And Through Darkness They Ran - A Space Opera

[Light Ice]

Their last and only hope had been to induce the ship’s jump drive and go faster-than-light. It had been a slim one. WIth the pounding the old hull had taken and the countless alarms screaming Owen had never had time to really assess whether or not he’d be killing them. He knew, beyond a doubt, that if the ship was any worse off the moment the drive cores had been engaged with the power load necessary to make the jump they’d all be dead. He’d seen what happened when a ship that was compromised attempted faster-than-light. It was ugly.

Mercifully, it was also quick. A small part of him had thought of that as he pushed the ship to its limit.

But they had not been killed. The ship did not break apart. Parts of it, he was sure, had come off. The thin armor of the transport freighter was not meant to withstand the pounding of capital-grade guns and many rounds had punched deep into the ship’s internal superstructure. It had been an ugly, but capable, hulk of gun-gray titanium and ultrasteel. Now, from what little he could tell, it was a smoldering ball of rubble drifting aimlessly through the black void of space.

When they had come out of faster-than-light there had been an instant where he had felt victorious. The drives immediately sputtered and quit, alarm lights once again lit up his panel like a slot machine at one of the cheap off-world casino hubs. Owen had quieted them and killed the lights quickly, ignoring the infinite scroll of critical failures the system was acknowledging and blanketing his cockpit in the vision of stars drifting across the endless ebon horizon. He inhaled deeply and ignored the ache in his shoulder where a round had torn through him and exited out his back. The leather jacket, one of his favorites, was a ruin. It had burned wide around the hole and melted to his shirt beneath. It stunk of sizzled flesh.

He had always enjoyed this moment. It was usually quieter. Still, even as the ship refused to be quiet, it came in fragments. Peace. Quiet. A moment where he felt beyond himself and out there, amidst the stars, drifting as aimlessly as the ship did. A small, secondary explosion rumbled the feet beneath him but he didn’t mind. He needed this.

And then it was ruined.

“Owen Collins, if you ever try that again I’ll simply shut myself down.”

The voice was shrill and female. Furious. Beside itself. Mother, as it introduced itself over a year before, was everything in an AI that he did not want. She had not approved of any of his maneuvers and it was fair to assume she never would. Her initial function list had involved the ship’s many life support and comfort systems. Navigation. A traditional female share of duties by heavy-browed standards and one that was ancient in the world that he knew. Still, while talented, the true feminine trait that distinguished her was her ability to dislike everything about him and chide him for every decision he made.

“The Rogue’s Dawn is breaking apart. We’ve four percent power and the port jump drive and quantum core are both gone.”

“Was that the explosion?” He asked.

“No, I was able to shut them down before they went critical. The explosion was from the port crew quarters. It’s likely an unexploded munition detonated when we slowed from F-T-L. I swear to you, Owen, if you haven’t killed everyone else on board it’s a small miracle.”

She’d crossed a line. He felt his lips curl and his jaw set. Pirates, the lot of them, but every single one had trusted his intuition and his gambit. There was a lot of money out there and that hadn’t hurt but in the end they’d seen what he’d seen. -She- hadn’t. And, worse, in the end it’d been the crew’s support that had swung her over. It hadn’t been him. It hadn’t been the talk he’d had with her after she’d slapped him and ended up naked under his hands. She’d turned her back to him, gorgeous as it was, and listened as he laid out the plans for their escape. She’d been cold. It’d been almost like she hadn’t heard him. Jesse had always been aloof when it came to those moments. There’d been only once she’d laid in his arms, curled up and girlish, and that had been the first time. That night he’d lazily braided her hair while she laughed at him, all smiles.

A day later his life had come undone.

And she’d never come back to him.

And she’d ruined everything.

Still, Mother’s words drowned everything out. Jesse, who was perpetually a pain in his ass, really could be dead within the ship. Most of it was sealed off, a precaution taken by Mother when the ship began losing integrity. Many of its compartments had been vaped by munitions or lost pressure when the ship began to break down. It hadn’t struck him until now that Jesse hadn’t slid her slender self into the small, cramped cockpit and chewed at him. She hadn’t bitched.

