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// 1. Another day, another dime 
// Story: A Bridge Over Troubled Space 
// by Sinaqua 
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	"Welcome to Avalon Technologies, Mr. Oakfield," the speaker next to the door boomed in a quirky, feminine voice--far too cheery for its otherwise unimportant job--"a package has arrived! I do believe that Mr. Slade requested that you get to work on it immediately!"
"Oh, great, my FAAAVorite," said James. James Oakfield was one of the many experimental technologies engineers for Avalon Tech--his badge said that he was "The Head Engineer," but that was a load of bull. He was a fairly thin 25-year old, with sandy blonde hair and a fair complexion, he stood about 6'1" and weighed about 200 flat. Today was Monday, and like usual, he had spent the day before out with the guys--In short, he had a hangover. He was not about to put up with the overly cheery AI that ran the prime functions of Avalon, nor the asinine requests of "Mr. Slade" to sort his paperwork, if Slade was going to be that lazy, he could wait another week. James picked up his toolbox and headed toward the overly-pristine marble staircase that led to his domain. 
Avalon Tech was the kind of place that focused on first impressions, this was obvious by the pristine marble and granite that seemed to fill the very air. The first level of Avalon was the reception hall--with the receptionist--a middle-aged woman named Christine that everyone seemed to avoid. James never found out why nobody likes Christine, but wasn't the kind of person to start trends. He whispered a quiet "Hullo" to her and continued on his way to the industrial section. On his way there, it began to become obvious where he was heading: burn marks on the walls, the cracked tile in the middle of the floor, the dead plants nobody ever tried to water, and finally Hangar 52-B, his workplace. Hangar 52-B--affectionately nicknamed "The Barracks" or, if the assignment was important,"The Front Lines,"--was the section devoted to experimental Spaceflight designs. It was a large Hangar on the third floor, with two observation rooms on either side of the main hatch. Beyond that, there were rooms for storing tools and spare parts, but not much else. It was usually so dead that the workers would joust with wrenches, screwdrivers, and Creepers, or they would play basketball with the makeshift hoop someone made eons ago, among other things. 
But not today. No, today the room was filled with very important-looking people in suits, labcoat scientists, and a starship like none he had ever seen before. Something was going on, and it was something big. James grabbed the first person he recognized and asked the obvious question, "What in the hell is going on?!" 
The man immediately recognized James and shouted, "He's over here!" towards the center of the group. Cue every single eye in the hangar turn to stare directly at James. Just as he was about to crack a joke about washing his hands and looking like he pissed himself, when Dr. Adrian Avalon, Owner of Avalon, came up to him. Dr. Avalon was almost the same height as James, but about twice as wide. He wore a nice suit and a stetson hat. An originally southern man, Dr. Avalon spoke as such.
"This here, this is the main engineer of Hangar 52-B, what's yer name again, boy?" Dr. Avalon seemed to be talking to a camera crew that James hadn't noticed originally.
"J-James Oakfield."
"Ah, Yes, that's it. Well ya see here, Mr. Oakfield, we did some digging and found out that you have some flight training, Now ain't that somethin'?"
It was true. James originally wanted to be a pilot for the Intergalactic Federation's Navy, but had to drop out due to some, unfortunate circumstances, mainly, the Federation's breakup. 
"Now we have developed a new ansi-somethin' and we have decided to let you take the first test run!" bellowed Avalon, this caused a wave of applause from the crowd. "Now git over to them science nerds and have them explain what'cha gonna do."
James was shoved over to a waiting group of scientists, and they immediately began rattling off all sorts of technobabble, something about needing to keep the stasis field up. James decided that he was done being in the dark about all of this, "Hold up! Just one second here, what the hell is happening!?"
One of the scientists piped up, "We are going to be testing out an Ansible-Drive. It's similar in theory to a warp drive, and you happen to be one of the only people that has had any training with warp drives."
"What do you mean 'in theory,' and how am I the ONLY one?" asked James.
"Well to put it simply, an Ansible-Drive works off of the same principle of the Ansible, but for objects." 
"What the hell is an Ansible?"
"Instant communication device."
"Okay, I understand that you want me to fly this thing, but wouldn't someone, I don't know, MORE QUALIFIED be better?"
"That would be the case," stated an irritated scientist, "but our first pick crashed into a tree last night, he's still in the hospital."
James noted to never ask this guy for sympathy.
"And," started another scientist, "the sensitive nature of this experiment does not allow us to hire outside of the facility."
"So, I'm THE option."
"Unfortunately."
"But," started yet another scientist,  "enough with the formalities, we need to give you a tour of the ship." 
The scientists led James into the starship, the interior was far more spacious than it seemed, but it had all the amenities of a ship: storage, galley, med-bay, bridge, and a main room. Situated in the main room was a large cuboid standing on one end. It looked like something taken straight out of TRON, with light markings over the entire surface except for one circular panel. The hull of the machine was darker than anything James had seen before. It seemed to suck the light right out of the room.

After about three hours of briefing, being told how to fly the ship, and finally been given a packet to explain the tests he was to preform on the ship; he found himself in the bridge of the ship. He was to fly it to low orbit and then-- and only then--open the packet, preform the tests, and then write down his observations. This was going to be fun, thought James sarcastically.
