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First, the blinding light, then the hazy halo faded from the Captain’s eyes, the ringing in his ears loud at first but over time beginning to disappear. Above him stood his crew, a small crew of only four including himself, but his crew nonetheless.

As he sat up holding is head from the headache and blinking he muttered with a raspy throat “What happened?”

The crew looked at each other almost confused at seeing their captain laying on the floor. Each of them muttering to each other and the Captain trying to come up with an explanation.

Finally, L’nall spoke up, “Sir, I don’t quite know how to explain this…” she hesitated, “you were gone.”

“I know I was gone, that’s common when you’re unconscious.” the Captain rebutted.

Vaylor looked L’nall and then back at the captain, “What L’nall means to say is you were not on the ship, physically, you were absent. We’ve been looking for you for three days.”

“Three days!?” The Captain exclaimed, “The last thing I remember we were in a battle with Kr’Thak raiders!”

Durgam spoke up from the pilots seat, “And we were in a battle with them, and at the same moment you disappeared, so did they, and their ships with them.”

Helping, the Captain up, “Sir, you were gone three days, we didn’t find any energy signatures of any type of transportation, or even other ships other than the Kr’Thak, but you say you don’t remember any of those three days?” asked L’nall.

“No, I don’t remember any of it, except I know whatever it was it has given me a blinding headache and I feel absolutely exhausted.” the Captain responded. “All I know is I have this splitting head ache. What is our current heading and status of cargo?”

“Our cargo is undamaged, and our current heading is towards Terra III, I changed headings as soon as I saw you were aboard.” stated Durgam in a very ‘matter of fact’ manner.

Vaylor looked his Captain up and down and pointed out, “Sir, you look exhausted, we aren’t too far from our destination, and are in friendly sectors for the remainder of our journey, wherever you were it doesn’t look like you have slept for those three days, may I suggest you take a rest.”

“I suppose you are right, perhaps I can think about what happened to me as I rest, keep current heading, wake me if we are hailed by any other vessels.” said the Captain as he crawled into his small isolated bunk and closed the sound-shielded hatch.

The captain laid there, in his bunk for a few moments, examining the ceiling less than a quarter meter from his face, to one side was a small personal panel used for logs and personal communication, but as it was for the captains bunk it also had core system readouts, diagnostics, and even access to primary functions of the ship. Some small indicators were lit up, but nothing too bright, but the Captain preferred absolute darkness when attempting to sleep, so he tapped a couple of input symbols on his command panel and the display completely shut off. As the Captain lay there he took a few deep breaths bringing himself into a rhythm and eventually his mind drifted into a dream world and he slept.

Outside the Captains bunk there was still some commotion going on with the other members of the crew. L’nall, Vaylor, and Durgam, having initiated auto-navigation, were seated around the small meal table towards the middle of their Constellation class starship, they were, of course, talking about the mysterious disappearance, and reappearance of their captain.

“I tell you he was in another dimension!” said Vaylor.

Durgam rebutted stating, “It is highly unlikely inter-dimensional travel could have caused the captain to disappear and then reappear on our ship, taking into consideration we are quite a distance from the entrance point in which he disappeared, yet he then reappeared here. This indicates that some kind of sentience took him and then returned him, seemingly unharmed, excepting that of his, as he said ‘splitting headache’.”

“But how do you explain the lack of evidence of, well, anything indicating where he went, how he got there, and how he got back?” asked Vaylor

“I can not, I can only hypothesize possibilities of it, for instance an unknown life form with technology far beyond that of anything we have ever seen teleported him off of our ship, and onto theirs, obviously cloaked from all readings and sensors, including that of their engines, shields, and weapons.” explained Durgam

Vaylor looked and blinked at Durgam a couple of times, then turned to L’nall “You’ve been rather quiet during this conversation, do you have any theories of what happened to the Captain?”

“I’m just glad he’s back” she said in response as she got up to go to her bunk down and across from the Captains.

After watching L’nall enter her bunk Vaylor turned back to Durgam, “What’s with her?” he asked.

“I assume she is glad our Captain has retur –” Durgam cut himself off as he noticed the interior lights of the ship flicker then fade out leaving the ship in absolute darkness and drifting uncontrolled through space.

Vaylor began to exclaim “What the –” but was cut off by a sharp bang and thud coming from L’nall’s bunk, at least he thought it was that direction, with what seemed to be the power cut off gravitational control was lost and so his directional equilibrium was off, and in the darkness he could not even see the fingers of his hands in front of his face even with his palm touching his nose.

A bright light illuminated Vaylor’s face “Hey!” he yelled.

“I apologize.” stated Durgam who seemed almost comfortable in his speech despite the situation “It seems we have lost power, it is safe to assume we have lost life support as well, we must be careful to conserve oxygen for the time being.”

Durgam scanned the bulkhead using the small service light in which there are many stored aboard the ship within close reach to most extended resting positions, such as the table, the pilots seat, each of the bunks, and there is even one in the cockpit of the merlin, a small close-support fighter for additional defense of their starship.

Stopping at the captains bunk, “It seems our Captain is still asleep. Perhaps we should wake him.” Durgam pointed out.