Tevun-Krus #10 - TKX: Best of 2014

The Voyagers: First Contact

Grampa wouldn't show it but they all knew he would miss her just as much.  The journey home was the worst bit, for Jacob it hadn't really sunken in. What he found hard was his father's reaction, every few minutes he'd notice his father wiping his eye and the area around his eyes getting redder. Neither father nor son had said anything since they'd left Daisy at her dorm. It was only broke when they discussed where to stop for Dinner. 

Sitting in a highway diner they were surprised to find the food was actually quite nice. As was the waitress who got long stares from both of them as she walked away and both Father and Son shared a cheeky smile. Jacob was glad his mother wasn't here; she would have kept asking him to ask out the 'nice young lady'. It got on his nerves, nearly every day it was 'when are you going to find a girlfriend? When am I going to have some grandkids? Are you gay? I wouldn't love you any less if you were'. Christ sakes woman!He found himself almost saying aloud.

As they paid the bill Jacob went to the bathroom before they would be back in the car for another two hours. The diner was busy, filled with people and as usual all the stalls were taken. For a place this sized he questioned why there would only be four stalls as he paced up and down and angrily stopped at the one covered in 'Out of Order' tape. He couldn't hold it any longer, he was touching cloth. He pulled some of the tap off and stormed it, shut the door and dropped his pants. Before his bare cheeks touched the porcelain he felt he was falling. All the way to the floor that he hit with an ass shattering thud. Feeling dirty he jumped up and pulled his trousers trying to think about how many people probably pissed where his ass had lain for a few moments.

"What the fuck?" he whispered when he turned to see the toilet he'd wanted to launch a human waste assault on had vanished. There was no sign of it. No hole in the floor of exposed pipes, just an empty highway diner stall. He'd seen one; he wouldn't have bared his cheeks if he didn't. He left the stall, and upon closing the door heard a crackling noise. Like static over the radio, only for a split second. He opened the out of order door again and to his amazement the white target of faecal bombings had returned.

He rushed out the toilets trying to make sense of the situation but finding none, too scared to dump his load.

***

R'ha gazed out the giant ringed world that dwarfed his ship. Its rings were beautiful, nothing like that had graced the skies of his home world. "The Voyager of Three called that one Saturn, Shipmaster" explained his archivist. Mor'Gol had been the one to come to R'ha shortly after the discovery of The Voyager, suggesting the expedition that he'd already fully pre-planned, even before receiving clearance from the High Council. "The Voyagers were quite infatuated with one of its moon's...er...Titan" he said searching through the data. "They tried search for life there".

R'ha tapped a button and the window took a still of exactly what he was seeing, it was an incredible site, one worth sharing with everyone back home. "Don't worry Mor, we'll come back to get some samples" he comforted, "Earth is our first stop".

Mor'Gol left the shipmaster returning to his lab on the lower decks. R'ha tried not to seem in awe of the Archivist every time he appeared; he had done so much work decoding the words The Voyager of Three bought with it. What he shared with R'ha was amazing, more so than the view of the ringed planet before him. Intelligent life, beyond Segorsa was unheard of until the arrival of The Voyager. Mor had worked tirelessly listening to everything it had to say. He'd written six writings on The Voyagers and R'ha had read them all and to his children.

Everyday R'ha tried not to show his excitement to his crew, he tried not to get involved with the speculation and wishful thinking about what they might find at the end of their journey. The Shipmaster returned to the bridge, taking a seat in his chair as his crew tapped various commands on their consoles. "How far is Earth?" he asked. The name of the Voyagers home world was hard to pronounce, the humans had a different jaw that allowed them to make sounds R'ha's people couldn't even imagine.