The Chronicles of the Intergalactic Explorers - Volume 1 - Terminus Dawn
Good day, fellow travellers. You likely don't know me, but my name is Raz. For the past few years, I've been a simple taxi driver, operating the Al Mazrah Taxi Service with eleven of my closest friends. Together, we strove to put some positivity into Al Mazrah, and had plenty of adventures along the way.
Recently, our path took us in a new direction, and we found ourselves far, far from home. The following is the end of one journey, and the start of another.
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The soft scratching of sand whirling past my visor pulled me from the darkness. I opened my eyes, the blinding lights high in the sky assaulting my vision. I raised my arm to shield myself from suns. “Wait, suns?” I thought to myself, noticing the glove on my hand for the first time as I squinted at the sky. I wiped the sand from my helmet and tried to stand up. My body was stiff, so stiff it was hard to even move my legs. Looking down, I realized I was half buried in the hot sand. “Well, that explains that” I muttered to myself, digging myself out. The desert expanse stretched endlessly in all directions, barren and empty. I freed myself and stood up, feeling strangely light on my feet. I heard a loud groan to my right, and I saw a gloved hand thrust out from the dune. I ran over and pulled hard, and Dutch materialized out of the sand, coughing.
“Hey Raz, thanks for that. What the hell happened?” he said, brushing himself off and looking around. “Pawz said we were going to the Oasis for a bonfire and some drinks.” I shrugged and motioned to the sky. “I think we might have taken the wrong portal or something. Either I hit my head very hard, or there are two suns up there.” Dutch raised up his hand, looked up, and frowned. “Yeah, there are two up there.” He reached to stroke his majestic mustache out of habit and got blocked by his helmet. “I don’t recall wearing this goofy space suit either.” I looked at his suit, taking in the details for the first time. I poked at his chest, picking at the stitching, and knocking my knuckles on the armor plating. I spun him around to examine the pack strapped to his back. “Yeah, these are definitely space suits. Airtight, body armor, and it seems like there is some sort of thruster at the bottom of this pack…”
“Yeah, yours too, boss” he replied, looking at the backpack strapped to me. “Where the hell are we?” I started to reply, but a flash of red light in the distance cut me off. Amid a plume of smoke, we saw something rocket off the ground and head towards us with insane speed. “Duck and cover!” Dutch yelled, pushing me to the ground. As I hit the deck, I turned and watched the projectile slam into the sand a few feet from us. “You good, Dutch?” I yelled as I got up and cautiously moved closer to the impact site. “Yeah, I’m good” he growled as he dusted himself off yet again. “Is that….. Is that a pair of legs?”
I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was in fact a pair of legs, kicking furiously in the air, hopelessly trying to free themselves from the sand. “Give me a hand, Dutch” I said as I grabbed one of them and pulled. Dutch grabbed the other and with one hard tug, a man with a glorious mustache in an identical spacesuit came out of the sand. “Did you guys see that? I was flying!” Enoch laughed as he got to his feet. “Friggin’ jetpacks, Raz!” I laughed and grabbed him. “Enoch, you crazy bastard! Man, am I glad to see you!” Dutch chuckled and clapped him on the shoulder. “I should have guessed. If anyone was going to turn themselves into a rocket, it’d be you.” Enoch smiled and looked around. “This isn’t Al Mazrah, boss. Where the hell are we?” I shrugged. “Beats me, man. But we need to find the others. Before you attempted to kamikaze us, what do you remember?”
Enoch pointed over to a distant dune. “I woke up half buried in sand over there. I didn’t see anyone else, and then I noticed this little button here.” He held up his hand and showed us a red button. “See? I pressed it, and here I am.” He pressed the button, and we were immediately engulfed in sand and smoke, and he launched up into the air. “Whoops!” he yelled as he rocketed into the sky, twisting himself in an unsuccessful attempt to control his ascent. “Well, I suppose we need to follow him, eh?” Dutch smiled and looked down at his hand. “What do you think?” I looked down, placing my thumb gently on my own button. “What’s the worst that can happen?”
