As the Captain's voice faded away, I unclipped a piece of plastic from the rack above me and held it in my left hand. With my thumb scraping across the surface, I controlled the neon lights outside and studied the damage.
'Regarde son état...' Jaq whined. She moved her Eagle around below us and guided it towards the engines.
'J'ai confiance en toi.' I assured her. Even though my confidence in Jaq was high, the Pangaea wasn't going anywhere fast. I knew, deep down, that it would take at least a month to repair everything.
'She knows English. You can drop the French now.' Sam complained. He swivelled in his chair and drummed his fingers.
'You sound bored,' I said, craning my neck to get a better look out the windshield.
'That's because you're doing all the work! I'm sat here doing nothing.'
'Just make sure you've got your TNT ready. I'll do all the important things, okay?' My goggles let out a warble and my eyes were drawn to a highlighted asteroid. 'That's strange.'
'What is it?'
My HUD made the floating rock pulsate with a bright yellow aura and a tiny box in the corner showed the results of a thermal sweep. 'These asteroids are made of ice and rock, but they have a metal core. Like, a shaped metal core. It's almost as if—'
'Yeah, yeah, very interesting, big floating bits of ice with metal in them,' Sam drawled. 'Let's actually do what we came here for!'
Without warning, I was jostled around in my seat. My goggles slipped off my eyes and the straps wrapped around my neck. 'What do you think you're doing?' I gagged and clawed at my windpipe.
'We're here for a reason, remember. Olga told us to take a look around, so that's what I'm doing.'
I freed my throat and glared at Sam. He was now operating the Eagle by himself, using the dual joysticks and the screens to his advantage. The Eagle twisted around in a circle and then dived downwards, building speed as it shot alongside the Pangaea.
Some pebbles dinged off the Eagle and I gasped in fright. Sam was now pushing the ship to such a speed that it felt like hands were dragging my body into the chair. Sweat started to form on the back of my neck. 'That's enough, Sam, let me drive.'
He snorted. 'No way.'
The left wing groaned in protest. I prayed under my breath and checked the virtual dials on the screens. I recoiled at their readings. 'Sam, slow down.'
'We're fine, Teabags.'
I winced as Sam whirled the Eagle between two stupendous boulders and continued to spiral along for a little while after. The stars morphed into a bright smudge. 'Please...' I begged.
'Eagle One, what's going on?' Jaq's voice interrupted Sam's whooping.
I floundered around, gasping as I tried to seize my joysticks. 'Sam's driving.'
'Sam, reduce your speed! You're going to crash!'
'No, I'm not!'
'Putain!'
'We're fine!' Sam roared, tilting the Eagle. The left wing cut through a gathering of stones, causing them to scatter.
I shifted my shoulders and grasped one of my joysticks. I moved it around, but nothing responded. 'You've locked me out!'
'Teabags, how many times are we going to have an opportunity to have a little fun?'
The Eagle swooped and dived through the asteroids, missing every rock by mere inches. The vibration through my seat coursed through my whole body and I felt like I was about to eject my entire stomach. The seatbelts cut across my shoulders, making my arms tingle with the loss of blood.
Then it stopped. The Eagle flipped over, slowed down, and came to a halt. The ride was over.
I gathered myself up, unbuckled my seatbelt and panted softly. I massaged my temples and shouted. 'What the Hell was that, Sam? Are you trying to kill us? I could bloody swing for you!'
Sam didn't reply. He gazed into the abyss of space with his jaw wide open.
'Well?' I continued, 'aren't you going to explain yourself?'
'Shut up.'
'Shut up?' I crawled over to Sam and gripped his collar. 'What do you mean, shut up?'
He placed a hand on mine and pushed it away. 'Look.'
'Look at what, you idiot?'
'Just look.'
I turned my head. At first I thought I was seeing things, but then Sam glanced at me and I knew that he could see them too.
Beyond the Eagle and past the Pangaea, three tremendous spaceships hung motionless in the void. The closest one was shaped like a cocktail glass, but instead of a cone at the top, it had a green dome with flecks of white and brown. Hundreds of wide cylinders lined the disc at the bottom, each with black burn marks along the edges.
A distance away, spinning on its side, a ring shaped craft lingered. A thin metal column had been placed through the centre, with two colossal black asteroids attached to either end.
