I also want to give some credit to a few show's and all the people that have created them. Cowboy Bebop, Appleseed, and Firefly (Serenity). They are what got to start toying with the idea of space and it's inhabitants. There are probably a number of other shows that are similar but these are it for now. I'll gladly give credit if there are others later on or someone brings it to my attention. However, all characters, items, and locations are of my own (and my friend's) overactive imaginations. Anything out there that are the same or similar are coincidental.
Anyway,
enjoy out creation and let us know what you think at our email
address... this site apparently will not let me do that unless I want
to make everything Italicized and bold (it's "anonlinestory" at yahoo).
Purgatory:
Space, an incredible void of air and light, only the stars lined the everlasting walls of the universe. Forever man had looked up at them wondering whether or not there was life among the planets that lined our little Milky Way. Earth, the only planet that people once remembered to have blue skies and rich soils. A long time ago, people remembered peace, until they came along and sucked the life from Earth and left it for dead. Since then, human kind had been forced underground or out into space to find their way in the deep void. Three factions had formed and a never-ending war sprung from hate between them wages on.
Chapter Three:
Everyone of the Draken crew were pretty grouchy by the time Reilly had returned. They had a feeling that something would cause them to lose all their credits and in this case, most of them. She found Takumi, their boy genius poking away at different circuitry while Jake was off tinkering with the engines. Jake had started his lecture for saving up money, yet Reilly simply walked casually away from the docking bay, dropped off the packed food in her pockets at the mess hall, then finally ended up in the large cockpit. It had four separate consoles which four different crewmen could be stationed. However, with a crew of only five, stations were fairly spread throughout the ship. Takumi thus had rigged the front two and the back two consoles together in order for the two main pilots to control the ship. The entire front of the cockpit was completely made of a clear glass and plexi mixture; strong and secure for a huge window, yet the glass could be as thin as six inches. Like the Kajitori, the window was able to display important information, such as the location of other ships or maps to other planets. Overall however, Draken was a ship that seemed to be held together completely by duct tape and spit. She was a veteran like the Kajitori, yet unlike the newer versions, Reilly and her crew felt the controls to be much more manageable.
Finding no new bounties on the "police's" wanted list, or on any other of their many resource lists, Reilly sighed and headed toward her quarters. Weaving around wires and ducking below low pipes, she casually whistled all the way there. Reaching the door, she turned the central lock and pushed opened the heavy door. Entering the small room quickly, she closed the door and immediately headed toward the bed. The room was the size of a two bedroom apartment, yet it was completely one room with wooden curtains separating different areas. There were large windows to one side, only showing the repetitive stars shining in the black sky.
Collapsing onto her bed, Reilly laid there for a moment face down into her crumpled sheets. Turning over to her back, she turned her head slightly and gazed out the window. Whether the ship moved or sat with its broken wings, they were always the same. Reilly sighed. She missed being on a planet that could support all kinds of different life forms. She remembered gazing up at the starry night and wondering when it would be her turn to be among them. Closing her eyes, Reilly took another deep breath. She remembered the sounds of children playing in the sprinklers under the hot summer sun. She remembered when parents would foolishly chase after them, eventually slipping on the wet grass and falling. They all laughed.
Back then, no one worried whether or not the next meal would come or if someone would try and shoot them for their own benefit. Opening her eyes, Reilly sat up groggily and glanced over at her clock. She had slept for only two hours. Feeling the grit the last mission left all over her, Reilly headed for the shower. On her way there, she stopped by the sink and poured herself a glass of cold water. As she raised the cup to lips, a sudden sharp pain pierced at her back.
The pain grew sharper and amplified with each pulse. The cup crashed to the floor as Reilly soon too followed it, grabbing helplessly at her back. The pain was blinding enough to make the average person pass out from it; it felt as though her back was ripping in two. Reilly wanted to scream, yet she simply grunted loudly at the pain, as it grew more and more intense. But as suddenly as it had began, the pain subsided. Although it had felt like an eternity, from start to finish, the intense pain had lasted approximately a minute.