I touched down gently moments after Dutch, careful to not land on the set of legs flailing in the sand. We grabbed a leg each and ripped Enoch back into the light once more. “Next time, try letting go of the button” Dutch quipped as Enoch scowled at him. I laughed, causing Enoch to take a swipe at my head. His glove brushed my helmet, and for a split second, my vision turned blue, and the landscape was filled with icons of all shapes and colors. “Whoa!” I yelled in surprise. “Enoch, do that again.” “What, try to hit you in the face?” Enoch cocked his head in surprise but balled his fist and moved towards me. “I mean, whatever you say, boss.” I raised my hand to my helmet, and again, blue washed over the landscape. “Wait, wait!” I yelled, making Enoch hesitate. “Take your left hand and hold it up like this” I said, showing them the motion. “No Enoch, on your own head” I said, ducking his hand once more. “It’s some sort of scanner.”
“Wicked” Dutch said, turning and looking every which way. “No idea what half this stuff means, but I see one that looks like a house” he said. “Think we should head that way? Here, I think I can tag it.” Seconds later the icon lit up blue in my own HUD, and I nodded. “I think I’m going to walk it” Enoch mumbled, causing Dutch to grin and look away before Enoch caught on. “Sure Enoch, nothing like a stroll under the suns. Let’s go.” I followed them, playing with the scanner as I walked. “Hey guys, you can scan rocks and cactus and stuff. Check it out” I said, pointing at a strange cactus-like plant. “Says that one is made of carbon and sodium.” I fiddled with it some more and was just about to scan a weird looking rock when I noticed something off to my left. Years of operating in Al Mazrah had trained me for surprise threats, and my hand dropped to my hip on instinct for my trusty throwing knife, but all I grasped was sand. “Movement left” I barked, and I saw both Dutch and Enoch react the same as I had, both also finding only sand on their hips. “I see it” Dutch whispered, getting low behind a rock outcropping. “What the hell is that thing?!” Enoch exclaimed.
I had no answer to his question. I tried to wipe my eyes, my knuckles banging into my visor. A few meters away, a small creature bounced into view from behind a small bush. I tried to find the words to describe the alien hopping in front of my eyes, but all words escaped me. “Is that a….. a…” I stumbled, trying to find the right words. “It’s a…..” “It’s a living nutsack” Enoch said, matter-of-factly. I couldn’t argue with the assessment. Small, hairy, and bulbous, it was exactly that. Large eyes wobbled around as it hopped, paying absolutely no mind to us as it bounced away. “Where the hell are we, Raz?” Dutch asked, his tone serious and even. I shook my head violently, hoping that I could jar my brain back into reality. “I don’t know, Dutch. I mean, I’ve seen some weird stuff in the past few months, but this place? This is different.” I thought back, memories of the things I’d witnessed flowing through my head. I had watched Snoop Dogg stab a guy to death in the middle of the street. I saw superheroes murder operators dressed like rabbits in cold blood. Twisted monstrosities masquerading as aquatic transportation. The undead swarm across Urzikstan. We had come so far from the good old days, when we were just a simple crew of twelve taxi drivers, just trying to survive the war in our homeland and provide top tier transportation to operators in need. “Hopping sentient ballsacks” I muttered out loud, inciting a childish giggle from Enoch. “I wish Pawz was here” he said in between laughs. “You know he’d run over there, chase it down, and try to ride it.” I laughed as I motioned for them to follow me. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
For the next hour or so, we walked in silence, only the slight crunch of the sand underfoot and the strange calls of distant wildlife carried by the warm breeze interrupting my thoughts. I kept checking the distance to the marked icon, the distance shrinking at an almost unbearable pace. This was certainly a desert, but it also certainly wasn’t anywhere close to the desert of Al Mazrah. Ever since Jade had opened that first portal months ago, nothing had ever been the same, but this was certainly something different. All the other jobs we’d done, all the other worlds we’d visited, we’d strolled out of that yellow portal exactly how we’d gone in. This time, I woke up buried in sand, in a space suit, without any remembrance of where I had been before that moment. I squinted up at the twin suns high in the sky, and felt lucky that at least Dutch and Enoch were here with me. But what about the others?
As we climbed over a dune, a welcome sight shimmered in the desert heat. A small cluster of buildings baking in the sun, all grouped around a small antennae array. The metal buildings looked ragged, but flashing lights and a small generator humming away gave me hope. “Maybe someone is in there and can tell us where we are.” Dutch nodded in agreement, and we slid down the sandy hill towards the door. “Whoever is in there, they better have some Hennessy” Enoch grumbled as we trudged up the ramp. I looked for a door handle, but the door sprang open as I got close to it. A blast of cool, clean air blew sand off us in a cloud of red as we crossed over the threshold. The door closed and my eyes started to adjust to the room inside.
