She walked through the hallway connecting the front door to the rest of her rooms, humming whatever song was stuck in her mind. There was a quiet and soft beeping of an incoming transmission.

Maya Rea made her way over to the ViewScreen mounted next to the door while humming AJR's "Good Part". The song was hundreds of years old and the artists were long dead but the music was still good. Better than what Maya had then. At that time, people were too focused on making a living in their dying galaxy that the production of good music, was rare. People who cared about music listened to the oldies.

"Hey, what's up sis," Maya said as she waved her hand in front of the ViewScreen which connected the transmission.

Her sister's voice filled her room as she made her way back to the main area which was a kitchen, a living room, and a small office all squashed into one small room with a bedroom and bathroom tucked away through a wooden door. It wasn't much but it was good enough for her. It got her by until she could get something better.

"Nothing much, just checking in," her sister said. Her voice was slightly tainted with static because of the distance between them. "When are you going to come home?"

Maya sighed. Every time her sister called, she had to give the same answer to the same question, "Not anytime soon. I'm sorry."

She groaned, "Why? It can't be that hard to fly back to Earth. You have a ship anyway. What's stopping you?"

"You know why," Maya said as she sat down on her bed and started to pull her bright maroon-colored spacesuit boots over black socks. "It's a tough galaxy out there. I need to have enough money to take care of you when mom and dad leave."

"They're not going to leave soon," she said, her excitement slowly dying away. Talk of their parents always brought both of the sisters' spirits down. They had both gotten sick and any doctors the went to didn't know why. Her spirit more than Maya's. She had found a way to keep most of her innermost emotions at bay. "Dad is stable. He's getting better. And mom's back at home."

Maya nodded as she pulled the suit's bottom over the skintight black pants and tank top she was already wearing, "I know. I got the results this morning."

"They're doing fine. And dad's been able to work from the hospital."

"Soon he won't be able to."

"Well, aren't you going to at least visit before anything happens?" She asked.

Maya shook her head. She only had the helmet of the suit with its bright blue visor left to secure, "I can't. Work is tough and busy. I'm sorry."

"I know," she said, then sighed. "I have to get back to school, Maya. Talk to you tonight."

"You know how much I want to be there with you," Maya managed to slip in before she hung up. "Please tell me that you know."

There was silence for seconds before her sister replied, "I know. Sometimes I think you're just too overwhelmed with work that you're loosing the part of you that I loved the most."

Maya's heart almost skipped a beat, "Don't say that. That isn't true."

She sighed again. The sound made her heart ache, "Bye."

"Bye Sare."

With a soft ding, the transmission fell silent and Maya was left alone again. Whatever song that had been stuck in her mind was long gone. Replaced by quiet and a little bit of loneliness. Maybe she was right. She was losing something. Working for InExCor / Euclid took everything from her. She barely knew anyone, the only people she did know were her bosses. She had no friends. And what did it get her? The units she needed to pay for my next meal? Was it worth it?

7:43, she needed to be at her starship in seven minutes. Maya picked her helmet off of her unmade bed and walked down the hallway. She pulled the door open and closed it behind herself and stepped out into the cold, hard, undecorated corridor of the space station she lived in.

Maya followed it down to the end, past several other doors of her fellow coworker's rooms as she secured the helmet over her head. The jobs of those working at InExCor / Euclid were so spread out across the galaxy that contact with another coworker was very rare. Maya had tried to make friends but to no avail. The only friend she had growing up was her little sister. That was probably why she felt so bad about leaving her.

The end of the corridor connected with a set of metal stairs that led down into the hangar bay below. As she stepped down, Maya adjusted the systems of her suit using a control panel on her left wrist. She didn't even need to look where she was stepping. Years of the same thing did that to a person's mind. Each step was one and a half feet long and 8 inches tall. Exactly each step was precisely the same measurements. Space stations were like that anywhere in Euclid you went. Perfectly precise.

Maya would rather not know the information. Her mind couldn't help but try to figure it out. A type of OCD she had been diagnosed with while growing up. The same type wasn't around before humanity reached to the stars. Something about the way a baby develops off-planet or in artificial gravity causes strange things to happen. Maya was a part of lucky few that survived. Her along with her sister, Sarah. And her parents and their parents. Maya was part of a lucky family but alongside everyone else, she didn't feel all that lucky.

Maya made her way into the hangar bay which was surprisingly devoid of any kind smell. You would think that from whirring PulseEngines, and leaking LaunchThruster coolant that the place would smell of smoke and grease. It was perfectly sanitized by small little pieces of metal that were able to think as a collective. She knew they couldn't but, sometimes she couldn't help but find herself hoping that they didn't become sapient and take over everyone that lived on the station.

She walked passed lines of starships, all different shapes, sizes, and colors—but there were only four base types of ships: Explorers, Fighters, Haulers, and Shuttles. Maya's ship was a Fighter even though it couldn't take a Vy'keen's punch. She was surprised it was able to handle the pressure of its HyperDrive. Her own brain couldn't even handle the pressure.