He hadn’t heard from her.


“She’s alive.” Said Mother, as if reading his mind.

“Of course.” Came her Masculine counterpart.

“You’re late.”

“I was working on the Port Core. I’m afraid it cannot be salvaged.” Father replied.

“I could have told you that.” Clucked Mother.

“That was some firefight. We’re pretty busted up. We’ve lost both our guns, though they put in some work, and forget shields. Hull integrity is maybe thirty percent and that’s an estimate. Most of my sensors are offline. Mother thought it best to divert power from my systems to maintain life support and conserve power. Given the condition of the ship it’s wise. There’s no chance we could defend even a small assault of any kind.” Father lectured. He always did.

“Still,” it said with a pause. “That was fun.”

Owen said nothing. It had not been fun. They had left with nothing and with several of the crew strewn out across the docking bay with smoking holes in their chests. Outside, beyond the cockpit, a large molten glob of vaporized steel drifted past. A reminder, somehow, that the ship was still burning.

“Are the fires being put out?”

“No,” said mother. Her fury was barely contained. “But they are burning out. We are still eighty kilometers from Spice Run Stop. It is unlikely we’ve enough left in the Jump Drives to get us there and safely dock. We may need a tug.”

“Don’t have money for that. Get what juice you can out of the starboard core and make calculations that will help me limp us as close as possible. Plot solutions for docking with what we have left from the engines.”

His orders came even as he forced himself to rise. The chair creaked beneath him and his shoulder lit white flares of pain up behind his eyes. Owen ignored it. Sucked in a breath and pushed the holstered pistol at his hip back where it belonged. The cockpit door hissed open. Everything stunk of smoke and ruin. Beneath him the ship trembled again, not an explosion this time. Mother came on just to confirm what he knew.

“We’re losing stabilizers. I need the power, Owen Collins. Watch your step.” She sounded venomous.

He wanted a drink.

It hadn’t meant to be like this. They had been close. Getting in had gone better than they’d hoped and they hadn’t been made. The entire team was in place when they slid through the commons house and if they’d made it to the transfer nodes they’d have been able to spike in and lift millions before the alarms had even sounded. By the time the reaction had garnished some real force to it they’d be out the docks and flying. There was no chance the Syndicate’s pilots could match him. They’d have made it clean.

But in the lobby one of the men had gotten a little too bold. Jesse’s banter, playful as it was, had been a little too flirtatious. She didn’t really understand the power her beauty had. In her eyes, he often wondered, just what she saw in the mirror. She’d cocked her rounded hip and laid a slender hand on it and the man had melted. Gone primitive. Owen knew the look and the reaction well. She’d gotten it from him when she’d needed it. Easy as pie. And nomatter how many times he told himself he’d stop he was helpless. When Jesse wanted him she had him. It was part of their arrangement.

It was bullshit. She was pure evil.

Still, the man had reached for her. She hadn’t seen it. Owen had seen it coming a mile off and had told himself to let it go. Let the man get his fingers on her ass, feel its curve under his palm. It was no harm. Just a squeeze. She’d laugh it off and they’d move on. But that was one of the things Owen had never been allowed since that first night. That first night his hands on her at the club, while the music pumped, had drawn her close. She’d given him dangerous eyes in the dim light, shining and seductive, and he’d felt something like invincibility then. Since, since that night, his hand could never so casually take hold of her and produce anything more than a scowl or disdain.

He’d broken the man’s arm before it reached her.

He’d broken his nose and the jaw of the man next to him when he stood up and attempted to get in the way.

And then hell had broken loose and their cover was blown. The swings turned into shots and alarms. The crew broke cover and they moved into the transaction nodes. But there were too many. By the time they got in place to start lifting credits the automated defenses had kicked in. Jesse was still working on the terminal, as though she was oblivious to it all, when he’d taken her by the wrist. She’d shaken him off twice and gone back to slicing into the system before he’d wrapped a strong arm around her hips and pulled her out of there. She’d let him for a bit before shaking free and helping him shoot their way out.

It’d been dragging her, moving slow, that cost him to take a carbon bolt to the shoulder.