It was surprisingly clean inside, bordering on sterile. Ambient green lighting illuminated a small desk, some chairs, and a strange terminal on the wall. However, it wasn’t the décor that stopped me cold; it was the other occupants. From the corner, a single blue light in the visor of a humanoid robot blinked slowly as it turned to face our direction. A little over 6 foot tall, it stood up and waved in our direction. “Well, he seems friendly” Dutch remarked. “Yeah, but that guy, not so much” Enoch replied. I had noticed the other set of eyes glaring in our direction too. It was almost eight feet tall, with three horns jutting out of either side of its head. Its jaw was something out of a horror movie, and it bared its teeth at us and growled. “Zocoi ijintaixara! Haqun zadgad ins xenky!” “Did you get any of that?” Dutch asked under his breath. “Not a word” I replied.
“Hey, horn face!” Enoch called out. “You know where a guy can get a drink around here?” The lifeform rose to its feet and growled again. “Great, thanks Enoch. Now we are going to have to fight this thing” Dutch sighed. “Where’s my Bryson when you need it.” Enoch brushed past him and walked towards the hulking foe. “You deaf or something? I said, drink. Driiink.” The being slammed its fist on the table, growled out “GRAH!” and pointed towards a door across the room. Enoch looked back at me, smiled, and shrugged. “Just like Ahkdar Village, eh?” He chuckled and gave the angry alien a thumbs up. “Appreciate it, fish lips.” He walked towards the door, completely ignoring the raging alien.
We walked through the door into a sea of commotion. The room was filled with alien creatures, all shouting and generally having a good time. In the middle of the room was, in fact, a bar. “About time” Enoch said, reaching up to unlatch his helmet. I grabbed his arm, stopping him. “What are you doing? You have no idea if we can breathe in here!” Enoch rolled his eyes and pointed over towards a booth in the corner. “They look fine, boss.” He shook me off and removed his helmet while I focused on the booth. “It can’t be” I said in shock. “Is that…..”
“Compton!” Dutch shouted across the crowded room, and Compton looked up and noticed us. “Hey buddy!” Compton yelled back. “You guys finally made it!” A cheer rose up from the corner, and I saw Alex and Cowboy jump up from their seats, raising ornate glasses in our direction. “Well, I’ll be damned” I declared happily, taking off my own helmet and waving at them. “I’ll see what sort of drinks they have here, Raz.” Dutch nodded at me and took off his helmet, holding it out. “I’ll meet you over there.” I took it and pushed through the crowd towards the crew, elated to see something recognizable in this strange place. I was halfway across the room, struggling to get through the crowd when I heard Kilroy’s gruff voice. “Hey boss, glad to see you found us.” I looked around, searching for him. “Kilroy?” “Right here, Raz” he said. “What, where…?” I started to say, but suddenly felt a sharp pain in my shin. “Oww!” I yelled, Dropping Dutch’s helmet and grabbing my leg on instinct. It was then I noticed a small, green, reptile-like creature standing next to me. It was wearing a white hood and holding a red staff, and barely stood taller than my waist. “What was that about, stranger?” I asserted, the pain in my leg showing in my voice. “That was about getting your attention” Kilroy’s voice growled. The little creature looked up at me, its large black eyes blinking slowly. “What’s the matter Raz, never seen a Gek before?” He turned and walked towards the others, his staff shimmering red as he walked. “Wait, what? Kilroy? Is that you?” I struggled to follow him through the crowd towards the corner.
“Boss, you made it!” Alex’s face was flushed, his tone jovial. He had a large mug of a blue, frothy liquid, and took a big gulp of it, his mustache filled with blue bubbles. Beside him, Compton and Maze sat laughing, also holding mugs of strange colored drinks. “About time you showed up, boss.” Compton smirked at me and took another drink. “We were looking everywhere for you.” I scowled at him and replied “Yeah, looks like you guys were looking really hard.” “Have you been outside, Raz? It’s super hot out there. We needed to hydrate!” Maze burped and slammed down her empty glass. “Plus, in case you didn’t notice, things are a bit, shall we say, “different” around here.” Dutch bumped my arm and handed me my own mug, the orange liquid seeming to smoke slightly. “Bartender said something about it killing anyone but a true leader.” He shrugged and gave me a sly smile. “So, bottom’s up, eh boss?” He clinked his purple exiler with mine and took a large slug of it. “Now that is refreshing! I’m going to need a few more of these!” He waved over to the bartender as I sat down next to Cowboy.
