Nadine Book 5

28. Tentra

The man with the thing in his head talks again. "Celestial Dragon requesting a docking station for repair. No, we have our own shuttle."

The ship moves up to this big white thing floating in space and hits it.

"Docking complete."

"Running full system scan. While the drive gets repaired."

"Alright, let's go down and get it."

Older Tye looks at them. "Grab some tubing if they have some. We're low."

"What size?"

"Half or quarter."

Tre and I follow the older Dipak and Marcus. Tre holds me so tight, and I hold penguin like my life depends on it.

"This shuttle." Dipak points at one of them.

The lights turn red as we climb in.

"Why is it red?" I squeeze penguin.

"They have to turn on the airlock. And seal the room before they open the bay door to let us out."

"Oh."

Dipak smiles. Then he floats the shuttle over beside a big door. Glass walls come up around us. "This is sealing us in the part by the outer door. Space is a vacuum with 0 gravity. Everything is air locked and sealed. We can't let that pressure get onto the ship." Me and Tre nod. "You'll understand eventually." The lights go red again and the big door opens.

We fly right outside the ship. I sit on Tre's lap by the window and watch earth get closer and closer.

We drop to the ground. Dipak lands between other shuttles. "Give me 45 minutes."

Marcus takes the driver's seat. "I'll take them over by Tentra."

"What's Tentra?"

"Small town not far from here. You can see how towns are now."

He gets us up in the air. "Come here Tre. I'll show you how to drive this."

"Can I see too?"

"Sure, but you'll have to sit on my lap."

I jump on Marcus. Tre rolls his eyes and moves to the driver's seat.

"You like your penguin angel?"

"I do." I give him a hug. "This thing steers. This deals with elevation. Push up, go up higher. This shows you how high you are compared to the ground." Tre moves the elevation thing up and down. "Good. Don't slam us down to earth too fast or shoot us out into orbit. That could be bad. The pedal on the floor controls the speed that we go. Push harder, go faster. Let the pedal go, we stop at a safe rate." Tre pushes the pedal and we go flying forward. "Better to start out light on the pedal." Tre nods and they start laughing. "This box controls the direction you are going. Meaning side to side or backwards. It's not the steering. It moves the entire shuttle side to side or backwards. Don't mess with it for now. And this lever is the stop now, lever. Pull it and we will stop moving very suddenly. Don't do that unless you are going to hit someone. Letting off the pedal will stop us safely and the outboard sensors usually prevent us from hitting anything, but occasionally, something doesn't register, and you have to stop quickly. Pull the lever."

"Got that."

"Make sure you are set to go forward."

Tre checks the direction. "Forward."

"Good, now we want to go northwest. So check the navigation. That's this screen. I put in Tentra, so it is showing exactly how to get there. Go in the directions it tells you. See the arrows?"

"Yes."

"Keep an eye on navigation. Pedal for speed. These handles for steering. And make sure we stay far enough above the ground to not hit trees or buildings or anything. Go ahead."

Tre takes off slower this time. He steers and watches the navigation. He does really well.

"Now watch. This zooms out navigation. See how you can still see the arrows?"

"Yea."

"These other dots are other ships or shuttles. There are not too many on this route. That's why I went this way. But anything that pops up in red is on your elevation. Meaning you'll collide if you get too close to each other. Right now, nothing is red. We can go fast to Tentra. Keep watching for red dots. Also, keep an eye on elevation. The ground isn't always even. Sometimes it will come right up like a hill or something."

Tre starts going faster. "How fast can people go in these?"

"As fast as they can process the information. Between navigation, steering, elevation, speed, and seeing where you're going. Not everyone can process that at the same speed. The shuttle itself would probably max out at about 600 miles per hour. But it's an old shuttle. We don't go long distances with them. We got 1 nice one. But we're afraid to drive it. It goes 2000 miles an hour."

Tre's eyebrows shoot up. Then he speeds up a little more. He focuses and he's so cute. I try to put penguins nose in his ear.

Marcus cracks up laughing. "You're not paying attention to her Tre."

"Yea, I have that problem on occasion." I do it again and smile at him. "Woman, I will stop this thing and put you in the back. I need to concentrate, so I don't hit anything."

I give him a dirty look and slam my head down on Marcus.

"What does blue on navigation mean?"

"It means you are approaching your destination. So that is Tentra. You can see it now. Start slowing down. I'll show you where to park."

Tre flies towards Tentra and Marcus shuts off the navigation.

He points to something. "See those shuttles?"

"Yea."

"That's where you are going to park. Fly over the top of that area and get us to an elevation of about 30 feet." Tre does that. "Good now turn the navigation back on and go to parking. Hit park. It will park for you in a spot."

