Gliese is one of the farther stars we can reasonably reach, and with Dad’s money, I was able to get a Ship and Charter of Exploration, of course Pops gets 50%, the usual. It seemed like it took longer to crew the ship than fly it, but I finally found five good crewmen, and we gathered the necessities and set off, destination Gliese 2235.2

(memory access 2552)  

I met Gwen just out of high school and we traveled from our home at Luna, first mining on Mars, then I finished my studies on Tycho, celestial navigation, Fusion reaction, you know, the stuff it takes to be a pilot, or even command a ship, I was excited to get my wings then we got to decision time.

(close memory access)

 Do we fly together, with all the rigors of Suspended Ani, or does she go stasis and wait for me? It was common at the time for Wives to wait back then, so we chose that route, 18 years is nothing in this day and age.Or so we thought…

 As is custom, we said Goodbye, and I pressed the Stasis button, I never thought it was the last time I would see sweet Gwendolyn.

 Our journey was uneventful, our arrival as well, low forms of life, and a shit ton of extractable resources, we were Rich! The Charter enables me a monopoly on the planet, and this could be a multigenerational find, ever heard of Kings? They ruled entire planets it’s said, and controlled the very Stars, after setting flags and sending our claim forms back to Mars, we took the slowboat back ,as planned, to get some well earned rest, little did we know what was next.

 

The Chase pt. 2

 “Tycho! I live there Damn it!  Engineering, can we slow this thing down?”

We have spin control, working on thrust, but we are accelerating, and we don’t know why,

“Fine Sir, you are to spin this ship around Luna, and slingshot towards the the Sun,”

The Sun? How are we supposed to clear it? It’s never been done”

“ I guess we’ll find out, Nav, can you set a course that will beat them to Tycho?”

Aye Sir, plotting now… we can do it in 5 days at high gee, 12 hours ahead of them,

“Make it happen, Helmsman”

“ Sensors, we need to get close without being painted again, how’s the cloak working?”

I can’t make out the stupid Romulan schematics, but I’ll figure it out Cap,

“I can’t ask for more  Sir”

We were cloaked, but this odd Black ship could have anything, we didn’t know, so we kept a distance, waiting for comm range with L5 when we were knocked by an energy source that we had never seen before, coming to, I had decisions to make.Fight? What with what? The best we could do is a controlled crash on Luna, and a warning….

To be Continued