Empyrean Iris Story Collection

Out of Warp

The ship was quiet, the soft whirring of the engine underscored the quiet, exhausted relief that had followed them from the courtroom not days before. The Captain's chair lay unoccupied, the bridge crew lounged quietly in their seats absently monitoring all incoming data before the warp.

Krill sat at his chair on the bridge just over Sunny who sat, curled up against the back wall listening to her music. Unlike everyone else, the court case hadn't seem to have eased her worries. She sat against her own tense muscles hunched inwards on herself as she stared at her playlist.

Towards the communications console, Captain Vir sat speaking quietly to someone over the phone. The communications expert sat a polite distance away, but the rather smug and amused look on his face told of someone eavesdropping.

"Yes..... yes, YES.... Mom, I'm fine. I KNOW I didn't tell you because I KNEW you'd freak out.... Well if it was Jeremy, you would barely even notice..... That's beside the point..... MOM, I won the case, I am back on my ship, barely a slap on the wrist." He sighed, "Yes mom..... yeah.... No.... no, I just have to wear the leg Sunny gave me....." He paused for a long moment sighing deeply a few times, "Yes, she gave me a leg, yeah it was a gift, and by wearing it it's sort of similar to adoption, you know, technically I'm part of their clan now.... MOM can we talk about this later......." He rolled his eyes to the heavens, "No mom, I am not rolling my eyes..... I am NOT lying, look I love you, I have to go." He hung up and sighed glowering at the com expert as he walked past, "Get rid of that grin corporal before I get rid of it for you."

The threat didn't take, and the crewman just burst into a fit of childish giggling.

The captain rolled his eyes and took his seat, "Alright, The UNSC is sending us on a wide patrol, I think they are done with us being around for a while, so ready the ship for warp." Upon hearing the order, the crew sat up in their seats, while Sunny buckled herself in at the defense controls.

Navigation sent over a pre-plotted course to the captain's screen, pulled up as a hologram in front of the chair. He dropped the controls, and took the joysticks with the ease of someone who knew they had complete control.

"Preparing warp core."

"25.... 45....65.... 75.....85....90....100."

The captain's hand pressed forward on the controls, and below decks, somewhere in the bowels of the ship, the warp core pulsed once, thrumming with a pulsing power that rolled its way through the ship dimming lights and flickering projections as power was diverted to the warp for a split second. There was one horrible moment like they were all being folded inwards, and then the view outside of the windows whent completely white as the cameras shut off.

The entire crew slumped in relief as the feeling passed, and they were finally on their way. If the calculations were right, they should appear just off from the Heaven's Gate Nebula, and then circle around the perimeter, a journey that would take more than a few months with strategic warp jumps spaced throughout.

Captain Vir sighed turning sideways in his chair and throwing his legs over the opposite armrest. Under the leg of his pants, the blue, metallic prosthetic of his new leg winked out at the crew. It only had two toes, like the foot of the Drev and a single backward facing spur. It had taken a while for him to get used to the dynamic of the leg, but once he had, it was almost impossible to notice the difference.

Inside the warp channel, the crew allowed itself to relax, moving from their attentive positions back to their postures of relaxation and sleepy watchfulness. A warp was run completely on autopilot, to do it manually would be to commit suicide in in the most spectacular way possible, perhaps by flying themselves straight into the sun. Either way, the only thing to do now was to sit back, relax and monitor the inner workings of the ship.