But behind those two curious spaceships laid the most mysterious thing I had ever seen in my life.
It was a sphere. A silver sphere with a deep dip carved into the front. Inside the depression, a white light shined out towards us, illuminating the various pieces of the Pangaea that were floating away. The sphere was smooth, with a number of lines crisscrossing the exterior. Yellow specs of light travelled up and down the trenches at varying speeds.
'Good gracious...' I blinked my eyes for a few seconds and grabbed my goggles.
'They...' Sam breathed, 'they are alien ships! Alien ships! We're not looking at human engineering here, Tommy! Those are alien ships! Alien ships!'
My mind was doing all sorts of gymnastics and hundreds of questions bubbled in my head. I blinked my eyes over and over, but the strange vessels didn't disappear. 'Yeah, alien ships,' I mumbled.
'Tommy, this is huge. This is massive. This is the biggest discovery of all time! We've found proof that aliens exist! Aliens!'
'I know!'
'Just look at them all!' Sam was now acting like a rabid animal, fervently pointing with his fingers. His eyes were wide and white, showing off every red vein.
'I'll tell you one thing,' I said, 'they're too far away for me to do a thermal scan.' The gears inside my goggles screeched as I tried to lock on. 'I can't see much of anything.'
'So we're going to have to check them out, right? There's no way we can pass this up! Tommy, Teabags, man, come on, we gotta go check them out!'
I frowned at Sam and turned away. I got back to my own chair and rotated a series of knobs below the joysticks. 'Sam, promise me something?' I said, putting on my seatbelt.
'What?' He asked.
'Be quiet for the next ten minutes.'
'Okay.'
'And you're going to let me drive.'
'Okay.'
'Jaq,' I said, putting both my hands around the joysticks, 'nous avons trouvé quelque chose de bizarre. Ne panique pas. Juste reste là où tu es.'
'Quoi? Qu'est-ce qui se passé?' Her voice sounded shaky.
I sucked the air through my teeth and hit the nearest screen with a finger. 'Captain?' I said, hailing our leader, 'Captain Maximova?'
She answered with a groan. 'What is it, Fletcher?'
'I got some news for you,'
'Huh? Good or bad?'
I raised my eyebrows. 'I think you'll see it as good news.'
A small LCD screen embedded in the dashboard flickered on and Captain Maximova's face scowled at me. 'Talk to me.'
I swallowed. 'We are... I...'
'Stop wasting my time,' she snapped. Behind her, Doctor White fussed over a microscope.
'There are three extra-terrestrial spaceships near our position right now. They are--'
'What?' the Captain yelled and leapt closer to the camera, 'why didn't you tell me sooner?'
'We've just found them, Captain,' Sam told her.
'What do they look like? Have you tried to contact them? Have they talked you? What're you doing now?'
'Captain,' Sam laughed, 'calm down, we haven't done anything.'
'All three of them are different. One of them is shaped like a cocktail glass,'
'A what?'
'A glass for martinis.'
'Interesting.' She paused. 'And the other two?'
'It's like a ring. There's a structure fixed in the centre. It's a long rectangle with black rocks stuck to it.'
'And the third one?'
'It's a sphere. Silver. There are lights on the outside. If you check your feed, you should see—'
'I got the pictures,' our Captain moved away and I heard the clack of a keyboard.
'Do we have permission to investigate?'
'Which one is closest?' I heard her say from across the room.
'The one shaped like a martini glass,' I said, watching it loom ahead.
'Hail it.' She said, moving back and wiping her arm against her forehead. 'Hail that ship, then the other one, then the next. Work your way through.'
'Are you sure, Captain?'
'I trust you. Besides,' she pointed at Doctor White, 'I'm busy working with him. I'll keep an eye on you from here. Do your best, Fletcher.'
'Copy that, Captain,' I took my left hand and pressed it against the tuner. 'Sam, I'm going to boost the outgoing signal, but I need you to keep an eye on our power levels, got it?'
'Got it,' he said, straightening his shirt. He twisted a dial on his armrest and grinned. 'This is what I signed up for, man. This is the real stuff.'
'Just...' I sighed. 'Don't get overexcited and make a mistake. That's all I ask.'