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]

Thank you all. Now as for the punctuation, I had problems with it in one of my other stories. You see, When it rains, it pours chapter 2 was rejected due to 'warped opening quotation marks'. After a bit of research, I concluded that the people of Elfwood meant that the thingies should be floating high instead of low. I learned to open low and end high when quoting at school. It's just a case of no longer being stubborn.

And yes, I do plan on posting it there after finishing. (Which is a long time from now.)
Anyway, our AI gets a name!




The coffeemachine announced the completion of its task with a loud ping. The Geno moved over to it and released two blobs of coffee which he scooped up with a pair of plastic cups.
“Now the trick to drinking in zero gravity with a cup is that you prevent the coffee from flying away by angling the cup.” He explained while demonstrating. The human chuckled as he took his cup. Upon his first attempt, the coffee shot up and splashed into his face.
“Ouch! That’s hot!” He yelled and grabbed for a towel.

“Anyway, I was wondering. Are you sure this is going to work?” He asked a bit later. The Geno took one last sip from his coffee.
“What do you mean? No one told me I had to land on the rock. The Bucket simply isn’t meant for that. The only way to get close enough to go take a look at that wreck personally is by hovering on the thrusters.” He answered, not quite sure what the human was trying to tell him.

The human shook his head.
“No, that’s not it. I understand the bit of balancing on a pillar of superheated gas. What I mean is, you just coded a program for this, barehanded and without any manual to check for references. I know I can’t code even if my life depends on it but what if your program has a glitch? Our lives depend on it. What if the Bucket flips and burns us alive with its exhaust or worse, shoots off into space? At least the fiery death is faster than choking when the air runs out.” He elaborated. Now the Geno understood the man’s worries.
“Oh, don’t worry. I’ve done this before during operation GGF.”

The human wondered what GGF meant but decided not to ask. To his surprise, the Geno answered on his own.
“GGF stands for ‘Gas Giant Fishing’. It happened a few years back when I was in control of the TMS Black Hole. Anyway, I brought the ship into the atmosphere of the gas giant and even hovered in place for a few moments using the thrusters before pushing back up into open space. We got in…..and out.” He spoke and then fell silent.
“But look at the mess it ended in.” He thought bitterly.

Without a word, the Geno left the kitchen. When the human had finished his coffee, he went to search for his companion who he finally found in the cockpit. Complex lines of coding flickered across a display, becoming further refined with each tap of a button.



Nothing managed to relax Detroid more than looking at a planet from orbit. So, despite his anger, he calmed down within just a few moments. Soon, he’d completely forgotten about himself. He let out a tired sigh.

A dirty man with the standard uniform of a techhead, a belt filled with all sorts of tools, ran up to the observation deck. He skidded to a halt in front of his captain and snapped a salute.
“Sir! Karl Forest, A-class Techhead. The lady wanted to let you know that all crew is onboard and all supplies have been loaded. She’s requesting permission to detach from our dockingport and move into a geostationary orbit to commence the loading of military supplies, the things that go boom. We are then to proceed to a rendez-vous point at one lighthour distance where we will receive our full supply of fuel.” He shouted loudly. Detroit frowned, he didn’t enjoy being disturbed. As such, his voice was slightly cool when he responded.
“And why did the lady send you instead of asking me personally?” Detroit asked with a raised eyebrow.

Forest looked at his feet, his cheeks turning a bright red.
“Well, you see. The lady is Soul, our AI. She uh…You told her to shut up, sir.” He stammered. Detroit let out a weary sigh.
“Whatever. So our AI has a name? Hmm, Soul. Now that’s a fitting name. That’s one thing a machine will never have.” He spoke, the anger returning to his voice.
“Just tell it that it has permission to do that. And also tell it that it has permission to speak when it is directly related to duty.” He added, already turning away.

Forest stared at his captain’s back for a moment and then shrugged.
“You heard him.” He said into the air.
“I sure did, dude. Did you know that you are cute when you’re blushing?” Every face on deck turned to the communication unit. Forest’s cheeks turned even redder.
“Nothing to see here, people! Just hold on to something for support while the lady takes us into orbit!” He shouted. He then descended through the entrance shaft as fast as he could.

“I’ll get you for that. You just ruined my reputation.” He whispered once he was away.
“Hey, I’m sorry. Look, I like the paintjob you gave me earlier and I really think you’re cute. So I could make it up to you. What’s your bank account? I have some very good hardware for hacking purposes. How does Karl Forest, the billionaire sound?” Soul said from the nearest speaker. The techhead rolled his eyes.
“No thank you, just a sorry and the chance to work on the latest and hottest piece of technology in the universe is enough for me. Besides, people would get suspicious from that. No lottery goes as high as a billion.” Forest laughed.

This post has been edited by jack cloudy: Nov 10 2006, 07:46 PM