An Island in Space

Our scoutship will collide with the Centauri cruiser in under an hour, Earth time. We have hardly been able to imagine this encounter, after weeks of drifting trough the utter blackness of the Nebula. To see our final destination so close at hand, when we had sunk into despair, has revitalized our small crew. The four of us are all conscripts fresh from the sprawling capital of Fomalhaut, barely able to fire a blaze cannon or warm up the main engines without officer approval. So we had faltered when the next battle between Centauri and Loyalist forces in a string of border skirmishes had severed our power core and left us drifting ever closer the inexorable shadow of the cruiser.

I'll start with the battle. Nothing else makes any difference. This battle stranded us in the Nebula, this battle gave us the task we face today: board the cruiser and salvage it, or starve. Neither our families, nor our dreams, nor the little medallions of our dress uniforms mean shit against the pressing blackness of space.

When people think of a nebula, they think of a bright patch of light in the sky, usually bright orange or blue. None of that shading exists within. The hydrogen gas, just a tiny bit more prevalent in a nebula than out, bends light, absorbs it. The blackness might be a slight bit orange, but our eyes can't see it. No, a nebula is the only place in the galaxy where you can look out the porthole and not see a single star. Their light brightens the hulls of ships just as well as they do otherwise, but it is diffused. Unrecognizable. The same problem hits sensors, too. Radar detects a huge blob of something, not a ship. Optical detectors can't see past a few hundred klicks before a chunk of metal blends in with space. Only gravimetric sensors have a hope of scrying anything out of that omnipresent gloom.

Our ship didn't have any gravimetric sensors.

We were the vanguard for a flight of two destroyers (the Valiant and Indomitable) and their patrol boat flotilla, along with two dozen other scouts arranged in a hemisphere. The Nebula was the first waypoint on a trek through uninhabited systems, the goal of which only the Major knew. We screened the Nebula for hostiles, spaced widely to prevent our substandard sensors from severely limiting us. it all went to hell in a hand basket, though, when a frantic message arrived from the Valiant: Under attack, requesting assistance. The pilot threw the scoutship around, and gunned the engines.

We gathered more information as we closed with the destroyer. A Centauri cruiser had appeared among the ships and begun firing. The Major's Indomitable had been caught with its shields low, and was breached instantly. Its entire crew had perished by the time we arrived. The other had shifted its alignment to deliver a broadside into the cruiser, receiving as good as it got, and the two had broken off. The patrol boats had been easy targets for the opponent; only two remained operational when we began our assault. The cruiser had possess gravimetric sensors, it seemed, and looped around our defenses. It then hopped into and out of hyperspace for a nanosecond, popping into our midst like a ghost.

The cruiser began taking potshots at us as we closed, and we launched our payload directly at its bridge. We could feel the heat from dozens of impacts as we swung past the leviathan.