Our story begins on a day just like any other. Except on this particular day, a dream was born....
-(o)-
[L-2 Colony Cluster, 2330 A.D.]
Elias Thorton's heart began to race as the hatch to his aunt's ship closed behind him. His small hands, tingling with both excitement and fear, tightly wrapped around the cold metal rail of the ship's hab unit as he slowly walked toward the front.
Although he was already twelve years old, the boy had never seen the stars up close before. Up until now, the most he had ever gotten to see them was through the large windows of his home within the space colony that he had lived in his entire life. And for the most part, their dim twinkle seemed too far away to be real. But today, however, things were different. Because today, Elias was finally getting a chance to truly see them in all their glory.
"H-Hey, Aunt Kara...are you sure this is safe?" The boy asked nervously as his voice broke through the muted hum of the ship's engines.
His aunt, a well-seasoned officer in the Colonial Navy, chuckled from the cockpit ahead. In the low light of the ship, Elias could see her blue and gold uniform glinting as her captain's rank shone proudly across her shoulders.
To say that Elias admired his aunt would be putting it mildly. After all, she had been his hero for as long as he could remember. Ever since he was a kid, the woman would tell him stories about her adventures with the Colonial Navy whenever she came home to visit. She would spend hours detailing all the cool places she saw, the people she met, and the enemies she had defeated. And Elias held onto every word of it as if it were the greatest story ever told.
"Don't worry, brat." Aunt Kara replied, her voice laced with affection. "If it wasn't safe, I wouldn't be anywhere near this thing. Trust me, I've been doing this for quite a while."
Elias's breath hitched as the ship began to take off. At first, it was slow. Then, with a steady hum that vibrated through the soles of his shoes, the boy could feel the vehicle begin to push through the vacuum of space. Through the viewport, he watched as the colony below became smaller and smaller with each passing second. Its sprawling complex of signal towers and modules slowly shrinking as they flew further and further away.
Up until this moment, Elias never really thought about how massive the colony actually was. But now, the boy could finally appreciate how much of an engineering marvel it truly was. A feat of technological perseverance and human effort that was barely even two hundred years old. From here, the colony looked like a living organism. Its outer structures twisting and turning around the central pillar, connected by a series of web-like bridges and sleek walkways. And the swarms of ships that hovered around it made it seem like the place was teeming with excitement.
Elias's ears popped as the ship finally broke free of the colony's orbit. And just like his aunt had warned him, the boy's stomach flipped as they ventured into the vastness of space.
"You ready to see something amazing?" Aunt Kara's voice broke through the boy's brief moment of disorientation.
Before Elias could even answer, the woman spun the ship around with an elegant twist of the main controls.
The world outside then shifted in an instant. The colony was now rapidly shrinking into the distance behind them, and the infinite void known as space unfolded directly ahead. Once their ship was a suitable enough distance away from the colony, the boy took a moment to take in his surroundings. And sure enough, he wasn't disappointed by what he saw. To him, the stars seemed like scattered diamonds against a lush sheet of blackened velvet. Each one was but a pinprick of light in an ocean so wide that it made Elias feel insignificant. But, also alive in a way that his twelve-year-old mind couldn't quite put into words.
"This is the universe, brat." Aunt Kara then said softly, her emerald eyes gazing upon the field of stars with a familiarity that made it seem like she herself was a part of it. Almost as if she belonged there. "This is what I see almost every single day...and it never gets old!"
Elias couldn't help but lean closer to the viewport. So close that his breath began to fog up the glass.
"How do you do it?" The boy then asked, a few locks of his curly black hair slightly obstructing his own set of emerald green eyes. "How do you just...fly out here all the time? Isn't it scary?"
The woman gave the boy her signature prideful smirk, the same one that his mother would give people whenever she was feeling particularly good about herself.
"It's scary at first, but you get used to it. It's actually quite nice once you think about it. The silence, the freedom, the thrill of knowing that you're part of something much bigger than yourself. That all makes it more than worth it."
Elias then felt something begin to swell in his chest, a feeling that he had never experienced before. As the boy stared out into the endless void of space, he was suddenly overcome with an unquestionable pull towards the stars. The kind of pull that completely silences any form of doubt. This, he then realized, was what he wanted. He wanted to be just like his aunt. He wanted to explore the unknown, he wanted to navigate stars, and he wanted to experience what she did.
"Do you think that I could do it?" Elias then looked up at the woman, her deep red hair floating above her head due to the lack of gravity within the ship. Admittedly, the words came out a bit more shaky than he would've liked them to. "Do you think I could explore the stars too?"
Aunt Kara paused as she looked at him. Her expression was unreadable for a moment before her lips curled into a proud smile. The woman then pulled him in for a hug with her right arm. "Of course I do, brat! In fact, something tells me that you'd make one hell of a sailor one day!"
As the ship continued to soar through the space around the colony, Elias only grew more certain that this was what he wanted to do. The stars had captured his heart. And for him, nothing would ever be the same again.