in the deep sky's Abyss

_10_

the blood flows freely.

A/N: sorry for taking so long and for this being so short, I was depressed and unwilling to write, but i'm getting better now. enjoy this one :)

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The oxygen supply was depleting, there was no hope of escape. The battle lines were getting closer to the pirates cave hideout. Alex was crying on his girlfriends shoulder.

"it's so wrong to feel what i'm feeling, I should just die" he sobbed. "I deserve to die, i'm unnatural"

Max wasn't sure how to comfort her depressed boyfriend. She had felt the same way about being gender-fluid many times. Feeling hopelessly unable of helping she just shifted even closer to Alex's warm body.

"it's not wrong to feel that way" Max whispered softly, wrapping her scarred arms around Alex like he would have otherwise evaporated. "it's ok. You're normal to feel that way"

"it's like i'm back there, in the cargohold. It's drowning me-" he broke doen into crying on the cold floor without finishing his sentence.

"its allright now, you're safe, you're with me" Max felt guilty because she couldn't help her suffering boyfriend.

"it doesn't feel safe, it's just so... it's so consuming..." Alex's tears fell on the floor freely, no longer being held back.

The two shifted impossibly close to eachother.

Then they sat there, on the floor, for a time that felt like an eternity. Holding eachothers warm bodies close to their own for hours. Both felt helpless to comfort the other. The darkness felt deeper around them, like it was threathening to swallow the young couple whole.

______________. (time skip, 7 hours)

The morning sun rose and heated up the jungle planets surface. Trees were burning, the ground was covered in smoke, screams could be heard kilometers away. The bots had broken trough the imperial defence, which had been left unatended by them in the night.

The crew was hurrying to leave the planet amongst the chaos. Everything was being tied down in a hurry. The cargo deck was filled with miscelaneous crap, YVN fuel stacked on top of food crates. Max was sitting on an explosives crate, holding back a nosebleed with an oil rag. He was feeling lightheaded from the lack of oxygen. Doctor Morrigan had put over half of the remaining crew into cryosleep.

The relatively small frigate was skillfully navigating the planets upper atmosphere, avoiding imperial patrols. Ion storms were forming on the planets surface, dooming all remaining imperial soldiers. Not like the vast imperium would care about them, they were always only good for filling graves anyway.

"brace for a quick getaway, the security is run tight here" the captain's voice sounded from the intercom.

The lights were dimmed down, the few of the crew that was awake fell silent. They understood that this was a hopeless attempt at survival, based on pure instinct to live. The animal-like spirit of humans was visible for a few moments.

Max was looking out of the window of the gun-deck. The planet surface was burning under the light of the rising sun. the imperium's forces that were remaining on the surface were purging the planet of any and all life. It was a depressing sight to see, the planet would have lived peacefully and in balance for many more millenia if the war between man and machine didn't come to ravage it.

The human race had already enslaved or eradicated most other species from the galaxy. Even human to human relations were frail and fragile.

An alarm was sounded, the few lights that were on flickered. The multi-hundred ton spaceship creaked like a soup can under force. The explosions rocking the giant vessels hull were deafening, Max's ears were ringing as she was leaning against crates of ammo on the floor.

An ominious red glow filled the hallways as he lights went out. The undermanned crew was scrambling to get the weapons manned. The ship's superstructure shrieked under the force that was being put on it.

As Max started to sprint to the crew rendez-vous point the sounds of the ship's crew desperately fighting back began to sound. The booming sound of the 215mm plasma cannons knocked her to the ground.

As she managed to get toward the rendez-vous some of the crewmen and women ran to defend the hallways from the boarding astro-marines. Blood was spilled on the floor in disgusting quantities.

Then Max's vision started to blur and fade out. He felt blood flowing from his shoulder as everything faded to black.