarcely seen in the universe. All visitors receive the utmost hospitality and care. With the finest craftsmen in Abriva residing on the halo, everyone gets a taste of the very best Abriva has to offer. With the number of visitors, Abriva gets each day, the length of a stay is limited to a single night. In rare instances, a second night in the Halo has been granted, usually only for a person grieving the loss of a loved one that had died on Abriva after the first night.”
Still standing at the door to wonder and adventure, the entrance to everything, the useless facts and trivia from his father’s lessons, faded from his mind. This was it! His heart was in his throat as he lifted the latch and gave a push.
The door barely moved. “I guess a door this size doesn’t just swing open.” he thought. He managed to get it open enough to squeeze out of it with a little more effort. Okay, this is it! And with that, he stepped through the crack in the door out into his first new world.
He’d been off-planet many times as a child, but always to a station somewhere or docking with another ship so his father could conduct business while he waited in his quarters or sometimes in the galley. Never to another planet. His father had always said that landfall on a planet was a needless risk, and besides, he already had a world to explore.
The hot, dry air caught in his throat and made his eyes water almost immediately. Even the light breeze was enough to kick up sand and dust into his face, making it impossible to breathe. As he fell to the ground, unable to see or breathe, choking for air, a stronger gust of wind hit him with more dust. His mind was racing frantically. The atmosphere was supposed to be breathable on Abriva. People come here from all over for shopping, and… something was grabbing him and lifting him into the air. Suddenly, he felt the ground beneath his feet and a wall against his back. A dark figure stood over him as he blinked and wiped the dirt from his eyes.
“Are you alright?! Oh wow, I just about smacked ya! If you hadn’t fell down cryin’, I’d prolly be picking up your head right now! And what are you doing way out here, anyway? Did you get lost? I can’t imagine how that happened. There’s nothin’ around for days, not on foot anyway. So let’s see, hmmm, if you didn’t get lost, you must have come out of the shed, and the only way to get through transport security is to be in a container! Oh. No way! Did you get shipped here! Did you ship yourself? Don’t you know how dangerous that is? But if you shipped here through security, your container had to be sealed. How did you get out of a sealed container? HOLY FUCKING SHIT! You’re a runaway Az’Reign! Wait, but why would an Az’Reign runaway to a dry-goods storage depot? Hmmm…”
As he blinked the last of the sand from his eyes, Savros could hardly believe them. He was also having difficulty making sense of what was coming in through his ears. But first, he had to fix his eyes. He was standing there staring at a pair of goggles with dark red lips that never seemed to stop moving under the goggles, with a small scar on the chin just below the lip. And on top of all of that was a pile of dust-filled purple spikes of hair. He looked up at her and blinked a couple more times, thinking for sure he had hit his head and was hallucinating. But then his ears took over again, finally able to see and hear properly again he realized, whoever this crazy girl is she has come frighteningly close to figuring out not only how he got there but also who he is, just by looking at him and almost “smackin’ him.” Wait what! He looked past her to see a terrapod only a little distance behind her. She had been towing a small trailer with it, and, by the looks of the pile of packages all crammed into the front of the trailer, she’d been moving pretty fast when she hit the brakes.
Savros had finally pulled himself together enough to get at least a feel for his current situation. Meanwhile, the girl in front of him had stopped talking and was now just staring down at him. After a few moments, she hopped down off the small crate she’d been standing on, and got right in his face, eyeball to goggle lens. Finally, she stood up straight with a look of finality on her face as if she had decided his fate.
“Hmmm,” she said, “you’re coming with me. I haven’t quite figured you out yet, but I will. Anyway, I can’t leave you out here. Like I said, you can walk for days and not find anything but sand and dirt. I’ve got a few more stops to make before we head back. You can help me out since I was nice enough to avoid hitting you.” She gave him a smile and said, “You can call me Polly. Come on, let’s go. Unless you’re planning on moving in out here.”
He couldn’t help but laugh to himself, which spilled over into laughing aloud. If this is how his adventure was starting, he could only imagine what crazy characters he’d meet and befriend along the way. At least this one seems friendly enough, he thought to himself. And if it’s really as far to a village or city as she claims, he wouldn’t make it on foot.
