The end of space

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Stars surrounded and perforated the silk black sheet of space. while close by drifted an almost perfect sphere, made of alloys and glass, roughened by a few metallic joint lines, and a few small arrays.

Thrust is not apparent, neither is life. Neverending streams of light are reflected and cast aside by the ship as they streak by, revealing a sleeping pilot seated in an enclosed chair. Cords filled with a liquid the colour of the deepest sea, not quite black, but so dark in their hue that blue is no longer an apt description, jut out of the capsule at a myriad angles, causing the pilot to appear interconnected with the sphere itself. The reflecting light displays a dead and dusty console, it lacks the elemental property of being in one place aboard the ship, but appears to extend to cover every wall, every surface with buttons or dormant screens. This is a place where dust would have reigned supreme, had there been any, there were still enough systems running in the almost primordial craft to clean and clear the air. The endless rays that darted away were caught on something new now, they outlined it against the ultimate night, another ship. It dwarfed the first, seeking to eclipse it from the verse. It was sleek in design and yet, craggy, potted, some time ago the universe had decided that this second ship would not survive it, and evidently had thrown every asteroid and comet towards it that could be found, a small trail of smoke flew behind one of its fins, drowned out by the surrounding darkness. Life for its crew was about to get a lot worse, but on the up side, it would only be worse for a very short time.

The smaller ship was losing its almost perfectly spherical structure. It's automated self defense system began to stir, something was close, and systems that had been dormant for far too long slowly whirred into life two ports above the pilots window, slid open, and out of them each came what can only be called a barrel by definition. However each looked like three wide spikes, set in a triangular position. two rear ports opened on the opposing side to what were now visible as Mark III senaphor cannons. Notorious throughout the milky way for their devastating power, and tendency to recoil so much that any ship smaller then a dreadnought would veer wildly off course. The wild, massive, and pot-holed bulk of the second ship was now staring down two weapons almost as big as the ship on which they were mounted. The second ship tried to effect a turn, but it could not hope to get away.  No matter how old the small sphere was, no matter how much time had passed since those cannons last fired, one thing clearly hadn't changed, their power. The larger ship, perhaps eighty times the size of its attacker, was assisted in its attempted turn,by being sheered in two, causing the c=front and back halves to spin away from each other as each half reeled from the force of the impact. Two white jets of fire burst out of the spheres rear ports, stabilizing it's course. 

Had any of the now dead crew survived, and had time to look out at their attacker, they would have seen the cannons retreat, folding into their holds, but while their power died, lights inside the cabin were rising. The liquid leaving the chair rose in hue until it was the clearest aqua blue. The immense console came to life, buzzing and beeping, flashing with warnings and alarms, last to be resurrected was the pilot himself, it became evident that it was a he, as the seats personal shield lowered, and a head of rugged brown hair that topped a chiseled face came into view. A straight nose, sat between lids that opened to display emerald green eyes. A jacket came into view, stars along the shoulder displayed the rank of captain, however they were faded, the jacket itself was dyed in two shades of red, one showing that the captain was in service to the 'broad lance artillery' division of the United Colonists Army. The other red showed that he was losing blood quickly. This was something that the ship recognized, and soon mechanical arms lowered from the ceiling to rip apart his coat, and remove and piece of ceramic infused with steel from his abdomen. Finally his name tag became visible, Adam Eggart Pierce.  Captain Pierce regained consciousness like a sleeping man who felt like he was falling, he jerked suddenly awake, moving to his right and thrusting his arms out to defend himself, but there was nothing. His eyes were screwed shut waiting for deaths embrace, but death had stared him in the face many years ago, and winked. Pierce slowly opened his eyes and viewed his surroundings, they were clearly different to what he had expected, and to his eyes at least, were a miracle.

The sphere, once restored, no longer floated, but spun and orientated itself towards a star that seemed slightly brighter then the others surrounding it before extending four small rods on its outer shell, and with a flare of intense light, sped away towards it's new destination. 
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