Back in the hanger, the four men had been talking.

"I wonder what kind of stuff we have on this ship. I wonder if it is all made up of this strange technology." Tran said to the other three.

"Well, we know what the loading dock looks like, I wonder what the cockpit looks like. I’ve never been on a space ship before. Has anyone else?" Byrem looked to see if anyone had.

"I have. I was raised on a space station. Believe you me, living on a planet is much more pleasant. I really never got to see many plants and greenery when I was up there. I would go to visit family planetside and sometimes I would envy them. I used to have dreams about being sucked out into the vacuum of space when I was younger." Tran wasn’t too excited about space.

"Well, if we find the pilot compartment, could you tell us what we have and maybe what our destination is?" Byrem was amazed that he was actually raised in space.

"Probably. I hope that I can read their instruments."

"So we are up among the stars?" Jake seemed curious of all this discussion.

"Yes we are. This ship will allow us to travel from world to world." Tran watched as Jake’s face turned from curiosity to concern.

"Can we go back to our own worlds?"

"I’m not sure if we can. The way we’ve traveled, we could be in a totally different place, and we don’t know how long we were asleep after we were rescued. It could have been any amount of time." Byrem was just starting to figure this out himself too. "I thought that I was out so long that my watch stopped working. None of my other equipment worked either." He looked at his watch. "Hey, it’s working now. That’s strange." He though that maybe he was crazy.

"Well, it seems like we are stuck here. We would be dead otherwise, right?" Paran was trying to be optimistic even though this whole situation was shocking for him too.

"Yeah, I guess your right. We’ll have plenty of worlds to explore and visit now Tran. Jake, I’m sure that you would have a good time leading us in exploring a few of them." Byrem was also trying to cheer up everyone.

"Let’s go to the cockpit to see what we can find out about this ship." Tran was anxious to break the depressing atmosphere in the room. "C’mon. It has to be in the front of the ship and so I’m pretty sure that it’s this way."

"Hey where are the girls?"

"They can’t be far. Don’t worry about ‘em. There must be a hailing system on this ship and then we can just talk to them over the intercom." Tran was already through the door.

"Maybe we can find some floor plans to this ship so that we can get a good idea of how big it is and what kinds of things we have." Byrem followed last. "I hope we can find out exactly what this ship can do before we encounter any of these aliens. We are going to need to have every advantage we can get while we learn the ropes here. They didn’t leave us with much information. That was irresponsible of them to do that to us!"

Kamiri and Samantha entered the room. "It looks like a briefing room." Samantha walked around and examined the projector in the middle of the room. It was a large module with two computer consoles on each side. To her left were the seats for a dozen people to sit comfortably. It could very well fit more.

"Hey look in here." Kamiri was already exploring another room. "This must be the conference room."

Samantha walked into the conference room and noticed the large round table with six seats. At each spot, there was a computer console.

"It looks like in the middle there is a holo device. This should have some data on our enemies and even on the voices that gave us this ship. Let’s see if these things are operational." Kamiri let Samantha sit down at the computer.

As she sat down, a panel slid open. It had an indentation the size of the medallions. "Hey look at this. It looks like my medallion could fit here. Let’s see what happens when I put it here." She placed her medallion in the indentation and the computer came to life. "Hey this is great. We have access!"

"I can’t read anything! Can you?"

"Of course silly, can’t you read it?"

"No. Is it in your native language?"

"Ya. Go sit down over there and see if that computer will show up in your language."

Kamiri sat down next to her and the panel opened up at her desk. As soon as she put in her medallion, the computer started up. It was in her language! "Hey I can read this one. How strange."

"This is amazing. These medallions must have a mental link to us somehow."

"I guess so. Lets see what we can find out about our situation and who we are dealing with."

"Okay."

They both suggested subjects to search for until they found something interesting. They found an abundance of history logs but were interested in the aliens and the protectors. They found files on each of the protectors and it’s statistics. They also found the location of the main base, which they figured was their destination. After a few hours of searching, both of them started to get tired.

"I’m tired. All this reading makes me sleepy. I’m not used to it." Kamiri yawned.

"I’m tired too. But I could stay in here reading for a long time. Wait a second… Here is a map of this ship. It looks like there are rooms for individual crewmembers. We are here and they are here about fifty feet that way. Go claim a room and get some rest. I’m going to stay here just a little longer." Samantha became victim of the spread of the yawn.

