Endo-Stellarz:War on the Horizon

Chapter 15: Grand Departure

(Rolund Hea Yong - GT 0932 169)

The three of us boarded the SS Dragoon, now with plenty of rations with variety backed aboard and a few small upgrades here and there. "I hope these new rations are enough for you Ileen." I said as we looked in our fridge.

"At least it isn't just those old crappy snack bars." She said, the thought of them seemingly making her cringe slightly.

Not much later the mechanic working on our ship left the cockpit and said, "There you go, she should be ready. You should try out the newer hologram, we even uploaded the latest galactic map to it!"

"Thanks for your time." I said shaking their hand before they left the Dragoon.

"Want to check out the new map?" Ileen asked me.

"Yeah, Terrina is a long way away so we'll have to plot a course instead of heading straight there." I replied.

As we entered the cockpit Jiyoda slipped in behind us before speaking. "I was putting some things in my room, but you need help plotting a course?"

"I suppose so." I said turning on the hologram as the lights in the room dimmed, seconds later a hologram of the galaxy appeared in the center of the cockpit. "Now just bring up the Manlia and Solina Systems..." I said typing on the keypad as two colored dots appeared on their respective parts of the galaxy. "Oh and we should put this in too." I said as I created a sphere around the parts of the DLT and Quarvi close to Vesmica. "The danger zone. Aka the war zone, going though that is pretty much a no go."

"Why not head straight there?" Jiyoda brought up, "Your "danger zone" is still safely far enough away from the straightest and fastest route."

"The Dragoon cannot last quite that long without refueling, and we should restock at least once on our journey too thinking about it."

"How long should it be able to last?" she questioned.

"Give or take fourteen Tharum Days, 336 hours, or a distance at about 1,850 Galixies at max speed. Sadly Terrina is 2,342 Galixies away from Manlia, so no way it'd get us there without at least one stop."

"I propose that if we have to make at least one stop, we stop at the Roliol system and restock on Xylon, they have everything there." Jiyoda suggested.

"That is quite close to the war zone and for all we know the map could be wrong, or that area could become part of the war zone by the time we get there, seems risky." I replied

"What if we went to systems out here on the rim, they are mining colonies and will have virtually no chance of danger from the war." Ileen proposed.

"That'd take the trip about another 3.8 days, on top of having to stop twice. Plus for all we know there could be pirates traveling around the lesser patrolled rim colonies. Especially with military vessels focused on the war effort and not stopping pirates." Jiyoda refuted. "Speaking of which, why didn't you get weapons on the vessel? We might be vulnerable to attack!"

"The vessel would be slowed way down, there is tons of legal issues, and we don't really need it if we play our cards right." I replied to Jiyoda.

"Well Rolund you are the captain, which route should we take?" Ileen asked me.

I stood there weighing the pros and cons for a good few minutes before saying, "I think I'll go with Jiyoda's path, best to keep it shorter, and I don't want to risk dealing with lawless pirates."

"Nice to know we are dealing with a reasonable pilot." Jiyoda tossed in as the hologram turned off and the lights turned back on.

"Ready everyone?" I said sitting down in my chair.

"Back to my home world Terrina? I would do that any day of the week!" Ileen said sitting down.

"Yeah." Jiyoda said quickly before plopping down in a chair. "Better than staying on this quiet planet."

"Well buckle in and to the Roliol System we go!" I said as I buckled in and turned on the engines as the exterior doors automatically closed and we lifted off into the expanse of space.

Several hours later...

The ship was on autopilot as we headed back towards Quarvian territory and soon after, DLT territory. Only twenty-six days ago, I called it my home, but now it was as distant as Liberbia was to my naive mind. Like most people I lived my life until now never leaving our home system, most still do not even leave their planet.

"So Jiyoda, What's Xylon like?" I asked her as Ileen was no longer in the cockpit with us.

"Weren't you a civilian of the DLT? Shouldn't you know?" She said.

"Well I never left the Souhn system before, until, well this crazy war."

"Well it is a pretty good place to get contracts... Due to it being the most populated planet in the entire galaxy, though it's more of a moon in reality. It orbits around Ouy, a gas giant." Jiyoda continued, "Now I could go on and on about all the things wrong with it, from their environmental policies, extreme levels of unregulated capitalism, and it being where Vorture's headquarters is located.

I would go on but I would likely bore you to death and well, I need you around." She ended.

"Well I guess I can get a better picture when we get there, or well, at least what has become of it with the war."