CH15

I sat alone in one of the now-empty cabins of our new vessel. It was not very big, circular as the rest of them and full of some alien shit, but what could I do? I needed some privacy to focus and clear my mind. The place was near the bridge so I could be there in a matter of minutes if anything happened. With a tablet in my hand I tried to navigate in what looked like the ship’s internal net.

Not much successes with that. Sure, I could have asked Ilmine for help – or even the AI – but I was not technologically backward either. Not that I ever had anything to do with alien high-tech but it was never too late to learn.

“Eclipse! Move your virtual ass over here!”

“As ordered,” the avatar of the ship’s AI appeared right away. “I only want to remind you that I have sensors everywhere on the ship so, theoretically, I am everywhere. You do not have to call me… captain.”

Sigh, right. Captain. I did not know why he started to call me with this title, but it was probably a recompense. Or vengeance.

After I told Ilmine that the AI should have a proper name, just for the sake of convenience, she became somewhat agitated. Apparently, it was kind of a big deal. Something like naming your own babe. I had nothing against letting her chose, after all we were going to give the boat to her when this was all over. I had given her my word.

What she came up with however… It sounded like a random blend of three or four vowels for me, something like a yawn, but she graciously said we could use the Union English equivalent.

Eclipse.

Neither me nor my siblings objected. Not that I cared much.

On the other hand it may have not been that bad, this “captaining”. And even though I was never big on formality, a little bit of hierarchy and order could bring us some substitute of normalcy. In reality, I had no clue if this was his own idea or maybe it was more of an imperative in his digital brain.

And the best thing was, in my whole life I had never had anything to do with the navy! Ok, canoeing hardly counted.

What was more important, though, was how Ilmine’s attitude changed. She was a lot more… at easy around us. I had no idea if it was only temporal or caused by the memory dice Blaze found or something else. Either way, I preferred that over trembling in fear and stammering. Maybe she has just realized we had chances against whatever we were up against and she would soon be free to do, well, whatever blue aliens do when they get a ship of their own.

“How much time do we have left?” I asked, ignoring the AI’s remark. Ilmine was right, talking with walls was disturbing.

“One hour and seven minutes until we leave the Outside space, captain.”

“Good. Now, tell me Eclipse, did you find anything odd with Ilmine’s behavior? Not that I complain, but she seemed rather relaxed when I talked with her last time.”

“Unfortunately, I am no expert when it comes to organics’ mental states. Although, I think the fact you washed yourself and changed your clothes might have helped.” Eclipse said with a straight face. “Of course, I can be wrong.”

I looked at the avatar, knowing that punching the holo would only make me look silly. But it was still tempting.

Nevertheless, he was right about one thing. The bath and new set of clothes – one of the spare uniforms Draco found on the freighter – did help. I felt as good as new. Not to mention that walking with the leftovers of the former crew member on my breast could have been slightly disturbing.

“Have you been talking with my brother maybe? Seems he have a bad influence on you.”

“I wouldn’t say so, sir. Our conversation was very helpful. Enlightening even.” The AI showed no remorse.

Sure it was.

“Never mind, it’s time to get to work.”

“Everyone’s ready?” Ilmine scanned our faces. “ The jump will end in ten… nine…eight…”

We all turned to face the display. Actually, it was just one of the walls on the bridge, now entirely black, changed into a display by Eclipse. He warned us that he would need a second or two after we come out, so he could reactivate his external sensors, but none of us was able to turn away our eyes from is.

Who could blame us? We were about to be the very first humans to reach another star system. We all knew, more or less, that the position we were in was at best uncertain. We were short on informations, resources, knowledge and yet…

I had to remind myself about breathing. Mommy dear, I was excited.

“…three…two…one…” C’mon, c’mon. “…zero. We’re out.”

I heard my heart beating inside my chest for eternity. Slowly, a silver spider web started to form on the wall. In some points the light formed small clusters with five of them being bigger than others and a really huge one somewhere on the left. We waited another half a minute but to no avail.

That was it? The rest of the screen remained black as Blaze’s left buttock.

“Ok, what do we have here?”

“I’m not sure.” Ilmine scratched her forehead with two fingers. “These spots of light… these should be celestial objects, planets, moons and asteroids. And the big one is a star, right?”

“Fabulous deduction, Ilminerelitore. The web that you see represents all the most efficient approach vectors that my core can come up with. It should be enough given the state of our reactors, but I suggest you think of a way to recharge them, should such opportunity present itself.”

“And what about the gates? Is there a gate in this system?” Ilmine tried to sound calm but that was the biggest question.

Our Eclipse, it turned out, was capable of many things. Besides the fact he could initiate a jump without any external help he could also use more regular methods. In short, we could also use one of those imperial gates here, provided there was a gate in this system. If not, our only hope would be to wait for those mysterious contractors to come and retrieve the data from Ilmine. Considering that we had no idea if we were in the right place and that we knew we would need to wait for them either way… this was quite a bargain.

If there was no gate and no one was going to pay us a visit, then in that case we were cosmically screwed.

“It is hard to determine,” Eclipse answered slowly. “I have no records of previously encountered gates, but I do possess required subroutines to activate them. All I can say is that I detect an anomaly located around seven hours away from our current position and that it can possibly be a gate to another system. Here.”

One of the spots on the screen, not bigger than my thumb, flashed with light. It did not seem that far.

“When can we get a visual on it?” We needed to know whether we were trapped or only semi-trapped.

“This is all I can give you right now, captain,” the console on my right hummed with life and a holo started to form above it. “It is not of the highest quality but considering the distance and relatively small size of the object it must should be enough.”

The holo depicted a spherical object, its surface entirely smooth; maybe I just could not distinguish any details because it was a holo projection. To be honest, I expected something different. Plasma explosions, colorful s-f portals and this kind of stuff. God, those aliens had zero imagination.

“Is that it?” Draco asked. “Doesn’t seem like much.”

“I… I don’t know.” Ilmine hesitated. “I also only heard about them. Never used one.”

“Than what are we waiting for? Let’s find out. Eclipse, full speed ahead.”

“Aye aye, sir.”