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Xander groaned slightly as he started to regain consciousness in the cockpit of his small 1 man ship. His vision was blurred, his mind clouded as he recalled what had happened. He was a test pilot, he had been testing out a new form of FTL engine for the Earth Space Force. Everything had been going smoothly, all the pre-flight checks were green, he'd brought the FTL drive online and plotted a course for Alpha Centauri, engaged it and then....then there had been alarms, shuddering, then he must have blacked out. Now that he was awake though Xander was quickly trying to bring the ships systems back online. His first instinct was to try signalling command, but all he got was static. Maybe the drive had worked and he was out of range? As Xander quickly started to check the navigation systems he got nothing but errors. At first he thought they were malfunctioning, or had been damaged, but as he investigated further he found the cause of the problem. The errors were because none of the star patterns could be recognised. His computer, despite the ship having been intended to go barely more than 4 light years, contained the entire history of star mapping the human race had carried out, and yet no patterns could be recognised, not even the most distant visible stars.
That could mean only one thing, somehow, Xander was no longer in the Milky Way galaxy. Even if he were on the other side of the galaxy the computer should've been able to get a fix on his position, though the drive he'd been testing would've taken thousands of years to get even that far. Somehow it seemed, through some accident, he'd been thrown millions of Light Years across the universe, with no way to determine where. Even worse, when he ran checks on the drive, seeing if maybe he could recreate the accident, he found it completely inoperable, several key components burned out and damaged beyond repair.
For a while, all Xander could do was panic. What was he meant to do? The ship was only equipped with emergency supplies, enough to last a month, maybe two if he rationed them, the trip was only supposed to have taken 2 days each way after all. But eventually he came to the realisation that panic would achieve nothing. He couldn't just sit here and wait to die...no...he had to do...something.
So, Xander activated the communication system again, beginning to broadcast a distress signal. Humans had never encountered alien life before, but it was generally believed that it was impossible for humans to be the only life in the Universe. And now, Xander was pinning all hopes of his survival on someone being out there, in this strange, far off galaxy, and even moreso, that they were friendly.
Xander groaned slightly as he started to regain consciousness in the cockpit of his small 1 man ship. His vision was blurred, his mind clouded as he recalled what had happened. He was a test pilot, he had been testing out a new form of FTL engine for the Earth Space Force. Everything had been going smoothly, all the pre-flight checks were green, he'd brought the FTL drive online and plotted a course for Alpha Centauri, engaged it and then....then there had been alarms, shuddering, then he must have blacked out. Now that he was awake though Xander was quickly trying to bring the ships systems back online. His first instinct was to try signalling command, but all he got was static. Maybe the drive had worked and he was out of range? As Xander quickly started to check the navigation systems he got nothing but errors. At first he thought they were malfunctioning, or had been damaged, but as he investigated further he found the cause of the problem. The errors were because none of the star patterns could be recognised. His computer, despite the ship having been intended to go barely more than 4 light years, contained the entire history of star mapping the human race had carried out, and yet no patterns could be recognised, not even the most distant visible stars.
That could mean only one thing, somehow, Xander was no longer in the Milky Way galaxy. Even if he were on the other side of the galaxy the computer should've been able to get a fix on his position, though the drive he'd been testing would've taken thousands of years to get even that far. Somehow it seemed, through some accident, he'd been thrown millions of Light Years across the universe, with no way to determine where. Even worse, when he ran checks on the drive, seeing if maybe he could recreate the accident, he found it completely inoperable, several key components burned out and damaged beyond repair.
For a while, all Xander could do was panic. What was he meant to do? The ship was only equipped with emergency supplies, enough to last a month, maybe two if he rationed them, the trip was only supposed to have taken 2 days each way after all. But eventually he came to the realisation that panic would achieve nothing. He couldn't just sit here and wait to die...no...he had to do...something.
So, Xander activated the communication system again, beginning to broadcast a distress signal. Humans had never encountered alien life before, but it was generally believed that it was impossible for humans to be the only life in the Universe. And now, Xander was pinning all hopes of his survival on someone being out there, in this strange, far off galaxy, and even moreso, that they were friendly.
