The skies around us started to bleed out of their blue as darkness replaced it. Distant white of the stars around slowly outshone the light of the sun, finally making their presence known too.
[Almost blue... Almost doing things, we used to do...]
The music continued playing inside the spaceship.
Estella sat on the floor, tired as she caught her breath. She turned to me.
"We escaped..."
"We did." I cheerily got off the seat, the vessel left on auto-pilot, and started exploring the space. This was an emergency unit, but it was also designed for very long travel so though small it wasn't too bad. I checked the fridge, and it was stocked just a little bit. There was a kitchen, two rooms, and of course a deck to sit at. This was quite good, for a start, I mean.
"We almost didn't..." said she.
"That's how life is," I shrugged and moved to the deck. Were there any games on this thing? Maybe some books would be nice, oh those are probably stored in the computers.
"Don't 'life' me bastard!" Estella yelled. "What the fuck were you doing!? Connecting your damned music!"
I pursed my lips and avoided her gaze at those words. "Music is important you know..."
[Ding Ding Ding! Tired of interruptions in your daily groove? Subscribe now to premium—]
I stopped.
Estella did too.
"Bastard... at least... Haah..." She rubbed her face with her hands and sighed once more. "Just connect mine."
***
With spotify premium on our side, we were now unstoppable in our traverse of the expanse of the wide dark space. No one could question our movement anymore.
"Where are we going?"
Oh. And that.
"Honestly, I think we should grab a bite," I said to Estella. She had just finished taking a bath and had to wear the same old clothes as before. We were definitely low on the things one needed to survive.
I tapped on the wide display on the spaceship when the windows peering outside into the darkness in front of us changed into a screen. A map of the space appeared in front of us. These systems were probably monitored by the Sermentali, but it took a simple few commands to root it out to a normal start-up. Anyone who could use Linux would be able to do this.
Linux was the best.
"There are a few good restaurants and bars around. The warp-drive is going to be in front of us soon."
"I would like to go the furthest we can from the Sermentali, please."
I nodded at Estella's words who also took a seat and started tapping away on the keyboard. The screen on her side changed into views of the different space-stations around. Calling them space-stations was the technical term, but there was no difference between these places and normal shops and establishments down on any planet.
"This one. Let's go here. Rocky's Greasy Fried Chicken."
I scrunched my brows at her words.
"What?" Estella shrugged. "They have cheap alcohol."
"Alright. Fine. It's pretty far too. I guess I can use some chicken."
I pushed the acceleration lever and the frame of the spaceship trembled for a second before we were shooting out into the sky once again. The dots of white around us from the distant starts turned into smalls streaks as we picked up speed. We were running at full mast.
Before long, a giant spherical machine appeared in front of us. It looked big enough to be a planet on its own.
Droids floated in the space all around the machine. One of them came near us and scanned the spaceship.
A message appeared on the screen.
[Sermentali Unit Confirmed - Your payment will be charged to your organization]
Wow. How convenient.
[Please enter your desired location below. You are number 1 in the queue]
There was no one else using the warpdrive right now anyway. It was just us. People didn't frequent this place.
"13 lightyears from here. Toward the Capricornius Leg please... and enter."
[Received]
A whirr resounded, enough to make our breaths stop. Mana gathered around the machine far ahead as the spiral lit up with a purple light. Within seconds, a rip in space appeared through the spiral, light and gravity all bent into the worm-hole that was formed in the sky.
"Good riddance," I said. "They won't chase us, I don't think so."
"Why is that?" asked Estella.
"Because when I was using the defense system near this machine, I could also access the defense systems across the base."
My voice faded as the spaceship shot toward the wormhole. Estella's eyes turned wide and she looked at me.
"Probably, every single one of the prisoners escaped from Gaia."
"You...—"
—WHRIIIIIINGGGG~!!!!
Her word was cut off as the wormhole swallowed us entirely. My vision darkened and then filled up with color. Purple, green, blue, red, yellow, wavelenghts I could see, wavelengths I couldn't. I was almost sure my star-eyed companion was seeing a completely different sight compared to whatever I was experiencing.
The spaceship floated, like a lost traveller in the middle of the desert. No matter how many steps one would take, the scenery would barely change. It was almost the same case here. Everything looked the same whether we peered to our left or to our right.
Everything.
It didn't take long.
A few minutes passed, and when we blinked again, the entire spaceship was jerked forward.
—BOOM!
We were expelled from the wormhole. The same type of spiral machine was in the sky, just behind us this time.
A droid floated nearby and came to our machine again. Once more, a message popped up.
[Thanks for using the HyperCube's Warp-Drive service. See you later!]
Spotify got reconnected.
"Well, shall we go eat?" I asked.
"Do you have money?"
"Girl! You're killing me. I am a fucking thief."
"Right. Sorry about that."
"No worries. Fried chicken calls."
Off we were to Rocky's Greasy Fried Chicken.
Hah.
Such was the beginning of my life's Space Rhapsody.
A Rhapsody unlike any other.