“Strangest place we’ve ever been, huh boss” Cowboy drawled, pushing aside a small stack of empty glasses. “Jade is over in the other room, talking to some science types. He said he’d try to figure out what happened, how we ended up here.” “Yeah, how did we end up here, Raz?” Maze’s tone was as sharp as ever. “You said we were headed to Urzikstan for some R&R, and next thing I know, I’m up to my ears in sand.” I ran my fingers through my mustache, but all I could do is shrug. “Last I remember, I was booking our room at the Akhdar Hotel in Urzikstan, and Pawz came in, telling me I had to come see……” I ran the memory back through my head but stopped suddenly. “Wait, Pawz. Where is Pawz?” Alex laughed and pointed to a booth near ours. “He’s over there.”
I looked over, and saw another Gek standing on the table, dancing furiously while surrounded by a crowd of aliens. I caught sight of Nitwit clapping and laughing, and the orange fur of a large cat next to him. “Well, seems Aurora fits in well with this crowd, at least” I chuckled as I watched the commotion. “But I don’t see Pawz.” “Yes, you do, boss.” Kilroy appeared at the table and struggled to climb his way up into a chair. “I’m not the only one who ended up looking like this. Seems we just have a different way of coping with it.” He reached into his pack and pulled out a small pouch and a pipe. He filled the pipe with a sticky green bud and lit it. “Nip Nip” he said casually, taking a puff and holding it out to me. “Here.” I took the pipe and took a draw, enjoying the smoothness of the smoke and the sweet, foreign flavors. I immediately felt at ease and sank into my chair. “Yeah, that’s nice, Kilroy. That’s real nice….”
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“That Nip Nip is a good time, eh?” Dutch’s voice seemed far off as I blinked, trying hard to open my eyes. The room was quiet, the lights dark and mellow. “What happened, Dutch?” My head was pounding and my vision hazy. “Well, best we can tell, you aren’t supposed to mix those drinks with that bud.” My head certainly agreed with that fact, but I pulled myself to my feet and looked around. The door near me opened and Jade walked into the room, holding a holo-tablet and looking pleased. “Welcome back to the land of the living, boss. Sleep well?” He laughed and threw me a small package. “Superoxide crystals” he said matter-of-factly. “It’ll get you back to normal within a minute or two.” I ripped open the pack and turned over the bright red crystals in my hand. “You sure about this?” Jade laughed and nodded. “I’m no doctor, but I’m the best medic you know, aren’t I?” I couldn’t argue with that, so down the hatch they went.
“So, tell me what you know, Jade.” I leaned against the wall and felt the warmth from the crystals working its way through my body. He wasn’t wrong, I already felt better. “Well, I can’t really answer the how” he declared with a shrug, “but I can answer the where.” He punched some keys on his holo-tablet and a hologram of a gray and blue planet surrounded with rings popped up in front of me. “We are on a planet named Hios XVI, part of the Livesys-Egur system.” I examined the hologram, poking at the image with my finger. “Ok. And how far is that from home, exactly?” Jade sighed. “Well boss, I can’t answer that.” He tapped a few more times, and suddenly, our surroundings lit up with color. A sea of stars exploded out all around us, tiny balls of light filling the entire room. Jade pointed at one of them right in the middle of the room. “This one here? This is where we are.” He rotated the stars with his hands, all of them spinning around me. “Now, I only know enough Gek to mostly get my point across, and even less of the Korvax language, but nobody around here has ever heard of Earth, much less Al Mazrah.”
