Matt had decided he didn’t like space. Space was overrated. 100%. Yeah. He was currently strapped to a spaceship, in zero-g, with no breathable air around him, and a view of deep space through two different holes in the spaceship. He did not like it one bit.

He hadn’t liked much of what had happened, in fact. He had simply kept running along as much as he could just to survive. He just prayed this wasn’t something normal or regular in this world. Apparently it wasn’t supposed to be, but crazy things had kept happening one after the other in spite of all the reassurances he had gotten.

Another thing he hated with space? There was currently no sound, and he didn’t know how to use the thing to talk with mana instead, or magic or whatever. So he just saw others talking while not hearing a thing. It was not a pleasant feeling. He wondered for how long they would continue to drift, or if they even could start the ship up.

The others didn’t look too afraid for their lives, so it didn’t seem like they were done for. Some even seemed rather happy around him. From context he had understood that they were escaped slaves, and it made sense for them to be happy. He could hardly imagine it. They had been a lot more in their escape too. But apparently the other slaves had managed to leave before they had arrived in the hangar. The question then was if they had made it out before the new ships, Crystal something, had arrived. So no one knew if they had actually survived.

He hope they had survived, but honestly his own survival was his top priority, and the only thing he had understood about it was that they were going to wait. But how long? Did the broken ship even have food? Enough mana crystals to fly away? He didn’t know. One thing was for sure, it was a small ship. He was pretty sure he could see all of it from here. And he feared that the hole he was looking through had been the toilets. It sure looked like it.

He kept looking at the others for a bit until he simply just spaced out. His gaze unfocused as he stared across the stars. Time passed as he let his mind wander. A month ago he would have panicked at the idea of boarding a spaceship. Now he just wanted to board a whole one and relax a bit.

Someone touched his shoulder and he turned to see who it was. Xar was in front of him, pointing towards his mouth and some buttons on the side of his helmet. Matt simply shrugged, trying to convey that he had no idea how it worked. Xar simply frowned and started pushing buttons on his helmet’s side.

He mouthed something, to which Matt just shook his head. Xar continued to push some more buttons and tried again.

“Can you hear me now kid?” He heard his voice. It was slightly distorted, but he could hear him clearly enough.

“Yeah, I can, can you hear me?” He asked back.

“Loud and clear kid.” He heard Krovukk’s voice instead. Oh, so they had a group chat or something? Neat.

“So, uh, we made it, huh?” He said, trying to sound upbeat and failing because he was completely wrung out.

“Hopefully. No way to know until we start the ship back up, but we all agreed to wait for a day or something.” A whole day? Why did they want to wait for so long? It seemed strange, weren’t they out of danger already? Xar seemed to read his mind as he responded.

“We are traveling extremely slowly, and we want to make sure we are far enough that anyone still keeping an eye over there doesn't detect us.” He explained. Which made sense to Matt. But that brought up some questions.

“But what if I have to pee?” He asked as he pointed to the lack of toilet in one of the holes.

“Well… I’ve got good news and bad news for you kid.” Xar started.

“The bad news is, you won’t need to use the toilet. You’ll have to hold it in or do it in the suit.” What? That was disgusting! With zero-G it would get everywhere wouldn’t it?

“The good news is, the suit will actually help keep it contained in only one area… so you won’t smell any of it.” Matt gagged at that. So basically he only had one option. Hold it in. He hadn’t even felt the need to pee earlier, but thinking about it now, he felt like he kind of needed to go.

“He is messing with you kid.” Krovukk laughed. He heard someone else sigh at the revelation, he wasn’t the only one who had gotten got.

“But you will need to hold it for now. Once we are far enough we will probably be able to repressurize and try to do quick repairs.” Krovukk’s rumbling voice said.

They were going to repair this? It looked like rather big holes to him. He would probably fit through, but of course, he wasn’t an expert. He guessed Xar was the technician for these kinds of things? He seemed knowledgeable on everything technical.

He had no idea how the hell they planned on repressurising this mess of a ship, but assumed magic because it didn’t look like anyone had any spare plates and a welder to fix up the holes. Matt found the idea both awesome and terrifying. Repairing a ship with magic? Cool. But also, if magic could just up and leave, and that was the only thing keeping the ship together, wasn’t that just stupid?

