𝙄'𝙈 𝘼 𝙎𝙐𝙍𝙑𝙄𝙑𝙊𝙍³ ➣ 𝐵. 𝐵𝑙𝑎𝑘𝑒✔

02 | Eligius IV

"Boys and girls, meet Eligius IV," Raven said. Through the camera of the pod, we could see the giant ship in front of us, growing closer and closer.

"'Powering a better tomorrow'," Emori read the side of the ship.

"Must be a mining ship."

I looked at Harper as she spoke. "Mining in space?"

"I've heard stories," Monty butted in. "Missions sent to mine asteroids or search for habitable planets, but that was a hundred years ago."

"They got back somehow, Bellamy stated. "Means they must have fuel."

"Well, now there's a ship with a story to tell," Raven mumbled as we drew closer to the ship; one of the very large engines was all messed up. "It looks like one of the engines was destroyed. At least the hap is still rotating. That rotation means they'll have gravity. Sorry, lovebirds. No Zero-G space sex."

"That's too bad," I joked, glancing at Harper and Monty, whose faces were bright red.

"There. There's the docking bay," emori said looking through the camera in front of her.

Monty cleared his throat slightly before speaking. "I hate to ask this now. What if they're still inside?"

"We've been through this; if they were still inside and saw a foreign ship trying to board them, they would shoot us out of the sky," I answered, raising an eyebrow slightly.

Raven spoke, "Okay. Commencing operation uninvited guests. Firing thrusters in three, two, one." Raven fired the thrusters, causing the rocket to shake. "Emori, as soon as I line us up with the hap, it's all yours... On my mark."

"Okay, we're in alignment."

Raven nodded. "The nav is yours. It's just like the simulator."

"Copy that."

I heard Murphy quietly scoff. "Grounders don't say 'copy that's."

"This one does. Initiating docking sequence."

"We are so screwed," Murphy muttered.

Emori scolded him. "Shut up, John."

Alarms blared throughout the inside of the rocket as Raven spoke. "Why are we losing alignment?"

"I lost stabilization," Emori stated. "I don't know."

"We're coming in too fast! Okay, I got it! I got it! Switching back to manual." Raven then began steering the rocket. It shook violently as Raven tried desperately to align it with the ship in front of us. A loud thud shook the rocket. I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth as I gripped onto Bellamy's hand tightly. "Okay. Hold on. Hold on... Brace for impact. We're coming in hot!"

A sudden thud caused the pod to stop, jerking us hard. I let out a quiet groan.

"That was fun," Murphy commented sarcastically. "We should do it again sometime."

I unbuckled my seatbelt before taking my helmet off and letting out a breath.

"Okay. Let's go find that fuel," Bellamy said, standing from his seat. He opened the hatch on the bottom of the rocket. "On me. Suits off in the cargo hold."

Once we had our suits off, we stepped out of the pod, the sound of muffled alarms blaring in the ship filled my ears. "We better move fast," I said, unsheathing my katana the same time Echo did her sword.

Bellamy looked at both of us, causing Echo to speak. "We don't know what we're walking into."

No one said a word as Bellamy stepped toward the door, pressing a button that opened it. The alarms grew louder once the doors opened and we walked out of the docking bay.