The Sojourners

An immediate darkness fell over Riel as throughout the celestial vessel he commanded power systems failed and ship responses died into silence. Moments earlier, he was in a grueling fire fight with a splintered group of a cult of beings known as the Fallen. They appeared out of nowhere with a surprise attack to try and decimate him and his allies during their journey to find a way back to Earth. Making an effort to repel the attack and give his friends time to escape, he found his ship at the mercy of an internal functions flaw in its poisoned quantum engines, and caught in the turbulent wake of a nearby collapsing star, the ship was now tearing itself apart under the stress of tremendous conflicting gravitational forces.

Stuck within the forming event horizon of that same dying celestial body, Riel realized all too late that it was a fatal risk to kill his ships engines and drop the shielding surrounding his quantum core. Now, there was no way to reinitiate either of them, and aside from the Fallen who had also become snared in their own trap, his only companion to see him through this was a hovering silver celestial sphere. That companionship though, was unfortunately under suspicion, as it was listening to the sphere’s tactical advisement that brought him and his ship into the present death grip it was currently in. And this was a death sentence honestly by all understood science. That was all that he could think on as the spatial turbulence tore through his ship. He was in full belief that this was how he was going to end... at the mercy of his poisoned core and this imploding star.

The ship screamed as the hull seemed to warp and bend in the pull of distorted space and time and then in a loud explosion of light and sound, everything... died. All that remained was the quiet of nothingness. Or so it seemed, but in the moments that ticked away in the silence; with each passing second; with each passing pulse of his own heart; he slowly came to believe that he was still breathing. He was still aware. He was still… alive?

The silence was broken as acknowledgement came in the form of a familiar voice;
"Critical system failure… quantum field capacitor failure… quantum field collapse... core capacitors purged… reinitializing system core."

A blue flashing dot suddenly appeared before him in the darkness. This was quickly followed by a series of on-screen commands and algorithms as system telemetry lit back up and to his amazement a series of hums could be heard surging once again through the ship.

“Life Support systems are online.”

“The Bridge is online.”

"Shields are online."

"Weapons systems are offline."

"Engines are on standby."

"Quantum Field Core is online."

“Quantum Field is stable.”

“Polaris Diagnostics complete.”

Hearing the last of Polaris’ diagnostics, Riel was in shock that they were still okay. Polaris had surprisingly survived contact with the Fallen at the same time as a collapsing star, and smiling, he called open the view screen immediately to see the state of his ship and the dying star he had been bound to. The ship was worn but intact but to his surprise though, he could see nothing of the star. He brought up more views to look for it and realized that along with the star, the Fallen were also gone. The hovering celestial sphere was his sole company now: having survived at his side through the entire ordeal.

"Polaris, raise the telemetry and bring up the star map," he quickly barked as he dashed into the cockpit of the bridge, "let's get our bearings."

Strapping himself in, it was all Riel could do to not jump out of his clothes with excitement, but as the star map came up, he went still as what he had missed earlier dawned on him. It was not the star that was gone; the entire sea of constellations had changed. It seemed that when the rampant energies of Polaris’ quantum core made contact with the event horizon of the star, the ship had experienced some kind of spatial… jump, and simply thrown to a random section of space. His quantum core, he also realized, showed no signs of poison degradation and was once again functioning as normal.

His gaze shifted slowly to fall on the silver celestial sphere that still hovered loyally around him. It did not make a sound as it hung there, seemingly fixed to glide in the space at his side.

"Testament... was this supposed to happen?"  

It continued to hover there in silence, but before he could say anything else, a telemetry alert sounded with a list of markers appearing on screen. He gave one last curious look-over of his companion sphere as he brought the engines online and took a deep breath.

"Alright Polaris; I will do my best to not be so reckless with our lives again. Despite what just happened, I cannot assume we will always have a dying star to save our butt." He gave a quick smirk. "I apologize though for my recklessness, and thank you for sticking through it with me to save the others." The hum of the ship shifted to a new pitch as the engines came online and through the bond they shared he felt that Polaris seemed to be in agreement. That warmed Riel’s heart and brought a smile to his face as a tear began to crest his eyes.

"Okay. Alright. Let’s assume that the Fallen will try a bit harder to take us out while we are separated, so before I get all teary eyed out here, let’s locate our friends and continue this journey home."

With that Testament ended its silent orbit around Riel and shifted itself to an odd fitted port in the command console of the cockpit. There was a soft click as it settled into the console, and as it connected with Polaris’ systems, a set of distinctive marker points started to appear all over the screen. His eyes focused into a wince as he glanced over what choices he had and what little time he had to make them.

"Wow, we definitely got scattered by that attack.” He remarked to his celestial companion sphere now seeing how spread everyone had become. Taking it all in, he began to wonder just how much time had passed while they were caught in the dark.

"Let’s set a course for the closest marker; like right over there to Erickson. Let’s also bring the weapons up on standby. On top of being lost, we are in new territory now and we have got to be ready for anything."
Polaris's engines light up as its quantum field begins to envelope the ship in a spatial bubble.

"Lost, on the run and now scattered, it is time for a change. We are on the offensive as of right now. Let’s bring everyone home."

Responding with what sounds like a song of whales, Polaris brings its bow to bear on Erickson’s recently established coordinates, and engaging its quantum engines into full drive, the quantum bubble surrounding the vessel shimmers with a pulse as the celestial ship rips forward through it, vanishing through the rippling pulse it made in space.