Beyond Sol Bk. 01 Pt. 02

"Lunchtime," Shara said with a smile. "We'll have time to eat before I have to jump us again."

"You have to do it manually each time?" I asked as I followed her to one of the doors around the edge of the circular room.

"Yes. Some ships have AI that repositions and initiate the warp drives to the next plotted location, but this ship doesn't, so I'll have to align the ship at each destination manually," she explained.

"I wanna come watch when you do it," I said. "Maybe you could teach me how to do it?"

"Of course, I'm not the greatest pilot, but I can show you what I know," she said with a smile, and I was struck once again by how utterly beautiful and alien she was.

Shara led me through one of the doors, into a kitchen and eating room with various cooking appliances, tables, and bench seats. I slumped onto one of the bench seats when Shara motioned for me to sit. I watched as she moved about the kitchen and retrieved a silver satchel about half the size of a dinner plate, and tore it open. Shara placed the contents into a steel bowl. She then repeated the process with a second satchel before placing both bowls into an appliance that looked oddly similar to microwave oven back home, with doors opening in the middle. After adjusting the dial on the front of the machine, she turned to me and folded her arms under her breasts.

"You must be hungry," she said.

"Yeah, I could eat a bit," I chuckled.

The machine beeped, signalling to us that the food was ready, and Shara placed one of the steel bowls in front of me. The appliances and crockery all looked like something I'd see back on earth - except the forks only had two prongs - but the food was like nothing I'd seen before. My bowl was filled with a stew of orange, green, and purple vegetables in a thick red soup. The meat was hard and salted like beef jerky, although it tasted like chicken. The whole dish was heavily spiced and stung my tongue a little, but nowhere near as bad as the curry my old flatmate Benji used to cook. His meals would be so spicy I could see sounds and hear colours after each meal. And made the next day rather unpleasant. Although living with him for a few months had seriously upped my tolerance for spicy foods.

"Do you like it?" Shara asked after a few minutes of silence.

"Yeah, it's not bad. It tastes just like something I'd get back home," I said after swallowing a mouthful.

"It's common for your brain to link the taste of a new food to something you're familiar with," she replied.

"Probably why everything back home tastes like chicken," I chuckled.

"What's chicken?" she asked after slurping some of the thick soup.

"It's a small domesticated bird that lays eggs. A lot of people keep them for a sustainable source of food. They can also be plucked and cooked in so many different ways," I explained.

"Sounds like a soucha," she said. "Are they dangerous?"

"Not at all," I laughed. "They are quite docile and stupid, although I have heard stories of the males attacking people. But they're not dangerous."

"Ah, then they're not like soucha," she said. "A soucha has a long beak with razer sharp teeth that can tear your arm off. They taste amazing, but only the toughest farmers keep them."

"Sounds terrifying," I said, picturing a feral chicken with sharp teeth chasing me around a farm. It was quite comical in my head, but I would probably shit myself if I ever had to gather eggs from one of them.

"What meat is this?" I asked, holding a piece of the red, salted meat on my fork.

"It's from an animal called a hubra," Shara replied. "It's heavily salted, so it lasts longer, like most food you will find on starships."

"We have salted beef and such back home too, something the ancient humans came up with before we had electricity to freeze and cool meat," I replied.

"It seems our species aren't so different after all, Jason," Shara said with a smile.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"When I was coming in for my landing, I got a good lay of the land around your city. You have vehicles like my people and many buildings in your cities with huge populations. It's actually a surprise your people haven't mastered intergalactic travel yet," she explained.

"We have gone into space and landed on our moon," I said. "But we haven't been able to figure out the key to sustainable long-distance space travel yet."

"It will come to your people in time. There are still plenty of systems out there without the capability," she added.

We sat in silence for a few minutes while Shara picked at her food, and I shovelled mine into my mouth. I was starving and could probably go for another three bowls of the strange stew. Just as I was about to ask for seconds, something came to mind.

"Why were you on my planet?" I asked.

