Chapter One: The Star Ship Fighter

Chapter one for my story I've been working on... Any ideas?

He knew he would remember this day all his life. It was the day he would became one of the Star-ship’s pilot fighters, but, even better than that; he was part of the gold squad, at the age of 19 the youngest ever to join this honorary rank of the Star-ship’s fighters. He was in his room getting ready for the day, this day, that he would accept the right to his future. He looked in the window’s reflection to make sure he was presentable to the Captain of the May-Flower, Captain Lia; he was wearing a tan leather battle vest under that was a long-white-button-up-sleeve-shirt, he also had on black pants, his skin was pale and his hair was red that was so dark it seemed black, which was about an inch or so long and was straight, his eyes; emerald green they hold both determination and compassion. He is tall, about six feet in height, with an athletic build like that of a runner.

          Then he heard a voice boom into the next room “... and Erick James RedWel!” He walked to the next room, following the voice that was announcing him. He entered a white and well lit room. It had silver tables covered with crimson red cloth they dotted the highly polished, dark blue, marble floor, the only such floor on the ship. The lights where of all sorts of hues, from red to blue to green, and everything in between, he walked down a red carpet, it was laid out through the middle of the tables and led up to a stage, where caption Lia stood holding a badge. He walked up to her standing straight, he bowed, She then pinned it onto Erick’s jacket and then shook his hand, he bowed to her again and then walked down the other side of the stage applause thundered across the room.

He walked over to the left side of the room and grabbed a red liquid from a waitress and sipped on it. He looked around, he seen a few others, like him, get different types of badges, shook hands and bowed. Then they walk away to sit in the audience. Erick leaned up against the wall waiting for the ceremony to end; he never liked a big crowd.

After about an hour, he had enough, he walked out in to a silvery hall with bright lights proceeding down the hallway. He walked down a number of hallways for a little bit and finally turned in front of a shiny door, swiped a card, and with a loud bleep bloop boop the door slid open as he walked in, he rotated a nozzle by the door, the lights went from dim to bright. Lights lit up his small room it only had his bed, dresser and desk. He didn’t collect a whole lot of stuff like everyone else, because deep down he felt like he didn’t belong on the ship, The May-Flower.

He soughed and started thinking about captain Lia. For a while he was alone left in his thoughts… mostly about him and Lia. Then suddenly the same Bleep bloop boop sound came in to the room then, she walked in, he looked up at Lia shocked. She had never been in his room before. His heart began to race. As he smelled her perfume, it smelled like fine red wine. He realized she wasn’t wearing it before on the stage.

“Well, here you are Erick.” As she spoke a kind and gentle smile crossed her red lips. He looked at her; she had her brown hair in a bun, her cool blue eyes on him and her tan skin, perfect. He shrugged. “Ah, come on you have a party to go to.” She slid over to him on the bed and put her hand on his leg. His heart felt like it was about to pound right out of his chest, like a drum it pounded harder and harder.

His voice was calm but quiet at the same time trying not to show her his nervousness. “You know how I am with crowds.” He looked out the window watching the stars drift by. “Do you ever think we will ever find another planet… or at less get off this tin can?”

“It’s the only place I’ve been able to call home. Think about it Erick, where would we go, all we know is this ‘tin can’.” She giggled and slid her hand over his hand, “please, what’s wrong, talk to me… Hun.” He felt himself start to melt from her words.

He looked at her. “I… I don’t know. I don’t think it will be good for you if people found you in here...with me.”

She raised an eye brow, “That’s not what you said before… I know there is something else going on,”

“I just… I just want to do more than… this.”

“Hun, you are the youngest star-ship pilot in the galaxy. Come on. You’re meant for great things, I know it.” She leaned in toward him, he leaned in too, his eyes closed and then… a red light flashed, an alarm sounded in the back ground.

Lia swiftly moved to the door, within seconds, even before Erick was able to get up off the bed, she was out of the room. Erick fastened a gun to his side and ran after her. After a few hallways he arrived on the deck. The flashing red lights where going off like crazy. Giving the room an eerie look, people where running all around checking this and that, He seen Lia with the men, she was giving orders. He loved to see her take control over the situation.

After he walked up to her she said “Erick, come with me.” She looked at him with a firm face. They walked across the floor to a shining desk and in it was the radar. When he looked at it he noticed a small line going around in a circle and every time it went around, this big orange dot was flashing, not too far away from the ship. He knew this dot could mean many different things.

