Landing

[Deleted]

Royd’s anti-gravitational disk descended gracefully into a clearing in a wooded area of one of the island’s parks like a mechanized flying carpet. The crafted hummed quietly as it stopped a few feet off the ground and deployed six landing struts and then gently touched down. As the propulsion system powered down, the full effect of Earth’s gravity was felt at once by the frail, young man. Royd leaned heavily on the control consol as he disengaged the air hoses to his helmet and then lifted it free of his space suit’s collar. A moment later it was fastened to one of the straps that crisscrossed his suit and hung at his side.

Already finding Earth’s gravity oppressive, Royd grabbed his ebony cane and turned away from the consol, walking as best he could across the ten foot diameter of the disk, he carefully stepped down onto a collapsible staircase that had deployed from the vehicle following it’s landing. It was only three feet to the ground but when one could barely walk and a fall from that height could break bones, Royd was understandably slow and cautious. Once he was down however and free to enjoy the moment, the man in the black space suit did just that, taking in deep breath after deep breath of the fresh, naturally recycled air. He knew Earth held many wonders but right now, a simple clearing in the woods was wonder enough to keep him transfixed on the trees and the grass all day.

“Trees.” he mused to himself with a smile. Having grown up on a space ship, granted a huge one, Royd had never seen so much as a tree or a blade of grass in his entire life, at least not in person. Now he was in a small field filled with both. There were scents to, but nothing he recognized. What was in fact the aroma of pine was completely new to the black haired young man as he continued to breath deeply his first taste of fresh air.

[faust]

Mr. Takahashi was not all too concerned about landing spacecraft. He noticed its presence, naturally, and that was why he was headed in its direction. After all, how often does one get to investigate an unauthorized space ship landing, even if they had the proper clearance to do so (Mr. Takahashi did not, having no affiliation with the government)? However, his thoughts were overwhelmingly concerned with getting home. He had traveled from Wonder Island after being attacked by a monster that, after finding a history book, he had identified as being related to Majin Buu. Naturally, this needed confirmation before he decided what to do with the information, so he needed to get back to his study, with the research material he knew he could trust.

Suffice it to say, investigating the space craft was sort of a preemptive measure, a chance to see whether or not he had two intergalactic catastrophes to worry about instead of just one. So, he was a bit relieved to see a human stepping out of the machine. As long as it was not green and/or immediately began shooting lasers at things, Mr. Takahashi imagined it was safe to approach the ship. At the very least, it looked like if there was an emergency, he could handle it.

He took a few steps forward, making himself known with a crisp clearing of the throat. "Welcome to Earth, stranger. I trust you are here for peaceful reasons?" Mr. Takahashi gave the stranger an appraising look. He appeared weak; that was the first thought that came to the young man's mind. Possibly a side effect of prolonged space travel. Odd, however, that people still suffered from atrophy in space. Mr. Takahashi had always assumed that space ships were all fitted with artificial gravity these days. He forced himself to stay on track. Even a crippled man can be deadly nowadays. Ki energy was not limited to the physically healthy after all.

[Deleted]

Still enjoying the natural scenery, Royd had not detected the approach of the other person. Even with his telepathic abilities, if he didn’t know the person was there he couldn’t sense their thoughts. Hearing someone clear their throat though, the young man turned at once with a bit of a surprised look on his face. This was the first actual person he was seeing, true like the grass and trees he’d seen holographic images, but this man was real. Had he been a more forward person, Royd may have even considered walking over to touching the man just to be sure. There of course was no need to, he knew the man to be real now, but because he obviously wasn’t a projection from the lack of equipment about and knew Earth was populated.

As the man addressing him spoke, it took Royd a few moments to shift his mind from expecting the electronic whispers of the Nightflyer’s computer, to an actual spoken language. While he spoke to the computer all the time it was not capable of synthesizing human speech in response. Instead he was taught to speak with educational tapes rather then the computer it’s self. The moment of confusion however was evident on his face as he changed gears, but it passed quickly and he smiled.

“Good day sir. Yes, I can assure you that I am not here to make any trouble. My ship has just arrived in Earth orbit and I have come down, well on this first trip just to see the planet.” Royd explained. “I will eventually need to look into purchasing fuel for my vessel. Would you by any chance know where I might obtain some?.. Oh wait… Where are my manners. My name Royd, Royd Eris… Captain I guess you could say.” the black haired man continued and started to make his way closer to the individual who’d greeted him. He wasn’t too familiar with the concept of the hand shake and since he used the cane in his right hand, it only seemed natural to present his left one.

[Deleted]

Following a simply delightful conversation with the man who’d met him upon his landing, during which he’d learned of a few places one might purchase various types of fuel, Royd boarded his anti-gravitational disc once more. As picturesque as the surroundings were, the frail man did not have as great a tolerance for the gravity as he thought and was finding just his space suit to be a near unbearable burden.

“Thank you again for your assistance.” he stated, giving the man a parting salutation and proceeded to power up the disc’s gravity lenses. With the activation of the disk’s gravity lenses, the actual pull of gravity around Royd was reduced sufficiently so as to make him significantly more comfortable. A moment later the stairs in the rear of the vehicle retracted and the whole craft gently lifted off the ground with an electric hum. As it ascended through the first ten feet, the landing legs also retracted and then it’s upward flight started to accelerate. As the disk transported him further and further upwards, Royd secured his cane against the control consol and proceeded to don his helmet. He checked his suit seals and once satisfied there were no leaks, turned his attention back to the earth which was slowly falling away beneath him.

The ascent back to the Nightflyer took the requisite hour to complete as would be expected with the disk’s slow, gentle nature. Eventually Royd arrived back in the cargo bay of the great vessel, his disk touching back down, nestling it’s self within the cavity in the floor reserved for it. The power and data umbilical automatically deployed, while the black haired man picked up his cane, disembarked and made his way to the transit tube. Once inside and while riding back up to the residential tower, Royd removed his helmet and relaxed in the one sixteenth normal gravity, what he had become accustomed to living in. He intended to spend the rest of the day and night resting in his quarters, as the two and a half hour expedition to the surface had been thoroughly exhausting, and so he did. The computer made sure as always that his meals were brought to him by a service droid, letting Royd recover from his sightseeing tour.



{Well I had to cut this one short because Mr. T. disappeared on me. *Shrugs.* Requesting Zeni.}

[endive]

+200 Zenie ^_^