Faux Realm Ch. 01

He hugged the Pad in his hands and managed to croak few silent words. His raspy voice was still unable to produce any noise that seemed normal to him. After a while of searching different meanings he drifted off to sleep.

***

She reached the bridge feeling wonderful as many men and women on board probably did not know what she was up to.

"Captain on deck." Everyone stood and waited.

"At ease. Anything new Ensign?"

"No, Sir... I mean ma'am." The young black haired Toudan stammered.

She smiled, remembering how gut retching her first post was on the bridge. "Relax, just focus on your job, talking should come secondary. The easy part is doing your job on your designated position."

Her advice was met by appreciative gaze from the young Toudan. His ridges moving slightly.

Toudan ridges were horizontally placed on males faces only. The more exited they got the more they moved. He had three of them running across his forehead. Making him look quite different from everyone on the bridge, but instead odd looks, everyone was focused on their own positions. As if following the words that came from their Captain.

Toudans' were one of the races that Star Republic found during their earlier territorial expansion. Over 500 habitable worlds under their space borders they have teams of xeno-biologists that make valuable discoveries every year.

"Captain we have 5 minutes until we reach Star Republic territory." Young Toudan informed his senior officer and made few adjustments on his console which constantly sent information to his probing eyes.

"Good, same speed and course. Send a course to VenuuX as soon as we cross it, maximum speed. Comms I want you to send automated message to every vessel that might want to stop us. Again we are on Priority 1 orders and speed is essential." She gave her orders.

She managed to spend good 8 hour day working and giving orders until it was time to rest her brain. She thought of the battered patient they were taking care of and managed pry few minutes of her relax time to spend some time getting to know him.

***

Lucian was busy tapping on the Pad and figuring out how to make it work faster. The essential data that he managed to acquire about his surroundings made him think of Star Trek movies, which made him giddy. First order of his search quest was to find out more about these Lizards that enslaved him. What he found out did not help him in the slightest.

Most of the information that was displayed was already known to him, Captain Ericha told him everything that he knew but still it made him sad and a bit angry that nothing was coming to light for him.

After several days in bed and several visits by Ericha he managed to befriend the amazing and kind woman who made him happy and managed to distract him from his losses. His world, his family.

Today he was alone in Medbay, tapping energetically on screen, he managed to get some movement back. His joints more nimble and as the doctor came few times, the one that he choked, he managed to apologize for his behavior.

He found few secret data files inside his Pad and after several hours of attempting to break in to see what it was he managed to enter it and discover that it was some sort of game. Being an avid gamer his keen eye noticed that there were similarities with some other Sci-Fi games and managed to crack it open. With a smile on his face and his gamer senses tingling, he started to read and saw that he was already in charge of some ship systems. Figuring that it was a text based game, even for a futuristic society the escape from simplistic format was hard to manage. He was elated that he found their two societies similarly connected by this small detail.

While managing to stay calm, discovering a new game was his only allowed high. It made him giddy and as usually he wanted to play this masterpiece.

Seeing several displayed words he noticed that his ship was already traveling through space. He wondered what designation for speed through space was, as 'warp' was mostly used by his world and only in fantastic worlds. He pushed few buttons and made the ship drop to normal speed.

Few flicks of his finger told him that he was in charge of transport vessel and saw that he had some room for additional cargo. Using his space map he noticed a system near him that had some ore and with few strokes made the ship go collect it, doing so he noticed a change in information. He was elated that this was not one of those pay2play mobile games. It actually made him fly the ship and input directional movements to dodge incoming asteroids and rock debris.

Game was extensive and took every moment of his time, from piloting to directing its tractor beams to collect ore inside his one remaining cargo hold. He was tempted to purge the one that was filled but decided on not doing so, knowing that he might have something rare inside his filled cargo hold. Years of gaming taught him not to discard anything he was not sure of, since it might be secret treasure someone asked millions for.

He tapped on screen several times and gave the ship his previous orders, when sudden and very loud commotion woke him up from his Pad. A rush of personnel made him flinch in horror as many people rushed inside the Medbay and started to yell and scream as they ran towards where he was resting. They threw the screen that obscured his view and at least 15 people with guns drawn towards him made him drop his Pad and point his palms towards them in surrender. His low mobility still made it hard to extend his elbows further so he was shaking and looking in horror and their angry faces.