Wings of Light., No L and no C this time. Ok, there is quite a bit of c. Options

[jack cloudy]

Next one. Ok, several things first.
1: THIS IS NOT FANFICTION. No, this is a story taking place in an original universe. I hope no one minds.
2: Don't expect regular updates. This is an attempt at a professional novel so I want to plan it out and get all the good stuff in it. Foreshadowing, multiple plot lines, character interaction, cool hardware and a god, or maybe two.
3: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Also known as: Technobabble and Handwaves explain everything.
4: The laws of robotics are not implemented here. Sorry Isaac, but I want them to drive the cool stuff. They don't have time to babysit some organic wimps.



WINGS OF LIGHT

CHAPTER 1: Lights, colours, not here.

Without a sound, the SS Hesphire moved to its destination. It would have been useless to expect any sound as such a phenomenon had a hard time travelling through the vacuum of space.
,,This is your captain speaking. We are approaching the wormhole leading to the Eden system. The estimated time for our arrival is approximately half an hour from now. There will be a short burn for course corrections. We advise that all passengers strap themselves in till we’ve entered the wormhole and stabilized our course. If you require any help, our crew is willing to assist you. Thank you.” The disembodied voice echoed through speakers all over the ship.

With this announcement, everyone dropped whatever he or she was doing and moved to the observation deck. Entering a wormhole was always an exciting event for those who were new to interstellar travel. There were also those who were not new to interstellar travel. They also moved to the observation deck, though for a different reason.

Belonging to the second group was Paul Anthony Detroit. Every single cell of his body revealed him as a true veteran of space. He smoothly sailed from wall to wall, without any of the awkward bouncing of the average tourist. His clothes were tight fitting like those worn by all true space farers, yet without looking like a diver’s suit, oversized pyama or any other kind of embarrassing outfit newbies wore. The passengers he passed were mostly less successful in their choice of clothing. Wide, flowing clothes were fashionable these days yet had the unpleasant habit of getting stuck between doors or flowing away from the areas they were supposed to cover. Easy to use belts for strapping down clothes to the limbs were standard issue on civilian ships carrying passengers.

Thanks to his skill at zero g manoeuvring, he arrived well before the other passengers and secured the best place of all, the ceiling. Instantly, a steward pushed off against a wall to reach him.
,,Please mister, you may want to sit in one of the seats. Free floating during course corrections are not advised.” The young man, barely in his twenties, warned. Detroit looked down at the traditional name tag and smiled.
,,Well mister Rein, I can assure you that part of a g is not going to be a problem for me. Unless the SS Hesphire is using an illegally rigged High-performance Fusion torch and will be running multiple gees. In which case I would have to arrest everyone onboard.” He responded with the cool tone of voice that could come from only one kind of person. Military officers, the high-ranking ones.

The steward wisely backed off, allowing Detroit to enjoy the view. The man looked how everyone else entered the observation deck and got strapped in. There was some chaos but the stewards managed to get their job done and everyone strapped into a chair. He smiled again as he thought of the faces they would pull upon seeing a wormhole.
,,This is your captain speaking. We shall initiate our burn in 30 seconds. Anyone who is not yet secured should grab the nearest support and hold on for the next few minutes. Thank you.” This time, Detroit did follow the advise. He reached out and grabbed a small handle jutting out of the glass dome that covered the observation deck at the nose of the ship.

Little puffs of hydrogen jetted out of the minuscule thrusters spread across the Hesphire’s hull. The long cylindrical vehicle turned its nose around slowly. Two minutes later, the thrusters fired again to stop the rotation. Now the main thruster at the far end of the ship fired. Unlike during the turn, the acceleration caused by the main thrusters was felt by the people onboard. It felt as if you were suspended in the air under a parachute with a gentle breeze pushing you along.
,,This is your captain speaking. We are entering the wormhole in five…four…three…two…one…entering now.”

Necks were stretched in awkward positions, eyes seemed to bulge out of their sockets. The stars disappeared, to be replaced by pure darkness. Slowly, a hint of disappointment spread across the two dozen or so faces gathered on the observation deck. Detroits smile grew bigger.
,,No lights, no fancy colours, no humming sounds, no sudden acceleration. This ain’t your average holovision show. Welcome to real space. It is boring, it is slow and it rarely takes you anywhere interesting. At least you won’t find bad looking aliens with worse looking rayguns at every corner.” He spoke loud enough for everyone to hear. Then, he laughed. Yes, the passengers would be angry with him for the rest of the trip but why should he care? It would only be a week or so and then he would be back where he was supposed to be. On a ship of his own. One with guns, big guns.
“And twenty-two wormholes away from the action.”