I gazed around the room, feeling miniscule among all these points of light. “So, you are telling me, each one of these is a star system?” I waved my arms slowly around the room. “Each one surrounded by planets, each one unique?” Jade nodded slowly. “Most of the lifeforms here came from somewhere else, some from millions of light years away. One of the Korvax I was speaking with last night said that he was drawn to this system three days ago. An “Anomaly” appeared and caused a wave of energy across their Convergence.” “Korvax?” I inquired, feeling lost. “The robot dudes.” Jade looked at me like I was a child. .” He walked over towards the corner where Pawz lay sleeping under a heat lamp, his green scales rising and falling as he snored and poked at a blue dot. It expanded, displaying 4 planets slowly revolving around it. “The Korvax also detected an Anomaly in this system, at the EXACT same time as the one in this system.” I knew he was trying to make a point, but what that was, I hadn’t the slightest idea. His smug smirk let me know that he knew it, too. “What do you think caused the Anomaly here, boss?” I shrugged. “Sentient alien ballsacks?” He laughed and swiped his tablet, the stars instantly disappearing, and the room suddenly feeling quite dark. “No Raz. Us.”
Dutch and Enoch walked into the room, laughing between themselves. They saw us and walked over. “Hey Raz, we’ve got a bet going. You want in?” Enoch snickered and pointed over at Pawz. “He totally lays eggs, right?” He chuckled and made a lewd motion mimicking the process. “I’m feeling some omelets, boss.” Dutch shook his head and sighed. “I tried to tell him. Look at the scales. He walks on two legs. Obviously, an advanced form of reptile. He’d birth live young, if he can even reproduce.” Enoch huffed. “I saw him dancing last night. Whatever the Gek are, they definitely fuc…”
“Raz! You need to get out here!” Nitwit’s shouts carried through from the next room. “Raz, seriously, hurry up!” I could hear rampant excitement in his voice. “We’ll have to settle your little debate later, gentlemen.” I waved at them to follow me. “Although, Dutch is probably right. You know that Enoch. Dutch is always right.” I heard Enoch elbow Dutch hard in the ribs, likely attempting to taper the smug smile radiating from under his mustache. I grabbed my helmet and threw Enoch’s at him, hitting him right in the chest, knocking him backward. “Think fast, egg man.” Laughing, I walked out into the hot suns and over towards a set of small outbuildings on the other side of the compound. I saw Nitwit at the doorway of the closer building, waving us over excitedly, his metal legs gleaming in the sunlight. “Hurry, hurry! You aren’t going to believe it!”
We walked into the cramped room and found the entire crew standing together, all talking enthusiastically. “Hey boss, check it out!” Cowboy pointed at the table, where I noticed a line of twelve strange-looking cards, all glowing different colors. “Awesome, right Raz?” Cowboy high-fived Alex, both looking like they just won first prize at the Sattiq Caves talent show. Even Maze looked jovial, pointing out the pink one. “That one is mine. Try and take it, and I will cut you, boss.” I put both my hands up in mock defense. “Whatever it is, it’s yours, Maze.” I walked to the table, picking one up, surprised at how heavy it was for its size. “Forgive my ignorance, but what exactly are they?” Pawz laughed and looked up at me. “Keys, boss. They are keys!” “Keys to what?” Pawz pointed towards the window where Aurora was curled up in the sunlight. “Those!” I walked over and glanced outside, struggling to focus through the assault of the suns. “Space ships, Raz!” Nitwit shouted with another whoop. “One for each of us!” I saw the gleam of metal, a row of sultry futuristic ships, all parked behind the compound. “Ships?” I asked softly. Where did we get the money for ships?” I hadn’t been here long, and didn’t know a lot, but I knew twelve starships weren’t free, no matter who you were. “From Kilroy, boss” Aurora replied softly, yawning, and stretching his paws in the sun.
“Kilroy?” I turned and looked for him, looking for the tall, chiseled paratrooper I knew, again surprised at the small Gek swinging his legs back and forth as he sat on a chair in the corner. He was puffing on his pipe, the sweet smell of Nip Nip slowly permeating the room. “How, Kilroy?” He smiled and held up his pipe. “Turns out, I have a green thumb, Raz.” He chuckled, holding out his green hand, and took another drag. “And Nip Nip seems to be quite the commodity around here, quite profitable.” He threw a small pouch to me. I turned it over in my hands, the sweet sticky smell radiating through it. I noticed the logo and read the name out loud. “IGE Best Buds: We Cultivate Connections.” Kilroy clicked his beak and laughed. “The IGE part was your idea, Raz.” “My idea?” I asked, confused yet again. “I mean, I sort of remember smoking your Nip Nip, and drinking an orange liquid that tasted strangely like garlic bread, but IGE?” I looked around, my entire crew of Al Mazrah Taxi Service drivers around me, looking happier than I’d seen them in months. “What does IGE stand for?”