“What is it?” He asked Lia but she just shook her head and walked over to another desk where she pushed a few buttons and opened the big control window. The whole ship fell silent as they looked at a black hole with gold colored specs flying out of it. No one knew what this meant but everyone knew that they needed to get the ship away before it was sucked in to the black hole.

Erick looked at Lia “Awaiting orders, captain” she looked at him. He saw the fear in her Eyes But she did not let it show on her face.

She began barking orders at the others before talking to him directly again. “Have you sent probes in to yet?”

A side voice called over “Yes, ma’am, we lost contact with all five of the probes…”

Lia turned back to him. “Erick… I need you to get in to a ship and look in to this directly. We have used black holes to get this far before, but this one seems very… different, I need you to look in to it, before I send the ship in to the thing. Please, I need you to make sure it’s safe. After you pass through send us a message through it from the other side, if you cannot do that then travel back here through it again.”

“As you wish captain, it shall be done.” Erick replied turning and walking out the silver door. He walked though many silver halls, and stairs. Minutes rolled by and he soon found himself in the hanger below. He looked around and noticed his ship near the front of the line, when he walked over to it he notice a black man getting his ship suited up for the flight, no one knew his name because the man was mute, so everyone called him Joe.

“Ah, Joe is she ready.” Erick placed a hand on the red striped ship its new paint was the final phase of his ranking in the May-Flower.

The man nodded in approval.

Erick smiled “And you took care of her too right?” the man nodded as he did before.

With that Erick jumped in to the space craft and checked the systems. After he was sure things where functional, He flew the craft off the ship. He drifted around the ship before heading to the black hole. He had to make sure that the ship had stopped from being pulled closer in to the black abyss.

Content with his findings, he flew his craft closer to the black hole. First he sent another probe in to the thing but he lost contact with it as soon as the probe left his site. So next thing he did was send a small robotic camera in but it too was lost. The black hole seemed to consume the pieces of equipment he sent in to it. Suddenly… it moved toward Erick’s craft, his heart raced, he felt both awe and disbelieve. It’s alive he thought to himself. But how can that be. Out of nowhere it struck out at him. Erick flipped the craft around and put his thrusters on high to try and blast away from the thing.

I can’t out fly this thing, god, what am I going to do! Think, Erick, think. He looked around his control board, and that’s it. He pushed a button on the board and pushed harder on the control stick that controlled the thrusters.

A sudden blast erupted from behind the craft. Great now if I can angle the ship right I can use the blast from the missile to push me out of this mess. And with that, he positioned the ship to where the blast would be directly behind him. It seemed to have done the job he started to push away from the black hole, but a red light flashed around him.

He looked to see where he got hit, one of the thrusters blinked red on a graph… it was broken. No it can’t be I can’t get out of here on just two thrusters… ahh no I will not let this blasted thing take me without a fight. He pressed on the stick forward more and more, the thrusters went in to over drive then -Snap- it broke. Along with a blast from another thruster that blow up from overheating. He felt himself be pulled in to the hell that was behind him and he seen what little life he had before flash in front of his eyes.  

Lia… I’m sorry I couldn’t come back to the sh- to our home. And with that, the last of the thruster blew. The sudden blast caused the ship to tumble forward at such a force Erick lunched forward from his seat and with a sickening crack; his head hit the control board. His ears rang from both the hit and the alarm, he seen darkness creep in to the sides of his sight. All senses numbed and slowly, he lost conciseness.

A heat wave woke him; he was numb and his head hurt, he placed his hand on his head and felt blood drip from a gash in his head. Blood covered the smash control bored and blood droplets covered the cockpit window. He felt cold on the inside. He knew he was close to bleeding to death. Something caught his attention, he looked past all the blood on the window; he had a rush of adrenalin from the sight that lay in front of him. He was rushing to a shiny-blue-surface. He tried to ready himself for the coming crash.

The craft started to shake, and then it slammed forward, throwing glass all over. Soon ice cold water poured in, it tried to grab him and drag him along with his craft. He struggled with the restrains made to protect him and his life. They now were tools used against him. He pushed and pulled, air leaked from his lungs, his head burned from the sea-water running over his gash.

