It wasn't just a struggle to keep up with what had happened for Keash's brain. The computer was having its own troubles. The normal display indicator which had the most common name for the current region of space, or the name of the nearest known starsystem, was showing something Keash had never seen before.
"Unknown, working"
Punching up the navigational diagnostics routine with a scowl as a reflex more than conscious thought the computer quickly showed the system was working fine.
"Working fine... if its working fine than......"
Keash said, eyes wide in shock like saucers....
"We're out of sight of all the starsystems in the database???" he finished incredulously to himself. The computer picked up the words and dutifully answered as if spoken to.
"Confirmed. None of the starsystems detected by the navigational arrays match any known records. None of the starsystems on record are within range of the navigational arrays." said the computers feminin voice.
"Computer, doesn't the database contain enough information to determine location at any location within the Milky way galaxy" Keash asked, afraid to hear the reply.
"The database is sufficient to determine location anywhere within the Milky way galaxy, the Andromeda Galaxy, the Maghellan.."
"COMPUTER PAUZE!" Keash yelled emotionally "I get it, i get it, we're fucked!" he added softly.
"Insufficient information for confirmation of that statement. Please define fucked." replied the computer, obviously not trying to, but doing so anyway, to be an asshole.
With a deep sigh Keash sank down in his seat, completely at the end of his emotional and pshychological rope. "What the fuck am i supposed to do now?" he asked.
"Daddy, i wanna play Angry Birds" said a voice from behind him. With the statement the one most important answer was given. Take care of his son, and figure out the rest after that's taken care of.
zaterdag 15 november 2014
dinsdag 9 oktober 2012
Chapter two: Where the hell.... what the hell???
The first sign of consciousness Christ became aware of was pain exploding into his brain. This was followed instantly by a gutwrenching fear. He opened his eyes screaming “AREND!!!” which came out more like a primordial roar than anything intelligable.
It took a few moments for his brain to catch up with his senses but eventually everything coalesced into the cockpit of the SS Home. As he realized that he wrenched himself out of the seat and sprinted as fast as he could to Arend's room. Recognizing him as he approached the door to the room opened and reveiled a happy as ever 3 year old playing with a red race shuttle and a rusty old tow hauler.
The guy looked up happily yelling “DADDYYYYYYY” while flinging the toys aside and raising his arms towards Christ. Scooping his son up in his arms and hugging him as tight as he'd ever had he felt like all the energy he'd felt just a second ago drain out of him like a liquid. His thoughts were jumbled, confused and for the better part of two minutes he just stood there holding the most precious thing that had ever existed in the universe.
Than his mind began to come up with usefull thoughts. More precisely the last moments before he'd lost conciousness. The strange impossible tractor beam. He had tried to get out of its way but it had corrected its course to match. It had hit them... Suddenly concerned he started back to the cockpit. “Computer, report status” he commanded.
The cool calm and uncaring voice of the computer reported. “All systems functioning normally. Current speed, zero. Current location, unknown. Both individuals on board show no anomalies in their physical conditions”
This calmed down the slight panic that'd been welling up inside as he imagined his ship all banged up and damaged, adrift maybe or about to loose containment. Setting his son down in the seat slightly behind him to the right and locking in the restraints he kissed the kid and tabbed on the display infront of Arendje.
On it the kid's favorite holocartoons came up instantly capturing his full attention. “Chuggingtooooooon” he yelled in delight. Unable to surpress a smile Chris literally impacted the main seat in the cockpit and scanned the readouts infront of him.
Everything looked in perfect working order. Even the cargo seemed to have remained unnaffected by whatever had happened to them. Then he let his gaze lookout the windows in front of them and gasped in shocked awe.
The gasp drew the attention of Arendje away from his screen and the trains that he loved so much to see what his daddy found so special. “Daddy look! Lots and lots of spaceshippies!” Arendje said, pointing out with his little finger.