Thinking about magic, he looked down at his hands. Damn he had been useless. Krovukk telling him to hit level twenty wasn’t that stupid after all, even if it would require a whole lot of training. He had only achieved one thing in the whole trip on the ship. Being a weight for the team.

Yay him.

He couldn’t help but think back on the different situations and what he would have hoped to be able to accomplish. Even a fireball here or there could have been really helpful. Instead he had simply looked at them fighting, being terrified for his life. He felt pathetic. The reality check hit him hard. From thinking about being a hero to being frozen in front of everything. It hadn’t even happened once, but several times. He had basically stood by, mouth open as soon as something had happened.

“Why the long face?” Xar asked him.

“Well, I just thought back to how useless I was all along. Even worse, I actually slowed the group down.” He shook his head at that. He hated the feeling he was getting, but he couldn’t stop it now. It was welling up inside of him. Past and present mixing into an explosive feeling that he just had to release.

“I hate being useless Xar, I’ve been useless all my life. My closest friends half-bully me and I go with it because I’m weak. I’m always so god damn weak.” He started strong but finished meekly. Like he always did.

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“Boy, cheer up, we made it out alive when we should have died a hundred times over.” It was Kali’s voice and she sounded happy and upbeat right now.

“We survived and all I did was run too, so don’t be too harsh on yourself.” She finished in a gentle tone.

“You really were useless, weren’t you Kali?” Philip added. He didn’t sound relieved like she did. His voice had a strange tone he couldn’t quite place.

“Are you pissed because I didn’t thank you for rescuing me, my knight?” She mocked back.

“Well, for starters it wouldn’t hurt! But no. I’m… not pissed.” He said, unsure at the end himself.

“You sure sound kinda pissy to me.” She said back. Kali was so free with her words. She always seemed to say exactly what was on her mind despite what others might think. He would have never dared to say that back to anyone.

“I don’t sound pissy.” He said, and he sounded even more pissed off now.

“You do.” Kali seemed to have no remorse towards him.

“I don’t sound pissy, Kali.” His voice sounded too serious, far from the teasing or joking tone they sometimes used.

“Oh come on Philip. You are obviously pissed about something. Just get it out.” She sighed. It was strange to Matt as he didn’t see them, but he could imagine her rolling her eyes.

“I’m NOT pissed about ANYTHING. Will you just DROP IT?” He both yelled and spoke.

“He is definitely pissed about something.” Matt muttered before he caught himself. In the coms, he heard Xar and Krovukk laugh.

“Kids speak the truth!” Krovukk added. It felt like their laughter kind of diffused the situation, for now at least.

“Fine, maybe I am pissed about things.” Philip said in a more than irritated tone.

“I’m pissed that first of all, you didn’t even acknowledge that I saved your life. Second, I hate how you seem to want to save everyone and be nice to everyone, BUT me. And lastly I’m pissed at myself for even doing something like that to some ungrateful… bitch like you! I mean come on! I could have died. Why on the system’s name did I do that?” That got a big silence out of everyone. When no one responded immediately, he added.

“Happy now?”

“I mean you kinda called me a bitch but sure, all happy.” She said and Matt winced. That was not going to go over well, probably. But before Philip could explode, she continued.

“Look, I get it Philip. It was sweet of you, but you should have known I had a shield, plus with adventurers with us, I’m pretty sure your life never was in danger. And you didn’t save my life. Had a shield, remember?” She started.

“Plus, if you want raw honesty, I don’t want to owe you my life. I’m finally free now, you understand? And having that kind of debt to you right now would feel like shit, no offense. Especially when it’s not warranted. You're not the kindest guy exactly. Want me to refresh your memory on how we met?” She finished. Philip had tried to interject once or twice during her tirade, but not a peep could be heard from him as she finished.

How had they met? Xar turned to look at him and he seemed to have the same question as Matt on his mind. But instead a long and uncomfortable silence settled on the group as no one really dared speak right now.

