After the initial shock passed on the group of youths got an emergency plan ready they relaxed and started to enjoy their first interstellar cruise.

Due to their rather calm demeanor the Muttmosan mercenary crew only took on jobs where they had to protect clients during field work, such as mining, exploring or hunting. They were trained to fight, as all powerful Force manipulators were, but if they could avoid it, they certainly did so. Most of the specimen were earth Force practitioners, making defending and crowd control an easy task for them.

On the way to Bastoro Nat the young adults listened to a lot of the mercenaries' stories, of weird looking monstrosities they had hunted, of strange, magical planets they had visited and funny anecdotes from their most entertaining passengers. All in all the trip was soothing and would have become boring fast if not for the entertainment the mercenaries provided, a space journey was spent mostly in the cold, dark solitude of space after all and that for days at a time, sometimes even longer.

Normally it would take decades if not centuries to travel between solar systems or galaxies but due to wormholes being established by the federation during the last fourteen years the time span was reduced to months. While the photon engines necessary to travel in subspace decreased it even further to mere days. Only locations in deep space, where mostly only dark matter existed were unreachable by common means.

When the young entourage first laid eyes on the massive, round, slightly distorted, spiraling vortex of energy their eyeballs nearly popped out of their sockets. A radiant swirling storm of space, time and gravity Force that was what they could see, staring out of the bridge's reinforced windows. In front of the gigantic mass of energy long columns of various space ships could be seen, as well as huge military vessels, tasked with securing the wormhole's surroundings.

"Wow, look at that Alex! Have you ever seen something so beautiful and mesmerizing?" exclaimed the thrilled Michelle, pressing her eyes against the robust glass like material.

"Only while looking at you." flirted the young man shamelessly. "Although I think I would like to see this sight while tripping on acid.

"Be serious once in a while!" replied his girlfriend, with a blushing face.

Receiving a playful punch on the shoulder Alex winced, content with his life.

"Hahaha! I see you are one of the connoisseurs for the fine tastes in this universe. If you ever want there are multiple companies providing services for such kinks. There is a whole industry established for getting intoxicated in front of the universe's wonders!" chuckled one of the crew members, after hearing the young man's remark.

The whole room burst into sonorous laughter, making the bashful young woman beet red while she gave a scornful look towards the instigator of this shenanigans. With a wry smile Alex just hugged Michelle and let the others have their fun, inwardly noting down the information supplied by the Muttmosan though.

It took a few hours and finally the Whistling Blade's turn arrived. A quick inspection followed and they were approved for entering the wormhole. Traversing a space tunnel like this was a very unique experience as the wormhole's principle was similar to a black hole's. It pulled the closest objects into it and then tore the space around them apart transporting the whole area to the other end.

All space ships were required to have a space stabilizer integrated otherwise the whole vessel would be torn apart along with the occupants inside. Those devices stabilized the immediate vicinity around the ship's hull, keeping everything in it's effective area from turning into a mass of bloody gore and metal scraps. Master Force manipulators were able to achieve similar feats but spotting a lone life form in front of this ginormous, bright mass of energy was a task only achievable by people on the same level.

"Now please sit down this is going to be a bit of a rough ride and don't barf on my bridge, yeah? You know where the toilet is!" said Crah'ton'da sternly, apparently such an incident had to have happened before.

Nodding and following the advice of the alien the passengers all buckled up, trusting the floating rock to know what he was doing.

As soon as they reached ten kilometers from the wormhole the captain deactivated most systems and the ship picked up speed rapidly only due to the proximity to the energy mass. The Whistling Blade began rumbling stronger and stronger, the closer they approached. When the tip almost touched the space tunnel a bright light illuminated the ship's frame and in a flash it was gone, having entered the deformed space of the wormhole.

"Oh fuck, I forgot to----" started Crah'ton'da, but was interrupted by the deafening noise of space tearing.

Inside the ship the virgin space travelers held onto their seats for dear god, some slowly turning green, yellow, white and all different shades of sickly color. The whole ship felt like it was doing spins, twists and loops, that didn't even finish before changing into another direction. One could only describe it as the most nauseating roller coaster ride they ever experienced.

Before any of the youthful troop could react most of them spewed a fountain of half digested food in front of them, some of it even landed on their fellow barfers, not helping the situation in the slightest. Crah'ton'da could only watch helplessly as his well smelling cockpit turned into a consortium of rancid scents and trickling vomit. Alas, he could only give himself the fault for this disgusting play he witnessed, he was the one who forgot to timely remind his passengers about the barf bags, for humanoid species wormhole traveling the first time, installed in each seat.

However, it was already too late and albeit the space tunnel trip was short, not even taking ten minutes, his once clean bridge now looked like a bunch of alcoholics had a contest to see who could chug more before blacking out. His on board cleaning bots already got to work, the smell though, would surely last for quite a while.

"You take your friends and get them cleaned up, don't worry about the mess it's my fault but I still don't want to smell fresh puke on them while they stay here." said the ashamed rock alien halfheartedly.

Alex, who was the only one who could keep his insides, well, on the inside, threw the Muttmos a reproachful look but complied since his girlfriend was covered by her own filth from head to toe and he himself had some beads of vomit running down his trousers.

A shower was what each of them needed direly.

What once started as a fun, new, exciting baptism turned into a feared ordeal they would have to repeat the next time they wanted to jump to a new solar system. It would be better the more often they used a wormhole but for the first few rides novices should hold their barf bags at hand all the time.

Following two hours of extensive cleaning, Alex, Michelle and their friends met back up to spectate the new galaxy they were in. It looked rather plain, not different from the Milky Way, but that was only the case due to them being on the outer edges of Triangulum.

A few days went by and after seeing an enormous, spiderweb modeled space station floating in the distance, they knew their stay on this mercenary ship was coming to an end soon. The Whistling Blade docked at one of the ports orbiting around the interstellar hub, from where space elevators were used to travel around the intricate structure.

Having recovered from their disgusting bodily fluid escapade, they forgave the embarrassed Crah'ton'da for forgetting to remind them about such common symptoms, and wished the whole crew a fruitful excursion into the deep space, where they had to take their client to mine some rare minerals.

Finally having reached their first destination the group of friends rented five apartments and began exploring their first extraterrestrial entertainment district. Every space hub was equipped with such industries to keep workers and mercenaries from committing suicide on lonesome nights, in the dark, distant areas of outer space, and tourists busy spending money. All sorts of establishments could be found but the most prevalent was the red light district, for obvious reasons.

As all of them had their own habits and guilty pleasures the group of friends split up for the first day. Alex and Michelle first visited different kind of drug dispensaries before strolling around the open streets of Bastoro Nat, enjoying the view the energy field provided them of the distant stars and puffing some weed from time to time.

Life was good for the moment and each of the cohort took their time discovering all sorts of alien pleasures and weird, new entertainments.