Chapter 17
Rayne came running back down the main road of the village a moment later with a large rucksack slung over her shoulders. She wore a smile that lit up her face, and warmth and light seemed to pour out of every cell in her body. It was as though the sun had broken through the dense, yellow air and illuminated her, and I watched as her cloak billowed out behind her and her hair rippled as she ran, and I smiled as the most incredible woman I had ever met sprinted toward me.
“I thought you were joking about already having your bags packed,” I chuckled as she arrived beside me.
“Nope,” she replied. “I was just waiting for you to ask me to come with you. You took your time, that’s for sure.”
“I wasn’t sure if you’d say yes or no,” I admitted. “I hoped you would say yes, but it’s a lot to ask you to leave your home.”
“Well, does this answer your question?” she asked, and then she took one of the rucksacks off her back and chucked it at me.
“Yeah, that’s made it pretty clear, I think,” I chuckled as I put the bag on my back. “Have you said all of your goodbyes?”
“I told a couple of people,” she said with a shrug. “News travels fast here, as you can imagine, but like you said, I don’t want to make a big deal about leaving. They’ll all understand why I did it.”
“As long as you’re happy,” I said as we began to walk back toward the front gate.
“I am happy,” she said with a smile.
I led the way over to my ship, which was just a short distance from the village. The door to the cockpit was still open from where I had burst out of the ship to run after Rayne, so we climbed back in that way, much to Bob’s delight.
The little robot hopped around excitedly as we entered, and he beeped happily when he saw that Rayne was with me. He trotted after us as we made our way into the living compartment at the rear end of the ship. I lifted up the bed, which had more storage underneath it, and put Rayne’s bags under it for the time being. She could unpack on another occasion when we had more time, but for now, we had wasted enough time on Wildern and needed to get back on track with the mission.
“Are you sure you’ve got everything you need?” I asked.
“Well, you have water that I can wash my clothes in, right?” she asked.
“Of course,” I said. “And I have a machine that can make more water if we need it.”
“Well, then I’m set,” she replied. “I live in a village that gets raided constantly by bandits. You learn pretty quickly that being materialistic isn’t a viable option.”
“Right,” I said as I put the bed back down to secure her bags underneath it. “Well, are you good to go?”
“Yes,” she said, and she gave me a thumbs up, which made both of us laugh.
“Alright, then,” I said as I led the way back into the cockpit. “Bob, go and lie down.”
Bob beeped happily and stayed in the living compartment. Rayne gave him a couple of pats, which earned her some happy beeps from the worker bot, and then he made his way over to his spot at the end of the bed and went into sleep mode.
Rayne followed me inside the cockpit and sat in the passenger seat beside me. She strapped herself in quickly, since she had done it before and knew how to do it now, and then she turned to me as I did my own seatbelt.
“How come your chair’s different from mine?” she asked.
“Well, back where I’m from, I was a truck driver,” I said. “I used to transport things across the continent in these trucks, and I ended up owning my own company. But, I kept the same truck throughout my whole career until I retired--”
“Retired?” she asked.
“I reached an age that I didn’t want to or have to work anymore,” I explained, to which she nodded. “But, when I was building the ship, I decided that I wanted to keep something familiar with me at all times. So, I took my driver’s seat from my original truck and put it in here. My first truck was also called Francine, so it seemed right to name the AI Francine as well.”
“That’s a nice story,” Rayne said. “I wish retirement was a thing on Wildern.”
“It seems like you just work until you drop here,” I replied.
“That’s exactly the case,” she said. “Not that it matters to me anymore. Now can you see why I’m so excited to leave?”
“Yeah,” I chuckled.
“Here, my future is set,” she sighed. “I’d be scavenging and trading until eventually I got eaten by some hungry beasts or mutants, or until I got murdered by bandits. That’s not really a life that I want for myself.”
“As horrible as all of that sounds, I really am glad you agreed to come with me,” I said.
She smiled at me warmly for a moment, and then she gave me a friendly punch on the arm.
“Speaking of…” she said. “Are we going to leave anytime soon, or are we just going to sit here all day?”
“Last I remember, I was the captain of this ship,” I chuckled as I began the prelaunch check.
“Times change,” she laughed.
“It’s strange,” I said.
“What is?” she asked.
“Well, yesterday you were so suspicious of me you wouldn’t tell me your name until we saved each other’s lives,” I said. “And today, you’re on my spaceship and about to come with me on my mission.”
“Yeah, well…” she said. “I like to keep things exciting for myself.”
“Sure, that’s the reason,” I laughed. “Alright, launching.”
Rayne held onto her seatbelt harness as the ship began to lift off the ground. The thrusters kicked up quite a hefty amount of dust and created a mini tornado around us as we rose upward. When I looked out of the front window, I could see the villagers run out of their houses to watch us take off.
Rayne waved at the people below us, although there was no way that they would have been able to see her by that point. Still, she welled up as it really set in for her that she was leaving all of this behind her for good.
