'Start up your engines.' A.I. Jane ordered them from the side. They would fly solo.

'Marcellus, what do you see on the starmap? I don't understand what I am looking at.'

'Don't worry Kendric, you guys just make sure to step on the gas and I will get us there. It seems our first destination is just 100 lightyears away from us. I already put in the coordinates in the system but still have to pinpoint the exact location.'

Kendric anxiously stared at the traffic light in front of them to jump to green and quickly exchanged eye contact with Maynard who appeared to be all ready to launch and as driven as Kendric was. Kenji and Zuberi were busy with the mechanics of the ship, checking all the data on the screen which was projected in their windshield in front of them. They all sat anxiously next to eachother and Zuberi almost got a nervous breakdown. He kept swiping his forehead with his arm, clearly his body temperature was raising.

'Ready, set, go!'

*** Green***

All the spaceships flew off simultaneously. Marcellus got on his feet as soon as they flew in open space and like a magician he circled around with both his hands in front of the windshield. The starmap became a hologram and Marcellus turned the map around and around and turned it some more to look at it from all angles. He zoomed in on a constellation, multiple planets, then multiple sun's and moon's, then a planet.

'There! Found you sneaky bastard. Playing hide and seek ain't ya?'

The others looked at the planet, Marcellus had pinpointed the exact spot they needed to land.

'Wohooooowwww.' Maynard yelled while steering the spaceship quickly to the left.

Another spaceship came in from the right at highspeed and almost had a run in. Cahya waved at them with a sneaky grin on her face.

'That girl can fly!' Maynard noted while he admired her flying skills.

Kendric wondered when the girls exactly learned how to fly so precisely. Had they logged in more flying hours than they did and if so, than when?

'Kendric concentrate! Step on it dude!' Maynard shouted while he was busy adjusting some settings.

'Just clear your head and think unlimited.' Kenji tried to help him out.

Easier said than done...

Kendric couldn't clear his mind, his head wasn't in the game. His mind ran back to the night before, to the incredible beauty from his date, to the column caves, to everything besides flying.

'Oh dude, yeah she looked amazing. Now focus!' Maynard rolled his eyes.

Kendric totally forgot about the connection the ship established as soon as they got hooked up. The link to eachother was deep but he hadn't feel his teammates at all, hadn't picked up any vibration. Clearly he just focused on himself. He shook his head, tried hard to get back into the race and focused on flying this spaceship.

'Yes brother!' Zuberi enjoyed the sudden increase of speed and how they passed by multiple ships.

'That's what I am talking about!' Maynard said as he tried to match his vibrations with Kendric's to increase their speed even more.

'In 3 minutes slow down ok Speedy Gonzales? Prepare to land. No oxygen so make sure to use your bodysuits build-in helmets before you open that door ok?' Marcellus noted as he showed them the exact route on the starmap.

They noticed another spaceship in front of them who beat them to the punch.

'If you hadn't thought about Yrsa so much we would've beaten them!' Snapped Maynard.

He was right though. He screwed up and gave them a backlog from the start. Cahya and the girls flew close by and who knows how many more.

'What are we supposed to do once we've landed?' Asked Zuberi in anticipation but the others shrugged. They had no clue what awaits them down there.

'Easy Maynard, step of the gas will you?' Kendric shouted while he tried hard to take back control of the ship. They came in way to fast.

'We will manage, don't worry.' Answered Maynard in all comfort but Kendric didn't feel comfortable with the high velocity they were comming in.

'Adjust, adjust!' Kendric shouted.

To late... they came in hard as a bouncing ball and bounced for miles before they came to a stop.

'Well just great Maynard.' Sarcasm spoke and Kendric shook with his head.

'You guys look for the mission while we repair the ship.' Kenji ordered.

They pressed with their finger behind their right ear and some sort of transparant veil tightly crawled over their faces. Kenji and Zuberi immediately went out to make a damage report while the others looked around for clues what to do next.

'There!' Marcellus pointed at a waving red flag in the distance and they ran to it.

'You had to be Hamilton!' Said Kendric panting and annoyed to Maynard who ran easily without being out of breath.

