[FIC] Into A Dark Night

[Kristy Kistic]

Darkness. She struggled to move. Something was restraining her and she had no idea what it was. She could feel the cold embrace of steel pinning her to the floor. A cry escaped her lips as fear gripped her heart. "Can't breathe," she thought. She struggled. In a move of panic stricken adrenaline she managed to lift the motionless bipedal maintenance droid just high enough to slide out from under it. "Calm down," she thought. "Get a hold of yourself."

 

She lay still on the floor. As her breathing rate slowly crept back to normal she looked around. It was indeed dark. The only hint of light seemed to be emanating from a slowly burning power conduit about fifty feet away. The last thing she could remember was... Damn. She made an active effort to slow her breathing. She wanted to curl up into a ball. To somehow make it all go away, but... "NO. I must get through this." She eased up to her hands and knees. Again she looked around. In the bleak darkness she could only determine that she was in a corridor of sorts. Slowly, she crawled along the floor in the direction of the burning conduit, feeling her way. Large chunks of metallic debris littered the floor. "The Valkyrie," she thought. "I'm on board the Valkyrie. But what the hell happened here?"

 

She moved close to a wall and inched her way along. Soon she came to a door. She stood up and began feeling for the access pad that she hoped would work. Her fingers found what she was looking for and pressed it. As the door slid open, flames poured forth from the room beyond. Instinctively she jumped backwards, tripping over some type of debris, and attacking the opposite wall with her face. "So much for that way," she mumbled. She could taste blood. "Great."

 

She woozily stood up again and slowly continued down the corridor hugging the wall. A little ways past the burning conduit she came to another door. This time she placed her back flat against the wall and stood to one side of the door as she felt for the access pad. She found it. Holding her breath she pressed it. The door slid open. Light flooded in from the next room. It was normal ships lighting, but it was so dark in the corridor she was in that the light stabbed at her eyes. It hurt. She stayed against the wall and let her eyes adjust to the lighting change before moving on.

 

She peered around the wall to look inside the door. It was another corridor, however, nothing appeared to be burning in this one, and the lights were working here. She moved into the seemingly normal looking corridor. She hadn't noticed how acrid the air in the previous corridor was until she breathed the fresh air from this one. She set off toward the other end of the corridor. She passed one door and came to another at the end of the corridor. This one she remembered. "The bridge," she thought. She put her ear to the door and listened for a moment. Nothing. She pressed the access pad. Nothing. She pressed it again. Nothing. "Hmm." She pounded the access pad. This time a computer voice chimed in and said, "Access to the bridge has been disabled. Atmospheric containment has been compromised."

 

She returned to the door she had passed halway up the corridor and tapped the access pad. The door slid open, but only partially. Apparently, at this point it died. It refused to do anything further in either direction. With effort she managed to squeeze through the partially open door. Inside the room she went to a window and looked out. She was horror stricken. Several bodies floated through space admist a great deal of wreckage that appeared to be from a space vessel. She knew that it was the bridge crew. She reached for the glass, as if she could rescue them. Nausea welled up within her. Making friends had not come easy for her. She had spent most of her life in isolation, afraid to let others get too close. Afraid of being hurt. It generally took her a long time to get to know people - before she would open up and share even the smallest piece of her heart with someone else. And after three years of getting to know her shipmates, in actually coming to trust them - her friends - well, most of them were floating through space. "Death is such and ugly thing," she thought. She stared silently into space for a moment, then turned and whispered "But the living must go on. Maybe I can get to a shuttle."

 

She continued through the room to another corridor, this one marked heavily from blaster fire. And this one littered with bodies. All were republic soldiers. Not one sign of who or what the enemy might have been. It was brutal. Not only had some of them died from blaster fire, but some had limbs severed. Some were severed at the torso. Many had had there entrails pulled out. It was carnage. Knowing it would be futile, and fighting back the urge to vomit, she still made the effort to check for survivors. Much as she expected, there weren't any. She continued on - passing the occasional remains of a crew member. She knew them all. And not one of the had been left alive. "I might not be alive either if that damned maintenance droid hadn't collapsed on me." She began to run. She couldn't bear to see the death - the endless death that seemed to be closing in around her. She could feel her head spinning. Reaching a corridor that wasn't lined with corpses, she stopped. Leaning against the wall she screamed, "No! I will not panic! I will get through this!" After repeating this to herself a few times and willfully slowing her breathing she began to calm down again.

 

After what seemed an eternity to her, she reached the ships hangar. And there was a shuttle here. Entering the small cabin of the shuttle, she began the engine ignition sequence and opened hangar doors. She was ready to leave. What had been a home to her for three years had become a mausoleum adrift in space. The small shuttle glided gently out of the hangar. "Goodbye my friends," she whispered as she flew away into the inky blackness of space.

[Diego Varen]

Good start, although I always think thoughts of a character should be like this:

 

What have I done, Sion thought.

 

Speech marks make the line look like speech. Other than that, it was a good start and I'm looking foward to more.

[Kristy Kistic]

Good start, although I always think thoughts of a character should be like this:

 

What have I done, Sion thought.

 

Speech marks make the line look like speech. Other than that, it was a good start and I'm looking foward to more.

 

Point taken. And thanks for the input