“Everyone stick close, Gabe lead.” Anaya unholstered her blaster pistol, turning it off its safety function.

“Wha-Why!?” Gabe reflexively turned towards Anaya who seemed to be enjoying herself.

“It’s your people, they won’t shoot at yah.”

“So I'm a shield?”

“Correct.”

“Yup.”

The two girls were smiling and nodding their heads. Gabe sighed as he learned his purpose in this mission.

“Let’s just get this over with.”

Anaya pressed the button. Air released from the side’s of the door as the pressure matched the other side. Slowly the door opened to a darkened airlock. The group turned on their flashlights and walked forward.

The airlock was a small yet big enough to allow the trio enough room to walk around and investigate. Around the sides were glass closets that revealed rudimentary, compared to what they were wearing right now, space suits.

Rhenixa was opening closets left and right, Anaya was busy breaking open locked boxes and anything else that looked like it contained treasure.

Looking at the ceiling Gabe actually found direction in his now hectic life. And that direction was a sign that said ‘Elevator’. Looking back at the two girls, one obviously getting frustrated at the amount of work she’s doing to find so little.

“Hey, you aren’t gonna find something on a low level.”

Anaya kicked a lock box, it clattered across the room at extreme speeds. and joined him in the elevator. The other joined shortly after she finished checking the crew lockers.

Gabe pressed the button with an ‘up’ arrow. The elevator made a slight drop as gears began to engage. The mechanism actually sounded like it was struggling to perform its duty. The trio dropped their weapons to a more relaxed position as they waited for their stop.

“Well this is pleasant.” through the speakers a smooth jazz song was playing lightly. Gabe began humming to the music that was playing.

Rhenixa turned her head to face him.

“What? I like this song.” The elevator reached the upper floor, they resumed raising their weapons outward.

Their target was the inky blackness that was another corridor. They entered, the area was a lot bigger than the airlock, the look of the room had a very ‘waiting room’ feel to it. Green benches had been displaced from their original positions Some were thrown across the room glass had been shattered. Newspapers littered the floor. Even though there was a sign of a fight there was no blood, no bodies, nothing the area just looked like a miniature tornado blew through.

The trio fanned across the room to investigate the scene.

“Goddess.” Rhenixa looked at one of the benches, they had once been bolted to the ground. Even with her beastial strength tearing up something that had been attached to the floor was almost impossible.

The darkness was almost debilitating Gabe. He looked around and found a map that still had power to it. He began to read it off.

“South, airlock. West, engineering, medical bay. East, Mess hall, residential, restrooms. North, bridge, information center.”

Anaya stood next to him to get a look at the map. “We split up. Rhen, go West. I’ll go East. Gabe get the light’s on.”

“Aye, Aye Captain Titties.”

“Why do yah keep calling me that?” Anaya finally questions her nickname. “What does it even mean?”

“Oh,” Gabe paused to think of a save. “Just a nickname.” He cheekily smiled.

She shrugged off the answer and went to her designation. Rhenixa put a hand on his shoulder.

“Be careful.” And walked off.

Now Gabe was alone. He dropped his shoulders, Inhaled and walked forward. The darkness he entered was a long corridor. The entirety of it was bare save for a few posters advertising some products onboard.

Every couple of steps lead to an opening on the left or right going to another room or series of halls. He continued to move forward. The eerie lack of sounds in the area left Gabe with red flags waving.

Reaching the end lead to another elevator. He pressed the up arrow again. This ride was a much shorter one. As the doors opened, light spilled through the revealing he was no longer within the ship’s lower levels. He was now on the bridge.

Giant glass windows made up a majority of the walls. The ever bright sun was shining bathing the room. Against the contrast of space, it was very aesthetic. Everything had been spaced away from each other but gradually came closer as it went closer to the nose of the bridge.

Gabe approached the captain’s chair. ‘Finally.’ he thought to himself. ‘Something I can actually work.’

It wasn’t that he knew how to work it. But since everything was ever-so-neatly labeled it made it a lot easier to figure out what needed to be done. He saw a panel that had ‘power’ written on it. There was a meter on the screen next to it. The colored bar sat at the lowest setting, Gabe pulled the lever upward, raising it to the max.

At first, the lights began to fluctuate but steadily became constant. “Good job, Gabe,” Anaya said over the commlink.

‘Ding Bong.’

“Hello, citizen.” A male voice came from nowhere

Gabe jumped from the unknown voice. “H-hello?”