“Hi, thank you for not ‘smackin’ me and, yes I, suppose I do need a way out of here, so thank you for the ride as well. I will help you in any way I can. My name is Savros. It’s nice to meet you.” Savros was still a little unsteady and had trouble finding words to speak with, making his speech sound oddly formal.
“Whoa, lighten up, guy, uh, Savros. You sound like you just came from a funeral or school or something. When we get back to KaiStar, we’ll sort through everything. It’s best not to spend too much time in the sun out here. The radiation is high, and overexposure isn’t good for you at all. And don’t worry about helping me out. Like I said, I’ve only got two more stops, and that whole trailer is going to the next stop. Once we drop it, we’ll drop this envelope at the last facility before heading back.” She patted her hip pocket where he presumed she was keeping the envelope.
There was something about her that really put him at ease. He smiled, “great, let’s get going.” They headed towards her parked terrapod if you could call that “parked.” She hopped in the cockpit while he settled in behind her. He had no sooner sat down, and they jerked forward and were off. The pod was in such bad shape, and the trailer it was towing was in no better condition. He could scarcely hear himself think; there was no way he’d get to ask her any questions until they got back to KaiStar, whoever or whatever KaiStar is. It didn’t sound like the name of a city in Abriva that he’d ever heard of. It could be a smaller settlement on the outskirts, or even a person, for that matter.
He was still pondering it when they started to slow down. He didn’t understand how the noise this thing was making seemed to get louder as they slowed down. Eventually, they came to a screeching, grinding halt in front of a rather large building with no visible doors. There was, however, a large industrial telepad at either corner. She hopped out and said something to him he didn’t even have a chance of hearing and ran over to the closest corner. A light flashed as the building sensor scanned her. Her Bio-ID would confirm her delivery and activate the pad. It relieved Savros that she appeared to be an honest, friendly local, just trying to finish up her workday.
She gave him a thumbs-up, yelled something else at him. He couldn’t even hear her voice, but her lips said, “let’s do this.” She landed squarely in the seat in front of him and circled around, stopping with the trailer entirely on the telepad. Another flash of light and the entire trailer was gone. Without even looking back, she punched it, and they went screaming across the desert floor toward the last stop.
The poor pod wasn’t complaining any less, but it was definitely moving faster now. They had barely gotten up to full speed before they started slowing down. But this time, there was no building in sight. At first, this confused Savros, but it wasn’t long before he saw and understood why as the ground changed from reddish dirt to a weathered and beaten metal material. A thought dawned on him, “This facility must be entirely underground, and we’re on top of it.”
As they approached the center, a pillar rose straight up to Polly’s eye level. She stuck her tongue out at it, looked at him with a grin, and shrugged. There was a quick flash of light, and then a thin slit opened in the front of the pillar. She dropped the envelope into the slot, and they were off to KaiStar. One thing was for sure; they weren’t sneaking in anywhere with this heap.
While pondering what KaiStar could be, he happened to notice the sky. Everything had been happening so fast he hadn’t taken a chance to look around before. It was late afternoon on this part of the planet. The atmosphere reflected very little light onto the planet at night, and the result was a jet-black backdrop for the brilliantly shining stars. The other view that was truly unique to Abriva was the Halo. Halo Proxima appeared like a beam of light splitting the night sky in two. Especially when viewed from a point on the planet near the equator. Savros assumed they must be near the equator, anyway, judging by the heat today. With the sun setting in his eyes, he looked at what was around him instead.
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The storage depots were far behind them at this point. There were mountains, off to the one side, way out near the horizon. On the other side, nothing but a flat desert as far as he could see. He couldn’t be sure, but it looked like there was water out there, dancing across the desert floor. Savros had to admit he was disappointed. He had been hoping for more fanfare, more bustling in the streets, and all the sights and sounds. But here he was, on Abriva all afternoon and into the evening, and so far, all he’d experienced were the sights of the storage depots and the sounds of the little screaming pod that was getting awfully cramped and, well, Polly would be the fanfare. He chuckled to himself. She was definitely the highlight of the day.