And though the hundreds, maybe thousands of spaceships of all shapes and sizes were an awesome sight indeed somehting even more awesome was taking up all the attention from Christ. In the distance, possibly millions of miles away from them judging by the number of spaceships, an object of impossible size eminated a bright bluegreen radiation that silhouetted everything between the SS Home and the object.
Whatever whitt Christ had recovered after regaining consciousness was gone once again. His mind a total blank as it was unable to grasp what it was perceiving. It took at least 10 minutes before the first rational thought returned to Christ. “Where the hell are we?” he asked out loud.
It took a few moments for his brain to catch up with his senses but eventually everything coalesced into the cockpit of the SS Home. As he realized that he wrenched himself out of the seat and sprinted as fast as he could to Arend's room. Recognizing him as he approached the door to the room opened and reveiled a happy as ever 3 year old playing with a red race shuttle and a rusty old tow hauler.
The guy looked up happily yelling “DADDYYYYYYY” while flinging the toys aside and raising his arms towards Christ. Scooping his son up in his arms and hugging him as tight as he'd ever had he felt like all the energy he'd felt just a second ago drain out of him like a liquid. His thoughts were jumbled, confused and for the better part of two minutes he just stood there holding the most precious thing that had ever existed in the universe.
Than his mind began to come up with usefull thoughts. More precisely the last moments before he'd lost conciousness. The strange impossible tractor beam. He had tried to get out of its way but it had corrected its course to match. It had hit them... Suddenly concerned he started back to the cockpit. “Computer, report status” he commanded.
The cool calm and uncaring voice of the computer reported. “All systems functioning normally. Current speed, zero. Current location, unknown. Both individuals on board show no anomalies in their physical conditions”
This calmed down the slight panic that'd been welling up inside as he imagined his ship all banged up and damaged, adrift maybe or about to loose containment. Setting his son down in the seat slightly behind him to the right and locking in the restraints he kissed the kid and tabbed on the display infront of Arendje.
On it the kid's favorite holocartoons came up instantly capturing his full attention. “Chuggingtooooooon” he yelled in delight. Unable to surpress a smile Chris literally impacted the main seat in the cockpit and scanned the readouts infront of him.
Everything looked in perfect working order. Even the cargo seemed to have remained unnaffected by whatever had happened to them. Then he let his gaze lookout the windows in front of them and gasped in shocked awe.
The gasp drew the attention of Arendje away from his screen and the trains that he loved so much to see what his daddy found so special. “Daddy look! Lots and lots of spaceshippies!” Arendje said, pointing out with his little finger.
And though the hundreds, maybe thousands of spaceships of all shapes and sizes were an awesome sight indeed somehting even more awesome was taking up all the attention from Christ. In the distance, possibly millions of miles away from them judging by the number of spaceships, an object of impossible size eminated a bright bluegreen radiation that silhouetted everything between the SS Home and the object.
Whatever whitt Christ had recovered after regaining consciousness was gone once again. His mind a total blank as it was unable to grasp what it was perceiving. It took at least 10 minutes before the first rational thought returned to Christ. “Where the hell are we?” he asked out loud.
Chapter 1: Running into something
After having checked over the various readouts in front of him one last time and making sure his son was still happily not doing anything he wasn't supposed to Shake nodded to himself and let his ass impact the leather seat from which the SS Home's systems were controlled.
The tiny control area at the very front of the Cargohauler/Passenger carrier wasn't even big enough to allow for more than one seat, not counting the little seat Christ had built in for Arendje behind him to the right, but the seat it held was one of the most comfortable Shake had ever had the pleasure of planting his royal king sized ass into.
Kicking the seat into the lazy position, allowing him to allmost lay in it horizontally he eased himself into the seat and placing his hands behind his neck letting out an “aaaah” to emphasize the great feeling it gave him to do so.
His thoughts went back to the last few weeks years and months and the events that made him enjoy so much the simple fact of having no major problem on his mind, even for just a few moments. Three years ago, or even a bit more than that, his life had seemed to reach the point of near perfection and then had seemed to be taken up a level over that.