“I cannot identify you as a resident of my ship, citizen. Who are you?”

“Uhm. Gabe.” He looked around for the source only noticing a speaker system.

“Hello,” The voice paused, the tone changed. “Gabe.” The voice paused again to change the tone. “I am the Voyager’s Virtual assistant, V.V.A, or as the crew calls me, Veva. Are you by chance, answering the distress signal?”

Gabe thought for a second, perhaps he can learn something from the machine if he plays around. “Yeah, I’m here on the behalf of the maintenance team.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you but, everything is nominal.”

“If everything is okay, Then can I ask where is everybody?”

“This vessel has been in hibernation mode for,” The voice paused and changed in tone again. “Three hundred seventy-five years and ten days.” The voice changed back to its normal tone. “The crew and its passengers status are, unknown.”

‘Three hundred and seventy-five years!?’ how could it be that long? He was literally just on early a few days ago! Even if he was hanging around in space with its weird concept of time. At best it would probably be a couple of years.

He thought back to his teleporter. Perhaps what he made wasn’t a simple break-down-reassemble transporter and he had made a wormhole that threw him into a random time and space.

“I’ve been doing passive scans and I am receiving weird readings,” the shift began once more. “Gabe.” Shifted back. “They tell me that you are, pure human?”

“Yeah?”

“This is strange, the pure human strain was eradicated when the outbreak on Earth.”

“Outbreak?”

“Yes, I must inform the fleet.” There was silence between the two for several moments. “The fleet is not responding.”

Gabe went over to a seat and sat down. “Veva, What were you doing out here?”

“The current mission was to search and colonize potential planets.”

This didn’t sound too good. Now he was curious about the condition of his home planet.

“Veva, What can you tell me about the outbreak.”

“Not much, the outbreak happened so fast only a few sources were created but were left on Earth.”

“Great .” Gabe rolled his eyes. The lights changed from a bright light to a flashing red. Gabe shot up from the chair.

“Non-human Intruders have been detected in the east wing and west wing. Civilian casualty prediction, zero percent, Opening airlocks.”

“Wait! Don’t!” Gabe shouted at the artificial intelligence.

“I cannot stop, this my primary protocol to protect.”

Gabe ran to the elevator door in an attempt to stop the areas from being flushed, V.V.A saw this and closed the door before he even reached the door. “I cannot allow you to interfere.”

“Gah, Rhenixa, Anaya. Go back to the warden.” He decided to tell the girls remotely.

“Why, I just found some cool stuff?” Rhenixa was busy voicing her complaints.

“Yeah, Whats up?”

“Just go! Hurry.”

There wasn’t a single response just static. The A.I must’ve been disrupting the transmissions as a protocol to isolate intruders from squads if they were split up.

“Airlocks will begin opening in twenty-five seconds.”

Gabe went back to a chair and sat down, He was powerless to stop the machine from doing what it was programmed to do.

“Airlock flush complete. Fleet evasion underway.”

The ship’s engines began to come alive. The subtle hum vibrated the floor very slightly. Looking through the glass Gabe could see that the stars bending towards him. In a moment he was surrounded on both sides by walls of light.

Gabe and the voyager stayed in the vortex for only moments before slowing down in front of an orange planet.

“Intruders are no longer in detected within my systems.”

Gabe sighed. And put one hand up to his face leaning on the control panel. “Thanks, Veva”

“For your protection, Gabe.”

“That was sarca- Whatever. Where are we?”

“Unknown. I had not planned an escape system.”

“So we are lost, right now?”

“For the moment, yes. Another jump will be available in approximately, oh.”

“What now?”

“It seems my energy reserves were not ready for a sudden jump.”

“And that means?”

“I will be shutting down until they recover, we also jumped within the planet’s gravity field.”

Gabe leaned back in his chair and relaxed. “So, we are crashing?”

“I can calculate your survival rate if you would like.”

“No...it’s fine.”

The glass began to show the heated friction as they went further into the planet’s atmosphere.

“As you wish, Gabe”

Even if he had only met the Anaya’s for a few days, he really wished they had gotten off in time. It’d be a real shame if he’d lost his literal only friends in the entire galaxy.

The planet’s surface had become quite visible before V.V.A closed the shutters on the bridge. “Impact is imminent, Brace yourself.”

Gabe gripped onto the seat his body had been rocked about but he remained seated. His teeth gritted hard against each other. The force of the landing started to prove too much for his body, he lost consciousness.