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Chapter 112: A Sky Full of Stars
🕑 Added 2023-02-17 17:36:00 +0000 UTCGan Salin understood the concept.
Yes, he’d fucked up. Yes, he had lost in single combat against Jack Rust, Vivi Eragorn, Li Xiang, and Edgar Allano. Yes, three of those fights had been broadcasted across Earth-387 and the Animal Kingdom home world. And yes, he had even been assaulted by a pack of oddly muscular dogs.
But those things could happen to everyone, right? So why was he getting bullied now?
Not fun, man… he thought as space around him stabilized. They had reached their destination.
The three Hounds stepped off the teleporter. When Salin followed a moment later, they were already interrogating the guard, who claimed to know nothing. Salin looked above the door, where a sign declared their current location. Pearl Bay… he thought to himself, biting into the six-sided orange bar he held and tearing off a chunk. Earth-387 had some rather tasty snacks. Another dud…
They had been on the search for several hours already. Earth-387’s teleporter could reach a hundred and twelve destinations, and they had to check them all. Salin was dragged along because he knew Jack—and also as punishment for losing so many times in what was supposed to be an easy Integration Tournament.
But it wasn’t my fault… He sighed. Okay, maybe it was. But how could I know all that those guys were monsters?
He didn’t even care about finding Jack Rust. In fact, if he was being honest with himself, he kinda liked the guy. Jack was fun and unpredictable, always finding a way to make things amusing.
Too bad he had angered an Elder.
Gan Salin bit off another chunk of the dog food in his hand. At least, he didn’t have to do much. The three Hounds would handle everything. The guard seemed to know nothing about Jack Rust, but they would also go out and ask the pedestrians, scout out for his Dao signature, speak to some important people, and generally make inquiries. They had to do this in every possible destination, lest they miss him and have to start over.
Not that Jack could escape. A bounty on his head was already beginning to circulate. Nobody could hide from the Animal Kingdom in their constellation; not for long.
Suddenly, a pale feshkur—one of Pearl Bay’s two native sapient species—arrived in front of the open door. He waited nervously. “Excuse me…” he muttered.
One of the hounds turned to him, covering him in the aura that all D-Grades had. The feshkur shivered again. “I heard you asking about someone with a pet monkey…” he muttered.
The rest of the Hounds turned to him as well. The aura pressing down on his body tripled in intensity. The feshkur sweated.
“If you lie to us,” one of the Hounds said, her face covered by a dark veil, “we will devour you.”
“I wouldn’t dare,” the feshkur said slowly. “I met that person. In fact, he even told me a few things, and I waited here in case someone was hunting him.”
“Tell us everything,” another Hound said, his voice raspy. Having caught sight of his prey, he was barely holding back his excitement. All Hounds were like that. Gan Salin rolled his eyes.
Unless Jack Rust grew wings, there was no way he could escape.
***
“Hey,” Jack responded numbly, watching these five people stream into the main room. Even with seven of them present, it didn’t feel crowded, just full.
“I didn’t expect you to join the Ram’s crew!” she continued, full of excitement.
“Neither did I.”
“Or I, for that matter,” the captain spoke up, laughing. “But here we are. Jared, these are Count Plomer and his daughter, Vlossana. They are our passengers for this trip.”
“Oh, we’ve already met!” Vlossana spoke up, then narrowed her eyes at him. Jack wouldn’t notice it if he wasn’t paying attention.
When he met her in the elevator line, he’d given her his real name, Jack. Now, the captain had introduced him as Jared.
Ugh… This will be trouble, I can feel it. At least she isn’t saying anything.
“A pleasure,” Vlossana’s father replied, not sounding very pleased. “But I thought, Captain, that we had booked the entire ship for ourselves…”
“You have. Jared here is a member of crew, not a passenger.”
Count Plomer nodded. He had sapphire hair and purple eyes, like the rest of the saphira, as well as an otherwise normal human body. There were slight wrinkles on his face, however, caused by years of stress, and his purple hair was fainter than his daughter’s, slowly inching towards white.
He donned a full suit, complete with a tie, but the air he radiated was unusual. He did possess the confidence that came with being an authority figure, but he was also steeped in exhaustion.
He reminded Jack of a professor he’d met briefly, once; a man with prestigious academic achievements but failure in every other part of his life.
More importantly…
Saphira, Level 49 (F-Grade)
Faction: -
…he was only F-Grade.
“That said,” Captain Dordok continued, “this is the rest of the crew. Jared, you’ve already met Vashter. This is Achilles”—he pointed at the other feshkur, then the minotaur— “and this is Bomn. Everyone, this is Jared, our newest member. I believe you all saw his brawl against Vashter in the bar, so you understand his potential. In time, and with a little bit of luck, he might even surpass me—something I expect from all of you. Also, this little guy is Monk, Jared’s companion.”
The three crew members nodded and greeted Jack, who responded politely. Brock shook their hands and nodded in a manly way.
Achilles looked like a slightly older version of Vashter; he had more scars and carried a heavy saber instead of a mace. Bomn was the silent, serious type, and he carried a large greataxe.
A greatclub, a mace, a saber, and a greataxe. Jack realized that everyone in this crew were strength-based; just like him.
