CH01: S | Writ of Certiorari

April 05, 2018, 01:07:00 PM

Chapter 01: Supplemental | Writ of Certiorari

[ Guest Quarters | Vector 03 | Deck 19 ]

It had been a stupid choice. One from which there would be no going back. Within an hour Michal knew that much. She had gotten way to angry and way to focused on one thing and it was now going to cost her.

She sat, he back to the bulkhead, in the small empty guest quarters and tried to think of how she could get out of it, how she could survive this. Part of her had already decided not to, that was why there was an explosive charge on the window, ready to blow out everything in the room into the absolute vacuum of space beyond. It was her biggest fear, being blown out into space with no way to survive. And yet she had arranged for it to happen because she was not sure how to survive.

From her view out the window she could see the massive white ship of whatever alien threat was looming down on them now. She could see the shapes of the odd saucers and tiny fighters weaving around the brilliant clouds of the nebula. The nebula itself shining it’s rainbow lights over the room. It would be beautiful and terrifying, but she felt nothing about the sight. It only reminded her that there was no escape. She was trapped.

Before she had come to this room she had considered going to the shuttle bay and stealing one of those, but she was certain she would not make it very far. The ship's fighters were a good bit faster at short range and a hell of a lot more heavily equipped for a fight. No, at this point she knew she was going to die and she was fine with that. If she had any regrets it was that she was going to die at all. She had hoped to be locked away in some penal colony and to just disappear that way. To fall into the cracks and be consumed by the criminal justice system of the Federation.

But if three years on the Resolve had taught her anything, it was simply that there was no justice, not on the ship, not in the Federation, and sure as hell not on the cosmic scale. No divine plan for anything.

She leaned back and pressed the back of her head against the wall to gaze up at the ceiling.

So she was going to die.

She had expected to be killed by someone out of revenge. She had even picked a couple of her targets just for that. Threatening that Bremmer bitch with being spaced, in hopes that would do it. She had figured that she might even try to drug her and fuck her to try and push her into doing it. But after the fight that happened only a short while before they all left the Resolve she had not gotten around to it.

But now it didn't matter anyway. They were all going to die. And even if they survived this one, and the next one, and even the next one, it wouldn’t matter. They would not survive forever. They were all pretty much fucked in the long run and none of it mattered.

She sighed and got to her feet, walking over to the explosive. In the past hour she had armed and disarmed it several times. Maybe some part of her was hoping it would malfunction and go off as an accident. No such luck. If this was going to happen it would happen by her own hand.

She deactivated it once more and turned away from the window to look to the bed, at the figure laying face down on it in a puddle on the gray blood soaked sheets. She hadn't even checked to see if she had killed the white bitch after she had jumped her and dragged her here. B'Nila had not so much as made a sound aside from a few raspy breaths here or there.

She walked over and flipped B'Nila over, to look at the pale face of what she was pretty sure was her favorite slut. She would have called her a lover, but Michal knew better. There was no love. Maybe B'Nila loved her, but Michal didn't. Michal didn't care that much.

She watched as B'Nila's chest rose and fell. She was still breathing. At least for now.

She turned and moved back to the wall, pressing her back against it to slide down.

Fuck, she was just so tired. She wanted it all to end.

And then in a blinding flash of light as a lance of some sort of energy erupted from the massive alien ship and hit very near where they were. The air was filled with the sound of rending metal as the wall across the room from her blew out toward her. The energy lance tore clean through the ship blowing the only wall that was between them and space out, flinging what seemed like a million shards of super heated metal at her.

The last thing Michal was aware of was the sound of rushing air and the grav-plating under her deactivating as a spray of hot metal shards flung from the blown out wall into her, tearing dozens of holes through her body, and right into the bulkhead behind her. She almost laughed, but there really wasn't enough time left. And not that anyone would have heard it over the sound of the bulkhead rending against the vacuum beyond.

~Fin