----------------------------------------------------------- - The Ta’ainvel - – By Khan – ----------------------------------------------------------- 10. Twelve hours later, at eleven am ship time, the commander ordered her Second pilot to go get some sleep. They still had eight years to go and it wouldn’t get any shorter if she spent every waking minute in her command station. ”Two sides of the coin again, Jante,” she said as she stepped out of the room. The commander left two hours later and told Jante to wake Ayshala in six hours so he also could get some sleep. He spent the time he had left on his shift to check up on the ship itself. First of all he checked on the Ta’ainvel girl that he had pulled from beneath the elevator wreck in the Sanctum, and, hearing she was stable, proceeded with the business of the ship itself. Reports of minor incidents came in at a steadily decreasing rate as the Warriors quelled any Ta’ainvel who panicked at the thought of spending eight years cramped up in the hallways of the Handrillian again. The storerooms containing food had been raided at least twice since takeoff but the raiders had quickly been satisfied to see that they were indeed full and adequate to last until the gardens could get their production up to standard starvoyage levels. The seals on the secure sectors had recently been broken and the ship rapidly repopulated again. The second shift began to slowly take over control of the command bridge and after six hours Jante placed a wakeup call to Ayshala telling her he was going to get some sleep. When she entered the bridge he swept his chair around and met her halfway along the floor to her own chair. Raising his left hand, palm towards her, he said ”The bridge is yours sister of mine, don’t fall asleep at the controls.” She met his hand with her own. ”I’m the one who is rested brother of mine.” Smiling at her he broke the hand contact and left the room. Jante exited the command section through the heavy airlock doors that separated every sector of the ship and proceeded towards the hospital. He came to Charlotte’s room and found her still unconscious. As he didn’t want to disturb her healing sleep, he simply sat down in the chair in the corner. He was soon asleep, dreaming of green fields on a planet far away called Arathur, and sitting on those fields with Charlotte. He woke to the noise of a nurse closing the door on her way out of the room. The hallway outside was empty and the lights were dimmed. Jante knew it was night and most people onboard would be sleeping. Of course, it wasn’t really night but it was the time in the twenty four hour cycle of one day that was called night. Arathur was similar in size to earth and the distance from the two suns created a time cycle very similar to that of earth. Arathur even had a moon about the same size and at roughly the same distance from the planet as earth’s moon. ”Damn,” he muttered, knowing he had been asleep for nearly eight hours. ”You are so cute when you sleep.” He turned his eyes to the bed and saw Charlotte sitting against the pillows. The speed with which he jumped from his chair nearly brought him crashing into the wall beside the bed, but he managed to stop himself before that and lean down to kiss Charlotte. He pulled away again and let her arms fall from where they had been around his neck. He took her left hand in both of his larger ones, only looking at her. ”I was so afraid you would leave me, Charlie. Every minute I spent on the bridge I spent thinking of you.” ”I didn’t leave you though. To be honest, for a while I wasn’t even sure myself if I was alive or not, lying in a white walled room looking like it came straight out of a science fiction movie. Then I saw you in the chair, and realised you must have brought me into the ship itself,” she finished smiling at him. He hesitated, then asked, ”Do you know where we are?” ”Of course, we’re in the upper city of Han,” she said. ”You don’t have to worry, it wasn’t my brain that got hurt.” ”Charlie, what I am about to tell you might upset you, so try to stay calm. ”You are in the upper city of Han, yes. But it is again known as the starship Handrillian and we are right now flying through deep space about eighty billion miles from earth,” he said as gently as he could. She looked at him and said silently ”This must be a joke.” ”Its true, Charlie. I spent the twenty hours before I came here piloting this ship myself.” ”It can’t be. Last time I was awake I was sitting on a green field on top of the upper city of Han.” Jante sighed and then spoke into his communication device. ”Ayshala, could you unlock the window controls of the ship? I’m sure that we don’t need to be closed up anymore.” ”Yes Jante.” A pause, then ”They’re unlocked.” He walked to the wall opposite the door and brushed his hand against it. With a slight hiss it slid up into the ceiling, leaving a view out into darkness streaked with ever moving lights. Charlotte only looked, not saying anything and Jante walked back to the side of the bed. He explained about how she had been moved down here as the ship had been attacked. He explained about the two battleships and how the escaping starships had managed to put a serious dent in the Mars Colony’s fleet, destroying ten of the twenty battleships that attacked. He explained about the plan that had been devised months ago and what it involved. Finally he explained about the GFD, that it would only take eight years to reach Arathur. Not three lifetimes. ”At least you didn’t leave me behind,” she said. ”I would have, if I could. I would have left all of you to your own people, and your own planet. Thomas explained to me, however, that neither of you had any family left on earth, and that you were willing to come along on the journey.” ”He is right. We don’t have any family. And I am very willing to come along. I don’t have a choice now anyway, do I,” she said, laughing. Laughing was not good, however, and she winced in pain and started coughing. Jante held her hand as the coughing eased and when she finally looked at him he could only smile. ”I’m not due to report to the bridge for at least three more hours, so why don’t I tell you about the Ta’ainvel way of life, to make you more…ready for it,” he said after a while. ”I’d like that,” she replied.