Finally, she arrived at her ship. NE6 Tagaya. A Vy'keen ship. Maya had found it completely abandoned on Etchilo Prime. That was in another galaxy. She still couldn't believe it. She had spent most of her life tucked away in a corner of the galaxy called Amayaris, which her parents named her after. That region was home to humanity's first Solar System. Earth was a very different place than it was four centuries ago. Then she got a job at InExCor and the universe as she knew it expanded. Maya had traveled to another galaxy!

The only risk of intergalactic travel was the diseases the body's immune system wasn't resistant too. Foreign bacteria that were able to infect others while being killed off by those who's immune systems could defend themselves. Maya was one of those that were sent back to Euclid because of the bacteria her body couldn't fight. She was assigned back to InExCor / Euclid.

She stepped up to her white-painted ship with a bit of blue and red trimming and knocked on its metal hull. It obeyed her command and the black glass canopy popped out of its latches and slowly lifted revealing the black leather cockpit inside.

Maya climbed up and into the cockpit using handholds and footsteps she had carved into the hull herself. The ship was designed to be operated by a Vy'keen much larger than she was. Being human already made her smaller than any of them. Being the shortest girl in her class growing up didn't give her much more of an advantage.

She plopped into the pilot's seat as normally as she would any day and the canopy slowly sealed her away from the space station. She had tried her best to make the cockpit as homy as she could. She had spent more time there than she did in her own home. There were PhotoPanels along the top of the canopy that displayed old family photos, little cubby holes housed exotic flowers that she had managed to find during her adventures to the planets of Euclid.

The purple and blue shades of the flowers that filled her ship with a sweet aroma were the only flowers she had found. Every other planet she had explored alone was either cooking alive under their star's harsh rays or frozen solid from the star's neglect.

It was hard to see at first and people's ignorance stopped them from realizing, but her galaxy was dying. Not only Euclid, but every other discovered galaxy—Euclid, Eissentam, Mobile, all of them. She tried not to let it get into her mind though. She just kept living the same way she normally would. The same way everyone would. Long workdays for a few more units in the bank.

Her starship's databank pinged the heads-up-display on Maya's helmet visor. The message detailed her assigned system of documentation for the month. Everything she needed to know coming to her from a long-range scan.

/ / / / Vuyatiwai

Celestial Bodies 3 Planets 2 Moons

Dominant Lifeform Vy'keen

Economy Research / / Struggling

Conflict Level Critical

It became second nature for her to go through the system checks before launch. She knew it wasn't needed but she did anyway. The last thing she wanted to happen was to be stranded in space with a no functioning ship and a LifeSupport slowly draining power. The suit she wore, protected her from the harshest environments but did very little when it came to the vacuum that surrounded every world in the universe.

Environmental Shielding / / ONLINE

Atmospheric Control / / OPERATIONAL

Cabin Temperature Regulator / / ONLINE

LifeSupport Systems / / ONLINE

Four systems down. The four that made sure she didn't die by any means. Five left. The systems required for spaceflight. Even she didn't know entirely how they worked. Humanity had found a way to travel incredibly long distances in a relatively short amount of time but the Korvax had completely redesigned their technology. Maya knew how the originals worked, but not the new. She seemed to her parents as "a girl after her time". She knew a lot about the past and not very much about the present.

These systems were meant to be tested outside of the station. It was incredibly dangerous to test them while still being docked inside the hangar, and Maya didn't think accidentally shooting someone else's ship with a PhotonCannon would go down very well. Or tearing the entire station in half with a HyperDrive jump. Maya was sitting in a very deadly weapon. She was surprised that no one had used it as one yet.

The ship vibrated and hummed as she activated the LaunchThrusters. The ship slowly lifted off of the sleek metal ground.

LaunchThrusters / / FUELED AND ONLINE

"Good to know," Maya sarcastically said as the space station's navigational controls took control of her starship.

The main thruster activated and her ship was propelled forward into a large tunnel lined with bright white lights. At the end of the tunnel were the stars. Once the ship left the tunnel, the controls were handed back to her. She quickly tested all the other systems she needed to. She tested the PulseEngine, the Photon and Pulse Cannons, and finally the HyperDrive.

This was the last one on the list, and the most important. Maya plotted the route her ship would take to get to the system she was assigned too. The ship estimated an arrival time of 23 minutes. It was going to be a long ride. A HyperDrive jump wasn't the most comfortable mode of transportation but it was certainly better than the alternatives. Spending thousands of years traveling to a system that would provide me with only a month's worth of work didn't seem very fun to her.

Maya's ship auto-adjusted directly towards the system it was traveling to. It became a habit for her to try to guess which one of the countless stars was the system she was jumping too. She was always wrong. But it was good enough to pass the few seconds it took to spool up the HyperDrive.

Maya had five-seconds to prepare. The center console just below the canopy counted down. In five-seconds she would be propelled to the speeds of light and even faster in just seconds.

Streaks of yellow light started to envelop her ship as the countdown reached 3. Then the space in front of her started to crack like breaking glass. The very fabrics of the universe being frozen in place and then broken into.

As the countdown ticked to 2 and then to 1, the glass broke and shattered revealing a blinding yellow and green tunnel of light beyond it. Then Maya's ship was propelled into it and then her entire mind was immediately slammed into unconsciousness.