Being on an exploration ship was strange, to say the least, but Alaina couldn’t complain. After all, she had wanted this ever since she was a child, and she trained for this mission for months. But, even with her strong desire to see what existed beyond the boundaries of her atmosphere, Alaina couldn’t help but to often think back to her own home planet. There wasn’t that much left for her back there, but she missed it, and she couldn’t understand why.
Alaina was once against reliving memories of her old life as she walked through the engine room, checking if all the machines were working properly. She had to do this quite often during her stay on the ship, even at odd hours of the night. The engine could easily malfunction, after all, and she didn’t want to think of what could happen if it shut down altogether.
She paused as she listened to her Captain’s voice come over the intercom, asking if the engine was running well. For now, it was, but machines like this could be unpredictable.
“Yeah, it’s running fine.” Alaina sighed, pushing her hair back with her hand. “Let’s hope it stays that way.”
Alaina turned on the alert system in the engine room so that it would notify her if anything went wrong. She figured that everything would run smoothly for a while, but it was better to be safe than sorry. After she finished up, she headed up to the cockpit and stood in the doorway.
She smiled faintly at Romulus, raising her eyebrow. “Talking to the AI again?”
Alaina was competent, and that made Romulus's life a lot easier. When she said things were fine, he had just beeped an acknowledgment over the coms. She didn't seem worried, so he wasn't.
He turned with a wry smile on his face when she came up behind him. "Hey, listen, Heph is a person too. You should talk to him more." The AI had access to everywhere on the ship, and Romulus was in the habit of talking to him often, but the others still liked to tease him about it. Not his fault Hephaestus-11 was a good conversationalist.
The AI piped up from his spot on the console. "I'm happy to talk to all of you, Alaina, it's just that Romulus asks often."
The HUD (heads-up-display) in Romulus's visor pinged another alert, and Heph looked distracted. "Switching control to you, Captain." The formal address was to remind Romulus he had a ship to fly just now. He downed the throttle, sliding them smoothly out of warp space. The graviteum engine didn't blow, so that was good.
Now it was just a matter of flying them into the solar system and to the particular planet. Usually he flew the Olympus with just the helmet HUD, but a glance at Alaina helped him decide.
"Onscreen."
The viewscreen at the front of the cockpit blinked to life, showing the view around them. A massive star, tinted blue, coming up in front of them, ringed by three planets. One was a huge brown and green gas giant that made Jupiter look like a basketball. One was a smaller pink and blue planet, that Heph said was made up of a surface covering of ice over gasses and liquids, but not water.
And one was their target. The smallest planet had huge sections of red across it's surface, but it was far enough away from the star that it was the right temperature. Almost.
The constellations out here were different, and Rom found his breath taken away just a little.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" he said quietly, before thumbing the coms. "Tristan, you getting this?"
Alaina stole a glance over at Rom, wondering what was on his mind. There was so much going on on the ship and barely anytime to rest and relax anymore. That, along with the intense loneliness that came and left, was beginning to weigh on the shoulders of everyone on the ship. Alaina figured it especially was this way with the young captain. He was barely a few years older than her, but he had loads of more responsibility.
“Mm, he asks often? Go figure.” Alaina smirked faintly at Rom. “You know, if you’re ever lonely, you can come talk to me. I’m probably just as good of a listener as Heph is.”
Alaina walked over to Rom’s side and sat down, her eyes focused on the expanse stretched out before them. It was strange to her how fast her desires could change. For hours, she had been thinking only about home and how much she missed her father and her siblings. But, as soon as she saw the beautiful sight of the universe again, she wanted to stay on this ship for as long as possible.
“It’s all just so… massive.” She laughed softly and rested her cheek against her knuckles. “Makes you feel kinda small, huh?”
She listened as Romulus called over the coms to Tristan. How was he doing? She hadn’t seen him in hours.
Tistan was used to his new life on the ship. Day in and day out, make sure there wasn't any life on the planets they passed by. Or maybe It was needed for there to be life. What ever it was, Tristan was doing it. He had been on the ship for six months on the ship and luckily everything was decently well on the ship. The constant beep of the radar was an annoying sound to say the least, but he never seemed to notice it much. He was always occupied with running tests and such.
When the com's went off, Tristan pressed the button to answer but his mind instantly blanked out. All that could be heard from the side of Rom was the beeping and nothing else. Tristan shook his head, not knowing why he spaced out. "Everything looking alright on my side Rom. Nothing to interesting a always. Though I will be on the look out if the radar'll catch anything. Hopefully we'll have something soon." He yawned.
Tristan rarely came out of his laboratory due to the fact that if there was ever a sign of life, the crew would need do hear about it as soon as possible. Mostly when they had reached the destination he loved to explore.
Romulus chuckled. "I do ask a lot, because Hephaestus can't get tired of me." The AI gave a low beep just then, similar to a rude gesture, and Romulus smirked.
He glanced over at Alaina. "I do appreciate it though. And you're human, which makes you immediately a better listener."
When they'd all first met, Romulus had intimidated everyone with relative ease. He was taller, stronger, more muscular, louder, and he'd walked into their first meeting in full armor with his voice modulator on. It hadn't occurred to him to tone it down.
