Far deep in interstellar space, billions of stars, perfectly unmoving, dot the infinite void; a peaceful omnipotence created from chaos. Among the two-hundred billion points of light was an insignificant speck suspended in the vacuum travelling at an abysmal forty-nine million kilometers per hour. That speck was a stolen Confederacy ship; an efficient vessel designed for its resilience—although, it was fast enough to travel from the earth to the sun in twenty-four hours, it had been damaged. While it was being commandeered, a lucky shot pierced the hull and lodged itself inside the fusion reactor creating a small leak. But the thief was in no real danger, as the radiation was only leaking to the outside. However, with the ships main energy source slowly exuding power, the interior temperature of the ship plummeted to a blistering -6 C˚. In the last year, the ship had been in hot pursuit of the CFS Praetoria (a capital flagship of the Confederation)—its new pilot had been following the flagship since it left Earth but lost all trace of it somewhere inside the Orion Spur. Only a few months ago, was that trail rediscovered. By himself, all while hurtling millions of kilometers through an endless void, he was starting to lose his mind. A tired Kieran Manes sings to himself in melodic off-key tones trying not to freeze to death in the damaged ship. “I am the reaper… here with my cleaver…chop up your sister…eat her for dinner…”
He was lounging in the pilot’s chair frozen in a state of self-meditation—a kind of mental calm he forces his mind to go into while slipping into a passive existence. It was only recently that he had fully embraced the power of this obliviousness. Kieran often ad-libbed tunes to himself while ignoring his surroundings—It was so cold in the cabin that a sheen of ice covered every surface--They say freezing to death is peaceful. You just kind of go to sleep. Directly in front of him, was a control panel littered with dozens of blinking lights. He didn’t understand the complex array of buttons and switches and mostly used it as a foot-rest. Along the control panel, in the center, was the Heads-Up Display. Acting as a virtual computer, it displayed useful data and information that included: the ship’s vector, relative position, and current speed. It also warned him of any system malfunctions or incoming threats with a sharp siren. The HUD had been alerting him of a critical system malfunction for the last few days. But because the emphatic alarm took him out of his meditations, he muted it. Now, he stares at the silent flashes, hypnotizing him into lethargy. What’s this? Kieran snapped out of his stupor. The navigation system of his HUD was blinking, notifying him that he had entered the edge of a star system; and his current destination. YES! “I knew you could do it baby, I never doubted you one minute.” He said, rubbing the hull of the cockpit, congratulating the ship. Kieran often took to talking to his ship, treating it like if it were a person to combat the loneliness—he had even given it a name, Astra. “How much further now?” The ship didn’t respond. “Hey, don’t be that way.” He unfolded his arm and toggled through different screens. “Three AU?” Three astronomical units to go. He would be touching down in no more than nine hours. He removed the heavy confederate jacket found onboard when he stole it and was using it as a blanket draped over his shoulders. As he got up and stretched, his muscles were in rigor, his joints were made of lead, and his ass was a throng of ants scurrying around his nerves, sending jolts of pain to his spine. “Mmph!” That’s better. Now, for some goddamn coffee. He walked through his cabin, past the captain’s quarters, across from the docking bay door, and adjacent to the engine room, to a large opened area that housed the coffee maker. Kieran placed an empty thermos underneath the dispenser and took a tube of nutrient paste from a metal cabinet. DING! His coffee was done. When he went to grab it, the ship rumbled and the dying lights inside the ship flickered—they never recovered. “Whoa…Astra!?” What the fuck was that? Feeling that it may have been an anomaly or a fluctuation of electricity, Kieran grabbed his coffee and took a testing sip before the ship rumbled again, this time more violently. Hot coffee spilled down his neck and through his beard. “SHIT!” He waited a few seconds until the emergency back-up lights turned on. “Astra! What the hell is going on!?” He went back to the cockpit and saw the HUD flashing red. Shit… Peacekeepers! “You couldn’t have warned me, Astra!?”—he didn’t mean to take it out on her. Outside, two angular, metallic-white ships were firing at him. Apparently, since he muted the entire ship, he didn’t receive the multiple hailing signals or the warning that his ship was going to be fired upon. Fucking drones. “You’d think they’d give me a damned chance to respond. Screw me I guess for wanting to get some goddamn COFFEE!” He yelled at the drones as if they could hear him; they only kept firing. Kieran tried to communicate with them, but they ignored him, already deep into the lines of coding inside their attack protocol. “Son of a bitch!” The HUD’s screen that monitored damage was having an epileptic seizure. Every time the ship rumbled from the drone’s assault, the screen would shake violently as the ship’s electromagnetic shield strength dropped rapidly. Ninety-five percent, eighty-three percent, seventy-four percent, and falling. Kieran hated space travel and never learned how to properly operate a spaceship. He didn’t know what to do; his chest tightened as every wall began to fall in on him. “Think…think.” If they keep firing, I’m a dead man. If I fire back, the fusion core will overload, it’ll blow up, and I will die. “Think damnit, think!” If I try to outrun them, they’ll hit the propulsion engines, they’ll blow up and I’ll die. “SHIT!” Kieran sprinted through the cabin, bracing himself against the walls as he dashed toward the engine room, trying not to fall when the ship jolted. The focal point of the engine room was the massive fusion reactor—it was hard not to notice it when you entered; as it took up most of the available space. However, Kieran wasn’t looking for the reactor itself, he was looking for a control panel; anything he could find. There! He spotted a panel that said DANGER: DO NOT TAMPER written in aggressive letters. He opened it and saw a hive of wires and transistors. “Maybe I can hotwire the current and force the electromagnetic field to fry them?” If there’s any left… He saw worn-out labels; each word was equally perplexing: POLARITY-FLUX, POLARITY-PERMEABILITY, CAPACITANCE-MAIN, REACTANCE-PHASE SHIFT. What the hell do these mean? Gripped by uncertainty at his own ineptitude, Kieran made a split-decision. He rewired, cross-wired, and splint wired until something happened. A spark came from one of the new connections and forced him back. Shit…please do something? “DO SOMETHING!” He screamed, banging on the panel. The reactor thrummed in response. All light in the ship vanished; the only thing visible was the glow from the nuclear engine. “Oh no. No, no, no…” Well, I’m done for…I’m sorry Astra. Kieran placed his forehead on the wall, defeated. “It’s over.” The emergency lights came back on. He was speechless; his mind was blank; he patiently waited for something to happen. The reactor pulsed; The protective electromagnetic shield, that the reactor generated, flared outward momentarily then collapsed. The drones pursuing the Astra started to wobble. The current that propelled the ship, reversed; creating a magnet. Both Peacekeepers tried to correct their flight, but the electromagnetic force proved too strong. As the magnetic-field caught hold of the drones, Kieran ran to the HUD to see what was happening. But before he could reach the cockpit, both drones smashed into the ship. The impact forced the reactor to shut off and slammed Kieran against a wall; the magnetic-field eventually subsided—Both unconscious, Kieran and Astra drift peacefully toward a young dwarf-star. Comments are closed.
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Editorial Staff
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