He'd been a midcareer Lieutenant in Starfleet, an engineer mostly responsible for fixing the problems with computer related things around the USS Netherlands. It had taken him a lot of hard work to get where he was then, and he enjoyed every second of his life.
When off duty he was free to do whatever he pleased and took every opertunity he came across to enjoy himself. Life had been perfect. He'd accepted he would be single for the rest of his life and was finally at peace with that.
Then he'd met a woman who seemed to have an interest in him, and even actively persued a romantic relationship with him. That was something that had never happened to him, nor had he ever considered it a possebillity it ever would. Nonetheless it happened and she quickly broke down the wall he'd built around his feelings, and he fell in love.
Half a year later he'd married, his wife was pregnant and another couple of months later he had resigned his commission to live on Breda II with his wife and newborn son. It had been bliss to him, the level of life above perfect. He had a home, a dog, a wife and a child and soon he'd find some work to finish it all off.
Then it all turned into a level beneath totall Hell. His wife told him, on Christmas eve no less, that she didn't love him anymore, on the 26th she told him she'd been having an affair the last six months and before the end of the year she was gone, initially taking his son with her.
That was when his hell began and it had taken him 5 months to convince the authorities it would be in his son's best interest to live with his father instead of his mother and another 9 months to get the divorce finalized. The misery didn't end with that though. Financially he'd been left ruined. Both because of the debts his wife left him as wel as him not having a job to provide an income with.
His wife had by then moved away. Really far away. She'd gotten involved with a Breen and even had a child with the Breen. Part of him was greatfull she was that far away, but for his son he was sad. He only saw his mother once every week, or every two weeks, through a hazy subspace connection, on a screen.
It had been close to the point at which Shake would have given up and allowed himself to slip into depression when finally, at long last, his luck had changed. An academy buddy had come across him on Breda II just by sheer coincidence and had offered him the chance of a lifetime.
His old friend had left the fleet as well and had started a transportation business for himself. Now he had made enough money to be able to stop actively piloting himself and hire a pilot to do the flying for him while he played the CEO role back at the head office of the company. As Shake had been his academy friend he offered Shake to become partners in the company.
Shake would become owner and pilot of the company's new ship while the company and the business remained in Janssen's posession and responsabillity. It had taken only 4 months for Shake to make enough money to pay off the amount they'd set for the purchase of the SS Home and another 4 months to pay off all other debts that had wayed so heavily on him for so long.
And today marked another new milestone in his new life. This would be the first job of whicb he would be able to keep all the pay in his own pocket. He was debt free, owner... Captain of his own ship working for himself and his son and it felt good. The smile that split his face evidence of the joy he felt at realizing that.
“Daddy! Daddy! McQueen broken, you fix!” came an urgent voice from behind him. As he righted his seat and turned towards the voice a red, 24th century race shuttle was shoved into his face with the same urgency as he'd heard in the voice just before.
It was the favorite toy of his son who'd somehow come across some old “cartoon” and became instantly obsessed with “Cars”. In this case it was “Lightning McQueen” one of the film's main characters.
Taking the car from his son and looking it over he said “You're getting very good at this aren't you? Breaking your toys i mean.”
“Uh huh” Arendje absently answered his attention completely on the broken toy. “Ah here's the problem” Shake told the 3 year old and twisted the thruster assembly onto the axel which held the thrusters on both sides until he was satisfied the repair would hold for a little while.
The little one's eyes lit up at seeing the little car back in posession of all four wheels and reached for it with his little hands. Smiling Shake gave the car to his son who struggled to get out the “thank you daddy” quickly enough so he could get back to playing whatever he was before the wheel had come off.
Watching his son run back into the living area the joy he felt at being able to make the child a little bit happier amazed him once again. He never could wrap his mind around the feelings fatherhood stirred in him at the oddest of things. Just putting a smile on the little guys face made him giddy with pleasure.
An insistant beeping suddenly cried for his attention from one of the computer consoles in the control area and Shake swiveled his seat until he faced the readout the insistant beeping was calling him to look at. Tapping the console a few times he focused it's output to the system which had triggered the alarm. It were the long range sensors which seemed to have picked up something on an intercept course.
