Ship Log - Verse Date: 4216.45 

We emerge from the speeding blur of luminescence, the surroundings ease into clarity. What we see on the other side of the jump is shocking. The docking station shines glowing neon lights spelling out, Verse 28. The once small and sleek station had grown to an immense size with transports flying by like traffic in a New York City rush hour. Spacecraft we have never seen before were now zipping past us leaving behind trails of tracers. Some are shaped like rockets, others bubble-like, and they are decorated with bright colors of an artsy nature.

The Infinitum glowing with radiate rays cast from this sector's star, a blue giant. Its reach filling every corner of the visible distance around us.

Here we are, once again being transported into a precious Verse. What could be going on, I wonder. It doesn't make sense. We have never been to a single previous verse before, and now all at once we are consistently returning to them.

"Captain, this place is beautiful. I've never seen anything like it before." I tell her.

"Yeh, this isn't in the ship's observatory. I would have remembered something like this." Captain Selta says.

"This must be one of the lost verses!" I add. "Art. Run a search for Verse 28. Keywords: lost." I tell the ships onboard AI computer.

Art is a highly intelligent onboard AI system with a bit of personality. We turned it off sometimes because that feature was still in beta, so sometimes he would say things that didn't make sense. It often sounded forced, and creepy.

"Certainly, I can do that for you, friend." He says. Clearly, the setting was turned on at the moment. "I found this lovely file on Verse 28. No reports are available for that Verse. It says here the most likely ship to have been visited there is the Drako."

"Thanks Art."

"My pleasure! Care for a drink later?"

"No, I've got a prior engagement."

"I don't see anything listed in your calendar sir, shall I add it for you?"

"Uhh, no, it's an unlisted event."

"Hmmm" Art is thinking.

"Thanks art that will be all"

"No problem sir, just holler if ya need me."

Captain Selta cuts an eye over at me with a questionable glare.

"Prior engagement?" She says.

"Actually, I think I'm going to talk with Lieutenant Lector about our last 2 jumps. Maybe we can finally control our jumps."

Captain Selta gives me an odd salute. Not sure what that was about. She's probably still unsettled about the Gallians.

———- Time break

The flat steel door to engineering opens with a soft blow of air. Freshly brewed coffee grounds fill the air. The clear computer screens lined the walls with digital pixelations of numbers and images. The floors lined with stiff carpet, and everyone in engineering was hard at work. The sound of keys being punched, conversations, and arguments.

I look over to the central helm to my left.

"Lieutenant Lector, good to see you today."

"You too Lieutenant Loon. I assume you came down to find out about our recent Verse jumps"

"You know me too well, but that coffee is starting to fill my nose. I think I'll have a cup of that"

"Go right ahead captain... I mean Lieutenant." Lector slips up.

"Don't get me started on that." I say. Last thing I need is to get riled up on that again. It's sure to come up in my next session with the ship psychologist. I'll save it for him.

"Still haven't passed the exam huh?"

"Nope, and I doubt I ever will if Dr. Wells has anything to do with it"

"That bad huh?"

"Yeh." I take a sip of the black steaming coffee. "Ohhh, yeeehh. That's the one."

"The other engineers seem to like it" He says.

"So, what's been going on with the jumps lately. Can we replicate it so we can set a destination?"

"Well, we're not quite there yet, but give us a few weeks. Right now, we think something happened in the previous jump before Verse 302. The anomaly we flew through must have been different in some way that it reacted with the black matter reactor." He says

"Let me know when you have more. I'm not sure how many more of these surprises I can take with Captain Selta."

"Hang in there Lieutenant."

"Yeh, oh, before I go, can you take a look at this device you gave me? I tried to make it work but it didn't do anything. Could be helpful to have in the future."

"Sure Lieutenant."

He grabs the device, points it at the wall, and presses the blue button on the side. A bright blinding light came out the red end, and hit the wall. As the smoke clears, there is a hole in the wall in the shape of a circle the size of a beach ball.

"Wooohh, what the hell? How did you get that thing to work?" I ask him.

"I pressed the blue button." He says.

