Silence….
There was nothing but silence -- silence and the Void.
***
Only dim, vague thoughts were present in the infinite blackness that enveloped and dampened the mind.
***
Next come flashes of color and sound. These transitioned into fully-formed, flowing images accompanied by ambient noises. The images were of austere buildings and windswept, barren plateaus. Sometimes, a disembodied voice interjected these scenes; a disembodied voice carrying ambiguous thoughts into oblivion.
***
A thought was followed by an emotion. First one raw emotion: pain. Next, a turbulent cocktail of emotions: fear, hatred, despair, rage, sorrow -- a raging inferno that sought to consume itself.
These feelings gradually manifested into lucid dreams of catastrophe: chaos, blood, and fire. Men scurrying about like cockroaches, some collapsing as bullets tore their bodies. Their comrades were cut down as they tried to drag the dead and wounded to safety. Buildings erupted in flames and agonized humans poured out of them. Gun fire put them out of their misery.
A distinct but unrecognized voice floated over the scene, seeming to come from the image itself:
"Maybe I…should have never…been…born."
CHAPTER 1
Every crewwoman aboard the pirate ship was reeling from the ordeal they had just gone through. Many thought that they were in the afterlife. Those who realized that they had narrowly escaped the torpedo impact were in various stages of shock. The more stalwart crew were running or limping about, helping to bring others to their feet or to assess damage.
In Register, a robust woman in a pair of olive-drab over-alls struggled to prop herself up on a counter. She shook her head to help clear the fog and shouted, "GIRLS! Get ship shape, on the double! There's going to be a lot of chaos in short order and we've got to be ready!"
She apprised her team of young women, all wearing uniforms resembling those of a maid. Some looked a little worse for wear, but all were a definitely distraught.
"Remember: smile! Smile! And keep on your toes while I'm gone."
With that she strode out of Register to aid the damage crews.
"Are you alright, Miss Parfait?!"
"Ugh…Yeah, I think so."
Parfait Balblare was helped to stand shakily to her feet by her mousy, be-goggled assistant. The turbulence of the jump through space had tossed her off balance and she wanged her head pretty hard on a monitor. "Can you tell me the situation?"
"We're still assessing the damage; Miss Gasco is on her way, though."
Parfait breathed a sigh of relief. Miss Gasco's dominant presence helped everyone on board feel safe. No situation was out of control when she was around.
"Alright. Let's see what systems are still operational!"
Commander Buzam scanned over the displays on the sub-bridge of the Ikazuchi. As she scanned over a cargo manifest, an urgently blinking orange light caught her eye. Upon closer inspection, she saw that text inside the lighted square said "FAIL-SAFE DEPLOYMENT." She noticed that the item in question was under the sub-heading "Restricted Access Cargo."
Her instincts as a pirate commander got the better of her. "Perhaps we made off with something valuable, after all," she thought. She made a mental note to inspect that piece of cargo when she was sure that the ship wasn't about to implode. For now, it was best to focus on restoring the integrity of both the male and female space vessels. Buzam returned her attention to other panels on the sub-bridge.