Shattered Glass Chapter 11: The Figure
The Figure
As the mysterious figure lifted Alki off the ground as if he weighed nothing more than a small bag of sand, he approached me and gave me a good look over. His face was completely neutral and the only sound he made was breathing. He didn't really even seem concerned about Alki's unconscious state, or if he had any non-visible injuries.
As the massive six and a half foot beast was looking over me his eyes seemed to stop in certain places, such as were my fur was burned, or scars from things I can't recall of the top of my head. It wasn't until after 5 minutes of looking at me he cocked his head back towards his ship and yelled in his deep voice "Korrella start the drive"
As the ship's main thrusters started he turned back at me and said with no care what so ever "You can come with me, or you can stay here and die" I honestly did not know what to do, whether I should trust him.
"What about my mother" Is all I could say. I am not sure why I was compelled to try to save her, but I guess it is just some instinctual thing to look after your own. However it stopped him in his tracks and he put Alki on the now fully extended ramp of the ship. He turned back around to face me and simply said "If she is willing..." he seemed to cut himself off, but at the same time seemed to be purposeful and had a hidden meaning behind it.
He stepped onto the ramp and motioned for me to come, which I did. As I stepped on and stood with both footpaws on the grooved metallic surface, the ramp began to moved off the ground into the ship. I'm not quite sure how it knew to move but I could only guess that whoever "Korrella" is was listening in on our conversation.
Through the ramp I could feel the shutter of the engine as they spun up, and as I turned to look at the rear of the ship, I could see huge light blue flames coming from it getting bigger as we approached the hatch. I looked over at Alki who was still lying down in the same position he was put down in not moving and looking so helpless. The only movement coming from him was his chest when he took a breath. To me it looked as if he had no physical injury and that the beam never hit him, but that technology he used must have hurt him in some unknown way.
The Ramp slipped into the ship and the hatch closed in front of me with a quick hiss. I stepped of the ramp and stood on the cold metallic floor of the ship. The panther picked up Alki and replaced him on the floor by a control panel, and then he also stepped off the ramp. As he did the ramp started folding on itself by seamlessly hidden hinges and hydraulic arms and collapsed into a hidden compartment underneath the floor. From the sound of them I could determine that they were electronic rather than mechanical motors.
The mysterious panther headed towards the front of the ship I looked around for something to sit on that didn't look like it would break if I did. Even though the floor was bare metal and a dark silver color, the rest of the ship had a bit more to it. Even though the ceiling and the walls were metal, they had color and designs that I could guess weren't there by default and probably made by the panther. For what reason I wasn't sure why someone would bother trying to personalize their ship, but then again for all I knew this could be pretty much his home.
I was going to leave Alki alone for a minute while I went to explore this ship a few feet in each direction when I heard a new male voice over the intercom system.
"Would our new guest please make their way to the bridge?" The voice wasn't exactly harsh nor was it polite. It sounded a little mechanical and disappointed that it had to give me an order.
"Which way do I go?" I asked already having a hunch where to go since there was only two ways that I could see, and I saw the panther going towards to front of the ship. I asked just more for prosperity reasons and to see if it would respond to me.
"Head towards the front of the ship, when you reach an open room with a stairway and a hall going to the left, go down the hallway. Follow that until you reach a series of doors that are marked with self-explanatory meaning. Enter the one that says 'control room' and you will be lead on from there." It responded after a moment of silence. I was still cautious to leave Alki laying there unguarded and went to pose a question about him, but before I could the voice came back over the com and simply stated "He will be fine, he is located in one of the safest parts of the ship"
While that didn't exactly answer the question I had in store, I figured I wouldn't get a better one and follow the instruction of the Male voice until I reached the control room. I momentarily paused at the stairway to try to get a glance were it lead to. However the lights were turned off and I could only make out 2 floors going either up or down until it faded into black, and from that I guess that the floor I was currently on was considered the middle. As I went through the hallway I was directed down, there were more doors and hatches then I expected. Some were labeled things like "CFS-9U" while other had more understandable name like "Supply" or "Breakers". The door I was directed to go into was a large metallic door that was made from some material I had never seen. It looked like Carbon Fiber but it felt metallic and warm and it had mechanical and hydraulics locks expanding from the middle to all edges of the large door. Also by large door I mean enough to fit a normal size vehicle through, it didn't seem to really fit inside the ship due to its overly stated importance.
