While the Hubble flew towards the Goya System with speeds faster than light and days turned into weeks, the crew tried to keep themselves busy to pass the time.
“Damn, you’re killing me…” Sevastian panted after they went through another round of exercising. Exhausted he fell back when Patience let go of him.
“It’s just that your stamina management sucks and you’ve too little endurance.” She said with a grin and sat down beside him.
They both remained silent for some time, just catching their breaths and enjoying the moment.
“What?” Patience finally asked when she saw the look on Sevastian’s face.
“You…” He hesitated, “You've gained weight again, don't you? Have you talked with Timothy about it?”
“Wow, you know how to sweet talk girls!”
“Come on, I’m honestly worried about you. Tell me, how much?” The redhead persisted without any of his usual mischievous mood.
“...uh…” Patience sighed, “Another 8 kilo over the last two weeks. But-”
“8kg? That’s a total of 17kg since they ‘repaired’ your genes!” He exclaimed in shock.
Instead of letting her temper flare up, Patience gave him a gentle smile. How could she not know by now how much he cared about her?
“It’s okay. Over the last few days they grew slower and slower. I think my bones are about to reach their maximal density.”
“Additional 17kg, you are now at a total of about three times the weight of normal bones.” Sevastian mumbled.
“Well, at least I now can say ‘I just have heavy bones’ without lying!” She laughed, but stopped when she saw he still wasn’t convinced.
“I’ll talk to Timothy, just to make sure everything is alright, okay?” Patience promised and finally got a happy nod from him.
After resting and enjoying the cozy atmosphere for a bit, Sevastian once more spoke up.
“You know, I could train you to better apply all this raw power on missions. While you are an awesome fighter, that is often not what is needed when you are in the field and the bad guys all have weapons.”
“I know, I caught a glimpse of that when you trained with Landom and your sister.”
“The heavy shield is just one application. In your case, you could probably go for a full-body armor.” He explained eagerly, “Not talking about the electrically powered ones here. Those are too fucking expensive because of all the shielding needed to be save from energy disruption and you never see them outside of special units. What I mean are the Heavy Knights. Thick plating combined with energy shields that makes you a real tank on the battlefield. Few can put them on since you not only need massive strength to move them, you also have to be able to not break down under their weight. You’re made for this!”
“Maybe…” Patience nodded. Absentmindedly, she began stroking his hair. “You know that that isn’t my path though, don’t you? I’m not made for this. Of course I’m enjoying this adventure and having fun with you all, but at the end of the day, I don’t wanna live my whole life like that.”
When he saw her mind begin to wander, Sevastian just kept quiet and waited for her to continue.
“I want to become a coach. Help kids from the streets and poor districts to fight for a better life. Just like that old geezer who trained me, I wanna offer others a chance to break out of the endless circle they were born into.” She explained, “People are dying around me. I’m just a worker in a technocrafter’s workshop. That’s not how things should go.”
Sevastian noticed that her hands began to clench and even though she nearly pulled out his hair, he just kept quiet and let her express her worries.
“In just one year I fought for my life against smugglers and crazy robots, was assaulted by pirates, observed how a reactor blew up the better part of a huge city’s district and was stuck in a storm that tried to kill us all by throwing frickin’ blades of ice around… and I lost a friend of mine.”
Patience took a few deep breaths and loosened her grip on Sevastian’s hair before she looked at him.
“What about you? You have lived like that when you were a mercenary, right?”
“Well, due to my parents Alena and I began to live from one job to the next. In the beginning we did mostly courier stuff, later the jobs became more diverse. While I have to say that your last year - and the work under Robin as a captain as a whole - is definitely not representative for the everyday missions you do as a mercenary, there is… well, let’s just say most places in the universe aren’t meant for vacation.”
“So, how did you end up here? A hired hand of the UAS.” Patience asked and Sevastian began to laugh.
“No shit? I worked my ass off to convince Alena to join the UAS. The mercenary work is really tough, like you explained, and not something you can do for years without end. I wanted to find a better alternative: safer missions and a stable employer…”
“...and that is how you ended up here on this ship? Wow, tell me about life-choices!” Patience chuckled.
“At least Alena is having fun.” He said defiantly.
“Yeah? Can’t really tell, she always has this cold look. I think I only saw her smile once or twice so far.”
“See? Once or twice in just a few weeks is a lot already.” He grinned, “She can’t really show it, but I know her well enough to see that she is enjoying this trip immensely.”
“So, don't you have to split up in the future, if what you are looking for is not the same in the long run?”
“Who knows? We never really talked about it before as we’re so used to working together. Maybe there will come a day when we will go different ways though. It’s not like we are bound together by anything.”
Patience nodded and understood that it was time to drop these heavy topics. While dangerous, at least for now they all had a great time on the Hubble. So she decided to switch to more important things.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“How is it? Have you rested enough to go for another round?” She asked with a grin.
“What kind of question is that? Of course I can keep going!” Sevastian exclaimed in indignation and sat up on the bed.
***
While Patience and Sevastian shifted their exercising from the gym to the bedroom, Robin used this time to repair the Melody II. Days over days did he stay in the little hangar and worked on switching parts, patching up the hull and calibrating all the systems.
Often he got visits from his friends who stayed for some time, shared stories about their life before this journey and talked about plans for the future. With the end of the mission coming closer and closer, this was what was on everyone’s mind.
The only person Robin never really saw since they left the Mereus Cluster was Timothy. He apparently had thrown himself into one of his projects and now Robin was on his way to check out what his friend was up to.
When he entered the laboratory, Robin was surprised to find Timothy chilling on a chair, reading a book.
“I think I never saw you this relaxed before. What are you reading?”
In response the researcher just grumbled and held up his book.