Frowning he focussed all the sensory power his ship had, which wasn't all thant much really compared to most ships in the Federation, onto the location the long range sensors said something was heading their way. When they focussed their resolution the readings he got back made his blood drain from his face.
What was coming at the SS Home was impossible. It read like a tractor beam but it was coming at them at Warp eight, and it seemed to be lightyears long at least. Recovering from the initial shock and deciding it didn't matter if what he was seeing was impossible or not, he needed to make sure he got the SS Home out of the way and be prepared for if they're unable to.
His hands raced across the panell firing up the manouvering thrusters and sending the ship in a tight 90 degree turn to the right, and out loud he yelled “Computer, alarm status!”.
The computer responded by shutting down all systems other than those in the cockpit, as Christ called the small command and control area of the SS Home and beaming Arend into the special seat in his own little room and locking him into a restraining harnass.
He had practiced this with his son over and over until Arendje understood that when this happened it was useless to protest, cry or struggle and even seemed to understand that it meant that something serious was happening. As the ship completed the sequence for Alarm status it's computer voice reported in. “Alarm status sucessfully engaged.”
Somehow this made Christ feel as if a huge load was lifted off his shoulder. Whatever was going to happen, there was nothing he could do to make Arendje safer than he was now. He looked over to the sensor readouts to see if his tight turn was taking them out of the path of whatever it was that was coming towards them just in time to see it hadn't and it was about to hit them before the ship shook, shuddered and everything went black as Christ lost conciousness.
The tiny control area at the very front of the Cargohauler/Passenger carrier wasn't even big enough to allow for more than one seat, not counting the little seat Christ had built in for Arendje behind him to the right, but the seat it held was one of the most comfortable Shake had ever had the pleasure of planting his royal king sized ass into.
Kicking the seat into the lazy position, allowing him to allmost lay in it horizontally he eased himself into the seat and placing his hands behind his neck letting out an “aaaah” to emphasize the great feeling it gave him to do so.
His thoughts went back to the last few weeks years and months and the events that made him enjoy so much the simple fact of having no major problem on his mind, even for just a few moments. Three years ago, or even a bit more than that, his life had seemed to reach the point of near perfection and then had seemed to be taken up a level over that.
He'd been a midcareer Lieutenant in Starfleet, an engineer mostly responsible for fixing the problems with computer related things around the USS Netherlands. It had taken him a lot of hard work to get where he was then, and he enjoyed every second of his life.
When off duty he was free to do whatever he pleased and took every opertunity he came across to enjoy himself. Life had been perfect. He'd accepted he would be single for the rest of his life and was finally at peace with that.
Then he'd met a woman who seemed to have an interest in him, and even actively persued a romantic relationship with him. That was something that had never happened to him, nor had he ever considered it a possebillity it ever would. Nonetheless it happened and she quickly broke down the wall he'd built around his feelings, and he fell in love.
Half a year later he'd married, his wife was pregnant and another couple of months later he had resigned his commission to live on Breda II with his wife and newborn son. It had been bliss to him, the level of life above perfect. He had a home, a dog, a wife and a child and soon he'd find some work to finish it all off.
Then it all turned into a level beneath totall Hell. His wife told him, on Christmas eve no less, that she didn't love him anymore, on the 26th she told him she'd been having an affair the last six months and before the end of the year she was gone, initially taking his son with her.
That was when his hell began and it had taken him 5 months to convince the authorities it would be in his son's best interest to live with his father instead of his mother and another 9 months to get the divorce finalized. The misery didn't end with that though. Financially he'd been left ruined. Both because of the debts his wife left him as wel as him not having a job to provide an income with.
His wife had by then moved away. Really far away. She'd gotten involved with a Breen and even had a child with the Breen. Part of him was greatfull she was that far away, but for his son he was sad. He only saw his mother once every week, or every two weeks, through a hazy subspace connection, on a screen.
