A part more.

It's hard deciding the mode here, don't know how serious I should be.
Too serious, it becomes boring. To little, and it won't work for me.

Damned if I do, damned if I don't :)

I wring it as I write, and mood has a lot to do with it.
I'm not a very disciplined writer I'm afraid.

==

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Time is a most marvelous thing, it 'ticks' constantly, from ones cradle to ones grave. And it has only one way to go, at least as I know. But it is also something mold-able, not for you personally, but for all others you relate yourself too. Put yourself on a very fast ship and presto, you now watch the universe accelerate. Your own time still 'ticks the same', but the universe's? It quickens, flowing into an effusion of time. And that was what Hyper was all about, making it possible to travel those vast distances, keeping to a state of ‘no time’. Allowing you to keep in touch with your, and all others, time.

Without it every planet would have been as isolated islands, in an unending ocean, with your spacecraft becoming a constant lonely explorer, at home nowhere. A Columbus you might say, as you never could foresee what would meet you. That next time you laid anchor at a planet, whatever its name, at Earth or at Alpha Centauri.

But, being thrown out of Hyper? Your suits released at that very moment the ship broke the barrier between Hyper and sub space? That was a most delicate subject as nothing was known of any such circumstances, no data existing. Considering the amount of shipwrecks there should have been some data assessable. This fact made many theorists intrigued and from it there had came some tentative guesses, or hypotheses as they were called. One predicted that the momentum created being in the break, as they called it, would tear any matter apart that was propelled with a speed differing from the ships own. Others said that they would hold, but that the force of their motion relative the ships would translate into a velocity close to lights.

Then there were that third fraction, those theorists involved with portals. They wondered, well, some of them did, if it could be possible that those ‘breaks’ was what created a portal? All of the ‘theories’ made sense though. In the first case the possible survivors from a ship failure would all be dead as they got torn into smithereens. In the other case they would be alive but at such a speed that nobody, not traveling at their velocity, could ever meet them again. That as their sole destiny would be to see the universe die. The last one though, involving a portal, was the one offering some small hope. Then those unfortunate might survive, although, somewhere else. But no one had ever came back from a portal claiming to be such a survivor. Still, most accepted the risks, statistically they were negligible. The chances were bigger that you would break you neck walking, than meeting your doom in a space accident.
==

As Jeff slept on the two suits continued to close in on the anomaly. Their scanning devices working overtime, the suits franticly tried to make the best of the time they had left, analyzing the anomaly.

“Two suits approaching. Correction, we are watching ourselves.”

The suits started to debate, they both had access to data-banks, but where the Royal’s was very up to date, state of the art you might say, Jeff’s suit had had an older, much older, copy. That made for some interesting arguments and the suits almost forgot the anomaly as they argued their respective maker’s, and data-banks, views. In the end the only thing they agreed on was that, whatever they were watching, had many of the same qualities that a black hole would be expected to have but with negligible framedragging.

“Or a white.” as Jeff’s suit said, stubbornly refusing to accept the Royal’s updated definitions of what a White Hole might be seen as.

And then it passed them by, or maybe it was they that passed it by? Whatever happened, it was over in an instant. From being in deep space, having little hope of rescuing, the suits now found themselves close to a immense planet. The Royal, acting from its higher priority, took control steering them into a course that would intersect the planet, without falling into its gravity well. And as soon they were close enough the suits started to scan it.

What really happened there, in that short instant, would probably crave us all to get a Ph.D. in physics, and that would just give us the excuse to sprout new theories I’m afraid. We can’t really say where they were, maybe they already had been thrown out of our known universe as they meet it? Maybe that was why gravity was acting so strange? But if so, where were they now?

“Jeff. Wake up.”

“We survived?” What a stupid question that was, Jeff thought, realizing it as fast as he had asked it.

“Forget it suit, where are we?”

“I have no data yet, but we are scanning a planet.”

“A planet?”

“We are getting strange readings.”

“Is the anomaly a planet?”

“No, yes, I don’t know.”

“Can you show me?” Jeff was certain that there had to be a Tri-D, surely their preccious protocol would demand that.

“The telemetry is still in hexagonal mode.”

“Telemetry? Didn’t you film it?”

“We’re in survival mode, ports closed.”

“Another protocol I presume?” Jeff muttered, somewhat sourly.

“Correct.”

“And now? Are we out of survival mode or not?”

“That was why we woke you.”

Jeff had started to feel as some sort of inanimate cargo listening. ‘Damn, he was the human, the suits were only, well, suits, weren’t they?

“Suit, who’s in command here, you or me?”

There was a momentary silence, making Jeff suspect there was some intense communication going on between the suits.

“Survival mode off.” Jeff’s suit at last declared.

‘So, they didn’t want me to challenge the ‘survival mode’ did they?’ Jeff though. ‘They want to keep that to themselves. We’ll see about that.’

“Thank you suit. Can you please show me the planet? And is her Ladyship awake?”

“Yes Jeff, and no. We’ve let her sleep through the ordeals, but if it is your wish?”

“She is awakening as we speak Jeff.”

“Good.” If nothing else, Jeff thought, they certainly were bossy. Then again, a Royal probably had a lot of overriding security protocols. Probably overriding a Cooks apprentice too, thinking of it.

"Ah well, when in Rome." He muttered sourly as he waited on his first glimpse of what would become their new home, away from home.