"Well what's the red button for then?"

"That's not a button, it's a dust cover."

"Oh. That explains a lot."

"Don't sweat it Lieutenant, user error is the most common problem when troubleshooting."

"Very funny."

I take the device back, and head back to the command deck. Captain Selta is probably losing her shit right now without me.

——- Time break

"Captain, what is going on?" I ask her, holding on to the ship's control panel. It's hard to keep a foot with all the turbulence. Bright lights fill the command deck like the blinding glare of high beam headlights.

"I don't know. It just started a few seconds ago. Art, scan all frequencies."

"Shields up John!" I say.

"I sir"

Everything stops and the lights go dim. On screen popes up a fella just dressed down in a t-shirt, with a bobble head doll on the dash. He had blonde hair, and a surprised look on his face.

"Oh, no. I've gone and done it again, haven't I? My insurance will cost me double now. I won't be able to afford it either. Oh, please let me pay you for your troubles, just don't call the police."

His grin shows his uncertainty of what he thinks we'll decide.

"Uh, actually could you just come aboard, and tell us what you know about this sector? We're traveling a long way, and we'd like to know more about the place."

"And you won't report this to the insurance agency if I do?"

"Yeh" I say.

He pulls around to the docking bay, and begins his landing procedures.

"I don't know about you captain, but I think we should avoid sounding like we're from another verse until we know more about this Verse."

"Agreed" She said.

We head to the docking bay to talk to this man.

——— Time break

In the docking bay, his colorfully designed ship lands with grace. We hear sounds of air compressors going off as he opens the metal door to his ship. A carpet on the stairways of his exit. He steps off the ship.

"Greetings, my name is Dorian. I come in peace." He giggles a bit "Just having a laugh." He says. We don't laugh right away. Our faces stand still. We broke out in a long winded forced laugh to break the silence, which trails off at the ends.

"I'm Captain Selta. This is Lieutenant Loon. We are the commanding officers of the Infinitum."

"Listen I can pay you for the damage if you need"

"No, no! All we want are directions."

We find out from him that the sector is indeed Verse 28. It's been many thousands of years for them here since the Drako had dropped the first of their people off. Probably 10,000 years from the sound of it.

"Yes and after about a thousand years, our people must have decided you were never coming back, and so we started just living and moving on with their lives." He says.

He tells us about all the people of this sector, and gives us a digital map. Shoots it right over the frequency. On his way out, he turns to tell us something.

"One last thing, avoid the Xaxons. Terribly violent people of planet XAX. It's on the map. We tried to reason with them, but they are unreasonable people. If you do encounter them, just remember to stay calm and ask for directions. They sense fear and they have an insatiable craving for organisms experiencing fear. Well, on we go then."

Dorian leaps onto his ship's stairs, and off he goes.

——- Time break

Using the map we decided to travel a bit to see a few planets in the sector. We know to avoid the Xaxons, but we are curious about the other colorful planets he drew on the map. Sindfu was drawn in a light blue color, and shows a smiley face next to it with other little symbols of food, alcohol, guns, and the sex symbols.

Seems a good a place as any.

"Let's go there captain." I point at Sindfu.

"The one with the guns, alcohol, and sex symbols?" She says with a high pitched tone.

"Yeah that's the one"

"No."

"Look, we have to learn more about these people." I say.

"Sure we do."

"Let's go to that one instead." She points to a dull brown planet with images of nuns, meh face, and a large cross, indicating what I fear is a large religious civilization.

"Fine, John take us to the dull brown one." I tell him.

"I, sir. Dull brownie coming right up"

"Not funny" I say.

"Sorry sir"

We head for the planet. It's real name Nunia. As we approached its blue hue made my neck tension relax. I felt calm, almost as if the planet was radiating an essence that we had just crossed into. Perhaps, there's something to this place.

A group of people appear on screen wearing black hoods and gowns with white under cloth. Nuns. This does not look good.

"Hello my child, welcome to our pure planet. I'm Delighla, the planet's steward. We hope you will enjoy it here."

"Not likely." I said under my breath.