It had been close to the point at which Shake would have given up and allowed himself to slip into depression when finally, at long last, his luck had changed. An academy buddy had come across him on Breda II just by sheer coincidence and had offered him the chance of a lifetime.
His old friend had left the fleet as well and had started a transportation business for himself. Now he had made enough money to be able to stop actively piloting himself and hire a pilot to do the flying for him while he played the CEO role back at the head office of the company. As Shake had been his academy friend he offered Shake to become partners in the company.
Shake would become owner and pilot of the company's new ship while the company and the business remained in Janssen's posession and responsabillity. It had taken only 4 months for Shake to make enough money to pay off the amount they'd set for the purchase of the SS Home and another 4 months to pay off all other debts that had wayed so heavily on him for so long.
And today marked another new milestone in his new life. This would be the first job of whicb he would be able to keep all the pay in his own pocket. He was debt free, owner... Captain of his own ship working for himself and his son and it felt good. The smile that split his face evidence of the joy he felt at realizing that.
“Daddy! Daddy! McQueen broken, you fix!” came an urgent voice from behind him. As he righted his seat and turned towards the voice a red, 24th century race shuttle was shoved into his face with the same urgency as he'd heard in the voice just before.
It was the favorite toy of his son who'd somehow come across some old “cartoon” and became instantly obsessed with “Cars”. In this case it was “Lightning McQueen” one of the film's main characters.
Taking the car from his son and looking it over he said “You're getting very good at this aren't you? Breaking your toys i mean.”
“Uh huh” Arendje absently answered his attention completely on the broken toy. “Ah here's the problem” Shake told the 3 year old and twisted the thruster assembly onto the axel which held the thrusters on both sides until he was satisfied the repair would hold for a little while.
The little one's eyes lit up at seeing the little car back in posession of all four wheels and reached for it with his little hands. Smiling Shake gave the car to his son who struggled to get out the “thank you daddy” quickly enough so he could get back to playing whatever he was before the wheel had come off.
Watching his son run back into the living area the joy he felt at being able to make the child a little bit happier amazed him once again. He never could wrap his mind around the feelings fatherhood stirred in him at the oddest of things. Just putting a smile on the little guys face made him giddy with pleasure.
An insistant beeping suddenly cried for his attention from one of the computer consoles in the control area and Shake swiveled his seat until he faced the readout the insistant beeping was calling him to look at. Tapping the console a few times he focused it's output to the system which had triggered the alarm. It were the long range sensors which seemed to have picked up something on an intercept course.
Frowning he focussed all the sensory power his ship had, which wasn't all thant much really compared to most ships in the Federation, onto the location the long range sensors said something was heading their way. When they focussed their resolution the readings he got back made his blood drain from his face.
What was coming at the SS Home was impossible. It read like a tractor beam but it was coming at them at Warp eight, and it seemed to be lightyears long at least. Recovering from the initial shock and deciding it didn't matter if what he was seeing was impossible or not, he needed to make sure he got the SS Home out of the way and be prepared for if they're unable to.
His hands raced across the panell firing up the manouvering thrusters and sending the ship in a tight 90 degree turn to the right, and out loud he yelled “Computer, alarm status!”.
The computer responded by shutting down all systems other than those in the cockpit, as Christ called the small command and control area of the SS Home and beaming Arend into the special seat in his own little room and locking him into a restraining harnass.
He had practiced this with his son over and over until Arendje understood that when this happened it was useless to protest, cry or struggle and even seemed to understand that it meant that something serious was happening. As the ship completed the sequence for Alarm status it's computer voice reported in. “Alarm status sucessfully engaged.”
Somehow this made Christ feel as if a huge load was lifted off his shoulder. Whatever was going to happen, there was nothing he could do to make Arendje safer than he was now. He looked over to the sensor readouts to see if his tight turn was taking them out of the path of whatever it was that was coming towards them just in time to see it hadn't and it was about to hit them before the ship shook, shuddered and everything went black as Christ lost conciousness.
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