FTL-29… Faster Than Life.

*Before…

I finish my lessons and skip ahead with two of the ones that are the most tedious for me and that’s calibrations and drive signatures and because they’re tedious I push myself a little harder because the things I like I tend to learn really fast and see through and I even ask the system for a quiz in each before setting my alarm in my OBC to wake me in plenty of time to catch my shuttle down to the surface.

New Ithaca… I wonder what it’s really like down there instead of the vids and the sim stuff. It’ll be my first of The Zodes that I’ll have set foot on and there’ll be deviants or deviations there right in the populace.

I’m not nervous but it’s still very, very different.

It also makes me wonder about my first contact friend, where are they and what are they doing?

*And Now…

I pack a few things a spare cadet uniform as a change of civilian clothes just in case and then rest I actually think that I can fit into my bags if I buy anything that’s local and for me and the main thing is for me to shop for a few other things for the dinner I’m sort of planning for friends and yearmates and a few others.

Then it’s to the hangars and getting on a small transport shuttle down to the surface.

Most of us that are on board are kind of excited it’s all new to us to be out here to the Zodiac planets and that’s including the usual crew members that are on board.

It’s a real rarity to have us come out this way from everything that I know and we’re not here on the usual part of the milk-run. We’re here because of those Tekkers out there and whatever is going on with the battle part of the fleet.

The shuttle is more gear towards cargo and transport in a more of a civilian way so I get inside and there’s a few stairs that actually take you to an area raised over the cockpit area where it’s much more glassed in so as a passenger you get to see a whole lot more.

It’s actually a stunning experience and one that I still love as we head out from the ship and we use nav-thrust to skim along the ship and then we pull off and we’re into the queue in orbit to get a re-entry schedule. So it’s getting to see all of the other ships and there’s the other shuttles and small short rangers and then there’s all of the local Zodiac ships too and it’s a great scene in itself and that’s made even more by it having the planet or the moon in our background through part of this.

New Ithaca is brilliant…big and white green kissed with hints of blue. I can see a few ocean zones but they’re smaller so likely seas and it has white polar tops and the rest is varying shades of green.

And we’re orbiting in such a way that we all get this great view of the planet as we’re coming in for an approach and I link my OBC with the public links for the shuttle and download some shuttle vid of it all as we get closer and closer and we head down to Hemmingway Starport.

It’s not the capital which is fine it’s an accepted spaceport which is actually fairly standard practice as most capitals have that sort of security and only officially sanctioned ships and shuttle get anywhere close to them.

Hemmingway is nice actually from the look of it as we’re coming in on approach. It’s a coastal city with what looks like a very large river that actually flows into the surrounding farmlands that looks like canals for farming and then it remerges together and flows through the city with nice big bridges that we can see as we are coming down. The river goes right to the water splitting the city and there seems to be a very nice coastline here as well.

I see a lot of water boats and while I have seen them before they seem quite common here and they weren’t all that common home and there’s something that’s culturally nostalgic about them I guess.

Actually if I have a chance to learn when I’m at the academy then I would like to learn how to sail. It’s a naval thing and it’s one of those things that I have heard like close to seventy five percent of officers in the Colonial Union Space Navy know or have learned how to do.

It’s not really needed and it’s not even like socially fashionable a thing but at the same time it’s really something that I would actually like to learn.

I even see sails.

Which is just to me pleasant to even just look at.

We land at the space port and pass through customs and scan and answer a few questions while we’re doing it and I get a list of places and markets to look at since I had to disclose and mention why I was here and when they heard about the banquet idea everyone that I talked to was very enthusiastic and had some relative for me to contact.

It’s charming and yet a little daunting.

So many people so in your face and happy to see you is not the norm for me and how I’ve lived but I go with it and I really go with it and I ask one of them Anna to call her cousin Nikos and if he could drive me around instead of just getting any taxi.

You’d have thought that I gave her a million credits with her reaction and soon she’s calling Nikos and others and I’m trying not to be too overwhelmed at all of it and everything. I might want to come back here sometime and even if I don’t I want the people here to like me.

I know that’s sort of vain but I want folks to like me and I want them to like the C.U. too and I am going to hope that I can make a good impression while I’m here.

And really who actually takes people up on those recommendations that people give you? I want to try; I want to be able to thank these people that gave me the recommendations when I head back to the ship.

Nikos shows up in a truck, and it’s the first non-military truck that I have even really gotten close to and it’s big with rounded fenders and big fat tires with very nice looking wheel centers….rims…that’s right they call those things rims. It has a large box compartment in the back and it’s actually this wonderful sort of olive green color.

