#demfar

It’s a big one. After I made it through some writer’s block, this chapter was a lot of fun to write - and the next chapter will be too!

If you haven’t read Abduction before, be sure to go back and read chapters 1-6 first, otherwise, you’re going to be all, “Whaaaa? What is all this? Who are these people?” and that’s never much fun.

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Space sucks. Why does it take so long to get anywhere? Even with alien technology that can travel at near light-speed or warp spacial fabric, or whatever it does, it was too slow. Too. Freakin’. Slow.

Captain Salora had been kind about this whole ordeal. So there was that, at least. As far as aliens went, she was alright.

Wenona glared out the window. Two more days. That’s pretty much what the captain had said during their last visit. Two days stuck somewhere you never had any desire to be. Two days stuck surrounded by aliens who stare and gawk at you because they’ve never seen a human before. Two days with not much to do but look out the thick, layered pane at the white streaks of the stars they were passing.

The two days had kind of dragged on.

“Wenona? Oh hey, there ya are,” Mike burst into the room, nearly slamming his shoulder into the side of the doorway. “Found ya.”

“Couldn’t have been hard. I haven’t moved.”

“Demfar said we’re docking in five minutes!” Wenona scooted aside as Mike came up to get a good look outside. “Can you see the station yet? Demfar said it was huge!”

“We’re still going pretty fast. I don’t think we’ll be there in five minutes. I don’t think they even know what ‘minutes’ are.”

“Minutes, moortiks, same difference.”

“Actually, it’s a difference of about-”

“Human Mike, Human Wenona, we’re going to be approaching the Confederation outpost soon. Captain Salora has invited you both to the bridge so you can observe the docking process,” Gerben shuffled into the doorway, but didn’t enter the room. He was carrying several large jars, half-filled with a dark orange, goopy liquid.

“Jeb’s gonna come pick us up, then?”

“Jeb?” Gerben tried shifting weight on his feet, but almost lost balance and dropped a jar. Regaining composure, and his grip on the jars, he gave a thoughtful look at Mike. “Oh, you mean Jebannuck. No, he will not be coming today. He’s attending to his security duties for the docking process. Ghem-et should be here soon.”

And he was. The escorts were always very punctual. Ghem-et was friendly enough, but sometimes hard to get much of a rise or reaction out of. Mike didn’t like that very much. Especially when there was Gerben or Jebannuck that had such great, albeit different reactions to his antics. For example, Gerben nearly blew a gasket the other day after he found Mike trying to, quote, “boil himself alive” in a bathing tub. He had asked Wenona to help bypass the temperature limiter on it when the other day when he got bored.

Or when Gerben had walked in and found the humans sleeping, sprawled out half on the floor, half on whatever furniture happened to be nearby. Worried something must have happened to them, he’d tried resuscitating them, Wenona first.

In hindsight, Wenona realized that he had probably just learned a bit of CPR for humans in the garbled fragments of info the ship had received, but it was clear Gerben was far from having the technique mastered.

His attempt, however, did succeed in waking up Wenona. Just not very well. She had panicked. Gerben ended across the room, tripping over and falling on Mike, effectively waking him up as well. Though, Mike was much less… violent about it. Needless to say, Gerben had been much more cautious since, and left sleeping humans where they lie.

Jebannuck, on the other hand, usually only dealt with the humans’ antics while escorting them around the ship. Antics usually coming from Mike. In fact, almost completely coming from Mike. Unlike Gerben, Jebannuck reacted with a more “I’m-very-much-DONE-with-this,” look on his face. Mike thought it was hilarious. He loved it. He loved all of this. He was basically living the dream aboard the Gladius.

But her? Not so much.

She felt very tense every time she had to leave the medic bay. She knew they were friendly, but she still kept a close eye on every crewmate they happened to pass in the halls. She walked close to the walls, brushing her fingers over it’s panels and smooth surfaces as they went by.

Ghem-et led them quickly and quietly to the ship’s bridge. Upon arrival, Wenona frowned at how full it was. When they’d come in the past, there were only a few of the crew here and there at their posts at a time. Not now though. Everyone was here as the ship prepared to dock with the outpost.

“Captain,” Ghem-et called out loudly, “Humans on the bridge.”

Captain Salora craned her long neck up to look across the room. She really looked like some sort of dinosaur when she did that. She started walking toward them before she turned and muttered one last to the helmsman, a large four-armed alien with greenish fur, who nodded and began pulling up on the levers in front of her.

“Thank you Ghem-et. You may return to your regular post. We’re coming up on outpost 4MG6 now.”

“Right away, Captain,” and he hurried off to the lower decks.

“Human Mike, Human Wenona, you can join me at the controls. I think you’ll enjoy seeing this.”

Captain Salora slid a scaly, clawed hand over the main panel on her station. A holographic screen, much like the ones used in the medic bay, lit up in front of them. “Here we are. Keep your eyes on the exterior ports”

Both Wenona and Mike looked up towards the front of the bridge. Windows like the ones Wenona had been looking through earlier, only much larger, showed bright streaks of lights from the stars and celestial bodies they were passing at insane speeds.

