The Four Thieves

"Woah! This is my first time seeing this kind of aircraft. This was probably well-crafted by a professional. Who was the previous owner of this aircraft before you stole this?"

"What? This is my aircraft. I didn't steal anything from anybody."

Davy moved his body and tried to stand up from the chair that he was tied on, but failed and almost fell sideways because even his feet were tied to the feet of the chair. He groaned and glared at these four people who were invading his aircraft, looking around and basically touching everything without his permission.

"Here, I thought we'd hit the jackpot with this luxurious-looking aircraft."

"My aircraft is luxurious. Free me, you buffoons!"

"Luxurious without any food but stolen ones from a desperate, exploding planet."

"Yeah… That's the only flaw. But hey! That's my own problem to solve. You're not welcome here. Get out of my aircraft!" 

His fit fell on deaf ears. Actually, all that he had been saying had been falling on deaf ears as these four strangers were roaming around his aircraft in wonder and awe. He couldn't blame them; there was even pride inside him while he was tied to a chair while he watched their awed faces. He really got a one-of-a-kind aircraft. 

"Maybe we could overtake this aircraft now? It will bring us to Exoshelm without any problem," the girl with black shoulder-length hair, a portion was tied at the back, with layered bangs. She looked cute and innocent, almost looking like she couldn't hurt a fly, only that she was the one who brutally tied him up in this chair. 

"What should we do to that man then?" Piotr asked.

Out of these four, he was the only one who was named in their entire conversation. It was very seldom that they called each other by their names. Mostly, they called each other 'hey', 'psst', 'fool', and all the like other than their names.

Because of the shameless plan about him that they were talking right in the same place as him, Davy panicked. "You can't get rid of me! My voice, my fingerprint, and everything about me are connected to this aircraft. I am its heart. Try moving the plane, and it won't respond."

"Try it, Maddox," Piotr ordered, nudging the chubby guy complaining earlier about his empty pantry. It was the first thing that he did, ask him where his pantry was located and check it, and then complain when he saw that it was empty.

Maddox went to the controller and studied it at first. Then he held the stick shaft, which controlled the direction of the aircraft. He tried to move it to the side, but the stick shaft just moved, but the aircraft didn't follow through, and the whole place turned red, and an emergency sound shocked everyone. 

"Alert! A new invasive fingerprint is detected. Waiting for a command to get rid of the intrusion, captain."

"What's that?" The girl with brown hair flowed freely to her back, oozing with confidence just by her stance, and certainly beautiful though her face lacked emotion.

From what Davy could see, she was their leader. Though Piotr was the one who commanded and ordered everyone around, he was listening to this girl as if he respected her so much. 

"It's the smart AI that listens to whatever this person is saying. This aircraft can be voice-commanded, and it only listens to this person. So, I hate to admit it, but we need him," Piotr answered with a disappointed tone while glancing at him. 

"Then block his mouth with anything," the tall and beautiful leader said casually as she looked around once again. "We don't need him yet. The direction of this aircraft is set to the planet just near the Exoshelm. We are on the right track unless he's also here for the same reason."

Everyone looked at him with their questioning and curious gaze. Davy creased his forehead and returned the same questioning and clueless face to them. "What? You can't look at me like that and not talk. I'm not an alien."

"Which planet are you from?" the girl with short hair asked. She sat on the other swivel chair that his father put there only for decoration because he had never had company to occupy that ever since. Was he expecting him to have someone? That was why he put it there? Huh. What a joke.

"Earth, of course. Have you seen any other planet with the same feature as us? We're the only ones," he replied, looking at them as if they asked the stupidest question there was to ask.

From all the planets that he had visited, everyone looked weird. Either it was their skin color, it was their faces, their height, or any part of their bodies. There were no residents of the other planets who resembled those who were on Earth. 

"So, it's true. Earthlings really thought they were the most superior beings in the whole universe," Piotr spoke out, snorting and obviously disappointed at what he had heard. He looked like the serious, boring friend who didn't find any of the jokes the joker was throwing funny.

Davy was confused. He didn't know what they were talking about and why they were calling him earthlings when they looked exactly the same. They couldn't possibly be people who were from other planets, were they? That was just impossible. He had been to a lot of planets, and he had already set his mind that there were no other beings in the universe that shared the same feature as perfect and as beautiful as they looked. 

They didn't look like they were just making fun of him or were just trying to prank him, and they would laugh so loud right after they fooled him. But they were looking at him with impassiveness. It made his mouth open wide, and once again eyed them with thorough awareness.

They weren't anything different from him, and he was sure that they had the same body parts as him. They even had different colors of eyes and different colors of hair. They were like the people on Earth.

