Three spaceships were on their way to the planet Sellarin, ten thousand light years away from earth. The Vailen 1, 2 and 3. Named after Vailen Industries, the company that was responsible for this expedition. Every ship was build to ensure the survival of the crew. They had extra strong shields and several botanical gardens for food supplies and all the other stuff that was necessary to establish a colony.

Felicitas wasn't far from the dining hall. As she arrived, there were already a lot of people around. It was pretty colorful as well. Everyone wore the same wake up clothes, but Vailen Industries allowed everyone to pick their own color. That's why hardly two ran around wearing the same. Felicitas clothes were violet.

In a corner of the hall she recognized some familiar faces and waved towards them, but first the food.

There was a small line in front of the food counter, but it became shorter quickly and soon it was Felicitas turn. “What delicious things do you have, after such a long journey?”, she asked the cook.

“Pudding with vitamins, minerals, micro nutrients and other healthy stuff.”

“Iew!”

The cook smiled. “Well, at least it has this beautiful dark green color.”

“Thanks”, Felicitas sighed. Apparently there was no proper food until tomorrow. She picked up a bowl with pudding and a glass, that was filled with more of the violet stuff, she had to drink earlier.

Equipped with those things, she walked over to the corner table where she had recognized some people earlier at.

“Did the Ladies and Gentlemen sleep well?”, she asked, before she sat down. Alex, Kleio and Niam were sitting around the table. With Felicitas, the team was nearly complete. Sarah was part of the group as well, but there was no sign of her.

“Thanks, good. Only waking up wasn't very pleasant”, said Kleio and shoved a spoon full of pudding into her mouth. Kleio was a soldier, had short brown hair and wore green clothing.

“Yes, I nearly fell onto the poor guy that had opened my sleeping chamber”, said Alex in a good mood. Alex was over two meters high and probably weighed a ton. All muscles. “You should have seen his face. But I was able to catch myself, before he would have been squashed.”

“Where's Sarah? Does she sleep longer?” asked Felicitas.

“Oh, she was already here”, said Niam. “Right after she gorged down her food, as if that stuff was the most delicious thing in the universe”, while saying that, he held up his spoon with the green pudding on it and let it wiggle good, “she ran off to the storage room to check her equipment.” Niam was the pilot of the group. He was able to fly everything that had an engine, and sometimes he didn't even need that.

“I should have known”, said Felicitas and smiled. “That she is ready for whatever danger the universe throws in our direction.” She tried a spoon full of the pudding and immediately grimaced. “Nope, the color really doesn't help with the taste. If there wouldn't be all those nutrients in there, that you need, after ten years of sleep, I wouldn't touch it. But they are, so”, she shrugged, “let’s dig in!”

“When do we actually arrive?”, asked Niam and pointed towards the blue glow, that shone through the windows. They were still in hyperspace.

“I think, when they're defrosting everyone already, it shouldn't take long anymore”, said Kleio, took a gulp of her glass and shivered passionately.

“Jep, according to plan, the crew should be awakened one hour before we arrive”, said Felicitas as she had eaten the last spoon of her pudding and now reached for the glass. “Judging by the number of people in here, we should arrive soon.”

On point, the ships speakers came to life: “We will reach the destination of our journey in around ten minutes. If you like to have a look at our new home, you should now move to a suitable view point.”

“Let us go to the observation deck”, suggested Alex immediately.

Felicitas nodded and the rest agreed. They swallowed the rest of the wake up meal, shivered together for a last time in disgust and then took the elevator up to the observation deck.

The observation deck was a giant winter garden. A lot of the plants grew here, that were important for the survival of the crew. After the long journey, the garden was overgrown so much, that vines crawled all over the floor and even along the high glass ceiling. It looked like quite a lot of work for the gardeners, until everything would be back in order.

But the deck was not only full of plants, there were already some of the crew, who wanted to experience the arrival first hand as well, and quickly more arrived.

“Apparently we were not the only ones with that idea”, said Felicitas and smiled.

“Don't worry, there is enough space for everyone”, said Alex.

“We drop out of hyperspace in three, two, one ...” The hyperspace dissolved and they found themselves close to a blue planet. Ohs and ahs went through the crowd. The planet had big masses of ice around the poles and more land mass than earth. In return he was missing deserts around the equatorial area.

“Looks promising”, said Felicitas.

“A little cold”, said Niam.

Alex shrugged with his mighty shoulders. “Its probably winter right now.”

Then suddenly the atmosphere changed. Some people pointed towards an object, near the planet, that got slowly bigger. Felicitas had first perceived it as a rock, but the closer they got, the better you could make out what it was. It was one of their sister ships and it was badly damaged.

“What the ...”, started Felicitas, without ever ending the sentence.

“Were they attacked?”, asked Alex.

“No”, said Kleio. “It looks more like multiple explosions damaged the ship from the inside.”

“Sabotage?”

“Maybe.”

They were so close now that they could see the whole picture of the destruction. Most of the damage was around the engine area, from there it must have spread all over the ship. Now the spaceship drifted dead through space. There was no light to be seen. It came close to a miracle, that this ship was still in one piece.

“Teams two, three and four, immediately to the hangar!”, it came out of the speakers.

“And there it goes”, said Felicitas. “I guess that’s us.”

Alex nodded: “Let's go!”

They carved their way through the crowd, that still stared at the other ship and took the elevator down to the quarters, to pick up their equipment. A body armor and light weapons, just in case. Felicitas passed on the weapons and picked up the backpack with the medical emergency equipment instead. Alex took only one pistol, that was in return nearly as big as a grenade launcher. Then they went to the hangar together.

Sarah was already there. She wore a light combat suit and a backpack, that was probably filled with tools, replacement ammunition and all the things you needed to survive in the wilderness for a week.

“Hello princess, slept well?”

“Thanks, good”, said Felicitas smiling. But there was no time for banter, the captain was here too and he wanted to instruct them on what lay ahead.

“As you might have already seen, our sister ship, the Vailen 1, floats badly damaged in space. We can not exactly tell, how long already. We assume a couple of weeks. But there are good news as well. There are life signs in the sleeping chamber area. Your mission is to get over there, find the survivors and evacuate them.

Questions?”

“No, Sir!”

“Then go.”

The teams spread out to the shuttles and made themselves ready to take off.