The next highlight of the day was the sunset. As the last rays of light disappeared behind the horizon, it was as though someone had flipped a switch on the day, and it was suddenly night. It took a couple of minutes for his eyes to adjust fully as he stared up at the suddenly-night sky. He knew they were finally adjusting when, suddenly, a blur of hazy lights came into view. They grew less fuzzy and more distinct as he watched them until they grew into a crystal clear, unobstructed view of an infinite starfield. The haze of the galaxy stretched roughly north and south, the beam of light cutting across the sky from east to west from Halo Proxima. The result being: a beautiful starry night sky split into quadrants. Savros wondered in awe at the different colors of stars. From home, they had all pretty much looked white. But here on Abriva, he could see red, yellow, blue stars, different shades of pinks and purples, and a few greens.
Polly slowed the pod, and the screaming died down a little. Savros looked forward, and he could see the glow of city lights up ahead. The contrast against the darkness made it apparent how dark it actually was. Even with the light from the pod, he couldn’t see more than a few feet in any direction. Without the pod, he’d be standing in pitch-black darkness right now.
As they got a little closer to the city lights, Savros saw that it was a small city. Town may have been more appropriate, but either way, it was a site for Savros’ sore eyes. They started passing various dwellings and buildings, and not long after, street lights started popping up here and there. At the first sign of houses, Polly slowed way down, and as they got closer and closer to town, there were more and more lights, and Polly was going slower and slower while the pod continued its non-stop screaming. Savros dubbed it ‘The Pod of Infinite Agony” because even if the pod couldn’t feel agony, Savros could.
They seemed to be heading right into the heart of town, but before everything got too congested and crowded, Polly turned off the main road and down a side street to the left. A few blocks down and another, they made another left and almost immediately another left and into a makeshift hangar. They pulled to a stop, and Polly cut the engines. To his dismay, the noise in his ears didn’t stop when the little pod finally went to sleep. He’d been listening to it for so long that it stayed with him as a buzzing and ringing in his ears for quite a while. His eyes, too, needed time to readjust to the sudden and copious amounts of light.
He half fell out of the pod when, stepping down, he discovered his foot asleep. Getting to his feet and looking around, Savros could only gawk.
Polly stretched and moved around, walking in little circles. She stopped, facing a large ship in the hangar. “Hey Kai, baby, how’re you doing?” she smiled and skipped in a circle a couple of times.
“This is KaiStar!” he choked, trying to keep himself from yelling it.
Polly looked back at him, “Huh?” she looked at him, blinking. “Oh yeah. Yes, this is KaiStar. He’s one of a kind, thanks to Jaen and me, and Shin, of course. Come on, let’s go find Jaen, and then I’ll give ya the tour!”
She ran off toward the large double doors to their right. Savros took a step after her but stopped when he looked up at KaiStar again. KaiStar was a ship unlike any he’d ever seen! From his vantage point, he could tell it was a ‘U,’ with the bridge at the bottom of the curve. He could see one arm of the ‘U’ and was amazed at the state of the plating. At first glance, it appeared to be badly rusting. The whole ship appeared to be in need of repair. But as he stared, he noticed he couldn’t see any actual damage. It seemed to be all entirely cosmetic. “That’s the strangest paint job I’ve ever seen,” he said to himself. He couldn’t see the top of the ship. The hangar veiling was lower near the entrances. The building opened op in the center, though, enough to house this incredible ship, KaiStar.
He took a few steps, peering up, trying to see the top. He kept moving forward. Each step revealed more of the ship, and finally, he could see the full profile of KaiStar. And he’d been wrong before. KaiStar was not a ‘U’ shape at all. In fact, it was actually very similar to one of his father’s freighters, but it had a bunch of strangely shaped pieces attached to it. The shadows and light made it difficult to discern from any distance at all. Someone had also done an engine swap and heavily modified the stern. This style of freighter usually had a sizeable boxy aft section to house the powerful but incredibly large and insanely old engines. But those old workhorses had been stripped out entirely. The added bulk to the sides, about two-thirds of the way back, coupled with the tapered aft section, completely changed how this shipped looked compared to its original build. Savros liked it this way better. As far as he was concerned, KaiStar was the most fantastic ship in Living Space.
An unfamiliar voice came from behind him, “Polly replaced four old J-40’s with one PD-X3 neutron drive.”