Shara chewed on a piece of meat for a couple of minutes as if considering what to tell me. Or how much she was willing to say. I was about to tell her it didn't matter, and she could tell me in her own time, but then she answered.

"All I can tell you is I was running from some nasty people," she finally answered.

"I figured that much. You don't end up in the ass-end of nowhere on a sight-seeing trip," I laughed.

Shara chuckled and gave me a small smile before pushing her bowl towards me. I looked down to see mine was completely empty. I even slurped up the remnants of the thick soup without realizing I'd done it.

"You sure?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes, you look like you need it much more than I do," she nodded. "Plus, I ate while you were sleeping."

I took the bowl with a grateful smile and dug in. It was the exact same dish I had, and I wondered if there were different flavours and meals in the cabinets. I did enjoy going to new restaurants and trying new and exotic foods. I just didn't think I'd be trying out alien cuisine with a beauty like Shara.

I gulped down the leftover food in Shara's bowl in record time and considered asking for more. I wasn't sure of the ship's food situation, and I knew we still had a long way to go before reaching our location. We were in the middle of space after all and couldn't just duck down to the grocery store for more. It would have to last us a couple of days. I realised the passing of days would be hard to keep track of out here, considering each planet would have a different night and day cycle.

Talk about an extreme case of jet lag.

After I finished eating, Shara stacked the empty bowls on a table against the far wall and led me back to the cockpit, taking the middle seat for herself once more, motioning for me to take the one to her right. Once I was seated, my alien companion brought up a display on her screen and did something to share it with the one in front of me.

"We'll be dropping out any second now, fasten your harness," she said, strapping herself down.

"You got it," I nodded, and it only took me a moment to remember how the harness worked and secure myself into the bucket seat.

"Once we arrive, I'll show you the process of aligning the ship with the next destination on our route, then activating the warp drive," she explained.

"How will I know what to do? I can't read any of this," I motioned to the monitor in front of me. The screen showed a list of highlighted text with smaller writing scrolling down the right side, but I couldn't read any of it.

"Oh, sorry about that," Shara replied. She tapped away at her console for half a minute before smiling at me. "That should fix it."

I looked down at the screen in front of me and watched the text change from the illegible alien characters to basic English. I went over the list of commands that now made a lot more sense.

"Wow, how'd you do that?" I said, studying the screen.

"While you were sleeping, I uploaded a basic version of your spoken and written language into the ship's translation software," she explained. "There may be some translation errors here or there, but it should do for now."

"Well, that makes life easier, thank you. You really are quite amazing," I smiled at the beautiful woman, and I noticed the grey skin around her cheeks darken.

Was she blushing?

"It was no problem. I'll work on it some more before we arrive," Shara said.

"Sounds good. We've got plenty of time to kill," I said.

Suddenly the view out the front windshield changed from the swirling vortex of colours and elongated stars to the inky blackness of space. I could see swirling nebulas of red, blue, and orange off in the distance that must have been many thousands of light-years away. I wondered if I'd ever get to travel to those places and explore them. I could feel my ten-year-old self growing giddy with the excitement at the prospect of galactic exploration.

"Okay, Jason, are you ready?" Shara asked.

"As ready as I'll ever be," I answered.

"Good. First, we need to align the ship with the next destination. I'll need you to access the navigation panel on your console," she explained.

I looked at the now legible list of commands in front of me and pressed my finger to the correctly labelled menu. A long list of locations appeared on screen, followed by an estimated distance in light-years followed by travel length in minutes. The first location on the list was a flashing blue 'route', rather than the rest of the screen that glowed a muted cyan. I pressed that option before Shara could say anything more and then followed up by tapping the top-most destination from the drop-down list.

"Very good, you're a fast learner," she said with a satisfied smile.

"The system is quite intuitive," I said. "Now I can read it; it's not that hard to figure out what does what."

Once I'd selected the next location on our path, I felt the thump of the ship's thrusters and saw the view of space change out the front windshield. The multicoloured nebulas in the distance gave way to a shining ball of fire floating before us. I felt no pain looking into the fiery star and guessed the glass on the viewport must be shielded to prevent retina and radiation damage from stars. The ship continued its movement until the imposing celestial body was now below our position, and I couldn't see it anymore.

