Last Call

Dreams of Cerberus

The weightlessness of space made him feel as if his body was floating on the stars themselves. What made it even more peculiar was the fact he was standing perpendicular to the destroyer’s hull, something that would have been impossible in gravity. Low intensity magnets in the boots of his EVA suit kept him locked in that position as he surveyed the damage; a blast from an unknown enemy had breeched the hull. From the darkness he saw the destroyer’s designation and the blue-gold Earth Alliance symbol emblazoned next to the triple-headed dog of the Cerberus’ flash. Arcs from wielding torches sparked blue-green, attempting to patch the crater-sized singed hole.

Chatter came though his helmet’s com, announcing to the workers that the repairs were working, slowly allowing the ship to regain pressurization enough for a course correction and to maintain life support. The engines flashed in a burst of life as they gently fired, pushing the wounded destroyer.

Alerting the other workers of his intentions, he flipped off the safety on the propulsion pack he wore. With a dull jolt, the magnets in his boots released, the temporary reversal of polarization pushing him from the hull. No longer attached, he drifted as the destroyer trudged along. A flick of his thumbs made the propulsion pack begin to fire in a series of short bursts, directing him away to get a better glimpse of the overall damage.

Scorch marks marred the flecked gray metal, and he was annoyed at the sight, mentally calculating the man hours with the maintenance bots and space walks needed to make the Cerberus code compliant again. With a few more pulses from the pack, he rose above the ship, getting a glance down the length, over the engines and hangar bays, to the gravitational gyro, and finally command.

Something off the port side caught his attention, the stars suddenly disappearing from sight. Lifting a hand to shield the blue-white glare from the engines, he stared into the abyss, unsure if grease or his breath had fogged his visor. But instead, space blurred in a bizarre mirage, stars and blackness swirling until they formed a shape that gave his blood a reason to turn to ice. Spindly spines spiked from its tubular center, like a demonic spider whose color absorbed all light. A single cry from the earpiece in his helmet released him from the terror enough to realize he had an entirely new set of problems.

The Cerberus had increased speed in response to the sudden closeness of this new ship, quickly trying to limp towards a jump point that formed with a slow swirl of energy. He nearly laughed at the apparent downturn his life had taken, his mind catching up to the fact he was being left behind. Ineffectively he cried out into the com, almost begging not to be left behind. The destroyer lurched forward as the spidery ship came about, sliding in for a shot. It targeted the Cerberus’ aft engines; a dark purple beam cutting a bisecting path through the ship. The destroyer shuttered from the further attack before the explosions engulfed the engines, quickly building into a conflagration that blew apart the entire ship. Violent colors blinded him in a flash of light, and he screamed, the blast wave sending him into a tumble the propulsion pack could hardly control. He screamed for the lost lives, he screamed at the enemy ship, but his loudest scream came for himself. A hand reached out as if to draw himself back to the non-existent destroyer; reaching out in disbelief that he had been discarded without any regard to his life. His heart lurched in desperation and the strangest desire to have been killed with his shipmates….