It was a simple supply run. Tommy was supposed to take industrial crates from the planet Nether to next planet in the orbital rings: the Overworld. Tommy had made the trip over a hundred times, and he could handle any problem his star-ship, Clementine, could throw at him. Nothing about the situation was out of the ordinary. He was taking the average weight across the same distance he did at the same time on the Universal Clock. Tommy had slept before he made the trip, so he was awake enough to watch out for asteroids should they appear in his path. Tommy had made sure his ship was filled with enough plasma to take him around the galaxy multiple times, let alone one trip between side-by-side planets. In fact, Tommy didn't have any problems until he heard something moving around in the back.

"Clara, set Clementine to autopilot," Tommy said as he tried to look past the doorway from the cockpit to the storage area. When nothing seemed out of the ordinary, Tommy was going to leave it alone, but he heard another noise. Tommy was scared that an animal had wandered on while the men were loading up the cargo. That, or the cargo itself was animals. Tommy didn't ask questions when Dream told him what shipments to pick up and what to deliver to where and by what time. Tommy took orders and made sure the HR department had work.

"Theseus, I set Clementine to autopilot every time you appear distracted. This is a safety precaution you programmed me with," Clara responded from the digital prison she was locked in. Clara was an AI that Tommy had programmed when he was younger. Once Tommy had acquired Clementine, he placed the AI in Clementine to monitor the internal mechanics. Tommy had dealt with the problems that Clara felt the need to inform him about. Tommy had been saving up to purchase cameras for Clara to see the inside of the ship with, but Tommy would admit that he was hesitant to buy them or risk Clara making fun of his appearance.

"If you're gonna be a bitch, I'll un-program you," Tommy retorted with a huff as he made his way into the storage room. Even though this room took up most of the interior space of Clementine, it was rather small compared to the larger ships that real companies used. Clementine was entirely Tommy's. Dream had allowed him to use her under the conditions that Tommy get his job done in a timely manner. I may run an illegal mobilization ring, Dream would say, that doesn't mean I don't run this company professionally.

"I have been programmed with the definition of 'bitch', and my previous words and actions do not align with that definition. It would not be inaccurate to say that instead of me being a bitch, you, Theseus, are being an asshole," Clara explained in her monotone voice that Tommy could swear he heard emotions in. Tommy had to remind himself that Clara had been made of coding instead of DNA. He was almost positive that the AI his youthful self made was haunted by a ghost named Clara.

"I can be an asshole, but I haven't been one today!" Tommy yelled at her as he found the courage to open one of the crates. He hadn't found anything in between the metals cubes, but the noise was persistent meaning that something was inside the crates. Tommy looked through three before he found what was making the noise. Inside one of the crates, surrounded by illegally processed pints of plasma was an unconscious human being. "Shit! Clara, we have a stowaway. Set up a comms link with Dr- ah!"

Tommy fell to his butt as something rammed against his ship. Tommy heard the man starting to wake up, but he was already on his way to the cockpit. Tommy looked over the holographic view of his ship that was illuminated in the corner to see that something had slammed against Clementine's left wing. Nothing had broken off but it was badly damaged. Another hit would surely take his wing off, and that would put Tommy in hot water. Tommy threw himself into his seat, manually switching off autopilot. Tommy's fingers roughly pulled back on the gearshift, the ship's outer gravity switching to magnetic repulsion. The next hit that would have taken Clementine's left wing was diverted into the cosmos above the ship.

"Clara, run diagnostic check!" Tommy yelled as he looked at his rear camera. Riding behind him was a fighter ship that could only be owned by the Empire. It was made of a sleek, silvery metal with the purple lights of the Empire's specially engineered plasma that made all their ships run better than everyone else. Tommy knew those ships like the back of his hand. What Tommy didn't know is why one of those ships was trying to make him crash. Tommy got his answer when he heard someone groan in the storage room. The unconscious man had woken up, rubbing his head as he held onto the doorway to the cockpit.

