“I don’t know if I should tell you this” said a tiny man sitting on a chair in front of a human 90 times his size.

She just sighed “Think of it this way, if you don’t we collapse where you come from , if you do then we will look out for you and your family a hundred years a piece.” 

He thought about it for a moment, then started speaking, “Alright so…. 

Sitting there in space, I thought about my family and humanity. I was just drifting in space, waiting for the instructions from command to start the mission. It was my mission to take us out of our solar system and go into the next. Being the first human to be in another galaxy had been what was driving me for many years, but now it was time. 

A voice came on over the comm link, “Aright captain time to start your engines, warm them up and take it easy.”

Reaching for the blue button on my screen I tapped it and the initiation sequence started:

>_/Pulse Engines Success

>_/Energy Core Success

>_/Experimental Drive Success

>_/Safety Checks Success

>_/Proceed when you are ready 

I started the pulse engines and got into a perfect position. Hitting my comms I spoke to command “I am off to a new step forward in humanity wish me luck” 

With that, I hit the command to run the engines. The ship shook when it launched forward, a moment later the engines disengaged. Something had gone wrong though, I was on the other side of the solar system not in a new galaxy.What happened I wondered. I checked over my coordinates. I initiated pulse engines and got into range of comms with command.

“Eyaaa command, ugh, there was a problem. I am still here.” I said, knowing that they were probably panicking. I just slouched in my chair, kicking my feet up on the controls while I waited for a reply.

“We hear you loud and clear. We are sending a data packet with this transmission. It may have had a coordinate input issue. Give it a go.” said the person on the comms.

I ran the checks again, and all things were a success. There should be no failure or falter. I may not get another chance at this. It was weird though we had sent probes to other planets and even have human colonies on other planets. So why was this not working? I got the launch command again, and this time I peered up near Saturn.

Before I could do anything I had the message I dreaded from command, “Return to base we are just going to give everything a look over”

I knew what that meant. Come back and we will try someone else. It had happened to the rest of the pilots that had failed in any of humanities step forwards. It would not happen to me. I hit the screen and started entering commands to initiate an override on the energy flow to the quantum entanglement drive. I also took the limiters off of the drive, allowing it to completely disentangle the ship for just long enough to reappear in the new galaxy. If this didn’t work, I wasn’t sure what would. I turned on all sensors with constant feedback to command so they could analyze all of the data live. I knew they would be pissed, but I had to do this, I wasn’t about to go back and be some hand shaking advocate for space travel. 

I hit initiate. The warnings were going off all around me. That’s when everything went white, I felt like I was floating in space alone with no space ship or suit on.Then a moment later that’s when I met you all.  You were monstrous and you started swatting at me.

----

“So that what you did, you messed with quantum relativity,”  said the large human looking female in a lab coat.

“Yes, I was merely trying to peer up in another galaxy, not wherever this is.”? He said to her calmly.

“Well, you see you broke the containment on the galaxy we generated and contained. We use them to play out scenarios to come up with new ideas and you have just given us some interesting data. Though we are going to patch up the issue. I will send you back now, have a good life,” she said as she went to tap some buttons.

"No, wait” I protested, but she just waved  goodbye with a smile.

I reappeared right next to earth and began descent through the atmosphere. I made all my reports back to the proper command and was relieved of duty for not following orders with such an experimental piece of tech. Officially, though, I was a hero for pushing humanity forward. They knew even less of the truth than I did, and I barely had a grasp on it. I continued on living though. I shook hands and promoted interstellar space travel. My wife and I had become somewhat of a legend for how long I lived my wife had passed away at one hundred and thirty-one and I now lay on my deathbed surrounded by a large family. I am also one hundred and thirty-one it seemed the well whatever they were, were being truthful.

I took one last look at my family and everyone was smiling at me as I closed my eyes. It was weird, though; I was drifting again. It was a familiar sensation, like how it was when I disentangled the quantum engine. 

Opening my eyes, I could see the woman before smiling just as I had remembered her, but something was different. I was the same size now! “Wha what’s going on?!” I exclaimed, sitting up.

She laughed, “haha, I thought you would do that. So during our last conversation I said we need ingenuity So I brought you back and am offering you the chance to live amongst us advanced humans for as long as you would like. You would become a scientist and work with me in the lab.”

Well, at least I am not a hand shaker and this is an interesting afterlife I guess, I just grinned and said “Yes”