Space travel can be extremely uncomfortable. A vessel like the Moby dedicates a significant amount of resources to mitigate that. The food is good. We have all kinds of entertainment facilities. There are rooms that replicate different environments to give a taste of home. We have planned events to keep things interesting. Plays, concerts, film festivals, you name it. We spent weeks jumping from one side of the galaxy to the other so this helps keep us all sane. The best thing you can do in space is everything possible to forget you are in space.

  There are times this fails. Gravity never feels right, especially when two races whose personal preferred gravity levels are too far apart get just a little too close to each other. Everyone wears mag boots or carries a mag grapple at all times just in case. The smart ones have both. And as good as holo screens have gotten, they just don’t look real enough to convince anyone for long they are looking at a bustling city or pristine farmland and not in fact inside a metal tube hurling through the black void of cold space at a thousand kilometers a second. Even Station life is better than being on a warship. At least they have so much room you may never see every corner of it.

  One big perk of life on a spaceship, at least in my opinion, is wormhole travel. It’s far smoother than you’d expect. Even smoother than the sublight engines. I’ve been told it has something to do with the gravitational fields used to hold the wormholes open. It’s all very technical and far above my pay grade. Besides, the part I really like is the look of it. Regular space gets boring after a while. It's all black with white spots. Even through the holo screens on the bridge, this is something else entirely. Wormholes are like a rainbow of colors that shouldn’t exist. It’s “Starry Night” if Van Gogh had done ten lines of Stardust first. I could stare at it till my eyes bleed purple.

  Sadly, not everyone agrees with me.

  “Tom, can we please turn off the screen?”

  Fairy pokes her snout out from her hiding place under my chair. She’s trembling like a dog in a thunderstorm.

  “It’s so loud. How can you just sit there when it’s so loud?”

  The speakers are off. I don’t know what she’s hearing but it isn’t sound. Real or not, something is hurting her sensitive little ears. No choice then.

  “Thank you. I don’t know how you put up with that.”

  “Guess my hearing isn’t as good. What did it sound like?”

  “Could you really not hear any of that? It was like genocide.”

  “Uh… what does that mean exactly?”

  “I don’t know. That’s just what it sounds like; a genocide.”

  “So not weapons or screams or a gas chamber. Nothing specific like that?”

  “No, none of that.”

  “You are telling me it sounds like the metaphysical concept of a genocide?”

  “Yes, that exactly.”

  “I… have no words.”

  “Those were words right there."

  Yeah, best not to have Fairy in the room next time I decide to wormhole watch. The only other people I could get for this little watch part were Deed and Joan. Everyone else did their best to get out of it like I was asking them to watch a documentary on how sausage is made. And they don’t exactly make the best company.

  “Inquiry: If the wormhole transports us through an alternative dimension of reality, would it be possible to reside within that reality for long term habitation?”

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  “I already told you I don’t know. Not that, not anything else. Period. You gear heads are supposed to be smart. How have you not figured out wormhole travel yet?”

  “Rebutal: Devour excrement and become deceased. Was that a sufficient insult for the scenario?”

  “Getting better.”

  Deed thought if he learned how to speak more naturally it would increase his chances of endearing the Diegiton to us biologicals. He made a grievous error asking me for help on that.

  “Tell me Deed, what did you hear when we were in the wormhole?”

  “Interjection: There are no auditory or visual stimuli within the wormhole.”

  “Wait, none?”

  “Confirmation: All I am able to observe is a white void. Nothing more.”

  “Weird. Hey Joan. Joan!”

  Joan is deeply asleep in her chair. I toss my bribery treats at her from across the room. A candy coated peanut land squarely in her mouth at the peak of an extra loud snore.

  “I is wake! I is wake. What want?”

  “What did you see in the wormhole Joan?”

  “Worm, hole? You mean sleepy place?”

  “So you see something that makes you sleepy?”

  “See? I see nothing. Just sleeps.”

  I have to test something. Quick flip of the screen back on.

  “That's the sleepy placcckckkaaAAAAAHHHH! Pwuuueueue.”

  Damn. Put her out like a light. I’m getting a call. Save these experiments for another day.

  “You’ve got Tom.”

  “It’s Inanna. Are you done torturing yourself?”

  “This is for a very important project. Are you outside the door?”

  The door behind me opens and Inanna walks inside.

  “Good, it'sit's off. Wormholes always give me a massive headache.”

  “What do you see?”

  “Visual noise. A mess of endless spirals and broken shapes in the most putrid colors I’ve ever seen.”

  “Don’t suppose you know why everyone sees something different.”

  “No one does. Another great mystery of the universe. The more superstitious like to say it acts as the reflection of a person’s very soul.”

  “And the fact most people find it an unpleasant or even painful experience has nothing to do with that, I’m sure.”

  “I’m more terrified of people who enjoy it. I don’t want to meet a man who can stare into Hell and smile.”

  “... did you have a reason to be on my bridge?”

  “I was the, what's your word for it, canary. I need to signal everyone else that it’s safe.”

  The rest of my crew make their way in. I notice Alcea still isn’t talking to Deed. Going out of her way to emphasize the fact she is looking in the opposite direction as she walks by. Hard to tell if Deed is noticing or not. Vivvian has been having issues lately as well. Ever since the Bathos battle she’s been strangely quiet. Her plumage droops far more than it used to. Hopefully this trip will be good for her.

  “How much longer until we reach the Andamus system?”

  Inanna brings up a picture of her homeworld. Andamus, the shining Sapphire of the Western Sector. It really is pretty. Bet it’s even better up close.

  “We should be arriving shortly. The Relay is in orbit around Andamus. We will exit mere minutes from the docking station.”

  “That’s awfully close. Are you sure it’s safe?”

  “Absolutely, Andamus is the busiest planet in the whole Western Sector. There are three Habitation Stations dedicated just to handling all the travelers. We have a Trader Hub, a Fortress Station, the largest training academy on the entire Western side of Union space, and a complex network of micro stations across over thirty systems. And yet we never have accidents.”

  “Swanky. Sounds like you guys got a lot going on.”

  “Not to brag, but the Phibians have been considered for Greater Membership many times. We never make it, no one does. Still closer than most.”

  I say she’s laying it on thick, if she wasn’t right. Only one in Twenty Union members are classified as a Major race. Even making it that far puts them millenia ahead of us humans, and Phibians are at the top of that already high mountain. If anyone got to fill that coveted sixth slot, I’d bet money on them.

  “So what can we expect when we arrive? Like to know when to put on my swim trunks.”

  “I’d expect a royal welcome. Many Expeditionary Captains have made Andamus their go-to vacation spot in the past. I didn’t even have to get us a hotel. They are going to bid on us to stay with them.”

  “Are they really going to bribe us with free luxuries just so they can brag about us staying there?”

  Inanna gives a big froggy grin and nods.

  “We are entering the system. Let’s see what’s the most expensive bottle we can get for free.”

  I turn the screens back on. Most of the crew winces as the image of a wormhole fills the screen. Lucky for them it only stays but a moment. Its majesty fading away into the darkness of regular space. The beautiful ocean visage of Andamus comes into view. Its famous twin moons that spin around each other in an endless dance across the sky. Several massive stations that have made this the it spot for anyone and everyone on this side of the Galaxy. The gigantic hostile armada currently attacking the horribly outnumbered defense fleet.

  … That last one didn’t sound right.