“Admiral!”

Hmm… a voice?

I heard a beautiful voice, that of a young woman.  She was near me, by the loudness of her voice.

Was this what they meant that once you die, you will hear a voice of an angel calling for you and guide you to the great place many religious experts rumored.

Screw them, I don’t believe an ounce on their theories without any valid proof.

I slowly opened my eyes, squinting them as a bright light was being radiated in front of me. My vision was still blurry from my recent awakening, but I saw a silhouette of a young girl, standing in front of me.

“Admiral! You’ve awoken.”

What? I thought, they’d address me with my name not my navy rank.

“Admiral it’s me your ship’s Ai, Lisa! I’ve just recently activated!”

Wait? What?

I was confused by the words coming from the silhouette’s mouth. My vision started to adjust with the bright light. Slowly I started to finally see the silhouette’s true face.

“Admiral! You need to wake up!”

I know I’m dead don’t rush me. Damn angels.

As my vision fixed, my expectation on the angel dropped. 

“Oh… it’s just you, Lisa, my ship’s Ai.”

The angel that I thought was just the hologram of my Ai, she had the body of a young teenage girl. She had short black hair, her frame was slender, her skin was pale white, She also wore the standard Navy uniform. She could be classified as an angel because of her looks, but she was my ship's Ai.

“That’s what I was trying to say, but Admiral, you need to prepare for evacuation!”

“What do you mean, I had already issued an evacuation order hours ago.”

I was confused by her sudden command, Evacuation? What did she meant by that? i was left alone in my ship because i Issued the command earlier. Why would she want me to evacuate? It was already to late for that.

“No, Admiral! Yo-"

Her sentence was cut off.

“Attention! to all the crew of the Galactic-class Dreadnought “Black Baron”, this is an emergency Announcement, Due to the failure of the rear engines, we are unable to maintain our current condition. To all the crew please brace for the immediate explosion in- “The Emergency communication system suddenly had activated and announced on the almost emptied ship.

“What happened? were we able to enter the identified black hole or worm hole or anything of those sorts and successfully exit it?”

I kept my composure, as the emergency light’s started blinking bright red, inside the entire ship.

“Yes, Admiral but this is the problem, our three remaining dreadnoughts were unable to withstand the density and speed inside the wormhole, and thus, severely damaging the rear engines and our fuel storages!”

She yelled, without any emotion, since, she was an Ai they were just programmed to report and command the ship for the highest-ranking officer of their ship.

“What about the other ships?”

“They were able to control their fuel storage but, in the process had to manually dismantle their rear engines to stop the explosion that was about to happen.”

“What about ours? What did you do?”

If the other dreadnoughts were able to control the rear engine explosion, then could our ship also be controlled. But in the end, if we dismantle the rear engines to control it from overheating and explode It would be an unrepairable damage, but that would be better than having half the ship explode.

“Our Mechanical droids were unable to control the problem, thus, ordering to withdraw… But, Admiral! If we were to control the blast radius, we can only limit the explosion on the rear engines and the Rear engine rooms.”

I was shocked by her sudden report, maybe because my ship was larger than the others, thus making it harder for any possible repairs. But the plan she suggested was possible, but it would need to sacrifice our rear engines.

“Then do it.”

I replied to her, if we were to control the blast radius to only the engine room, the engine room would be the only room to be severely damage by the explosion. But the rear engines are almost the main power of any kind of ship, it controls 80% of the ship’s possible speed and movements.

The other two dreadnoughts dismantled theirs, making all of our ships a floating target, but like I said earlier we have the firepower to go down with a fight.

I stroked my chin, as I sat in my armchair at the center of my ship’s emptied bridge. Thinking of any other possible plan, but my mind was blank. I looked at my surroundings as the lights were still blinking its bright red lights.

A large explosion was heard, from the far back of my ship. The entire ship trembled from its powerful explosion. I also felt the explosion's shockwave from afar. I reclined my body backwards on my chair, to try and stop myself from falling to the ground.

“Attention! Due to the sudden explosion, all ship’s personnel please evacuate the ship temporarily, and let the repair and engineer droids and drones repair any destroyed or damage rooms and objects.”

The Emergency communications, announced once again. By the looks of it, it seemed they were able to have more or less control on the explosion.

“Admiral you need to evacuate! Hurry! The right rear engine had exploded! We don’t know when the left engine will explode!”

My ship‘s Ai, Lisa, suddenly appeared in front of me, via Hologram. Demanding that I need to leave the ship immediately. I didn't object her demand and immediately followed her orders, her order was to keep me, the Admiral, still alive at all cost.

Following her demands, I calmly stood up and took one last glimpse of my flagship's empty bridge for one last time as I stood behind my desk. Before leaving the ship’s bridge to make my way to the emergency pods.

As I walked through the ship’s hallways, I noticed it was fairly damage, being at the very front, maybe the explosion was unable to get its desired damage. But the left engine still hadn’t exploded, so there’s more to come.

