Going Home Chapter 1

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Lisa rushes towards the hangar bay along with several others as they fire back behind them at the security drones chasing them. Laser blast and smoke fill the corridor as Lisa and several other humans that had decided to head back to Earth were running for their lives from security drones. They had to get back to warn Earth about the invasion coming their way. They were heading to the hangar bay towards the secret transport ship waiting for them. Lisa and Ralph turn around and return fire towards the approaching security drones. Lisa hits one dead center in the chest, while Ralph’s more powerful rifle takes two of them out. Lisa raises her wrist near her mouth.

“Lisa to P9, fire the ship up and prepare for launch.” She was their pilot and they had to hurry, because if they missed this window to escape, they would be doom.

Lisa and her companions hurry as they slip through the closing blast doors of the hangar bay and into the hangar. She watches as Henry and everyone else rushes towards the transport ship they had stolen and board it. Lisa was the last one to board the transport and secures the portal door.

“We got to hurry, Lisa.” Henry had sat down in the co-pilot’s seat and was preparing to launch.

Lisa rushes towards the cockpit and sits down in the pilot’s seat and buckles herself in for launch. She glances over towards the drone she had rebuilt and programmed. Troy told her it reminded him of some droid from an Earth movie called Star Wars. He said that her drone looked a little bit like the character R2D2 in Star Wars. She had saved it from the recyclers and rebuilt it first for fun and later to help with the ship. She had loaded it with all the navigation charts she could get her hands on or into. It could also help her with any repairs and such. It had a basic AI intelligence.

“I’m hurrying.” Lisa flicks a few switches and fires up the thrusters.

“Better buckle up people, we’re taking off.” Lisa presses the launch button and prepares herself for the take-off.

Everyone, including Lisa as well is pushed back into their seats as the transport launches out of the hangar bay and up to the upper atmosphere. She notices on the scanners that four security ships were coming after them. The security ships were trying to shoot them down. The ship rocks as laser blast hit against the protective shielding surrounding the transport.

“Troy, Ralph can you guys man the turrets and shoot those drones off us please?” Lisa was doing everything she knew how to do to avoid the laser blast, because she only had forward weapon control. The rest of the laser cannons on board needed gunners for them.

“We’re on it, Lisa.” Troy heads towards the upper center gun turret and Ralph takes the bottom center gun turret.

Lisa adjusts the flight path as she feels the ship rock from the laser cannons firing from the transport. They hadn’t had a chance to test the recoil from the stronger laser cannons they mounted on the transport. Lisa dodges another round of fire from the security ships as they fire on their transport. The ship rocks as the laser cannons fire back towards the security ships. Lisa keeps the transport on a direct path up away from the planet and out past the atmosphere and into space.

“Secure all sections and buckle-up Troy and Ralph.” Lisa glances over towards her navigation drone.

“P9, load flight plan coordinates to navigation computer to the carrier Viminacium and engage the slipstream drive.” Lisa hopes the new slipstream drive does what it was designed to do.

They only had a chance to test it out only once and it almost tore the transport apart. The light on Lisa’s console blinks to let her know the slipstream drive was ready.

“Henry on my count 3, 2, 1, engages slipstream drive.” Lisa was praying the slipstream drive works like it was supposed to as Lisa watches Henry flick the switch for the slip stream drive on.

A bright flash of light appears as the transport enters it and begins to travel faster than it ever has. Lisa maneuvers the transport through the tunnel they were producing and bobsled through it as they head towards the coordinates where the Viminacium was supposed to be waiting for them. Hopefully Captain Vellutus was there waiting for them or it was going to be a very short trip. She was having a hard time with the controls, but it felt fun to be bobsledding through the tunnel. The ship jerks as it drops out of slipstream and shuts down the main drive. The transport sits there drifting in space.

“What happened?” Henry was looking at Lisa to see what she thought.

“I don’t know.” Lisa looks at the scanners and readings and tries to figure out why the main engines shut down. She checks their position on the navigation charts.

“It looks like we’re we are supposed to be” Lisa tries to fire the main engines up and as they come on-line. She breathes a sigh of relief as they start working.

“Let’s see if we can find the Viminacium.” Lisa punches in the coordinates they were supposed to meet at.

Lisa heads towards the location where they were supposed to meet. She maneuvers the transport through the asteroid field they needed to travel through. Some of the spaces between the asteroids were tight and she had to dodge some that were moving through the field.

“Bring the shields up to maximum, Henry.” Lisa didn’t want to have any micro-asteroids punching its way through the reinforce armor plating covering the transport.

“Where are they?” Henry was checking the scanners looking for any signs of the carrier. He knew Captain Vellutus was very punctual about being places.

