Franz Jetstream tapped his finger rhythmically as he sat in his plush captain’s chair. His tapping matched the rhythmic hum of the ship. He could not help but feel excited as he looked over his crew. It had been a long time since they got news of any treasure, and, if the rumors were true, this would be a big one. Over the past few months, Franz was forced to ration food and supplies. This meant the crew was down to one meal a day, and the ship’s interior had to run colder than usual.

  “Could you stop tapping?” Kelsa said as tried to focus on the ship’s controls. Kelsa was a Mantek woman and the pilot of the ship. Manteks were a humanoid race with a variety of different skin colors and exoskeletons. Kelsa’s skin was purple and her shoulders and arms were covered in black exoskeleton. Her lean face was framed by long black hair. “It’s hard enough to fly to this hidden moon without that incessant tapping.”

  “Sorry, I just am so excited,” Franz said with a huge smile that covered his face. Unlike Kelsa, Franz was a human. He styled his straight red hair with a center part and it came down a little past his face. “Finally, a chance at some treasure.”

  “And then we can finally eat something besides one power bar a day,” Elios smiled as he walked up from behind Franz’s chair. The Nublean man was covered in sweat from a workout session. Nubleans were naturally larger than humans, but Elios in particular was exceptionally tall and broad. His skin was a golden color and his short hair was stark white.

  “Oh great,” Kelsa sighed. “More people to break my concentration. Do you realize how hard it is to fly in a black space?”

  “If we didn’t before joining the crew, we definitely do now,” Elios chuckled. “You’re always talking about it like it’s the hardest thing in the world, but then you get us to our location.”

  “That’s because I’m a good ass pilot,” Kelsa responded as she raised her eyebrow in irritation. She turned her head to a human woman that sat next to her. “Are you sure this is the right path? It seems to be taking longer than I thought I would.”

  “Yes, I’m sure,” Felice, the human woman, sighed. She was a thin woman with deep tan skin and wore her black hair up in a bun. “You always get this way. You get irritated and then you get impatient. We aren’t even close to the estimated time of arrival.”

  “Fine, then can everyone be quiet and let me concentrate?” Kelsa groaned.

  “You heard her, Elio,” Franz said. “She’s kicking us out.”

  “I guess I could use another workout,” Elio said. “You want to join me?”

  “You’re crazy if you think I’m gonna join in on one of your workouts,” Franz laughed as he stood up from his chair.

  “No one ever wants to workout with me,” Elio frowned. “It’s so unfair.”

  ***

  Franz settled in his quarters to take a nap while he waited for their arrival. He was woken up by loud rattling as the ship landed. He rubbed his back as he stood up from his bunk. Sometimes he wished that he did not cheap out on his furniture. He was way too young for his back to be sore from sleeping.

  Franz shook the bunk above his bunk. Laying in the bunk was a blue-skinned man with short black hair. A crown of small spikes covered his forehead. The man groaned and opened one eye to look at Franz.

  “Wake up, Tal. Time to explore this moon,” Franz said.

  “I’ll stay on the ship,” Tal replied with a yawn. “You know, protect the ship and all that.”

  “Great!” Franz yelled to wake Tal up. “Thank you for volunteering, but you can’t do much protecting if you are asleep.”

  “Fine, fine,” Tal said with a wave of his hand. He then sat up from the bunk. “I’ll wake up. You can be such a slave driver.”

  “You and I both know that’s not true,” Franz said as he walked to the exit of the bedroom. “Get your equipment and meet us at the deck.”

  On his way out from the room, Franz grabbed his gear from a table and a brown duster from a hook by the door. As he walked to the deck, he fastened his belt and attached a revolver and the guard of a cutlass. The guard could be activated to create a beam sword. Once he arrived at the deck, he threw his duster over himself with a flourish.

  Kelsa and Felice sat where Franz left them. Elio was already at the deck as well. He was dressed in white armor that looked almost plastic in appearance. Even though his armor looked plastic, it was printed out of strong material. Attached to his back was a halberd with an exceptionally large axe head.

  Once Franz arrived, Felice stood up from her seat at the front of the ship. She wore a silver bodysuit. She wore a belt with an assortment of vials attached. The only spot that did not have a vial was where a black cylinder was attached. The black cylinder was Felice’s beam whip. She had advanced alchemical knowledge that when combined with her skill with a weapon made her extremely deadly.

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  “Are we waiting on Tal?” Felice asked.

  “Nah, he’s gonna stay on the ship as usual,” Franz said nonchalantly.

  “Typical, I’m stuck with Tal,” Kelsa scowled.

  “Someone has to be,” Felice laughed. “I’m just glad it’s not me.”

  “He’s not that bad. He’s really good at his job. Just tends to be a little lazy,” Franz pointed out.

  “You’re the only person who can stand him,” Kelsa said.

  “What about Elio? He likes him,” Franz argued.

  “Elio doesn’t count. I don’t think there is anyone in the world he dislikes,” Kelsa said.

  “You should learn from me,” Elio said with a large smile.

  Kelsa was about to respond, but was cut off by Felice. “Moving on, let’s talk about the route we will be taking.”

  “Thank you for keeping us on track,” Franz said.

  “Of course, someone has to,” Felice replied as she tapped a button on the controls in front of her seat. Pale blue light illuminated the deck and a hologram of a map appeared in the center of the light. Felice started to gesture to the map. “We are currently right here. According to the rumors, the treasure should be right around here. That is roughly ten miles away from here. Which means we have to look out for even more monsters than usual. We were not able to get any closer. So, we will need to keep our guard up.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Elio smiled. “Should give me a chance to fight. It’s been a while.”

