Ares

Chapter One

The screams could be heard all throughout Ares. They wouldn't stop. They echoed all night. Everyone lay awake in their beds listening and waiting for them to finally stop. They were Maya's screams. "Just shut up,"! Yelled Josh, "If you'd stop and did your job for an hour I'll let you out"! It was her night to do the dishes and she always did this.

My name is Jacob. I'm just a lieutenant on the glorious ship Ares but My colleagues treat me like family. Maya's the captain but nobody gives her the respect the title deserves. She's like a child and everyone has a part in taking care of her. Josh is second in command and he's pretty responsible in keeping Maya calm most of the day but when he's working in the cockpit it's our job. Next is Daniel. He is admiral and kind of jerk. Nobody really likes him. He's always in a bad mood and never comes out of his room when he's not working on something in the ship or griping at us. Then there's Kenzy. She's a lieutenant like me but she's always paranoid and scared something going to happen. I always tell her there's nothing out here in space but a bunch of old flying rocks and even bigger flying rocks that just have a fancy name.

I went out of my room and headed down the hall to the mess hall where Maya and Josh were. I still heard Maya screaming about who's job it was to do the dishes and how she's the captain and shouldn't have to do work that's demeaning. I walked up to Josh and told him I'd do them....again. "No, Jacob. She needs to start doing the chores around here! She can't just go to the cockpit and do nothing all day then go to sleep to wake up and do the same thing and be lazy"!! I unlocked the door and Maya bolted out and probably ran straight for the cockpit. I don't really care. I cover for her all the time. I'm used to it. Anyway I went in and started washing dishes and open the locks on the window so I can look out into space while I do the dishes. I never get tired of just watching all the stars whisp by when I'm doing something but this time when I opened the locks I saw the engine had a panel missing. I ran to Daniels quarters to tell him. I knocked on his door and tried to open it and it was locked. I started beating on the door and he told me to go away. I didn't want to alarm Kenzy because she was right down the hall watching me and if I said there was a panel missing on the left engine she would freak out and have a panic attack or something so I just said I really needed to talk to him. He didn't say a word. Kenzy walked up to me and asked what was going on and I told her it was nothing important. She asked me if I finished the dishes and I told her I was going to finish when I was done with Daniel. "I'll just go do them.", she said and I stupidly told her that was fine. After another minute of beating on Daniels door he finally opened the door and at that second I heard Kenzy scream.