Ship Log - Verse Date: 4216.22 

Although, I don't care much for the new captain getting in the way of my dreams, she is a rather respectable leader. However, she will have to prove herself first. Shes not captain of the Infinitum Just yet.

"Where to captain" I ask.

"Let's prepare to reenter the gateway for our next jump."

Captain Mallick standing next to her on the command deck. He seems pleased with himself. Only a few missions left to train Captain Selta, and he'll be retiring to a beach somewhere in sector 12. He's quite fond of the Daplopod's too. No single man could resist them.

Approaching the black hole, or as we refer to them now, gateways, the ship stops.

"Captain? Is there a problem?" Captain Mallick asks.

"Just doing final checks. This is my first jump as captain of the Infinitum. I wanna be sure we get this right." She turned on comms. "How are we in engineering?"

"Top notch captain, we got enough juice down here for the next ten jumps before we need to refuel." 2nd Lieutenant James says.

He's a Crowellian from the planet Crowel. They have the most advanced species in terms of intelligence in all of Verse 1. It was actually a Crowelian that discovered how to build the black matter reactor. Smart folks, but watch out for their insatiable hunger. They've been known to eat the pets of visiting civilizations if the meeting goes too long. In fairness it only happened a few times, but it was all over Interspace News after that.

"Take us out Lieutenant Loon."

"I Captain"

I set a course for the black hole. The flight team took it from there and we began moving at jump speed in a few seconds. As we came out the other side, we saw a shocking site. We returned for the first time to a previous Verse, Verse 302. We can tell because on the side of every docking station we painted the number of the Verse we were in for that mission, and this one says 302. From the looks of the docking station, it had been thousands of years, but that can't be. We've only been exploring for the last few hundred years.

"Let's navigate the sector, shields up Lieutenant James. Lieutenant Loon, scan the sector for life signs." Captain Selta orders.

"Way ahead of ya"

The docking station appears to be abandoned. It's completely built, and in working order. Little rusted and in need of a cleaning, but everything is scanning as functional. There are no ships on board, so they must have taken off at some point. Still, we aren't picking up signs of life anywhere on docking station 302.

"I'm seeing life signs on a planet six light years from here." John from the flight team says.

"Let's head for the planet, and while we wait, how about Lieutenant Loon and I go get some lunch together?" Captain Selta looks at me like we were close relatives who havent seen each other in a long time, and now we would be going off to catch up.

"Sure, it's tacos Tuesday." I reply.

"Oh I like the sound of that." She says.

"I'll stay here and keep watch." Captain Mallick says.

As we walk to the chow hall down the long corridor, she starts in on me.

"So, how long have you been serving on the Infinitum?"

"About 6 years now."

"Really, I've heard stories about this ship. Everyone wants to serve here, which is the main reason I requested it as my first option. I was actually surprised I got the first option."

"How long did you serve with the Jallon 5?"

"2 years."

"Oh, but you were a 1st lieutenant on another ship before that?"

"No actually I started there after the academy, and received three promotions."

"Three promotions!" She's just rubbing it in at this point. It's not normal for people to promote that fast.

"Who did you have to kill to get Captain so quick?" I ask her jokingly.

"That's funny. Well, actually believe it or not, a girl can excel just as fast if not faster than a man can!" It sounds like I hit a nerve with that one.

"Oh no I didn't mean it like—-"

She interrupts. "You just thought that since you have been trying to be captain for five years that you deserve the position more than me."

"Hold on just a minute. Let's start over. Clearly we are both competitive and ambitious. We have that in common. Let's start there."

"I'll have the tacos." She tells the server, at the buffet.

"Same for me."

"Lieutenant Loon, I'm the captain of the Infinitum now, and I expect that you and everyone else will follow my orders regardless of my gender"

"Of course, but you won't just get everyone's respect by demanding it. People have to work with you, and learn that you can be trusted. Maybe, even that you can be a friend. And they're not gonna like it, if every time you talk to them you keep referring to the fact that you're a girl. We get it. I have just spent a long time wanting to be a captain of this ship. It's the only thing I've ever wanted, and here you are taking that away from me. You could be a girl or a man or a unisexed Darminian. None of that would change why I would not like you"

"Ok ok. I'm sorry... I am a bit stressed with the pressure. I've spent the last two years in a ship of mostly men who hate being outdone by a girl. So, naturally I received a lot of pushback when I would give orders, so I got used to putting up my defenses. I'll try to bring it down a notch. I think even with our differences you and I will make a good team. What do you think?"

I honestly am still not happy about it, but I can see she is actually trying to make this work.

"Well, being a captain isn't going to get any less stressful over time. However, if you find yourself in a jam, you can count on me to help you figure things out. But if I get the chance to be captain of the Infinitum, I won't turn it down to save your ass"

On our way back to the command deck the ship drops from light speed and drops like a plane in high turbulence. The light starts flickering and we both fall on the ground during the high velocity maneuvers. I stand back up, and help Captain Selta back to her feet. She reaches for her comms.

"Command, report"

"We are being fired upon by 16 war-like vessels. Report to command Captain Selta."

"Hold them off Captain Mallick, we're on our way"

We start running to the command deck as fast as possible passing through the lights flickering in the corridors. We reach the command deck, and on the big screen is a humanoid race that looks fairly similar to our earth like humans. It's a group of them, and they're making demands of Captain Mallick.

"You will surrender your vessel to us, or you will be destroyed." The long brown hair, black beard leader says standing there wearing his long black leather coat. His officers were wearing similar outfits. He has gold bars on the front left chest of his coath, and the others with silver bars of varying numbers in the same location.