And then there’s Nikos.

There’s definitely something to be said for genetic engineering.

He’s tallish at six feet but he has long wavy brown hair with tanned highlights from the sunshine and working outdoors in that very tanned way and deep dark eyes. He’s wearing denim jeans and workmen’s boots in deep dark brown leather and he’s wearing what I could only say is a tunic. A sleeveless sort of thing with almost a rope like brocaded hem on all the outside parts that sort of fits but it’s loose enough to be really casual.

“Ello you are Serra Erin yes?”

“Uhm yes and you are Nikos?”

“Yes! I am Nikos! You have the places you want to go and see and buy from yes1?”

I nod and he’s taking my bags and I can’t help but smile a little and self-consciously as he’s so charming and he has this cute accent to his standard and he’s very enthusiastic too.

I let him take my things and he opens the door for his truck and makes sure that I get inside alright before going around and getting in himself and we’re soon speeding off or what passes for it in a ground vehicle and he’s chatting away about the first place that we’re going to see and it’s largely about olives and olive oil.

There’s a lot that I don’t understand about everything that he’s talking about. Olives home are imported as far as I have ever known about and well olive oil came in packets to go with ordered salads and foods.

I learn it’s going to be so much different than all of that when we get there. It’s thirty minutes from the city and out in those dykes and canals and there’s plantations of trees that just have this smell unlike anything I have ever smelled before.

The trees are in wire lattice wrapped rows of stacked stones and likely soil and farming things inside of them and the canals are on some kind of timer or something with water flooding some and going dry in others and there’s what I’m pretty sure are olives on them in all sorts of sizes and varieties and colors.

There’s pigs down in some of the mud too being used to glean it clear and fertilize I think and the same times and others I see children gathering fish from nets as the water gets lower and lower in others. It’s very impressive in an agrarian sort of way.

Nikos drives us through some of these canal roads until we come to this large walled sort of hub island that has windmills and solar sheets and there’s barns or buildings and that smell is everywhere.

“This, this is where my cousin Nunzio makes the olive oils and were the best olives are produced for the eating.”

He parks and gets my door. “You come, you taste and you enjoy yes!?”

“Uhm yes.”

It’s so oddly charming that he says things in this definition of things like he’s making a statement or even telling me what to do and he’s asking a question at the same time.

I get out to go with him and he helps me out of the truck and into a large barn where there’s packed and spaced crates of olives cushioned with some kind of sponge foam and they are aging some Nikos tells me and brining? others and some are going into other bins to go to other places but the main part of this is this system of machines that grind and eventually lead to where things are all pressed into oil.

The smell is heady and heavy and fruity in odd ways and there is Nunzio working with others and glass dipsticks and some kind of sampler that sucks up the oil and even wine glasses to check how it falls down the glass? Can oil have “Legs” and the only reason that I know that is from romance vids and sims.

There different colors and different grades and Nunzio’s standard is horrible but he seems sweet an in love with what he does and Nikos is translating for me and it’s really interesting and I’m already sold but when I’m taken outside to where Nunzio has this patio of stacked stones and an actual oven that is fired with wood and this charming older woman is there cooking and things and she bakes this flat loaf thing of fresh bread and it gets charred and bubbly in their oven and then Nunzio takes a bottle of oil and pours it over it while it’s still so hot it sizzles and these wholly different fumes almost like if this place was in bloom or something.

It’s the first time I ever smelled heated olive oil and it is one of the things that I think I will never forget.

The bread gets fresh ground pepper and salt tossed on it by the woman and I lose myself in the experience. I’ve never had pepper on bread or salt either and it seems odd and strange and even kind of decadent and the oil and the hot fresh bread and just how otherly and exotic this all is and everything.

This is one of the reasons why I joined up. To just have this sort of thing happen…and I’m really, really happy.

I buy two cases of the oil and it’s not remotely that expensive either for what I’m getting and Zode local credits where trade is local and close systems my Colonial Union Credits go a lot further which I didn’t know but I paid and tipped well.

And Nikos talks about how happy he is that I had a good time and a good experience at Nunzio’s all the way to his Aunt Claudia who grows figs.

This place was the same and yet a lot bigger and more elaborate and the canal watering system definitely makes for amazing figs as the fruit tends to suck up a lot of water and they actually have played around with how much sea tidal water apparently that they allow to mix in with the canal water from the river and then they still have the fish there too and other animals as well and it’s still very, very amazing and Claudia speaks way better standard than Nikos does and she’s very proud of her farm and it’s produce.

