Emptiness
He wandered down the corridor, his feet scuffing on the metal flooring grids. Loose grip plates clanked as he passed over them, the sound reverberating through the emptiness. A feeling of foreboding washed over him, causing him to almost whimper as he wandered on alone
The sight of the empty, hollow hallway of this once mighty vessel made him feel extraordinarily solemn and sober all at once. Passing steam caps and light fittings positioned at regular intervals, he worked his lonesome way to the far end.
Stopping for a moment, he looked back in his mind to when the ship had been a starship of the line. A power to be reckoned with, not to be messed with. Now it was just a hollow, empty shell. No one else there to help, nobody to care. The air purification systems seemed almost to be whining away to themselves. Steam transit points were hissing almost imperceptibly. Light fittings hummed with electricity as they lit the empty spaces where once walked an entire crew.
Voices silently echoed off of the walls, as the almost ghostly imaginings of the lonely engineer took over his mind, forcing him to relive the last moments when the crew had walked here.
The ship was bathed in red as the emergency lighting became active for the tenth time that week. Battle had commenced, and they were losing. Heavily.
Pipes burst, lights exploded, and the sounds of screams and yells were everywhere. Shouting to be heard, reports were sent to the bridge. They were not good. Explosions rattled the corridors as the battle raged further. The decision was made, and the order given to abandon ship.
The emergency transport system beamed them all straight into the escape pods, sending them to safety. The hammering on the outside of the ship continued, seeming to count the death toll.
Bulkheads punctured, panels destroyed. The entire ship badly crippled. And then, almost as if a final order had been given, the lighting winked out. Darkness pervaded as the ship began the final phase of the self destruct sequence. Explosions ripped through the hull, sending shock waves into even the smallest parts of the ship.
Waves of fire and flame burst into lesser passageways, eliminated doors that went to labs and quarters, incinerated everything in their path. Metal protested and screeched amidst the chaos of the fireball. Super-heated steam flooded compartment after compartment, leaving nothing untouched. The inside became hell and the outside was silence. A silent record of the nightmare within the imploding hull.
Within moments, the flame retreated and the fire returned the way it had come. All sounds of destruction ceased, replaced only by groaning and protesting metals that twisted and distorted out of proportion and became mangled hellish versions of themselves. Entire sections of the hull ripped away, opening to outer space, and exposing the innards to the silent coldness as it raced past.
After an hour, the hulk of the mighty starship came to rest within a nebula. Bathed in a deep red glow, and exposed in many places to the chill of space, it drifted aimlessly. Hardly aware of the predicament it was in.
There he was, watching down the hall in a dream. His mouth hung open and he drooled a little. He was alone. Almost. He had to save her! He HAD to! She was his life.
The beast wanted to devour her, to destroy her completely. He could not allow that to happen. She meant more to him than life itself. Sucking the drool from his lips, he began to turn. Almost instantly, the Beast arrived on the scene. Invisible, yet tangiable. Destructive, yet purposed. Angry, yet almost as if in pain. The Creature pounded its' way along the corridor, foot marks appearing as if from nowhere. Scratches seemed to announce the presence of mighty claws that tore through steel and plastic alike. Huge gouges rent pipes and destroyed whole portions of wall as it approached him.
Moving almost as if in a trance, he ran to the access panels on the right at the end of the hallway. Behind him he could hear the lights shttering as the beast came nearer. Pure adrenaline drove him forward to the panel marked '3', and he struggled to wrench the lid open. One huge effort left him panting as he heard the monster appraoch. Not daring to glance at the invisible rends that showed as it closed on him, his hands flew over the touch pad, describing the emergency bypass codes precisely. As he finished, he sat back, scrambled as far towards the ramp as he could, and waited. The Beast closed rapidly, its' footprints marking its' location. Before the Creature could get to him, he shoved himself over the lip of the ramp floor, and scrambled away from the entrance. As he did, the force field kicked into place, and it was trapped. Breathing heavily, he sighed. At last! Now, after all this time, he could save her.
"I'm here." he said, looking around at the hull. It seemed to him to be almost happy for him to be there. "I'll save you." Heart felt warmth filled him as he clambered to his feet and began to make his way to the engine room. He would have to bypass the main gangway, and it might take him a few hours, but he would at last be able to get her out of this nightmare. IF he could figure out how to fix the engines.
The engine room, dismal and grey in the half – light of the reactor core, seemed foreboding. A kind of hue that drearied the mind, and weathered the soul. He sighed at the thought of once more trying to figure out the engines, dismayed that He would ever be able to complete the task in time to save her from the Beast.
He had tried to re-position the collectors once, that had ended in disaster. Almost every fuse in the central hub had to be replaced before he could even get the lights working after that! That was when the beast first made its' appearance. He was wandering down the corridors, looking for the room to reset the power systems, and he had seen it. Not SEEN. He had SENSED it. He just KNEW it was there. The first time it was almost as if he felt the anger of this thing. This Beast that wanted him to stay away. Now, of course, he knew that the idea of the anger was the Beasts' calling card.
Since that day, he had learned to stay clear of the foetid breath, the claws that could cut through polished titanalloy and glass alike. It seemed to be happiest when there was power involved. The raw power of the collectors must have been what carried it here, but he had yet to figure a way to send it back where it had come from.
Staring at the core wasn't achieving anything. Stepping up to the console, he tapped the dusty screen. Light flickered, almost failing as the small amounts of power drained back into the systems he accessed at any one time. He had figured out that shutting down the engines was a way to slow the Beast down in its' attempt to smash its' way through the ship, but he had also learned too late that there was no way he could re-activate the core without losing all of the other systems of the ship in the process. Either there was too much damage, or he had been doing something wrong all along.
Starting the proceedure once more, he began to tap in the instructions he had learned so far in the sequence;
Pre-heat the injectors, set the magnetic constrictors to nominal, release the inference coils safety systems, set the master safety to 'alert' status. Preparing the fuel was the slowest part of the task, as it had to be readied slowly. Too fast, and it would just tear a hole in the core. Too slow, and it would never reach optimum temperature.
Fingers moving a lightning speed, he set the conditions to where he had been before the beast had interrupted him. Then came the decision: Which to choose.
He could either set the engines to auto start and hope for the best, or he could continue with the set up manually. So far, the readouts looked good. Everything was at peak operation. He just had to wait for the fuel. If he set everything to automatic, he might have to start again, if things went wrong. If they worked out, it would be a miracle; the amount of damage caused by the Beast was excessive. No telling what circuits were out of action. Discretion was the better part of valour, he decided. Continuing manual set up was probably the best route to take. It allowed him the best set of options.