She took his hand and allowed him to lift her up, he smiled at her again, she was still looking at him confused. The smoke in the room was still dissipating and his vision was clearer now.
“Are you okay?” he said bringing her to her feet. She nodded, her eyes not leaving his face, he saw that she looked over his shoulder at the guard behind him. He didn't look back. He knew how violent that was, and he didn't really want to look back at it himself. The door to the inside of the ship opened and she quickly pulled him closer,
“Don't say anything about the disease”
“I’m clear though, right” She just looked at him sternly and turned to the door where they were met by the pilot, standing in full exo-suit and in the way of the door. Meno noticed that, unlike the other guards, she, he thought did not have any weapons on her. She was also far smaller than the guards he had seen, standing only about five feet and a bit squat. She stood with her arms held out on her hips,
“I know about the disease,” she said in a sassy tone, “I literally just had to disinfect my ship” she pronounced the, my. It seemed Angie was also slightly taken aback by her size, but didn't mention it, instead saying,
“Thank you for your help”
“Do you have the planet's name?” she said through the voice modulation of the mask. Meno could see that Angie was slightly confused by this question, and looked at him.
“Once we get into orbit, I’ll tell you,” he said, remembering Worrec’s warning. The pilot just stared at him for a moment, Angie looking between the two.
“Fine,” she said, again in a rather sassy tone, even through the helmet, she turned and walked through the doorway, she had been standing in. Meno and Angie looked at each other and followed her through. Meno suddenly considered the current standing, they were still right outside of the Pillar, which meant in range of their weapons.
“We need to leave quickly, the Dorlec would have contacted the Pillar” he said making his way through the steel tube which was the passageway in the ship, he could see closed doors with solid metal rivets holding them in place. The ship seemed old, but solidly built. The floor clanged and echoed as they walked through, with only a steel door in front of them. The pilot was trying to act casually but Meno could see that it was somewhat forced, even through the exo-suit.
“I hacked their comms as soon as they got close, they weren’t able to get any information out,” she said without turning around, “According to the Pillar, everything is happening as it should. Good job in getting rid of them”
“One of them is still alive” Meno said, at least he thought so, he didn't intend to kill the man that he was fighting. He knew that Angie had shot and killed the one. Meno didn't want to kill anyone. She stopped in front of him.
“Ship, lock the cargo bay, open authorisation, pilot only” the ship seemed to respond to her with a beep and a quick blink of the lights. Once through the steel door, Meno took in his surroundings, following the passage he noticed doors to his left and right, The pilot turned at the fourth door to their right and pushed it open, she held her arm out ushering them in. Meno poked his head around and saw that it was what he imagined was a mess hall. It held a small table that sat six, welded to the floor along with the stools. There was also a small kitchen tucked into the side with what looked like black rectangles on the walls. “Wait here, I’ll get us off the moon, then you,” she said pointing at Meno, “Will tell me where we are going”
Meno had watched the ship from the outside, hidden in the trees for almost an hour before he had seen Angie being brought down, from the outside, the ship had just been a giant rectangular box, made of steel, very much like the inside, though, darker in colour than inside. It was cramped, but the space seemed to be utilised effectively. He was currently sitting at the small table on one of the stools, trying his hardest not to draw the gaze of Angie who was standing at the kitchen counter her hands placed on the table surface and her eyes fixed on him. He smiled as he felt the ship take off, the strangest feeling he had ever felt, then it was almost as though the ship wasn't moving again,
“Are we not leaving?” he said over to Angie, seeing that this was a good enough reason to break the silence. She looked at him strangely and then seemed to realise what he was talking about,
“Gravity engine, the bubble has engaged, you won’t feel like you are moving until we land again”
“Ah,” Meno said quickly turning away and blowing his cheeks out. He really wasn't doing well with meeting new people and for some reason, she made him feel particularly uncomfortable. He felt as though he needed to keep the conversation going now, “What should we do about those soldiers?”
“Would you like to explain to me, exactly, what is going on here?”
“Um,” he started, feeling strangely grateful for the chance but not knowing where to start with everything that had happened that night. He decided to start from when Worrec walked into their home. To her credit, she didn't interrupt him at all, even when he stumbled over some of the events and had to go back and clarify some of the unclarifie-ables, she just listened. He tried to explain that in all of this confusion, he really didn't know what to make out of any of it. She just looked at him as he was saying it, he started to sweat, how could anyone believe what he was saying, it felt like he was lying. Something that he was awful at.
“Why you?” she said after he figured that he had told her everything that he knew.
