Gabe laid on his bunk with his arms beneath his head. Having literally nothing more to do after dropping the crates off in the storage rooms. He had already spent twenty minutes telling Rhenixa about films.

He chose to tell her about the one that pertained to the mission first. It involved  an alien that came to his planet and hunted highly trained soldiers and was defeated by sticks and rocks. She of course laughed it off saying ‘That a species with the technology choosing to hunt lessers was utterly ridiculous.’

He turned to the side looking at the wall. What was a blank wall was a rack that contained only one gun, the grenade launcher. He was really feeling out of place in this action-packed universe. He was a human that couldn’t tell a vending machine apart from a suicide booth, not that it existed here, but still, This was a world he wasn’t ready for.

Hell just because of  this his status onboard the Warden was a little less than an unpaid intern mercenary.

He flipped over onto his back.

“Gaaaah.” He officially couldn’t get rest, He sat up. All of the mysteries of this unknown universe was driving him insane. He had to do something to run away from his problems. He left his room to find something.

Gabe walked past the lab, seeing that Blitz was in there he took a few steps back and entered the lab.

“Heya Blitz!” Gabe gave a singular wave that started from his eyebrow.

The creature that had its back turned faced him.  “Gabe, Hello.”

Gabe walked closer to the squid man. “What’re you doing?”

“Ah good to hear that your Caloricean is getting better, just some tests.” He turned back around, his tentacles twitched slightly. Gabe moved from being behind to his side to see what he was working on.

There laid a corpse of a large rat-like alien. It had four arms and two legs. The skin above its ribs had been sliced open and peeled apart.

Every so often the corpse of the creature would squirm as if it were still alive. Gabe’s mouth curled into a disgusted frown. It would seem the squid alien has a tendency to be a bit of a ‘mad scientist’.

“Volrum, they’re Incredibly resistant to death.”

“Incredibly resistant to death?” That string of words did not fit with almost anything Gabe knew. Blitz turned on a machine that made a high pitch screech, flashed, instantly vaporized the creature leaving nothing behind, not even ash.

“Now,” He turned back to Gabe, his unblinking, black abyss of eyes making direct contact. “Was there something you need?”

Gabe glanced back at the table and back at the featureless face several times. “Uhm, could you tell me about the written language?”

One of Blitz’s tentacles pulled a chair up facing it toward the examination table, Gabe took the seat.

“After the Galactic Union formed, all writing became unified and is now known as the Galactic standard.” Blitz placed uncurled a tablet from his tentacles in front of Gabe.

Turns out that the alphabet contains 36 characters that formed into it’s own language which almost every alien spoke. The language never evolved anything past basic nouns, most aliens weren’t exactly thrilled with giving up their native tongue so they continued to use it on daily functions.

The Galactic Union would only enforce the use of the language on public places such as stations, colonies and their own ships. Apparently not using it on public services was an offense that was punishable by death or being locked away for years.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Gabe put down the tablet. “This is actually kinda simple.”

“Because it’s based from Caloricean. A majority of the forces from the Galactic Union are actually Caloricean males and females.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Caloriceans are often known to enjoy fighting. That’s why you see so many as mercenaries.”

Blitz’ slugged off to another part of the lab leaving Gabe sitting at the table.

“What can you tell me about them?”

Blitz didn’t even bother turning around. “You have three sources to learn. And two might be willing.”

Right, That was a dumb question. He was holding onto a tablet filled with information although he’d have to decipher it. But then again he’d always be able to ask both of the Anayas.

So to get a bit of insight into both the written language and the history of Caloriceans he decided to browse what the tablet had in store.

It really didn’t last long for him to give up. He’d need to really study if he wanted to learn how to just open up tabs on the small device. He felt like an older person trying to figure out some new fangled technology. Which in a way wasn’t wrong, the way these things were made were leagues above smartphones and actual tablets.

Even after finding the setting to set the language to Caloricean, The ‘internet of space’ had worked was like an entirely new animal. Sites and searches were nearly impossible as the thing sort of lacked the functions.

He sighed, feeling frustrated he got up from the table and walked towards the door. “Thanks Blitz.” The girls were probably a better source of information anyway.

“Anytime, Gabe.”

Gabe started off for the bridge. There he found not one, but both wolf girls talking about something.

“I think we should go.” Anaya had her hands behind the back of her head.

“Seems like a textbook set up,” Rhenixa said cocking her hip and pointing lazily at the screen.

“Look. I’ll throw up another scan. But there hasn’t been any movement for a few hours.”

Gabe leaned on the wall right in front of the door. “Whats up?”

They both looked at him. “Pick one, go or stay.” The captain demanded an answer.

“What?”

Anaya moved her neck around, cracking it. “Should we investigate a mysterious signal or not?”

“Oh, Hell yeah!” He wasn’t exactly really all that excited to explore the unknown, but it gave him a chance to escape his current mindset.

“This is why I like you around, Gabe.” Anaya shot Rhenixa the biggest shit eating grin she could muster. Rhenixa growled in retaliation and left the bridge.

“I might’ve agreed with you too soon but, what signal were you talking about.”

“Some abandoned ship. Scans shows shit-all information on it.” She turned towards the console and typed something. The screen magnified until they saw a vague black object floating around in an empty system. The only masses were the brightly burning star and the slowly rotating ship. The size was at least 4 times the size of the warden. Probably held close to a thousand more passengers.

He continuously stared at the monitor trying to make out the strangely shaped silhouette of a ship. As the ship rotated, light beams from a nearby star began to illuminate the sides. The side showed there was lettering painted onto the ship’s side. Something piqued Gabe’s interest.

“Can you zoom in?” Gabe leaned in forward towards the monitor.

“Why?” She questioned him squinting an eye.

“I think...I think I see something.”

She shrugged and zoomed in on the side. The camera zoomed itself blurring slightly but quickly enhancing the image. The ship’s lettering was now readable in high resolution.

“V...O..Y...A...G...E...R?” Gabe made out the word. “That’s English!” Gabe’s sudden outburst shocked Anaya. Now several questions were in his head. What is a vessel with the human language written on it?

She began to pet her suddenly fluffed up tail back down to it’s normal size.

“Voyager? You know of it?”

“No, not at all. but, I think I might.”

“Anything valuable?”

Gabe shrugged. “The last I checked, my people were barely able to go to space easily.”

“Let’s consider this a curiosity mission. Since I am curious to what your people have.” She stood up from her chair. The breasts beneath her tank top bounced from the speed she got up with.

“Get ready. We leave on my command.”

Gabe looked down at his attire. He had already been suited in his combat clothing.

“Ready?” He said as if to question her decision in expression.