“Intergalactic Explorers!” They all answered in unison, their voices full of elation. Alex clapped me on the back and shook my hand. “It’s a great name, boss. Wherever we explore, I’ve got your back.” I smiled and took in the moment, seeing the crew laugh and joke together. “Intergalactic Explorers. Ok then.” I pointed down at the table. “Well, which one is mine?” Kilroy stood up and struggled to reach the cards, eventually pushing the yellow one my way. “As if you had to ask, boss.” He laughed and shuffled towards the door. “Put your helmets on, ya meatbags, and let’s go!” He and Pawz walked out chortling to themselves while the rest of us raced to get our helmets on before all the air in the room followed them out.
Back in the sunshine, we jogged through the sand towards the line of star ships. As we got closer, I was struck with the variety of each of the ships. All different colors, shapes, and sizes, and each with distinctly unique style. I watched as each member of the crew found the ship that matched their key cards and heard the sharp hisses as canopies opened. I saw the nose of a bright yellow ship, and walked up to it, feeling the key card hum in my hand as I approached. It was a sleek craft, much like a fighter jet, with a set of horizontal wings flanked by another set pitched 45 degrees above them. Behind the sleek cockpit, raising high into the air, a dorsal-style fin tipped with red completed the aggressive look. “Suits you well, boss” Kilroy said from behind me. I ran my glove against the shiny metal of the nose and nodded. “It’s quite the upgrade from my LTV, I’ll give you that.” I grabbed the handles and climbed my way into the cockpit, gazing over the various controls. The HUD in my visor lit up, displaying instructions to me, and within a minute, I had the ship ready to fly. Next to me, Compton gave me a thumbs up and yelled “Boss, turn to channel 6.9!” as he closed his cockpit. “I work with children” I muttered to myself, turning the comms channel to the correct frequency, and hearing it crackle to life.
“… around the planet before you even get off the ground, kid.” Enoch’s gruff voice came over on comms. “You wish, Grandpa!” Jade fired back, laughing. “We’ll get halfway there, and you’ll get distracted by something shiny, watch.” I turned down the volume as the laughter grew. After it died down, I keyed the mic button and addressed the crew.
“I don’t know where we are. I don’t know how we got here. And most importantly, I don’t know how we are going to get home.” I paused, and the line stayed quiet. “All I do know is that I’m happy we are all here together. In Al Mazrah, we had each other’s backs. We followed the Code, and we stayed the course, no matter what happened.” “Damn straight” Dutch replied. “We’re all in this together, boss” Alex said. “I probably can’t crash this, right Raz?” Nitwit asked. I laughed and fired up the engines. “I have no idea, Nit. But let’s not find out right away, ok?” I pushed the throttle forward and felt the ship shake and start to rise off the ground. “Let’s do this!” I yelled and pulled back on the stick, guiding the starship skyward, into the unknown.
“I could get used to this” I said to myself as I banked the ship hard to the left, pulling back on the stick as hard as I could. I could see Compton high to my right, Maze next to him, her pink Explorer slicing through the low clouds. “Yee haw!” Cowboy yelled as he burst into my vision, flying across my left wing, upside down, before rolling over and pulling hard straight up toward the stars. I followed him skyward, knowing that the maneuver would have pushed all the blood in my body into my toes if I tried it on Earth. I increased the throttle to maximum, climbing vertically at dizzying speeds. As my altitude increased, my speed followed. I glanced left, and I could see Alex, Nitwit, and Aurora off my left wing. To my right, Compton and Maze were joined by Jade and Pawz. Above me, I could see Dutch and Kilroy streaking towards the stars in formation with Cowboy. I smiled, taking in the awesome scene all around me. Eleven starships, headed into the beyond, on a new adventure…. “Wait, eleven?” I said out loud. “Fuck. Enoch!” I keyed the mic. “Enoch, where are you?”