"Hey! What the fuck, mate? What the hell did you do to get the Empire on my back?" Tommy demanded as he turned to look at the man. Tommy didn't get a long look as he realized what he had said. Tommy swerved Clementine to the side that way the next strike from the Empire's fighter missed the ship by a few inches. Tommy spun the ship in a circle to confuse the fighter, but the Empire's pilot knew what he was doing. Tommy wouldn't be able to shake him by normal means.

"Theseus, it appears that the internal core is running on temperatures higher than average. The ship will explode if you continue at this speed," Clara helpfully put in as Tommy realized that smoke was starting to escape from the engine in front of him. Tommy released a string of cuss words as he tried his best to use the magnetic repulsion to throw the laser beams off course instead of dodging them. This let the engine cool down for a second, but Tommy was still getting chased. If he couldn't change his velocity, he would need to maintain a constant speed to keep the engine from overheating. Clementine wasn't made for high speeds or defense. She was made for carrying heavy goods at a constant rate.

"It's Techno's fault, really. The Empire is after him, not me," The man piped up. Tommy sent a glare his way that made the man shut up. With that glare, Tommy identified that the man was a scout for whatever planet he came from. Tommy didn't know who Techno was, or who this brunette was, but they seemed connected. The Empire would want to drag the man's ass back to their HQ just like this Techno fella. Tommy would be taken with them as an accessory. If he was anyone else, he would have let the Empire take all three of them in. Dream would understand why Tommy was late if the Empire was involved. The problem with that would be that Tommy was carrying illegal goods for a company that shouldn't exist. It didn't help that Tommy had his own reasons for running from the government.

Tommy could see that they had passed the Overworld. Even if he was able to bypass the security without the Empire interfering, Tommy knew that he could lead the law enforcers to Dream's base. No, Tommy would need to go further out. If Tommy wanted to survive this encounter, he would need to go all the way to the edge of the solar system. That was where the furtherest planet from Mother Star was: the End. A befitting name for the last planet to be discovered in over a hundred years. Tommy could crash land on the End, but the Dragon Force- the elite soldiers of the End's government- would have him shot down without questions asked if he was too close to the End capital. Tommy would need to try for one of the End's moons, but that was risky for another reason. The End had two major moons: Antarctic and Luna. If Tommy landed on the Antarctic moon, he would be dealing with the most powerful alien species in the universe. Luna was Tommy's only bet, but that moon was easy to miss with how small it was. Tommy would have rather take his chances with getting back to the Nether, the planet closest to Mother Star. Tommy would have done that if the End didn't have one key feature: its unique atmosphere.

"Hold on to your asses, everyone, this will be a bumpy ride!" Tommy yelled to the back where he saw another man (Techno?) starting to crawl out of a crate. Tommy took a sharp breath before pressing down on the accelerator. His eyes flashed from direction to direction as his brain did all the calculating. Tommy placed one hand on the gearshift, the other gripping the wheel like a lifeline. Tommy counted as the emergency lights around him blinked red to alert him of how much Clementine was overheating. Tommy kept a steady eye on the intensity of Clara's warnings on the screen before him. Tommy began counting down from three, and when he had uttered the last syllable, he pulled the gearshift back all the way. The engine cut off immediately. Clementine was free floating in space. Tommy took a deep breath as he continued in his head, eyes pinned on the rear camera. The laser beam was trained on them.

Three

The man was yelling at Tommy, something about their lives being at risk. Tommy drowned him out. He couldn't handle the man's yelling on top of Clara's whisper-yelling. Clara was a mix between trying to convince Tommy to resign to his death and getting him to act towards protecting himself. She hadn't been programmed with the three laws of robotics, but Clara would protect Tommy because they were friends despite their arguing.

