[M] Beyond The Solar Horizon (Blazing_Falcons x Numbers)

[Blazing Falcons]

Several hours had passed before Domino woke. The light made him shut his eyes again and look to the side. He opened his eyes again, this time only slightly until his eyes became accustomed to the light. He sat up and took in his surroundings. He was in a medical bay. He noticed his clothes on the table, and quickly looked down. A blanket had been placed over him, but most of it no longer covered him now that he was sitting up. He was wearing another outfit, and his jaw dropped in embarrassment. He felt around his back, under the shirt he felt that his wound had been bandaged.

Though his cut had been treated, he was still dehydrated, evidenced by his headache. He slid his legs off the of the bed, and slowly set his feet on the floor. He kept his hand on the bed for support in case he'd fall again. He moved over to the sink and set one hand on the counter, and used the other to turn on the faucet. He took a small step back and bent forward to drink. The water was refreshingly cool, and he drank for well over a minute. He finally turned the water off and climbed back onto the medical bed. He didn't want to put on his clothes yet, not until he was sure he'd have privacy to do so.

[Numbers]

Nymph was still sitting in her chair, resting some. There was a slight beep from the ship's onboard A.I. in order to alert her that her friend was awake. It took her a moment to fully stir away but eventually, she did and sat up more properly. She adjusted as she felt slightly sore from having slept some in her armor. She did a quick few stretches to pop some different joints in her back before taking off her armor, revealing her more normal like clothes of a t-shirt and jeans.

She pressed a button for the intercom to connect it to the medical room. "Looks like you're finally awake. You've been out for a few hours. If you're feeling better than get dressed and get up here to the cockpit. We'll be leaving Hyper Space here soon and we'll be arriving at the planet that has my base. Should keep us safe from whoever it was hunting us on the other planet. I can explain more though when you get up here. As well don't worry about the camera's no one is watching you." She said in an obviously amused tone.

She started work on getting the ship ready to leave Hyper Space, normally it was fine to let auto-pilot take it off, however, the system where the single sun and single planet are located were more hostile near the outside of the system. There were only three objects in the system, the sun, the planet, and a large asteroid belt that circled the outside of the system, making it so that you had to take manual control whenever you entered the system. The HyperSpace coordinates for the system would normally make the ship pull out right in the middle of the asteroid belt since the coordinates were made before the belt was there. There used to be three planets but two of them crashed into each other and created the now asteroid belt. It proved an extremely useful defense for the system if any enemies found the old coordinates, which was entirely possible if the enemy tracked the coordinates. However, even if they did it would look like it went to empty space so they would more than likely send scouts and the scouts should hopefully be ripped up by the belt.

[Blazing Falcons]

Privacy. Well, Nymph claimed he had it, and everything else that had happened, he trusted her. Domino sat up again and swung his legs off the bed, with the rest of him sliding off after them. Moving still made him a little dizzy. He hoped that moving about enough would clear it up. He began to undress, beginning with the shirt. As he bent forward, he felt a twinge of pain and grunted. He was worried that the wound on his back had opened up. He felt around the area of the wound but remembered the bandage. Settling for hoping he was merely sore, he removed the rest of the clothing and hurriedly redressed in his own clothes.

As he believed he was no longer in any dangerous or potentially dangerous situation, Domino removed the steel plate from the front armor pocket in his shirt and set it on the table. He made a mental note to look into seeing if he could get an armor pocket sewn into the back of his shirt as well. Now sufficiently satisfied with his outward appearance, he took a few more sips from the sink and stepped out of the med-bay. He found his way to the cockpit, he rapped his knuckles gently on the wall to announce his arrival, and then said, "Hey. Thanks for patching me up."

[Numbers]

She turned around and looked at him smiling. "No problem. Now I suggest sitting down and buckling in. We're about to exit hyperspace and it is going to get really bumpy." She said with a smile before turning back to the console in front of her. She was quickly pressing some buttons and pulling on some levers until the ship wheel appeared in front of her. She grabbed onto it with her hands before speaking again. "Get ready." Was all she said.

