Verdant Ink
By pixelmum
White.
Blistering flashes of white light seared Pelin's retinas.
The cockpit window glowed in snow-white glory as the missile hit. Pelin blinked away the black swirls threatening her gritty-eyed vision. She was blind. More furious blinking. Thirty seconds, one minute, two minutes, but the ink in her eyeballs swirled on.
Allah kahretsin.
Blind or not, she wrenched the manual flight controls to spur the scouter somewhere, fucking anywhere, away from Karinja missile fire.
The control stick locked, and the scouter hurtled through the corridor of lumbering Karinja fighters. Heavily-armed, they were too slow for the scouter as it careened in a weaving trajectory out of the range of Karinja cannon.
Too late.
A projectile hit the scouter's hull with a grazing impact. A Karinja missile. Pelin was jolted sideways just as a twisted shard of steel window-bracing rattled in its housing before detaching from the cockpit window. The steel spear traced a sharp parabola towards the back of the ship, slicing Pelin's cheek as it flew past.
Freed from the restraints of steel bracing and silicone, the naked edge of the cockpit window creaked. Pelin blinked at the window, the eddying swirls of black in her eyes clearing enough to reveal a chip—the tiniest of chips—in the centimetres-thick silica window. The chip blossomed into a little arc. The arc became two. Two arcs became three. Three arcs became a splintered crack, and suddenly dendrites of beautifully-cracking silica spread like tree branches, obscuring the wide expanse of stars from Pelin's tunnelling vision.
No further attacks for thirty seconds, one minute, two minutes. The scouter controls took over, sending them in a wide arc out of the range of the Karinja offensive. The alarm began to screech, the control panel flashing neon yellow terror.
The alarm was too loud. How the fuck had 301 not seen the Karinja on the scanners? Pelin hit the home screen and sat back helplessly in the cockpit, half-blind and too pickled in adrenaline to be furious at 301. When they'd get back to the Miranda she'd spit venom at her inept fucking navigator. She shouldn't have been expected to work with inferior personnel.
The acrid stench of engine-coolant and burnt electronics began to permeate the cockpit. The alarm was too fucking loud; its relentless screeching made it impossible for Pelin to yell across the flight deck to 301. How the fuck had she not seen the Karinja patrol?
She blinked on at the console. Pinpricks of vision flowed between the black swirls, enough to see the neon yellow pulse of console lights, and the new status update.
ENGINE TWO FAILURE
Pelin 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. I'm gonna have to send a distress call to the Miranda."
Silence.
"301?" Pelin craned her head behind her, peering 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.
Neon yellow pulses 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'd expected to die. On a dull and routine map-making assignment light years away from Karinja territory. How could this have happened?
YOU ARE READING
Tevun-Krus #100
Science FictionTevun-Krus #100 - The Ultimate Reading Experience! 100 stories, poems and artworks from the best SciFi writers the orange Multiverse has to offer. We got coffee & cookies. We got cake. We got beer. Don't miss out!