James pushed the "Activate" button on the console, and the ship came to life. He tested the engines, and they seemed to idle perfectly. So he decided to open the hangar and launch off. The massive doors began lowering until they were even with the ground, klaxons blaring warnings to nobody in particular. The door finally fell with a mighty CLANG; James was free to take off.
The Ship flew like many others, it responded instantly to the slightest of movements, and it wasn't long at all before James was in orbit. First things first, he tore open the packet to get his first instruction: Fly a distance of 200m. I've done that by now, thought James, What's the next one? Preform an Aileron Roll. James smirked, "Did it just tell me to do a barrel roll?" Onto the next, and the next, and the next. Nothing exciting, nothing new. He put the packet down on the table, only for it to fall to the floor, scattering papers everywhere. James groaned and began to clean them up when a paper caught his eye. James picked it up, and read it: Engage the Ansible drive, fly a distance, disengage, then return. Now were talking, thought James.
Back in the bridge, he punched in the security codes to the Ansible drive and heard something Click, then a humming was heard throughout the ship. James went to see if a micro meteor had punched through the ship, until he saw the cuboid--it became clear what the noise was. The cuboid had opened and now seemed to be orbiting itself. Each and every piece of the cube that was outlined before was now orbiting some central device James couldn't see. James observed as the cube seemed to drift back together, the float apart until it looked like an angry swarm of bees. Bees made of metal and plastic.
"Well, the sooner I find out what this thing does, the sooner I get home," said James.
"ANSIBLE SYSTEMS ENGAGED; BIOLOGIC DETECTED," the machine stated, "BIOLOGICS ARE REQUIRED TO STAY A MINIMUM OF -2- METERS FROM THE ANSIBLE WHILE ACTIVE."
Startled, James stated the only thing he could, "What!?"
"REPETITION ACKNOWLEDGED; BIOLOGICS ARE REQUIRED TO STAND A MINIMUM OF -2- METERS FROM THE ANSIBLE WHILE ACTIVE."
"This thing can understand me?"
"AFFIRMATIVE; BIOLOGIC IDENTIFIED: JAMES TREVOR OAKFIELD, IDENTIFICATION NUMBER 13545-22354; HEAD ENGINEER OF AVALON TECHNOLOGIES, PROMOTED FROM ENGINEERING FOLLOWING DEATH OF THOMAS J. EVERNIL. IS THIS INFORMATION CORRECT?"
"Uh, Yeah, I guess?"
"DEFINE 'GUESS'"
"Nevermind, The information is correct."
"AFFIRMATIVE; JAMES OAKFIELD IS THE PILOT OF TEST VEHICLE."
"Pilot?" thought James, "well, if I am the pilot, we need a better name than 'test vehicle.' But what?" He could name it after his dog, skittles. No--skittles was a ridiculous name for a starship. What about from his favorite videogame? Yes that'd do.
"Machine, rename the ship: The Crimson Lance," stated James.
"AFFIRMATIVE: SHIP PREVIOUSLY KNOWN AS 'TEST VEHICLE' SUCCESSFULLY RENAMED 'CRIMSON LANCE"
Satisfied with the rename, James decides to get back to his task. But, how does one activate a machine they've never seen before?
"Machine, how do you work?"
"CLASSIFIED"
"Okay, how do I use you?"
"WARP DRIVE ENGAGED, ANSIBLE ENGAGED, CHOOSE LOCATION AND ENGAGE POWER SYSTEMS."
"What?"
"ENGAGE POWER SYSTEMS."
James stood by the machine, puzzled about what it wanted, when it hit him. He went back to the bridge and engaged the warp drive.
"SYSTEM AT FULL POWER; CHOOSING LOCATION AT RANDOM--LOCATION FOUND--LOCATION CLEAR OF SOLID MATTER--APPROXIMATELY -200- KILOMETERS FROM LOCAL PLANET--ENGAGING MAX ANSIBLE JUMP."
James didn't have the time to tell the machine to stop before he felt the world lurch from right underneath him, in an instant he found himself zooming away from the galaxy without a ship. Panic gnawed at his sanity, the world, nay, the universe as he knew it fell from him. Just as he felt he was going to pass out from the stress, he fell back into the ship, unscathed by the event. James promptly found the nearest bathroom and vomited.
"ESTIMATED DISTANCE TRAVELED: 5,427,708,944,356 PARSECS," the machine stated, "INSUFFICIENT FUEL TO MAKE SECOND JUMP; ENGAGING AUTO-LAND SEQUENCE ON NEARBY TEMPERATE PLANET; PLANET IS HABITABLE FOR KNOWN BIOLOGICS, TROPICAL ZONE: THIRD LATITUDE."
James comes out of the bathroom, shaky on his feet, but alive. "Where could we land? What planet even is this?"
"UNKNOWN; UNEXPLORED SPACE; UNKNOWN SECTOR. STRUCTURE DETECTED. LAND NEAR STRUCTURE?"
"Define 'structure."
"SIMILAR IN APPEARANCE TO A CITY. BIOLOGICS DETECTED WITHIN. EXTRAPOLATION DICTATES IT MAY BE AN ALIEN CITY; LAND NEAR THE CITY?"
"NO. We don't even know if the things in the city are friendly, last thing we need is to piss them off somehow."
"AFFIRMATIVE. SEARCHING FOR ALTERNATE TOUCH-DOWN LOCATIONS."
"You do that, I'm going to get something to eat."