[jack cloudy]

Update time!


Detroit smiled faintly. It felt good to have gravity under his feet again, even if it was caused by rotating a giant ring. He took a short look around before turning to the admiral.
“Goodbye, sir.” He said formally and was about to walk off when he felt the admiral’s hand on his shoulder.
“I just thought you wanted to know. There is a prelaunch celebration going on at the Starview café. Most of your crew should be there.” The old man told him with a sparkle in his eyes. He remembered his own celebrations. They were either very wild or very calm and formal, depending on the personality of the highest ranking officer around. Detroit nodded.
“I’ll go take a look after I’ve done my medical checkup.”

The hospital was small yet state-of-the-art. Detroit took a moment to sniff the unique scent of overwhelming hygiene and medicine, complete with a bit of ozon coming from all the electrical devices. He then stepped forward to the nurse who sat behind the desk.
“Paul Anthony Detroit. Number 129-758-463. I’m here for the check-up.” He said calmly. The nurse smiled at him.
“The doctor is already waiting inside. I hope you’ll like your ship, captain. It has been the only point of discussion for weeks now among the techheads.” She said and then shrugged.
“My husband works at the shipyard. He has been annoying me about it ever since he first got the chance to see it. Seriously, I would start worrying that he was cheating on me if it was a woman.” She added with a chuckle.

Detroit walked through the door.
“Ah yes, captain Detroit I presume? I’ve already read your medical file and everything seems to be fine. Do you have anything to say to me?” The doctor spoke. Detroit understood that making jokes would not fall well with this man.
“Nothing at all. Just a bit of weakness in the legs. It’s been a few months since I last enjoyed gravity.”

Several scans, a skin sample and an urine test later, Detroit walked out of the hospital.
“Now didn’t the admiral say that my crew was having a celebration at the Starview café? It wouldn’t be a waste of time to meet some of the people who will be following my orders.” He thought as he made his way to the other side of the ring. It was a ten minute walk till he saw the neon sign hanging above the door.

The celebration in this case turned out to be reasonably calm, despite the large amount of alcohol being consumed. Detroit slowly walked to the center of the room where he cleared his voice. One of the people standing nearby saw him and shouted over the music.
“Hey, the captain is here! Pay attention!”
Detroit smiled.
“Thank you. Now, I believe it is my place to give a speech here. Since we all hate speeches, I’ll keep it short. This is likely my last command before retirement to a desk job. So I hope we don’t run into any problems. Fortunately, we are quite a few lightyears away from any troublespots so I have no doubts that I will survive. Now the most important thing is, could anyone get me something to drink?”
The man standing next to him spoke again.
“You heard him. Drinks are on me! Whoever gets the man his beer will get two beers himself!” He shouted. He then turned to the com unit mounted on the wall that had absorbed his attention before the captain arrived.

“How about you, do you want anything?” He asked.
“Well, what about a paintjob? I could really use one.” Was the answer from the other side. The man frowned.
“A paintjob? Why do you need a paintjob?” He asked warily.
“Oh, I’ve got some very good arguments. Maybe you want to hear them in a private discussion? You can play around with my internals as much as you like.”
The man laughed.
“Ok, deal!” He said before bolting out of the door.

Detroit looked out of the window. There wasn’t much to see beyond the stars. He then looked down at his feet. The floor, outer wall and the roof of the Starview café were all transparent. Right below him, there was a huge deepblue wedge. Several spots shone on the gleaming surface. Detroit’s eyes followed the smooth curves, starting at the nose and moving along the hull till he saw the round engines, each looking as if they could move a planet. His eyes landed on the registry painted on the bow. AMF-13-46. The name was painted nearby. TMS Crystal Star.
Detroit whistled.
“I can see that the Techheads love this thing. It’s big, really big and much smoother than the usual flying brick. I can’t wait to get onboard.” He shook his head. “I can take it out for a spin later. Right now, let’s just enjoy a cold beer.”








And now, enjoy this little gift. I wished my computer could actually run Poser so I could make pictures of the characters. Oh well, I guess that means you are limited to enjoying the hardware. So meet, the TMS Crystal Star.