A faint vibration could be felt throughout the ship as the engines rumbled, propelling it forward in the vast, empty space that they were currently traveling through. Years ago, they would have been able to see other ships as they passed in what used to be a bustling galactic roadway. Smugglers, adventurers, military vessels, scientific exploratory vessels, and just normal everyday civilian spacecrafts would have been conglomerated in this area, as it used to be a densely populated star system. But no more. Now the empty vastness of space that greeted the ship was eerie enough to reflect their desperate situation. 


Commander Lister sighed as he looked around at the group he was with. Criminals, traitors, disgraces. That is what he’d been given to work with to save humanity. They were doomed. A few of the faces he saw looked familiar, they had probably been under his command at some point, but he paid that no attention as he thought about if he wanted to say a few words. Would it make any difference with this group? They had already agreed to this, but he wanted to give them some motivation to make sure they did a good job. However, he had no idea what could possibly touch the hearts of these people. Nevertheless, he could at least give them an outline of the plan. 

“Attention on deck,” He started dryly, doubting many of them would actually snap to attention, but at least they’d be listening. “We’ll be arriving at the Waypoint the Zitari provided in about fifteen minutes, give or take a little engine failure. When we pass through the Waypoint, we will be in a different dimension with beings that have never encountered humans before. I would like to remind all of you that any wrong move could spark a war, so watch yourselves, or we’ll let the aliens experiment on you first. A Zitari representative will meet us and guide us to where the contestants for the Games are staying. Is everything understood?” 


____________________________________________________________________________


“Sir, yes sir.” Dasha muttered, having mostly ignored the commander. She tried to pay attention to the important parts, but whenever talk about ‘behave yourself or else’ started, she kind of tuned out a bit. He did realize who he was talking to, right? Granted Dasha personally wasn’t keen on starting a war, but she couldn’t speak for her ‘comrades.’ After all, they were all a bunch of ex military delinquents. How well behaved did the higher ups really expect them to be? 

Currently, Dasha was busying herself by tightening up her boots and getting used to wearing a uniform again. God, she had forgotten how damn scratchy the necklines on these things were. The uniform was also a bit baggy on her small frame. Despite getting the smallest size they had, she still couldn’t find one that actually fit her. Well, that much hadn’t changed since she got kicked out.