It's quiet in the vacuum of space, cold, dead, and silent.

It's so quiet that you can faintly hear an engine running as the captain, in a last-minute small rocket, approaches his spaceship. His ship is perfectly equipped for long-distance space travels with its own greenhouse, kitchen, top-of-the-line med bay and weapons system on top of what every other smaller spaceship should have. All this combined made it a big spaceship, to say the least, but compared to the other spaceships that NASA has been sending out these days?

They made his ship borderline minuscule in comparison, it would have been like comparing a single drop of water to a small pond but to give the captain some credit, he didn't have too many options due to him only recently getting the role of captain just recently. Although he did look the part with his almost all-grey spacesuit which would of made him almost blend in with the vacuum of space if it wasn't for the small tints of tussock on the suit and the patches on the sleeves to further confirm that he works in NASA's new spaceship program, Cozmos, and he's, in fact, the captain if it was not already obvious from his crew wearing the classic white spacesuits.

When his pretty pathetic last-minute rocket, finally arrived, he strolled into the airlock before oxygen was released into the room, allowing him to be able to take off his helmet, the doors leading to the hallway of the ship whooshed open, giving the captain the indication to leave but he already knew that, after all, it wasn't his first time in space, this was his one hundred and one time in space, he's even got the badge to prove it. He marched into the hallway with the cockiness that being the captain of the ship would give you as he strolled through the hallway, he felt like something was off, something was wrong but besides the every so often "hello captain" or "morning sir" from the couple crew mates scattered throughout the hallway would say too excitedly, there was nothing that he could see that was wrong besides this weird gut feeling. He began to skim through the windows and open doors scattered around the hallway, but he still couldn't see anything inherently wrong so before he pushed this feeling down, he decided to touch the walls first as maybe that's the issue.

The walls felt sterile and cold, too cold, so cold that the captain jumped when he felt how cold it was, to say it was cold was an understatement, it was icier than anything but in the end, the captain chose to push this gut feeling down and just chalk the walls to being so cold because of that fact that they were in space and the crew mates being too happy as if they had too much coffee to drink, after all, the ship's kitchen did had a coffee maker from what he remembered but still he's never remembered those walls being that cold. Nevertheless, the captain marched forward until he arrived at a door at the end of the hallway, the spaceship helm. It was fitted with a top-of-the-line communication system, a user interface, allowing you to control the flight path which is displayed as a 3D map in the centre of the room along with being able to control the thrusters and engines however they need voice and facial recognition from the captain to activate either of them.

NASA of course added one more thing to the spaceship as well, some of the best artificial intelligence they have ever created, also known as the ARG-05 or as the captain calls him 'ARGOS' who's usually just on one of the main screens in the room even though if he wanted to, he could go onto every screen on the ship if he wanted to. The captain only had to take one step into the room before ARG-05 immediately notices him and greets him with the most monotone "Hello Captain, how are you today?" he has ever heard, it nearly caught him off guard but after a second or so, he replied to ARG-05 with a "Hello ARGOS, I'm doing just fine just a little jet lagged" ARG-05 change his face on his screen before saying "I'm sorry to hear that captain" and changing his face back to the default one.

The captain goes towards the 3D map in the middle of the room and just as he goes to touch the start button mission, the captain snaps out of his flashback with his hand shakily hovering over the cancel mission button as you can hear his heartbeat going a mile a minute as he heavily breathing over the map. It was almost as if he was having a panic attack, but he does have a fairly good reason to be in such a panic with his once crystal clear astronaut helmet being filled with this bubbly mysterious green liquid which is containing his skull, brain and just very faintly his eyes. The captain himself doesn't even know why or how he is still alive as before it happened, he was knocked out cold and ARG-05 had to come to his rescue which to give ARG-05 credit would of being very hard to help someone who's inside of you because despite there being a crew of 60, they were all missing or worse dead.

Neither of them knew why they were all gone but when the captain awoke, ARG-05 told him that if he takes his head or what was left of it out of this liquid he would most likely die but the strangest thing which the captain doesn't understand is if his face is mostly gone why not the rest of his body, that's perfectly fine, did it he just get hit so hard that ARG-05 needed to use a chemical which burns away skin or was it just from the attack all he knows is that the green liquid smells putrid and rotten. At this point, ARG-05 finally noticed that the captain was freaking out and switched to a monitor which was closer to him and said to him "Sir? May I ask what you are doing?"