“I asked the same thing, I dont know why. Worrec wouldn't give me an answer about it even though I asked him twice and even when I realised that he was effectively going to be killing himself to help me, he just said ‘Why not you’ which I thought was a pretty shitty answer - sorry for swearing - but he did say that I wouldn't like it and it kind of felt like there was going to be some tests, but I don’t know from who, because he didn't mention anyone else that he was working with, well, just the pilot, but I hear that she is on the run as well and that she can be a bit prickly, but I think that he liked her because he called her clever. I dont know it’s all very confusing and I don’t know what to do” he blurted. She blinked a few times before looking to the door where to Meno’s horror the pilot was standing, she had taken her helmet off now. She had a round face with a massive afro that was parted on the side that, made Meno wonder how she had got her helmet over it. She had freckles that went across her cheeks and nose, and it seemed her sassy nature was expressed in her face as well with a wrinkled forehead and puckered lips.
“He’s not contagious,” Angie said without any panic in her voice.
“I know, that Worrec guy told me he wasn't. I also calibrated the sensors in the cargo bay myself, it said he was clear, so he’s clear” she said with a flat expression. “You talk a lot” she said to Meno who now felt the sweat coming through in waves. He tried to apologise but she continued before he could speak, “Planet? We are in orbit”
“It’s called…” Angie held her hand up to him.
“Let’s make sure, shall we?” she said moving towards the pilot. She was much taller than her, but the pilot didn't back down at all at first, then merely exhaled and walked down the passage. Angie tipped her head to Meno who followed. “So you met this Worrec too?” she said as they walked through the passage.
“Just the one time, he told me to get on this ship and then he sent me some instructions about getting that boy, then I get a last-minute message about you and that he changed the manifest for me to be on this ship. So I got on and came down to this moon” she said. Meno felt slightly offended that he had just been referred to as boy, she wasn't that much older than him. They stepped into the cockpit and Meno was mesmerised. Out of the viewport he saw the spots of stars that glittered in the abyss of space, twinkling. It was so quiet, it was so still. He walked further into the small cockpit which had some computer screens that had small holograms displayed off of them, showing symbols and numbers that he didn't understand at all. He looked out through the viewport and saw the small grey moon below. Gol. the only place that he had ever known. Below the planet in the distance Meno could see the husk of what he knew to be the planet that Gol orbited, it was grey and lifeless, and nobody in the town even knew its name. He felt a strange lurch happen in his stomach at the realisation that he had been on that orb, and now he was disconnected from it, he was away from…ground. He was in a ship floating in space. “Planet?” she said again, pulling him away from his existential crisis.
“Uh, it’s called, Yelly” he said, knowing that it sounded wrong. The pilot looked at him strangely, and he cursed himself for not getting it right after Worrec had said it so many times. “Yeyly” he said again, not sounding correct.
“Yeley,” said Angie, correctly interpreting his mishap. The pilot nodded and took a seat in the small cockpit, the screens and holograms swarmed around her and she started moving her hands around, the holograms moving in sync, shifting in and out of her reach. On a few occasions, she suddenly hesitated and went again into a frenzy of hand-waving through the holograms.
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“The Dorlec,” Angie said calmly. To which the pilot nodded and said,
“I’m going to open the airlock, they will only be picked up once we go. They had their helmets on right?” she said to which both Meno and Angie nodded.
“Wait, I broke the ones…”
“It’s fine, they have safety protocols for that. They will survive. Well…” she said looking at Angie, “One of them at least” she mumbled through the helmet.
“Thank you” Meno said, which got him a rather strange look from Angie, but he felt that it was right. Maybe?
“It’s going to take us about a day to get there,” she said, still toying with a few of the glowing holograms. Meno watched, rapt with interest, as her hands darted between the webs. He looked out of the viewport and saw the stars in front of him start to stretch around him, even though they weren't moving yet. Gol still hung motionless below them.
“What’s happening? The space in front of us, is, changing” he said, unable to take his eyes off it. It was as though a giant water droplet was in front of them, warping the light coming from the stars, the space in front of them seemed to be growing, blue. He was aware of Paba looking at him, and then she answered,
“It’s the gravity cascade assembling. The gravity bubbles are forming and pulling in the light, You're seeing the light gaining energy as it falls into the field ahead of us.” The stars ahead of him continued to twist and warp, like being underwater and watching sunlight refract through shifting waves. It was beautiful, terrifying, and unreal.
“I’ve heard of that” he said mesmerised by it all, “I didn't think it would look like this,”
“It's a series of gravity bubbles nested within each other—think of it as bubbles within a bigger bubble. The outer bubble folds space, allowing us to travel to Yeley almost instantaneously from the outside perspective, we will arrive there in a few seconds in real-time. But inside the inner bubbles, we've adjusted the time dilation so that time passes faster for us, so we experience time more normally, not quite the same but faster than we would. So, while only seconds pass outside, we get a day during the journey,” she explained excitedly. Meno smiled as she spoke, “Without the gravity cascade, it would take us months to get there, and space travel would be far more limiting. This way, we have time to prepare and aren't just jumping from place to place in an instant.” she said delightedly. Meno looked at her, her expression lost in awe at the mechanics of the travel. “Sorry, you probably knew all of that,” she said, now blushing,
“I didn't understand a word that you just said” he responded smiling at her.
