Our scoutship will collide with the Centauri cruiser in under an hour, Earth time. We have hardly been able to imagine this encounter, after weeks of drifting trough the utter blackness of the Nebula. To see our final destination so close at hand, when we had sunk into despair, has revitalized our small crew. The four of us are all conscripts fresh from the sprawling capital of Fomalhaut, barely able to fire a blaze cannon or warm up the main engines without officer approval. So we had faltered when the next battle between Centauri and Loyalist forces in a string of border skirmishes had severed our power core and left us drifting ever closer the inexorable shadow of the cruiser.
Ill start with the battle. Nothing else makes any difference. This battle stranded us in the Nebula, this battle gave us the task we face today: board the cruiser and salvage it, or die of thirst in roughly four Earth days. Neither our families, nor our dreams, nor the little medallions of our dress uniforms mean **** against the pressing blackness of space.
When people think of a nebula, they think of a bright patch of light in the sky, usually bright orange or blue. None of that shading exists within. The hydrogen gas, just a tiny bit more prevalent in a nebula than out, bends light, absorbs it. The blackness might be a slight bit orange, but our eyes cant see it. No, a nebula is the only place in the galaxy where you can look out the porthole and not see a single star. Their light brightens the hulls of ships just as well as they do otherwise, but it is diffused. Unrecognizable. The same problem hits sensors, too. Radar detects a huge blob of something, not a ship. Optical detectors cant see past a few hundred klicks before a chunk of metal blends in with space. Only gravimetric sensors have a hope of scrying anything out of that omnipresent gloom.
Our ship didnt have any gravimetric sensors.
We were the vanguard for a flight of two destroyers (the Valiant and Indomitable) and their patrol boat flotilla, along with two dozen other scouts arranged in a hemisphere. The Nebula was the first waypoint on a trek through uninhabited systems, the goal of which only the Major knew. We screened the Nebula for hostiles, spaced widely to prevent our substandard sensors from severely limiting us. it all went to hell in a hand basket, though, when a frantic message arrived from the Valiant: Under attack, requesting assistance. The pilot threw the scoutship around, and gunned the engines.
We gathered more information as we closed with the destroyer. A Centauri cruiser had appeared among the ships and begun firing. The Majors Indomitable had been caught with its shields low, and was breached instantly. Its entire crew had perished by the time we arrived. The other had shifted its alignment to deliver a broadside into the cruiser, receiving as good as it got, and the two had broken off. The patrol boats had been easy targets for the opponent; only two remained operational when we began our assault. The cruiser had possess gravimetric sensors, it seemed, and looped around our defenses. It then hopped into and out of hyperspace for a nanosecond, popping into our midst like a ghost.
The cruiser began taking potshots at us as we closed, and we launched our payload directly at its bridge. We could feel the heat from dozens of impacts as we swung past the leviathan. We had reached the end of our run, and the pilot reversed thrust, bringing our scout to a dead halt within seconds. We inched past the zero mark when a rail smashed through our particle shields and ripped through our aft. The systems flickered for a second, then died. We jammed buttons and twisted knobs, searching for some remaining function, but failed. Our ship was dead in space. The battle still raged before us.
It ended several minutes later when the Valiant fired its last barrage of torpedoes at the Centauris, and received a flurry of laser fire in return. The destroyer burst in flames as oxygen escaped the hull, and died quickly down into blackness as the last air trailed away in a solid mist. The Valiants shell continued on its course, smashing directly into the cruisers midsection. The silent explosion that vivisected the enemy chilled us.
We stared out at the husk, eating meals warmed by a battery powered microwave. We saw smoke spewing from severed pipes then sublimating into an invisible mass. We saw the gradual drifting apart of scrap metal, fleeing into zero-gravity. We saw lights moving inside the cruiser. Someone, or some people, still lived inside that shell.
The novelty of our discovery quickly passed as we took inventory. We had enough deep space suits for all of us, along with small arms, grapples and lights for boarding action. Our water would last for three weeks, and the food for ten, on reduced rations. We had a calculator, some lights and a signal radio running on battery, making preparations for our salvation. The radio might penetrate the Nebulas haze, and I used the searchlights, the calculator and my Calculus class from two years ago to determine our fate. After several hours, I learned that our relative motion was 3 meters per second, almost directly at the cruiser. We would strike them before our askew velocities would diverge too much.
