Earthborn: Lost Amongst the Stars

Chapter 2: Patrol Tests

I sat on a brick hard seat in my ship, watching through the uncomfortableness the twinkling stars pass behind the small window on the side of my small ship as I flew through space.

I leaned against the back of the seat and began to drift off to sleep until the ship jerked forwards. "Engine malfunction detected, unable to autopilot further. Switching all power to life support." Said the computer.

The ship stopped and started to float through the dark vacuum of space. I could feel the oxygen in the air thin and started to hyper ventilate.

"Lessening oxygen levels to induce hypersleep. Pumping nutrients into air." Said the computer.

I quickly fell asleep.

* * * ? ? ? * * *

I dressed in my uniform quickly to prepare for my final test to join the Patrol Team 34 and proudly protect my people.

I jumped out of my room and raced down the halls to the S.P.U. deployment bay.

I ran beside the lines of other students dressed in the same gray and green uniforms as me, attempting to join Patrol Team 34 but only twelve can join.

A woman stepped in front of the lines and spoke. The woman was the Patrol Overseer. She maintained the teams and watched over the repair of the Specialized Patrol Units.

"Welcome, I can only imagine how 'happy' you all are to have made it this far, but don't get excited, only a few of you will be able to pass. Now we have twelve usable S.P.U.'s so we'll have twelve of you take the test at a time." Said the Overseer.

She called out twelve names at a time and had them take the twenty minute test then called twelve more. There are about sixty students that made it this far including myself.

The Overseer had called out almost everyone by now and there were only about four of us left. "Friday, Kel, Ia and Sara!" Called out the Overseer.

We all walked up to the front but I stopped in front of the Overseer. "And who might you be?" Asked the Overseer.

"Sara Holly, sixteen years, five foot ten, reporting ma'am." I said standing upright.

"I didn't ask for your bodily information did I? Well get up there." Commanded the Overseer.

I turned and went up to one of the docking tubes. I crawled inside and sat inside a small cockpit filled with various buttons. The tunnel behind me shut and everything lit up. "S.P.U. 4 ready." I stated. I could hear the muffled sound of hissing as tubes pumping fuel and oxygen into the S.P.U. detached and let out excess gases.

I strapped myself into the harness and the S.P.U. floated outside. The area surrounding Space Station 16 was filled with debris. S.P.U.'s looked mostly like the body and head of a person but had stabilizers and small weapons instead of arms or legs.

"We have sent out several beacons and replaced your right cannon with a Signal Disruptor. The beacons will flash for a moment and you have to disrupt the signal coming to us, we will know which Disruptor disabled the beacons so don't worry." Spoke the Overseer through a speaker in my helmet.

I saw a few beacons flash out of the corner of my eye and shot the Signal Disruptor at them and heard a couple pings in my ear. We continued this for twenty minutes till we got called back in.