The next day was Bradley's wedding. Jeremy woke up with a fairly manageable hangover, it was a miracle. And quite lucky for the groom too as Jeremy was the best man. The wedding went on without any misbehavior, Jeremy sobered up pretty fast enough.
By the next day, the space crew were deployed for a two weeks briefing before their next mission. At the behest of Jeremy, the superiors granted the groom, Jeremy, the two weeks off, for his honeymoon with his new wife, after which he would return just in time for their mission.
The two weeks briefing consisted of them going through lots of practices and drills, theories and simulations of the planet they were going to. They had some trial runs as they prepared. They were also prepared for things to do in any case there is emergency.
After the two weeks, they were sent home for the weekend to come back by Monday.
"Welcome aboard Harbinger crew!" Jeremy, captain of the space ship, Harbinger, that would be making its virgin trip to uncharted Neptune, said to his crew of 100-odd members after a rather lengthy address.
"That was one heck of a speech!" Bradley said coming to meet him, "I slept and woke up twice and you were still going" he said
"Ha ha!" Jeremy was not impressed, he liked his speech; it was not boring as Bradley implied. "You are back from the honeymoon, I see. Trust me when I say we didn't miss you or your boring one liners" Jeremy said as he shook his hand. He didn't mean that of course, Bradley was probably missed by others. Probably.
"That's not true, I missed him but yeah, no one missed the boring one liners" Aurora said coming up to meet them from another wing on the space ship.
"At least I have jokes" Bradley said making a playful scowl at Aurora, "And no I didn't miss you, miss prissy pants" Bradley said to her, using the nickname he gave her from the first day they met, one she didn't like any bit.
At Bradley's first statement Jeremy burst out laughing, asserting that even his butt had more funny jokes than Bradley.
"Here comes my favorite crew member, Blue please come tell these two haters how funny I can be" he said to Blue who was coming from the same direction Aurora came from.
"What happened to your hair?" Jeremy and Bradley asked, mouths hanging as they saw Blue's hair. Her hair was basically blue long spikes
"She dyed it blue, obviously" Aurora answered for her
"Nobody was asking you, miss prissy pants" Bradley shushed Aurora., she rolled her eyes at him but said nothing.
"Well, as she said I got it dyed, and spiked" Blue finally said
"Oh I get it," Jeremy said, "the blue color, because your name is Blue"
"Sort of"
"Ohh, I see" Bradley saw the point too now, "But why the spikes?" he asked prodding one, "Do they remain like this forever or they like revert back to normal?"
Before Blue could answer, Sunny, the lead scientist on the ship, and one of Bradley's groom's men at the wedding, coming from another direction said, "I just knew I would find you guys having meaningless charter somewhere aboard" he shook his head
"Hey Sunny!" Blue cheerily greeted the cool Asian scientist
"Hi Blu…. argh!... What's up with your hair?!" he exclaimed causing the others to laugh at his expression
"Just what we were on about before your interruption" Bradley said
"I dyed it and decided to go for spikes this time"
"I see, and what does Anderson have to say about this?" Sunny asked, regarding her boyfriend
"What does Anderson have to say about what?" Anderson's booming voice asked coming from a different direction, turning all eyes to his 6 foot 4 caramel handsomeness.
"About Blue's hair, have you seen what's on your girl's head?" Jeremy asked him, prodding a spike on Blue's head, at which she protested and swatted away his hand.
"The monstrosity on her head" Sunny added
"Huh? Oh, yeah I have seen it" Anderson said, walking to behind Blue as he held her waist from behind, "I think it's pretty cool and badass" he said, placing a light kiss on her lips as she turned her neck to face him, gazing upward
"I think it's nice too" Aurora commented on Blue's hair
"No one asked you, miss prissy" Bradley said, playfully rolling his eyes
"And no one asked you to be an ass" she swiftly replied him. Her reply being met with oohs from the guys and a "burn!" from Blue.
Bradley was still trying to come up with a witty reply when a young female crew member came to inform him that he is needed in control. He told the others to get to work as he went with the young crew member, breaking their little band.
CHAPTER 3
STRANGE OCCURENCES
Things were moving pretty smoothly for the crew aboard the ship for the first couple of months, but the closer they got to Neptune, the weirder things got. And given new technological advancements, they would be arriving the planet in the next three months.
Right when they become relaxed on their ship, that's when the strangeness began.
Moans and groans in the voices of a male and a female could be heard from behind the closed doors of a storage room, but Aurora ears were blocked with microscopic music listening devices, so she couldn't hear any sound other than her music as she walked up to the storage room and opened its doors.
"Oh my!" she exclaimed averting her eyes from the scene before her, pulling her microscopic ear plugs from her ears, "What is wrong with both of you?! This is a storage room for crying out loud"
Anderson and Blue who were having a go at it previously, hurriedly righted their clothes, laughing at her as they did so.
"Oh come on, Aury, don't tell me you haven't done it in the storage room before" Blue said giving Anderson one last kiss.
"I don't…. never" Aurora gasped, looking positively scandalized
Anderson laughed, "You forget it is 'Aurora' we are talking to here, babe"
"oh yeah, I forgot" Blue laughed
"What does that mean?" Aurora asked, turning to face the now properly dressed couple who were laughing at her.
Neither answered her, as they laughed and went away, though not before she saw Anderson lightly slap Blue's backside. She knew they did that just because they knew she was looking at them.
She quickly packed up the things she came for and returned to whence she came.