The journey begins

Chapter 2: The journey begins

 

 

"Oh my god, it’s beautiful! I love it! ", Rasp started purring. "Yeah, well I bet you never saw Winter Fox, am I right? ", Crazy wanted a fight, and Rasp hooked up immediately, but Cap cut them off "Shut up both of you! Save that for future enemies! Now, get going! Everyone board the ship! " she ordered.

Hunter 557 was a slim and long spaceship; it had two large engines on the back that gave nice propulsion and maneuverability to it; it was small to stay hidden, yet big enough to carry their whole crew and hold them for months. The best thing about it was its Ion cannon in front of it, it was huge and could be retracted in the ship for cover, which the Pilot was just doing. She was testing it and now it was backing up in the ship. Ion cannons freeze and damage shields but do small damage to hull, yet they leave heavy damage to turrets and missiles, which this ship was not missing -- it could give a good punch.

Everyone entered the ship, and was amazed by its interior, it didn’t look like a troop carrier, nor some ship to transport armor and vehicles. It had TVs, computers and all the best equipment of Drows military. Even Crazy couldn’t hold her breath of impression. Her face was showing pure awe.

Pilot showed through one of the doors and said to them, "I will guide you throughout the ship, and then we will go to the meeting room and try to get to know each others better, alright? "

Cap looked annoyed because someone took her leadership, but still, she wasn't giving that out. After all, this was still Pilot’s job and her field.

Pilot lead the way and entered a hallway that had six doors, three on both sides, "These are living quarters and your personal space. This is prepared for six member team, but there is only five of us, so one will be empty. ". Pilot, once again, took the lead and led them into the Ion cannon rechambering quarters.

"I think I’ll stay here, this baby needs a little bit of adjusting and optimizing", Light didn’t even let Pilot have a word. Pilot just nodded her head and led rest of the crew to the bridge.

"This is where I and the captain will be, and also meet Sara", said Pilot and showed on the hologram in the middle of the bridge, behind the pilots’ seat. The bridge was a quite large round room and it had loads of computers and screens all over the place; there was a spot for captain from where she could observe everything and everyone. The hologram called Sara was a greenish female figure with emotionless face. On the calling of her name Sara reacted, "Hello and welcome on Hunter 557. I will be your ship's AI. "

"Report. ", ordered Cap and Sara started talking about engines capacity and power levels, shields stages and offensive weaponry statuses. She talked for few minutes in which Cap and Pilot just listened and nodded their heads, while Crazy and Rasp were just standing in silence until Rasp spoke, "Cap, requesting permission to leave the bridge. ". Cap just nodded and showed a hand gesture to get going.

Crazy and Rasp left the bridge and continued to the meeting room. When they arrived, Light was already there, eating.

"We didn’t even took off, and you are already mouth full. " Said Crazy, "What can I do, I’m hungry…", answered Light. "So, how did you get here? " asked Rasp both of them. Crazy started talking first, "Well, I hacked into the Drow Empire’s military system. I just wanted to try my new password breaker and what is the better place than the strongest security I could find. And I wouldn’t have get caught, if there wasn’t that stupid pizza girl ringing on my door, on which I jumped and did the wrong thing… The special units were on my door in seconds… But they saw potential and said if I accepted this mission they would not imprison me. And I accepted it, I don’t wanna go to prison. ". "Wow", just said Crazy, "What about you, Light? "

"I just received an invitation for this mission while I was at a firing range and I accepted it without even reading it. I was bored as hell, and I wanted to go on an adventure. ", "Same as me. I didn’t even read the mission brief I just accepted it and voila, I’m here. ". "God, you both are crazy", said Crazy. "Tells us someone whose codename is Crazy…" told her Rasp. Crazy smiled, "I like you, you are craaazy"

"Thanks, Crazy…", they all started laughing.

Meeting room was strangely shaped. It was rectangular, yet it had curved walls. It had a big round table in the middle. It also had a food station. Food station was a medium size wardrobe-like object that could make food by itself, it only required ingredients. It was primarily designed for military, so it would save time.

Pilot and Cap were on the bridge, checking all systems and weaponry. When HQ gave them permission to take off, Cap took the microphone: "We will take off in less than a minute. I will come to Meeting room to brief you about tests I’ll have to do on you, and about the distance we will have to travel and all other matter Sara and Pilot just told me. ". Pilot was already starting the engines and soon enough they lift off and went into the orbit. Cap walked through the living quarters and came down to get in the meeting room.

"What is the distance between us and the target? " asked Light; Cap sat on one of the chairs and said, "We are 306 sectors away. We can only warp for around hundred sectors at a time, before our warp drive has to cool down. That takes five hours, which means we’ll reach our target in less than twenty hours. Our first warp will be in less than five minutes. ". On those words you could hear engines starting to heat up and warp drive started humbling. "Well, it looks like it won’t be in five minutes, it will be now…", a loud bang could be heard, which meant warp drive was activated and working. Space and time began to bend around them and they were moving many times faster than light. That speed was kept for few minutes when another bang was heard, and Pilot said through the speakers that they had left the warp path and the warp drive was cooling, so they would orbit the near planet and scan for any life signs.

"Cap, what do you think about this Virus we are looking for? Will this mission be easy? ", asked Crazy.

"I really don’t know", answered Cap. "I only heard what he did, he killed many scientists and he did that without triggering any alarms; he got in the building, killed and got out with some info about the research that was done at that building. He also deleted all video surveillance. We only have a bad photo of him which I’ll show to you now. "

She pressed couple of buttons on the keyboard and one of the screens was now showing a low quality picture of a man. He was tall and well built, but he looked really young, at least from the picture. He had messy black hair and he didn’t have pointy ears, like drows. Drows were humanoid creatures, but they had pointy, elfish ears. This man didn’t and he was not a drow. They thought, maybe he was Tarren Republic’s man, but Tarrens were very strong and muscular by nature, which he wasn’t. He was fairly slim.

Tarren Republic was another strong race that roamed the universe, like Drow Empire. Only they were nothing like Drows. They were aggressive and always had attacked and destroyed other races in the universe. Drows and them were not in good relations. They attacked each others whenever they had an opportunity. But, Tarrens stopped moving forces towards Drows and started exploring the universe away from them.

"Girls, I think you should look at this. It looks like there is civilization, but there is no signs of life showing from the scans. It’s like everyone died. Come over to the bridge to look better. ", Pilot said through the speakers nervously.

 

Author's Note

Thanks for reading! :)