“Oh my god…” A grin slowly spread over Thomas’ face, the realization of what he and his crew had just accomplished beginning to sink in. “We did it.”

    Cheers erupted across the ship among every person aboard. Laughter seeping with relief, joy, disbelief, and wonder was all that could be heard from any room for several moments. It was a celebration for everyone involved. Finally, Thomas pulled up a chair to stand atop of. A smile on his face, he addressed everyone.

    “We did it guys; Tonight, we made history. It took almost a full year, but we, on September 20th, 2519, are officially…” He paused for dramatic effect before he continued, “The first human beings to leave our solar system.”

    Cheers took over the ship once again and Thomas laughed along with them. He only stopped when he felt a tug on his arm. He looked over only to see the ship’s navigator, Remy Sparks, climbing up onto the chair beside him. He hung on to Thomas’s arm and seemed to magically keep the balance needed for neither of them to fall off the rather small sized chair.

    “You know what that means girls?” Remy grinned, “Time to celebrate!!! Let’s party!” 

    The crew, of course, happily agreed to this idea. Still cheering, the room quickly emptied as everyone headed to the ship’s dining room. Save for Thomas and one of the pilots, Joan, the room was now completely empty. 

    The two friends stood in silence for several minutes, staring out into the deep expanse of unexplored space ahead of them. Mostly void, partially stars, they could only imagine what awaited them next. This was truly uncharted territory - sure, telescopes and satellites and some robots had flown by here, but no humans had. There were some things that were not possible to know unless they were discovered through human eyes, and even more that were not possible to experience unless through a human body. As advanced as Earth’s technology had become, there were so many unknowns that they would soon encounter. So many discoveries to make and so many dreams to fulfill. Once this trip was finished, life for mankind would be forever changed. This was the chance of a lifetime; that was a fact. 

    “Can you believe it?” Joan finally broke the silence, looking over at their friend with a wide smile. “We made it. We actually made it.”

    Thomas shook his head, chuckling in disbelief. “I honestly can’t. I keep waiting to wake up and find myself in bed, back on Earth, realizing this was all just some insane dream.” He smiled, staring out at a bright, distant star as they flew by it. “To think, only two years ago we weren’t even sure if we were gonna be able to even leave just Earth. Now we’re leaving the solar system.”

    “We’re not leaving it, we already did leave it. We completed the ‘leaving it’ stage. Also,” Joan grinned, “Unlike someone, I believed in us from the beginning and totally knew we were gonna do this. Never had a shred of doubt we’d make history. The doubt was all yours, my friend.” They laughed as Thomas playfully shoved them.

    “Okay but in all seriousness,” Thomas said, “We’re gonna be in the history books. We’ve already got tons of news channels emailing us, along with practically every political leader ever. We’re all that anyone is talking about. We’re gonna be celebrities when we get back.”

    “When we get back? Dude, think about now! We won’t be back for a couple years at least, we gotta explore! Focus on that, not about everyone back on Earth.”

    “Yeah, you’re right,” Thomas laughed, “So, what do you think is ahead of us?”

    “Multiple asteroids if we don’t turn around right now.”

    Both Thomas and Joan spun around at these words, and saw the holographic form of Giovanni appear, a panicked look on his face as he began to speak rapidly. 

    “We’re about to cross the path of probably several hundred asteroids; they’re directly ahead of us! If we don’t turn around about five minutes ago then we are going to get hit!”

    “Wait, how?!” Joan exclaimed, “Aren’t our sensors supposed to pick up on stuff like that? Why didn’t you turn the ship around earlier, when they were far away!” 

    “They appeared out of nowhere!” Giovanni exclaimed, folding his arms and looking crossed, “And I lost the controls. I can’t control the ship. You need to switch it to manual immediately or we will crash.”

    “How did you lose the controls -”

    “I don’t know! But you need to listen to me because right now, you clearly hate me and are not listening at all!” Giovanni shouted, his voice growing louder with each word spoken, “So either go do what I say or ignore me, let chaos take over, and we all die because you can’t listen!” 

    But by this time Joan and Thomas had stopped listening to the AI’s overdramatic rant. Thomas began planning, 

    “I’ll go get Talyn and Remy, you head to the command center and start fixing our course,” He quickly ordered. With a nod, Joan ran out of the room to do just that with Thomas running close behind.

    Giovanni, now left alone in the room, sighed.

           “Oh, don’t thank me for letting you know. Just keep taking me for granted. I don’t need a thanks - it’s not like I just probably saved your lives or anything. Not like you still hate me anyways. B*tch.”