“Oh, hey Raz.” Enoch’s sheepish voice answered my question before he could. “Let me guess” I replied. “You were about to take off, and you saw something shiny on the ground, so you hopped out to take a look, didn’t you.” An intense red light started to form around the ships as we pushed against the upper reaches of the atmosphere. “If you already knew, why did you ask?” Enoch responded quietly. “At your leisure, Enoch.” Compton’s voice cracked as he fought back a laugh. “Shut up, Compton, I’m coming.”
At that moment, we punched through the atmosphere, and for the first time in my life, I was in space. Millions of stars spread all around me, the limitless universe seeming to bare its soul in front of my eyes. “Wow…” I breathed, taking it in. In that moment, I felt small, insignificant. “We’re a long way from home, boss.” Dutch’s voice, while calm as ever, hinted that even he was feeling the weight of the moment. I pulled back on the throttle, slowing my ship down to a crawl, both to wait for Enoch, and to simply drink in the view. I thought back to Al Mazrah, all the good times. The fun customers, the stories, the adventures. I thought of the bad times, of Scuba Steve, The Chemist, The Bombmaker, the weight of putting bullets into those I once called friends. The faces of the friends we made along the way floated among the stars as I remembered then. The Lone Wolf, ever silent, his aim true. Ice Tiger, always there with intel and a heavy chopper whenever we called. Bizzle, our dear old landlord, always complaining, but never letting us down when we needed him. Dr. Yobay, using her questionable science to save Nitwit’s life and steal our hearts. “Will we ever see them again?” I asked aloud. “Jeez, Raz, I’m here, ok?” Enoch grumbled, snapping me back to the present as he joined in formation.
“So what now, Raz?” Dutch asked, moving into position at my wing. I thought for a moment before replying. “Jade said the Korvax detected two Anomalies the day we showed up here. That’s the only thing I can think to do. We need to get to the location of the other one.” It was the only logical course of action I had. “If our arrival caused an event an entire race of robots could detect, we’re bound to find something at the other one.” “Good enough for me” Alex said. “How do we get there?” “Good question.” One I didn’t have the answer to. The comms crackled. “I have some contacts I can reach out to, Raz. If we visit the space station, I can make some calls.” Kilroy’s matter-of-fact tone gave me some confidence, but also a fair number of questions. “Contacts? We’ve been here for three days!” I heard him click his beak. “That’s a long time to the Gek, boss. Trust me.” I heard what sounded like an extremely large pull on his pipe, and he broke formation. “It’s this way. Enoch. Hey, Enoch. This way.”
I guided my starship towards the blue light emanating from the airlock, the space station looming like an enormous floating sphere in front of me. I felt the controls go limp as the ship’s autopilot guided me into the hangar with computerized precision. The sterile landing bay glowed blue, and my ship touched down gently, rotating around to face the airlock, allowing me to watch the procession of The Intergalactic Explorers as their ships touched down one by one around me. I reached up and released the canopy locks, hearing the hiss as it raised to let me out. I saw Kilroy running up the ramp to my left and moved to follow him, the crew behind me. When I got to the top, I saw him already sitting with another Gek, both swinging their feet as they talked quietly in their chairs. “I’m going to try to find a drink” Maze said, walking off towards a red door. “Yeah, a drink sounds nice” Cowboy said, and followed her. “I hope they have milk” Aurora added as he hurried after them. I decided to wait for Kilroy, and leaned against the wall, taking in my surroundings. All manner of creatures wandered the space station, dominated by Gek, Korvax, and another brutally ugly race of creatures. I beckoned Jade over and pointed at a particularly ugly example. “Jade, what are those things?” He followed my finger and nodded. “Ah. Those are Vy’keen. Not particularly friendly, them.” He moved closer, whispering to me. “Apparently, long ago, they were at war with the Aerons, some sort of machine race. Victory was close, and then the Gek came along and backstabbed them.” He looked around to make sure nobody was in earshot. “They are pretty butthurt about it. They don’t really like anyone these days. Always talking about honor and glory in battle.” He grabbed my shoulder and looked at me with conviction. “I’d give them a wide berth, Raz. Don’t want to start trouble with them.” He stared until I nodded in agreement and walked off.
