Prologue

Introduction to the Story

Prologue:

The coffee splashed onto the edge of the name plaque mounted to the Captains desk.  The plaque read “HPS Queensbridge”. Captain Joseph Hearns was startled when he felt the transition out of FTL (Faster Than Light) and into normal space. The coffee spilling confirmed that this transition was less than what he would expect from his bridge crew aboard the HPS Queensbridge.  

His shock was not due to the fact that the transition was sloppy, but that it was early.  It was just over four hours early to be exact. He sat at his desk wondering what could cause something like this as it had never occurred during his twenty-six years in space. Captains who failed to maintain their Mercer Drives knew it could cost them their career or worse, their life. He was better than that.  His crew was better than that. Not to mention, this was the Flagship Passenger Transport for one of the wealthiest conglomerates in the Republic. The HPS Queensbridge belonged to the Empire Shipping Corporation. As such, it had been equipped with state of the art systems and subroutines. Each system had redundancies built into it to prevent mishaps like this one.  Shock slowly turned to curiosity, and curiosity turned to caution. It was caution that broke him from his stupor and got him moving.

Before his hand made it to the com unit mounted to his desk, it chimed with a call from the bridge.  He pressed the acceptance key. First officer Lumley appeared on his holo. “Sir, we have unexpectedly dropped out of FTL and request your presence on the Bridge”.  His First Officer was a seasoned veteran. If they were facing peril, he would not hesitate to activate the proper protocols. No alarms were triggered, No protocols had been activated. He simply sounded perplexed and at a loss.  Captain Hearns needed answers and he would only find them on the bridge. Nodding at him he replied “ Acknowledged, on my way.”,

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