We land on the ground. "That was easy."

"Yea, that part is easy. Let's walk around. We have time to go to a store. Hit the orb with your name on it."

I jump up. "Oh those are the hair orbs."

"Well, they do disguises. You'll look like someone else. I don't want anyone rushing up on us with you 2 being so young."

"Will they hurt us?"

"No. More like want a picture or have us sign stuff. It gets annoying."

Tre turns into an older man with gray hair and overalls. I turn into a teenager with short black hair and a little pink dress. I don't look anything like me. Even my skin is darker. Marcus turns into a skinny man in a suit.

"Does Tre disguise himself as a girl often? He really likes boobs."

Marcus cracks up laughing. "We had to stop him from doing that. It made people uncomfortable."

Tre shakes his head. "Assholes."

I laugh too. Then we step out of the shuttle.

It's so different. The buildings and signs, everything is white. The grass is so short and bright green. It's perfect. It doesn't even grow over the white path we are walking on.

"Why is it so white?"

"It's a manufactured element. It's cheap, doesn't hurt the environment, stays clean, doesn't spread germs, and it is super strong. We make everything out of that on this planet. There are still places that use regular building materials. Like the stone and wood you're used to. But the white is easier and cheaper to work with."

"It's me." I point at a statue.

"I forgot they had that here. All of us should have one."

We go to the statue. There are 5. I'm in the middle. The boys stand in a square around me. "Why are their backs to me?"

"We protect you from all sides."

"It would be funny if my statue got hit by lightning."

"That would be a good one, baby."

We go into a little shop. The lady behind the counter smiles at us. "Welcome."

"Look at the clothes, baby. They feel different even."

"So soft."

"You can look around in here. Don't leave."

I smile and find candy. It's that candy on a stick I had before. That was good. They have different colors too. They have prices listed, but I don't have any idea how to read that.

"Did you need some help?"

"How do I buy stuff?"

"A fingerprint or eye scan will work. Did you want some candy?"

I nod.

She hands me a clear bag. "Put what you want in here, and I'll ring it up at the register."

"Thank you."

I fill the bag. I find a sign that says suckers. I guess that makes sense. I put one of every color in my bag. Then I put little bears in it. I don't know about this finger thing. But I'll try.

I give her my bag, and she pushes buttons on a box. Then she puts a tiny box in front of me. "Put your thumb on there please. Right in the middle."

I do it and her box makes a weird noise. "Let's try your eye." She holds a thing up to my eye and I see a red light for a second. It makes another noise. "1 second sweetie."

Another girl comes out with her. "We seem to be having some issues with our computer." She scans my eye again. The box makes a weird noise. Then she does it about 5 more times.

The old man with gray hair comes up behind me. "Everything ok?"

"I was trying to buy candy Tre."

"Do you even have money?"

"I don't know. They said they could scan my eye."

"Can I try yours sir? Our computer is doing something weird."

He looks at the little box. Her computer makes a funny noise, and she falls over backwards. The other girl stares at us with her mouth open.

"MARCUS. WE BROKE SOMEONE."

He comes running from the back of the store. "What are you doing?"

"I wanted some candy. She said I could get it with an eye scan."

"Angel, when you do an eye scan, your real identity shows up on their computer. They know who you are now."

"I'm sorry. Can I still buy the candy?"

She hands me the bag.

"I wanted some candy." I give him sad eyes. "Are you mad?"

"No, I'm not mad. But no more eye scans."

"What about the fingerprint?"

"Did the fingerprint come up as Nadine?"

"Yes sir. I thought it was a glitch."

"No fingerprints either. If you want anything else, tell me, and I'll pay with paper money."

"Thank you."

The door flies open and this white thing on wheels with arms and head comes in. It has red lights on it. It announces "Medical services summoned to this location for an unconscious persons." It goes behind the counter.

I hug penguin and the candy. Tre hugs me from behind. Marcus rubs his eyes. "We're going."

We get out the door and 3 men in weird blue uniforms are there.

"Good evening officers. A woman fell unconscious inside."

2 of them run in. 1 looks at me. I hug the penguin.

"What were you doing inside?"

I show him my candy.

"Suckers are good."

I smile. The other 2 officers run back out the door and stare at us.

Marcus rubs his eyes again. "We're going back to the ship. She wanted to look around and get some candy. Do not announce us."

They say "Yes sir." at exactly the same time.

The 3rd one scratches his head. "What's going on?"

I point at the statue. "It's me."

He laughs and the other 2 nod.

Marcus pics me up and I wrap around him. "Let's go Tre."

I sit on Marcus in the shuttle. He does the navigation stuff then helps Tre get us going.