They had both warmed up to him eventually, but he was keenly aware of how much space he took up, physically and mentally. He was extremely friendly, and in the interest of not driving the rest of the crew crazy with his pestering, he often went to the AI.
Alaina sat down, and Rom glanced at her again. The look of wonder on her face highlighted how pretty she was, and he had to remind himself to focus.
He chuckled again at her question. "Yes, it does make me feel small, and not much does that."
They cleared the minor asteroid belt at the edge of every solar system, and Romulus chuckled to himself as the report came in. Tristan tended to bury himself in his work, and he was very good at his jobs.
He also tended to hide till it was time to actually get on-planet. Not an issue, he wasn't anti-social or anything, but it was part of the reason Rom talked to Heph so often.
In system, they couldn't move at light speed safely. Too much danger of overshooting and either warping through a planet, or accidentally throwing themselves into the star. Which meant that it would be another 8 hours, moving at about half the speed of light, before they were in orbit over the planet and were able to land and check it out. These 8 hours were critical, because if at any point they caught signs that something was wrong, Romulus would need to be the one to make the call, turn them around, and get them out of there.
"8 hours, guys. We'll be in orbit over the target planet in 8 hours. Sleep in shifts and forward your diagnostics to me when you rest. Tristan, if I could get the updated star-charts from you soon, I'd appreciate it." As cartographer, Tristan was the one Romulus relied on to keep their position marked at all times. He knew generally where they were, but Tristan was the one who could whip out a map, or pull up a star chart, and point to exactly where they were on it.
Tristan nodded, even though he knew Rom wouldn't be able to see him. "You got it. I'll get on it right away." Tristan clicked a button to turn the coms off and pushed off from the table that had all the different scanners. The chair rolled to a different table that was littered with large sheets of papers that were filled with different stars and all the routes the Olympus went. Tristan got his pen and pencil and started on the map.
A person would think that life in space would be dangerous. It was. It really was. But hey? Tristan signed up to Elbowspace because Rom, Alaina and Tristan had seemed to be an amazing team when they worked together. "Three peas to a pod", Tristan liked to call it. On the bright side, Tristan really did enjoy his job.
The constant scratching of a pen and pencil on a paper filled the room. Tristan marked out the stars around the ship, using the radar as an aid. After quite a while of drawing everything down to paper Tristan took the large sheet of paper, marked by many stars and called for Hephaestus-11.
"Heph? Would toy be able to make this into a digital map? And I need to add some separate notes on it for Rom." Heph's holographic face popped up. "Sure. Pick it up and I'll scan it to make a file." Tristan quickly rolled to Hephaestus-11 and Picked the paper up. When Heph gave a thumbs up a digital version of the map popped op on the screen. Though they had the digital copy, Tristan had never thrown out any of the hard copy's of any map. On a space ship that is high tec, who knows what could happen?
( @Emmrii kinda figured Alaina would have more to say? If not thats fine)
When Romulus wasn’t looking, Alaina glanced over at him and smiled. At first, she was hesitant about someone so young being their commander, but she eventually began to recognize and admire Romulus’s leadership skills. He knew how to handle himself under stress, and she found that he was the driving force of their team.
She wished that she could be a bit more like him. While Romulus was their driving force, Alaina was their voice of reason. She was the one who questioned everything and hesitated before making big decisions. Yes, that quality had its pros, but it also had its cons.
“Rom, you should go rest,” she said softly. “I’ll navigate the ship for a while, okay? You can stay here with me if you want, but just rest.”
She moved closer to the control board, looking down at all the bottoms and levers scattered across the cockpit. She could feel herself shaking slightly, as if she was anxious. She had controlled the ship many times, yes, but the last few days had felt… different. She couldn’t place on finger on what was different, and it was starting to bother her.
She glanced over at Rom. Par of her wanted to talk about his feelings, ask him if he felt the same way, but at the same time, he was dealing with enough. She didn’t want to ruin the moment.
"I'll rest later. We're coming into a new planet, and I love this part." Auto-pilot did so much of the piloting, Romulus relished any opportunity he got to actually pilot.
He glanced at Alaina, noting her worried expression.
"Something on your mind?"
Hephaestus-11 was throwing up all kinds of telemetry he'd need to pay attention to, and he couldn't look at her for long. However, he'd gotten adept at splitting his attention, and he hoped she knew he'd listen if she wanted to talk.
Tristan's updated star-charts popped up, and Romulus sent a chirp across the coms, acknowledging he'd received them. The cartographer was always prompt with his work, on top of everything else.
Alaina stole a glance over at Romulus. He looked so busy, and she didn’t want to add more to his plate. He already had enough to deal with. But, at the same time, if something went wrong in ship, she would be at fault if she didn’t didn’t tell anyone about her concerns. She could always tell him later if he wasn’t in the mood to listen.
“I’m just… worried, I guess,” she said, staring up at the ceiling.
Worried wasn’t the right word. She was terrified. Paranoid that something was going to go wrong. She thought it was just because of her anxieties, but after awhile, she realized that her fears could be rooted in truth.
“The ship has been acting somewhat strange lately. The machines will malfunction for no reason. I’ll be working late one night, and the AIs in the engine room will start glitching out. They’ll speak when no one is around.” She leaned back in her chair. “It’s strange. Maybe were receiving signals from nearby planets that are causing our machines to misbehave.”
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