Chapter Text
“Attention residents of the Astral Express, please get ready for our next jump. We will jump in five minutes, five. Make sure you haven’t eaten, and March, sit down!”
…
“Okay, you can put me down now, Stelle.”
The grey haired girl chuckles and sets the bunny down, as Pom Pom walks away she places a hand on her hip and yawns.
“Bright and early for our next trip, Miss Himeko?”
Himeko sips her coffee and sighs, smiling at the younger girl “Indeed, we can’t waste a single moment. Trailblazing takes many lifetimes and we only have one so, let’s make the most of it.”
The door to the parlour car opens and March skips in, already wide awake. She looks prepared for the journey too, her camera strapped to her waist along with a small bag, probably full of sweets.
Dan Heng trails behind her, yawning and struggling to put his long white jacket on. Clearly he’s just woken up, his hair is a little messier than normal and when he finally gets his coat on, he almost collapses onto the seat.
“Hopefully this world is peaceful” he says, rubbing his eyes. He hasn’t put on his red eyeliner yet, nor is his hair as neat as he usually keeps it. Must have been a rough night for him. Stelle knows that Dan Heng has rough nightmares too, that or he stayed up late messing with the archive again…
“We’re trail blazers, Dan Heng. The Astral Express takes us to places in need of help, not peaceful ones. So is the will of the heart of Akivili” Welt says, turning from the window where he was peering out at the sea of stars.
“Alright everyone, take a seat please, we are departing soon!” Pom Pom’s voice come’s over the loudspeaker.
Stelle makes her way over to March who has been banned from trying to stand, conductor’s orders. Sure enough, that queasy feeling roots itself in her stomach again. The stars outside begin to blur as Pom Pom counts down. Dan Heng across from her and March looks like he’s about to pass out, while Himeko is still sipping on her coffee in a comfortable chair in the corner overlooking the stars with a book in her lap. Though Pom Pom has told everyone to not drink, Stelle supposes that’s more for her, as Himeko is clearly more used to the warp, more so than even Dan Heng and March.
A brilliant light flashes outside their windows as the express crosses several lightyears in the blink of an eye. For a moment, Stelle wonders where they’ve ended up. Maybe this planet is mostly water, or it’s a barren desert, maybe it’s more advanced than others. Herta’s space station and Jarilo were the only two settlements they’ve come across, so Stelle can’t imagine what might await her outside that window…
“Dear Aeons…” Himeko says softly, looking out the window. Stelle and March almost jump up to see what she’s looking at, and it’s not pretty. A planet, scorched and dark, surrounded by an oppressive layer of dense sand coloured clouds. It looks… ruined. Are they too late?
“What… has it already been destroyed by a Stelleron?” March asks, her brow furrowing as she looks out the window in distress.
Is this what the total destruction of a Stelleron looks like? Stelle clutches her chest, knowing full well that one such thing is planted inside of her. She once drew Nanook’s gaze as well, is she a ticking time bomb? Will she do this?
“I don’t think we’re alone here” Welt says rather loudly, becoming for everyone to look out the other window.
A massive space station shaped like a nail floats amongst the sea of stars. It has fins at the top, blooming out like a flower, and a sort of thick ring surrounds it. It’s far bigger than Herta’s Space station, Stelle isn’t sure, but it might be as large as Jarilo, which is certainly much smaller than the planet in front of them. But still, it’s massive.
It looks perfectly operational, bright lights emit from it and Stelle can see small crafts moving around it, in and out, it even looks like there’s a port opening on one side.
Welt clutches his cane a little tighter, “Let’s try to get in contact with them, I don’t recognize this planet but… I think we ought to know the situation. "He looked like he was about to say something else, but stopped. Stelle wondered if he had a guess already, and if he had been here before.
“I can’t believe this shit…”
Hassen flicks his working eye to the head of the science council next to him. Asimov’s eyes are blown wide as his gaze is drawn to the foreign object floating some distance away from Babylonia, displayed on an enlarged screen. Just a few minutes ago, there was a bright light and a train of all things emerges, it’s rails seem to be glowing, but other than that it looks like a normal train.
Everyone has stopped for a bit to gawk at the strange train floating in the distance. It’s nothing more than a thin line from the space station but everyone has seen the close up already.
Just then, a screen pops up above a terminal. A call.
“Hello? Is anybody there?” a female voice calls out.
Hassen and Asimov look at each other briefly. This is perhaps the strangest thing Hassen has seen, and he’s the president of humanity’s remnants for crying out loud. No corrupted could compare to whatever this is.
The old man straightens out his coat before speaking to the workers “Someone get Nikola, now”
He turns to face the glowing screen, clearing his throat before speaking “This is Babylonia command. Are you the strange little train by any chance?”
“Yes” the voice responds. “My name is Himeko, I head the Astral Express. There are six of us in total, including our conductor.”
The Astral Express huh? Sounds like something out of a video game.
“What is your business contacting Babylonia?” Hassen almost wants to ask why they are here, but that sounds a bit hostile.
“We were hoping to ask you about that decrepit planet down there. We are from beyond your stars, and we want to help. Do we have permission to dock?”
“What the hell is going on?”
Everybody turns to see Nikola walking onto the bridge, nothing is amiss about him except for his deepened frown and the threatening aura surrounding him, no doubt annoyed to be called from whatever he was doing.
“That is going on” Asimov points to the screen displaying the Astral Express.
Nikola squints, taking a moment to process what he’s seeing “A train? What the hell…”
“There are people on it, they claim to be from beyond the stars” Hassen says, turning away from the terminal so as to not let Himeko hear this. “They want to help us.”
Cold eyes flick between him and the terminal, no doubt wondering how some outsiders could help them.
“So they’re aliens is what I’m hearing?” his disapproving frown displays what he’s thinking clearly; he wants to turn them away. But they might need somewhere to rest, who knows how long they’ve been floating around. Besides, it’d be rude to turn away guests from another galaxy, human or not.
“They want to know about Earth. We can decide if they can help us when we speak to them. Come on, don’t you wanna see an alien?”
Nikola scoffs at the childish suggestion “I suppose we can offer them sanctuary for a bit, I am curious as to who the hell makes a train to ride through space.”
Hassen wants to press further about the alien part just to tease him a bit, but he’s sure Nikola’s a bit more short tempered than usual. And he does not want to lose his other eye.
“Miss Himeko, you have clearance to dock. I will send a small ship to guide you.”
“Thank you, mister…?”
“My name is Hassen, ma’am. I hope we can help each other.”
“Likewise”