PROLOGUE

Space. A giant void of emptiness. A place full of darkness— only lit up by a handful of stars. Even then, those handfuls of stars number in the trillions, and yet… the only thing you could see was just the small twinkles of light that prevents the whole place from turning dark. It was a beautiful and mesmerising sight. The black void of eternal cold darkness.

But even so! How many of those small twinkles contain wondrous secrets? Bounties ripe for the taking. If not within the twinkles, then surely somewhere in the middle of all this darkness was something, right? Ancient constructions, asteroids, aliens and maybe even beautiful girls or AI, piloting a spaceship! Who knows what you could find in space.

Space.

It has always been a thing of fascination for 'A'. When he was young, he would always play space sims and watch space dramas. But more than anything, 'A' was obsessed with the idea of space ships. From small aircraft fighters to cargo ships to corvettes to frigates to destroyers to battleships and even colossal flagship and motherships, he would dream of piloting one.

No. He wanted to be one.

It was just… such a shame that the time period that he was born in was too early for space exploration. The best things that his planet has at that moment were just rockets and space stations. Don't misunderstand, anything space-related was cool to 'A', but nowhere near as cool as it could be piloting a badass spaceship and doing runs in the beauty of space.

Well, the saying goes that you should be careful with what you wish for, ‘cause you just might get it.

'What the hell is this?!' 'A' yelled out as loud as he could when he realised the situation that he was in.

No matter where he looked, he could only see pitch black. He tried moving around, but he could not feel anything. Well, he could sense things, but not with the sense that he was familiar with. The limbs that he had grown accustomed to were no longer there, replaced by… something he had no clue what it was.

He screamed again in panic, thinking that something must have happened to him. Maybe he was caught by the yakuzas and mutilated beyond recovery! Or perhaps he had gotten into an accident and lost all his senses.

To his surprise, no voice came out. Or rather, there was a voice, but it was like an internal voice— like it came out of a radio. It sounded robotic, like those old text to speech programs. A cold robotic female voice with no soul. That particular voice spoke out his thoughts.

"Ahhhhhhhhh. Help. Me. What. Is. Going. On." 'A' yelled, but the way the program voiced it was cold and unnatural. It completely erased the panic in his scream.

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'Did they jack my brain into a machine?! Oh god no, please no!'

'A' panicked even further and started to violently struggle against his prison. He tried anything and everything he could think of. Breathing in and out rapidly, flailing whatever it is that seemed to have replaced his limbs, yelling out and screaming out as hard as he could, even going as far as to 'move' his head around in order to knock something.

Nobody was there to help him. Nobody was there to listen to him. Nothing but eternal cold darkness.

If he was a man, his heart would have been beating loudly from the shock of revelation. But… he couldn't feel his heart… he could feel the emotions, but it was different from feeling it as a person.

It was then that he could see something. It was as if he gained a third eye. Other than the pitch black, he could see a soft green image. It was like those images you see on night vision cameras. The sight was blurry and somewhat distorted by static.

'Is this… a camera?' 

'A' poured his focus onto the image before realising that he could somewhat move this image. An eerie creek was heard as he shifted the image around so he could see more.

Within the image is a small empty room— completely dark by the looks of it. The only reason he could even see anything was because of the green night-vision filter. For some reason, despite the green filter permeating his sight, he could tell what colour the objects were.

He could see a window— beyond it just the same pitch black that he could see with his other eyes.

'Nothing to see here.'

He moved the image in another direction. Slowly, he could start seeing more of the room, a small wall and a door and…

'Is this a cockpit?'

There seemed to be a small console beneath the dark windows— small lights blinking over the numerous buttons on it. 'A' felt strange; it was as if he knew what all the buttons are for despite never seeing them before. 'A' moved the image further and found an object of interest.

Near the console was a chair facing away from him. He looked closer and saw that the chair had someone sitting down on it. The person was wearing some sort of white uniform and appeared to be sleeping.

'A' was elated to find out that there was someone within this dark and empty room. He hurriedly moved the image to take a closer look— the robotic text to speech program calling out for help.

"Hey. Can. You. Hear. Me?" 'A' called out but the person didn't respond at all. 

Not wanting to give up, 'A' decided to move closer to the person. Slowly…. Surely… the image moved to see the identity of the person sitting on the chair.

What 'A' saw was something beyond his expectations.

It was…

A skeleton wearing some sort of uniform. The skeleton was resting lifelessly on the chair, the two eye sockets of his or her skull just staring into the endless abyss.

'A' yelled out as loud as he could at the sight of the skeleton. If he was a man, his voice would have likely cracked. It was too bad that he was anything but a man right now.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" his text to speech program could only translate his voice with a monotone expression.