Instead of drifting in space forever, we decided, we will collide with the Centauris and attempt to board and salvage their ship, which may or may not be inhabited by any number of survivors, and may or may not have the proper supplies for our scoutship.
How fortuitous.
We have our suits on, our rifles clutched tightly between shaking hands. Two minutes, 350 meters. The winch ends of our grapples are magnetically sealed to the scout, in a ring. The clamps then shoot forward, exactly on schedule. They reach the ship a minute ahead of us, and the slack disappears. Our restraints our tight. We jolt forward, and the straps dig into us. Our scout bounces against the cruisers hull, then comes to a rest.
When we regain our breath, each of us unstraps and steps to the airlock. It opens smoothly, with a hiss. We step in, and give each other some words of encouragement. Our weapons are on free fire, and our suits are sealed perfectly. Air rushes out, and we are left in the absolute silence of vacuum. The next door opens, and we hop out into space.
Zero gravity is unnerving in a scoutship, when you have straps to hold you and a ceiling to stop your fall. Out here, in the heart of the Nebula, it is terrifying. We float in tandem, our hands outstretched for the taut grapple lines. They seem to drift closer, and then we hit, swinging around the cables to stop our motion. Then, we reel ourselves closer, to the hull. Our magnetic boots clamp onto the metal shell, and the behemoths contrabass vibrations pulse through our legs to our faces. We extract torches from our gear, and set to work burning a hole. Several seconds later, a two meter wide piece of metal rockets into oblivion, followed by a sudden rush of air. Fighting the tide of escaping atmosphere, we push into the innards of the ship moments before the hull seals itself.
A self-repairing hull. Such things are reserved for the most important flagships, not would we expected to find here. What attacker did our task force stumble upon in this cloud? We barely have time to ponder before a squad of unsuited men rushes us, firing their weapons. They scramble upon walls, ceilings and floors, taking cover behind light fixtures and scattered floating crates. Some scream violently, some cackle like demons, and some are silent in the face of bloodshed. They scare us equally. We fire back, scoring hits that instantly slay the unsuited men, while their grazing hits only scorch our armor. I hear howls of death before me, then behind me, and then it is over.
Two of us are dead, leaving the pilot and me. We nod to each other in grim determination, reminding each other of the ultimate goal: survival.
As we pass the dead shipmates, I see their faces. They are thin, wrinkled, and contorted in pain. I easily recognize the signs of starvation. Something happened to their foodstuffs, which should have lasted for years. Now, these elite crew members are as desperate for salvation as the two of us. The thought of facing six hundred of these chills me. Conceivably, we should only have to fight a small fraction of that, and so it should be...
The ringing of boots reaches my ears. It is distant, but loud as anything I have ever heard on Fomalhauts crowded streets. I turn to the pilot. He mutters, a tear in his eye.
Good luck.
Then we see the first of the horde. They scream for blood, and make no attempt to hide from our bullets. We cut down one, then two, then three, and then we lose count in the blood, which hangs in the weightless air like a thick mist. The gun to my left falls silent, and I choke back tears. I cannot see past the curtain of red before my eyes, and fire blindly, screaming into the gruesome gloom just as fiercely as my attackers. Their bodies, now painted red with their comrades juices, burst through the sheet and fall on me, hacking with wrenches and knives and bedposts and their friends arms.
I fall, and the gun escapes me. They grab me and bind me and take me away as I scream in a futile accompaniment to their exultation.
Why? Why does this crew take me prisoner, when they have not enough rations to feed their own? I stop howling, and realize where they are taking me.
I then scream louder and more painfully than I ever have before, convulsing in my tight bonds, kicking wildly at my captors who brush me off, grinning like the Devil.
The galleys walls are dripping with red, an oh so vibrant red that burns my eyes and scars my soul.
I can smell burning flesh, and all I can do is scream and hope to drown out the awful sounds reaching my ears.
(This message has been edited by Celchu (edited 01-05-2004).)