Nebulae: One-Shots Compilation

What's your name?

White.

A blistering white flash of light seared Pelin's retinas.

The cockpit window glowed in brightest blue-white as the missile hit. Pelin was blinded for thirty seconds, one minute, two minutes. Blind or not, she wrenched the manual flight controls to spur the scouter somewhere, anywhere, away from Karinja missile fire.

The scouter was thrown into a wide arc. It hurtled through the corridor of lumbering Karinja fighters. Heavily-armed, they were too slow for the scouter, which careened in a weaving trajectory out of the range of Karinja cannon.

Too late.

Pelin was jolted sideways as a projectile hit the scouter's hull with a grazing impact. Some Karinja missile or other. A twisted shard of steel window-bracing rattled in its housing before detaching from the cockpit window, slicing Pelin's cheek on its trajectory towards the back of the ship.

The cockpit window creaked. A tiny chip in the centimetres-thick silica became a little arc, which became a huge crack. Dendrites of swiftly-cracking silica spread like tree branches, obscuring the wide expanse of stars.

No further attacks for thirty seconds, one minute, two minutes. They were out of the range of the Karinja offensive. The alarm began to blare.

How the fuck had 301 not seen the Karinja on the scanners?

The alarm was too loud. Pelin hit the home screen and sat back helplessly in the cockpit, still too blind and pickled in adrenaline to even be furious at 301. When they'd get back to the Miranda she would spit venom at her inept fucking navigator. She shouldn't have been expected to work with inferior personnel.

The acrid smell of coolant and burnt electronics started to permeate the cockpit. The alarm was too fucking loud; its constant screeching made it impossible for Pelin to yell across the flight deck to 301. How the fuck had she not seen the Karinja patrol?

Pelin blinked as she searched the console. Pinpricks of vision flowed between the white, enough to see console lights flashing, and the status update: "ENGINE TWO FAILURE".

She jabbed at the alarm override. The scouter fell silent.

"301! What the fuck? Were you asleep? Didn't you see those fucking Karinja? We're down an engine. We might not make it back to the Miranda."

Silence.

Pelin craned her head behind her. "301?" She peered across the flight deck with stinging eyes. 301's seat was obscured by the scouter's bulkhead.

The alarm rang out again, heralding a new status update: "HULL BREACH. DECOMPRESSION 13 MIN 46 SEC".

The flashing console began to count down the precious minutes as air bled out of the cracked ship's hull. Pelin's heart shuddered in her chest.

Hull breach. This wasn't how she had expected to die. On a dull and routine map-making assignment, light years away from Karinja territory. How could this have happened?

Pelin looked down at her hands. They were trembling. If she let it, her entire body would shake. Suddenly, she couldn't remember any emergency flight training or any evacuation procedures. She needed to calm down, to think. Her panic was only wasting what little air she and 301 had left.

Pelin unclipped her seat belt with clumsy fingers and slapped at the alarm override again. The ship was plunged into silence. The console flashed on and off erratically, the electronics straining with the damage from the missile.

After another minute, the entire console died, its indicator lights winking off one by one. The entire ship was left in near-darkness, illuminated only by pinpricks of starlight coming in through 301's navigation window.