"Shut up." Captain Selta tells me out the side of her mouth.

"I'm Captain Selta, this is Lieutenant Loon. We accept your blessing." She says. "We will be ferrying down soon." Captain Selta continues.

"Take your time, and please, feel free to take the lord's vows while you're here. He wants us all to be saved." Delighla says.

I have to say, I wanted to stay on the ship for this one. But Captain Selta would have had a hard time on her own. I'm sure of it. Now, on the intrepid ferry, space traffic flying by my window, I gaze into the abyss that has become my life for today.

As we enter the atmosphere, the sounds of angels resonate with the ferry. Almost like there are real spirits here. With a soft landing on a strip of land we are finally free to roam the vastness of this planet. As we exit the ferry, we're met by a group a Nuns, and they were putting something like a rosary around everyone's neck.

"Bless you. Bless you, young souls, bless you old souls. Oh, hello!"

"Hi, I don't need one but thanks." I say.

"They're free."

"I'm good."

"The great lord and savior wants you to wear it for protection!" Something about the way she urges me as if to almost be mumbling it under her breath. Wear this or you'll be in trouble. Her eerie voice raised the hairs on the back of my neck.

"Ok, fine."

"Good boy, you'll thank me later." She says putting the rosary around my neck.

We continue down the religious stricken corridor of crosses along every wall, and statues of a man. Their god perhaps. When all at once, there was a loud thunder and a bolt of lighting so bright, it blinds us for just a moment.

"You there! Who are you?" The shining entity demands.

A ghostly creature appeared before us speaking in a deep voice that echoed throughout the building.

"We are stalwarts of the Infinitum. A Bluith Verseship. We are looking for a group of people that might have been here thousands of years ago."

"Why do you want to know about these people? Surely they are dead and gone by now."

"Yes, but we are interested to learn how all this came to be."

"It came to be because I, Zapolan the god of Nunia have wished it into existence. If you are going to live on this planet you must bow before me, and say 10 graces to me while kissing the vondilin."

"What's a vondilin?"

Just then a colorful man walks by visiting from another planet wearing a plethora of colorful clothes, and multicolored hair. He pulls the rosary from around his neck, and throws it in the trash can as he walks. Zapolan turned red, and burst into flame. His hand raises and strikes down the colorful man. The man disappears in a puff of smoke.

"That was a Vondilin."

"That guy?"

"No, the thing he threw in the trash."

"Oh, ok, yeh sure we'll do it."

Hell yeah we'll do it. I'm not about to be turned into a puff of smoke. If you want me to kiss your ass too I'll do that too. This is turning out to be exactly as I thought it would be.

But, as we kneel on the hard floor, and bowing to this God of Nunia, a group of young nuns walked by, and one of them looked at me and giggled a bit.

Her eyes sparkle of 100 starlit galaxies. Immediately my opinion of this place changes.

"Careful lieutenant, we're supposed to be learning about this place, not serenading it." Captain Selta says.

"What better way to get to know a culture of people than by understanding their mating customs." I say to her.

After we finish the graces to our new god, I quickly scurry over to the young nuns that had just passed. There she is standing by the window, the sunlight glow haloed around her head indicating she is an angel. She turns and sees me staring at her, so I walk up to her.

"Lieutenant Loon, nice to meet you." I stick out my hand to shake hers. Suddenly, I'm surrounded by men in priest uniforms, and they grab hold of my arms. Holding them behind my back. Captain Selta back where I left her, anxiously watching me getting whisked off to some godly place.

However, instead they took me and the nun to a nearby church, and made us get married immediately.

"You have committed the cardinal advance towards a woman of Zapolan. By doing this you have shown your intention to marry her, and provide for her for life." The main priest said from within his white flower covered gown. She says nothing to me, but giggled. I now think this place is the worst yet again, but still I'm interested to learn more about her.

Standing there at the altar, vast open space, pews and high ceilings. The organ reaches ceiling heights as we could hear the organist melody play. Newly wedded and wife hand in hand, I knew I would have a lot more to explain to the ship psychologist at my next visit.