Escape Plan X

Tara Winter hated space, despite how much everyone else loved its infinity of stars. They were just specks of light in a lot of darkness, if you asked her. But here she was on the VeilRunner, and boy, was it a hunk of junk as ships went. Dented hull, mismatched engines, and questionable life-support systems that always needed tweaking—just how Captain Zak preferred it. "Tara, you're going to want to see this," Zak's voice crackled over the intercom, always a bit too excited, like a kid with a new toy. Tara ambled to the bridge, cautious as always. "This better not be another of your 'catastrophic phenomenon' or 'cosmic wonders,' Captain." Zak grinned, his eyes flickering with that annoying, contagious excitement that made you feel something big was going down. "I've found a map," he beamed, looking like a conspiracy theorist who finally proved aliens were real. "What kind of map?" Skepticism was Tara's treat, even in the face of genius. "A map to the best space burrito in the galaxy?" "Even better," Zak said, tapping the console. Holographic orbs danced in the air, spinning webs between them like constellations of fate. The map was old, ancient by any standard. It wasn't your typical treasure map; think more along the lines of 'mess with reality itself.' Zak's gift for bending space and time made Torellian mercenaries, Syndicate trackers, and ordinary thieves look like lost puppies. The crew gathered around, a mixed bag of offbeat characters, each with their reason for sticking around. "What do you say we give destiny a run for her money?" Zak grinned, looking at Tara. "All I need to access the map's secrets is a brilliant navigator. Interested?" Was she interested? No, not really. But after a couple of years floating aimlessly from one failed gig to another, this was a high-stakes gamble she couldn't refuse. The journey across the cosmos was unpredictable. Sure, they dodged rogue asteroids like it was space dodgeball and outsmarted Syndicate traps, but the real battles were the ones they fought within. One "bright" day under twin suns, Tara sat by a technical prayer—aka a hydrogen-breathing relic from the ship. "Hey, Zak," she called into the suit-com. "Why do you trust me with this? I could mess it up, you know." Zak hovered nearby with iced fõgrath, galaxy's most disgusting imitation ice cream. "You're new, unexplored territory. You're just as much a mystery as this map. And, well, because I know you." He shook the map canister at her like a priest with a holy relic. "You don't even know who you are, much less who I am." Tara whispered, chips of vulnerability flaking away. Reluctance did its awkward tango with truth inside her mind space. Tara sighed, wrestling with the idea of a destiny intertwined with limitless universes. What if she didn't want to be anything? What if she didn't fit into any grand scheme or narrative? Planets whizzed pockmarked with potential, yet empty of resolution until VeilRunner hovered above Xandro. Hoards of trickery awaited there. Merchants hawked ambiguities along with precious gems. Zak, somehow lost even at home, laughed at Emerald Zalts. "It's amazing, this universe," he rhapsodized, "and terrifying, too." Tara could only nod—part acknowledgment, part fear acknowledgment—until terror revealed the alternative: Don't change reality. The last leg of their predicament wore them like a fraying costume until the final destination—an ocean where cliffs bent and dove into endless turquoise eons. Zak performed a slow, sly smile as the map's projection flickered undone into candle-lit mist. "I think this is it," he gushed, staring. Gauntlets raised in surrender to possibilities bound unwound. Guardian simulations appeared overhead to guide them in foreboding echoes—elusive messages cradling paradoxes infinitely deep, like the heart of dreams waking unknown worlds. Tara, haunted by chaos choosing none, broke that silence. "All we have are choices, aren't they? God help us all." Zak looked the eternal skeptic in her hopeful eye. "Well, let's do this, shall we?" As galaxies reached forward like lifetimes folded within birth, Tara and Zak stepped beyond the stars. Outside reality—past poetry and unset constraints—looked curiously back at the VeilRunner, the ship that bent but refused to break. And in that restless pause, perhaps, they found what had eluded them all: The escape was not from danger, but into undeniable wonder.