The captain stared at him but didn't say a word, after a few minutes of silence, ARG-05 notices what the captain was about to press and slowly lowered the button and continued "sir that won't work you don't-, it won't-, look are you okay, do you need to take you to med bay?". The captain continued to stay silent, at this point ARG-05 wasn't even sure if he could speak so he decides to take his silence as a sign for help, so he begins to slightly move the ship as carefully as possible to try and not break the small bit of glass which is keeping him alive, mainly due to the captain's silent refusal to move. All he need to do was just get him close enough so one of the mechanical arms scattered throughout med bay can carefully grab him and take him to one of the beds because in ARG-05's mind the captain just needed some sleep and it will all be fine, after all as he put it two and a half weeks ago 'he was just a little jet lagged' so that has to be the reason now.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Besides the one or two rough landings, which luckily hit the more durable back of the helmet, ARG-05, after a few attempts, managed to successfully grab the captain's arm and dragged him into a bed as carefully as possible. Once he was in the bed the captain felt as if he could sleep for almost an eternity until he jumped out of bed from a loud bang coming from the other side of the ship followed by a loud alarm repeatedly screaming "ALERT CRITICAL DAMAGE TO THE ENGINE DETECTED IMMEDIATE ATTENTION IS REQUIRED". He paused for a second, processing what the alarm was saying before he sprinted to the other side of the ship to see what has happened, he only had to take one step into the room to hear the crackling sound of a fire before the engine exploded from the flames, forcing him backwards and having the side of his helmet collide with a wall causing the glass to slightly crack, knocking him out as well as the liquid in his helmet slowly dripped out of it as everything slowly goes black.

He didn't even know how long he had been out for a few minutes or maybe even a few seconds all he remembered was waking up in a very small puddle of the green liquid, the blaring alarm, ARG-05's panicked cries and the exploded engine. The captain was running out of time, and he knew it, he quickly got up and took a brief glance at the break proof window, his eyes widening at what he saw, what they were about to crash into, a purple and blue planet. Without even a second thought, he raced to the helm of the ship to try and do something to avoid crashing, not even thinking a second thought about his cracked helmet. Once he got there, he rushed over to the 3D map to try and activate the thrusters but of course, with all the panic he forgot one thing, to activate the thrusters, he needed facial recognition from the captain which is a problem considering how the captain barely even has skull still intact but then again to be fair, NASA wasn't really expecting a captain to still be alive if they didn't have their face but this meant that not even the captain of the ship or ARG-05 could stop this all they could do is wait for the inevitable. But while he was staring at the inevitable crash, the captain got the idea to use a high-quality photo of him on the recognition software which although it did work but at the time the captain grabbed the photo and run back to the helm, it was too late, he only had just barely enough time to grab something soft to not further damage his helmet before the spaceship hit the planet's ground with a loud crash and screech.

After a few seconds of the ship staying completely still and silent, the captain emerged from the crash, walking out to see a rocky and mountainous terrain filled with vast amounts of plants and wildlife with a purplish-blue river going for miles as well as some man-made or in this case alien made buildings in the distance along with the faint circle with a lack of colour in the sky. He took all this in for a second before he realises that the green liquid in his head is no longer dripping out of the helmet due to it being just barely below the crack. The captain faintly hears ARG-05 speaking from the ship so he sauntered back to the ship, ARGOS took notice of this and asked him "so what's your orders now Captain?".

He hesitated for a second before he replied, "in all honesty ARGOS, I don't know but I think the best course of action is to go towards those buildings off in the distance to try and get someone to help". The captain goes to walk off in that direction before he is stopped in his tracks by a panicked ARG-05 yelling "wait a minute Captain you can't leave you're supposed to stay with the ship as per the protocol, I can't let you leave, it goes against my protocol", the captain slightly turns towards ARG-05's direction before sighing and telling him "I'm sorry ARGOS but this could be our only chance of getting back to Earth and finding my crew, I'll be back I promise". He only had to take one more step before ARG-05 yelled at him "Captain please at the very least take me with you". The captain stops once again before turning around, giving ARG-05 a confused glance, then confusingly asking "ARGOS, I hate to break it to you, but I can't take the entire ship with me".

"Yes I agree with you Captain, the ship weighs 78,936 tons which even if you were at peak human performance, it would still be an impossible act however I meant the prototype which is connected to the back of your life support system as that way, I'd be portable and I'll be able to assist you however there are a few ... issues with the prototype" ARG-05 replied after changing his face to a smug look and then back to his neutral expression. The captain thinks to himself about how he never noticed this before when he put on the suit before responding to ARG-05 by saying "well that would be helpful to say the least, anything I need to do in particular?"

"No, not really Captain, just try to stay nearby whilst I attempt to transfer". The Captain looks over to where the screen ARG-05 was on, to see the transfer loading going from one percent to ninety-nine percent in less than minute before it took 10 minutes to go to one hundred percent, once the transfer was completed, ARG-05 although he didn't mean it, accidentally jump-scared the captain with an automatic "transfer complete" before ARG-05 continues by saying "you know Captain another perk about this prototype is that I now have hands so now I can do this", ARG-05 opens two separate hatches in the life support system, revealing two arms with slightly sharpened claws, using them to hug the captain for a few minutes, despite the captain's lack of a face, you could clearly tell that the captain was a bit emotional about this, almost as if in this moment ARG-05 reminded him of something or more likely, someone, but nevertheless the Captain came back to reality and asked ARG-05 "so shouldn't we get going?" ARG-05 immediately lets go and retracts his arms without a word before marching forwards towards the buildings off in the distance after all they should get going as soon as possible before night falls as although ARG-05 can now defend the Captain in almost any situation they faced, he was a bit uneasy to say the least when it came to leaving the ship for more than an night, there was nothing of note to warrant this uneasiness, ARG-05 made sure of that but still, he just had this feeling that something or someone who shouldn't be there is on the ship.