The Malfunction

We were told that the machines could never break, but apparently, if they are not taken care of correctly they do end up breaking. It was about a week ago when the spaceship’s steering gave out initially, and since then it has only been getting worse. I am the only person who is not in hypersleep, and I was told that if I needed to, I could wake up the engineers. After not being able to fix the problem myself I tried to wake up the engineers, I couldn’t. The hyper-sleep protocol was stuck and thus broken, not letting me wake them up.

The ship has been going in circles ever since the steering broke. This initial malfunction led to the engines using too much fuel, and now the right engine is no longer working at full throttle, thus making us spin in a circle more erratically. I have tried sending several S.O.S messages to the main command center, but I have realized now that the coms are down now too. The robots that have been assisting me in the control of the ship, are no help, given the fact that they don’t notice anything is wrong.

I have read the instruction manual 57 times now, and the only thing I’ve learned from it is that there is a game room on the 3rd story of the ship that I had no idea about. To make matters worse, the defense systems have told me that in about 5 hours a ship of bandits will find us. They will inevitably destroy this whole relocation project. I never signed for this job because I wanted to be more stressed. I signed up because I wanted to help the human race find a new planet to live on so that we don’t destroy ourselves and Earth. My only hope is that in 2 hours after the system reboot finishes, the hyper-sleep protocol will no longer be broken and I can wake up the engineers.

It’s been 2 hours and the system just came back online after the reboot. Nothing has changed, the so-called “helper” robots are, in fact, not helpful at all. The ship of bandits has picked up speed and is now locked on to our location, there is no doubt that in approximately 30 minutes the greatest mission known to humankind will be destroyed without a trace. My only hope now is that the bandits are quick in their obliteration of this spaceship so that I will not have to suffer much in the end.

The system just updated the position of the ship coming for us. The amount of joy in my body is unexplainable. The spaceship coming towards us is in fact a ship from the Galactic Union, and it is here to help us get back on track. They have only 15 minutes left in their journey before they arrive here, when they do I will no longer be the one in charge, and I couldn’t be happier to resign.

It has now been a year since this malfunction occurred, and we are only 5 months away from our new home. When the people from the Galactic Union left, we all agreed that it would be a good idea to leave one of the engineers awake with me in case anything like that ever happened again. Ever since then, it has been smooth flying, and I have someone to use the game room with! As we approach Marfindan, our new home, I am so thankful that we will make it there alive, instead of atoms strewn across the galaxy.

-From the Journal of Albadon Extramel, The Captain of the First Expedition