"We are aligned with our next location," Shara announced.

I looked down to my console and saw that the navigation panel has closed, and I was back on the main menu. A flashing button in the bottom right of the screen caught my attention, and I grinned with excitement when I read the words; Initiate Jump.

"Take us out, Jason," Shara looked over to me and gave me a small smile.

"Aye aye, captain," I said with a grin and pressed the button.

Through the viewport, I could see the stars elongate and stretch until I could see neither the beginning nor the end of each one. Then they began to blend together in a swirl of colours, and a sudden—but slight—pressure on my shoulders told me we had jumped to warp speed. I still wasn't exactly sure how fast we were moving or how the ship reached the speed without its passengers feeling it, but I didn't care. I was hurtling through space faster than anyone from earth ever had.

Chapter 7

We spent most of the journey to the Miladrian system in the small training room onboard the ship. The room held racks of various training weapons that would have taken pride of place in a martial arts dojo back home. Only these sucked at least ten times more when they hit you. Each weapon emitted a shock that could deliver a mild zap or a completely incapacitating blow when struck, leaving the afflicted writhing in pain on the floor. I stupidly volunteered myself to test the effects of one of these weapons firsthand and nearly lost my breakfast in the process.

Shara was a master with every weapon she picked up, easily besting me in a matter of seconds. She even dropped me without effort while unarmed. The skills she'd taught me in the link still lingered, and whilst I didn't actively remember learning the techniques and skills, my body acted on muscle memory often.

"Oh damn, that's gonna leave a mark," I said from my place on the ground.

I'd suffered a direct hit to my ribs with the shock staff in Shara's hands. The weapon was a blur during our bout, and she easily deflected and redirected every strike I made at her. I had a feeling she had been going easy on me too.

"You're already getting better, Jason," Shara said, switching her weapon off and placing it on the rack.

She wasn't even breathing hard from the exertion of training, but I saw tiny beads of sweat roll down her bare stomach. At first, I'd been far too distracted by Shara's tight leggings and sports bra type top she'd chosen to train in and had the bruises to show for it. I'd gotten better at ignoring her flawless body, but I still couldn't help myself sometimes.

"Thanks, I guess I'm a quick learner," I said as I dragged myself off the ground.

"Have you had any training before?' she asked as she sipped on a bottle of water.

"A touch of martial arts when I was a kid," I answered as I strode over to the weapon rack to replace the training sword I'd chosen. I'd done more damage to myself with the staff than Shara had.

"It shows," Shara said with a small smile before taking a sip from an alloy water bottle.

"Not really. You've kicked my ass in each training session, and I get the feeling you've been going easy on me," I laughed.

"But I have been training my whole life, Jason," she smiled.

"Are all your people warriors?" I took the bottle of water from her when she offered it to me and took a long drink.

"Yes, it is mostly custom now, but we all learn to fight as soon as we can walk," she said.

I wondered what it would have been like to train as a warrior once I could walk. I'd never had been bullied at high school—I'd be in better shape—and I probably would have had better discipline. I might have been able to protect my parents from the home invader too.

The thought of my parents always hurt. It had been ten years since they were both killed. My mother was shot when she caught a burglar in our house. At the sound of a gunshot, my father ran into the house, and the crook got him too. The police caught the man responsible, and he ended up being locked up for a long time. I'd refused to go to the sentencing since I hadn't wanted to see the face of the man who'd robbed me of my family, but I couldn't escape the daily news reports that showed his face around that time.

The police officer responsible for his case had told me the man was extremely remorseful and that he hadn't meant to hurt anyone. He pleaded guilty and didn't once try to justify his actions. I was only fifteen years old. I'd spent the last few years of high school living with my aunt, but she never liked me, and I moved out as soon as I graduated and got a job. I'd wanted to become a police officer since that day, but depression and loneliness were too strong a mistress for me to escape. So instead, I fled to a world of video games and fast food as an escape.