He couldn’t take any more… unwillingly his body went to take a breath, water rushed down his throat. His hands trembled as he continued to fight the restraints but with a click, the buckles finally released him.

He pushed from the craft, and rushed to the surface of the water; the taste in his mouth was nauseating, the salt-water made the cuts along his body burn with irritation he waved his arms in front of him, and kicked his felt as much as his body could let him, and somehow he made it to the surface.

He started coughing and spitting up the sea-water that started filling his lungs and now he breathed in the fresh air, as he looked about, he felt himself being pushed by the waves of the sea. He looked to where they were carrying him to. He had seen a green mass a little bit away. Having no more strength left in him, Erick tried to let the waves do his work for him and just push him to the shore line.

There he crawled across the warm sand but he didn’t move very far, once he was out of the reach of the ocean’s waves he turned on to his back. The sun burned his eyes and forced them to close as he lost himself to sleep from the fatigue that took his body.

He awoke later, the once blue-green sky was now black and three moons of different sizes reached high in to the sky, one moon was twice the reported size of earth’s, another moon was half the size of earth’s, and the last moon was a fourth the size but it was also red. He felt himself move as something moved him; it placed an arm under his back and sat him up. He tried to look to see what it was. He was shocked to see that it was a human girl, no more than a year younger than him. She had two different eye colors one was blue as bright as the sea itself, the other was a hazel swirling with different shades of green, her long hair was a shade of black-brown and was in a number of different braids, and her skin was creamed colored, silky and soft to the touch.

She looked at him and with a gentle smile she said, “You’re alive.” Her voice was soft and sweet. Erick wanted to say something but she put a finger on his lips. “Shh, you need your strength. There is a village of my people close by; I’ll try to walk you there, you can lean on me and I’ll try to help you walk.” With that she moved Erick’s arm around her neck and lifted him to his feet. He then leaned against her and together they walked to a line of trees farther inland.

          Hours seemed to pass to Erick. He struggled to stay awake and walk with the girl next to him. He was too tired to really take in the forest trees that passed by, be it was almost alien to Erick, he had read and heard of trees, wind, oceans, the moon and other such things from earth but he didn’t expect to see these things himself, let alone, find a planet... with life on it, and even humans to be on it.

          Suddenly the girl stopped and looked around, this made Erick do the same. At first he didn’t see anything but the forest surrounding him. Then after a while, little by little, the surroundings seem to unfold around him, the trees where oddly shaped twisting in to one another and they were over grown, tree limbs twist and twirled around each other, between the over-sized trees. On a few long tree limbs branching over the now seen traveled road, had lantern-like objects. Also, the trees had lights drifting inside of them, it peered out in to the crisp light air, they looked like fire flies dancing between the tree bark. What he seen next both amazed and petrified him.

          Two… beings, moved toward them, the beings looked closely like humans, but with more angled faces. High cheek bones, narrow chins, fine lined eyebrows, and long, pointed, ears. Both had large velvet eyes and long blonde hair. Also they were shorter than him; about 5 feet in height, the closer one seemed to look more like a woman. She was wearing some clothing that seemed like robes made with a silky dark-blue fabric, and the torso did hint to breasts. The other one seemed to be a man. He was slightly taller than the female and stronger built. He had a bow in hand along with a quiver of arrows on his back, and where thin, dark, plates of steel across his torso and his back. He also had strips of steel along his arms and legs making a light armor. The female held a white handled sword, with a thin-long blade, in her hand. She looked at Erick, then at the girl holding him.

The man did the same but his face had a look of hate on it, where the females emotions where hidden behind what seemed to be an emotionless mask. The man talked to the girl holding Erick his voice moved in a way that almost sounded like an odd song. He couldn’t make out the words that they were saying, but the man’s face grew red with anger. He jabbed a finger toured Erick’s direction and yelled at the girl. Erick had a funny feeling there topic was about him and he didn’t seem to be a welcomed guest.

          As the argument between the three of them seemed to finely simmer down a bit, the man stormed off. His face was in disgust. The female looked at Erick, while walking over to him she muttered something in some strange language, it had a different tone then before, and white symbols came to live around her hand. They danced around as she placed her hand on Erick’s forehead and a new wave of exhaustion erupted over Erick. It threw him into a deep slumber; he lost all connection of the world surrounding him and his body.