  “You’ll definitely get one here,” Felice nodded. “Are there any questions?”

  “I don’t think so. Everything is clear enough to me,” Franz said as he looked over the map. “If you two are ready, then we can go ahead and get started with the exploration.”

  “I’m good to go,” Felice said.

  “Me too,” Elio said with a thumbs up.

  “Alright, let’s go then,” Franz said before he turned his attention to Kelsa. “You can throw cold water on Tal if he sleeps much longer.”

  “Hell yeah,” Kelsa said with a pump of her fist. “Now I’m hoping he doesn’t come to the deck.”

  “Try to wake him up soon,” Franz suggested. “Who knows if something will attack the ship.”

  “Fine, I will,” Kelsa groaned.

  Franz nodded in recognition of Kelsa and turned to walk through the ship. As he walked through, Franz noticed various dents and breaks in the wall. He hoped that this treasure could help pay to fix those. As the group arrived at the end of the ship, the ramp started to lower. The lowering of the exit ramp was not smooth. Instead, it shifted downward and stopped momentarily before continuing. As the ramp shook downward, it made a loud screeching noise.

  Once the ramp finished lowering, the group walked to the moon below. The moon was covered in red sand and showed little signs of life. The only activity the group could see was a light breeze. In response to the sand and the wind, the group each pressed a tiny button on their collars. Plates began to slide up from their necks to around their faces. Then they completely formed around their heads into helmets.

  “Maybe this will go smoothly and there will be no monsters,” Felice said as she looked over the moon.

  “I hope not, I wanted a fight,” Elio groaned.

  “A smooth operation means that we can sell what we find quicker and have something better to eat,” Franz pointed out. “Once we are well fed, then we can look for a fight.”

  “True, these muscles do need a little more nutrition. I feel like I’m deflating,” Elio said.

  Franz rolled his eyes beneath his helmet and turned towards Felice. “Did you upload the map data?”

  “Yep, just bring it up when you are ready,” Felice nodded.

  The helmet had a HUD that responded to thoughts. Currently, it showed how much energy Franz had left in his suits and weapons in the top right corner. With a thought, a simple map appeared in the left corner of his vision. It showed the surrounding area and their target. A path line was created on the map that showed the direction from their location to the target.

  Now that the map was up, Franz clicked his feet together. In response to the motion, a board extended from the bottom of his boots. A slight decrease of his available energy could be seen in his HUD as Franz floated on his board. Then with a thought, the board boosted forward in the direction of the path marked out for him.

  Riding his board was one of the things Franz most enjoyed about exploring a planet. The speed of the board made wind rush around his body. His duster billowed behind him like a cape. Elio and Felice followed closely behind Franz. Their ride through the sand dunes had gone smoothly. Franz started to question if there really was a treasure on this moon. There was literally no sign of life, and he could not understand why there would be a treasure on it.

  The group slowed as the map indicated they were closer to the target. They continued on their boards for a little longer before they could see a cave in the distance. Once they did, the boards phased back into their boots and they continued on foot.

  Once the group entered the cave, they instantly were greeted with the sight of white crystals. Crystals of all shapes and sizes grew from the cave walls. The crystals had a small glow within that seemed to pulse. It made the cave look like a collection of a thousand stars.

  Felice whistled at the sight. “Looks like we found that treasure. This should help us get back in shape.”

  “What are they?” Elio asked.

  “They are photon crystals. They are used to make power cores,” Franz answered. “This is a good amount of them too. I just thought with the rumors there would be something special here.”

  “I mean, it’s still really valuable,” Felice said. “We could probably make a killing off of this.”

  “Yeah, I was just hoping for something exciting,” Franz sighed. “You two start collecting crystals. I’m going to go further in, and see if there is anything else.”

  The pair nodded and pointed their arms towards the crystals. Blue light extended from their arms and covered the crystals. As it did, the crystals’ edges were outlined with a deeper blue. Then they seemed to phase out of existence from the wall. The pair continued to point the light at different crystals and repeat the process.

  Franz continued down the cave. Crystals littered the inside of the cave. Felice was definitely correct. They could earn a lot of money from the crystals in the cave. There were probably more crystals in the cave than they could salvage. Even though power cores were not rare, the fact that they powered just about everything in the universe made photon crystals extremely valuable.

  The cave was not extremely long and Franz soon found himself at the end of it. He sighed as he looked over the crystals. For a moment, he thought that was all there was in the cave. Then his eyes settled on an object that was hidden within a grouping of crystals. The object was egg-like and had the same white crystal color as the photon crystals. It did not have the same glow coming from it, though.

  Franz leaned down to get a closer look at the egg-like object. Crystals lined it almost as if they were guarding the object. As Franz grew closer to the object, he extended his hand to it. As he reached to pick it up, a burning sensation went through his hand and up his arm. The sensation made Franz jump away from the egg. As he did, the sensation quickly faded.

  Then, to Franz’s shock, the egg started to move back and forth. It continued to do so for a moment before it started to crack. A claw pierced through one of the cracks and tore at the edges of the egg. The creature inside ripped the egg to pieces and emerged from it.

  A white lizard-like creature was now in place of the egg. The creature was around the size of a dog and had scaly wings coming from its back. Surrounding its body was some sort of clear goo from the egg. Before it did anything else, it shook violently and threw the goo off its body. Luckily, Franz was wearing his helmet or the goo would hit him right in the face.

  The creature looked up at Franz and did not seem alarmed or ready to attack. Instead, it let out a soft coo. As Franz looked at the creature, he realized what it was. He thought that the Imperium had hunted them all down. It was a dragon.