Drifting through space, the silence of the void and the crushing visual of pure blackness. Beyond the ship the humming of the engines were whirring down.
Pain radiated through his body, he was sore, sore from running from the blast waves that had hit the ship and the gravitational force on his body. The stress had made his body seize and contort. Now that it had stopped the low gravity allowed a single step to take him tens of meters and yet he did not move, frozen in anticipation of the reply from the ship.
The time stretched and warped, Razolath knew not how long he had waited as time in space was hard if not impossible to judge from looking outside the ship.
The communication hub beeped, the familiar sound of an incoming message.
Razolath answered the call trying to look not at stressed as he was as a red image of another Druin appeared in front of him.
The young women spoke through the hologram.
"Razolath, details have been confirmed. You will be transported to the ship and taken in front of the closest Elder for explanation"
Razolath almost leapt with joy, this means he was not a failure, not completely. His life still held a purpose.
Razolath sighed in relief, he was worried about what would happen if they turned him away or killed him.
On board the Druin ship Razolath disembarked to see three soldier Druin waiting alongside the captain of the ship, her horns glistened in the glow from the ship, her eyes pitch black lured Razolath in. He was stunned for a second before what had happened fell back onto his mind.
"Come inside, we must report this right away after we confirm for ourselves. Is your ship still operational"
"Yes it is Captain"
"Good Mammon, Aamon take the ship and confirm the scale of humans and report back, we need accurate information" said the Captain as she pointed to two of the Druin beside her.
"Yes Captain" they replied in unison before moving quickly into the ship, before anything else could be said the two Druin had jettisoned away from the ship and begun making their way back to the supposed human ship.
"Please follow me" said the Captain as she moved him to a small room besides hers. "You will be staying here until we make contact with the elders ship, understood?".
"Why am I being held here?" asked Razolath seeing though the thinly vailed lock up.
"Until we can confirm your story we have no idea what you have done or will do. You are the first Gunner I know of that has returned without civilians" she said as she looked him up and down the cracks in his scales radiating red, his horns dull and chipped. Everything said to her that he was someone who barely survived but what kept noaring at her was why did he survive.
Razolath did not contest the orders of the Captain in front of him, he knew how suspicious he appeared. He moved into the quarters and laid down to sleep again to allow his body to heal.
...
On the human military world Seth and Mongrel were loading themselves onto a ship and travelling towards their intended target.
"How long is the flight?" Seth asked the pilot.
"The main ship is two hours out. From there it will be three hours until we are within range of the ship. From there you will have to make your own way" replied the pilot as he put on his helmet and revved the engines, reding the ship for lift off.
"Damn, we have to wait that long" said Mongrel as he grumbled in the corner.
Seth was far away in his own head by now thinking of the letter he had left Maria. He knew he would not be able to face her himself so he had put down what he had done in a letter and left it in Maria's apartment.
He did no know how she would take it, but he suspected not well. He had gone behind her back and did not even have the courage to say it to her face.
The ship drifted through the space above the planet until it came into contact with a larger ship. Sleek and elegant, it was new and more advanced then other of the humans amarders.
"Can this ship move through space?" asked Mongrel as he ogled the ship above.
"Of course. It can go though space can you not see it flying" said the pilot with a snicker.
"Ya know what I mean, can it create a stable wormhole?"
"Hahaha, yes it can, most advanced ship yet" said the pilot with a look of pride that was misplaced. He had not made the ship nor will he be piloting it but he held pride in the human race advancing.
"Doesn't that consume too much energy?" asked Seth he knew they had developed this technology but to his knowledge it would take the energy that supplied a whole planet for a year to do a single wormhole. It was inconceivable on a single ship, thus humans so far made ships that also were habitation stations, allowing long space travel.
"Not anymore, I am unsure of how it works but we broke through those limitations it no longer costs so much energy, it is about 1/4 as much" The pilots eyes beamed with joy over the accomplishment of taking three months worth of energy of an entire planet for a single jump.
Seth scoffed to himself, how was that an achievement? All he could think of was how many people the energy in that ship could support in each jump it made.