Leaving Home

Posted on Sat Jan 9th, 2010 @ 3:57am by

648 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: POWERING UP THE STATION
Location: Aurorus City - Nal Ta greater oceans / Mirar City - Nal Ta central forrest
Timeline: Current

ON

After weeks of planning and a lot of time spent on the com lines word had finally filtered through the line that a colony world had been found; Tiberius V. The cities had been readying to go and now were at last ready to take off and shoot across the stars.

[Aurorus City]

"Raise the shield and vent all water, switch atmospherics to high humidity air" Governor Paron ordered from the center seat at the city's command center, far up in the central spire. "Command to control room, status?"

"All five links are active sir" Flight Officer Best answered, "computer reads all our commands. Gotta say this is way different from the fighter tie-ins."

"Very good, stand-by for take off" Paron said, closing that channel and opening another, "engineering, bring the cores online."

"Aye sir, one's already hot, two is about set and three's starting" an engineer replied, probably the only one who had time to answer.

"Signal flight when we're ready to go" Paron said and then closed the channel to get back to prepping the city for take off.

[Mirar City]

"All systems read go sir" an ops officer said from her console at the 'back' of the command center.

"Looks like we'll beat Paron by at least an hour" Governor Varg said, sitting back in his chair. "command to control, take us up."

There was no vocal reply, but there was an audible one, docking clamps around the city released with loud bangs and then the impulse drive came up to full roar. Gradually the city lifted clear of the dock and then it gained speed as broke loose of the canopy and towards the stars above.

"On course, soon as we're clear make for that gravitational distortion for jump" Varg ordered. A thing about the Neyel was a need for effeciency, aside from ring drives they'd found a way to break a way to break into high warp by exploiting local space distortions rather than making their own.

"We have a read on the point" ops called, then a small alert flashed on a near-by panel, "Aurorus is launching in five sir."

"Slow our speed when we break out" Varg replied, "we'll jump together then."

[Aurorus City]

"Take us up" Paron said, holding on for the jolt of launch. There was a slight downside to leaving home from underwater, the ride up was a lot bumpier.

"Docking clamps released" ops announced, "engines to half power for terminal velocity. Surface in three minutes."

"Everyone hang on" Paron said as they neared the surface, then broke through, water running off the sides of their shields and back to the ocean. It was a rare moment, the city rarely came over the water, a beautiful view of the main land filled the windows all around the control center.

As the bulk of the city cleared the water, the shaking came as the drag dropped to about zero and the engines throttled up to push out the rest of the way. The force of the sudden acceleration forced peopled down all around, though anyone with a few good brain cells would have strapped themselves in somewhere.

[Space]

"Signal the support fleet to get underway" Varg said from the command center, "we'll meet them on the other side."

Right after the signal was loose in space, Mirar city disappeared in a flash of light, shooting across space at warp speeds and using almost no power to do it. Seconds later Aurorus followed and caught up with them, flying just behind and to the side of the forest city.

A two week trip was ahead, quite possibly the shortest of any colonization trek since the start of time. It would be hard for the people, used to being loose with their world's nature, but that would pace pretty fast once they saw their new world; an untouched paradise.

[OFF]

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