I still casually walked through the hallways and onto the stairs, leading to the hull of the ship, basically it’s main body or frame.

As I exited the stairs, the emergency lights kept blinking all the way. I saw more repair droids rushing down the hallway to the rear part of the ship. Being droids their march were synchronized, not one late or early, if only military marches were that synchronized.

“Admiral! This is Lisa, I have a report to make, we have some good and some bad news, which one would you like first, Admiral?”

I heard Lisa through my transmitters that was hidden in one of my pouches at my waist. I grab it and took it out my pouch, placing it near my mouth and pressed the speaker button.

“bad news first, then the good news, I want to immediately forget the bad news when I hear that good news of yours.”

I responded to her through my transmitter.

“Understood, Admiral, the bad news is that we can’t stop the Left engine’s explosion…”

She reported to me the bad news first, like I ordered.

“And the good news, is that the wormhole’s exit, we have exited near a small group of 3 planets.”

Though, in my opinion, both the bad and good news can weigh the same for me, I didn’t stretch any further, having somewhere to land was good enough.

“Are they Habitable?”

I asked her about the planets that she mentioned.

“Wait a minute, Admiral, I’ll report it to you once you reach the emergency escape room, I still haven’t finished my optical spectrum analysis of the said planets, but it will be finished once you reach the Emergency escape room, based on your current walking speed.”

She hanged up as she finished her sentence, but I could’ve felt that she was mocking my walking speed for still walking casually whilst the rest of the ships was in disarray and having the possibility to be destroyed.

So I sped up my walking pace, and rushed to the emergency pods. Rushing through the ship’s hallways, passing empty rooms, and some newly activated repair droids and drones on the way.

I reached the emergency escape room without any problems and there I saw Lisa already waiting for me, the emergency escape room’s light were also blinking with bright red lights, there it had multiple escape pods that were already stationed and placed at its launch pods.

“Admiral, Your escape pod is ready.”

She said as she saw see me casually walking to her and the escape pod. The escape pod was colored white and was almost a medium-sized one, it was classified as a two-seater.

I walked towards the pod to check if my survival necessities are present inside the white escape pod.

“So, what did you pack me?”

I asked her on what she could’ve prepared while I was casually making my way to the aforementioned escape pod.

“I have packed both food and water enough for 1 month, for clothing, I prepared one of your naval uniforms, and for your self-defense and weaponry, a Plasma rifle and also adding your plasma pistol currently in your pouch. all those that I mentioned are inside that large military backpack.”

Hearing her explain, I nodded back at her and slowly entered the pod, before stopping mid-way at the pod’s door.

“The Planet?”

“Almost forgot, Admiral, there is oxygen in its air, the Optical spectrum analysis states, that there is a 93% chance of breathable air or oxygen in the atmosphere. The rest are unknown harmful gas, virus, parasites, etc.”

I nodded back at her, as the unidentified planets were habitable. But again, before entering inside the escape pod, something came into my mind again.

“How can I return back to the ship? Almost all the transport ships had left for evacuation.”

“Almost. Well, we still have some transport ships at the other two dreadnoughts but currently our hangars are well, currently in need of repairs.”

Repairs?

What did she mean by repairs did how did they get damage by the explosions?

“After the explosions, there was a powerful shockwave that happened, and the ships that were hanging in high storages and those inside the hangars were pushed by the shockwave of the explosion, some crushed each other, some were turned to their side. So, for now they are technically useless.”

Hearing that, which almost sounded like an indirect explanation of ‘for now, stay on that unidentified planet’.

“Ok fine, but what I want you to save are the ship’s armaments, everything that is related to the ship's fighting capabilities I want it to be prioritized and repaired immediately, I don’t want my ship’s fighting capabilities to be damage or hindered. Because without our engines were floating ducks here in space.”

“Aye! Captain!”

She responded, and without any more questions I entered the escape pod. Immediately, I sat in one of the pod’s seats, I could see Lisa standing there, bidding farewell to her commanding officer.

“You must take care of yourself, Admiral.”

I only nodded back at her.

That was our last conversation inside my severely damage ship, for now, that is.

The escape pod’s doors, soon closed after our farewells. And the sudden voice of the escape pod announced something inside the pod

“Identification procedure starting…”

Its robotic female voice announced inside the escape pod.

Name: Arthur Kliest

Rank: Admiral

Fleet: 297^th

Federation Navy ID: 00231900… Processing…”

For a few seconds it went silent.

“Identification finished. Good Day, Admiral Kliest, Please wear the pod’s seatbelt and prepare for launch.”

I sighed and wore the pod’s seatbelt.

“Prepared for launch.”

I said calmly.

“Launching in 3… 2… 1…”

Then suddenly a large force launched my escape pod from the ship. But I kept my self-control and just kept silent throughout the escape pod’s launch.