Starla and the Echo

Chapter 3: Departure

Eternity Junction...

The name clung to the inside of Starla's brain. She knew not of its meaning, or the name's owner, just the name...

The visions of her dream began to fade in her head, the once tangible crust of the regolith and beckoning silence of the Echo now seemed like distant memories to her as she drifted aimlessly across her room. It was in this room that Starla spent most of her time during her voyages. Sets of drawers were embedded into the floor, alongside a collection of pipes that carried water, air, and chemicals essential for supersleep, which Starla found herself using quite frequently. Starla thought that perhaps it was an overdose of this supersleep cocktail that made her so hazy recently. After all, Noodle had been keeping her within supersleep for quite some time. As she thought about it some more, she began to lose trust in her computational companion. She didn't want to receive a bad dosage from him and feared that the haze she found herself in was a direct result of a lapse in his programming. It was the name Eternity Junction that had brought her out of this mindless haze and to a rarely used room of her spaceship, the Informationary. Within this room, racks of computers climbed along the edges of the dully painted walls. The ambiance of the whirring of computer fans and the clicking of hard drives filled the thick, musty, air around her. The room was almost dark beside the faint amber flashes coming from the navigational computers, which guided her way as rung by rung, she made it to the end. It was at this end where a single computer stood. As she turned it on, the name ASTRODEX V10.1.9 flashed on the dusty screen in front of her. Starla grinned coyly, if Noodle was going to be glitching on her, she might as well start looking up locations on her own.

After booting up, the Astrodex displayed a search bar, as well as the words. Anywhere under our sun, at the touch of your fingertips... Starla noticed the strange keyboard underneath the monitor and began to type.

ETERNITY JUNCTION |

The Astrodex promptly responded.

LOADING RESULTS...

...

...

SHOWING RESULTS FOR ETERNITY JUNCTION

Starla clicked again, the Astrodex followed with a wall of information. Starla squinted as she began to read the text before her...

:Eternity Junction is an unmanned space station in orbit around the minor planet PIRI, currently under the legislative control of the Promian Alliance. The station was built in the year 2161 and carved out of an asteroid within the ATAP cluster. There is a lack of official documents regarding the origin and purpose of this station, or its reason for travel from the ATAP cluster to Piri.

Starla gazed at the text as she pondered why this mysterious station was in her dreams and its possible connection to the tumor, and the Anastazja. Whatever it was, she decided, she needed to get to Piri as soon as possible. Within the Informationary was another large computer console embedded into the walls. Supported by black aluminum girders was the navigational computer. This was the computer which Noodle collected and processed all of his navigational information from. With this computer, Starla would be able to work around Noodle chart a course to Piri on her own. As she examined the computer, she found a hatch within. Upon opening it she found a small keyboard and LCD screen, with a press of a button it flashed to life.

Starla frowned when it displayed an unfortunate screen saying

ENTER USERNAME AND PASSWORD.

After a few incorrect username and password combinations, she was stumped. Now she would never be able to find a way to Piri, and would have to rely on Noodle.

That was until she found, attached to the lid of the hatch, a yellow slip of paper. Scribbled in pencil the paper read

NAVIGATIONAL COMPUTER-

RexSysco4070@Starrnet.Realm

FRE3TYCH0-1171

Starla stared curiously at the familiar handwriting, it wasn't the first time the Spirit of Fortune's previous owner had helped her out of a tricky spot unintentionally, as much as she'd like to forget it. Starla punched the username and passcode into the keyboard. It took her a bit to figure out how everything worked. The screen provided a simplified menu for the computer, giving her a place to input her desired location. With that, it gave her a set of instructions to follow showing how to reach Piri relative to her current position in space and the specs of her ship. Loudly, it printed out a set of instructions which Starla held firmly in her hand as she made her way up to the cupola of the Spirit of Fortune.

"Noodle, full manual control, I have to go somewhere," She said dutifully to a rather confused Noodle

"Affirmative, granting control to you," He said back dryly as Starla's driver's console began to flash to life.

"Alright, now how to get out of here," She thought, gripping the control stick tightly with anticipation. She notched the throttle upwards to a setting labeled, PRIME. The colossal engine beneath the ship began to rumble, as it was primed for launch. Starla slowly notched the throttle upwards as her ship slowly began to rise from its berth. Suddenly, alarms began sounding outside as the ship slowly lifted off. Starla's face was cast in red as the alarms sounded. With a few faint metallic thunks from beneath the ship, she had realized her folly. She had neglected to retract the fuelling umbillicals!

"Shit!" She slammed her arms on the dashboard, "I better get out of here fast!"

Embarrassed and startled, Starla cranked the throttle up higher so as to evade the situation behind her. As she shot out, she left the docking bay in a flash of vaporized hydrogen.

Leaving the Metroplex at a rather awkward angle, she flew off in search of Piri.

"Given your current vector and acceleration, your closest destination is the asteroid, Piri, is this your ideal destination?" Noodle asked innocently.

"Don't talk to me..." Starla said, still upset from her mishap earlier.

Noodle continued to speak, "The estimated time of arrival is 2 days, would you like to supersle-"

"I said don't talk to me!" Starla shouted angrily. She huffed to herself as she looked back at the Metroplex, now shrinking in view. "I'll pilot the ship, go to Piri, and get, whatever this is, out of my head" She thought to herself, not stopping to ponder the sensibility of her statement.

Tapping her fingers on the control console, Starla prepared herself for the long, and silent, voyage ahead...