Short Story: Dead in the Water

As this blog is a chance for me to simultaneously give myself a purpose and structure for daily writing exercises, it stands to reason that some of the days need to be devoted to just that: writing.

So, without further ado, welcome to the first short story published for all eyes to feast upon, written in one sitting of roughly half an hour.

The silence came as a surprise.  Given the deafening cacophony of the previous twelve minutes, it seemed odd that silence should conquer such devastation so quickly.  They tried to warn me in training what these moments would be like, but it’s something else to experience it first hand.

Spinning slowly in the debris, strapped to my crash webbing, I had gone from confident petty officer in my element to simple passenger on the last voyage of my life.  The stars swam sickeningly through the hole which had once been a sealing bulkhead of the east wing of the ship, evidence of the violence which had wrenched it from the superstructure.  Through it, I could see the beautiful lines of the IGNS Dauntless as she blossomed flame over and over in critical areas.  Shields depleted in the hours long dogfight against a foe that vastly outmatched her, I couldn’t help but feel pride as she blocked out the swirling heavens.  She had given her all, outperforming anything that should have reasonably been expected.

A terrifying ball of flame and debris shot into space along the lower midsection of Dauntless.  There goes the life support, I thought sadly to myself.  Per IGN training and ship regulations, I knew the crew had two hours to abandon ship.  As a veteran petty officer of six separate combat missions, I knew deep in my bones that the crew didn’t have twenty minutes, let alone two whole hours.  The nearest safe planet for emergency landfall was sixteen hours away along the hyper-loop.  No chance of that with the Kithlarens so heavily entrenched along the eastern junctions.  I probably wouldn’t make it to the loop-dock, even if I had a lifeboat to escape this blasted wreckage. 

I knew such thoughts were merely my mind taking itself away from the inevitable: I had front row seats to the death of the only thing within a hundred light years that could offer me salvation.  I was crash webbed onto the wall of a derelict husk blown free without access to life support beyond my miraculously intact suit.  I was spinning hard, which would mean that any attempt to cut free of my webbing would bang me around like a marble in a cleaning pod.  As it stood, my emergency heat packs would last another hour, maybe two.  Then it would be a race between hypothermia and asphyxiation.  Not an easy way to go, to be sure, I thought grimly.

At last, the enemy managed to land a direct hit on the ion propulsion system.  More importantly, a hit on the several dozen reactors which powered the behemoth of an engine.  Brilliant blue light spilled from the rear thrust nozzles, a sure death knell.  Only seconds later, I was forced to shut my eyes as all the reactors blew at once.  I screamed in agony as the blast burned my eyes through my lids and my blast helmets glare shielding simultaneously.  It was a shaky few minutes as I panted in pain, until my vision finally came back into focus from the blinding flash.  Thousands of miles away, IGNS Dauntless was no more.  Final orders in Kithlaren space meant that no lifeboats had been launched.  There would be no prisoners for them to torture.  Don’t worry comrades I thought with savage pride swelling my heart I saw your courage at the last.  It was a privilege to serve with you.  

 Debris like a thousand tiny dust motes spread across my field of vision.  The stars continued their spinning dance as I lay helpless and immobile.  Oddly, even at the end, I didn’t feel regret for my actions or remorse at my impending death.  I had known, always knew, that combat would take me in the end.  The actions of the Kithlaren had sealed our fate: fight or die.  There was no reasoning with them, no bargaining, no diplomacy.  Strike fast and strike hard, or watch as all humanity died to flame and terror.  Not much of a choice, really..

Eventually, it began growing colder in my suit, the alarms pinging on the inside of my blast helmet long since silenced.  The air grew stale as my refreshing units failed one by one.  Eventually, my thoughts grew sluggish, and I began thinking of quiet times spent playing cards with the other petty officers.  Nights spent planning what to do with our combat pay, moments of pride at objectives successfully met, moments of loss and melancholy as we sent the dead out to explore the vastness of the universe for all eternity.  Consciousness eventually gave way to blackness, and the last thought I had staring out at the infinite majesty of the cosmos wasn’t one of fear, one of terror, or one of despair.  It was a sense of wonder, as if I was seeing the endless glory of space for the first time.

Fin
Justin