Once we were high enough, the engines began to fire to take us out of Wildern’s atmosphere. The whirring sound began, and it brought with it a bubbling sense of tension within the ship.
“Are you ready?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said with a nod as she gripped the chair. “Absolutely.”
“Then away we go,” I said.
I moved the joysticks, and we began to climb toward the edge of the atmosphere. Rayne gasped, and her knuckles went white as we bounced around in the winds, but she kept the smile on her face. She looked down at her world every so often, which was rapidly shrinking as we soared upward, and she watched in wonder as her village eventually disappeared from view.
Once it was gone, she leaned back in her seat and braced herself.
After several minutes of bumping along, we broke through the thick layer of yellow cloud that constantly covered Wildern, and she was able to look down and see her planet for one last time. We could see the small continents, the burning plains, and the small sections that were actually habitable, but as I turned to look at her face, all I could see was her eagerness to leave. There wasn’t a hint of reluctance or regret anywhere in her eyes, which gave me the final affirmation I needed that I was doing the right thing by taking her with me. Sure, it had been a spur-of-the-moment decision on both of our parts, but now I was sure that it was the right one.
“You are approaching the edge of the atmosphere,” Francine said.
“Alright, brace yourself,” I told Rayne. “This part is a little bumpy.”
“This isn’t the bumpy part?” she asked in disbelief.
Rayne gripped her seatbelt as we neared the final transition. Her eyes were wide and glued to the front window, and I couldn’t help but think that that must have been what I looked like when I had left Earth for the first time.
The ship began to shudder as we began to break through the atmosphere. Wildern’s atmosphere was stubborn, as though it didn’t want anything to escape its radioactive clutches, but my ship was stronger. I kept the joysticks pointed forward, despite the resistance, and finally, we shot out the other side and into the great vacuum of space.
“A little bumpy?” Rayne panted as she turned to me.
“Wait until we use the folding engine,” I said, but I wasn’t sure that Rayne had heard me.
She was staring out of the front viewport, and the look on her face was one of total awe. In front of us was the black blanket of space that was wrapped around everything in the universe. Stars flickered in the distance, and this star system’s sun glowed brightly in the distance. We were just about able to make out the planet that was closest to Wildern from where we were, and Rayne took all of it in like a baby that had entered the world for the first time.
She drank in the beautiful sights in front of her and smiled as the rest of the universe became hers to discover. I could tell that she wasn’t really processing what she could see before her, but I knew that after a while, it would set in for her that she was out in space. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure if I had properly processed that I was darting around the galaxy in a spaceship since my time up here had been so jam-packed from the word go. It made me appreciate that moment of discovery for Rayne, and I realized how happy I was that I could share my adventure with someone else.
“This is…” she eventually gasped. “This is better than I could have ever imagined.”
“It really is awesome,” I said.
“I was only able to see the night sky once every few months on Wildern because of the clouds,” she said. “And now… I mean, look at it all. It’s all here, right in front of me.”
“I reacted exactly the same when I first came up here,” I said. “I don’t come from a planet where space travel like this is a day-to-day thing, so I had no idea what I was getting myself into. But, all of it is beautiful and exciting, and now it’s all accessible. Well, most of it, anyway.”
“Thank you so much, Will,” she said. “Thank you for showing me this and for taking me with you. This… This has made the rest of my life worth living.”
“Thank you for joining me,” I replied, and I reached over and squeezed her hand fondly.
She began to laugh happily at the ridiculousness that was the last forty-eight hours, and I laughed along with her.
“You know,” she chuckled. “I kind of thought everything would be floating around. I mean, isn’t gravity meant to disappear up here?”
“My ship generates its own gravity,” I said. “It means we can walk around, drink water, and just live without having to worry about things, or ourselves, floating away.”
“Delightful,” she giggled. “I really like your ship, by the way. It’s very nice.”
“I definitely like her,” Francine said.
“Well that’s good, Frankie, because we can’t really afford to turn back now,” I said, and then I turned to Rayne. “Francine likes you.”
“Thanks, Francine,” Rayne replied. “And you’re definitely not a robot.”
“Damn right,” the AI replied. “I see that she is learning.”
“Uh-huh,” I said.
I began to fly the ship away from Wildern, while Rayne watched the unfolding universe just outside the window. She would gasp every so often when she saw something new that excited her, but I focused on finding a place where it would be safe to fire up the folding engine.
It was quickly apparent how much faster the ship was with the uranium added to the mix. We were zooming past the other planets at an unbelievable speed, and I could feel the power in the controls.
“This is much better,” Francine said with a satisfied tone of voice.
“You read my mind,” I replied. “I feel like we’re actually moving at speed now. There’s no chance we’d have a repeat of what happened on the way here, near B-4.”
“Exactly,” the AI replied. “The uranium has had the desired effect.”
“A part of me wants to test it out, but another part of me knows that the real test will be in a situation that’s less than enjoyable,” I chuckled.
“Yes,” Francine said. “Be careful what you wish for, Will Ryder.”
“That’s a good one,” I replied. “You’ve been going through the Earth records again.”
“Yes, I liked that one as well,” Francine replied. “And yes, I still scan the material from Earth for useful… information.”
“Is everything working alright?” I asked. “Has the folding engine got enough juice?”
“Yes, it is ready when you are,” the AI said.
“Perfect,” I said. “We’ll go in a minute.”
I turned back to speak to Rayne and to make sure that she was ready to leave this system behind, but when I looked at her, I realized there were tears on her cheeks.
“Are you alright?” I asked. “If you wanna go back, I understand. Or, if you need, I don’t know, a hug, or something…”
“No, no, I’m fine,” she chuckled as she wiped her tears away. “They’re happy tears, I promise.”
“Okay, good,” I replied, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
“It’s just, my parents always said they wanted a better life for me,” she said. “But then they died, and that all felt so impossible. Now, you’ve come along, and suddenly, I’m out here in space. I can’t help but think my parents are somewhere out there, and that they had something to do with this. I know it probably sounds stupid…”
“It doesn’t,” I assured her. “And I’m sure they would be overjoyed to know that you took a chance and that you got away from that life. I’m sure they’re really proud of you, Rayne. You’re an incredible woman, an impressive fighter, and a wonderful person inside and out.”
She leaned over both of our armrests and kissed me again. My stomach exploded with fireworks, and everything seemed to fall away as her soft lips touched mine. I took off my cap so it didn’t get in the way, and I could feel the wetness of her cheeks as our faces pressed together. Her hand touched my cheek gently, and her skin was so smooth it felt like silk. It only lasted a couple of seconds, but I felt like I had just had a taste of Heaven.
She pulled away and settled back into her seat. We looked at one another for a moment, and then both of us began to giggle like kids who had just had their first kiss. She swept some of her blonde hair out of her face, and then she punched me on the arm again.
“Is this gonna be a thing?” I asked. “Are you gonna punch me every time you kiss me from now on?”
“Probably,” she replied. “You have very punchable arms.”
“Well, I’ll be sure to keep my suit on,” I chuckled.
“I would recommend that,” she laughed. “I pack a very hard punch.”
“I don’t doubt that,” I said. “I saw you fighting on Wildern. I was very glad that I wasn’t the guy you were up against.”
“If you were, I would’ve floored you easily,” she said with a smirk.
“No way,” I replied. “I mean, you would’ve put up a good fight, but you’re no match for these guns.”
I raised my arms and flexed both of my arm muscles comically at her, and she laughed as a few more tears rolled down her cheeks.
“So, what’s a folding engine?” she asked when she’d recovered. “I heard you talking to Francine about it just now.”
“It allows the ship to travel even greater distances in a lot less time,” I said. “It’s sort of like a super engine.”
“But we’re already going pretty fast,” she replied.
“This is faster, believe me,” I said, and I smiled as she had no idea what was coming. “It basically folds space so that the destination I want to get to is closer. It’s very cool.”
“It sounds very cool,” she agreed. “In fact, it sounds very, very cool.”
“Strong words from Rayne Trader,” I chuckled.
“Indeed,” she said. “Well, come on then. Get folding.”
“Yes, Will, I really think it would be best if we got going,” Francine said.
“Jesus, suddenly I’m outnumbered by women,” I laughed.
“Well, technically, I am not a woman,” Francine said. “In fact, I do not have any gender, since I am an AI.”
“Yeah, I know, Francine,” I sighed. “But your voice is a woman’s voice.”
“You’re hearing another woman’s voice in your head?” Rayne said with a mischievous grin on her face. “I don’t know how I feel about that.”
“Oh, my God,” I laughed. “I’m starting to think this was a bad idea.”
“I’m just joking, Will,” Rayne chuckled. “But really, let’s go.”
“Alright,” I said. “Francine, if you would do the honors.”
“Of course, Will,” the AI replied.
“Hold on,” I said to Rayne. “If you thought that leaving Wildern was bumpy, then this will knock your socks off.”
“Knock my socks off?” she giggled. “You say some weird stuff, you know that?”
“Francine thinks so, too,” I sighed.
The whirring sound doubled in volume as the folding engine began to fire up. The power it used to fold the space in front of us was immense, and I mentally prepared myself for the overwhelming sensation that I knew was about to consume my body.
“Will, the folding engine is ready,” Francine said.
I turned to Rayne, who nodded to tell me she was ready.
“Alright, Francine, it’s time to meet your makers,” I said as I grabbed hold of my seatbelt. “Launch.”
There was a pause for a second when nothing happened, and I felt Rayne turn toward me.
A second later, we were thrown back in our chairs. Rayne let out a scream, and we hurtled through space into the unknown.