“I still don’t understand.” Justine scrambled out of the elevator, still trying to keep from throwing up everywhere. “What the hell just happened to my stomach?”

  Right behind her, an even sicker Foster stumbled forward, his mouth wet from dry heaving the remnants of a two-day old lunch. “Gravity sickness.”

  “Gravity sickness?” Justine leaned up against a nearby bulkhead for support. All the while, her legs wobbled uncontrollably. “No way shifting gravity did that.”

  Instead of responding, Foster made one more attempt at making sure his stomach was completely devoid of anything still yet to be digested. Unfortunately, what came up was little more than stomach acid and foam.

  On the other hand, Joseph Howlam merely strolled out of the airlock and onto the small bridge like nothing had happened. After all, during his time in the shipyards on his home world, he had installed hundreds of these units and was quite intimate with the off-putting sensation they caused.

  “I thought you liked extreme sports, Agent Rushing.”

  “I do.” As he drew closer, the agent suddenly found her footing and stood a little straighter. “Normally.”

  “Well, on the scale of universal extreme sports...” Joseph couldn’t help but pause his steps to smile. “I would consider that about a two.”

  “Out of ten?”

  “No,” Joseph said as he hurried past her toward the largest set of consoles in the room. Without asking Hoover how anything worked, the alien began to start up the preflight launch sequence. “Out of a hundred.”

  “Funny,” she responded sarcastically. “You’re hilarious, Joseph.”

  “Thanks for noticing. Foster,” two medium sized screens came to life and began to register what systems were coming online. “I could use your help over here.”

  “What do you need?” Foster wiped the last bit of puke from his mouth and joined the deputy by the cluster of monitors.

  “Do you see that station?” Joseph pointed to another console against the far wall. “That’s the engine console. We need them fired up now.”

  “Hold that order.” Before the scientist could even begin to comply with his AI’s request, the screen assigned to that station lit up like a Christmas tree. Then, four separate readouts came on signifying each engine rising in power. “This thing is networked. Give me a minute.”

  With that handled, Foster rejoined Joseph, and they worked hastily to prepare the ship for launch.

  After a couple of seconds, Justine completely shrugged off her upset stomach and replaced it with pure euphoria. “I can’t believe I’m on the bridge of a spaceship. And a freaking gigantic spaceship at that.”

  Without anything to do, Justine started to explore her surroundings. At first glance, the room contained a minimal complement of four separate computer stations spaced evenly apart from one another around a much larger main screen. Not exactly the bridge of the Enterprise, she thought. But hey, a spaceship is a spaceship. Right?

  The first station was obviously navigation because both men were scanning through different star charts like the thing was Google Earth on steroids. Next, the second station was clearly engineering given Joseph’s command about starting up the ship’s engines. That left only two more stations. And to her, they were the most disappointing of the bunch.

  Consisting of little more than a couple of those hand/brain pads and a small, ten-by-ten-inch screen, they both looked like the kiddy version of what a real space adventurer would use. Hell, even the stools that sat in front of them screamed, ‘Look at me, I’m at the kids table at Thanksgiving dinner.’

  Growing more disappointed by the second, Justine looked around and immediately saw two pairs of pressurized doors flanking each side of the cockpit. Hoping for something a little more on the spectacular side of Star Trek, she ran to the nearest one on the right.

  Without having to press anything, the door reacted to her oncoming movement and slid open. Keeping her Slinger tucked away, she ducked eagerly inside. What she found was both entirely awesome and completely disappointing at the same time.

  “Why is there a bathroom on the bridge?”

  “Most species in the universe have to alleviate themselves, Agent Rushing.” Joseph looked quizzically at Foster, who was in the middle of making a disgusted face in response. “Well… we do.”

  “Is that another one of your universal maxims?”

  “Yes, well… except for the Tralons.” It was Joseph’s turn to look like he had just sucked on a lemon. “Those assholes can hold it for months.”

  Not caring about the intricacies of alien bathroom habits, Justine instead rushed over to the next room where another underwhelming sight greeted her. “What is this, Joseph? A college dorm room?”

  Dimly lit, the sparse cubbyhole of a room had four elongated beds and a tiny circular table at its center. Sleeping quarters, she guessed, even though there were no mattresses or pillows to be seen anywhere. She popped her head outside of the unadorned room. “And how come there are only four beds in here? This ship is huge.”

  “This is an escape shuttle for a prison, Agent Rushing. Do you think they ever planned on taking anyone off this station other than a select few? Besides…” He pointed to the four consoles surrounding him. “Four equals four.”

