Lost

Two weeks later, Nikolas, Autumn, and Maya walked out of Peton's office with smiles on their faces. Each one carried a fat sack of coins that jingled as they moved.

"That was a lot more than I was expecting them to pay us," Maya said. "Even split three ways, this is a lot of money."

"Personification is the highest Level you can find on this planet, so hiring one to kill another costs quite a bit," Nikolas explained.

"I think she may have paid us a little extra because she was scared of Autumn," Maya replied.

"Me? Why would she be scared of me?" Autumn asked as they exited the building, coming into a street packed with people.

On either side of them were short two-story buildings that were crammed together with no room in between. Many of these buildings had one or two signs, advertising the shops and stores within. The trio passed by all of them with nary a glance; nothing these stores sold could interest them. They could find better goods on other planets.

"Look around you, Autumn," Nikolas told her. "Your aura is giving 'I'm going to destroy you and your family' vibes."

When Autumn looked around, she found what Nikolas was talking about. Everyone on the street gave her group a wide birth, all of them staying just out of reach of the twenty-foot radius her aura naturally leaked to.

The passersby kept their heads low and hurried along when she turned her eyes on them, most of them mere mortals unable to withstand more than a few seconds of contact with her aura. A few even passed out, their friends having to drag them away.

"I don't want to be the scary one," Autumn groaned. "Nikolas does that just fine on his own."

"I might have some competition," Nikolas said as he tossed his sack of coins in the air. It fell back into his hand with the satisfying sound of coins clinking together. "Let's hurry back to the ship. I want to exchange these and get a better bed for the house."

"What's wrong with the bed you have?" Maya asked.

"Nothing, but there are better ones out there."

Nikolas situated himself in the pilot's seat, Autumn buckling up next to him. Maya was in the back, finding a movie to watch on the television. When he finished buckling his seatbelt, he rested his hands on the yoke, looking at the two ladies.

"We all ready?" he asked them.

"Ready," Autumn said.

"I'm ready. Let me know when it's safe to unbuckle," Maya said.

Nikolas nodded and turned his attention to the world outside the windshield. As he flicked some switches and pressed a few buttons, the engine hummed to life. With a gentle pull of the yoke, they rose into the air and shot out of the planet's atmosphere, whereupon Nikolas activated the warp drive.

When space turned from a dark void to a tunnel of lights, Nikolas flicked on the autopilot and leaned back in his chair.

"Okay, you can unbuckle for now. We have about a day and a half before we make it to Karsire," Nikolas informed them, hopping out of his seat to grab a sandwich from the fridge.

"Uh, Nikolas?" Autumn called from the cockpit as he finished making his meal. "We have a problem."

Nikolas went back to the cockpit. "What?" he asked her, taking a bite out of his sandwich.

Autumn pointed out to the windshield, and he followed her finger to the giant, black void in the distance. He squinted, taking another bite of his sandwich as he watched it swallow the light around it.

"Huh," he said after swallowing. "Well, how about that."

"What is it?" Autumn asked.

"I don't know, but we're about to find out." He turned his head and put a hand to his mouth, yelling at Maya. "Buckle up!"

Afterward, he followed his advice, sitting down and strapping himself in. He held his sandwich in his mouth to make it easier, then tore a bite out of it as he grabbed it. Putting his free hand on the yoke, he braced for impact.

"Can't we dodge it or something?" Autumn asked upon noticing his plan.

"Not at this speed," Nikolas said. "And not from so close. All we can do is hope that thing isn't lethal. You buckled?"

"Yeah, I am. See you on the other side."

"I hope so."

The inky blackness quickly grew in size, until it soon devoured every bit of the light around them, even those in the ship. They were cast into darkness, an anomaly shorting out the ship's gravity controls and causing them to float in their seats, losing their sense of direction.

In an instant, the darkness vanished and the gravity returned, the view outside the windshield showing a healthy blue planet with lands of green.

A planet they were heading straight for at breakneck speeds.

Nikolas had finished his sandwich by now, and placed both hands on the yoke, which he gave a sharp tug. Their trajectory changed from a straight shot to the planet's surface to a calm orbit around the sphere as Autumn sighed in relief.

Nikolas brought them out of the atmosphere and landed them on the moon a few hundred thousand miles away, which they crossed in less than a minute. When he touched down, he tapped an empty spot on the dashboard. A panel split down the middle and raised up, retracting vertically into the console and revealing a digital screen.

The screen lit up, showing a blank whiteness. "That's not good," he said.

"Why's the navigator not showing our location, Nik?" Autumn asked.

"Because it doesn't have any data on where we are," he explained as Maya entered the cockpit.

"So just use the locator to scan the stars and chart a path back," Maya suggested.

"Star data is gone," Nikolas stated. "Along with pretty much everything we could use to find where we are."

"So we're lost," Autumn said. "Wonderful."

"At least we aren't dead," commented Maya. "As long as we're alive, we can make it back. Maybe that planet has something helpful."

"Worth a shot," Nikolas said. "Go sit down and buckle up. I'll bring us over."