ARRIVAL, PLANET VEGETA...
Seven shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He was almost there. The timer on the screen read one hour. The excruciating ride was almost over. It had been too long; seven days was too long for him to be left to his thoughts.
Unlike his cell, where Seven was also isolated, he couldn't move around in the pod. That seemed to make it worse. The fact that there was less than an inch between the inside of the pod and seemingly endless void didn't help either. It terrified him, to the point that each time he hit some sort of turbulence in hyperspace, he found himself shaking.
An empty stomach, parched mouth, and nerves wracked him. He tried to put the suffering out of his mind, but it wasn't that simple. Dying of thirst and hunger was a slow agony. Whenever he went to sleep, he would close his eyes and pray that when he woke he was back on Sorn. Sleep, on the other hand, came easy and Seven spent most of his time doing it. When he did wake he sat daydreaming of the skimpy meals they gave him in his cell and the book he had stuffed under his pillow.
If only he had thought to grab it and bring it with him.
His cell had been familiar, it had been his life. It was a strange notion, to think of such a place as home, but a person didn't always get to pick their home. Planet Vegeta was supposed to be Seven's home, but he had never been there before. Not since he was an infant, and he didn't remember those days at all. His people were waiting for him and he feared that the sort of hostile reaction he would receive.
You're a dead man. Might as well open that hatch and fall into space. Save yourself the suffering you'll feel when you land, the King's voice said.
The last hour seemed like an eternity. Seven tried to steel himself for what was about to happen, but found no solace. How was facing certain death ever an easy thing? He regretted leaving behind Sorn. At least there, he could have lived in the desert, got by somehow. He might have been hunted and shunned, but at least he could live under the open sky and have peace.
That was a lot better than flying to his grave. Wasn't it?
The timer ended and hyperspace fell away, the twisting ripple of light dissipating before his eyes. Floating debris pummeled his pod and Seven winced, praying it wouldn't puncture straight through the thin metal.
Despite his maddening anxiety, the pod proved to be durable, plowing through the debris with reckless speed. The incessant pelting went on for minutes with no end. So, he sat forward, trying to get a look out the circular viewport. All he saw was a broad ring of space dust, glinting in the local's star's orange light.
"Computer where are we?"
"COORDINATES MATCH PLANET VEGETA."
Seven didn't see any planet, not for as far as his eyes could make out. As he traveled further, the only thing he could see beyond the ring of dust was an asteroid field. It was composed of giant misshapen stones, tumbling end over end through the void.
How did he tell a computer that it was wrong? Maybe the maps and information that had been stored in the pod were out of date. That was the only thing that made sense. Planets didn't just up and fly away, did they?
What could he do now though? Seven couldn't just go back to Sorn. He wouldn't make it, not another seven days without food or water. Cryo-stasis wasn't an option either. His pod wasn't equipped with it, at least not for an adult. He had been placed inside of a cryo-stasis capsule when he was a just an infant, but it had to be removed for him to fit in as he did now.
"I'm going to die."
#1
FOURTEEN YEARS EARLIER...
SORN SYSTEM, AGE 805
Doctor Gratz tapped the display with a hooked claw and swiped to the side, bringing the current panel onto the much larger view screen on the wall. The video simulation showed a small blip moving across space. The doctor froze the simulation when a large asteroid appeared on the projected path.
"As you can see, after exiting a hyperspace nearly seventy five years ago, the alien craft set a straight path to Sorn. Due to our calculations, the asteroid's interference was an anomaly," he continued the video. "The craft's pilot, or navigation computer, probably detected it and tried to change course. It must've failed to compensate properly and made impact."
The blip flashed red as it hit the asteroid. It then bounced away, hurling at high speeds towards a large sphere that indicated a gas giant.
"Perhaps the collision damaged its engines, or life support. I'm not sure. But, after impact the craft didn't resume its original course. It fell into high orbit around Gapin and has remained there all these years. It has a beacon sending out radio pulses every twelve hours. That is how we tracked it. If we can recover this vessel intact, it might provide us with valuable technologies or information on our interstellar neighbors."
The doctor brushed the wispy mustache on his snout and made long eye contact with the crew. There were a dozen of them, wearing bright orange jumpsuits, knelt next to their flight helmets, tails tucked beneath them. "This might change everything for Sorn and bring our people onto the galactic stage. So, I urge you take the most caution when recovering the vessel. Think of it as a rare and valuable artifact. Treat it like you would a small infant, with the utmost care. Is that clear?"
