Spaceships and Magic, What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Chapter 109: Celebration Chapter 5: (Alternate Timeline) - Ground Rules

Teleportation was likely a pretty interesting process. No doubt there would be all sorts of science and interesting theory that helped make it possible, and at some point in the future I might feel like learning about it. But for now, being teleported for the first time with basically no warnings, my mind was on other things. Primarily I was thinking about how terrifying having literally the entire world disintegrate in front of your very eyes, to be replaced by only swirling colours and the sound of rushing wins, was absolutely terrifying. I was also thinking about the very harsh pull at the space just below my navel, and how it felt like that pull was tugging me through a space so tight that I would surely be crushed by it. I tried to keep my mind off the fact that, for any kind of teleportation technology to actually work, it would take the complete deconstruction of all my atoms, and then the reconstruction of them once more in another location. Fact of the matter was, even though my consciousness was somehow being propelled through space to a new location, the body I had just started getting used to was no more. It raised a lot of strange questions that my deconstructed mind had no room for at the moment, all it felt was fear and spinning. 

Then it stopped. My body twisted into existence once more, something I only really realised because the spinning had stopped and the only thing I could hear was my own terrified screams. I let my eyes open up, slowly at first, fully expecting them to be assaulted by the spinning colours of the teleportation beam, but instead I found myself looking at what was quite clearly an office. It was strange that, despite being in a different universe and deep into space, an office was still very recognisable as an office. There was a chair and a desk, on which there was some sort of computer display. A window that looked out onto the harsh inky blackness of space. It was so very clearly an office that I was distracted from my nausea for a moment to be able to register how ordinary it looked. Then the moment passed, the nausea was back, and I found myself on my knees in the very awkward position of puking up bile, straight onto the floor. 

"Well, that's quite a way to meet the mysterious owner of the ship that's taking up so much room in my cargo bay," a voice, both distinctly feminine and alien, said from behind me. 

I wiped my mouth clean of the stray bits of phlegm that had nestled there, gave a hearty cough, stood up and turned around. Overriding the embarrassment of being sick on what was quite possibly the Captains floor was a distinct sense of disappointment. When you think of aliens you tend to think of the incredible otherness that creatures from other worlds would likely have. Perhaps they would be green or blue or bright pink, maybe they would have feathers, some might have more than two legs or no legs at all. But, at first glance, the woman standing before me looked almost entirely human. She stood a little shorter than myself, perhaps around five foot seven, with a head of dark blue hair in a punkish pixie cut. Her eyes were striking, the iris' seeming to almost shine with an otherworldly hue. But other than the hair and the glowing eyes she seemed to be, basically, human. 

"Teleport Unexpected Not cool," I managed to get out, my head still spinning slightly. 

"Right, well, Computer could you please beam the mess our guest has made straight into space please," she snorted. 

"Affirmative captain, spacing the Guest's organic matter deposit immediately!" the Computer responded, the same chirpy voice that had rubbed me the wrong way in my bedroom. 

"Now then," the Captain said, breezing past me and sitting in her chair before I could say a word. She kicked her booted feet up onto her desk and gave me an appraising look. I almost felt like a piece of meat in a butcher shop window, being looked over by the daily punters. "Sorry, it's weird, so many similarities between our species but then you have no Essence in your eyes. It's a little off putting," She explained. 

A chair rose up from the center of the room, the floor itself seeming to ripple and pulse upward until it formed the object. The captain gestured toward the chair, and considering how unsteady I still felt on my seat I took her instruction and plonked down into it. 

"Look, I don't understa-" I began, before she cut me off by holding up her slender hand. 

"At around midnight local time last night our long range sensors detected a high-speed warp signature belonging to an engine design that isn't in Federation records. Fighter ships were scrambled and, after scouring the area for almost an hour they came across a ship with the engraving Zietriss written on the side. Despite the work of our best techs that word refuses to be translated. Within this ship there were no life signs. Despite this, following standard protocol, a dispatch team were released to scour the ship for any clues on how the ship had become so damaged. Within it they found you. Huddled over the controls of the ship and murmuring about something called Earth, another word which refuses to be translated. Even now you refuse to be picked up as a life form. So, I have some questions, and you are going to answer them. There are men with Particle Beam Disrupters stationed right outside this room, you even breathe wrong and they will be in here to spread your atoms across the galaxy. Understood?"

What I understood the most was that the captain's previous sense of amusement at my embarrassment had quickly faded away to reveal a stony and cold commander. She was clearly a soldier, one at the top of her game, and the way those piercing eyes were narrowed made me feel as if she wouldn't even need to call in her back up, she would erase me herself without a moment's hesitation if she thought I was up to something. I swallowed thickly, took a deep breath, and tried to get the breakneck pace of my hammering heart under control. 

"You probably won't believe me when I say I have no idea how I ended up in this station," I said, "The last thing I remember I was trying to save someone I had never met before. She had no idea the danger she had let herself walk into, and I knew that I had to save her. I succeeded, but after that everything is a blank. I just don't remember," I explained, deciding that rather than lying I should tell her a half truth. I felt as if she would somehow know if I started telling her lies. 

"So what, you're some sort of hero?" She asked, one eyebrow cocked in obvious disbelief. 

"Just in the wrong place at the wrong time I guess," I said. 

"Okay, what about Zietriss and Earth. Federation translators don't not translate things, it's impossible."

"Earth is my home planet, it's a long way from here," Just thinking about the world I would never see again was bringing back the pangs of homesickness. That sort of burning pain you get in the back of your throat when you know you'll never regain something you've lost. 

"Yeah, our Techs figured it might have been something like that, but Earth doesn't show up on any of our planet-maps. You're that far out of the galactic core that your race hasn't encountered the Federation before?" She asked. 

"Um yeah, my homeworld is right on the arm of a galaxy we call the Milky Way, far out from the core," I explained, although that only made her frown deepen. 

"The Milky Way?" She said, sounding the foreign words out, "All these words you use that fail to be translated, your answers just bring up more questions and I fear that no matter what you say my curiosity will never be sated," She said, more to herself than to me. "Very well then, you cannot remember how you got here and you come from a planet far far away. What is your name drifter?" 

"Craig, my name is Craig Lyre, and I assure you that I mean both you and your station no harm. Before I came here I was told my purpose in this world was to help people, to live a life as fulfilled as possible, I think that I can do that by helping you," I said, it almost felt like I was a knight pledging my allegiance to a king. Was this what the Reaper had meant when he said I was to lead a fulfilled life? That I should try and help people in this federation? It seemed as if that were the only thing he had set me up to do, and if that were my destiny then so be it. Craig Lyre, Junior Accountant turned Space Knight. It had a rather pleasant ring to it. 

The Captain dropped her feet down to the ground and leaned forward, a smirk forming on her lips, her angry eyes becoming harder still, as if she were calculating my odds of success. 

"You're asking to become a Protector then? A Protector of the Federation, pledged to protecting this quadrant from the Raiders and anything else that lurks out there in the depths of space?" She asked. 

"I guess I am," I replied, and even as I said it I knew it felt right. 

"Well then, I don't trust you as far as I can throw you just yet. The names Captain Andra Kor, but like all the others on this station you can call me Andi," she said, "though before all that, I'm going to take you to meet Quatz, the leader of the Protectors. Computer, engage teleport beam!"

"What?" I all but yelled, jumping straight out of my chair, "Oh come on not again."

"Aye captain, beam out in progress!"