Fantasy Vs Reality | The Tear

24: Departure

I walked out of my chamber, Coal following close behind. Fifi still looked uncomfortable, I didn't blame her. Walking in on two people having a "tickle fight" is never something to be comfortable about.

We followed Fifi to the bridge, thinking about what I was going to tell Sylvia and Jacob once I got back, telling them the bad news about Coal's memory gap when he got sucked into my universe.

A sudden bout of butterflies hit me harder than a brick wall. I remembered that I was a Mission Specialist. If we are arriving near a planet that means... I was about to go down to an unknown planet and explore. I wasn't even the professional cat that Storm was! How was I going to do this without screwing something up?

"Alright boys and girls!" Marcus said excitedly as I watched the window on the bridge in awe as stars shot past faster than what could be considered physically possible.

"And robot, I'm neither a boy or girl to my great relief." K9C2 stated beside us, crossing his arms. There was something different about him, he was shinier, and steam wasn't billowing out of him quite as terribly. He looked... repaired. I noticed Mo was just leaving the bridge as we had walked in, she was smirking. I assumed that she had finally managed to fix up whatever was wrong with the poor robot.

"And robot. My apologies." Marcus said, doing a small bow to K9, who to my surprise, nodded his head back in a tiny bow. "Right, you five are going down on your first official mission in three months. Now, I trust that you all know the procedures on safety and whatnot? Good. Once we arrive at our destination, which should be less than two minutes, you'll be down at the docks, ready to depart I trust?"

K9 piped in, nearly cutting Marcus off. "Captain, if I may."

Marcus looked slightly surprised, but nodded. 

"Once we arrive we must follow protocol and scan the planet for any life forms so as not to disturb the life there."

Marcus smiled. "Don't worry K9, we have done extensive research on the planet and the only things we are disturbing is plants. There is no fauna on this planet."

"It is still protocol to scan the planet." K9 replied in an almost growl.

Marcus closed his eyes and sighed heavily. "Fine. We will scan the planet K9. You're the scanner so do it swiftly."

"I won't be able to do an accurate scan unless we take longer-" K9 began.

Marcus snapped, his teeth starting to open in a snarl. "Dammit K9 just do as your told. I don't want a rogue robot on my ship if this keeps up." Orion turned and stared at Marcus, alert. He seemed to be silently expressing something to Marcus, and then Marcus sighed, throwing his hands up in the air. 

"I'm sorry. I'm just really stressed right now." He said turning away. "Go to the docks everyone. K9C2, do your work and we can continue this task."

As an awkward silence followed, I made the first move to exit the bridge. When it came to going down to the planet, my first guess was teleportation. It was a very scientific universe after all, but hearing Marcus' words, I assumed that teleportation was still a work in progress or it didn't even exist. Coal, Ember, and Sylvia, and I all clambered into the elevator, leaving K9 to do his thing. He will catch up with us won't he?

Marcus got on the intercom and began counting down. We broke into a run even though there didn't seem to be a rush or anything.

By the time we went down another set of elevators, Marcus was on the countdown from ten seconds. "Ten... nine... eight... seven..."

"This is a bit overboard isn't it?" I asked, glancing up at the weak speaker in the elevator. 

Ember shrugged, smirking. "That's just our good ole captain. Not to mention we are in the middle of a hyper jump. We've never done one before."