Into the Unknown
| Into the Unknown | |
| Author: | Jellyman87 |
| Status: | Incomplete |
| Canon: | TBD |
|
This article is not currently part of Beyond the Frontier's official canon. |
Into the Unknown is an incomplete fanfiction set within the world of Beyond the Frontier.
Background
Characters
- Joseph Pope
- Drak'us
Settings
Into the Unknown
All was silent aboard the Nova Ingressus. A Striker-class Destroyer, demilitarised of course.. All the lights were off as it drifted aimlessly through space. The only indication of any power was the low hum coming from the CO2 scrubbers. And the reason for all this quiet? There was only one person on board, Captain Joseph Pope. Well he could hardly be called a Captain, he never had any crew. He never wanted this ship, but had fallen upon him. Most of his adult life, he had been a 'local transport pilot' (or cab driver to you and me) on Dwyn. A planet that had been compared to some place called Las Vegas on old Earth. Gambling, hookers, con artists and plenty of murders. It had been his home for the first thirty years of his life. He never had a problem telling people his mother was a prostitute. The problem was, he never knew who his father was. Until that day anyway.
Joe had a message to go report to the Office of Transport, Registering and Licensing. It didn't say why, just that he had to report immediately. He was a little panicky. To say he was a law abiding cabbie, would be a full blown lie. For the most part, he had gotten away with it, but had they finally caught up with him. Landing his taxi in the lot, he stepped out. Looking at the large building in front him and began to sweat. The building in it's self was intimidating. Several stories high with landing pads on, and around it. and over a mile in length. Any vessel that arrived in the Mithus system had to register. He watched small vessels coming and going for a moment before taking a deep breath. He walked in through the front door. He waited for what seemed an age before he was finally at the front desk. He was about to speak, when he heard a big booming voice. "Pope, get your ass in here." Grating his teeth, he smiled at the receptionist before turning his head towards the voice. "Certainly Drak'us, I'll be right there." He replied, mocking enthusiasm.
Casually making his way over, he shut the door behind him and took a seat, slumping as he did it. "What is it this time?" He asked, expecting a fine of some kind. "Are you going to move that junk out of my port or what?" Joe sat up straight. "Junk?" Drak'us slid a pad over to him. "Yeah, it's been there almost a month. Didn't think you as the type to go into cargo runs." Joe looked down at the pad. It did indeed say it was his. "Wait, this has to be a mistake." He stated as he slid the pad back. "It must be some other Joseph Pope." Drak'us pushed the pad back. "I don't think so, that's your ID code, isn't it?" Joe looked more closely. It was his code. "Look, I'll cut you some slack. I'll give you one more week to get it moved, or we will impound it." Joe was wide eyed. What was he going to do? He first thought was selling it, but who would buy a Striker class? They stopped making them a couple of centuries ago. Drak'us handed him an access card. "It's in Section three, pad C."
Taking the card, Joe nodded before getting up. He left the office before heading towards the internal transport pod. The size of the place made it necessary. A guard was going to stop him, but he just flashed the card without looking. He entered the transport and called for where he wanted to go, as he continued to stare into nothing. The transport dinged and opened up into a hanger deck. A multitude of small vessels littered the room. As he left, he walked up to a worker and asked where Pad C was. They pointed him in the right direction. As he moved closer, he realised which one was his. Although he knew about these types of ships, he had never actually seen one. It was bigger than he thought. It filled the pad, barely leaving room on either side. Now, what was he going to do with it.
The silence aboard the ship was disrupted. Red lights began flashing. Joe woke as they hit his eyes. "No mum, five more minutes." Then the siren blared. His eyes were open wide now. As he went to climb out of his bunk, his legs got tangled in the blanket, causing him to fall face first into the deck. "Damn it" he mumbled into the deck. Freeing himself from his own restraints, he quickly dashed to the cockpit. Jumping into the pilot's seat, he looked at his screens 'Collision Alert' it said in big letters. As he looked up out of the window, a large rock flew past the window. "Okay, brown trouser time. Grabbing the sticks, he swerved and dived through the oncoming rocks. There was a few near misses and the odd scrape but he managed to get to the other side in one piece.
As he leveled off, he released the sticks and let his head fall back. Closing his eyes, he thought about just going back to sleep there. The ship had other ideas, it started beeping at him. "What now?" He moaned as he looked at his screens once more. His eyes widened as he realised what he was looking at. A ship. He couldn't tell what ship as he still hadn't worked out what was wrong with the sensors. He was only getting partial readings. Grabbing the sticks once more, Joe altered his path to intercept its drift. The speed it was going, it wasn't under its own power. As he grew nearer, he could tell there was little to no power. He wasn't sure if anyone was on board, but then his thermal reading told him otherwise.
Now he was close enough, he could see it was a mid range transport that was used by the Civil Defence Force. He couldn't see a name. There was a fair few scrapes on the hull. Annoyingly, the biggest being straight across the name. He knew he was certainly in a better position than they were. Perhaps he could exchange supplies. Using his grapplers, he slowed the ship down until it stopped. He then manoeuvred his airlock to theirs. As he heard the clunk, he ran to the supply cabinet at the rear of the cockpit. Pulling out the small weapon, his only weapon, he headed straight for the airlock. Not knowing how friendly they would be, he held up his weapon.
Pressing the release button, he stood solid as the hatch opened. He was blinded for a second as their torches shone in his eyes. Using his free hand, he shielded his eyes. They must have realised and lowered their torches. They looked at Joe with a smile. "What?" He asked as he lowered their weapons. Their smiles grew. He could see they were trying to hold back laughter. "What is so funny?" He demanded, holding out his hands. At that point, they burst out laughing, and pointing. Looking down, Joe finally realised what was so funny. Being on his own all this time, he rarely bother to wear many clothes. On this occasion though, he wasn't wearing any. With raised eyebrows, he looked up. "I'll be right back." tapping the button to close the hatch, he turned and head back to his bunk.