Two

Tommy kept a steady gaze on the screen to make sure that every calculation had been taken care of. Tommy hoped Dream would forgive him for being late. It was better than being dead, hopefully. Tommy had caused Dream lots of trouble over the years, but it wasn't like Dream wanted him dead. If that were the case, Dream would have sent him on a suicide mission years prior. Unless this was the suicide mission... but it couldn't have been this. Dream was smart enough to know that this would be Tommy's plan. And he wouldn't get people he didn't trust involved unless absolutely necessary. Dream wouldn't have set Tommy up with fugitive stowaways on board because that would be risky for Dream. No, Tommy would survive should he make this plan work.

One

Tommy cut the engine back on. Clementine gliding upwards. The laser beam passed right under it, slamming into the topmost layer of the End's atmosphere. Unlike every other atmosphere, the End's atmosphere was like an anti-void for energy. The laser beam bounced off the atmosphere to slam into the Empire's fighter. Tommy watched the flames eat up the metal ship, and he could imagine the intense sound that thundered after it. Tommy pumped his fist in the air as he landed his ship on Luna. The man had stopped yelling with a shocked face, and Clara was informing Tommy extremely loudly that Clementine would not be able to go much further. Clementine didn't even make it all the way to the rocky surface of Luna before the engine cut off.

Tommy breathed out for a few seconds before he leaped to his feet. He turned towards the two stowaways in his cargo. "What the fucking hell were you two thinking?! We could have died because of your bullshit! Worse than that, Clementine could have been destroyed beyond repair. This is a classic L1-SA, okay? They can only handle so much before the engine's fucked up!"

Tommy had Clara running diagnostics as he pulled on a space suit. He had to slam the helmet on one of the crates to get the light to work, but otherwise his suit was in perfect working condition. It was old but not ready to be thrown away. Tommy couldn't afford another one. Especially not after his ship was nearly destroyed by the Empire's fighter. Tommy loathed to think about the price of damages. Tommy was forced to think about it when he opened the hatch. Smoke billowed out along with a puff of steaming air. Tommy waved a hand around. A fire had been set on the inside. Tommy waited for the lack of oxygen to kill it, but the fire remained steady. Tommy was at least reassured that if his suit malfunctioned, he could last a few seconds.

The first guy to wake up came towards Tommy, gripping the side of Clementine as he tried getting used to the gravity. Tommy didn't have that problem. His body naturally adjusted to gravity fields, though the same could not said for temperatures or atmospheric conditions. The guy stopped right beside Tommy with a pained look pulling his features back. He was a brunette with brown eyes beneath tinted glasses, and he was wearing a yellow jacket tied around his waist to show off his military gear around his chest. Tommy could see a white colored gun in its holster beneath the jacket when the man had shifted to the side, hidden from view but easy enough to grab. "Umm... hello? I'm Wilbur. The other guy in there is Techno. We didn't mean to be stowaways on your ship. We had been in a fight with these Empire guys, and they had knocked us unconscious into those crates. I suppose we had been sealed up and placed on your ship. Your AI has informed us of your predicament with the ship. Another matter worth mentioning is that a man named Dream is trying to reach you through comms."

"You should have fucking led with that!" Tommy snapped as he tapped the screen on the side of his suit. Clara's voice filled the silence to say that Dream was connecting. In a few moments, Tommy was communicating with Dream. "It wasn't my fault this time. I'm serious. It wasn't. The Empire must have been tipped about the illegal plasma."

"Have you evaded them with the goods intact?" Dream asked. Tommy was thankful that his suit didn't have visual communication. It was hard enough lying to Dream with his voice, it would be impossible to look that man in the face and say something untruthful. Tommy would have said something about Wilbur and Techno, but he didn't want to clean up the bodies Dream would tell him to drop. Tommy would rather leave the bastards to rot on Luna while he got the plasma to the Overworld.

"No one's on my ass right now, but Clementine is two feet in the dirt on Luna, of all the fucking places. If the End or Antarctic find out that I'm here, all of this damn plasma will be confiscated... and I'll be dead. Or dissected, if the rumors are true," Tommy snapped angrily as he pulled out the energy port that charged the plasma with an Ender crystal. Tommy felt the heat radiate from the metal through his suit to his hands, but he wasn't about to drop important equipment. Tommy pried the box open with his hands. The crystal was steaming with heat, and Tommy could hear a hiss as the cold air of Luna blew into the box to surround the green crystal.