A few seconds later and the hyperspace drive turned off making them exit in the middle of the asteroid belt. She quickly adapted to the asteroids that were in front of her and turned the ship in order to make it so they missed the rock that was right in front of them. She then pulled several turned and was using all of the emergency thrusters to navigate around any dangerous rocks that found themselves in her way. After a few minutes of it though they popped out of the asteroid belt.

She let out a sigh and relaxed some as she kept her hands on the wheel of the ship. "Welcome to my system. Sorry for the bumpy ride, the FTL coordinates drop right into that asteroid belt. My base is in this system because of that because it makes one of the best defense systems ever." She said as she continued to pilot the ship to the only planet that could be seen. The planet was covered in an ocean with multiple islands around the planet. Her base was on one of the larger islands. The area of the island was 597 mi² so it was nice size island. It was mainly covered in jungle except for the area where her base was. Her base was on the beach side of the island so that she could use the wind and water to help power her base in conjunction with the solar panels that she also had.

[Blazing Falcons]

As one who liked to think himself as one that followed good advice, Domino did as suggested and buckled into the empty seat. He drew out a quiet, deep breath. His jaw was clenched tight, and when he finally exhaled (and then inhaled again), did so through his nose. The process was repeated for the entirety of the travel through the asteroid belt. His hands tightened around the armrests of the chair.

"Makes for one of the most self-hazardous defense systems too. Wow! I think my heart stopped a couple times in that." Domino said, blinking rapidly a few times and finally forcing his hands to relax their grips. "That said, that was really impressive flying."

[Numbers]

She smiled slyly at his comment. "I knew you would like it." She said looking at him for a moment before turning back to the view in front of her. "Now for the fun part." She said with another smile. She continued to drive the ship until they were hovering over the atmosphere of the planet. She quickly started to press some buttons on her ship. Different sirens and sounds started to go off for a moment before they turned back off again.

"Alessia is this close enough for you to make communications with the land systems." There were a few beeps and dings in response. "Okay, prepare the landing pad then for the arrival of the ship. I'll manage the landing controls manually ship side if you handle it land side." There was another singular beep. "Okay now let's hope that the landing pad is clear of plant matter."

She hit a few more buttons and two screens appeared in front of them showing whats below the ship. "May not want to look at the ship while we go down. We're gonna be letting gravity do all of the work for the most part." She said with a sort of almost evil grin on her face. That was when she grabbed hold of one lever and pulled it all the way down. There was a moment of silence as almost all of the power on the ship turned off. The only power that was on was going to her smaller thrusters that she used for turning and going up and down. She told the ship to move quickly down and it only took a moment before gravity quickly took over. Of course the Inertia Dampeners were also receiving power in order to make it slightly comfortable for them, but the screens in front of them showed them just how fast they were going down. It only took a few minutes before the ocean and the island they were aiming for came into closer view.

"Annnnnnnddddddddd....... NOW!" She quickly hit the lever pulling it all the way back up and making power shoot into the ship. The ship slowed down so quickly that it was easily able to be felt as they were pressed against their seats. A moment later there was a loud thud on the ship. The screens showing below them showed that metallic arms had shot out from the landing pad to also catch the ship and was now slowly lowering it down to the pad. Nymph turned off the screens before turning to Domino. "Well that was fun."

[Blazing Falcons]

"Don't look." Another one of these moments? How many of these experiences am I going to have today? Domino pondered. He saw the grin on her face and did as recommended and shut his eyes. The lights dimmed. He wanted to look, but knew it would cause him unneeded stress. The ship was rumbling. They were entering the atmosphere now. Why not just use a teleporter? So much safer than this! he thought.

For just a brief moment, he made the mistake of opening his eyes and taking in how fast they were falling. A quiet, almost whispered "Eep" escaped him. He took another peek as Nymph was drawing out her "and". The sudden forward jolt caused his eyes to shoot open in surprise. He started laughing nervously as the ship began to slow down.

"You and I have widely differing ideas of fun I'm starting to think." he said, his laughter dying down. "I should've stayed asleep for just a little longer than I did. I'd be feeling WAY less stressed than I am right now. I need to lie down." He paused as a question struck him, "Is this something you do regularly?"