It’d been her that’d forced him to forget what he was doing and blow their cover.

Or, that’s what he told himself then and now as he walked the rounded halls of the ship they once called home. Sparks flew from panels blown free in the escape. Many doors were sealed shut where the ship was leaking atmosphere. Still, he didn’t find her. And worse, denied the vision of space that he’d had, the guilt began to set in. He stepped over Gabriel’s body, impaled by a three foot panel door that had been blown off with enough force to send it across the room and through a three-hundred pound giant of a man. They’d all died because of him.

Maybe she had, too.

(This thread is closed.)

 

[ScifiFangirl]

"Stupid bastard... Stupid bastard..." She muttered it over and over, the vehement curse seeming like the only sequence of words capable of describing him at the time. So hurriedly did she sit before her console, she bruised her rib against the cold steel armrest. Fingers flew over the keys. Vibrant blue eyes burned holes in the screen, willing it to come online faster. In the three or four seconds it took to boot up, she heard heavy carbon bolts slam into her ship. She felt them reverberate up through the decks, and into the soles of her boots. Too many shots. They were dead, all of them, because of him.

As she hit enter, a program ran. It began deleting the massive botnet she had built to crack the Syndicate mark, cleansing each console as it accessed the network. For months, she had scoured slaved systems for passwords, source code, and names. While this erased her electronic trail, the physical one still smoked. If they survived the imbecilic FTL jump Owen was no doubt about to make. She cursed him again in her clipped, aristocratic tones. All for nothing, you fool. Her head then smashed face first into the screen, cracking it; and blackness took her.

Jesse gained awareness slowly. A hazy fog slowly lifted from her thoughts. One by one, the events of her last few hours of consciousness came back to her.

"...Simply must wake up! It wouldn't do to have you perish. You're the only thing keeping that brute from taking command. It's bad enough your sleeping with him..."

Her head throbbed painfully. She reasoned that it was likely that she had been concussed. A small pool of blood had formed beneath her ear, and ran down her cheek as she sat up. The bleeding slowed as she attempted to stand, but she again fell to her knees, spots dancing in front of her eyes. It was as if she had not eaten in some time. "Be quiet, Mom."

Again, she tried to stand amidst her incessant babbling, succeeding this time. Fortunately, some of it did seem to be substantive. "My dear, you must get out of this room as quickly as possible. Atmospheric pressure is dropping at a rate of half a percent per minute. As it stands, we are at eighty percent and falling."

Jesse filed that information away. She was used to situations such as this. In the last year, she had gotten into more trouble... well, as much trouble... as she liked. "The crew?" She couldn't say she cared a whit about the scum Owen had deemed acceptable to carry out this mission. But they were human. It was sad when humans died. Or, it was supposed to be. The Galaxy would not miss them.

"That is hardly a primary concern for you..."

Firm, and calm, she insisted. Owen had no idea how to deal with mom. Jesse did. It was possible that Mom just preferred a woman's touch, but Jesse wouldn't put it much past his disagreeable nature. The man had no culture. "The Crew."

"Dead. The crew quarters were the first to go. Owen is alive."

A sliver of inexplicable relief washed over her. Perhaps it was a faint reflection of the night they met. A night that was supposed to be the first and last night they saw each other. How did this happen?

A feminine hand grasped a discarded shirt, wiping the blood from her face. She took a deep breath of air that was a little too thin. Pausing at the exit of her quarters, she looked up to signify that she addressed Mom, though mom had no face. "Is the main corridor intact?"

"Immediately beyond you're door? Yes. Most of the stern is pressurized. If you want to speak to Owen, you may have to go EVA, and reenter the Dawn through the bow airlock. I suggest you bring a suit for him.

Often, Jesse reflected that there may be something wrong with her. When danger struck, she did not cry, or cower. Adrenaline simply polluted her blood. An excitement came over her, that the unceasing boredom had ceased. Father's words echoed. You're safe, sweetheart. Don't ever do that again. Yes, the Director of Republican Security was a safe man. You will be the death of me, little girl. I ask only for a little obedience. A little decorum!