"Have fun." Kamiri picked up her medallion and left the room.

"Oh I will. This is what I’m good at and I like it."

Samantha continued for another few hours trying to find any bits of information that she could. Her main interest was in the aliens that they would be fighting. She searched the normal databases and did not find out much about the alien culture and their living means. She did find out about their method of invasion and a few observations about their tactics. "The information must be in here. Why would the previous owners of the protectors not take the time to study these beings? They must have some files on it."

Eventually, after hours of searching in the corners of the computer’s databases, Samantha found some extra files in the computer that were not in the normal database. These were not translated, but they had diagrams and hopefully more information about the aliens and their different types. She hoped that these would be the information that she was looking for. "How come these aren’t translated? I guess I will have to give it a try and translate it myself… tomorrow. I’m tired. I wonder if there is a way to download these onto something so that I can study them in my room." She searched around and found a round disk. It took her another hour to figure out how to copy the information to the disk. "I better get some sleep. I have no idea what time it really is. It could be two in the morning for all I know. See ya later conference room." She picked up her medallion and left to go claim a room.

The four made their way to the bridge. Inside they found an extensive array of computers and controls. There were six chairs throughout the room at different stations. There were large windows in the front and smaller ones on the side.

"Hey, this is neat. Let’s check out what we have on this ship." Tran jumped into one of the seats that had a display of the ship on the computer. "I can’t read the specifics of this thing. I can make out some parts like the barracks and other areas because of their features in the layout. Look we have weapon systems too." From the console a panel extended. It had an indentation on it just the size of his medallion. "Hey what is this?"

"It looks like it is asking you for something. Maybe a donation?" Jake noticed the indentation. "Put something in it."

"Like what?" Tran felt around his pockets and noticed his medallion that was hanging around his neck. "I guess I’ll try this." He placed the medallion into the panel. After a few moments of working, the computer transferred into Tran’s language. "Hey! Look at this!"

"What. I still can’t read it. What good did that do?"

"I can read it. The medallion changed it to my language! Yahoo! Let’s see what this ship really has." Tran actively changed the screens to find the view of the entire ship.

Paran and Jake sat down at a station of their own and placed their medallions on the panel and began searching.

"So each of us have our own private translation of this database and computer system. Or does it change us to read it’s writing? These medallions must have created a link with our minds. Paran said that he actually fought the link when it first happened. Plus, these SHOULD be making a major strain on our necks. My medallion WAS heavy when I first stole it. Now it practically weighs nothing. This metal that the voices told us about is amazing. If I’d had equipment made of this stuff back home, I could have carried a lot of stuff. Heck, I could have used it as body armor. Then that slime Keith could have shot me and I probably wouldn’t have been hurt. I should have beat the crap out of him, but I guess he got his when his boss found out that I gave him the fake. Pretty satisfying to think about. But I am in a completely different situation now." Byrem looked out the window and pondered the situation while Tran helped Jake and Paran with the computer. Jake had no experience with a computer while Paran had only some. "I wonder how that newer girl is doing. This ship is too large to find her on my own. I hope she’s okay."

Byrem turned to see what he could find out about the ship and their destination. The four of them explored the computer readouts until they were tired.

Byrem yawned from sleepiness. "Hey, there are personnel rooms in this ship and there is enough for one a piece. I’m going to claim mine. Call me on the intercoms if anything happens."

The other three were also exhausted. Jake stood up. "I think that I’ll follow you to that part of the ship to claim my own room."

Paran and Tran both decided that they would do the same.

The next morning Byrem woke up in his own room. He slept pretty well. "Where am I. Oh… I remember now." He sat up and looked around. His room had a main lounge that had a small entry hall. His bed was on the raised balcony on the other side of the lounge. His personal shower and rest room were accessible from his bedroom. In the lounge there was a strange machine that looked like an exercise machine. It had a strange visor that was attached to it.

Byrem stood up and stretched. He walked over to the closet to see if there was anything in it. To his surprise, he found a selection of jump suits and light jackets. Below those was two pair of boots. "I seriously doubt that these will fit me. They look too big." He grabbed his stomach. "Oh man, I wonder if there is anything to eat around here. I’m starving. I didn’t eat anything yesterday either. Weird, I wasn’t even hungry. Let’s see if we can find something to eat around here. Ya right! What could be edible in a 600 year old space ship?" He closed the closet and went into the lounge so that he could explore the room.

