When Riders Crosleigh

A Plodding Prologue

"Whedon Station, this is Last Hope, please come in." Eanruig "Ernie" Hawker, Jr. said over commotion in the pilot's carriage. The commotion consisted of the rumble from the engines, pings of the lidar returns, the classical music he had pipped in over the public address boxes and a retro space vixen bobble head complete with bubble helmet, ray gun and laughable space skirt were all in sync with each other. It all made the day pass by so much faster.

Ernie eyed the retro chrono on the ceiling panel. The analog digits flipped over to eighteen hundred thirty hours. Yes, it was still "day" for another hour.

The static on the communication frequency came through his ear bud didn't sit well with him.

"Anything on the other channels?" he said.

His eye heads up display (HUD) flashed a message: Nothing.

Ernie leaned forward and flipped a few switches on the instrument panel. The panel may have been older than he was, but the levers and switches still passed inspection. The overhead panel was in perfect working order and so was either of the panels on his left and right. Last Hope was retro while other cargo carriers were sporting shiny glass cockpits. The only piece of glass in the cockpit was standard two-inch by six-inch HUD on the top of the instrument panel. "So, they all went to dinner at the same time?" he said to no one in particular.

Blackout? Maintenance? Solar storm? The eye HUD offered.

The milk run he had been contracted for was just that. A simple milk run out to the edge of known space. Drop off supplies for some lifers. No questions asked. No additional requests. Simple lay over. One day there. One day back. Last Hope was quieter than it ever had been since the crew's luck had paid off and they were settled in on a nice plot of land somewhere out here. They'd paired off, married and were now expecting their first born all the while, Ernie kept the lights on and scraped by with what little runs he could find for a one-man operation.

Sooner or later, you're gonna get the bug! His brother, Oscar Hawker had said right before Ernie had left them on that lovely world. Wherever it was. Outer colonies always had strict security. But, outer colonies with nurseries were worse. The amount of background checks Ernie had endured just so he could drop off his former crew mates bordered on the insane. And he liked security, too.

"Whedon Traffic Control this is Last Hope, requesting landing clearance, Clarence." Ernie tweaked the radar domes in the center panel. Nothing came back.

"Bring up the schedule. We can't be the only ones out here." He said.

His eye HUD found a photo of the handwritten spreadsheet he had image captured before they'd left dock. Two ship names were scribbled in. One of which was Last Hope and the other was, well, it was really scribbled in.

"Gahsakes, who taught you to write?" he laughed. "I haven't a clue what that is."

Neither do we. The eye HUD flashed a message.

His eye HUD wasn't a device. It was projection of light flashed across his retinas. The projection and the witty banter came from microscopic nanobots in his bloodstream. They were affectionately called "buggers" because they looked like bugs under the microscope. They were all that remained of an ancient computer network that had once stretched from one end of the universe to the other. They didn't make him all powerful since the rest of the universe had them, too. Except, half could use theirs the other half couldn't since they'd been burdened with a mystical aura.

Technology on one side of the coin, mystical magic on the other with mortals down the middle. Or as Ernie's father liked to say: I liked it better when the universe made sense. He didn't care about his burden; he'd had it since he was a child, so it was as natural as breathing.