Chapter 7 – Lah-Shah
Lah-Shah took the pilot’s seat, gazing through the currently unshielded screen out into the hanger. The ship was a standard shuttle, with all the usual screens and operation boards, but being an Academy ship probably had some hidden features. He’d need to play around at some point to work out what they all were, but now was not the time.
His attention was caught by a small, rodent-like figure in bright green overalls waving a flag at him. Behind the controller, lights in various colours lit up. He picked out the appropriate visual-aural codes that told him what to do and prepared for flight. The hanger opened above them, allowing pale sunlight into the cavernous space in wide, generous beams, and sending more than one nocturnal tech scurrying for cover.
Lah-Shah ran through the starting sequence as he buckled himself into the adaptable chair and found a comfortable configuration that allowed his tail to poke out behind him. It twisted up around the back of his chair to rest on his shoulder, like a particularly odd parrot. Although he didn’t feel much like a pirate, even if they were on a clandestine mission.
Finally, a green light, and loud ‘plart’ sound, told him he could leave the hanger. The ship hesitated slightly, then rose gracefully into the air and out of the hanger. Looking through the cameras on the ship’s lower side, he watched the hanger recede into the distance, and then disappear as the camouflaging returned.
It was late afternoon already. He was exhausted, but his energy would return once they were in flight, and he could rest properly. Autopilot would get them to the gate, or Maria could, should they feel rested enough. They needed more flight time. He focused back out through the main screen, watching the landscape as he rose further into the atmosphere. Maria had told him this was her favourite part of flying in shuttles, because they could keep their eyes open. It was quite beautiful, when he looked at it all through the sorts of limited light receptors Maria had. His nictitating membranes allowed him to filter various frequencies enough to do that.
The shy was red, blue, and purple, casting shadows across the ground. The dance of colour and clouds was entrancing, made more than usually splendid by the latitude of the base.
Lah-Shah blinked, his nictitating membranes sliding back; he was happy to have his full range of receptors back. He was beginning to feel his mind go numb from the limited stimulation. A surge of sensory messaging told him he could see the patterns of energy bouncing through the atmosphere, and further off, the magnetosphere, once more. It really was quite breathtaking when you thought about it, just how many ways there were to sense the world. He felt a sudden sadness, Maria would never see or feel this, the complex patterns of photons as they interacted with different particles, different forces. He was almost overwhelmed by the emotion, feeling his chest swell and skin ripple to grey.
Lah-Shah blinked, needing to distract himself. He checked the display screens. A warning light blinked and sang. It was time to close the shutters.
The cabin slowly darkened as the shutter crept over it. Along the hull other shutters covered hatches, reinforcing them against the heat of atmospheric friction and cosmic rays in space. Using the sensory systems of the ship he navigated out of atmosphere and into planetary orbit. Lah-Shah rolled his shoulders, stretched, and flexed his curled wings. He set their course on the auto pilot and sat back.
For a moment, the ship seemed to be stationary. The engines triggered a hard burn and sent the ship out towards the moon. In almost complete darkness, Lah-Shah watched their progress on the suite of screens and listened for the transmission from the moon base. It came, a few minutes after the dark depression in space that signalled a body registered on his consciousness. The blips came more frequently as the ship approached the moon and the attached jump gate. The high pitch and volume were useful in a load ship, but in the tight confines of a shuttle it would have driven Maria mad; Lah-Shah was glad they’d taken to their bed before now. It wouldn’t do for them to have a meltdown on their first away mission.
Lah-Shah navigated past the moon and into line for the jump gate. I hoped it would be a quiet trip; the gate wasn’t very busy today. A shuttle of IGASS students, half a dozen freighters carrying who knew what…he zoned out for a while, finally getting some rest.
“Shuttle IGASS-45-2 your jump is programmed into the gate. Prepare to enter.”
The warning crackled over the radio.
Lah-Shah jumped, shaken from his stupor.
Time to fly.
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Everything Is Better With Dragons 