Life on an Alien Planet

1. Five

2 days before takeoff. I've met the crew once, during a meeting with the CEO of the NSRM, but I couldn't really talk to them through the complements and questions from the paparazzi. Everything feels like it's going so fast, feels like yesterday that I received the news that engineers discovered how to travel light speed. But that was years ago, and now I need to properly meet my crewmates. I leave the gym's locker room, and rush to the other side of the establishment, checking the time in every clock I pass. 

When I finally make it to the door of the lounge, I check the time once more. I'm 3 minutes late, and I can feel the doubt creep in my mind before I've even step through the door. I shut my eyes, and try to control my breathing, although it seems difficult. 

As i'm breathing, I feel a hand on my shoulder, to which I open my eyes and quickly look to see who's touching me. I look to see a beautiful woman with messy pulled up hair, giving me a gentle smile.

"Nervous?" She asks. "Don't worry, I am too"

"Well that helps to know I'm not alone Haha."

"You're Yan, right?" she takes her hand out for a handshake.

"Yeah, but most people just call me Wyan." I take her hand.

"Oh dope. Wyan, nice name. My name is Moon Byul."

"Nice to properly meet you. Uh shall we go in together?" I ask, to which she agrees. 

I finally hold the door open for both of us and at last look around this lounge room. Although I'm not staying here for that long, I can tell that they spent quite a bit of money decorating this place. There are paintings all over the walls, followed with shiny chandeliers and rich red couches. To the side there's even a bar and a multitude of vending machines. Looking around further, apparently everyone is here before the two of us, but no one seems to be glaring at us so I feel more at ease. 

A woman with bright blonde hair and a man with a buzzcut both come up to me first. "Hey! I believe you two are the last of the 8. I'm Rat." The man greeted, "and this is Elena. She wants you to know that she's shy and if she ignores you then she's just being awkward." Elena elbows him in the gut, "Hey don't just say that to people!" Moon byul and I laugh it off and introduce ourselves. "Do you know who the rest of the people are?" Byul asks. 

"Oh yeah that's easy, that over there," Rat points to a woman with a stronger physique reading a book, "That's Mia. She doesn't speak too much, but she seems friendly enough. She's the Co-Captain. Over there." He points to two men talking, one with slick back brown hair and the other with longer black hair, tied up. "The slick back hair one is Daz. He seems to be a bit full of himself if I'm going to be honest, and the other one is Li Jun. I don't know a lot about him except for the fact that he's handsome Haha." 

Rat points one more time at a man with black hair, walking towards Mia with a serious and mature look to his face. "That's the Captain of this mission, S. Coups. He's quite friendly, despite how serious he may look. I think I've been told that he was once a K-pop idol."

Moon byul butts in, "Oh yeah he was a part of Seventeen, I knew him a little bit."

"Man this is a lot of people to remember. Hopefully I don't forget anyone's name." I sigh, to which Elena responds, "yeah I feel the same way, but after reading a bit about them I feel I got the hang of it. I believe you can too!"

I talked with Rat, Elena, and Moon Byul for a little bit more before deciding to talk to more people. I finally get to S. Coups and Mia who are sitting on a couch talking to each other. I stood in front of them, and nervously introduced myself, "Hello. I believe you two are our Captain and Co-Captain?" 

S. Coups flashes a friendly smile and replies, "Yeah, I'm the Captain of this team, Choi Seungcheol. But I preferred to be called S. Coups." He stands up and shakes my hand with a strong grip. Looking at his arms I could tell that he works out. Then Mia says, "I'm Mia. What's your name again?"

"Oh I'm Wyan. Pleased to meet you all-" before I could finished a loud voice spoke from next to me, 

"Oh you're the Nabbefeld kid I keep hearing about?" I turn over to see a man, presumably Daz, walking boldly up to the 3 of us. "Didn't your dad rig the choosing process to get you up here?"

"W-What no!"

"You can keep pretending all you want; you know you got here because of your dad while the rest of us had to fight tooth and nail to get here." and before I could say anything S. Coups got in front of me, facing Daz, and barked, "Hey! She told you no, drop it. We do not tolerate tasteless schoolyard bullying of any kind. You treat every member on this team. With. Respect. Am I clear?"

Silence ensued the room and Daz's eyes shifted around, looking for some help. Finally, he speaks up, grumbling under his breath, "Yes. I understand." and in a sarcastic tone apologies to me, then walks away.

S. Coups turns towards me, and in a much gentler voice reassures, "he's an idiot. Whatever your background is, you're still a valued member on this team. Would you like to get out of here for a bit and do something else?" I agreed, and soon me and S. Coups walked out of the room, and down to the Observation deck. 

Once there you had direct sight on the giant futuristic spaceship. Although it's mostly white with blue trimming, in big letters there's the word "NSRM" on the side, followed by 8 names under it. Our names. I look and see my name on this million-dollar spaceship, "Yan Nabbefeld".

It's official, I'm apart of the team that changes the world. 

"It's weird thinking that we're going to be spending a good portion of our lives in this ship." S. Coups says, looking at a blueprint of the inside of the ship.

I walk to him, and he points at a room labeled "R1" and says, "this room is going to be mine automatically since I'm the captain. We can't share rooms due to some gender policy, but I'd like you to be right here," and he points to "R2", "right next to mine, if that's alright."