Alteran date: year 6, month 6, day 7, time 15:00
Thelya entered the mess hall for dinner, the bare metal walls reflecting the overhead lights off their polished utilitarian surface. She headed for one of food dispensers set into the wall by the door where a small touch screen displayed a list of food and drinks. She scrolled through the list selecting glass of tea, a salad and plum chicken dish that sounded interesting. In the wall underneath the display an opening let off a soft glow and a few seconds later her meal was ready.
She noticed Arwen sitting alone, a nutrient shake in front of him, he was reading from a tablet, at one of the tables near her and took a seat. After eating for a few minutes her curiosity got the better of her and she interrupted his reading.
"Can I ask you something Arwen?" Thelya was using her everyone's-little-sister look in full force.
Arwen looked up slightly confused, "huh?"
"Does it bother you being um.. cloned?"
"It's… different." He responded after a moment of thought. "Why?"
"I was just wondering." She said as she looked back down at her food. After a brief silence she asked, "would you want yourself to be cloned again."
"This single second chance is enough Thelya," Arwen said taking a sip of his nutrient shake, "if I die again it will be my own stupid fault and I'll stay dead."
"Oh.." her small voice catching in her throat.
"The thing is Thelya. While I have all the memories and probably share the same genes as the Arwen that died rescuing a group of kids from the Ori troops within a greater than ninety-nine percent error margin. I don't feel like i'm the same Arwen. It's hard to describe. I have a lot of what made him who he was. His memories up until that mission, his desires and goals. But I still feel like i'm not him."
"Please Don't take this the wrong way Arwen, but i've kind of had a crush on you," she faltered before picking up the nerve again, "well other you I mean, since I pulled up your file a couple years after my brother and I were rescued."
At this she went silent staring down at her food awkwardly. Her confession startled Arwen slightly.
"Damn, I don't... I mean, I'm not even sure what age to consider myself. I.. I've got all of other me's memories which has to count for something." He faltered at this before continuing. "But I feel like i'm in a fifteen year old body, and if I look at age since being cloned, I'm probably barely two months old. The odd part is while I shouldn't have any memories from the time between when they did the copy and when he died, I feel like I should know you."
At this moment the lights dimmed as an alarm sounded throughout the ship for a second before the Fenris' voice sounded through the intercom, "All personal to designated posts, prepare for non-standard spatial jump in one hour."
"Aikino said this might be happening today." Thelya huffed the tension from their earlier conversation was gone, replaced by the tension over the new situation.
"Hey I'm considered a civilian until medical says I'm fit for active duty want to go see if we can watch whatever is going to happen from the observation deck?"
"Let me finish eating, we should be able to get there before it starts." Thelya replied before tucking into her meal.
The observation deck didn't actually have windows, It had high definition floor to ceiling displays that wrapped all the way around the room. Using the sensor logs the computer was able to generate an image of the surrounding space outside on the displays. The truly awe inspiring part of the room where the floor and ceiling. Underneath a framework of transparent aluminum panels overlaying a grid of metal supports underneath which a massive display showing the space under the ship. Overhead the ceiling held a similar array of displays providing a view of the space above for a complete immersive effect.
This room was one of the early projects from before the conflict, completed before they needed to use all available personnel to make the ship capable of space travel. Having already been completed it was left alone since recycling the components for use elsewhere would require more time than simply processing the raw materials they had on hand.
Arwen and Thelya stepped into the room just a few minutes before the hour was up. They weren't the only ones to have this idea. there was a small crowd spread throughout the room. they made their way to a seat towards the forward view.
The captain's voice came back on the city intercom, "In a few short minutes we will step farther into space, joining the contingent that left before us. We don't know what kind of situation we will be entering, our friends on the planet below are giving us this leg-up on the journey away from the ashes of our old home. But even they have limits and while they can tell us where our brothers and sisters cities and put us next to them they don't know what the next galaxy holds. If they need our help we need to be ready to assist them. Let us move forward into our future together."
The intercom went silent as a beam of light shot from the planet to the ship flaring on that side of the display before it split and spiderwebbed out slowly covering the view in a few seconds it had surrounded the ship flaring in a full spectrum of colors generated by the ship's interpretation of the sensor readings. It built in intensity a pleasant hum slowly building through the ship as the deck plates resonated to the light of the web of energy wrapping around the ship. It gave one last flare of light before a moment of disorientation that blurred everything and then faded out.
The view screens rapidly adjusted to show two gleaming cities of similar construction. The display automatically tagged them, names showing up on the display in standard script. The first was the Unda-procella, it's metal hull glowing a soft silvery blue against the starry backdrop. The second was the Ignis-tempesta the minerals throughout her hull gave a natural red-orange color to the ship giving the impression of a dancing flame as the light reflected from it.