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n802 Space Jump

n“Engaging Space drive. Everyone, get onto your seats,” the captain ordered. “Lieutenant Ziri, calculate the distance.”

n“Yes, captain,” a girl with pink skin spoke up. She started doing a few things on her screen to the left, and suddenly everyone could hear a voice.

n“Calculating Distance.”

n“You can teleport exactly 2.43 Lightyears in any direction.”

n“Please select the direction.”

nThe AI of the ship spoke up once the girl had started the calculation.

n“Lieutenant Froxby, be ready to load up more Space drives,” the captain spoke over the channels.

n“Aye, captain,” a voice came through the system.

n“Ensign Grond, chose a location,” the captain asked.

n“Yes, captain,” the young man with pointy ears that sat at the front of the ship spoke.

nNing looked around, quite fascinated at the fact that there were so many things one had to do before teleporting on this ship. If it was just him, he would have teleported without thinking much.

n“Hey, I can’t tell what they’re saying,” Saphandra said from the side.

n“You can’t? Oh right, we’re speaking a different language,” Ning said. “Hmm… system you got anything language skills for her?”

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n“Alright, buy it.”

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n“Location set, captain,” the ensign said.

n“Good, Jump!”

n“Ooh, I understood that word. Did you do something?” Saphandra asked.

n“Yes,” Ning said.

nHe watched from the window at the front as several strands of silver light started grabbing onto the ship, and when they were fully covered, he felt a slight bit of turbulence.

nThey had traveled through space itself and arrived at a different location somewhere over 2 light years away.

nNing realized that if he were to turn around and look back at the planet Nulwurn, and somehow see it all again, he would be looking at one from over 2 years ago.

n“Lieutenant Froxby?” the captain asked.

n3 seconds later, an answer came back.

n“Space Drive has been swapped, captain. We’re ready to jump again,” the man in the Space Drive room spoke.

n“Lieutenant Ziri,” the captain spoke.

n“Doing it, captain,” the woman said as she quickly pressed a few more buttons and the ship spoke up again.

nThis time, the space drive had about 4.3 light-years worth of distance to go.

n‘That’s the one I looked at, isn’t it?’ Ning thought.

nAfter all the calculations and plotting were done, the ensign activated the Space Drive again, and the ship jumped once more, arriving at another part of the sky.

nThen, they did it two more times.

nIn total, they traveled around 15 light years of distance before stopping any more jumping.

n“Plot a course to the closest Federation Service Station,” the captain said.

n“Closest service station is at Q4-S3-C26-G5, captain. Plotting course,” the ensign spoke.

n“Set autopilot, and calculate the time of arrival,” the captain said.

nThe lieutenant did the calculations and came up with an answer. “Estimated time remaining is 122 years, captain,” the lieutenant said.

n“Good, let’s sleep for a few years,” the captain said.

nNing was a little confused at the captain’s attitude at the length of time that was given to them. Surely they could just teleport again, right?

n“Captain, why are we not using the space drive to arrive at the location already?” Ning asked. 𝓞𝓋𝑳xt.𝓒𝑂𝗆

n“We can’t activate the drive more than 20 lightyears of distance at a time, master. Any more and it will overload. As such, we need to give it some time to cool off,” the captain said.

n“Oh,” Ning said. ‘Should I refresh it? Maybe I should let them sleep for a while.’

n“And what were those numbers you guys keep talking about? That Q4-S3 something,” Ning asked.

n“Oh, that’s the id for any star or planet,” the captain said. “Q stands for Quadrant, S for Sector, C for Cluster, G for Group.”

n“In the case of the planet you were in just now, it was located in Quadrant 4, Sector 3, Cluster 23, Group 3. It was the 3rd planet in the 17th sun of the group, so the overall planet was identified as Q4-S3-C23-G3-17C.”

n“Similarly, the Federation station we are going to is located in the same sector as this one, but in a different cluster. It is about 122 light years away from here,” the captain explained.

n“Oh,” Ning said. “Go on then, go to sleep.”

n“Won’t you be sleeping too, master?” the captain asked.

n“Don’t mind about me, I will go to sleep when I want to,” Ning said.

n“Yes,” the captain said and left.

nSaphandra made a curious face. “What’s that about quadrants and such?” she asked.

n“I’m not really sure. System, can you give me the information?” he asked.

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nA wave of information floated into Ning’s mind and he slowly learned it. “Ah, so that’s it,” he thought.

n“What is it?” Saphandra asked.

n“So, there are 4 quadrants in total, each quadrant has about 15 sectors, each covering an equal area of the quadrant on the galaxy which has an average radius of 5000 light years.”

n“They count from the back for some reason, so we are very far from the center of the galaxy, but are somewhere in the middle of the sector,” Ning said.

n“Oh,” Saphandra said. “So… what’s our destination?”

n“The service station? That’s—”

n“No, not the station, OUR destination. You have someplace in mind, right?” she asked.

n“Actually… I hadn’t given it much thought as of yet. I was going to think about it once we were on the spaceship. In my mind, in the worst-case scenario, I was going to use the spaceship I have to make my way out of this galaxy,” Ning said.

n“But, you are right, I need to have some sort of destination,” Ning said. “System, what do I need to do?”

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n“My journey? What do you mean?” Ning asked.

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