"One moment please, I'm still modifying some systems. The door will be opened momentarily." The now familiar voice announced as I put a paw on the door giving it a good feel to see if I could place what it was made out of. I was going to ask it what the door was made of but the message it just gave me sounded distracted and a bit irritated.
I have never been on a spaceship before so I wasn't about to get impatient with waiting, but I did want to explore more and since I had to wait I figured it wouldn't be a bad idea. However as I took a few steps back from the direction I came to get here, the door hissed and the locks started to open. I watched in amazement as all the locks receded like a puzzle and the door split in the middle and opened up. The room beyond it was pitch black with no lighting and it made me a little nervous to step inside.
"I promise it is safe... As safe as a flying metal death box with lasers operating by the gigajoule can be" The voice over the COM announced. I actually laughed at its analogy because I could tell it was sarcastic but true. I wasn't sure if it was expecting that reaction from me or not but regardless I stepped into the room and the door closed behind me locking itself once again.
Once the last lock hissed in place the lights in the room came on right on queue and the room was illuminated in not a bright blinding light like in a doctor's office, but a very mellow orangeish color that was of a medium brightness like that of a cruise ship passenger room. The room was open with not much in it besides a comfortable look chair on a piston in the center of the room with Holo-Panel Projectors surrounding it, The sheer number of which would make it seem impossible for one person to pilot this thing.
I walked around the room which had an odd elliptical shape to it. It was about four times the size of that of your average master bedroom and had spot light evenly placed in the ceiling with vent lights on the bottom edges of the wall that directed light both up and down. Unlike the rest of the ship the walls where clothed and padded, most likely for decoration purposes only and to add some comfort and softness since this is where the pilot spends most of his time.
As I approached the chair the Holo-Panels switched on and displayed a variety of graphs and pictures that I could not really understand. One of them however displayed information about the ship and a diagram in which there was a section flashing red on the bottom middle level. As I put my hand over the area it automatically enlarged and displayed information regarding the malfunctioning system. Instead of a large report file with detail that only a technician could decipher, it merely read "Nano-Assembler System OFFLINE". As I was about to poke the graphical button that marked "DETAILS" the hatch opened behind me and the panther came waltzing in as if not minding my presence and sat in his chair.
"Young man where is your home" Korrella asked in a non-caring tone
"1365 East Maple Drive" I responded in a fashion that should have been clear enough for anyone to understand
"Do I look like a GPS? That doesn't mean anything to me. If there was a '1365 East Maple Drive' in space than yea but we're not in space are we. Just point out a direction and I'll get us there. Please remember though that this is a spaceship, not a sports car. I can't stop on a time and make a three point turn if we miss it"
"Should be straight forward, by the ship that crashed" I replied having to conclude that at least whatever Korrella was, they had a since of humor.
"Ok. Brace yourself, I'm not the best at in atmosphere flight, but we should live." Korrella responded in the cold normal tone I was beginning to get used to.
As I stood in my spot ignoring her advice to brace myself on something the ship seamless with no vibration or warning lurched upwards pushing me straight on my ass and out the COM came a simple "Oops. I'm afraid I forgot you decided not to follow my advice. Thank you for participating in that experiment."
Instead of getting up, I slid my back against the wall which seemed to make it happy as the ship moved forward at a more gracious pace. A Holo-Panel at the front of the room came on with a camera view of the ship wreck. Ship parts spread everywhere and very little of the actual ship's hull intact. The ground was literally a forest of salvageable parts and everything from ammo to a few intact weapons that no one could in all reality carry away by themselves.
As we approached the Bow of the crashed ship, I realized that we had already passed my house. My house, my mother, where under the ship. Everything that I had was gone to never be seen again, even my mother. I wasn't sure why I cared that she was gone, she stopped caring about me a long time ago, but I guess you don't realize how much something mean to you until it is gone.
"I'm sorry" The panther said to me reading my gawking facial expression. It sounded sincere and I was glad that even if it wasn't he at least said something.
"Yea, well lets go to wherever we are going I guess" I tried hiding the sadness in that statement but I knew it came out.
"Yep, you might want to hold on to something though. Korrella takes us up maximum burn"
Right as he said that the ship launched forward with amazing speed and tilted upwards pushing me against the wall. The G-Forces seemed to be not as bad as they should be for this kind of acceleration and accent. As I looked at the camera view of the front of the ship, I could see the sky getting darker rapidly and more stars appear.
A minute later we were in space, and a minute later the ship was hit with something that sounded like machine gun rounds.