I opened my eyes and, there she was staring at me, again. I sat up and rubbed my face.
“Why do you keep doing this? It’s creepy.”
“I do not sleep,” she said “in fact, ‘sleep’ is a rare thing in the universe in general, and I find myself endlessly fascinated by it. “
“Don’t you get bored with it? I couldn’t stand and spend hours watching someone sleep. Be like watching paint dry” I stood up and looked around for my pants.
“On the contrary, because of your unique biology, and I mean you personally, you seem to have seven stages of sleep while Dallas has the usual four. I’ve noticed that in your forth state, your brain shuts down except for only what is necessary to keep you alive. It lasts for approximately ten minutes then you seem to switch on again. I am trying to ascertain the purpose of this.”
“You can see my brain waves?” I said as I tried to put my head through the armhole of the ridiculous red tunic that Dallas had the ship manufacture. I finally got my head through the right hole. “That’s even creepier!”
I found my shoes and we stepped through the doorway into the hall. “I can see in several ways” she said as we walked towards the bridge ” I am not limited to seeing with my eyes. There are several other sensory inputs all over my body. One of particular interest is …” the one piece suit she was wearing started to dissolve “NOPE! NOPE! Don’t do that” I said averting my eyes. “But it is right here between my….” I pushed my fingers into my ears “NOPE! Can’t hear you!”
Her clothing materialized again and she gave me a confused look. ” Humans are very strange and you are an extraordinary human, so you are extraordinarily strange”
We walked onto the bridge and I went immediately to the replicator. “Triple, Venti, Half Sweet, high-Fat, Caramel Macchiato” I said. Dallas was teaching a new language called coffee speak.
I walked up the ramp to the security console and sat down with my trillion calorie beverage. I surveyed the console and yes, all the blinky things were still blinking and occasionally something would “Boop”. Same as yesterday.
In front of me in the Captains Chair, Dallas had materialized a joystick for each hand and was happily blowing the piss out of fake attack ships on the main screen. “Take that you Imperial Bastards!” He yelled as another ship blew up and we pretended to fly through the debris. He took aim at another enemy ship and started shooting, making “pew, pew, pew,” noises.
Same as Yesterday.
I sighed and turned to Sev. “Are we there yet?”
“You humans are a most impatient race” she said. “We will arrive when we arrive, I’m sure Heddy will give us lots of warning”
Nope, Heddy had other ideas.
The ship suddenly dropped into real space with klaxons blaring. I spilled coffee all over myself. Dallas jumped out of the chair. “What the hell?” The giant screen changed to a real time view. “MY HIGH SCORE!” Dallas wailed.
There was a big yellow button that was blinking in time to the alarm so I slapped it. The alarm silenced. I slapped it again because I was pissed off at it for making me spill my coffee.
“What the HELL is going on?” I said
Dallas held up his finger and waggled it at me. “No, dude, you are supposed to say “Ensign! Status report!”
I sighed and looked at Sev. “It appears we can go no further without ending up in a very large debris field” she said, waving her hands over the controls. “Heddy had to drop us in here to avoid certain destruction. “
“So where is the gate?”
“According to ships sensors, the expanding debris field is the gate” She passed her hand over some controls.
” Something has apparently destroyed the gate.” she passed her hand over it again. The view magnified. “And several of the systems planets as well”
On the screen I could see what looked like comets. their tails streaming away from whatever destroyed the gate.
They were planets. Or what was left of them.
“What the hell can do that?!” I said, looking at Sev. “What in this great and scrunchy universe can do that?!!!”
” I have absolutely no idea”
Suddenly the klaxon started screaming in pain again. “Now what?!” i yelled above the noise. I slapped the button again, silencing it.
“According to sensors, something is materializing about approximately 26.000 kilometers ahead of us” Sev said, looking down at the screen. I i will bring it up on the main screen”
We looked at the screen. “What the heck is that? ” I asked
“I have no idea” Sev said
This thing started to materialize in space. Like it was being slowly pushed into our space from elsewhere. More and more of it began to materialize.
Dallas cleared his throat “Um…I hate to ask..But how big is that thing?”
Sev, still looking at her screen, replied, “I am unable to calculate as the edges are not exactly in our ‘Universe’. The nearest I can say is that it is about the size of your imaginary “Death Star” that you like to repeatedly blow up.”
Suddenly, everything on the ship powered down. Emergency lighting came on.
“Heddy has informed me that all systems except life support have been powered down remotely. She is trying to bypass the command but is having no positive results.”
On the screen the protrusions on the front of..whatever it was..started to move. Rotating. The thing started swinging it’s gaze towards the blast zone.
“It seems to be a probe” Sev said ” I think it is assessing the damage to the gate”
It stayed like that for nearly an hour. After awhile I went to the replicator and ordered “Coffee. Strong. Black” as this was not the time for foofoo drinks. I stood by my station blowing on my coffee
“It’s moving again!” Dallas said and sure enough it turned back to “look” at us.
I suddenly had this feeling that it was looking at me.
I staggered and grabbed the back of the chair, spilling hot coffee down my leg. “Seriously?!”
Suddenly I was no longer on the ship. I was standing on a platform in a giant room . Corridors and branches flew off in all sorts of directions and nothing made sense. Off in the distance I could see a light and somehow I knew that that was where I needed to be, so I started to float that way. Black things that I could not really see started pouring out of various openings and I knew they were there to stop me. I was suddenly crippled by fear and just wanted to curl up into a ball.
“Your journey is not done!” a huge voice boomed out and the darkness scurried back into their various holes. I looked at my hand and I was holding a large gleaming sword.
“The Key” I said pointing it at the sky that had suddenly materialized out of nothing.
Then I found myself on my arse on the floor with Sev, Dallas, and even Heddy hovering around me.
” I think I know where to go” I said standing up.
“You and everything else in the system” Dallas said.
I looked at Sev, confused.
“All the debris from the gate has suddenly reversed direction and is now heading back to the source of the blast” She said “including us”
I looked at the screen just in time to see the probe start to de-materialize like it was slowly being pulled back out of our space.
“Well okay then” I muttered to myself.