“Now who talks a lot,” said Angie, who turned and walked back to the mess. Meno caught her smiling before she left though. The Pilot got off of her seat and Meno, held out his hand realising that he hadn't introduced himself,
“I’m Meno, by the way,” She looked at his hand, seeming to try and decide whether she should continue with her previous sassy attitude or not, but took his hand and said,
“Paba Rebapa” she didn't smile, “Don’t touch any of my stuff” he nodded and followed her out of the room.
“So why would you want to experience more time while travelling, that seems to be counterintuitive?”
“They say that it’s so ships and personnel can have more time to have everything prepared for when they arrive. The military will be fully armed and briefed when they arrive on planet, or a transporter can have everything ready to deliver once they get to their destination. The real reason is simple. The higher-ups dont want people living longer than them”
“What do you mean?” he said still following her as they got into the mess. Angie had taken her place once more at the table.
“If you experience time like that, every time you travel, you only experience seconds, but for everyone else experiencing time normally it can be weeks and months. They believe that it's risky to have people being separated from normal times like that, they think it gives them some kind of power over them” It was strange the way she said, they. Angie popped in,
“The first explanation is the real one, you want to give people on ships time, otherwise they are constantly on the move”
“And they dont age,” Paba said petulantly, “Well not normally anyway”
Meno took his seat and looked at Angie, Paba still stood close to the door and they spent a moment just looking at each other. It somehow didn't feel awkward, as though they all knew that this was a strange situation to be in. Nobody really knew what to say, and they weren't judging the others for being in the same situation. After a few moments, Paba said,
“There are some jumpsuits in the crew quarters, there is a water shower as well. I’ll get some food packs done for us”
“A water shower on a ship like this?” Angie said, Meno just looked between them,
“I know right?”
Meno experienced pure, absolute and undeniable ecstasy in the water shower. He had never felt anything like it in his entire life. The water was warm, almost hot, the pressure hit his body and he felt as though he was being massaged. There were liquids in there that cleaned him without burning his skin or leaving an oily film. He laughed while he was in the shower, not able to believe that such a luxury existed in the galaxy. It was a hidden treasure of such divine profoundness that he just stood in the small compartment and wondered what else this galaxy had to surprise him with. The soaps smelled of fresh flowers, which he found by picking up the bottle and reading it, and he only imagined that this was what Dot must have been describing when she spoke of wondering fields in the homeworld where she had grown up. There was a product for his hair, though it was not as effective as the soap but felt just as amazing. He had found pure bliss.
Once Angie had told him that he had spent enough time in there, he got out and pulled on the jumpsuit that Paba had told him about. It was made from a thin, elasticated material that hung loosely over his body. It was so soft, it was warm but still allowed him to breathe. He then put the necklace around his neck that Worrec had given him, inspecting it again, the writing on it was slightly faded, and it didn't look like anything that he had seen before. He placed it under his shirt.
He had placed the exo-suit next to his bed and compared the hardness and quite frankly, the smell of the two. He much preferred this new jumpsuit to anything that he had worn before. And to make matters better, he had a bed in the crew quarters. It was soft, and smooth and had a fabric that flowed like water, with a pillow that was like a round barrel. It was, puffy. He dared not lie on the bed, but stroked his hand across the soft material, listening to the relaxing sound it made as his hand washed against it. This must have been the peak of luxury, he thought. Worrec had really pulled through for him here.
If only the people on Gol could have seen this he thought.
He took and moment and turned away from the bed, sitting on the floor. He wondered how Mr. Dimitri was doing. He was under no illusion that he would die in the morning, and if he understood Paba, he would die only after they arrived on Yeley. He knew that this was what the old man had wanted for him, but his heart felt sore, and the lump in his throat swelled. He was so grateful to the old man, but he wanted to be there with him in the end.
“Meno, your food!” bellowed Paba from the mess. The crew quarters were the very next room so he could hear her clearly. He stood up, blinked himself out of it and shook his head. He walked into the next room with a large smile on his face, ready to face whatever was coming next.
“Were you laughing?” Paba said her face once again construed into that look somewhere between disgust and curiosity. Angie just laughed.
“He’s never been in a shower before” she added to Paba who was still looking at him with her nose now wrinkled.
“I could tell,” she said and then gave a short burst of laughter. “Come eat, it’s getting cold” she said pointing at a plate that was at the table, “Angie” she said to Meno emphasising her name, “Wants to run through the plan, that I told her, I dont know anything about” Angie rolled her eyes, but Meno could see that there was something in Paba that she found humorous. He saw that the black rectangles on the walls were now lit up with the same type of holographic displays as what they saw in the cockpit. The same Images that stretched from the panels told them their status on the trip, their current ambient temperatures and oxygen levels. He marvelled at the images that popped out and rotated in thin air.
