Battles Beyond (Book 1: The Fleeing Saga)

Pit Stop (20)

Destination Reached: Pit Stop 1612sh

Distance: 278 light-years

Brass shot out of the space-time wormhole and sped across space with the extra-dimensional aura wicking off her towards Pit Stop 1612sh—one of many space stations with a communication control centre that was a protruding box on top of the station with three antennas of various sizes and shaped like half-open umbrellas. A high-grade cloaking system hid its dodecahedron shape. Their service of criminals, battlemongers, and the like, was illegal in the galaxy. Unfortunately, the proliferation of such facilities was difficult to eradicate. The galactic authorities had challenges in enforcing the law effectively, giving multiple organisations the chance to have branches serving hundreds of thousands of beings regularly.

Some ships came out from a hangar bay in Pit Stop, including a starcraft with a slender design and moderate-sized boosters named Bill. He was old but not worn out, from his paint to his overly mechanical engine from a time gone by, or even his landing gear that was always out by default, he was well taken care of due to his position. Bill and those that accompanied him were here to escort them inside.

Like this one took some serious damage. Her hull has so many dents. A ship called Suggasen could make out some of Brass’s damage. He was rather big and aged—even more so than Bill— with his trapezium outline and wings that went backwards, not sideways, as if someone held their arms behind their back while running. One would think this would make him fast, but he was never fast; he was never designed like that. Copious efforts to make him more agile in Pit Stop only led to marginal gains. His form became Frankenstein-like, at least as much as a ship could be.

Bill was curious about what happened to her as he did to all that came here. Oftentimes, innocuous damage could have odd origins.

The space station had already scanned Brass, and after some interrogation to make sure they were who they said they were, the space station opened up for them to go inside.

She proceeded to come in hot with her landing gear for a harsh but successful entry. Once stationary, she opened up for her passengers to roll out before breaking apart for each to wallow in agony.

The hangar bay had many starcraft of various models and accommodated species that towered over most to ones quite small. The walls and roof had an intricate layout of pipes carrying key substances both in and out. There were holographic numbers and letters on the ground in a forty-four-letter language called Umensh that was simplistic and curly.

Brass had landed not far inside one of the four hanger bays. This was the largest of the set, called Hangar Bay Number One. It encompassed over a kilometre from end to end. The one at the rear, which was slightly smaller, had the name Hangar Bay Number Two, and the two at the sides of equal size were titled Hangar Bay Number Three and Hangar Bay Number Four respectively.

Knowing they were well-paying customers, the assistants were delicate with them. All four were placed on floating stretchers to be brought to the medical station. Most would prefer to use flat-back medical vehicles to transport them, but they hadn't arrived yet from outside the facility to replace those already run down. They manoeuvred around several ships and organisms to reach the large ramp, of which there were two on opposing sides that connected to a singular platform. From there, they rushed to the medical area where regeneration pods, scanners, and other medical equipment populated it.

The first thing was to scan them to see what was wrong. The results were presented on an upright screen that came from the ground through a tiny slit. It showed the number of injuries they had, which were numerous.

Pink sticky nodes were applied over their bodies to monitor their condition.

None of the small regeneration pods was available. Therefore, they were dropped into one bigger than all four combined.