Shards of Moonlight || A Short-story Collection

Be Fine - SciFi

The spaceship bolted abruptly. Passengers, headlessly running through the gangway like homeless chickens, vacillated. I chuckled as the small doorframe to my right gave me a perfect view of a man in uniform rubbing his forehead swearing. The poor chief must have hit his head on the low ceiling, I would not be surprised if his brain had bolted right out of place due to this sorry excuse of swearing. Honestly, Queen Elizabeth || had known more colorful insults than suit-guy. In the light of what must have been a rain of ice-blue, blood-red, and poison ivy-green flashes of light a figure appeared. I stepped back from the worn-out, thick metal grid into the dephts of my cell. Keys jangled as long-forgotten noise resounded in the walls, currently shaking from immense impact. "Hudson, we need you," the captain looked at me with her penetrating blue eyes glistening in the man-made, blinding white light shining into the forgotten storage room. I raised an eyebrow keeping my emotions in check. This could be my chance. Right as I stepped over the threshold, she grabbed my wrist with such force I bit my lip to not grunt in pain.

"You better not try anything."

The scenery changed as I saw her bright, trusting dark-brown eyes in front of me. A whisper of promise and pain filled my ears, my soul, my whole being.

"We will meet again."

I startled awake, pulling my legs from the control desk, only to knock over my cold cup of coffee. I missed her. As the porcelain hit the floor, breaking through the compressed silence of my headphones, I startled. Damn, this devil's brew only made me fall asleep faster these last few days. I pulled my headphones out of my ears and sighed, rubbing my temples at the mess. Yet, before I could even make an attempt at standing up, a back-pat as hard as a jackhammer made me double over. "Dude, now ya' woke up 'fore I even had the chance to scare ya," dim-wit snickered as I groaned in excruciating mental pain.

Not him again.

"Dennis, I told you not to call me dude," I snapped. Of course, the conversation did not end there. As if I could get that lucky. "Ol' man, ya ain't no fun." I would have never even signed up for the space force if I had known that I would have to deal with dim-wits like Dennis, at least on my own accord. Back then I did not have a real choice on the matter.

I sauntered over to the see-through walls a few steps below the three control desks and looked out into the seemingly borderless vastness of the universe. Was there a shadow being cast over the few suns resembling a smile? Could the stars be smiling at me and what did that shadow belong to? A squeaking snickering seemed to suck my soul back into my body frozen to the spot in thought. "Ya know, buddy. The cap' won't be too happy seein' ya dozin off in ya shift." I snorted, turning to see Dennis the dim-wit with a new mental low having sat back down in his seat, spinning around in childish circles.

God, please let me delete the last few minutes from my permanent brain-record.

"What did you even dream about ol' pal? Octavia's bust?", Collin grinned mischievously while having propped his chin upon his hands, leaning over his chips-bag littered table. I would not even be surprised if he had traded his adored checkered shirts for a nacho-suit. Not that I cared about style, wearing my worn-out gray long sleeve and stained jeans you usually only see mechanics wear, yet I appreciated Collin's style as long as he never sunk to the level of Dennis's panda-sweaters. "OOOH," hollered dim-wit while staring at us wide-eyed as if his two favorite tennis players had their first encounter. He roared: "As if ya a' one t' talk. Roxanne has da best ass -"

"Excuse me," a painfully familiar voice appearing nice, still being anything but, made everyone hush. "Captain," the other two mumbled rather ashamed, as her ice-blue eyes met mine and I felt a shiver run down my spine. "I will do us all a favor and pretend I did not hear a thing," Octavia, doing her nickname mercury alpha proud, stated in a voice like the calm before a storm, "Hudson, you're on."

10 minutes. Pulling the gloves over my hands and taking a last deep breath before nodding towards my partner, I heared the door to the space capsule shut with a hiss. As we neared the battered space station wrapped up in darkness and an indescribable silence, I felt my heartbeat speed up, so I did the only thing that could take my mind off the seriousness of the situation. Talk. "Why did you take me?", I sighed quietly. Even the smallest noise sounded like bells on a graveyard. "There are only two chaperones capable of steering this kind of space glider. Dexter was on his toilet break and we seriously don't have the time for that now." I snorted. Wait, was that a half-smile on the lips of the unbreakable captain? The moment faded away as we docked and the doors opened to a sight I would never be able to forget.

5 minutes. The lights flickered on. What would you say if your football coach were to show at a sewing workshop? The same as me at that moment, I guess. "No way." In a second a flash of metal made me dash to the side and dark-brown eyes met mine.

"Captain!"

I pressed my shaking, gloved hands onto the dove feather-white astronaut suit penetrated by a bullet and turning redder by the second. "It will be fine," Octavia whispered, teeth gritted as clattering boots neared.

The clock struck zero.