[Numbers]

When he asked her the question on whether or not she did this often she could only think of one answer. "Depends on what you count as regularly. If you mean every time I come to the base then for the most part I do. It allows for a better established connection between my ships on board computer system, and her sister computer system in the base. Refueling, repairs, restocking of used medical supplies. A big one is cleaning the engines and outside of the ship of space dust. Partially to collect it and resell it."

She unbuckled the straps on her seat and stood up from the chair stretching her body for a moment as she made herself as tall as possible in the process. "Not to mention it's much easier to defend my ship from an attack if it is here on the ground with me. The asteroid belt acts as a natural defense system as you learned. Prevents military ships that are cruiser class or larger entering the system. Smaller ships can be dealt with using either the anti-air defense system or the orbital cannon I have buried in case of emergency. It uses a huge amount of power so it can only fire a shot every few minutes or so."

She walked over to the exit of the cockpit and turned around facing him to speak again. "I've been working this job for a while now and have had plenty of time to get my base well defended against people who might want to find me or hunt me down. Paranoid is what some people would call me, careful is what I say. We'll stay here long enough to make sure all of your wounds are healed enough for you to get back to work and able to fight. That way when we go to get your ship, just in case they have it, we'll be able to fight for it." She said with a serious sort of smile.

[Blazing Falcons]

"I meant something like, 'do you do this every week, every month, every other day' kind of frequently." He clarified while unbuckling his harness as well. "Is space dust particularly valuable? I doubt one could afford to pay for a self-sustaining base on just scavenging things like medicine or weapons like I do. And I don't think I've ever taken the time to get my ship cleaned of aforementioned dust. I might be sitting on a fortune!" He said, the optimism being audible in his voice before it was vaporized by the mention of their attackers possibly having his ship.

The thought of his ship being captured never once crossed Domino's mind from the moment he left home. He was only concerned about himself. His ship's computer. Pieces of paper all around the ship. They contained the coordinates to his home. What have I done? he thought, a sense of hopelessness making its way into his mind. "My home world's coordinates are easily accessible on my ship." he said, the fear being as detectable in his voice as the optimism of a space dust fortune was. "Do you have any idea who those people who attacked us might have been? Do you think there's something in those documents we took that might tell us if they'd attack or hold my home hostage?"

Calm yourself. he tried to command himself, Panic's not going to help in any way. You need to heal up and you'll have to deal with whatever comes after. He stood up and was ready to follow Nymph out. He hoped she'd also have someplace on the base where he could try to repair his rifle while his wounds recovered.

[Numbers]

As she continued to do stuff in the ship to make sure it was ready to open it's cargo doors she worked some buttons that were near the cargo doors. "Space dust isn't particularly worth a lot. It's not worth nothing though, I would put it around the same price as normal salvaging items. The market is much bigger on it though. Most people think, oh space dust, if I really want some I'll just go get some, after all its just space dust. That reason is why the market is bigger on it though. Because it's so easy to get, very little people actually bother with collecting it. In my case, what space dust I don't keep to turn into other stuff, I usually sell to the underworld for others to buy and resell. Usually you see space dust appearing in certain products of makeup, as well as a sort of dance flair for dancers. Though this dust is hardly the reason I have a self sustaining base The structures here are simply the ruins of a long forgotten empire. I populated almost everything in the ruins using money, but I did have a better paying job before being a salvager."

She said amused as the cargo doors started to open and reveal the beautiful island that they were on. She started to walk down the cargo doors once they were fully open, assuming that domino would follow behind her. "There might be information in the papers to who these people are. Thankfully right now you are considered a salvager so the chance of them doing something to your home world in hope of it having an affect on you, will probably not happen. After all, lots of salvagers are exiles, those with no homes, runaways from the law. If anything they would probably think that your world would pay them to try and find you, which they might follow up on. So hope you didn't anger your world for some reason. Though if you have any family or loved ones, that could be proved to be used against you."

She continued to lead him along the path until they reached her base. She led him inside and the air was cool, close to the perfect temperature. The main room was filled with monitors and computers and other screens showing different areas in the system. "I'll certainly run the papers through the system and see if the computer and come up with any information on who might be hunting us down. For now just rest. Don't worry about your homeland. Just let your body heal some, repair your gear, the works. I'll send some messages to some contacts I have, see if I can't get someone to see if your ship is still around or not."