1 .0
In the cold confines of space, a small transportation spaceship floated erratically, in darkness this vast, all those able to observe would only feel deep dread, as if all things originated and would surely reunite with this everlasting abyss.
Fluid blobs floated about before disbanding into smaller ones, continuously. Large metallic chunks left the ship as though the hand of a god was tearing into it with His bare claws.
The brutality of this vacuum was unprecedented to all voyagers of heart, those brave or stupid enough to traverse through this frightful void.
Ships got ripped through as though a large carnivorous beast tearing through boneless prey.
It retained it's primal characteristic, all in the sense that it would ignore all those well sealed vessels, as if a creature that feasted only on the blood and meat of it's fresh victims, never touching defiled meals.
An opening in a vessel would act as the opening of the prey's eyes after playing dead to distance itself from this accursed hunter.
An open wound in shark infested waters.
They sealed the most risk-prone areas present on the ships. The ship engineers, more ostensibly known as modern day ship wrights. There was no real change to the meaning of the name, but, oh well....
Ship grade fuel had deep ties with oblivion, that was in the sense that it could and would burn through anything, then the poisonous fumes would act as the tide to wipe the earth.
As oil tanks were massive and a considerable threat to all cargo, with inclusion of these puny humans things, they had to be designed in a way that could help preserve more reckless adventurers.
It was settled upon that oil tanks would gain a thicker reinforcement from the outside, then double from the inside, it was much better dumping this enthusiastic quencher of life into the abyss rather than allowing it to seep deeper into whatever they were trying to protect.
An outer breach to the tank would still deposit most of the fluid outside, and the double reinforcement would act as thick jelly covering eviction pores, especially the large ones that threatened to empty out everything within.
There was an added factor that all those used to faring in space were reluctant to address in their quiet time, it was about a special type of creature, a creature as similar to themselves as one coin to another, albeit darker due to sleight from the creator, as a way to add flair into mundane human life?
These creatures were notorious than the last.
Pirates.
They would attack one and all that they came across, well those that they had a real chance of defeating anyway, as noted from human behavior, from the structures they built for themselves, to the type of government they created to restrain themselves.
The clarity of humanity's respect of true power never escaped these lowly creatures from depravity.
So, back to the super important fuel tanks that enabled humanity's traversal through the silent yet boisterous galaxy.
Yeah, there was some bad news.
[Emergency!]
[Engine break room has been breached, fuel leak verified].
An artificial being built for purposes as these, mechanically destroyed the hopes of the Silver Stroke's survival.
Don't mention it, ship naming had become a hobby for bored youths seeking to entertain this corner of the galaxy with their hopeless creativity.
The wailing sirens and the artificial being's repeated pleas for the live cargo to assemble at designated points went unheard for the hundredth time, the incessant blinking lights and the red puddles on the metallic floor made for a morbid disco.
"'Normal' human logic dictates chaos when order is especially needed", sages as old as time could only sigh to themselves.
The wide halls that should have been flocking with people pushing and pulling against each other, were trapped airtight in deafening silence.
A calm draft of wind caused the fluttering of abandoned articles of clothing, But the similarity of having some ends of the clothes dipping into the puddles as though they were wicks in kerosene stoves, made for an overnight abandoned town.
The onboard cleaning apparatus, under the control of multiple sub-programs, bumped heavily onto the tattered shards of human flesh, in a repeated disturbing loop. This was not the only account, surmise to say this scene was indeed harrowing.
Charcoal black smoke, and what appeared to be some form of vapor lightly escaped from the deep holes, where a melted pool of slag clung lovingly to the edge of the walls.
Massive collapsed metallic bunkers blocked some parts of the hallway, while smoking shrapnel littered the lonely blood-sprayed halls.
As if treading this far was not enough to mat one's back with a mind numbing cold sweat, the heavily damaged cabin doors opened but failed to fully close in an eerie loop.
In all honesty, one would truly question the composition of what made up the whole, any voyager who could lay their eyes on such magnificent destruction would have second takes whenever planning to board third class ships.
The attack had to be incomparably brutal to do this kind of damage.
The bridge was simply a hell hole. To be frank, most of the alien forces, those who came from mud had faced were convinced of their depravity. But it took a special level of corruption for a human to butcher another to the extent the occupants within had been.
Within the bridge with tattered walls lay a mother and a tender child, he lay prone against the cold ground.
The hazy red vapor made visibility within the cursed ship a smidgen better than staring at an old-age pixelated screen
The kid's green pupils got half covered before reopening wide as his eyelids fluttered powerlessly in the artificial wind, what one would assume to be his mother, lay with outstretched hands. Some would call her half a human in a morbid teatime joke, her lower half... was out of sight.
Within this hell of human making, stably stood a row of chairs in odd contrast to the setup of the bridge. The occupants had geared up for a trip of their lives, but such a painful death would surely have their souls in anguish at the injustice of the heavens.
The first of the twenty five oddly and non-uniformly arranged seats, was a female barely a day past fourteen years of averagely cherished youth, despite it's weight, the mechanical saw that lay silently on her hips made no movement.
Having surrendered her breath of life to the keeper of the underworld, lack of muscle tone made her rigid body a stable platform to further ridicule her miserable end.
A few inches to the right mightily stood the second seat, blood flowed effortless down the face of the terrified occupant, his eyes, devoid of life, stared down quizzically at the odd stream that his blood created before forming a shallow pool by his feet.
Up till death, he had, without mercy on himself, tightly grasped the rough edge of his seat, but clinging to it eventually proved nought as a sense of loss wafted out his slightly open down-turned mouth.
Maybe it was the travelers fortune that their lives were ended before laying their sights on something so mind-f*cking.
However, he was not alone, every single person within this cabin had shared a similar bloody and distraught destiny.
The pain endured, and the torment lived through and died by.
Oh, what a terrible fate.
The eyes: wide open, as though fate desired that they would look on forevermore, As though seeking closure, it would surely never come. For all eternity.
[A distress signal has been successfully broadcasted]
With a low buzz, the mechanical voice sounded once again in the now barren bridge. As the eerie sirens kept tirelessly ringing, a new alert arrived after a brief waiting moment.
[Incoming call request received]
[Override command accepted]
[Stable channel active]
"CRS Silver Stroke confirm the status of your emergency. Be advised, the status green for moderate alert, Orange for advanced threats. And the final level of alert, red, this state of alert might cause an aggressive militaristic stance".
A bored respondent's voice, which sounded only mildly less mechanic than her own replaced the now silent automation, she only realized the silence when her own voice tightly clung to her throat.
Her projection flickered only for a moment before slowly braking apart.
In contrast with the dim red-lit halls, watching her break apart was too similar to watching a star explode.
[Sub-light thruster engine status: offline]
[Conducting damage analysis...]
[FTL drive engine status: Active]
[Time to next jump: 30mins]
[Error!: As under obligation of automated custom transit navigator, onboard calculations advice against transit into sector *^&^%^$]
[@#$#@]
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