I glanced back over at Kilroy and saw him waving at me to come over. The Gek he was talking to slid off his chair as I approached, and said “Ufarv utroym, lidkorjah” as he walked off. “What’s that mean, exactly?” Kilroy chuckled. “It means “Good Luck” more or less.” He pulled out his holo-tablet and held it out. “My contact says the Anomaly we are looking for happened here, which matches what Jade learned back on Hios XVI.” His beak clicked as he keyed in some words I didn’t recognize. “It’s about 125,000 light years from us.” “Is that far?” I asked, feeling like I should know. “It’s not exactly close, but it could be worse. We could probably make it in a few months, give or take.” He shut down the tablet and slid to the floor. “Or, we could take a shortcut….”
“A shortcut?” His tone didn’t fill me with confidence. “Sounds ominous. What’s the catch?” Kilroy’s reptilian face was impossible to read. “There’s a system near here named Charon Major. Reports are, there’s a massive black hole there.” “A black hole? That already seems like a bad idea.” Kilroy shrugged. “Yeah, probably. However, if the reports can be believed, if you fly into it, you’ll come out a few thousand light years from our goal. We could be there in a day or two, tops.” I thought about it for a second. “Your contact confirmed this intel?” Kilroy nodded. “He knows of 5 vessels that went into it. Two of them reported back from the same star system, very close to our goal.” “And the other three?” Kilroy shrugged. “I wouldn’t worry too much about the other three.” I glared at him. “Don’t worry about them?” Kilroy just looked at me, his large black eyes blinking slowly. “You spent your life riding around a warzone in a Chop Top, with zero guns, asking heavily armored mercenaries if they needed rides. You aren’t scared of a little bit of concentrated gravity, are you?” He laughed and walked towards the bar. “Think about it!”
“What a day” I muttered to myself as I looked out over the hangar. I gazed at my yellow fighter, parked there, waiting to take me on untold adventures. I heard cheering from the next room and smiled. “Seems like the crew is having fun, so screw it, why not” I said to myself, smiling. Back home in Al Mazrah, it always was about the journey, not the destination. “Catch a Ride…. In Space!” I said to nobody in particular. I turned to join the crew, took a step, and crashed right into an enormous Vy’keen. He roared in annoyance and yelled in garbled speech. “Grah! Filthy ezhejiuan Interloper! Ere iexin iki!” He pushed me and roared again, causing me to stumble into the railing. I brushed off my space suit and stood my ground. “What’s your problem, Troll Face? We got beef?” I pushed him into a set of chairs. “I’ve handled far worse than you, friend. Take a hike.” I couldn’t tell if he understood my words, but he certainly understood the tone. He rose up, eyes full of rage. “Irk Tuan!” he yelled as he charged at me.
With one fluid motion, I stepped to the side and shoved the charging Vy’keen hard in the back, causing him to flail into the hangar railing, flying over it and down into the hangar below. I heard a sickening crunch, followed by silence. Glancing over the railing, a foreign but somehow familiar scene before me. The Vy’keen lay dead, a pool of blood spreading over the cold floor. “Well, that’s probably going to cause some issues for us, boss” Enoch said as he and Compton walked over, peering down at the body. “Honestly seemed a bit too easy” Compton remarked. “No wonder they lost the war.” I shrugged and walked towards the ramp, pointing back towards the red door. “Go get the crew. We should probably leave. Now.” They nodded and jogged off towards the next room. I hopped in my ship, looking over at the body laying still on the floor. “Who’s the filthy interloper now, punk” I thought to myself with a smile. I saw the crew filing down the ramp to their ships, climbing in and firing up their engines. My comms sprang to life right away. “So boss, you killed a dude already?” Pawz sounded pleased. “He’s still got it” Cowboy added.
“Nobody messes with the Intergalactic Explorers” I said. “Not the filthy Vy’keen, not space pirates, not these “Sentinels” we keep hearing about.” I felt my pulse quicken, felt the same rush of adrenaline I used to get when sniper rounds would start pinging off my LTV. “I don’t know how long we’ll be here. But I can promise you all one thing. This galaxy? They’ll remember us.”
I slammed the thrusters to full power, and shot out of the space station, my crew of simple taxi drivers at my side. “On Earth, we were the Al Mazrah Taxi Service. Here, in the wide-open galaxy we are reborn!” I felt the joy, the pride, and the excitement radiating through me as I shouted at the stars. “We are the Intergalactic Explorers!”
