Void and Voices

Chapter 6: Redshift

A small red container shaped spaceship could be seen taking off from a planet. It was seen on the side of a circular window of a bigger spaceship, where an alien lady was standing on it. Although she was not human, she was still shaped with a humanoid form, with hands and legs the same as humans. The difference was her skin color and texture. Her skin was light purple, and sometimes sparkles or glitters could be seen from her body and face. Her eyes were golden yellow and you could tell by the shape of it, that they were not human eyes, but people were captivated when they saw her eye to eye. 

As the spaceship getting closer, she could see the Barry's ship slowing down. She then rushed to the nearest communication line to hear from him. "Widja, Barry's here. Passcode: As the stars starting to gather, the wavelengths have transitioned to redshift." 

Widja replied," Passcode accepted, opening the dock now." Barry and Widja had designed a certain passcode that include the name's of Barry's ship, "Redshift". All the words need to be said in the correct order. This was to avoid Redshift being compromised and overrun by enemies, and it's more dangerous if those people could gain access to the bigger spaceship, "Cosmos". 

A small dock finally opened, it behave like a small garage for Redshift. After the dock was closed, Barry and Glen went inside Cosmos. Widja was at the gate waiting for them. Barry asked," How's Boss doing?"

Widja answered," Still working, always try his best providing for us right?". She chuckled, exchanging smiles to both Barry and Glen. "I think you two should rest, have you had any food in Xenotyl?"

"Can't, the food there was like hell, so we had to eat from our own supplies. We're lucky we had enough." Glen answered while taking out one of biscuits from a small pack that he brought. He then put it inside his mouth and start chewing it.

"Can't imagine, but I guess it's a compliment for me, since it means that I could successfully recreate human food." Widja smiled to Glen.

"Well, I can eat it, but it doesn't mean that it's tasty." Glen said jokingly, and his arm was slowly bumped by Widja's fist. 

Widja was a chemist in Cosmos, since the crew was not many, she could provide food. But since she wasn't a chef, she was not able to cook them and present it on a plate in and give fancy dining experience. What she did, first she looked at what kind of nutrition that a certain species need. For example, human might need carbohydrates, fats, and protein. She'll try look for some goods or groceries that provide these nutritions. If she couldn't, she need to artificially produced it from her laboratory. Most of the things that Widja create was able to provide for the crew, and surprisingly the products were pretty healthy. The only trade-off is that the taste might not be that good, and the product will always be in a form of biscuits with lack of taste. 

The challenge was there were four species in total in the Cosmos crew. She needs to adjust and create each for each species. She's currently innovating a method or another type of biscuit that provide all nutritions that could be eaten by the four species including herself, so she didn't need to produce it in four different ways. But until now, she couldn't find the correct way, because some ingredients actually negate some type of nutritions. 

"Is Boss busy now?" Barry asked.

"Yeah, I don't think he wanted to be disturbed, he'll come out when he wanted to talk." Widja replied calmly.

****** 

On the other side of the chamber, there's a control room with a big seat for a pilot. A man sat there and leaned his body backwards. He looked at the endless void of space, not even focusing on a particular star. He inhaled an electric cigarette deeply that was put between his index and middle finger, then he exhaled, but there was no smoke or vapor coming out. His eyes was pitch black, reflecting the view outside Cosmos. There was a burnt mark on his left eye, but it was not that bad that it destroys his whole face. His skin was rough and coarse, like he was living in a really dry for a long time. He had a unique skin color, orange, but not like the fruit, like a sandy terrain under a long sunset.