In the lounge, he saw a table fold down automatically. Next to it was a kind of faucet that was in the wall. Curious, he went over to the table and noticed a cup sitting back next to the faucet. Above the faucet he notice the word ‘Nourishment’. He grabbed the glass cup and looked to see if it was clean. It was.

"Well, I may as well try it. Weirder things have happened in this place." As soon as he placed the cup under the faucet a light blue liquid poured out and filled the cup.

"Am I supposed to drink THIS?" He drew it up to his nose and smelled it. "Doesn’t smell bad. What the heck!" Holding his breath, he tasted the fluid. He noticed that it didn’t taste bad at all. He finished the whole glass and set the glass back on the shelf where he got it. A glass tube came down and surrounded the cup and a blast of steam cleaned it. "Interesting. I’m not even hungry anymore. I’m gaining a little bit more faith in those voices and in this mission."
He grabbed his shirt from the couch in the lounge and put it on. "I wonder if anyone is back on the bridge. We’ll see." He left his room and headed towards the bridge.

When he arrived, Tran and Jake were already in the bridge. Tran was still helping Jake understand the computers. Byrem asked if anything had changed. Nothing had. He sat down and started to investigate more using the computer. Only a few moments after, he felt something funny. It was like falling for a short second.

"Did you feel that?" Jake had noticed it too.

"Yeah. The computer is also telling me that the trans-system engines have been disengaged… Now the inter-system engines are engaging. What the..?" Byrem was puzzled.

"That means that we are almost to our destination." Tran looked at his console also.

"Really?" Jake asked.

"This whole thing just gets more and more interesting." Byrem tried to find the exact destination on his computer.

-----

The ship slowed out of trans-system mode and headed towards a large asteroid field. Tran looked out the bridge window.

"Byrem, it looks like we’ve slowed down outside of an asteroid field… The ship is taking us in!"

Byrem came over and looked at the navigation computer. "Yup, our destination is an asteroid in the middle of the belt."

"How are we going to get through to the middle? Won’t those rocks smash holes in the ship?" Jake turned to look out his window.

"These beings have thought of everything until now. I don’t suppose they‘d forget about the asteroid belt." Byrem noticed that Samantha and Kamiri walked into the room.

"We’ll get through. They used to live her a long time ago." Kamiri responded to the conversation.

"How’d you know this?" Tran turned around in his chair.

"While you four were checking out the hardware on this ship, Samantha and I found the computers in the conference room next to the briefing room. We looked up this history of this war. We both read much of it."

"Our computers had our home language on it once we placed our medallions on it. We were both able to find the same bit of information and read up on it. We found that the previous owners of the Protectors lived here in this asteroid belt." Samantha figured that each person would have his or her own computer.

"We found the same thing on the computers here." Byrem was happy that they had found computers that would actually tell them something about their mission.

"Samantha also found some separate files on the aliens. They were not in either of our languages, but she was able to partially translate it."

"Samantha, do you think that you can translate more?" Byrem was impressed.

"I’ve already been working on it all day. Some of it is more difficult than other parts. It is actually similar to a few languages that I know. I was able to piece them together."

"What else have you found out?"

"Well, I found out that the technology that we are going to be fighting is similar to that of the Protectors’. Both technologies spawned from the same technology and ours seems to be the more advanced of the two."

"So these things look like our machines?"

"Kind of. I found some pictures of what some of these things look like, although I haven’t figured out what each of their functions are." Samantha inserted a disk to a machine that was similar to those in the briefing room. She displayed about a dozen pictures of different aliens. "There are six that are larger than the others and they are the most similar looking to our protectors. The others seem to be maintenance, pilots and support."

The pictures showed that there are six types of what appear to be for combat. The other pictures showed smaller beings. Some seemed organic, while others seemed just as mechanical as the combat aliens did.

"It seems that these things are organic at the basic level, or at a low level." Samantha made note out loud.

As one picture showed of a medium size alien machine, Paran noticed that it seemed very familiar. "Wait! Don’t go to the next picture. I’ve seen this one before… I had a dream last night about a battle. I saw all of the protectors fighting in caves, and these things were fighting us. I remember they were chasing us and the cave started to rumble and cave in. Then I woke up. I don’t know why I would dream about these when I have never seen them before."