I have fresh figs ripe and right off the tree and their dark skin is so warm from the sun. I have one roasted with her in another one of those outdoor ovens they have here and I get three flats of the figs and a flat of her pears and she throws in tow lovely jugs of a mixed fig brandy strengthened pear wine she makes. And I mean jugs like these large glass bulbous five liter things with tiny handles and screw on caps and it’s not some precious thing but it’s wine, wine that was made to taste good and make you merry.

Then it’s to a roadside stand on a popular local side road that is run by Nikos sister Maria and there I get a deal on other things that she is selling and as long as the prices are good I’m buying things for the kitchen and for the meal.

I know it sounds so strange but it’s I guess something that’s done now and then and while it is sort of an officer thing for those that are under their command there’s no rules about us not doing it in our spare hours for our friends and companions.

And once we get to command and to the actual academy there’s people here that I know from ship that I might not ever see again.

So I sort of really want to do this while I can do it because it’s a big galaxy out there.

I get the rest of my things there with Nikos there at his sister’s place and it definitely pleases him and her and I’m treated really, really well and we head back with the back of his truck fairly full with all sorts of things from here and it’s back to the shuttle port to get things put through clearance and customs and then to get myself a shuttle back with all of the cargo.

That takes a little more form work and scans on our side of things to make sure that things that I’m taking up are safe for being taken up to the ship and that too is actually a good learning process for me and it’s Colonial Union customs so they’re more than willing to run me through the set ups of what is allowed and what’s required by our laws and standards even to the point of getting my OBC patched to the software that’s required.

Yes I’m Sense-Nav but a decent grounding in some of the logistics they say will definitely not hurt me at all according to the Sergeant Olsen who is in charge of the Logistics and Customs office down her on planet side.

We’re just getting done and she’s showing me how to secure the cargo in the skiff bay and we both get a ping to our OBC’s and we look at each other.

~Combat condition Yellow, Invasives are entering the system. ~

Invasives…Tekkers?

She’s getting combat notices I think and I’m getting commands to get back to our ship and we hurry it us and there’s a rush of other personnel cramming into the shuttle-skiff and we set off from the planet and as we’re getting ready the pilot looks over to me.

“Stone, get up here please I want you just in case on our sensors.”

“Yes sir lieutenant.” I get up front and sit in the small fold out seat from the space behind the co-pilot who is taking the gunning position and logging into the guns and I pull my cyber patch cord out of my neck and I plug into the system and start clearing us for take-off and getting our out of orbit sequences down and locked and then keep a mind’s-eye out for the civilian traffic and patch into the situational com traffic from our ship.

There’s heavy fighting not just in this star system’s edge but there’s a running retreat of civilian vessels from the oncoming rush of foes that are coming from the tekker enemy.

Swarm-beetle drones are being used in numbers that Intel had zero idea that the enemy had and there have been losses.

We’re trying to get out of the planet’s orbital system as fast as we can and there’s a red alert flashing in our heads and on the shuttle’s systems as soon as we leave the orbit of New Ithaca and I look on scan and I actually see it with my eyes as I get in on scan and it’s a large black ship of some kind that looks like a crazed amalgam of tech and asteroids and it’s lumpy and spikey all over and it’s huge on the sensors at least a few dozen kilometers long and it jumped in/popped in from a sub-light jump?

Sensors are picking up something that’s solid but not even there?

I see the New Ithacan and Colonial Union moon base get hit by this invisible thing and there’s an explosion of rock, debris, parts and moon dust?

What?

How?

That thing has no visible propulsion?

So…anti-gravity drive?

That’s just a theory for us as a means of propulsion but it if did exist and they used it and counter pulsed to put on “The brakes” then there would be an effect, like a wake.

A grav sheer wake…

“Lieutenant turn us forty seven degree by twenty three and twenty three again!”

“What!? That’s going to turn us to point right at them!”

“Yes sir, I think we have a grav-sheer wave coming at us and we best turn into that oncoming wave!”

“Gotcha right!”

I send alerts for the grav-sheer out on all channels as much as I can to everyone that I can…please, please listen, get up shields and turn into the wave.

He turns us into the invisible thing and I’m trying to readjust our grav sensors to get a reading and it’s seconds away and we’re not turning in time as it’s coming up on my screens and I hang on for dear life as we’re hit and we’re suddenly tossed and fuses blow and there’s puffs of smoke and things go dark.