Chapter Text
Stardate: -267124.88489345514: The start of an adventure.
"Ok, 10:00 pm, I have run by this over a hundred times," Tommy confirms to himself as he packs his old backpack; straps were worn, but anything is fixable if you try hard enough, so they were sown together many times. Tonight was the night Tommy was gonna steal a ship. So help him prime he was gonna get to space even if it killed him, which shouldn't, but it could. Tommy threw his pack over his shoulders, moving to the door. Looking back at his home, he knew he would never see it again. He was giving it to his friend Deo Time to look after for him. It's time for the adventure of a lifetime.
Leaving his apartment, he pulled his goggles over his eyes and breathed in the night air. Even at night, this futuristic city of his was alive with lights and people and food stands that were still open with people still roaming around. Hours before this, it had rained and the city was always better after the rain, the way the puddles make beautiful reflections of the night lights. Dashing through the city, he stole a star fruit from a fruit stand as he made his way to the ship garage for the University of Space Exploration. They did more than just explore, like missions and other things for research, but he only wanted to live among the stars, plus he couldn't get in if he wanted, it was so hard to get into that place. As he got up to the building, he pulled his hood up and then his bandana, looking around. He used his goggles to unlock the door from afar and ran inside.
The inside of the building was a lot more immense than tommy thought. There were so many ships, rows and rows lining the wall to the ceiling like shelves big on top and smaller on the bottom. He had never seen so many ships, and they were all new. He started walking down the line of ships, there were big and small ships of all shapes and colors. The smallest was the size of a fairly large van and the biggest was well, he didn't have anything to compare it to; those big ones were made for crews of hundreds, but it goes down from there all the way down to the van size, which was the most common size. The bigger the ship, the more expensive it is. Good thing tommy is stealing one. He was walking down the line of the first row of short journey ships, not meant for super long travel, but nowadays, most can hold more fuel and be refilled at outposts like a space gas station. They didn't have bedrooms or anything like that unlike the ones on the second row for crews of three to four, those ships are basically like space houses it has a kitchen and a control room, and the more you go up, it can have more things like a training room living room, etc. ships like those don't technically need big crews it can be managed by three or four people it's the bigger ones on top that really need crews, wonder why they did it that way big on top small on bottom weird, doesn't matter he was looking for his ship to go on adventures and live and not just see the stars but live with them around them all over, space can go on forever and tommy is gonna explore til his last breath. Some of the ships had names on them Tommy didn't want one with an already given name he wanted to give his ship its own name, so he kept looking.
Tommy walked past a deep red ship and the platform lit up with a dim blue light making him jump. He turns back and walks over to it. The ship had two front seats and a bench seat like a couch with no armrests behind them, mirroring a van seat there was walking room between the seats and tommy noticed double doors behind the bench seat it must be storage he was able to walk around inside freely it wasn't as cramped as it looked on the outside and walked around to the doors and they slid open showing an empty space which must be for storage like a trunk if you still want to think of these like cars or vans or whatever. Tommy turned and looked at the controls and saw it didn't seem confusing he was sure he could fly this. When he sat in the driver's seat an alarm went off the building was flooded with red lights, that flashed and lit the huge space. "Oh shit, not good." He looked on the control panel and found the on-switch, "you know what this ship will do," he muttered to himself starting up the ship as he heard footsteps running down the runway. "Ok, I saw a garage door at the end of the runway I can do this" he pulls forward and jerks to a stop damn this thing is fast, he had hardly moved. He maneuvers his way straight and takes off the door at the end starting to close. "Come on come on." The ship scraped the side as it got through the doors and Tommy shot up past the atmosphere and finally into the stars where he wanted to be.
He had made it, finally, he was where he wanted to be but still, he didn't know what to do. He had no plan further than getting out of the atmosphere he couldn't live up here just yet with the little supplies and he didn't wanna stay just right here no, he was gonna explore and maybe take missions from USE (University of Space Exploration). "Wait, how will I do missions for them I'm not registered in their database shit," Tommy thought aloud. Unexpectedly, the ship answered in a robotic male voice that sounded too natural for an AI, "Hello, I am your personal AI assistant. State your name so you can be registered as the prime user of the ship, which will give you access to missions and available files for the exploration of planets and galaxies in between." He looked around for a moment, "Well isn't that convenient, my name is Tommyinnit. do you have a name what do I call you?" For a moment the AI didn't respond, and he wondered if he said something wrong, "Hello? Uh did I say something wrong?" he asks. "No Tommyinnit I don't have a name," The AI finally responded." Tommy thought for a moment before speaking, "Oh, uh how about I call you Henry and you just call me tommy, how's that?" "Sounds great Tommy printing your explorer's ID now, we are going to have so many fun adventures!" Henry responds cheerfully, which is odd, guess he can have emotion. "We sure are but uh Henry I need supplies can you make a route to the nearest planet outpost that's not the one we just came from?" Tommy asked, trying to find a map or something to know where to go. "Of course, Tommy I'll set a route now, it seems like you need a refresher on the controls Tommy should I run a training sim while we head to the outpost?" Tommy huffed, "Yes please Henry I'm uh- rusty but just in case how about we go over everything just so I know." A video appeared, "OK Tommy we can start with the basics of ship controls and then we go over safety doesn't that sound fun? we have so much time until we reach our destination and even after we make it, we can continue to learn, let's begin!" Henry starts and tommy sits back in his seat this is gonna be a long ride but hay he's in space, he wanted this, and it could only get better.