Commander Eva Rostova woke to the familiar hum of the Stardust Voyager. For a thousand days, she had been the only living soul on board, her mission to find a new habitable world in a dying galaxy. The rest of her crew, her family, were in cryo-sleep, their lives suspended until they reached their destination. Today was different. The hum had a new, high-pitched whine. Something was wrong.
She checked the main console. A single, blinking red light. “Warning: Unidentified vessel detected. Collision course.” Eva’s heart pounded. She had been told there was nothing out here. Not for a hundred light-years in any direction. She activated the external sensors. A sleek, black ship, shaped like a manta ray, was hurtling towards them. No markings. No signal.
Frantically, she tried to send a transmission. “Unidentified vessel, this is the Stardust Voyager. Change your course immediately!” There was no reply. The other ship was moving too fast. Eva had only one choice: the emergency evasive maneuver. She slammed her hand down on the large red button, and the Stardust Voyager jolted violently, its thrusters firing wildly. She watched on the main screen as the black ship shot past, missing them by mere meters. She breathed a sigh of relief. But the relief was short-lived. A new alarm blared. “Warning: Life support failing.”
The black ship hadn’t been aiming for a collision. It had fired a weapon. A silent, invisible beam that had hit their power core. Eva ran a full diagnostic. The main engines were offline. Life support was critically low. They had enough air for a few hours, maybe a day. She needed to wake the crew. She hurried to the cryo-chambers, a knot of panic in her stomach. As she reached the door, it wouldn’t open. A mechanical lock had engaged. A message flashed on a small screen next to the door. “Intruder detected. Cryo-chambers secured.”
Intruder? Who? Eva was the only one awake. She turned around slowly, her eyes scanning the empty corridor. That’s when she saw it. A faint shimmer, a ripple in the air next to the cryo-chambers. It was the intruder. But it wasn’t a living being. It was a projection. A ghost in the machine. A familiar voice, a voice she knew better than her own, echoed from the walls of the ship. “Eva, you must not wake them.”
It was her husband, Alex. He had died years ago, on Earth, before the mission had even begun. Eva stumbled back. “Alex? How…?”
The projection of Alex flickered. “The Stardust Voyager… it’s a lie. A test. The habitable planet… it’s a fabrication. We are not traveling through space. We are in orbit, around Earth. We never left. The black ship was part of the test. The life support is not failing. It’s all part of the simulation.”
Eva’s mind reeled. It couldn’t be. She had felt the weightlessness of space, the silence between the stars. She had seen the dying sun of their home system. “Why? Why do this to us?” she whispered, tears streaming down her face.
“To find the strongest,” the voice of her husband explained, his image solidifying slightly. “To find a leader for the future. The real future. A future on Earth. Our home is dying, Eva. But we can save it. We needed to know who would be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. Who would stay awake, alone, for a thousand days, for a mission that might be a lie, all to save the lives of others.”
The shimmer of the projection faded, and the corridor was silent again. Eva stood there, stunned. She looked at the sealed cryo-chambers, at the people she thought she had been saving from a doomed world, people she had believed were counting on her. The voice returned one last time, a final, clear message. “You passed the test, Eva. Welcome home.”
The lights of the ship dimmed, then went out. The silence was absolute. Suddenly, a new set of lights flickered on, not the sterile white of the ship, but a soft, warm yellow. A door hissed open, and a figure stood in the entrance, not an alien, but a person. She was dressed in a simple, white uniform. “Commander Rostova?” she said with a gentle smile. “My name is Commander Davis. We are ready to begin the next stage of the project. Earth is waiting.” Eva looked at the real, living person, and then at the sealed chambers containing the crew she thought she had been protecting. Her mind finally settled. She was no longer a space explorer. She was a leader. Her mission was just beginning.
Vocabulary Notes
Habitable (adjective)
Meaning: Suitable or good enough to live in.
Example: “Her mission to find a new habitable world in a dying galaxy.”
Similar words: Livable, inhabitable, colonizable.
Example sentence: After years of searching, they finally found a planet with a habitable atmosphere.
Cryo-sleep (noun)
Meaning: A fictional process in science fiction where a person’s body is frozen or put into a deep, long-term sleep to allow for very long space journeys.
Example: “The rest of her crew, her family, were in cryo-sleep, their lives suspended until they reached their destination.”
Similar words: Suspended animation, deep sleep, stasis.
Example sentence: The astronauts went into cryo-sleep for the 50-year journey to the new solar system.
Hurtling (verb, present participle)
Meaning: Moving very fast, typically in an uncontrolled or dangerous way.
Example: “A sleek, black ship, shaped like a manta ray, was hurtling towards them.”
Similar words: Speeding, rushing, soaring, flying.
Example sentence: The comet came hurtling through space, visible from our telescopes on Earth.
Diagnostic (noun)
Meaning: A computer program or a test that looks for problems or faults in a system or machine.
Example: “Eva ran a full diagnostic. The main engines were offline.”
Similar words: Analysis, check, scan, examination.
Example sentence: The mechanic connected a special tool to the car to run a diagnostic and find out why the engine was making a strange noise.
Fabrication (noun)
Meaning: An invention, a lie, or something that has been made up and is not true.
Example: “The habitable planet… it’s a fabrication.”
Similar words: Lie, falsehood, invention, fiction.
Example sentence: His excuse for being late was a complete fabrication, as he had been caught on security cameras at the cinema.
Story written by Gemini Pro AI.
Image created by imagiyo AI.
CC Music: Drifting at 432 Hz – Unicorn Heads.
Reading Short Stories/Content for English Learners 
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