Chariot 3: Conception
Chapter 8 – Helmets on

They placed the helmets matching the metallic uniform on their heads after they grabbed them from a small compartment concealed within the wall.

As Cai Yiu fully extended his arm and passed his right hand slightly over the smooth surface on the deck head, four rings with a circumference almost as wide as their height slowly descended from above their heads until they were on the deck all around the magnetic pole at the center.

“Checking BCI`s” Captain Shoffer mentally enquired them to verify if their Brain Computer Interface was working.

The three mentally confirmed on the same way they were asked.

As they stepped on the small platform at the center of the eight inches thick rings horizontally lying down on the deck, the rings split in two, sliding their parts until they intersected each other. The final assembled position resembled the structure of a sphere with the two rings spaced by equal distances, one on the horizontal and the other on its vertical.

The magnetic pole in front of them ascended precisely at the moment Cai Yiu looked at it and in synchrony, a hatch directly underneath – the magnetic passage – opened in a spiral movement. The sun light came through, bringing the wind and an ephemeral sense of happiness. “Fresh air.”

As they lowered their bodies folding their knees, small seats extended from the base of each one of the heli-rings, accommodating them on a seating position. A small panel displayed simplistic controls, a pair of buttons located in the middle and two levers, one on each side, positioned at the same width of the pilots` shoulders.

On the upper segment, close to the intersection of the rings, four flat blades detached one of the extremities from them, straightened up and formed a long helix.

“Captain, a human life form has noticed our presence and is observing our ship as we speak.” Nothing would scape Chariot 3`s tracking capabilities, thanks to the advanced sensors built within the external surface of her metagraphene body.

“This will be interesting. Flumen you will do all the talk, ensure your BCI is functioning properly and pay close attention to my thoughts.” Even though all the crew had the same implant with instantaneous telepathic translation functions, it was not as easy for the others to communicate in a foreign language with somebody who was not using an implant as it was for Flumen, a linguistics specialist, among many other things.

Flumen smiled whilst touching his chin with his index finger. A flawless plasma looking surface closed the front of his metallic helmet, the lid then progressively colored into a reflective amber until only the faded shape of his face could be seen.

The other three carried on the same procedure, turning their faces into a cosmic image.

The Captain`s heli-ring started hovering the deck at the pressing of a button. “Be careful with what you do and what you say. You know very well what these people see us as.”

As he finished his somewhat vague orders – which they all expected to make more sense sooner or later – Captain Shoffer flew down the hatch followed by V-Nus and Cai Yiu.

Flumen`s heart bit rate increased severally just by looking down the hole, his body started producing large amounts of adrenaline while many other pheromones, all spiking at similar scale were sensed by Chariot 3. He finally took a deep breath and reminded himself “I really do not appreciate flying”, before closing his average sized eyes and going after the others.

V-Nus turned back to look at the simplistic beauty of the spaceship that hovered the sky and saw the magnetic passage closing its spiral right after Flumen exited through it.