Prologue
Somewhere in the universe, a space ship containing a dozen alien lifeforms is speeding towards its target.
Inside, roaming the halls and working with machines are huge creatures.
Their alien skeletons are similar to a human one. They have a head, two arms, torso and legs. Instead of two human legs, they have two goat ones. On their head grow tentacles.
Many creatures have them done in various hairstyles and lengths. Their ‘skin’ is dark green which turns into dark purple if the creature thinks it is in danger or they are stressed. They have a giant mouth with two rows of teeth and long, snake-like tongue.
The creature's number of eyes consist from one to three, but all of them have black eyes. The aliens only piece of clothing is a loincloth, each with a different design. Almost all of them are standing about 6,5 foot tall. Few are taller than that.
Then there is this ability that older creatures can do, but younger ones can't. They can shapeshift into everything they saw and remember.
Their race is known in the universe as The Argartus.
Right now, three of them are stationed in the cockpit.
Albert, the one-eyed Argartian with medium length tentacles is sitting at the control panel, overlooking everything quite happily.
Helping him is his friend, Lucian. The three-eyed alien with his tentacle in the ponytail is looking at the coordinates, checking them from five to fifteen minutes. He looks like he desperately needs coffee or better yet, a nap. These bags under his eyes are getting a little too dark.
Edward, the Argartian with the shortest tentacles and two eyes, is looking at the security. He is so concentrated on his task that he didn't move for the last 6 hours.
The group of three is extremely bored, though nobody is slacking off. They knew not to anger or irritate their Captain. But everyone has limits and Lucian clearly reached his.
THUD.
Two other members jumped at the sudden sound.
"I can't take THIS!" Lucian screamed. He stood up and walked away from his desk. "No matter how long I look at the monitor, it always looks the same to me! It makes no difference where we are! LOOK, there is a planet, here is the star and over there is a beautiful nebula, but it still isn't our destination! It's been so long since that day and we still can't find The Heart." He signed. "I feel like we haven't moved in, like a month!” His blue eyes were bloodshot when he looked at other aliens. His hands turned light-green from the grip on his station. Blood started to fall down from the place his nails touched the palm. Lucian didn't even felt his nails turn sharp.
"Lucian." Albert spoke happily, as he turned his head to his screen. His good humor didn't disappear under the circumstances. "You look tired, but our shift ends in 30 minutes. Go to your room and sleep. The stress is getting to your head and we won't snitch on you. I promise.” He looked back to wink.
Unfortunately for Lucian and Albert, Edward is serious about his work and has strong voice. He spoke over his one eyed friend. "Shut up one eye. I know you are a happy-go-lucky and want to help others, but I need the quiet to work properly. And Lucian.” He stopped talking to grab his attention. “Albert is right. I feel tired when I look at you. Go and take a leave for a week after work.” His eyes twitched, when the three-eyed alien ignored them and continued his rant.
“Who knows, maybe the legend about The Golden Soul is fake.” Lucian sat down on his chair and started to despair. "The kind soul that tries to help everyone equally. Pff.” He started laughing. “A creature like that doesn't exist. Everyone stick to themselves and their species. We are all gonna die over some story that an old person told over 800 years ago.” He huffed. “We fucked up with that alien that was proclaimed to being the kindest, but was a scammer in disquise. Now We have to accept our destiny.” Lucian groaned. “Why wasn't I born in the Golden Era?”
"Well... You have a point. We spent so long on this that there's only fifty of us left. Can we even find them?" Edward asked and Albert started worrying. If he started to doubt his work, then maybe Lucian isn't the only one who must be really tired. They should visit Angelica. She lately said she's lonely in the medbay and could appreciate the company. They would cheer up and she would have somebody to boss over.
Yea, it is a good idea. They would visit her next time they all have free time.
“We can’t lose hope! We are the best of our people. If we can’t do it, no one will try after us.” Albert chimed in. “Three out of five divisions found what they thought was the creature of the legend. Sadly, these three aliens died right after the operation. The other one had backed out, mostly from grief and disappointment.