While they watched intently, Captain Salora entered a few commands into the display and opened a ship-wide intercom announcement, “All crew prepare to exit warp in five, four, three, two, one.”

The helmsman shoved the levers down into their lowest settings. The streaks outside the window slowed down, flickered, then flashed. Wenona covered her eyes for a moment. When she looked back, she saw space as it normally was, stars looking like stationary pinpricks of light, a few large asteroids floating nearby, etc. Were they in the right spot?

It took her a moment to realize what was right in front of them.

The asteroid. Except it wasn’t an asteroid. It was huge. It was massive! It was mind-boggling to think something this big could be man-made. Or, not man-made, but whoever made it. How? What the heck? HOW?!

“Wha- I? Wow,” was all she could get out.

“Confederation outpost 4MG6,” Captain Salora announced proudly, “Most just refer to it as ‘Rock Base.’ Not the most fancy place in the territory, nor the most high-tech, but certainly one of the oldest and most impressive.” She turned to look at Wenona and Mike’s expressions, grinning slightly at their awe-struck expressions before returning her gaze to her display. “We’ve been given clearance. Baun, take us in to bay 15, Thurrin prepare atmospheric compression seals.”

“Yes Captain,” both voices called out in unison. Wenona turned and look behind to Thurrin’s station. The cat-like alien was turning dials and checking readouts across the board. She caught Wenona watching, her fur changed to a cheerful orange as she flashed a toothy grin - a human greeting Mike had taught her.

“Wenona, Wenona, look! Are you seeing this?” Mike tapped on her shoulder, gaping at the view outside the ship. Parts of the outpost looked like they’d been carved right out of the asteroid itself, outfitted with shining windows, metal ports, vents, antennas, dishes, and graftings, and other materials that Wenona didn’t recognize. Each section of the outpost looked like it had been made, built, or carved at different intervals of time. Perhaps even by different alien cultures. It was a hodgepodge of designs and shapes, and yet, they still somehow all seemed to fit. It was…it was... was there a word to describe something like this other than beautiful? Beautiful didn’t quite seem to fully grasp the description.

Wenona and Mike watched quietly, in awe, as the ship slowly approached the lower part of the asteroid outpost. The rays from the nearby star danced across the glassy surfaces, creating myriads of various colored lights reflected into and all around the bridge. As the ship turned in towards the docking bays, Wenona caught a glimpse of the massive propulsion engines. They looked like they were at least four times bigger than the Gladius itself, and appeared to be dimly lit, probably on minimal thrust to maintain a steady position in orbit.

“Outpost 4MG6 has been passed from one race to another for millenia,” Captain Salora watched as their view of the outside of the asteroid base gave way to the view of the docking bay entrance. “It’s seen empires rise and fall and been put to countless uses. The oldest sections even outdate the star we’re currently orbiting.”

“How long are we going to be here? I can’t wait to explore!” Mike’s smile stretched almost impossibly large across his face and he seemed unable to stand still any longer, shifting his weight from side to side.

“Someone here will be able to get us home, right?” Wenona turned and asked Captain Salora quietly.

“Yes. Someone here who’s available. If not, they’ll outfit us with the latest updates for human necessities, which honestly we probably should get anyway, and we’ll take you back to Earth ourselves.”

“That may just be what ends up happening, Captain,” a deep voice called out from the front of the bridge. One of the science officers had stood out of his chair to get a better look at the docking bay.

The empty docking bay.

“What’s going on?” “Did something happen to everyone?” “By all things bright and shining!” “I’ve never seen it so empty!” “Where is everyone?” Several voices, some loud and some hushed, rippled across the bridge.

Captain Salora looked silently at the empty bay, her mouth pulled tight in a small frown. “Everyone, calm down. We were given clearance to dock upon our arrival. That means someone is here. We would have been alerted if the Rock Base had been evacuated or under attack. Baun, land this ship.” She reached for a button near the edge of her station, “Jebannuck Sefra, are you and your team ready for receiving?”

Jebannuck’s voice came over the intercom, “We are ready and waiting Captain. Is there any problem?”

Salora inhaled a slow and quiet breath.

“Captain?”

“My apologies, Jebannuck. There is no problem. Carry on, we are landing now.”

Wenona looked around the bridge. Every face in the room was wildly different, in shape, in color, in size, but there was was one commonality: anxiety. She turned back to the front windows. No ships. In a place this big? No wonder the crew was worried.

Where was everyone?

“We are docked, Captain.”

“Thank you Baun. Thurrin, what’s the status on our atmospheric exchange?”

“Equalized, Captain. Shall I unlock the seals?”

“Unlock. Open the doors. Mike, Wenona, if you’ll accompany me, the outpost’s receiving team should be with us soon.” As she turned towards the exit, Wenona had to step aside to avoid being hit by the Captain’s tail.