The rest of the group thought that it was strange too. Samantha had a weird dream too, but she didn’t say anything. This whole situation had been too weird and too new to completely comprehend. Her sense of planning ahead was frustrated by this whole event. Things might become worse by other’s speculations. She needed facts and was determined to find them.

All six of the passengers watched as the ship lead a direct path to a large asteroid. Tran noted it strange none of the asteroids were in their flight path.

They all were noticing the enormity of the asteroid, when they noticed a crack of light on the surface. It grew larger and opened up completely to become the loading dock. The ship entered in and docked without a bump. The enormous doors closed behind the ship and locked. The bay was enormous. There was plenty of room for other ships larger than this one. Other than their ship, it was empty.

"Well, it looks like we are here. Time to go explore this base." Byrem seemed the most accepting of all of them. The other five couldn’t help but want to follow him. There was just something about him that they trusted.

"I hope it is pressurized." Tran turned around to look at him.

"What does that mean?" Jake was admiring Tran’s knowledge about space and piloting.

"It means that there could be no air to breathe." Tran explained. "I found some pressure suites in the room next to the loading bay. We could use those to explore with." He stood up.

"It looks like no one is home. No lights. I say that the suites are a good idea." Kamiri was all for the idea of being careful.

"Let’s go. Tran could you help us suit up. We don’t want any holes or leaky connections." Once again, Byrem was leading the way.

All six of them suited up and used the air lock on the starboard side of the ship to exit out to the platform. There was no gravity in the docking bay. They all decided to form into two teams. Kamiri, Paran, and Samantha consisted of one group while Byrem, Tran and Jake made up the other.

The radio crackled to life with Byrem’s voice. "Our main goal right now is to find the power source and to find the control room. Once we activate the power, the life support should activate."

They opened the small secondary door and used that as an entrance instead of the huge bay doors.

After they were all in, Tran noticed something. "Hey! You guys notice that we’re not floating anymore? And the door… it opened almost too easily!" Tran felt almost at home with zero gravity on one side of a wall and gravity on the next. He was used to it living on a space station.

"You think opening that door was easy? I had to force it open!" Jake was surprised at Tran’s remark.

"Sorry big guy. I’m just used to doors like that being impossible without power armor. I just saw some of the lights on the panel flashing while you were moving it. It was almost as if the panel was trying to help you slightly. Sorry." Tran had to explain himself before being squashed by the huge fighter.

"Some backup systems might still be active. But let’s not take the chance of taking off the suit yet." Byrem headed in further.

"This place is creepy." Samantha turned on her suite lights that were mounted on the chest and the head.

"Oh just think of it as an archeological digs. Besides, it looks like were going to be living here for a while. Now let’s get to work. C’mon." Kamiri headed down the left hall as Samantha and Paran followed.

"We better get going too." Byrem and his team went straight.

It took thirty minutes to find the control room and another hour to locate the power generator. Once the generator was started the primary life support systems came on line. The control room lit up with computer monitors with maps of this whole section of the galaxy. It called this section a sector.

The base was huge. They found quarters for over 100 people with room sharing. There was a repair bay for the protectors that had direct access to the docking bay and to the outside. In a repair bay next to that, they found power armor that stood about 8 feet tall. There was a large long-heart shaped booster pack on them. They were obviously built for fast assaults. They found a total of 10 of the power armor in that bay.

Also there was an extensive collection of projectile and hand weapons. Next to the stockpile, there was a targeting range for target practice.

The power system was fascinating to Samantha. There was a large tube that ran up and down beyond the ceiling and the floor. This was the core. From the core protruded 12 arms that had an open pod. The pods were shaped like an upside down cone. Her exploration for a description showed her that some kind of plant root fit in there and would grant access to another part of the base. She checked for unopened doors in the base and found only ones to empty closets, storage rooms and barracks. She documented these in her notes even though she did not understand them. She gave the information in the daily meeting that Byrem called. It was in these meetings that the new discoveries would be shared and discussed. All in all they were pretty productive. Some personality and opinion conflicts became apparent to her in these meetings also.

Three days had passed before the first sign of action occurred. During the three days, Paran, Samantha, Kamiri, and Jake rarely showed their faces in the control room. Tran and Byrem almost lived there in the control room.

"I guess these people need some time to contemplate the consequences of this whole situation. I’m glad that I didn’t have a whole lot of ties to leave behind. None of us chose to be here and I can understand what they might be going through." Byrem sat at his terminal.