And then, there we are. As our captain said, we will search the entire universe until there isn't a place we did not visit in hopes that the creature lives somewhere.” He believed in every word.
“Why are you so happy Albert?” Lucian asked, not expecting the sheer belief radiating from that Argadian. “Our number is slowly declining every week. This one small planet that helped us got destroyed by the Mad Titan. It was unexpected. If we took, like ten aliens with us when we had a chance, maybe we would be lucky enough to have found our Heart.”
“Our people are waiting for us to have luck.” Edward spoke, starting his companions. They kind of forgot about him. “Or our near future will be very dark and tragic." His eyes didn't turn from his screen. The atmosphere around them started to feel depressed.
"Don't worry, my crew." A voice boomed from the direction of the door. In them stood another of their kin.
He looked like Edward, but there were differences between them. His tentacles were slightly longer and thicker. His eyes are shockingly light blue, so light that one would assume they were white instead. He is standing at the height of 8 feet tall and if he was a little taller, he would need to duck under the doorways.
"Captain!" All three Argadians yelled in surprise when they turned towards him.
"This is the last planet in this sector of the galaxy system. We better work hard to find the Heart there, because if we don't, we will go home to live peacefully until our death." He continued. “Of course we don’t want to do that, no? We will take the one that is the most suitable to be a replacement. Their opinions don’t matter, we are desperate. They must help us. We want our species to live and they won't live their life with guilt. If they survive the trials and the operation, nobody here will say a word or even make a sound."
Captain stared hard at them when he said that. It unnerved them. Captain is always scary to be around. "If the replacement dies, we back up onto the planets we visited before that were the closest to having the creature from the legends and start the process again. I'm sure we can bullshit the council members why we took so long. This will be our plan in case of failure."
He sat down onto the main chair and like air, he deflated. "I can't let them take my position from me. If I'm out, you would have to struggle with that idiot John from the cleaning section."
They all shuddered. John is, simply saying, a mess. Nobody knows how he even got to his position, but everyone knows about his ‘situations’.
Cafeteria was closed, because he couldn't tell the difference between sauce and oil, when he had the shift at the kitchen and at the time nobody was supervising him.
For two days, there wasn't light on the ship, because he cut the wires in his bedroom, because he wanted to know how they worked.
He even managed to create a moment of terror for everyone. He somehow got into the control panel and turned on all the alarms, reset the navigation goals and programmed the doors so they remained closed, when Argartians wanted to go out of the room they were in.
Fortunately it was easy to fix it all, because some Argadians thought that Edward would kill him. No jokes, everyone could feel how pissed he was, that he couldn’t work.
"It would be a stain upon my honor and pride… There's also the fact that nobody would live to the end of the journey." The captain massaged his head. Before he could tell anything else, Lucian spoke up.
"Captain, we are nearing our destination.”
‘Albert, details.”
“Our system detected that we are getting close to the atmosphere of a planet named 'Terra'. The most preferred creatures to have The Heart are 'humans'. In 2 hour we will be experiencing turbulence."
Captain nodded and spoke to the one-eyed Argadian. "Tell everyone to get ready. We will be landing in 3 hours."
For a moment, there was quiet in the room.
"So…" Started Albert again, as Lucian and Edward dropped their heads in amusement.
“What will you do next? The council members won’t believe us without proof.” He wriggled his non-existent eyebrows. Lucian snickered at the face the captain had made.
"We all know that Captain was picky with creatures, Albert. I will faster believe that Edward will stop working and start socializing with someone other that us."
The mentioned member rolled his eyes in annoyance.
The captain hummed. “If the specimen isn’t my type then you can have ‘fun’. After all, I care about the needs of my crew." He smiled, but his face cleared of emotion after a moment of fun. "Remember, this is my decision to make, so don't you even think to disobey it. There will be consequences."
The group shuddered. All is fun and flowers until the captain is furious. Then it is a massacre with nobody wanting to be a part of it.