'What's up chosen one, forgot to keep up your stamina? Endurance Kendric, endurance!' Maynard grinned slyly.

They finally arrived at the waving red flag and both Kendric as Marcellus had to catch their breath first before scouting out the place but Maynard already found the clue in the ground.

'Look!' Maynard held up his hand above the ground while he scanned through the layers of dust with a build-in scanning device into his bodysuit.

'What's that?' Marcellus asked while still being short of breath.

'No idea. It looks like a small pyramid.'

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

'No Maynard, look.' Kendric pointed out the orgonite pyramid copper wire.

'Did we came to collect a copper wire?' He asked uncomprehendingly.

'Dunno, let's just collect the damn thing and be done with it.' Kendric suggested.

In the distance they saw the other teams digging as well. All on their own pieces of land with a waving flag.

'Is this even our flag? How do we know which flag is meant for us?'

Marcellus had a point. How could they know? It was just a simple red flag with nothing on it that indicated that it was meant for them.

'So now what?'

'Marcellus just dig. I really think it's about the copper wire.'

'Why Kendric? How can you tell?'

'I don't know, I just do.'

'Is this like a 6th sense thingy? You know, like only a chosen one sees?'

'I don't see anything nor sense it. I'm just winging it.'

'Than why not take the whole orgonite pyramid?'

'Good question, I don't know. I don't think we need it.'

'You're strange...'

Kendric slyly grinned. If he could explain this, he would, but he can't. He just knew it was about the copper wire but didn't had a clue how he came to that conclusion.

They excavated the orgonite pyramid.

'Use your laser to melt it.' Kendric said to Maynard.

'May I, may I?' Marcellus begged in all his enthusiasm.

Maynard gave the orgonite pyramid to Marcellus who melted it down and took the copper wire out.

'Are we suppose to do that?' Yrsa asked while sneaking up from behind with some other girls - that Kendric only knew by face - and their obtained orgonite pyramid.

'We came to see how you knew which flag was yours and how you came to know what to do next. This is all weird right? No clues, nothing.' Harlow noted.

It seemed everyone struggled with their task since no spaceship had left the planet yet to continue their race.

'Look Harlow.' Marcellus pointed at the copper wire which floated above them now, it began to vibrate and than it evaporated.

'Melt it down!' Marcellus shouted to the girls while they ran back to their spaceship.

Zuberi and Kenji had finished the reparations.

'Did you feel that?' Kenji and Zuberi asked them simultaneously.

Marcellus connected himself as quickly as possible to the ship and opened up the starmap.

'Yes, here! You see that guys?'

He showed them another route to the next planet.

'So the vibration from the unleashed copper wire contained the new route and destination?' Kendric asked.

'Like a radiowave?' Maynard wondered if this was all even possible.

'Exactly, electromagnetic energy,' Marcellus said enthousiastic, 'let's go!'

They flew off, following their new route to another galaxy. Nobody followed them yet and they clearly had an advantage.

'Kendric, about that flag. How?'

'I honestly don't know Marcellus, I just knew.'

'The source?'

'Nah I don't think so. I mean why would it interfere and help us out? It's just a race.'

'Enki?'

'I think we would notice his presence.' Kendric remarked and he tried to come up with an explanation but he truly had no idea.

'Slow down guys. Almost there.' And Marcellus pointed at a planet on the starmap.

'Nice red planet.' Zuberi noted.

'It's actually a sun,' explained Marcellus, 'like ours but than older.'

'Uhm, our sun is yellow or orange, like a fireball.' Kendric noted.

'No it's not,'Kenji interfered, 'it is actually a huge gas ball made out of mostly hydrogen. In units of tons, every second, the Sun's fusion processes are converting about 700 million tons of hydrogen into helium "ashes". In doing so, 0.7 percent of the hydrogen matter - 5 million tons - disappears as pure energy. This sun we are looking at is way older, it's core is almost burned up. It is in it's end face and will become a white dwarf.' Kenji explained.

'Wait, what?' Kendric didn't understand a word of it and felt as the dumbest kid in class.