The food in front of him, was a small bowl of what looked like grains, and something orange and red. He inspected it, having only ever been treated to the soup packs that were delivered by Angie and her team in the town to which they would add mushrooms and herbs. This was far more solid, it wasn't the porridge that he was used to. He looked at the pack that it was resting on and it said,
‘Beef, kimchi and rice” in plain writing.
His mouth exploded with flavours, the beef was juicy and somehow tender though chewy, the kimchi was sour and made his tongue warm, and the little grains of rice absorbed the flavours in his mouth. He looked up at the two, Paba with that crinkled, near disgusted look on her face and Angie with a warm smile, which as soon as she saw Meno look at her, changed to her usual stoic view. He didn't say anything after his clearly strange reaction to having a shower.
“Tell me about, Worrec,” said Angie, still at her place on the kitchen counter. Paba began to answer what she knew about him. Meno sat and took in every word that she said, he found her fascinating by the end of it. It seemed that Worrec had found her in a university lab a few months ago, and had been moving her around under different alias’, though she had only met him in person once,
“I’m sensing a pattern here,” Angie said thoughtfully. She had found herself in a bit of trouble with the university board that had been escalated up to the Houses, she unfortunately fell into Nissar’Ra space, which Meno didn't know but Angie nodded knowingly. Meno could tell that she didn't want to tell them what the trouble was and noticed that she began thumbing a pendant that she had around her neck nervously.
“It was just some trouble with one of the administrators there,” she said in a pleading tone not to ask more. Meno could see that Angie was not buying this either. “Basically,” she said with a sigh, “I got myself into trouble and I didn't have anyone that could help me out of it, and then poof, Worrec arrives, knows my whole story and tells me that he needs to get me out. Next thing I knew, I was on a transport ship under a different name and heading out of the core systems” Angie considered her for some time before asking,
“You dont know anything else about him?”
“He’s an asshole” she said getting back into her sassy nature. Meno nodded at Angie in an effort to corroborate. “Everything that he told me I suspect was a lie, he just kept on saying that he knew stuff and that he could do stuff”
“And that’s it? He didn't do or say anything else?”
“He gave me some tech” said Meno pointing behind his ear. This seemed to catch Angie's attention,
“He gave me one too” said Paba reaching for a Data Pad and bringing it up to Meno’s ear, she tapped on the pad a few times and then harrumphed back into her seat. “It’s the same one that he gave me. Just comms tech, pretty standard but it does have an extra feature that makes it hard for scanners to pick you up. Normal black market kit”
“Nothing else,” Angie said as though expecting to hear more than this. Paba shook her head,
“I scanned my one thoroughly, his is the same”. Angie looked at Meno intently after this for a moment, which made him feel a bit uncomfortable before she decided to move on.
The conversation about Yeley came next and Meno explained about the coin which he passed around, telling them that Worrec had mentioned that it was meant to represent ‘Acess’ and that they needed to give it to someone called, Harold - which he now hoped was correct after his blunder with Yelly, Yeyl, Yeley - nobody knew anything about the coin or could understand the writing that was on it.
“He mentioned that you have the codes to enter the planet” to which Paba nodded. Angie went silent for a long time, thinking it all through,
“And he said that you were being tested?”
“Alluded to that” Meno clarified, “He said that getting off of Gol was a test, but in a passing way. He just said that it wasn't all going to be nice, that I had piqued his interest”
“I would imagine that you have done the same thing” she said to Paba, who looked uncomfortable through this entire conversation, though, more so now. She thumbed the pendant around her neck holding it closer and closer to her chest. Angie took them in for a few more moments and then said, “We still have twenty hours until we arrive, why don’t we get some shut-eye and then we can pick all of this up with fresh minds”. The others agreed and Meno quickly scoffed all of the food down, stopping himself from chuckling from all of the flavours that he was experiencing.
They made their way to the crew quarters, Paba left to her own room, harshly reminding them that she was the Pilot and that of course she had her own quarters. Angie and Meno took their places on their beds. Meno was in wonder when he actually got into his own, it was like slipping into water, but warm and smooth. Angie wished him a good sleep and turned the lights off. He stared at the ceiling of the quarters for some time thinking of the people of Gol, thinking of Mr. Dimitri and everything that was yet to pass for him. Thinking of Hellen and what she would be saying to him now. He thought about his entire life with them and how everything had now changed for them, how he was only going to experience new things now, like the shower, like that food. He drifted away without the ability to feel any emotional depth about any of them. He had not slept right for some days, and finally, he succumbed to the sanctuary of sleep.