As we walked down the corridor towards the Admiral's office, I looked out the windows to see stars and stardust floating in space. Some planets added a touch of interest to the otherwise vast expanse of blackness. The two planets I could see in my eye line were Nostralis and Sycamoren. Two uninhabited planets on the outer quadrant of the Versalian realm. I admired their colours, Nostralis had a greeny blue hue and Sycamoren sparkled oranges and yellows.

Jonty and I were both silent apart from our footsteps, and the Admiral’s boots tap tapped along the floor as he walked swiftly down the metallic corridor in front of us.

I watched as a spacecraft pulled into the dock alongside the vessel we were on, carefully navigating the entrance into the ship. We were on the ‘Symphonic’, one of the last remaining ships to survive the onslaught from the ‘Great Apocalypse’, the apocalypse that had taken the lives of nearly all of my friends and family.

Onboard this vessel was a whole world, including the Star Armada Academy where Jonty and I were students. We learnt about the universe and all that’s within it, plus the usual quantum physics and quantum mechanics that helped us understand the intricacies of the galaxy.

“In here.” The Admiral called over his shoulder as he reached the doorway to his office. He pulled out his keycard from his uniform and beeped it against the control pad to the side of the door.

He went inside and sat down at his desk, Jonty and I followed. Standing at attention before him, I braced myself for whatever punishment the Admiral was going to bestow upon us.

“At ease.” The Admiral said as he reached for his screen link device and tapped it, which opened up a holographic computer screen that appeared between him and us. Using his finger to scroll through the screen, he stopped on my student file.

“Ariah, you are one of our best students and are destined for great things, but you must be managed otherwise you will not succeed on the right path.” He said looking up at me.

“What do you mean?” I replied. “How do you know what path I’m meant to be on?”

“None of that matters at this point in time, what does matter is we have two students tampering with Star Command property behind our backs.”

“But…” I tried to argue, but the Admiral cut me off.

“So how about you do it in front of our faces?” He said, smiling and rubbing his beard in thought.

“I don’t understand?” I said, confused, looking between the Admiral and Jonty, who seemed unusually quiet.

“It means that I want you to come and work with the Temporal research team. You will still be able to continue your school work and study, but we will make some special allowances so that you can free up some time to work on the Temporal project.” The Admiral explained. I stared at him, incredulous, my heart elated with excitement.

“You obviously know your way around the simulator already and have some good ideas on the algorithms to make it work. You would be an asset to the team and would potentially advance our research quicker than what we expected. The only thing that I would ask is that you sign a contract to keep the top-secret research… a secret.”

Jonty and I looked at each other.

“So Jonty and I will be part of the Temporal research team?” I said excitedly, turning back to address the Admiral.

“Yes, although Captain Miller already is a part of it.” The Admiral said, nodding at Jonty.

I looked back and forth between the Admiral and Jonty, even more confused.

“I’m sorry, what do you mean Jonty’s already a part of the team?” I said, my heart rate racing. “ Jonty, it’s not true is it? Can you explain this?” I said, trying to catch Jonty’s gaze with my eyes.

Jonty looked really uncomfortable and shifted his stance.

“So you’re not going to speak to me? Jonty? But you’re a student like me?” My head was whirling with all the information that had just been unveiled to me.

“Ariah, my mission has been to protect you. I was put in place by the Admiral and the Versalian Council to keep you safe.” Jonty answered, choosing his words carefully.

“I still don’t understand. Keep me safe? You keep killing me in the simulator?!” I said angrily, getting annoyed because I didn’t fully understand what was going on.

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“Captain Miller was placed with you as a guardian as such, to help keep you safe from those who are trying to kill you to eradicate your timelines.” The Admiral said, pushing back in his chair.

“I was telling the truth about the simulator, I couldn’t change my aim for some reason.” Jonty said, shaking his head, still not ready to look me in the eye.

“But you didn’t tell me the truth about anything else?” I said, my eyes welling up. Jonty, or should I say Captain Miller, had become my best friend and I also hoped that one day he would be more, but not now, not after this betrayal.

I turned to leave, trying to inconspicuously wipe the tears from my eyes as I did so.

