Please, Don't stare at the Candidate.

A Flight of Mine

I woke up in pure white space. With a shooting pain in my frontal lobe. Trying to get a grasp of my area, I felt around and figured out I was on a chair. Attempting to get up to look more closely around the claustrophobic box I was in, I figured out my feet were bolted to the chair with cuffs. Though my hands were free. Looked to my left and saw a window with a sliding cover on it. Pulling the cover down I saw a massive desert planet in the middle of space. Oh shit, I was taken by the enemy. According to my training, being taken by The Denomination was a fate worse than death. They told us that they would crush your feet and force you to mine in the deepest caverns they had in their dens. Filed with webs and bodies of past victims. And if you didn't meet their ridiculous quota, you would have each limb slowly and painfully crushed by their trunks. I had to figure out a way to escape. Snapping my neck around the box I saw another sliding covering similar to the one on the window. Sliding it to the side I got a quick view of a hallway filled with doors and sliding slits similar to mine. And a tacky blue cubed pattern carpet on the floor. But before I start to piece together where I was. The same torso and mouth that gave me the spiking in my head came into view. "Do not worry with your situation, Candidate." The same ominous and grainy voice said. "Soon we will be on that planet." His small, Trex esc arms pointed towards the window. "It is called Bapshat,  you will become well acquainted with it soon." The slit closed shut and I tried with all my strength, I could not reopen it. The monster locked it. Distraught and defeated, I looked around for anything. I had failed to see the screen in front of me. It flickered on with the message, "Approximately 4 hours till landing, due to a multitude of war ships departing from planetary hangars. We apologize for the inconvenience." A few moments passed, and I realized this screen was interactable. I closed it out and saw a myriad of applications. "Flight Schedules and Destinations" "News" "Food Service" as well as a few others. I was starving, so naturally tapped on the Food Service app. I looked at all the dishes and recognized no ingredients. But I was fascinated. Quickly tapping on one named "The Oarin Special." A message popped up "Your species sadly cannot have this dish for digestion reasons." Next to that was a message with "Recommended for Perditos." I'm not a Perditos, I assumed at the time that I was occupying another species seat. Considering the fact I seemed to be on a commercial travel ship instead of a prison ship.
The Monster probably demanded another passenger to trade seats with me. And the leg buckles would be in character for the Monsters.
I tapped on "my" species name and was confused to see food more similar to ones I knew. I selected one I haven't had since I was a kid on my home planet, named "The Wanderers Favorite. Thank you for your purchase." The screen displayed. Exiting the food service, I tapped on the News button. I was interested to see what these monsters had going on. Probably public executions for something. The most eye opening experience followed. Cultures, politics, species, conflicts, war, gain, love, science. It all came to me so fast. I couldn't stop reading and watching. All of this had been closed off to me in The Collectives already limited point of view, not even considering how much they loved to keep info under lock. Now I had unrestricted access. I learned many things. But most importantly the main players in the galactic stage. And most saddening of all what was happening to The Collective. Apparently The Collective was originally a missing colony ship. Which explained the questions of why I could understand all of this. We were once one of them. Sucked in a wormhole and spat out another. This happened during the beginning of interstellar travel for The Denomination. So about 400 years ago. Because a colony was one of the most important things back then. The rest of our race was punished. The Denomination was a religious, species and genetic obsessed empire. Constantly splicing genes, picking up species and throwing them out when they weren't good enough. The Collective was an inferior, quickly collapsing empire. Expected to be annexed by the Denomination in about 10 years time. Which is nothing in the grand scheme of the galactic stage. Even depressed by this insight, I continued excitedly, surfing The Denominations Interweb. "We are about to land, please start to pack up your belongings and retreat to your personal pods. Thank you." The text said, interrupting my reading. Oh shit, it had already been 4 hours. I could see space and the blue sky mixing with each other. Probably 10 minutes until we landed. I was still not sure why I seemed to be in a first class flight? Why was a taken prisoner? I nervously pondered these questions until the door opened. The leg locks freed, and I was free.