Space adventure

As the space shuttle turned around to head back, a brilliant white light filled the cockpit. The pilot could only shout, "What th-" before he blacked out.

Declan Lang awoke to the sound of gunfire. A battle was being fought between a huge ship, with some small, oddly shaped fighters attacking it. The giant ship had a metal ring around it, which had blue lights coming off it.

A ship firing towards Declan caused him to move his shuttle away. There was a crunch and a blast of heat, and the shuttle got shoved forward. As his shuttle shot past the leviathin of a ship, his ship stopped, and couldn't move on its own. It was being dragged into the hangar. As a few small tongues of fire licked at the acrylic, Declan's heart was beating like a morse code machine when he realised he was in massive danger.

Just before he touched down, one of the weird ships shot the tractor beam, causing Declan's ship to crash to the deck. Thick smoke filled the cockpit. As Declan could hold his breath no more, he pressed the eject button.

Declan woke up on the deck, with his arm hurting. His brown hair was slightly singed from the fire and his orange vest had some patches. As he saw the bars, his bright blue eyes flamed with anger at whoever had imprisoned him.

A humanoid creature, which probably was a warrior, judging from the sword, strode up the corridor to the prison. He spoke in a gravelly voice, "I see the prisoner is awake.

Declan replied, "Yes, I am. And what am I doing in jail!?"

"You are a warkeeper."

"I'm not! Wait, how can I understand you?"

"We injected you with nanobots that translate your words and keep track of your vital functions." With that, he left.

After a long wait in his cell, Declan heard faint cries of, "The warkeeper command is coming!" Declan hadn't spent all of the time doing nothing. he had fashioned a lockpick out of a loose tile. The bars swung open with a click.

Rushing to the bridge, he saw a sleek grey ship advancing against the reds of the gas giant below. There was arguing about how to escape. Declan could figure out from the conversation that the engines needed time to accelerate. Declan's eyes moved to the gas giant, and lit up. Declan made his presence known and said, "I know a way."

"How did you es-" the warrior began.

"That doesn't matter now, judging from your conversation." Declan answered. "My plan is that we will pull ourselves in using the planet's gravity, and then shoot past."

"But that's suicide!" exclaimed a woman whose skin was blue. A dwarf like figure began, "The ship will no-"

"Anyone got any better ideas?" Declan challenged. Silence. "Right then. Who's the best pilot?"

The warrior replied, "That would be me" in his gravelly tones. He stepped up to the controls and started to point the ship down towards the gas giant. Declan blacked out from the gravity.

He awoke to the sound of cheers. "We did it!" Their attention turned to Declan as he groaned on the smooth floor. "My head hurts". They picked him up and congratulated him.

Declan later discovered that a transmission had come through during the attack. It said that the commander of the warkeepers thought that he had killed his brother. Reflecting on what happened, Declan remembered the explosion.

Declan introduced himself to the three crewmembers. He found out that the warrior with an unusually bright red shirt was named Evan. The small dwarflike figure with a high tech spanner was named Callum and was the engineer.  And the blue skinned person who seemed to be in charge was Jennifer, the planner.

Declan found that there had been no extreme damage to his ship, because it had apparently been extinguished quickly. Exploring the electronics at the rear of the ship, he found that there was no damage except the burn marks. Declan wandered off to explore the rest of the leviathan.

As Declan began to feel tired, he realised that he had no room to sleep in. He asked Jennifer where his rooms were After a while of following her down the seemingly endless corridors, Jennifer pushed a panel on the wall. The wall seemed to split, revealing a house-like room. Jennifer walked away, saying "All yours."

Declan slept like a log. He had been through a worm hole, nearly shot by war keepers, had his ship nearly burned, and sling shotted past a planet. His rooms were very spacious, far from what he was used to.

Declan was suddenly awoken by an excruciatingly loud alarm, ringing throughout the ship. He ran in what he thought was the general direction of the cockpit.