“Plus a couple secrets!” Polly chirped in. As Savros turned to see who else was speaking, he heard Polly, “Hey Savroni, this is Jaen, she’s pretty much everything around here.” Savros turned and was greeted by the kind face of a woman with the reddest hair he’d ever seen. In the messiest bun that’s ever existed. Her eyes were deep green, intelligent, and pondering as they studied him. She was a good deal taller than Polly, nearly a full head. Standing side by side, they were quite the colorful and lively pair. The two were about the same age, he’d guess. Maybe ten years older than himself.
“It’s a nice surprise meeting you like this, Savroni, was it?” Jaen extended her arm to offer her hand in greeting and gave him the slightest wink.
Savros chuckled nervously, running his hands through his own blue hair. They seemed so nice and accepting. “It’s actually, Savros.” He said, glancing at Polly with a smile, “but Savroni is fun.”
“Oh yeah! That’s the spirit, Savroast!” Polly laughed and skipped off toward KaiStar.
“She likes you. She doesn’t make up little nicknames for everybody.” Jaen began walking with Savros, following Polly. “Let’s go before she comes back, twisting up both of our names. We’ll introduce you to Shin while we eat dinner.”
Savros’ stomach rumbled at the thought of food. He was afraid if he spoke, he would drool, so he just nodded and quickly followed Jaen in the direction that Polly had disappeared into the darkness. They came up to a loan ladder in the darkness. Jaen went up first, and Savros looked around in the darkness before climbing up after her. He didn’t climb for long before a light from above flooded down onto him. Jaen pushed the door open the rest of the way and stepped off the ladder through the entrance.
As Savros reached the top and stepped through, he found himself standing in an airlock. Jaen sealed the door behind him, and a brief alarm sounded on the one opposite from them. It immediately swung open, and Polly bounced into the room. “Come on, you two, me ‘n’ Shinzi have been waiting forever.” She drew out the final ‘r” in forever. “There couldn’t have been much food in that storage depot, aren’t you hungry? Have you had snacks this whole time?” she looked at him seriously, “You been holding out on me?”
“I’m hungry, and I’m sure Savros is hungry too, so just relax, Poll’s, we’re coming” Jaen let Savros follow Polly as she brought up the rear. They exited the airlock into a corridor. This part of the ship was pretty much exactly like the original ship would have been. Everything looked old and well used but also well cared for and in remarkable condition. A few paces ahead, there should be an entrance to the bridge. Polly pushed the door open, and they filed onto the bridge.
Savros had expected to see some of the crew stationed around the bridge, but so far, he had seen no one at all except Polly and Jaen. What he saw instead of a crew was a heavily modified control room. All the crew stations found in the freighter were gone, and the room was largely stripped down. Banks of various hardware types replaced each station. As the trio entered the center of the room, several lights came on, and a voice addressed the three of them.
“Welcome home, ladies, and welcome Savros. Polly said you would be joining us for dinner, so I have prepared additional servings. As is tradition, tonight’s meal is the most popular dish of the local Sans’amon’s diet. Which consists largely of a vegetable stew with sides of roasted Goglow tail.”
“As for actual introductions, my name is Kaiozoshin, but I rather like Shin. It’s nice to meet you, Savros.”
“It sounds delicious. Thank you, Shin, it’s nice to, uh, meet you as well,” Savros said aloud to the room, lifting his head and projecting his voice, unsure of where the mic was located. Polly nudged Jaen, giggling at Savros.
Shin giggled a little too, “How polite! But don’t worry about speaking loud enough that I can hear you. As long as you are aboard the KaiStar, you could whisper to me, and I wouldn’t miss a word.”
“Where are you?” Savros asked, looking around the room.
“All around. I am a learning construct, an automated intelligence, created by Jaen. I am throughout the KaiStar. I monitor, operate, and maintain all systems aboard the vessel. The KaiStar is my home and my body.”
Shin stopped talking as Polly cut in, “We can get to all that later; let’s eat, guys!”
“Of course, the table is ready,” Shin said, and a door opened to their right. As they crossed the entrance, the lights came on, and Savros almost fainted. There was a very large bowl of what he assumed was the vegetable stew and several smaller plates, some with pieces of bread and others with roasted Goglow tails. It smelled so wonderful that Savros thought maybe he was hallucinating it; nothing could smell that good.