"Yes it is Doctor," said their Captain voice seething with frustration. The Captain stood tall, and was rather bulky for a male, with broad shoulders and wilting scales. His age and experience were apparent, the way the crew moved on his every word. He leaned against the bulkhead, helmet tucked under one arm. The snarl on his muzzle told the Doctor that he wasn't amused. The Doctor understood. It was never easy to have someone doubting your capabilities. But, he hoped that the reminder would at least help them focus on the task at hand. Better to say something than nothing at all.
"Good. That is all I can ask of you," Gratz said. "May the gods bless your journey."
The crew filed out, down the long corridor to the ship's hangar. Gratz closed the hatch and settled down in the captain's seat. He turned off the simulation and switched over to the ships forward cameras. Gapin filled the entire screen-a blue gas giant swirling and churning with clouds of white. On his first expedition into space, Gratz had let out a child-like gasp upon seeing Gapin in person. It was the jewel of their little star system.
He had always dreamed of visiting other systems and this was the route to that dream coming true. The alien ship had a hyperdrive. That was the most important part about it. His people had only come so far in developing their own-they were still on the border line. They could only sustain a jump for a few million miles. That wasn't nearly far enough to make a real difference. Progress had ground to a halt. They were missing something simple in their calculations and were at the cusp of becoming a star-faring civilization. Gratz hoped to find that missing piece through reverse engineering the alien craft.
The salvagers flew triangular craft with pincer-like arms. They spread out from their cluster, speeding towards the jovian planet in a V-formation. Chugging along behind them was a flat barge, which they would set the pod onto and strap it in place for towing. The Doctor rapped his fingers on the arm of the chair as they approached the craft. The alien ship itself was a sphere of gray metal with a small porthole in the front. It had a set of grooves along the top of it, which appeared to indicate some sort of hatch.
The most amazing part, at least that Gratz had found, was that there was no visible thrusters or engines. Yet, it had traveled all this way. He yearned to dig into its inner workings and understand them. Two salvager ships took hold of the pod and maneuvered it onto the barge. Three more worked to belt it down. A few times Gratz watched as it bucked wildly, almost breaking away from the barge. Getting a round object secured on a flat one was no easy task, but they didnt' have months and the funds to develop an easier way.
Much to his relief, the barge, towed by the salvagers started back to the mothership.
Rising from the Captain's chair, the sprinted down the corridor and towards the hangar. He stood, rubbing his scaled hands together as the bulky airlock doors popped open, releasing a cloud of steam with a loud hiss. The cargo crane's arm swung over the top of the alien ship and lowered chains. The crewman scrambled to remove the securing belts and the chains wrapped around it.
Gratz licked at the sides of his snout, "Yes-careful-careful."
The Captain jumped down off the barge and started waving his hands, indicating to the crane operator to lift the ship. Gratz had to swallow a lump in his throat as he watched it getting lifted and moved over to the gyroscopic platform they had created to examine it. His tail twitched nervously behind him. The Captain grunted, his tongue snaking between pointed teeth.
"A simple job," he muttered. "Hopefully it's worth the billions of crystals your people spent on it."
"It will be. This little pod holds more technological information than our race has accumulated in the past century."
The pod came to rest on the gyro-platform and the crewmen removed the chains. The Doctor approached it as a hunter would a wild animal on the hunt, while trying not to faint at the sight of the strange alloy its hull was made out of. He needed to get samples of that right away. Climbing up the ladder, he came to look at the little view-port, which was crusted over with ice crystals. Taking his clawed fingers he carefully chipped it away to get a look inside.
Gratz let out a gasp.
"What is it?" the Captain said.
"An extraterrestrial," Gratz responded in a low voice. "A small one-perhaps a child."
Gratz saw a seat inside of the pod, on it sat a long capsule. Within the capsule he saw a flat faced creature with dark strands of hair, its pale flesh covered in ice crystals.
"Alive?" the Captain said. "Should we retrieve the weapons?"
"No! Gods no-I think it's in a cryo-stasis capsule. Get me an electro-scanner. I want to figure out how we can get this thing open."