Reilly stayed on the floor for another few minutes, hugging her sides and her legs sprawled out. Breathing heavily, the sharpness finally passed and became a dull pain. Sitting up slowly, Reilly bit her lip as the movement made her back bite at her. After some time, she finally had made it to the bathroom. Stripping off her clothes, she entered the shower stall and blasted the hot water to nearly its highest temperature. Messaging her shoulders and upper back, Reilly allowed the heat to relax and untwist her groaning muscles and joints. Her body was riddled with scars ranging from small to large to the two largest that lay vertically over her back. Each one sat between her shoulder blade and spine. The length of the scars reached from her shoulder blades nearly down to the small of her back. The two where long, gnarled, and aged.
Her back ached for the rest of the night, yet she gritted through it. Tossing her clothes in the hamper and putting on a new pair of cargo pants and a deep red tank top, she let herself fall face first onto her bed. Turning her head toward the nightstand, a bottle of pills sat beckoning her. With a groan, she reached over for them, yet her hands just barely reached. Shifting her weight over, she took a hold of the bottle and opened it up, only to find one pill remaining. With a sigh, Reilly tossed the pill up and swallowed the bitter pain reliever down.
The pulse in her back took another hour to ease back, but once it had calmed from worse to bad, Reilly put on a pair of boots and headed for the mess hall. The cook was busy cleaning up the hall after the asteroid incident. He didn't look anything like a cook should. He wore a mechanics jumpsuit, which itself had protective gear scattered over it; ranging from gauntlets to shoulder pads to boots that reached up to his knees. Hunched over, he was about as tall as Reilly.
"Busy?" Reilly said, brushing off a chair and table. Thank god they decided to bolt down the tables. The cook glanced up at her, then staightening up, he smiled. He had messy short brown hair and bright green eyes. He was easily a foot or so taller than she was. Across the front of his neck, a wide scar ran along it. As she sat down, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and tossed the pack to her. Catching it, she tapped the pack and placed a cig to her lips. Tossing the pack back, she patted her pockets and found her metallic lighter. Lighting both cigarettes, they both silently shared the moment.
The cook pointed toward the kitchen, then toward Reilly.
"Yeah yeah, I know Glen," Reilly replied. Putting out the cigarette in a nearby ashtray, she stood up and headed over toward the open kitchen. In the very back, the sink was filled high above the brim with dishes. They spewed out to the counter and floor around it. Reilly frowned and turned toward Glen. He smiled.
"Bastard," she said with a smirk. They both laughed. As Reilly headed toward the sink, Glen tapped on the counter that separated the kitchen from the rest of the mess hall. Turning around, Reilly dodged and caught an apple that flew straight at her head. Staring down at the bright red fruit, Reilly couldn't help but smile. With a nod, she turned and wiped the apple on her shirt. About to take a bite, the ship suddenly lurched to one-side, forcing both Glen and Reilly to grab and a nearby counter to catch themselves. The ship slowly eased back into place,
"Reilly! You better get over here," Jake said into the cheap intercom system. Turning toward Glen, Reilly tossed the uneaten apple back at him.
"Looks like I'll have to take a rain check," she said jogging past him. As she ran out the sliding doors, Glen sighed and began working on the kitchen once more, only this time the mess hall was in worse shape. He sighed again.
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The halls were dimly lit by large amber
lights that lined the ceiling. They blinked in a slow unison leaving
the hallways in a much dimmer light between each pulse. Knowing the
ships layout, Reilly could have ran all the way to the deck
completely blind. Upon entering the deck, she found Takumi at the
helm, attempting to steer the ship away from a number of red targets
flashing on the window–
–BOOM–
–Takumi forced the ship to one side, hoping to avoid the nearby explosion. Reilly ran up to Takumi and tapped him out of the chair. Sitting down, she strapped herself in and took a hold of the two joysticks that could precisely steer the huge vessel. There was a smaller monitor in between the joysticks that currently displayed the status of Draken.
"What the hell is going on?" She shouted to no one in particular.
"We drifted into an old debris field, which of course has a ton of F-class 380's spittin' up from it," Jake shouted sarcastically from the back console.