They ate and laughed as Polly told the story of her and Jaen’s first meeting when they were about half his age. And Jaen explained a little more about Shin. He controlled every aspect of the ship. Savros only found it slightly unnerving that a ship’s A.I. had a personality and even social intelligence that surpassed his own. She said she didn’t know exactly when Shin achieved independent thought. Even Shin didn’t know when it happened. He said one day, while running a debugging program on a new piece of hardware, he caught himself daydreaming, and a wave of realization washed over him. He was self-aware. And Polly promised to give him a tour of the ship and show him some of the other mods she’d made to the ship.
Jaen saw him eying the stew after finishing his bowl, and she assured him that he was welcome to eat as much as he wanted.
“We always have a big feast the day before we head out on an off-world job. And the way you finished that first bowl, you must be starving. When was the last time you had a decent meal?”, she had meant to reassure him, but asking about his last decent meal had brought a sudden change in his demeanor, and the energy in the room suddenly became heavy and uncomfortable.
“It’s been five days, I think. I was asleep for a couple of them.”, he pushed the last little chunky piece of vegetable around in the bowl. He didn’t look up from the bowl at all while he recounted the events that had brought him there. When he got to the part where he met Polly, he trailed off. It was dead silent in the room. Savros finally looked up to see Polly and Jaen looking at him with concern through teary eyes.
“Five fucking days!” Polly jumped over the table from a seated position in her chair and wrapped her arms around Savros. She hugged him so tightly that he was sure he heard his bones breaking. She sat him back down in his chair. “What the fuck is wrong with your uncle? Sending you off alone like… and right after… and you’re just supposed to wander around… find some random guy, somewhere on the planet! W-w-w-what are you… and…” Polly had broken down into a series of sounds and facial expressions.
“I think what Polly is getting at is that it seems incredibly irresponsible of your uncle to send you off alone after experiencing such a traumatic event. And with no actual plan, once you got here, I have to agree with her. What could he have been thinking?” Jaen had scooted up beside his chair as Polly paced around the room, making faces and arguing with herself. Jaen saw him watching Polly’s apparent breakdown and added, “don’t mind her. She’s fine. When she hears something that doesn’t fit her logic, she gets a little quirky while her brain tries to make sense of it. She’ll be fine.”
“It didn’t feel like we had much choice. We only knew that they wanted to kill us. Our other option seemed to be hiding in the woods until they found us.” Savros deeply missed his family and hoped that his uncle was okay. He went on, “we didn’t have any food or supplies. We’d just lose everything. Nothing has gone as planned, but all I can do is keep moving forward. And here I am, safe and sound, thanks to you and Polly. I’ve met an Automated Intelligence named Shin, who’s probably the best cook in Living Space. And if you guys are willing to help me find Sadjier, I will just keep moving forward until Uncle Sav shows up to take me home.” Savros was trying to be brave and mature but found the words comforted him while he spoke. It might not be peculiar, but he had a plan after all, and he decided he would stick to it. Keep moving forward. He liked it; it was simple and easy to remember and should be pretty easy to stick to.
Polly had stopped and listened to Savros as he spoke. She and Jaen exchanged a quick look. “Savros,” they said in unison. Polly squeezed her shoulder, and Jaen continued, “of course, we’ll help you find Sadjier, and if you think it’s for the best, we’ll take you to him. But we also want to tell you that you are welcome to stay with us for as long as you need. We aren’t rich, and you’ll have to help us work, and there are times we really need help. Besides, Polly likes you, you’ve already grown on me, and I’m sure Shin would love to have another guy around. And we have delivery and transport clearances on most worlds and diplomatic status on a few. What I mean is, you, we could come and go as we please on Abriva and most other worlds. We’ll still take you to Sadjier so your uncle will be able to reach you, but you are welcome to stay and travel with us in the meantime. Just think it over.”
He heard the words, and as the meaning sunk in, he went from confident in his plan to questioning it immediately. It turned out to be harder to stick to than he thought. But he could still move forward with Polly, Jaen, and Shin, couldn’t he? He definitely felt safe with them. They all seemed to be bonding quite quickly, and he felt a pleasant warmth with them when everything else had felt so cold, and then he realized he would be sad to see them go, “I would love to stay, and I’ll help out any way I can, I promise!” He heard his voice rattle it off before he even realized he was speaking.