“‘Mutations and G-Anomalies - An Introduction’” He read out loud and looked up in confusion, “What? Why would you need that? I’m pretty sure you’ve left that level behind years ago.”
“Yeah, a little mishap on my side.” Timothy said, “But Rob, did you know that some G-Anomalies can have upgrades that improve the overall quality and sometimes even add new skills?”
“No shit! Uhm… Mate? Are you okay?” Robin carefully asked when his friend acted more than a little weird, “You have a Class D - Eidetic Memory and this is basic knowledge. How come you don’t know this stuff?”
Timothy put down the book and sighed, “My mutation works like a data storage. Everything I read or learn will be saved and then can be accessed at any time without any gaps in my memory. However, like every data storage there is a limit to its capacity. Once I reach its maximum, I have to free up space. There are a few things I tagged as essential - personal experiences, everything about the people in my life or basic stuff I need for a normal life - and others are optional. Depending on the field I’m researching I sometimes remove or add things to selected topics.”
“Okay, so you are working on…?” Robin probed after getting an idea of what did happen.
“Stuff about Drel and the Wuranger but mostly I’m still trying to catch the AI that is hacking us. I’m getting closer each time we find it and have already got some evidence to bolster my theory. I decided to take things in my own hand and capture it by predicting its next target and booby-trapping the system. However, to do that I needed more knowledge about Starborn-tech and the UAS systems…”
“And you thought ‘Who the fuck needs to know that humans have mutations nowadays?’ and deleted basically everything you learned even back at school? Tough move, mate, tough move!” Robin groaned.
“It was an accident, okay? I was kind of busy and wanted to hurry up with the AI hacker and then I may have selected a bit too much in the process of making space…”
“Huh… How come you first deleted everything and now learn everything again? Just because you removed too much and don't enjoy being an idiot or do you have a new project in mind?”
“A bit of both, the gap in my general knowledge is too big and I also want to help Ang’Tue with a little project of his. The laboratory of the Hubble is really well equipped and we want to make use of the gene analyzer over there to check out a few things. It will be the first joint research project of Eltaran and Humans!” Timothy explained enthusiastically.
“You are having an official cooperation with the Eltaran in the field of genes and mutations? Wow!” Robin was massively impressed. That was no easy feat and would definit-
“Well, not officially… but hey, who knows what will happen in the future!”
“Oh okay, well whatever. Good luck and be more careful next time. Seems to me as if it could be quite dangerous to delete the wrong stuff.” Robin said and turned to leave when Timothy pressed his nose back into the book.
“Ah, right!” He stopped at the door when he remembered something, “The gene analyzer you mentioned, can you use it to scan and identify my mutation?”
“Sure, but why would that be necessary? My book just explained that a mutation shouldn’t change over time, so what do you… Oh! You messed with your G-Anomaly in the Eltaran’s lab, right? Yeah, give me a few more days to get up to speed and then we can give it a try.”
“Thanks mate, good luck with all the studying and stuff…”
***
“Captain, we are about to drop out of superluminal travel in about 20 minutes!” Happy informed Robin via internal comm a few days later. They finally were about to arrive in the Goya System.
Even if he had read reports and everything, Robin still was a bit unsure what to expect.
Goya, the central star of the likewise named solar system, was dying. As it was not a humongous sized star that could create a neutron star or even a black hole after death, Goya instead evolved into something called a Red Giant. These are stars that, at the end of their lifespan, never can develop further than the helium-burning stage. The mass of its core shrinks rapidly which in turn reduces the gravitational pull. The outer layer of the star therefore expands while burning off with a red glow. At some point it will just waft away into a hot nebular in space, leaving the dead core behind as a White Dwarf.
Right now Goya was still a few thousand years away from turning into a White Dwarf, on the universal timescale that meant it was just before the stage of turning from a Red Giant into a hot nebulous cloud.
The electromagnetic radiation from Goya was also messing up the planets in its system and created anomalies in natural formations all over the place. Further, its frequent solar flares were a danger to any ship in the system and could only be predicted if one got lucky and didn't have the scanner blocked.
Excitement grew in Robin when he thought about the flight through this system. It wasn’t overly dangerous but pretty sure something else to see. Alas, Terulos, the planet they were heading to, was another story altogether. They will have to be extra careful to not mess up on the last meters after arriving there.
“We are well prepared!” He told himself, “We had lots of training and a good test run on Seavis. Everyone had time to get to know each other and learn about the risks. This will be a walk in the park, no need to worry too much!”
If Robin’s optimism was the right attitude or dangerous naivety still had to be concluded. However, what he got right was that everyone aboard the Hubble had grown over the last weeks and months. Some had gained valuable experiences to learn from, others have made more substantial leaps in power. Patience was among those, but also Ang’Tue as far as Robin heard, even if he didn’t understand what exactly had changed for the Eltaran.
And Robin himself? Yeah, his bloody experiment in the laboratory had seemingly paid off - while he still had no complete grasp about his new ability to partly control the flow of energy, the scanning of his G-Anomaly did show promising results.
[*** INFO ***] 1 G-Anomaly detected 2 Match found 3 Identification: -3⌂0% 4 Class B, Ξn∩r⌂y S¦n‡s⊂s [*** INFO ***]
“Another raise in class. Class B mutations are nothing to scoff at and more often than not the real deal.” Robin muttered and sent out an Echo-Pulse. For more than 20 meters every bit of energy was brightly highlighted in his vision, giving him a much better and more detailed view of his surroundings than before.
“Can’t wait to see what I’m able to do when I finally manage to interact with the energy in a controlled manner…” He said and made the lights above him flicker a bit before he left his cabin.
“But first, let’s check out what this system has to offer!”