Those two clearly had some stuff to resolve. Xar however kept miming different things to Matt with his hands. First, two fingers walking on their own, then they bumped into each other, soon the two were intertwined and smooching. Matt’s laughter cut into the group's com, and Xar also tried to hold it in himself.

“What’s so funny?” Philip asked angrily. Matt saw Kali look back from the cockpit at them. She had a complicated expression on her face as she responded.

“Nothing, they are being childish.” She said.

“I guess I shouldn’t expect more from a kid and a Skraa his size.” Philip shot back.

“I know you are angry, Philip, but tread carefully when you speak about my team.” Krovukk’s deep voice rumbled in their respective helmets.

“Uh, sorry. Heat of the moment.” Philip hurrily added.

A more comfortable silence descended upon them. Matt’s mind started drifting again. It wasn’t very comfortable as it made him think mostly about home, which kept bringing up a deep sense of loneliness in him. But before he could lose himself too far in his head, it was Xar once more that ignited conversation.

“Actually guys, we have a lot of time right now. So how did you meet?”

“Oh, no, that’s not necessary…” Philip said meekly.

“Right, I forgot you guys don’t even know who this guy is.” Kali said happily.

“Kali, please, I’m in enough trouble as it is. Please. I’m already wanted for a humongus sum.” He pleaded to her.

“Well, now you’re only making me curious.” Xar said while grinning from ear to ear.

“You wanna tell him yourself or should I?” She said teasingly to Philip.

“Fine, FINE. For the record, you guys are the worst.” Philip said before inhaling.

“So I am, was, the second in command of the ship we just left. I had been working hard for many years for the position, until one day, a slave escaped her quarters. Kali. She started wreaking havoc on the ship and somehow everything got pinned on me, I got blamed for everything she did, and my captain, ex-captain now I guess, wanted to kill me. He somehow got persuaded that it was all a ploy, my ploy, to kill him. Crazy bastard.” Philip started, and Matt’s mouth was left hanging. He had not expected such a crazy story.

“Anyway, She got in a complicated situation, but being a genius, I figured out a way for both me and Kali to get out of there, you’re welcome, and then hatched a plan to escape the ship. I will make you note, that not only did I hatch a plan for both of us, I even took into account the other slaves because that’s just the kind of guy I am.” He finished self satisfied, but Kali’s dismissive laugh made it sound like that might not have been how things went.

“Well I guess that’s one way to put it.” She said while still laughing.

“What, you have anything to say about my recounting of the events?” He hissed at her.

“Oh, definitely, it makes it sound like everything’s my fault, plus you completely forgot to say you were in the hangar shooting at the escaped slaves fifteen minutes prior.” She said calmly. Matt could see Xar trying to puzzle things out in his mind from the little he knew about both of them, but he kept his mouth shut for now.

“Correct me if I’m wrong Philip, but weren’t you trying to catch me before shit hit the fan with the captain? Then when you captured me, you put me-” She didn’t get to finish the sentence as Philip interrupted her.

“Uh, yeah, yeah! Funny how things worked out huh? I was looking for you, but then somehow things worked out huh? We teamed up and everything went perfectly! Isn’t life amazing sometimes?” He had captured her? Well, apparently he had been second in command and trying to lock a slave back up wasn’t that strange, but then why was he trying to stop her from saying something?

“Actually, now that I think about it, I’m not sure we should even give you a chance. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the f-” Kali started again but didn’t get to finish.

“ALL COMS OFF! Ship incoming!” Someone yelled loud enough in everyone’s ears. Matt saw Xar help him with his helmet before he shut down his own com-spell.

It suddenly got very quiet. Matt could only hear his own breathing as they deactivated the only thing they had used. Matt didn’t see the ship, of course he couldn’t see that much of the outside, so it was reasonable, but still, it didn’t feel like he was the only one looking.

Time kept ticking by and Matt wondered if maybe it had been a false alarm? He was about to touch Xar to get his attention when he saw something rush past them at an incredibly high speed. It had been so strange to see a ship so close but not feel any wind or hear any sound.

It made it all the more terrifying.

The ship actually slowed down and approached their wreck. They had been found.

The question was, by who?