"What? Weren't you living on the same planet as mine?" he asked in surprise. There was no way… The whole universe was wide, and he knew six years or so wouldn't be enough to visit all of the planets, but where did they really live? And how come the people on Earth didn't know about this while they seemed to know about them?

"No. We're from Kepler 452b. You are the first Earthling we encountered upon our twenty-five years of traveling the universe," Maddox replied, munching on the green jelly candy that he got from the bag he used to steal the food from the exploding planet. "We do look like the people from the Earth, but we're definitely more good-looking, right Zarah?"

Zarah, the short-haired girl, flipped her short hair and fixed her bangs as she smiled attractively at Maddox. "No doubt about that, Mads. But we can't deny that this person looked… decent."

"Hah. Look at you. The decent to you means an extremely attractive and handsome man that you would certainly date if the situation is different," Maddox replied, making a face at the girl who only smirked in reply. 

Davy was flattered. But that wasn't what caught his attention. "Excuse me for a second. Twenty-five years? You were already traveling the universe for twenty-five years?" 

"Yeah. We were born in an aircraft. We were the third generation of space travelers from our planet. Since the aircraft where our grandparents were in, we stayed in space, jumping from planet to planet and making babies in the aircraft and would stop by one planet to give birth and all those events which brought us here in this world. In short, we have never been on our planet, and we were born on different planets."

Davy couldn't imagine it. He knew that people had been wild about space traveling before, and there were a lot of people who were already traveling the universe, but he hadn't heard about people almost living in space, making babies, and giving birth. How did they learn, then?

"Luisa, show me a picture or a live view of Kepler 452b and any more information about this if you have any, please," he spoke to Luisa, curious about this planet that they were talking about and how come it wasn't known to the Earth even when a few kinds of aliens had already visited the Earth. 

"Connecting to Kepler 452b's satellite… It will take another two minutes. While waiting, this is the information about Kepler 452b."

The huge screen showed different information about the planet. The terrestrial, water, and oxygen composition percentage were almost the same as on Earth. It was larger in size and older in age. The population was a little lesser than the Earth's.

The star it was revolving around was the giant star Kepler 452. The people's features, their language, the hours per day, and the days in a year were almost the same, but they seemed more advanced and smarter. But all in all, they were like the twin of the Earth. 

"The distance between Earth and Kepler 452b is unimaginably far, though it was shortened through the advancement of aircraft, but it still takes centuries to reach the mutual point where Earth and Kepler 452b could cross paths. This, right here, is the middle point of the two planets."

"Your… whatever it is that is speaking is right," Maddox agreed, looking up to spot where Luisa probably was. "It's four generations, in our case, tried and tested, before reaching this point. And the minimum life span of an individual on our planet is one hundred and twenty years, so if it's four-generation, imagine how long it would take us here."

"The access for live viewing of Kepler 452b is accepted, showing now the images of the planet." 

The screen showed a live view of the planet and a few pictures at the side. Davy's eyes widened in awe because this planet looked healthier than the Earth. It looked the same as the Earth, though there was more water than land. But the way of living, the building structures, and the people were exactly just the same as the Earth. It was a mind-boggling fact that he only learned now. 

The four were silent as they watched the live view with amazement in their eyes. If they were born and raised in space, then they didn't know what their real planet looked like, and this was probably the first time they saw it or the live view of it. They probably only saw pictures and had no idea about their race, and now they were given the opportunity through Luisa. 

"Why, though? Why are you here, and why aren't you returning to your planet when you have already gone to many planets? What's the goal of your journey?"

"We are off to Exos-"

"I don't think sharing what we are, and our history is a good thing to do in the first meeting, Zarah."

"Uh… Oops? I just realized that too late. I'm sorry, Valdis," Zarah replied, apologetically looking at the girl with long brown hair and a leader-like stance and presence. Now that Zarah called her, he now knew all of them. 

Valdis, the probable leader. Zarah, the smart and info-geek. Maddox, the one who was always hungry. Piotr, the brutal buff.

"Cover his mouth now."

"W-wait, I still have-" He didn't get to finish his complaint when Piotr went to him and covered his mouth with his handkerchief. He made sure to open Davy's mouth and stuck the folded cloth in so he wouldn't be speaking clearly. 

Davy had a lot of questions. Being born on a planet and being raised on an aircraft would be hard. How did they keep living? How did they adapt to the environment of space travelers? How were they raised? How did they become thieves? Where were their parents now? Why wouldn't they go back to their planet?

But how would he know the answers when he was just merely making a blabbering noise instead of comprehensible ones? They were more brutal and cruel. That was their difference from Earthlings.