Chronojunkies

Chapter 1

"Si, begin log entry," Slim said calmly as he sipped his coffee, staring blankly into the main viewscreen. A shimmering gas nebula sprawled across the display, its swirling hues of pink, green, and blue washing over the consoles and painting the small salvage crew in a shifting, cosmic light show. Midnight Rider throbbed through the ships pa system. The gentle rolling beat appeared to move in sync with swirling colours.

Si—short for Ship Interface, answered in its chipper, too-cheerful voice.

"Ready, Captain."

Slim exhaled slowly and began.

"Pulse drive upgrade is complete. Helm is back online, we traced the problem to a corroded thermocouple. We also replaced four coolant lines. All of the Co2 scrubbers have been cleaned this time"

He shot a sideways look at Dust who immediately shifted his eyes to the floor.

"Anything else on the list, Si?"

"One thing, Captain. Updating my voice patterns and syntax." SI reminded him

"Donald Duck!" Dust, Chief Salvager blurted out while exhaling a cloud of smoke from his joint.

There was a quiet click of Si's processor and Si replied, in a perfectly mimicked quacking Donald Duck voice.

"THis IS a tESt oF mY neW VoICe sYNtax!"

The whole crew burst into laughter, even Dr. Troyer, famously composed, couldn't stifle her laughter.

Dust laughed hysterically between coughs and passed the joint over to McCluskey, the ship's helmsmen.

McCluskey took a puff, exhaled and lifted an eyebrow.

"Schwarzenegger!" He shouted in his thick Scottish accent. He passed the joint to the ship's engineer, Jaz.

Si's processor clicked again.

"THiS iS a vOIcE TeSt. GeT tO THe sHUtTLe!" Si replied in a perfect Arnold voice. More laughter erupted on the bridge, Slim cracked a smile this time.

Jaz took a deep puff and exhaled.

"Michael Jackson!" She shouted, tilting her head toward the speaker on the ceiling.

Another click.

"VoICe tESt. PLaSmA cOnDuITS oVErLoADInG heehee. REaCtoR BrEAch IMmiNent sha-mon! Woooo!"

The bridge was chaos.

Hollywood, the youngest of the crew and the ship's tech expert was in mid-sip and spat coffee all over the scanner interface as he erupted in a fit of laughter.

"That's enough Si, end log entry and restore your voice."

Slim said, mood dipping back down to command mode.

"Restored." Si replied.

"And turn the lights back up."

The lighting on the bridge brightened.

Slim took another sip and pulled his command screen into place. System readouts glowed across the display.

"Time to go, folks."

The crew lazily returned to their work stations and made their preparations. Jaz and Troyer exited the bridge and returned to their work stations. Hollywood wiped up the coffee with his sleeve. Dust took one last puff from the joint and dropped it in the recycler.

Slim thumbed the comms button on the armrest panel of the captain's chair.

"Jaz...levels?" He asked sharply.

Jaz's smooth, huskey voice came through on the speaker in the chair.

"So far, so good, sir. Reactor levels optimal, plasma's good. Pulse drive is online, and so is the jump drive, we'll have a full charge in 2 mins."

"Standby." Slim responded. "McCluskey, set a course for Trypheua." Slim said, still concentrating on the command screen.

"Aye sir, plotting." McCluskey replied. He quickly typed on his navscreen and the coordinates showed up along with a starmap. A cartoonish looking rocket ship representing the actual ship appeared on the map, a yellow line marking the ship's course began to show as the ship's computer calculated the route. A pop-up notification then appeared on the navscreen indicating a completed course calculation.

"Course plotted, ready when you are, Skip!"

McCluskey stated.

Hollywood raised a plastic straw to his lips and blew a spitball at the back of Dust's head. Dust retaliated instantly, whipping his breakfast bagel across the bridge. It ricocheted off of Hollywood's shoulder, bounced once and landed on Hurricane's console.

The XO, and Slim's older brother, picked it up, split it in half and hurled one side of it back like a grenade. The bagel's creamcheese side landed square on top of Dust's head and stuck there, resembling a lopsided beanie. Hollywood howled, McCluskey doubled over, Slim frowned. Hurricane took a bite of the other half the bagel.

Just then, a text message from Jaz popped up on Slim's screen, stating that the jump drive was fully charged.

"Punch it, Clusk." Slim muttered. McCluskey touched the navscreen. Then a vibration began to build and a deep, gutteral rumble started up from the main thrusters as the ship's jump drive charged. A blue sphere of energy began to expand just behind the aft thrusters then it exploded in a blinding white flash sending the ship hurtling toward the distant planet Trypheua at the speed of light.