After what felt like an hour later, Declan stumbled, panting, into the cockpit. Evan stood piloting the ship. "What the hell is going on here?" Declan shouted, over the noise.

"The warkeepers attached a tracking beacon to us while they were attacking."

Declan found out that there were no ships on board that could take the beacon off. But as he thought back to the battle at the wormhole, he thought about the space shuttle in which he came...

Declan came back into the cockpit, panting. He announced, "My ship! It can do the job," panting, "It was a robotic arm to remove the beacon!" Evan ran off to the hangar.

Using one of the outside cameras, Declan watched with a beating heart as Evan removed the beacon with the space shuttle's arm. Declan cheered as soon as he saw the beacon come off in the robotic arm.

As the space shuttle was getting near the hangar, three warkeeper ships came into radar view. They opened fire. The ship was taking damage, but Jennifer refused to leave until Evan was on board.

A scraping of metal could be  heard as the shuttled landed. As Jennifer activated the warp drive, Declan went down to help Evan.

Declan gasped when he saw the state that the shuttle was in. Most of it was fine, but the nose had been crushed. Declan raced in when he saw Evan's arm.

As Evan was finally pulled out, a shower of twisted metal and white coating fell down after him. Declan dragged Evan's limp body away, saying, "You did it!"

Evan had regained his consciousness, but was taking his time to fully recover. He insisted that he was totally ok,but Declan wouldn't let him leave the hospital. However, Declan did let Evan have his sword. As Declan nursed Evan, no-one noticed the warkeeper ship landing.

Declan heard Jennifer's voice on the intercom, "Declan, you need to come to the bridge, now!"

Declan appeared on the bridge, panting. He was getting the hang of navigating the labyrinthine ship, but he still got lost. "Four warkeepers have landed in the hangar. They are headed through the hospital to the bridge." Jennifer reported.

"The hospital? Evan's still there!" Declan turned to go, but was stopped by Callum. "If you go through the engine room, it'll be a lot quicker. But don't break anything. I'm the engineer, remember!"Callum shouted after Declan.

Declan raced over narrow pathways and towering engines. He leapt over a section of broken walkway. As Declan's footsteps moved away, a first aid kit tumbled down...

Declan burst through the door to the hospital. As Evan was waking up, the four warkeepers rushed in. Evan grabbed the sword which he never was without, and swung it at the head of a warkeeper.

Declan called out, "Don't kill him!" Evan turned the blade so that it only knocked out the warkeeper. There was a flurry of movement and then all four of the warkeepers lay on the floor, groaning.

Declan's heart was doing a tap dance as the warkeepers were dragged to their cells. Evan was left as the prison warden to intimidate them.

As the ship was about to go into the blur of hyperspace, there was a twisting of metal, and a loud, "Damn!" behind Declan. He turned to see a grumpy looking Callum behind him.

"I told you not to mess anything up!" Declan felt in his back pocket for the first aid kit which had fallen out. His eyes widened.

Callum left for the engine room with a scowl. A few seconds after his departure. A furious warkeeper commander appeared on the comscreen. "This is a vendetta. You killed my brother so I will  kill you!
You murdering swine!"

The cockpit was filled with arguing about what to do. Eventually, Declan came up with an idea. "You guys remember that warkeeper ship that we have? Well. I'll use it to attack the commander's ship. Then you can get away." Declan ran off before anyone could stop him.

As Declan was taking off, he saw Jennifer. Fearing that through a discussion he might lose his nerve, he left the hangar.

The chaos of battle enveloped Declan instantly. War keeper battleships were shooting laser bolts at the ship. A small vessel, far away from everything, stood out. The commander. As Declan approached, the commander turned and opened heavy fire on him.

The commander was not letting up. Error messages flashed on the screen. A flash of white light blinded Declan and he passed out.

He awoke in orbit over Earth; groaning. As his head slowly turned to look at Earth, he cried with joy. After he stopped, Declan received a transmission. "We lost radio contact for a second there. What happened?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." Declan replied.