The Defiant's End

[Zaffre]

As our rusty ship finished its FTL jump, we found ourselves stranded in a dark nebula. The gases swirled around our ship, obscuring view. As I looked out of the windows, I saw nothing. But then our comms crackled to life. A hissing came over the speaker. "Which do you like leassst... oxygen, ssshields, or weaponsss?" I froze, my hand reaching to the jump drive control, when I heard a small alarm and red light fell upon the power monitor. I swiveled my chair and realized our engines were off. I couldn't jump away.

I picked up my transmitter. "Give me time to think." I heard a faint laughing. "Take your time," the voice responded. I cut communications and changed to the ship. "All men to stations. Our oxygen is getting shut down and we need to destroy this ship as quickly as we can." I replaced the transmitter, and cycled through the cameras as my crew got to work.

My crew was composed mostly of what I was; human. However, there was a being made of strange crystalline substance who was manning the shields. We had found him in a stasis pod - sort of. A Zoltan powered it up and got it open, and we weren't sure what he was, but he wanted to get to the Rock homeworlds. It didn't matter. I resumed speaking. "Power down one level of engine power. Power up Artemis missile launcher." I felt a shift in the engines and the dull roar resonating through the ship quieted. I saw our missile launcher extend out of the hole and looked through my viewport into the swirling gases, and opened up comms with the Slug.

"Oxygen." I spoke the simple word, and hoped that we would be fast enough to destroy the ship and get our systems back on. The Slug replied with a laugh. "A speciesss choosssing death by sssuffocation? Well, I'm not one to judge." It cut comms, and a dark shape loomed out of the violet gases of the nebula. It shields were thick. I wasn't sure we could get past. I begin to feel the air thinning, and my lungs started burning.

I transmitted throughout my ship. "Focus missiles on weapons bay," I spoke, and my voice resonated throughout the Defiant. At once, there was a shudder, and a missile streaked into the gases with a brilliant flame. The barely operational sensors detected weapons were damaged. "Direct hit!" I heard over the comms as my weapons manager, Rebekah, spoke over the comms. I smiled as flames sparked and licked at the gases ahead from the damaged ship.

I felt three quick shakes of the ship as lasers sparked from the dormant cannon and flew toward the ship. It twisted to avoid one, but two others hit - but it didn't penetrate the shields. I swore and spoke to Rebekah. "Fire Artemis at shield bay." I felt another shudder and a missile zoomed toward the looming shape in the gas. It was a hit, and I begun to speak when I felt something.

A burning. A burning in my throat, and nothing would satisfy it. I heard another alarm and my eyes slowly drifted toward the power console. O2 levels were at 0%. I slammed up from my chair and spoke one last message: "Med-Bay. Now!" I slammed open the blast door to the corridors just as a missile slammed into it, shattering the glass of the viewport and allowing the gases to obscure it.

I stumbled towards the medical bay, coughing. I saw Rebekah and Scoops, our engines guy, entering the med-bay. There was a faint gleam of crystal as our crystal man went toward the oxygen mechanism to repair it. Only when I entered the med-bay did I realize there was a problem.

Electricity crackled and sparked over the medical machinery. Ion. And it kept hitting the room, keeping it off. Another shudder rocked the ship as another missile hit somewhere in our ship. I thought about it and realized it was our oxygen. Our shields were down. Soon after, I heard something cutting through the hull... and then through crystal. I realized with dread their beam weapon had cut through my crew member, and we couldn't repair the oxygen.

So we sat there, as the burning in our lungs grew and grew. My vision begun to fade to black. Rebekah cracked and hurled herself out of the airlocks and into the nebula. Scoops got out his wrench and tried to remove the ion damage from the med-bay, but to no use. He cried out as he loosened his grip and fell to the tiled floor.

As Scoops died in front of my eyes, I got up. I had to survive. I stumbled out of the door, into the dark, alarm-illuminated corridors, and into the oxygen room. I picked up the crystal man's repair tool and fumbled to fix the system. And suddenly I couldn't control myself. Before I knew it, I had fell to my knees, the repair tool clattering to the floor. My hands clutched at my throat, and there was a deafening explosion as our hull tore apart and I was flung into the swirling depths of the nebula.