“Ariah, your father was the creator of the simulator and also an integral part of the research for it.” The Admiral said gently. “Your father was a great man and actually still is.”

I stopped and turned back to look at the Admiral and Captain Miller.

My mind was tumbling with what seemed like thousands of thoughts coming at me all at once and I started wobbling. Jonty reached out to grab my arm but I pushed him away.

I grabbed hold of the Admiral‘s desk to try and slow my heart rate and calm my mind.

“So first you tell me that Jonty isn’t actually my friend, he's been put in place to be my babysitter and then you tell me that my father is still alive… but he can’t be. He went missing, presumed dead many many years ago.” I said through clenched teeth as I tried to hold myself together.

“I am your friend Ariah, I always will be.” Captain Miller said softly, hesitantly changing his gaze to my eyeline. I took the opportunity to look in his eyes and could see his concern but I didn’t believe him, the damage was done.

I shrugged it off, I was more focused on finding out about my father.

“Your father was the creator of the original ‘Time Machine’, which is what we’ve based the simulator on. He time travelled into the future and saw the downfall of Earth and other planets like it.” The Admiral said, his face changing to a frown as he spoke. “So he convinced all the nations of Earth to come together and to create spacecraft to evacuate humans to other planets. It took years to organise and in the process he had to make the ultimate sacrifice for his family’s safety, he had to disappear because people from the future were coming back for him. They created the creatures that destroyed earth.”

Shocked, I closed my eyes, trying to take it all in.

“It didn’t protect my mother and it didn’t protect my brother or my friends or the rest of my family or other people in the world.” I seethed, my anger turning into rage. “It didn’t protect anyone. I could’ve had my dad for the past five years. I could've had him with me every day.” My voice started to quiver as the full extent of what the Admiral had said hit me.

“The original Time Machine was destroyed but your father helped us build the simulator from memory. His plans and everything we lost.” The Admiral continued.

“If he’s alive, where is he now?” I asked, my voice stern.

“We just don’t know. He used the simulator and disappeared.” Captain Miller said.

“How could he have disappeared? It's just a simulator, it isn't actually a Time Machine.” I said, confused.

“We believe he may have had another device on him that he used with the simulator to reconstruct the algorithm of his original ‘Time Machine’, which then sent him somewhere in time and space.” Captain Miller explained.

“So what you’re telling me is that my father is somewhere out in the galaxy? Along with my brother and my sister-in-law?” I asked.

“That is correct.” The Admiral nodded.

“But why did you need to protect me? I don’t know anything about my father’s research or really anything about his work.”

“Because the creatures that came after your father are coming after you. We have managed to hold them at bay for all this time so they haven’t been able to locate you but I’m not entirely sure how much longer we can keep you hidden.” The Admiral explained.

“You didn’t think to change my name? You’ve had me hidden in plain sight?” I said, thinking about how many times I could have been in danger.

“Correct. We figured that if you knew nothing about the situation then you could live a relatively normal life. We’ve had people around you, like Captain Miller, keeping you safe and preventing attacks on you.” The Admiral said, once again nodding in Jonty’s direction.

“A normal life? None of us are living normal lives, we're living on a spaceship, we're living in space!” I cried.

“It would’ve all happened eventually anyway, we were heading towards space living as a species on earth. We would have needed to broaden our horizons eventually due to the population growth, so to speak. Space travel was always on the cards, living on other planets was always on the cards. It was always going to be part of our future, it just happened a little sooner that we thought.” The Admiral said, getting up out of his chair and walking over to his bookcase in the corner of the room. He stood looking at a photo of him and his family, all smiling at the camera, lush greenery in the background.

“Ariah, we need you because of your intelligence and also because of the connection that you had with your father. We need you to find him and bring him back so we can finish what he started.” The Admiral turned and looked at me.

“So you just want to use me like you did my father?” I said as I stormed out of the room, the door slid open in front of me and I walked hastily out into the corridor.

The door slid closed behind me and I anticipated that Captain Miller would follow me out but he didn’t, which I was thankful for. It gave me time to catch my breath and to wipe away my tears properly. I walked over to the window across the corridor.

As I looked out into the stars, I put my head against the cold glass of the window and sighed.

I was a long way from home in both time and space and I had no idea what to do next.