After one unsuccessful travel through space, NASA scientist Quinn McNelly crash-lands in an unknown place. Destiny has great things stored for her, but first, she has to learn how to survive on a planet where technology doesn't exist.
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Prologue
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"I repeat! Can someone hear me? Base DZ-3.5, respond!"
Great. Just great.
It seemed that she had lost the signal for good. Quinn had been trying to get in contact with her base's headquarters on Mars for the last two hours but all of her poor attempts had been hopeless.
She looked around the spaceship one more time, hoping for a miracle to occur. Her white swiveling chair stood opposite the control panel screens. The map of stars on the glass screens showed her destination point as well as its surrounding objects. The gray metal shielding the ship was spotlessly polished and unchanged from when she first took off. Everything looked as if it was supposed to be, except for the glowing red dot under the fuel sign on one of the screens.
Somehow, the fuel tank emptied out of nowhere and it left her ship floating freely in space. Her mission was to reach the new planet X - 107 they recently discovered. She was only supposed to take a few samples from the planet's ground and vegetation and return to examine them in the laboratory with the other scientists of NASA.
When you put it like that, it all sounded so easy like one big piece of chocolate cake.
Quinn had calculated the coordinates herself, and not once or twice but ten times before she decided to get on her journey. So, she couldn't have gotten them that wrong to end up literally in the middle of nowhere. Because that was the swallowing dark space around her - nowhere.
Being a senior engineer in her branch of work, and having discovered around a hundred new planets, Quinn McNelly was a master when it came to galaxy adventures.
So where did it all go wrong?
If her calculations were impeccable, then something must have happened to the spaceship. That idea irritated her even more. Beta 02 was her baby - the first ship she crafted and invested all of her knowledge in. It had driven her to her first journey from Earth to Mars. After that, it came dwarfy Pluto and many others they discovered. As she upgraded it, more and more planets were explored. Every adventure was a story for itself, but all of them had the same ending - with her returning home.
However, for this one - she wasn't so sure anymore.
The ship was floating freely, driven by the forces of the Galaxy. Her best chances were either to land somewhere in space or somehow to magically return to Mars. But the scientist in her didn't really believe in magic. Her strong sides were the facts, the proves, and her calculating mind. Something as trivial as magic could only be used for fun.
"Come on girl. You can come up with something like you always do."
Enthusiasm was her best quality. Always, even when it seemed as if all the hope was lost, she found a way out. She didn't lose her faith when life on Earth began to extinguished, because she knew that their next destination was Mars. She wasn't even bothered when she first traveled to the Moon and didn't know if the air supply was going to be enough for her return...
But now as she was staring at the eternal darkness outside of the glass window of her ship, fear crept inside her bones. Not even the shiny starry dots twinkling in the farness were giving her sign for her salvation.
Not that anyone was waiting for her home. At the age of twenty-eight, she had no children nor a husband, to whom she had to return. Her parents died when she was twenty, but she wasn't very close with them either. Her most precious things were the ones she discovered every day.
"Quinn, regrets and daydreaming won't do you any good and it certainly isn't going to get the ship to move."
She had to stop stressing and think logically. Judging by the coordinates shown on the screen, she should have been around halfway towards her destination. She opened the map on the main screen containing the stars they recently discovered and tried to compare them to the ones in front of her view.
As she was following the trail, a horrifying expression was building on her face. Not only that she couldn't find where she was, but also the stars on the map didn't match the ones in front of her.
"What in the world?"
How could she end up there? How could she have mistaken so much? The chances were impossible. Well, the joke was on her, because in space everything was possible.
"So if I'm not on the map, where am I?"
She started passing left and right around the spaceship, commenting her thoughts out loud. Sometimes, listening how her voice sounded out loud helped her think. An intense headache began to creep in her temples, like a snake spreading its venom. There wasn't a way out. Her only options were - either die from hunger while waiting for a signal, or someone from The Base to notice her disappearance and intervene. Worst case scenario was to meet another traveler, an enemy or not, she couldn't know.
Her inner turmoil was disturbed by the loud alerting sound coming from the main control panel. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the usual green light was swept with a blinking red one.
"Oh, come on! What now?"
She ran up front, towards the panel to find the source that triggered this alarming noise. The shaking of the spaceship began even before she got to look at the screens showing the outsides around her.
The first bang on the left side of the ship was only a warning, but the grand finale came too soon for her to even prepare her mind for dying.
"Good Lord, if you exist - now is the time to do your wonders."
With that silly pray in her mind, Quinn lost consciousness and fell into her inner darkness. It was a total contrast of the blinding white light that swallowed her body.
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N O T E:
So officially, Universe #4 has started. Finally, I have a chance to show you the new project I've been working on. Before we start, I want to add that I will not give up on writing fanfiction, but I kinda need time away from it. I hope you can understand my decision.
Now, welcome to this prologue of The Talanian leader. I still haven't decided how many books Universe #4 will have, but I can assure you that there will be more than one. So, buckle up - you are in for a bumpy ride through space.
This is unlike anything, but I really mean anything I've written until now. But it's an exciting challenge that I want to take. I don't want to reveal much now, so you have to wait for chapter one.
Thank you for giving it a chance, I can guarantee that you won't regret it. Stay healthy and happy! And well, welcome to TALAN.
