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]

The continuation. Detroit meets his greatest foe.


Chapter 2: Far away from home.

The Human watched his Geno companion with nothing short of amazement. The being’s hands flew over the consoles, tapping buttons and flicking switches, all while whistling a complex tune.
“How do you do all that?” He asked, his voice struggling to get past his throat that was being squeezed shut at every dizzying turn. The Geno stopped whistling for a moment.
“Type-678 military Geno. I’m optimized for combat manoeuvres, targeting, fleet coordination, damage control and a healthy dose of multitasking. I’ve been designed, programmed and trained so I can do about a hundred different things, all at the same time. Not too bad for something based on the human genetic pattern, eh?” He replied with a smug grin. He then continued whistling as he pulled the Glorious Rustbucket through another twist of the ‘corridor’.

Finally, the smooth metal dart cleared the path through the swirling cloud of dust. It turned around and fired the large thrusters at its back to slow down. The human rubbed the sore parts of his body as he took in a few deep breaths.
“The wreck is located on the largest asteroid, approximately fifty kilometres from the southern tip. Please take it easy this time, I’m not born for high-g manoeuvres.” He informed his companion. The Geno grinned and jabbed towards the back of the cabin with a thumb.
“Just fire up the coffeemachine. The next forty minutes will be a smooth run with nothing but gravity to steer us by. Ever heard about decaying orbits? Well, we’re in one now.”

Detroit gazed down on the planet below. He wasn’t alone on the observation deck. There were two astronavigators working on a portable telescope and one of the spiderlike ARU robots was cleaning the windows.
“Paradise, the only non-earth planet that was completely habitable right from its discovery in 2346. Local lifeforms are all single-celled organisms, though most of them have been wiped out by imported earth lifeforms, including plants and multi-celled organisms like a horse. Current population is hovering around eleven million with two million living in the planet’s capital, Heavenly Garden. The naming system used around here is a throwback to the Christian religion that has been losing influence since the late 20th century. It makes it awfully clear that most people consider this place a paradise and a good place to spend your vacation. The booze is lousy though.” Detroit looked at the communication unit nearby with a hint of annoyance.
“I didn’t ask for a lecture.” He said sharply.
“Well, sorry dude. I’m just trying to be helpful. As the ships AI, keeping people from pulling the plug is a very high priority on my list.” The voice responded through the speaker.

Detroit was surprised, yet he hid it behind a stony expression. He had heard of Artificial intelligences before, but none of them could actually pretend to be human for any length of time. Their vocabulary was limited and they always had a trademark neutral voice. Not this one.
“Really? And how often does this priority make you act like a serious pain in the behind? And I prefer to be called captain, not dude.” He spoke quizzically.
“Whatever you want, captain dude. Frankly, I’m always seen as a pain in the behind, except when I’m saving your lives.” The AI cheerfully said.

Detroit rolled his eyes.
“I said to call me captain, not dude. Where’s your plug? I think I’m going to pull it out right now.” He snapped with a harsh voice.
“I am calling you captain, captain dude. Sorry, but I’m not going to tell you where to find the plug. Self-preservation is a very high priority as I already said.” The AI answered stubbornly.
Detroit gave up and turned his eyes back to the planet.
“Just shut up before I activate the self-destruct sequence. Then I won’t need to find the damn plug.”

The next few minutes were silent, much to the captain’s relief. He absentmindedly noticed a large storm over the ocean. White clouds spiralled around the central eye, moving slowly to the southeast.
“It looks like the landlubbers are in for a rough week.” He muttered.
“Not necessarily.” The AI interrupted. Detroit’s eyes shot back to the communication unit.
“I told you to shut up! I know enough about the weather to know what kind of wind and rain this is going to bring.” He barked.
“Though the storm can be dispersed beforehand by a single salvo of precisely aimed explosives. It’s really a piece of cake that can be done within the hour. It would cause some global reconstruction of the climate from paradise to hell but that’s only an unimportant detail.”
Detroit winced.
“Let’s not fire our explosives. Now shut up!” He shouted with his face redhot from anger. The last words from the AI only managed to make him even angrier.
“Humans, they’re so simpleminded. Yup, an outdated chapter in the story of evolution.”