An Island in Space

We had reached the end of our run, and the pilot reversed thrust, bringing our scout to a dead halt within seconds. We inched past the zero mark when a rail smashed through our particle shields and ripped through our aft. The systems flickered for a second, then died. We jammed buttons and twisted knobs, searching for some remaining function, but failed. Our ship was dead in space. The battle still raged before us.

It ended several minutes later when the Valiant fired its last barrage of torpedoes at the Centauris, and received a flurry of laser fire in return. The destroyer burst in flames as oxygen escaped the hull, and died quickly down into blackness as the last air trailed away in a solid mist. The Valiant's shell continued on its course, smashing directly into the cruiser's midsection. The silent explosion that vivisected the enemy chilled us.

We stared out at the husk, eating meals warmed by a battery powered microwave. We saw smoke spewing from severed pipes then sublimating into an invisible mass. We saw the gradual drifting apart of scrap metal, fleeing into zero-gravity. We saw lights moving inside the cruiser. Someone, or some people, still lived inside that shell.

The novelty of our discovery quickly passed as we took inventory. We had enough deep space suits for all of us, along with small arms, grapples and lights for boarding action. Our water would last for three weeks, and the food for ten, on reduced rations. We had a calculator, some lights and a signal radio running on battery, making preparations for our salvation. The radio might penetrate the Nebula's haze, and I used the searchlights, the calculator and my Calculus class from two years ago to determine our fate. After several hours, I learned that our relative motion was 3 meters per second, almost directly at the cruiser. We would strike them before our askew velocities would diverge too much.

Instead of drifting in space forever, we decided, we will collide with the Centauris and attempt to board and salvage their ship, which may or may not be inhabited by any number of survivors, and may or may not have the proper supplies for our scoutship.

How fortuitous.

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We have our suits on, our rifles clutched tightly between shaking hands. Two minutes, 350 meters. The winch ends of our grapples are magnetically sealed to the scout, in a ring. The clamps then shoot forward, exactly on schedule. They reach the ship a minute ahead of us, and the slack disappears. Our restraints our tight. We jolt forward, and the straps dig into us. Our scout bounces against the cruiser's hull, then comes to a rest.

When we regain our breath, each of us unstraps and steps to the airlock. It opens smoothly, with a hiss. We step in, and give each other some words of encouragement. Our weapons are on free fire, and our suits are sealed perfectly. Air rushes out, and we are left in the absolute silence of vacuum. The next door opens, and we hop out into space.

Zero gravity is unnerving in a scoutship, when you have straps to hold you and a ceiling to stop your fall. Out here, in the heart of the Nebula, it is terrifying. We float in tandem, our hands outstretched for the taut grapple lines. They seem to drift closer, and then we hit, swinging around the cables to stop our motion. Then, we reel ourselves closer, to the hull. Our magnetic boots clamp onto the metal shell, and the behemoth's contrabass vibrations pulse through our legs to our faces. We extract torches from our gear, and set to work burning a hole.