Lovely, youthful features twisted into a frown at the thought. This death, she knew, was preferable to the metaphorical one that awaited her back home. She would be given a prestigious position. Nepotism would shoot her up the ranks, where, eventually, she would make hard, impersonal decisions involving the lives of many honorable men. Politics would take an ironclad hold on her job description, and the chain of command would blur. Slowly her soul would leak from her body, as she took one side or another of some era defining, polarizing issue, and acted upon her views.

It was a slow, painful death. Not like this. Jesse did not know what she wished to find out here. Certainly not money. Money had been far too abundant in her life for it too mean as much to her as it did to others. She acknowledged this. Not romance, either. Owen could fuck her like no other man would; or could. But he also repulsed her. She wouldn't find some hunky pirate to sweep her off her feet out here, even if she wanted. As she slipped the suit over herself, and grabbed an extra, the thought kept assaulting her mind. What do I want?

The blackness was lovely in it's uniquely austere way. Jesse loved it out here. But the peices of the ship floating past marred her vision. You ruined my ship. Anger flashed. His sex was not worth his destruction. For the hundredth time, she vowed to ditch him at the first opportunity. Jets of gaseous propellent moved her towards the airlock. The HUD gave suit integrity readings, flicking by in lines of red-hued code. She would have to open the airlock manually, it seemed. As she reached it, she planted her foot in the crevice, and strained at the valve with all of her slight frame. It moved not an inch. "Ngh... Damn it to hell."

Her breath was loud, bouncing off the visor of her helmet. She attempted to hail Mom. "Mom, contact Owen. I need him to open the Bow airlock." No answer. "Mom!" Only silence greeted her request. "Fuck!" Her fist bashed against the scarred hull in a futile emotional gesture. Here mind whirled through a hundred impossible solutions, before Jesse placed her hand against the door, and began to forcefully bang out a rhythm, in morse code.

S-O-S. S-O-S.

Again, and again, she repeated the sequence. Breathing came hard and fast, and sweat broke out on her forehead. He had to hear her eventually.

But there were worse ways to die.

 

[Light Ice]

There were moments when a terrible darkness slid through him. It crept up from his belly and spread outward, like a sickness, until he became aware of its creeping presence. Awareness, though, was seldom enough. Often as his thoughts turned towards it they darkened with it. There had been a time when pride took its place. They'd often told him that he could do with a little hubris. Vanity, however, had taken hold and then when it was all gone there was nothing. Nothing, really, except this terrible and creeping darkness. It filled holes where his life had once held things of value. It made them larger.

The darkness was not like the cold beauty of space. It knotted his belly and reminded him of mistakes and losses. Each step through the corridor fed it and helped it grow. He was passing bodies with regularity now. Owen stepped over Vassa and saw her dark hair matted wet with blood. She'd been shot in the belly in the scramble back onboard. It'd taken her time to bleed out. From the hunched place she had on the floor, curled inward like a baby, it had been a painful and slow end. She'd been pretty. Everyone had liked her. Jesse, who often didn't tolerate other women on or near the ship, had liked her.

That darkness swelled as he stepped over her, yet despite it, Owen found that he never broke stride. Loss had never kept him from moving forward. It was an ugly part of him, he thought, but one that had its uses in moments like this one. He was capable of surviving where others were not. At one point, long ago, it was an admirable thing. He was fighting for a cause and securing people's lives and rights. The ability to survive and complete missions was something others had noted with awe. Respect. Now, as a criminal, it was despicable.

The darkness swelled.

He fed it with more self doubts.

The hallway bent in a slow lazy corner to the right and he followed it. Rounding the edge, he caught sight of a man seated on the decking with his legs stretched out. His armor was military-grade, green with flecks of red accent paint. A sleek, expensive carbon pistol was beside his thigh laying on the ground. The empty holster was real leather. Owen drew the massive pistol on his thigh and leveled it. There was a familiar and terrible comfort to its weight in his hand.

"Don't shoot." The man said.

He turned to look at Owen and Owen saw that he was young, very young. Maybe, at the most, 17. And handsome. His hair was soft brown and his eyes were clarion blue.

Like Jesse's...