“Now,” the captain said, clapping his large orange hands, “we are done with introductions. Our break is over; let’s get started. Bomn, handle our ascent. Achilles and Vashter, make sure nothing goes wrong. And Jared…” He winked—or blinked. It was tough to tell when he only had one eye, but it felt like a wink. “Watch the view.”
“Yes, Captain!” Vashter and Achilles cried out, followed by Jack a moment later. Bomn simply nodded and went to the middle door at the far end of the main room. Before it closed, Jack caught a glimpse of sparkling machinery, a small goat head, and a glowing circle on a table.
Jack remained in the main room, along with Brock, the captain, Vlossana, and her father—count Plomer.
“Have you ever been to space before?” Vlossana asked, already pouring excitement over his head. She seemed to have forgotten about his fake name—maybe she thought she’d heard wrong the first time. Jack prayed for that. “Oh, you’re going to love it! The stars, the swirls, the galaxy… It’s amazing!”
“Let the man rest, Vlossana,” her father responded tiredly.
“Children are great,” the captain said. His laughter was loud and booming, filling every nook and cranny of the room.
Suddenly, Jack felt space click around him. It was like he got detached and reattached from the world. He looked around wildly, but everyone seemed calm. Only Brock stared at him with wide eyes.
Before they could ask anything, the ship rumbled under their feet.
“Goodbye, Pearl Bay!” Vlossana shouted, waving backward. Then, they shot out.
Jack felt disoriented. His senses didn’t match. They accelerated from nothing to top speed in an instant. He barely got a glimpse of the town under their feet before it disappeared, the entire planet shrinking at mind-numbing speed.
And yet, despite the massive acceleration, he felt nothing. No force pulling him back, no urge to puke. In fact, the entire ship felt steady under his feet like they were still hovering next to the docks. He even thought they were joking, and the windows were just playing an illusion.
“What the…?” was all he managed to blurt out.
“Spatial independence,” the captain explained with pride. “Space-warping starships exist in their own, independent spatial bubble. If space was a sheet, you can imagine us floating just an inch above it, unbothered by things such as gravity or inertia. Otherwise, only immortals could bear the pressure of acceleration—and certainly not any furniture.”
Jack exhaled. He was trembling. Excitement was soaring through him. He looked outside the windows, and he saw everything.
It was beautiful.
He was surrounded on all sides by the great nothingness. Empty darkness deeper than his mortal mind could comprehend. Multicolored dots of light were spread out in the dark—white, blue, red, yellow—like christmas lights. Where they were many, they formed rivers, floating through nothingness for unfathomable distances.
Everywhere around him was packed with stars, and cold darkness filled the void in between. In Jack’s mind, their starship shrunk until it was invisible. Everything around them was so unimaginably large, even the void. His mind tried to comprehend the scale and was overwhelmed, both by it and by beauty.
Soon after the Integration, Jack had seen the night sky for the first time—the true night sky, unblocked by pollution and artificial lights. It had been one of the prettiest sights of his life, and it had been burned into his mind. Its difference with the sky he was used to seeing was tremendous.
Now, he experienced that feeling again. This was on a completely different level than the sky he could see from earth. He was surrounded by the pure, untouched beauty of the universe, and it felt like looking at a canvas that God himself had filled with all the beauty and skill He could muster.
Jack lost himself in the sight. A hand landed on his shoulder and shook him awake.
“This is how we all felt on our first time,” captain Dordok said. “But don’t worry. The stars aren’t going anywhere. You will have the time to enjoy them all you want as we travel.”
Tearing his sight away was a challenge, but Jack managed it. “Yes, Captain,” he replied, whispering without intending to. The cyclops had a wide smile on his face.
A voice came from somewhere on the ceiling. Jack recognized it as Bomn’s. It said, “Warping.”
“About damn time,” captain Dordok said, still sporting his smile. He turned to Jack. “We don’t usually come this far from the planet to warp. Bomn took things slow for you. He may not speak much, but his heart is made of gold.”
Jack tried to respond, but his voice caught in his throat. The entire ship shook once. Then, his stomach lurched, space rippled around them, and they pierced into it like a stone falling in the sea.
Stars and comets flew around them, darting backward like trees at the side of the road. Jack vaguely remembered such a scene from when Brock and he had teleported, just before he fainted.
“Teleportation!” he cried out.
“Exactly,” the captain replied.
“But… But how?!”
“I asked a wizard once,” Dordok explained, looking into the stars above them. “He said that space is a sheet, and black holes weigh it down so hard that the entire sheet creates folds, one for each black hole. Instead of traveling along the surface of space, we can simply drill through the folds, crossing impossible distances at the blink of an eye. Imagine trying to get past a giant wave at sea. Drilling through the base of the wave is much faster than swimming all the way up, then all the way down at the other side.”
Jack simply stared at him.
“Of course, I am not too clear on how this is done,” Dordok continued, “but I know it works. Teleporters operate by the same principle, except they’re much stronger than what can be mounted on a ship.”
Brock whistled. Jack nodded absently. Vlossana laughed. Her father looked at the captain and nodded. Dordok himself gave Jack a wide smile just as space around them solidified again.
“I’ve said it before, boy, but welcome to the Trampling Ram. You are going to love this.”
Comments
Now bring out the giant bugs
Nilbog
Space. The Final Frontier