“I don’t know Henry, but if he is late. He must have a very good reason.” Lisa was wondering where her good friend was. If it hadn’t been for him, she would have never been able to adjust to being abducted and being brought to an alien planet and sold into slavery.

She and two hundred others had been experimented on and most of them had died off. Her mind had been transplanted from her male body and placed inside an artificial created female body, but was stuck at having the body of a fifteen-year-old girl. Her mind was of a forty-year-old woman. Her aging had been halted along with several others that the Orgaians had experimented on. They were testing temporal energy on them to see what effects would happen. Some of the people had aged to their natural life span and others like her had either reverted or stopped ageing period. She was technically immortal, but it had side effects. The side effects were she could never have children.

Lisa was looking for a place to land the transport. Lisa hopes she could find a stable asteroid to land on and wait for the carrier.

“Henry, do you see any place we could land and wait for the carrier?” Lisa looks over towards Henry for an answer.
Henry looks out the cockpit and at his scanner.

“Ya, over there, about a hundred clicks to the port side.” Henry had spotted a nice place to park the transport without being hit and stable as well.

“Okay, we’ll land there and wait for Captain Vellutus to show up. Hopefully, he won’t be long.” Lisa guides the transport over to the asteroid and lands on the surface. She powers down everything except life support.

Lisa gets out of her seat and heads towards the back to check on the rest of her friends that had come with them.

“Is everyone okay?” Lisa walks from the cockpit towards the passenger section where everyone should be sitting down.

“We’re fine Lisa, but why are we just sitting here?” Cleo didn’t like space travel that much.

“We’re waiting on Captain Vellutus to show-up. He’s not here yet.” Lisa hopes everything is okay on his end.

“What happens if he doesn’t show up?” Cleo was worried and didn’t want to get lost here in space.

“We’ll go to his last known position and see if he is there. If he isn’t then we’ll head to the secret asteroid base he uses and stock up on whatever supplies that are there and proceed towards Earth afterwards using the slipstream drive on this transport. If we really need too Henry and I could put the rest of you in the stasis pods and pilot the ship ourselves on our normal sub-light drive. The trip will take longer and there is a good chance that the Orgaians will get to Earth before us.” Lisa and Henry had brought the original pods that everyone had been kept and transported in when they were abducted.

“No thanks, I don’t ever want to be put back in those things.” Cleo shivers just thinking about them.

“I don’t think any of us do Cleo, but if it means living or dying, I’ll go back into them.” Kimberly wanted to get back to her family. As far as she knew, she has only been gone from her family for five years and wanted to get back to them.

“I’m with you on that Kimberly.” Troy wanted to get back to Earth as well.

For next few hours things are quiet as everyone sits and wait for the carrier to show-up. Lisa hears a beeping sound coming from her console. She rushes towards the cockpit to look.

“Carrier Viminacium to Orion transport, do you read? Carrier Viminacium to Orion transport, do you read?”

Lisa picks her headset up “this is Orion transport, we hear you carrier Viminacium, where are you guys?”

Lisa takes her seat as she watches Henry take his.

“We’re at the following coordinates.”

Lisa watches as the coordinates appears on her screen. It wasn’t too far from their current position. She figures it will take ten to twenty minutes to arrive at the carrier.

“We’ve received your coordinates and should be with you in about twenty minutes. Orion transport out.” Lisa smiles as she starts going through the process to fire the transports engines back up.

“We’re on our way people, so buckle up back there.” Lisa and Henry fire the engines as Henry plots their new course in the navigation computer.

Lisa watches as they carefully lift off the asteroid they had landed on and headed towards the coordinates they were given. She could see the carrier as they got closer and closer. She watches as the landing bay opened for her and the landing strip lit up for her to land on the deck of the carrier and hover into the hanger bay. She felt the transport shake some from the difference of no gravity to gravity. She lands the transport and shuts everything down.

“We’re here.” Lisa was so glad to get off the transport. It was bigger than her fighter, but still to stretch her legs would be nice.

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Comments

So just being super curious;

So just being super curious; are you on a "time frame" of some sort with all the different and various stories you have been presenting to us?
I am not complaining, I just don't wish to see you over extending yourself and and "burning out". :-)

Time frame

Nope, I'm not. I just don't like seeing some stories stall and letting the reader/s get bored waiting. As for Going Home it was something I started and I figure since The Cat in the Cradle and Wildfire are going to be ending soon. It would be a chance to post this one. I'm going to cut back on having so many stories out so I can relax and enjoy reading other peoples work for awhile.

garfieldwritingsf.jpg
If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”
― Toni Morrison

Light Recoil

Been reading a lot of sci-fi online, and it occurs to me that lasers shouldn't have any recoil. I could be wrong, but . . . .


"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin