Garden of roses

Hyperion Divide

Indeterminate Population

Atlas sat at a seat in The Boulder as they made their journey through hyperspace. They were nearing the hyperion divide.The ship's sensors let them know. 

Earlier that morning, Atlas had dressed up and left for his trip. He was heading for planet Ee with relief. He had decided to send this to them by himself in order to not just have a one-on-one meeting with the ruler, but to also extend a personal invitation for his wedding.  

They had taken hours to make it to this part of their galaxy even driving at hyperspeed.

The bridge filled with crew in crew jumpers who managed some of the repairs or served in the capacity of assistants. Many of them would be involved with unloading the relief items for the aliens of planet Ee when they reached. The co-pilot sat next to Elara as she manned the ship. 

"Approaching asteroid belt…" the expert system of the cargo ship said.

"Disengage auto-pilot," Elara said from her perch at the main control console.

"Auto-pilot disengaged…"

Elara engaged the manual controls of the ship and called at the top of her voice to the rest of the crew: "Grab a hold of something!"

Atlas sat firmly buckled at a seat where he minimized and maximized hologram screens as he dealt with some of his own personal workload. 

Elara's voice distracted him for a while. He raised his head to watch her flip switches and levers as the ship neared the asteroid jungle up ahead.  He turned back to his work, but he was failing at ignoring her.

He had been trying since he stepped on that ship earlier that day to avoid her and he was failing badly. Worse, he enjoyed every single moment of their accidental meeting or bumping into each other, everytime their eyes cut to each other and they held gaze before turning away.

This was all new for Atlas; this feeling of pleasant anxiety. It annoyed him to feel this way; to be at the mercy of such an emotion and that was why at all costs, he had to kill the feeling. 

She was murmuring something again. Atlas raised his head to watch her at her perch when he felt the first jolt as though the ship had done a nosedive for an asteroid. 

But the ship had actually avoided the asteroid, yet the impact was grand.

Atlas raised his head to complain about poor recovery skills on the part of their dear alien pilot when another jolt sent the thought flying away.

And then the jolts became even more frequent, sharp dips and dives that seemed like it would throw the occupants to the glass. Soon the ship was going in a spiral that continued like a comet streaking past, displacing little things within the ship and having the crew who were seated with their seat belts suspended for a fraction of a second until the ship righted itself and continued on its journey.

The Boulder, huge and bulky as it was, spiralled out of the asteroid belt like a pirouetting ballerina.

A few seconds later, the ship was driving without sudden jolts or spirals.

All was quiet in the bridge. And then murmurs of conversation flowed, showing that the earlier anxiety had  worn off the group.

Atlas annoyed, unclasped his seat belt and marched to the main control console of the command nexus which had Elara, her co-pilot and Thyron. 

"Some pilot," Atlas said when he was just behind Elara. "I could have lost my breakfast and the lunch I am yet to have to that piloting."

"I'm sorry your Majesty, but I hope you did not assume we were riding past a garden of roses," Elara asked, innocently yet, Atlas could feel the spite hiding just under.

He wanted to say something when Thyron responded.  

"You might get used to her style yet," he said. "The ride was unavoidably bumpy for the most part, but she avoided the rocks completely. The spiral technique is one that she mastered so well. This ship is without a scratch. The repair bots and engineering crew might be useless for this trip afterall."

Atlas shook his head. "Don't praise her," he said. "She isn't the first to ride across the hyperion divide. We only have the malignant area to get across before reaching Ee. Hopefully, the movement after crossing this would be bumpier than the other. I am actually counting on it."

Elara thinned her eyes to slit as she watched him. Thyron stifled a small chuckle and faced his own corner of the control board.