'The Sun is a huge ball of hydrogen and helium held together by its own gravity. You see, a star is a huge glowing ball of hot gas. Deep inside its core, hydrogen atoms smash together, forming helium and releasing huge amounts of energy that heats the gas. That process is called nuclear fusion, and it's why a star shines. As the hot gas pushes outward, it opposes the inward pull of gravity. So you see? The Sun does not "burn". The Sun glows because it is a very big ball of gas, nuclear fushion, you see it now? It takes place in its core.' Kenji added to his first explanation and Kendric understood a little bit better now although science, chemistry and physics and all other complicated subjects at school, he could just never fully grasp.

'So our sun is not yellow?' He asked to test if his conclusion was correct.

'Colours of stars depends on their surface temperature as well as the wavelength the human eye can perceive. I know it is very complicated. But our sun is actually white. However, this one appears red meaning it's cooler. Wait, let me read something out of science focus.' Kenji pulled an article up:

'Hotter stars appear blue, with orange, yellow and white stars in between. For the Sun, the spectrum actually peaks at a wavelength that we would normally describe as green. Across the narrow range of the visible spectrum the amount of light emitted at each wavelength is almost exactly the same. But more crucially, the human eye doesn’t perceive light by averaging the various colours of the spectrum together. So, a very slight excess of green light doesn’t look green to the human eye – it looks white. The Sun would have to emit only green light for our eyes to perceive it as green.

This means the actual colour of the Sun is white. So, why does it generally look yellow? This is because the Earth’s atmosphere scatters blue light more efficiently than red light. This slight deficit in blue light means the eye perceives the colour of the Sun as yellow.'

'Interesting!' Kendric noted.

'Very,' added Zuberi, 'I actually didn't know this. As our sun is always just this yellow glowing ball in our sky. Although when the sun goes down or rises, it changes colour. Or should I say the sky changes colour? Oh man, this stuff is difficult.'

'So do we land on this sun? I mean cooler ok, but can we land on it? Isn't it still to hot? It's gas right?' Kendric became more scared the longer he thought about it and wasn't sure he wanted to land on this gigantic ball of gas.

'No the sun isn't our destination. That is.' And Marcellus pointed out a planet right in front of them.

'Is that?' Zuberi asked but wasn't sure and therefor didn't finished his sentence.

'Yes it is!' Marcellus confirmed and the others totally missed the point.

'What? What is it?' Maynard asked in frustration.

'Miss Bria's planet.' Zuberi answered.

'Do you remember when she told us about her homeplanet and that their sun wasn't as bright as ours?' Marcellus reminded them.

'Hence her pale skin!' Maynard added.

'Ontarius.' Kendric said, it just popped up and he was glad he finally remembered something.

They landed their spaceship on a hill. Miss Bria waved at them.

'Oh my boy's, welcome on Ontarius, my homeplanet. I am so proud that you arrived here first. It is my great honour to congratulate you on this achievement. Well done!' Miss Bria smiled and reached out her hand. She let a small orgonite pyramid float in front of them and Kendric took it in his hands.

'Unfortunately I can't tell you what to do with it and to bad that you need to go again. But one day you will revisit my homeplanet and I'll gave you a tour.' Miss Bria waved at them as they entered their spaceship again.

'What are we suppose to do with this?' Kendric asked.

'You tell me.' Maynard said referring back to their first task but Kendric had no clue this time.

'Melt it down again?' Marcellus suggested.

'Hand it over.' Kenji said and observed it closely.

'I don't think we should melt it. Much to predictable.' Maynard said while he thought hard on a solution.

'I think we should channel it.' Kenji said and gave it to Zuberi.

'Uhm, what am I suppose to do with this? Zuberi asked, who really had no freaking idea why he was handed the orgonite pyramid.

'Your divination power. Come on, this is a race. It sounds only as clear logic that they expect us to use our power, our intuition and everything we had learned these last couple of months.' Kenji added.

He had a good point and Zuberi sat down with the orgonite pyramid in his hands. He tried to focus and channel the energy and pick up the vibrations that were comming out of it.

'Anything?' Kendric asked carefully.

'Yes!' Zuberi said determined and he connected with the ship again ready to take off.