Void where Prohibited

Before

Spatium waved to the clamoring crowd below him for a final time as he made his way to the sleek mass of metal that would soon send him into deep space. The year is 2645 A.D. and the space Captain Spatium Terram and his crew are being sent on mission to gather data about the mysterious wormholes that dot his universe. Captain Terram gave a polite smile to the camera and masses writhing with excitement underneath his position at the podium. He hoped his speech had been enough, there was no telling when he'd be back. He knew 12 billion pairs of eyes were on him right now, in this age everyone had at least one screening device. Poorer countries still used obsolete technologies like televisions, it was hard to believe that they even worked. Spatium wasn't worried about pity right now though. He joined his team on the volo-launch deck, Captain Terram could tell they were all just as tense as he was, but they were just better able to conceal it.

The volo surrounded them in the invisible encasement that prevented them from falling to their doom. Spatium admired his team, they were all at least 7 years younger than him, but that didn't bother him. Toby, the youngest of the crew was a boy genius, he graduated from the most renowned college in Close America at age 13 and landed himself a job the C-American Space Explorers (C-ASE) at 16. Spatium himself had worked with the C-ASE corporation before, but left after the government offered him a job at AoOD, or the Administration of Outer Discovery. They all ended up here. That's how AoOD worked, they strike an offer you can't refuse. It's the best-paying job on Earth, and most likely the universe, but then again they haven't discovered any evidence of intelligent life yet. The volo was now hovering a good 300 feet up into the air and still gently floating up to the deck. The very deck that Captain Spatium Terram, Sergeant Glacé Radsirancer (Sergeant Rad to her colleagues), Bran Xinedder, Toby Smith, and HaieDean Princeps were going to stand on while they boarded the craft. They had come a very long way from being slung around a gyroscope for 20 minutes straight, to stepping their shuttle for the first time.

Before boarding the ship, Captain turned to his crew.

"I'm so proud of you all." his tone was crisp, but his face revealed traces of woe.

"I hope you're prepared for what may be the ride of your life. This was the most dangerous mission AoOD has ever sent a group of humans on in their long and remarkable history."

He was sure the bunch was feeling equally apprehensive. The engineers at the station designed the craft to have no flaws, yet the mission failure rate was still set at 28%. This concerned all of them, but they were prepared to face anything, their Captain was sure of it. The team stared at one another in quiet understanding, holding their breath. Bran broke the silence.

"Are we going to get in this thing or what!?" she gave a chipper grin and climbed from the deck into the shuttle. Bran was an optimistic young bright-eyed woman, literally, her eyes were a glaring neon yellow. She might of been the only person on the planet who who had the ability pull that shade of chemically modified eye color off. Her tied-off mass of curly auburn hair soon disappeared into the dark that followed the ladder that led down to the ships control center. HaieDean went in after Bran, he was a 26-year-old military engineer, and Toby's best friend.

Sarge and Toby still lingered next to Spatium. Sarge looked to the Captain with her skeptical hazel eyes spoke with a teasing cadence in her warm French accent

"Are you sure you are ready to take this risk Spat?"

Spatium furrowed his eyebrows before he spoke. "Heck no, you?" he grunted.She raised her toned bronze-brown arms in a shrug and moved towards the opening of the shuttle. She began to climb down, but not before raising a last perfect eyebrow overhanging her cat style eyeliner. Once she disappeared, only Spatium and Toby remained to be boarded. Toby was just 22, but was the smartest of all of them. Toby looked at the distant crowd eagerly anticipating the launch of the ship. He turned to Captain Terram and simply smiled nervously before climbing in and heading down. No telling what kind of gears were turning in that boy's head. And then there was one.

Captain Spatium Terram of the deep space ship NkyteliosI took a deep breath in and began his descent down the cool metal of the ladder.

Goodbye Earth.