The thought rippled through him and an ache took him hard in the belly. Was she alright? The boy on the deck didn't reach for the pistol at all but wiped at his face. His black-gloved hands pushed cold sweat away and for the first time Owen saw that he'd been gut shot. They didn't look fatal. Painful. But not fatal.

"Please. I'm hurt." The boy said. He would grow up to be a strong and handsome man. His voice was level and clear.

"How many others onboard?"

The boy swallowed stiffly and looked away.

"Three, maybe four. I think Ri was blown out the cargo hold when you lifted off. Can't be sure. We had to move forward and I didn't look back."

Owen didn't detect a lie. The pistol in his hand roared to life, bucking hard and taking his hand up with the force of its eruption. He'd preferred the hitting power of his old gun to the sleek modern feel of the new weapons. The round didn't quite take the boy's head off. It turned it into a canoe. For one, terrible, moment his face was lit by the flare of heat and light from the handcannon's muzzle and then in the next it exploded outward in all directions as skull and bits of brain matter sprayed in a fine pink and red mist across the bulkhead.

The air smelled of burned flesh.

Owen kept moving.

He had not known there were more onboard. A part of him hoped that they had been in the crew quarters when it went and blown out into space. But a fear rose up inside of him, dark and terrible, that they had found Jesse. He stepped over another body, a crewman whose name he could not remember, and began to run. The darkness inside him swept on, wrapping around his heart and squeezing down on it.

_________________________________________________________

His hands found the airlock keypad and he waited. Waited, for one last time, to hear what he'd thought he heard as he swept the hall. Another man had been in this corridor when he'd reached it and he'd shot him six times before he'd turned around. It was bloody work. He'd never had a problem with bloody work before but this girl out there was different. She had to be alive. He heard it again. S-O-S.

The stretch of his fingers flew across the keys, overriding the ship's security protocol and forcing it to open the exterior Airlock. The viewport was small but he spared it one brief, instant look to see that the door had opened. He saw boots and lean legs attached. Pressure suit, or not, she was a beauty. There had been chatter about it before but he knew now that hers were the kind of looks that a man never got used to.

It took less than a minute for her to get in and buttoned up. She looked pissed. The anger did nothing to detract from her beauty but it was fierce. Edgy. As the interior door opened he lifted his pistol, knowing enough by now not to take her lightly. She wasn't like the rest of them.

The look on her face when she saw him there only filtered brief surprise.

"Caught you, pretty." He laughed.

The radios were dead in here. The ship was breaking up and there was too much interference. Still, once they got to the bridge, there'd be intercom and he could get however was left onboard to meet him there. There had only been a handful but they hadn't much time. She'd taken off like a wild thing, moving too quick and too recklessly. A few of them had been killed falling out of the cargo bay.

"You fly like you slice," He waved the pistol and gestured for her to step aside. "Reckless."

"She doesn't fly." The man's voice surprised him and he turned.

Too slowly. He saw the dark hair and the cold features. He saw the unforgiving barrel of the pistol.

It's a fucking cannon...

His last thought was of recognition. Not of the pilot. No, he hadn't seen the man anywhere. It was of the look in the pilot's eyes. The fury. The way he checked the condition of the girl with nervous, feral intensity. It was that affection, primitive or not, that made it clear what would happen next. He closed his eyes just as the pistol roared. There was a sound like a train and thunder together and then blackness.
_____________________________________________________________

The body jerked hard backwards and crumpled as the head came apart atop it. Messy, but brutally effective, the pistol vented slate-gray smoke in lazy tendrils that curled towards the ceiling. He'd found her. Just in time. The bounty hunter's body twitched a bit on the deck beside them. The legs kicking lifelessly at the steel. There was no reason but Owen was angry with her. Walking outside the ship while it was breaking apart was stupid and reckless even by his standards.

"Not a good time for a stroll, kid." She -hated- when he called her that.

He saw the anger flickering in her eyes. It should have made him ready for the fight that was coming. It should have sharpened him to anything she would inevitably say or remind him that there was one more, maybe two, lethal hunters still stalking them within the ship.

But all it did was remind him that he had been scared for her.

And that he was glad she was safe.