  That made sense, she guessed. Why plan the escape of a bunch of brain-dead alien bodies? Besides, everything else on the station was either robotic or human. And she was painfully aware of what these Arbiters thought of humans. Plus, a small crew would need to stay close to the bridge in case something happens.

  Still searching for something to take her breath away, she turned to the left and saw one more room left to explore. So, without hesitation, she ran up to the third room and waited for the doors to open. When they did, more disappointment hit her like an anvil in one of those Road Runner cartoons.

  “Why?” She said in a somber, almost funereally voice.

  Defeated, she moved into the third room like a zombie looking for fresh brains. Except the brains she was looking for were shiny and futuristic toys. And for a moment, that need seemed to be satiated by the rows and rows of shiny metal cabinets before her. Hope renewed, Justine reached for the closest one. But the door wouldn’t move an inch.

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  Undeterred, she experimented on basically yanking backward as hard as she could. When this tactic proved useless, she thought back to her grandparents and their old 1950’s style sliding panel cabinets. Specifically, how those cabinets opened. After that, the door slid easily open to reveal four deep shelves, jammed packed with a full assortment of tins.

  On one of the shelves sat a large, dark blue canister slapped with bright yellow stickers. Beyond intrigued, Justine picked it up. With no visible lid, she started to shake the thing in hopes of discerning its contents. That’s when something inside the container made a horrible squealing sound. A sound that made it very clear, something inside was horrifyingly alive.

  She immediately dropped the container onto the floor.

  “I think this room’s some sort of galley.” Reclaiming the can, Justine kicked herself for being such a wimp. “There are containers in here. And I think there’s live animals packed inside them.” She looked around the room for a stove or even a microwave oven. “Are we supposed to cook them?”

  “Hell no! This is a Seerchin cruiser.” Joseph made a disgusted face at Foster and stuck out his tongue. “Their food tends to be on the more exotic side, Agent Rushing. That’s why we brought the canvas bags.”

  “Exotic?” Foster said curiously. “What do you mean… exotic?”

  “I’ll put like this. If you thought the air lock was a rough ride, I would steer very clear of eating what’s inside those containers.”

  “Point taken.” Foster acknowledged.

  Her spirits sinking fast, Justine entered the last room.

  Inside, she discovered that whoever had constructed this ship had also placed a small hardware store on board. All around her, stacks of bins sat on full shelves. Each container had a small, unreadable label placed on it. They contained a collection of specialized parts ranging from peanut-sized to grapefruit-sized.

  There were even a couple of filament coils that glowed electric red when she prodded them with her finger. Next to the door sat a large container of some unknown solution that smelled a lot like wildflowers. Though the odds of this being liquid potpourri were slim since the metal drum was corroding near the top.

  Staggering out onto the bridge like a punch-drunk fighter, she made her way to one of the empty consoles. In a confused daze, Justine plopped down on one of the benches. She had a puzzled, sad look on her face. “I don’t understand.”

  “What?” Foster asked her. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, I guess.” Not exactly lying, she tried to remain upbeat. This feint lasted about three seconds before she cracked. “Food, gas, lodgings, even a general store.” Jusitne pointed an accusatory finger at every open door she had just spent time exploring. “Why does this bridge have access to everything the crew would need to survive? Why stick it here? What do they do with the rest of the ship?”

  “Rest of the ship?” It was Joseph’s turn to look surprised. “What do you mean the rest of the ship? This is the whole thing.”

  “What do you mean the whole thing?” Justine felt like someone had slapped her in the face with a large mallet that had the word ‘disappointment’ written on it. “This thing is almost a third the size of the station. You’re telling me that this deck and these rooms are all there is?

  “Yes.” He didn’t think what he was saying was all that strange.

  “So, what is the rest of the ship used for?”

  “Engines.”

  “Engines...” Justine’s brain seized up as she stuttered out the word. This was all wrong. This wasn’t what she had imagined her whole life. This wasn’t the Millenium Falcon or even a Star Destroyer. Hell, even Serenity has separate rooms for everybody to sleep and shit in. And that ship wasn’t even close to being this big.

  “Engines?” She could barely control herself as she continued. “Nothing but engines.”

  “Yes, nothing but engines. Well, engines and fuel storage.” Unwilling to care about her feelings on the subject, Joseph just continued his work without looking at her again. “What did you expect? Some kind of luxury cruise?

  However, Foster did care about how upset she was. So, he left the station and knelt in front of her. “What’s the matter? From the way you are always going on about science fiction movies, I would have thought you wanted to go for a ride on a spaceship.”