"Surely we can come to some agreement. We don't have to harm one another." Captain Malick says to them.

"You will surrender your vessel at once or be destroyed, and we will collect your supplies after." The group says.

"Now hold on for just a minute, Bluith exploration spaceships are not combat vessels. We are looking for information on the exploration crew that we left here about 200 years ago. Our scanners picked up this planet as the only planet in this sector with life signs. If you don't have any information on our people, then let us be on our way?"

They look confused. Each one looks at the other and then back to us.

"What are your names?" They ask

"My name is Captain Mallick, and this is the Infinitum, we are a Bluith exploration spaceship."

"What are your names?"

"My name is Joshua, these are my officers Amelia and Darnell."

"It's good to meet you. We are harmless to you and your people." Captain Mallick says.

They are whispering among themselves now. It's hard to tell what they are saying, but they have stopped being aggressive. Hopefully that is a good sign. Some species whisper before they attack.

"Captain, we are the descendants of those you call the exploration team."

"Really, well that's great! What can you tell us about Verse 302? This is the first time we have ever been able to return to a Verse." Looking weary, folding their arms, and glancing at each other, then turning back our direction.

"Captain, perhaps you and your people should join us for dinner. It's quite a long story, and we can discuss it more there."

"But of course."

"Well send a ship to bring you aboard Captain. See you soon"

That was an unexpected outcome. We were just in a battle, and usually we had to destroy other ships in similar situations which gave me the impression that they didn't really want to harm us.

We do have the capability to destroy and attack during our encounters, but we don't advertise it. Usually, we wait until the last second, and then we use violence as a last resort.

They're ship was like the combat vessels Bluith had, except more advanced. They had added features like neutron torpedoes, quantum propulsion engines, among other things we haven't seen before. The ferry ship is taking us to their vessel. When we arrive we are greeted by Joshua and his officers.

"Welcome aboard the Quelton 2. It's one of our finest warships. We welcome you in peace. Let's share a meal together, and then we bond."

Walking through this ship is like revisiting the history books I saw when I was at the academy. It's like the people here have fallen back into tribalism. Only this time they are equipped with advanced knowledge and technology. It really is hard to understand because we haven't seen any other civilizations in this Verse, so I'm curious to find out what they would say about their time here so far.

We all finally sit down at the table. It's a buffet of olives, fruit, and chicken. It seems like they think this is a prized meal, but it's very underwhelming really.

"You must know something about us, Captain. We don't normally let people from the outside into our world." Joshua says.

"Really, well we are honored to be your first guest." Captain Malick says.

"Yes, honored." I say.

"We are grateful to be here." Captain Selta says, and then Captain Mallick takes over again. "We're curious about what happened to all of the people we left here many years ago. What have you learned about this place? What happened to our people?"

"We have been here for over 2000 years. Our ancestors were the exploration team you speak of. But those wretched Gallians had to go and do their own thing after a few years."

"Distasteful people." One of his officers echoes.

"Yes, absolutely horrible!" Says another.

"I'm sorry are you saying the exploration team split up or something" I ask.

"Yes, after a few years, they couldn't find enough resources, and this planet was the only place that could support life. So they left to come here. When we came to find them they had walled off the planet with an amplified ship shield they stole and modified. Now we have to trade with them in order to get the resources we need to survive on Archimed."

"Archimed?" I ask

"Yes, that is our planet. It's 300 light years from here. We make the trip a few times a year for supplies. We live there because we can't stand to be anywhere near the Gallians."

"How can we speak with the Gallians?" Captain Mallick ask

"We use space frequency 902 when we need to request supplies. They don't take kindly to new folks though."

We stand up and prepare to leave by saying goodbye and thanks to the Archimedians. On the way back to the ship, we prepared for contact with the Gallians.

We sent the request, and are now waiting for a response. It only took three days to receive a response. That said very simply, no.

"How could they say no. Lieutenant, call them back so we can make another attempt." Captain Mallick says. So, I resent the request.

It's been three more days, and flight crew John reports a flat shaped smooth ship approaching on screen. We could see the ship coming from the planet, and there are two of them now.

"Weapons are locking on Captain." Weapons Chief Lector tells us.

"Shields up" Captain Mallick says.

"Captain, why not let Captain Selta take this one." I tell him. She will either fail and improve my chances of being Captain, or she will do well and I could get credit for it. Either way this should work out for me.

"Very well. Captain Selta, are you up for it?" Captain Mallick asks.

"Of course Captain" she stands up straight, chest out, and stiffens up her face a bit.

"Open comms frequencies" she says "Approaching ship, we are not here to harm you or your people. We dropped off an exploration team many years ago not far from here, and we are looking for information about them." She says.

Nothing happens for a moment.

"They are still locked on Captain" I say.

We wait for a moment, and nothing happens. They aren't moving, they aren't firing on us. "Maybe they had to go to the bathroom." John says. He was always saying inappropriate things like that. We tried to ignore him, but sometimes he was right. Just then we began receiving a comms request from the Gallian ship.

"On screen, John" Captain Mallick says.

"Captain, you're supposed to be letting Captain Selta do this. Step back, and let her get her feet wet." I say.

"Oh, yes, very well then. Continue captain Selta."he says.

The Gallians appear as a hologram on the huge window facing out of the command deck.

"Hello, we understand you are the explorers that dropped off our ancestors many years ago. We welcome you to Gallian. Please we would like to host your visit to the planet. We are sending you coordinates to land on the surface. We will meet you there."