"Is something wrong?" Shara asked with a look of concern on her face. Thinking about my parents always put me in a dark place, and I guess it showed on my face.

"It's fine, just got caught up in my own thoughts," I smiled to let her know I was okay.

She nodded, then stepped closer to wrap her arms around me. "I'm here for you if you need to talk, Jason."

The move surprised me, but I hugged her back. She was a little shorter than I was, and I got a whiff of her blood-red hair as she rested her head against my shoulder. She smelled of mangoes and peaches, and her lithe body against mine was incredibly warm to touch and quite distracting. She was so distracting that I almost completely forgot about the pain of missing my parents.

"Thank you," I said.

"I will always be here for you Jason," Shara lifted her face to look me in the eyes, and I was stunned by her alien beauty once again.

"And I will always be here for you," I replied.

We stood like that for half a minute as I studied every inch of her face. From her slightly tilted white eyes, delicate jawline, exotic grey skin, and white lines to her so soft lips that were made for kissing. I desperately wanted to taste her lips ever since I saw her moving down the corridor of the facility we were held captive. Shara looked amazing, even in the drab, unappealing clothes they forced the prisoners to wear. She was as fierce and strong as she was beautiful and gorgeous, and I wanted her.

Unfortunately for me, I was terrible with women.

"We—," Shara was interrupted by a neutral beeping alarm.

"What's that?" I said, stepped out of her embrace.

"We are coming out of warp space," she said with a neutral expression. "Come on, let's go."

Shara turned on her heel and strode out of the training room. I enjoyed watching her leave as the tight leggings she'd taken to wearing over the last forty-odd hours hugged her taut ass like a second skin, but this time seemed different. It almost looked as if she added an extra sway to her hips with each step.

I followed Shara through the ship's corridors to the bridge, mulling over what she was about to say before we had been interrupted. I had no idea what went on in Earth women's minds, so I was quite certain I had no idea what was going on in an alien women. She was smart, strong, beautiful, and an incredibly skilled fighter. I had no doubt she could go toe-to-toe with any of Earth's most experienced athletes and professional fighters and come out on top.

There'd be no way she would be interested in a guy like me. I'd gone from being slightly overweight to being mostly skin and bones, and whilst I was putting weight on again, I was far from having the sort of body a woman like Shara deserved in a man. I was also super awkward and unsure of what to say to women. She had probably wanted to tell me that we couldn't do this because she was married or had a boyfriend. Space was a big place, and there was most definitely plenty of fish in the sea for someone as amazing as her.

I took my seat to the right of the pilot's chair as soon as we entered the bridge and strapped myself in. Shara had told me that we would rarely encounter any sort of turbulence on these long-distance routes since we were travelling through a lot of unpopulated systems, but agreed it was better to be safe than sorry.

"Dropping out in five," Shara announced.

It had been my job to re-align the ship and jump us to warp space during each stop. I even got to manually pilot the ship when we needed to orbit a star to charge the warp drive.

We dropped out four seconds later, and I immediately brought up the navigations panel on my console. It was always out of service during a jump, something about our system not being able to detect precisely where we were. I still didn't know how warp speed worked, and Shara had admitted to knowing little about the science behind it, only that it worked.

"Something's wrong," I said once I punched in the next location.

"Neutron star," Shara hissed.

I pulled up the system map on my console and scanned for astronomical bodies. The computer only took a few seconds to complete the scan, revealing one object in the system to be precisely what Shara had mentioned: a neutron star. I didn't know a lot about space and astronomical bodies other than the basis most kids learn, but I knew that these particular stars were nearly as dangerous as black holes.

My console displayed a series of information on the star, such as gravitational pull, mass, density, and rotational speed. None of it meant anything to me as I had nothing to compare the data to, but the high numbers of each statistic were enough to tell me we had better be careful.

"Preparing to align," I said.

"No!" Shara shot over her shoulder. "We have to put distance between us and the star. Otherwise, it will pull us in and overheat the systems."