Eli cautiously poked his head out of the ship, and took his first look around the hangar. His cameras adjusted for the low light as he did. A large ship with symbols of the Glint Yjantai Coalition, naming it the Mad Dash, was suspended to his right. Its grey metal hull had a few scorch marks from some incident.

Hopping down to the floor, Eli took note that the ship had gravity but had selective control of which areas were affected. Made obvious by the fact that the Glint ship had cables attaching it to the hangar ceiling and floor. No other ships could be seen. The area had room to fit potentially dozens of craft in it, but his old body and the Mad Dash were the only ones to be seen.

He made his way to the closest exit, noticed a line of faint lights embedded in the floor that glowed strongly just above the normal human range of vision. Once he had made it to the exit, the lights continued further past the wall then took a sharp right in the darkness. Eli braced himself mentally then made his way forward into the halls, only the soft tread of his boots betrayed his movement.

-----

Saule had finally made it back to the room holding the rest of his crew. They were all still unmoving and showed no response as he entered. Saule went to each of them and tried to rouse them, to no avail until he reached Riyn. When Saule reached Riyn, the tall glint leapt up off the block of spongy mass and tackled Saule.

"Riyn! It's me, Saule" He gasped.

"I thought you were dead when I didn't see around. Where did you go?" Riyn asked, as he let Saule up. Both winced from burns, as they dusted themselves off.

"I tried to wake everyone when I woke up, when none of you did I left to see where we were. This place is massive, and alien…" Saule stated.

Riyn asked, "This is a human ship?"

"No, I think maybe the stars aren't as empty as we've thought," Saule said.

"Did you find anything useful, or the Mad Dash? Any weapons either, I had a knife in my suit but it's missing." asked Riyn

"No, I looked over everyone to see if any tools had been left on us but it seems we were searched before being taken here." mused Saule. "If you woke up, there's a good chance the others will too. We should wait here and try to figure out what happened to us."

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Eli had been following the lights, apparently they functioned as a guide through the ship. The line he had been following eventually joined up with a multitude in a large hallway. The lines seemed to all turn one direction when they met the main conglomerate, which Eli took to mean that direction held important systems or a central hub.

After stalking through the hall for a while, Eli noticed there was a severe lack of anything or nightmarish aliens jumping out at him. As he picked up the pace, he could see a very faint light emanating from further down, along the path the guidelines lead. He stopped and strained trying to push his sensors to detect as much as they could. Designed for space and repair work, they didn't work very well inside an alien ship that would have been pitch black to the human eye.

He made his way towards the light, going quiet again. As he drew close he could hear speech, Glintish at that. It must be the crew of the ship in the hangar. Eli immediately stepped into the well lit room, excited to have some potential help.

Two Glint stood next to each other, six others were lying on black slabs. The two standing froze when they saw Eli, then each jumped to either side of him and attacked him. The shorter chestnut coloured one on his left grabbed Eli's wrist and attempted to pull him off balance. The grey furred one on his right tried to trip up his legs, and pushed towards the chestnut. All this did little though, as the magnetic locks on Eli's boots had not been turned off yet, and despite their spirited try he remained upright. He waved them off and backed up, holding his arms out.

Speaking in Glintish Eli said, "Wait! I'm not your competitor, I'm the human that contacted your species. I came back because this ship attacked me and said it was coming here next."

The short brown one spoke hesitantly, "Eli? I thought you were a ship?"

"Well I was until just recently, going into combat against an unknown ship makes you consider back up plans. Wait, are you Saule?" Eli asked.

Saule relaxed, "Yes I'm Commander Saule, that is Riyn, one of my new crew members. The rest are here but not doing well."

"Sorry to hear that, we need to make a plan to get out of here and soon," Eli said.

Riyn spoke up, "Why do you say that?"

"Well, if my timer is right and my estimate on how long the rest of Sol will debate about what to do is right. The United Space Force should be arriving in the next several [fractions of a day]" Eli stated.

"How do we get out, I didn't find any ships or exits?" Saule asked.

"That's simple I came from the hangar and your ship is still there, a bit crispy but no obvious crippling damage," Eli responded, "If you and Riyn can carry someone, I can probably take the other four. This body was made to do ship maintenance. We can get you and your crew on the Mad Dash, I'll make sure the hangar opens while you make sure it runs or at the least is airtight. Then we wait for the Space Force to arrive and make our way out while they fight this ship."

"That doesn't sound too bad of a plan but what about the enemy crew? We haven't seen any but they must be aware of us," said Riyn "They may have not cared about us wandering the ship but they brought us here for a reason."

Eli dismissed him, "I've only seen one, and while it was horrible to look at, it didn't look like it was just some common underlining. It was wearing a rich robe and I haven't seen any trace of any others. I think whatever it is, is running this ship on its own. My distraction probably stopped it from noticing you two waking up and now it may be busy getting back to what it was doing."

"That sounds reasonable, a captain can run a ship on his own if he must, but it'll be very slow. However there must be some form of automation to help them with a ship this size." Volunteered Saule.

"That's, fuck…" Eli swore, "That throws a wrench into the works. It'd need to be fairly independent as well, which means I won't be able to just cut a hole in the hangar or flip a switch."