  “I did.”

  “Well.” He gestured around the utilitarian bridge, seeing it for what it was without the mystique of years of fandom. “This is a spaceship.”

  Slowly, her lower lip began to tremble. “No… it’s not.”

  There were hundreds of arguments she wanted to make. Thousands of examples of movies and books that had told her spaceships were these huge things that carried hundreds of people across the cosmos in the blink of an eye. Inside their sleek exteriors were dozens of different areas from engineering to bars. Groups of different species coming together as friends, solving problems with diplomacy and humor.

  Spaceships were cool and sexy, not bulky and ugly.

  She wanted so much to explain to him about how she envisioned this moment as a child. But in the end, all she could get out was, “It’s bigger on the outside, then it is on the inside.”

  “What does that mean?”

  She burst out in a fit of laughter and tears at just how bad Foster was at being a nerd. But before she could elaborate on another childhood icon, the ship was jolted again by what could only be another engine disappearing into the black void.

  “We just lost another one,” Hoover sounded concerned but surprisingly upbeat. “The station’s beginning to fall.”

  “Foster,” Joseph pointed to the screen where the engine displays were now reading one hundred percent. “If you and your girlfriend have reached a happy place in your life, I think now would be a good time for us to get the hell out of here.”

  Understanding the urgency of his words, Foster placed both hands on Justine’s knees intending to push himself to his feet. Halfway up, he leaned close and whispered. “I know it sucks, Justine. But this can’t be the only spaceship in the universe.”

  With that, he was on his feet, racing toward the engineering console. Once there, he pushed a small green button that ignited the ship’s massive engines. Instantly, four large plumes of gas and plasma shot out of the propulsion nozzles. Each one progressively burning brighter against the darkness of deep space.

  Soon, the incredible force emanating from the engines reached its zenith and shattered the transparent dome covering the prisoner facility. Then, the large docking collars holding the ship in place automatically released. Suddenly free, the ship began moving slowly away from its impending doom.

  Momentarily satisfied, Foster joined Joseph by the central console. “This had better work.”

  “As I said before,” Joseph never looked back. Instead, he focused on the navigation screen that currently displayed their proposed track to his planet. With a slight smile, the alien rammed the engines to their breaking point. Under such strain, the ship violently pitched from side to side as he said, “I’d put our odds at fifty-fifty.”

  “I guess that will have to do.” Foster watched the navigation screen flicker like an old CRTV screen near the end of its life. “Besides, 50% is pretty good odds.”

  “I would put it closer to 35%.” Hoover offered one last dig. “And even that would be optimistic.”

  “You’re getting soft, Hoover.” Foster thought about the unknowns that lay ahead. All the dangers that waited for them around every dark corner of the universe. Hell, those dangers more than likely waited in the well-lit corners too.

  And that’s not even mentioning the Arbiters. They would surely see this little visit to their space station as nothing less than a hostile act. Maybe even a declaration of war.

  Yep. Even if they escaped the black hole. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the road ahead was a magnitude more perilous than the one behind them. Nonetheless, Foster had a crazy bodyguard, a tenuous alien ally, and that little voice in his head that hadn’t let him down yet.

  What more could a guy ask for?

  “Still,” the Madman of Wilson laughed. “I appreciate the optimism, Hoover. Even if it’s only worth 35 percent.”

  “You are such an idiot.” Hoover snarked before adding one final addendum to his barb. “Besides... what are friends for? If not to be there when you need them.”

  “Amen, brother.”

  With that, the station’s remaining engines, now utterly overwhelmed by the black hole’s crushing gravitational pull, snapped free from their tethers until none of them remained attached. Without them, the unseen prison and its lifeless cargo toppled over and began its long, arcing death spiral into oblivion.

  Yielding to physics, the monolithic structure tore into two pieces, then four. By the time it hit eight, every molecule of the station began to fold in on themselves until the only thing that remained was the empty shells of the worst criminals in the universe.

  And even those eventually melted away into the black hole’s event horizon.

  One hundred thousand kilometers away from this lonely funeral, the escape ship ignored both the unforgiving singularity and its ancient manufacturing date. Designed to break free from the constraints placed upon it, the craft climbed higher. Until, at a certain point, gravity subsided enough for the engines to perform at their maximum capacity.

  Then finally, with the last chains of unbreakable gravity broken, the ship shot off into the void like a rocket was supposed to.

  And like the mysteries they were chasing, Justine Rushing, Joseph Howlam, Hoover, and Foster Evers disappeared among the many stars.

  Because a road walked alone is never as memorable as one walked with friends.