"I'm sure Clementine will be fine. I'll give you extra time this month to find materials on the Overworld's moon. In fact, I'll be heading to the Hypixel space station later today. I'll see what I can bargain for. This is all a treat for escaping the Empire with the plasma still secured," Dream compromised. Tommy pumped his fist in the air at the good news. All it took was risking his life and ship to get a bonus. "However, I need that plasma here as soon as possible. Do you know how long it will take before you make landfall here?"

"An hour if I push the system. I can maybe cut it down ten minutes if I turn off all unnecessary mechanics but that would include comms. Another five shaved off if I run the breathing gases every... the most I can go is seventeen minutes. Can you wait until then?" Tommy estimated as he did math in his head. Clementine's energy division was designed in a way that Tommy could shut down any little part that he needed to. It was for situations like these where Tommy needed to account for efficiency. When Dream gave a timeframe, Tommy would find a way to make that timeframe or risk getting fired. This was the only job that would accept Tommy.

"That's not preferable but it is doable. No more than an hour, Tommy. If you can't make it, I'll find someone else to take your spot," Dream said before the comms cut off. Tommy sighed despondently before he perked up. Tommy twisted his body to lean back into the engine. Nothing was broken, thankfully. The engine just wouldn't run until everything was sufficiently cooled off. Tommy had an internal cooling system, but it seemed his fan had melted. The melted metal was cooling, and the fan would get stuck if Tommy didn't do anything about that. The chain that protected the pipe that connected the main plasma supply line to the Ender crystal was seconds away from fraying. Tommy couldn't do anything about that with the materials in Clementine.

"What about us? Will we be going with you, or are you leaving us here?" Someone asked. Tommy lifted his body up, the sleeves of his suit covered in ash and burnt plasma. Tommy tilted his head to look at Wilbur, whose brown eyes were blown wide. It was probably because he overheard Tommy and Dream's conversation. Tommy couldn't blame the average guy from being shocked, but Tommy didn't have time to explain it to Wilbur.

"Fuck... I can't drop you off anywhere. You would need to head to the Overworld with me. You can't cause any other fucking problems. The one issue is that I'll be having the oxygen and shit blown through the ship once every seventeen minutes to conserve power. You'll probably die if you can't handle it," Tommy explained while rubbing a hand on his facial screen. He smudged the surface, but he couldn't care less about that. Tommy looked at Wilbur, noticing the necklace around his neck. Tommy's lips raised into a smile as he yanked the necklace from Wilbur's throat. The brunette gagged as Tommy undid the chain. He pulled off the gemstone that hung before using the new chain to replace his old. That would save him at least three minutes on run time. Wilbur held the gemstone to his heart like a wounded animal. Tommy shrugged. "Compensation. You've given me gray hairs, Wilbur."

"Techno did that. Those Empire bastards were pissed at him. I should know better than to involve myself in my brother's affairs," Wilbur sighed as he held the crystal to the Mother Star's light in the distance. Tommy stared at it, too, as Wilbur kept talking. "Techno decided that it would be interesting challenge the border patrol to a duel. When Techno won, the patrol remained upset. They chased after us until we came to a barge in the middle of space. I'm not sure how long we were unconscious for, but we need to be returning to our home moon very soon."

"I'm not a taxi surface, bitch boy. I'll take you to the Overworld, but you'll have to find your way back to whatever shithole you call home. Stowaway on someone else's ship or some other shit," Tommy said with a shrug as he put his engine back together. Tommy used his hands as tools, which didn't work out incredibly but it did what it was meant to do. Tommy and Wilbur returned to the ship when Tommy was done. Tommy sat down in the pilot's seat, his hands on the gearshift and steering wheel. As the first puff of air blew into Clementine before shutting down for seventeen minutes, Tommy wished that core didn't need lungs like a heart did.