"Wanna tell me why the hell mines are floatin' around out here?"
"The mines are about a week old," Takumi shouted back, already at his place next to Jake and was furiously typing away at the console. "Someone from a nearby sector must have been on the run,"
Reilly glanced down at Drakan's status and it appeared grim. Impulse engines were all the ship currently had and it appeared that targeting systems were down as well. It meant that the ships cockpit window didn't light up with pretty red triangles locating what could be impending doom. Drakan was a sitting duck for ship seeking mines. Luckily the cockpit window was large enough for Reilly to see all around them except for the back thus Takumi had taken the liberty of installing cameras, however the cameras were down as well.
"We got another one coming!" Takumi shouted, still typing away. Reilly gazed out the view window, unable to see clearly through the reflected amber lights.
"Fuck! Someone shut off those damn lights!" A second later and the emergency lights shut off, revealing a land mine approximately twenty five meters away and headed straight for them. Another second later would have allowed enough time for the ship's cockpit to be completely blown off. Reilly yanked at the joysticks, forcing the ship to lurch to one side, nearly completing a barrel roll. As the ship rolled, an unlucky piece of debris had decided to float right between the two. The mine exploded against the small piece, forcing the ship completely on its side. The shock from the blast rumbled throughout the empty halls, making the ship groan from its sudden push to one side. Lucky for them, the grav-generator had simultaneously shut down, allowing the passengers inside to feel right side up, no matter how the ship twisted and turned.
Three more pulsed to life and headed straight for them. Reilly pushed at the sticks—hard. Nothing. She pulled at them and pushed again. Still nothing. The mines drifted faster and faster toward them, as Reilly frantically racked her brain for a way out of their situation. Nothing came. They would be on them in a matter of seconds and the last explosion had taken out the rest of the ship. Reilly leaned back and watched the mines come at them. She held her breath, barely hearing the screams of her crewmates, frantically attempting to snap her out of her daze. Guess this is finally–
–KABOOMBOOMBOOM–
–the deck completely filled with lights, forcing everyone to shield their eyes as the F-class 380 mines exploded all around the ship, rocking it from side to side. And as suddenly as the ship was lit up, darkness surrounded them. They were alive.
Power was out. Looking around, the captain found Takumi frantically tapping away at his console then quickly ducking down out of sight, the sound of a metal panel opening following soon after. Jake stared down at her as she stared back up at him. He opened his mouth but soon shut it. They were lucky and there wasn't any wood to knock on. The radio suddenly crackled to life.
"You–fwizz–alive?" A smile spread across Reilly's face. Quickly un-strapping herself, she kicked off her seat and drifted over to Jakes station. She grabbed the receiver from the angled upper console, pushing herself "upright." She stared up at the radio hoping that the frequency was right.
"Shauron? Is that you, you old bastard?" A burst of static responded. "Damnit, Takumi I thought you said you got this thing fixed?" she said turning toward the boy sprawled on the floor beneath the console.
"I did and I also said that you'd have to replace it soon and that was about two month's ago," Reilly tapped at the communicator, another burst of static responding from it.
"I don't–buzzfwiiiizz–gonna tow–fwizz–"
That was all it took for them to breath a sigh of relief. Dull thumps of imploding mines outside the ship echoed in the halls as a sudden thunk of a metal clasp from the friendly attached itself to Draken. Luckily the friendly was an old hauler. Something made simply for lugging around ships or other such cargo. Like the Draken, it was an elderly one, yet with a crew of genius' the ship worked like any other modern day one.
Hanging the receiver back up, Reilly sighed with a grin. They were lucky, and boy was she gonna hear it from Shauron. The sounds of more clamps attaching to Draken echoed throughout the ship. One of the ships exterior access ways squeaked open further down the hallway. Jake stared at her, unsure of whether to be happy or on alert. Takumi paused for a moment, glancing at Reilly with a smile. Turning toward the exit, hands in her pockets, Reilly kicked off the ceiling. She performed a somersault in the air then stopped at the doorway and turning to her crewmates with a grin.
"Looks like we've got ourselves some guests,"