To Hell and Back (Hellworlder pirates)

Ch 75 Into the Fire Pt.III

Into the Fire Pt.III

There was something disturbingly peaceful about charging headfirst into the jaws of death. All the world around her was chaos, putrid winds battered her ship like colossal giants who were offended by their presence. Huge arcs of lighting randomly struck the at the ship's bow and conning tower and the lights would brighten temporarily as the ship redistributed the power. It was the same eerie feeling Astarte felt whenever she stared into fire, it sent a chill up her spine and excited something deep within her. Sometimes the clouds were so thick they couldn't see the bow, and then without warning the ship would break though and enter a vast pocket of unobstructed air.

At first it seemed like a small bubble of open air, then something within her mind clicked and she realize that they were floating through a space that could easily swallow the entirety of the Earth's moon. It made her realize more than ever before how small she was in comparison to the vastness of the universe, she was just a mote in an infinite uncaring void, and there was something comforting about being nothing and no one. All her rage, all her scars, all her misery was nothing when compared to that. All the wrongs that had been wrought upon her were meaningless, and her vendettas were equally meaningless. There were no cosmic scales keeping track of right and wrong, no higher power holding her up to the light of impossible virtue, comparing her every fault to some perceived perfection.

She had heard that people often had revelations like this when they went on space walks, or stared at the world they had known from high above. But she had never really gotten that until today, until today the infinite blackness of space didn't phase her, if anything the darkness felt close and comforting. But now, flying through the most dangerous place she had ever been and she began to understand why Moloch and the other devils might grow fond of Hell and all its miseries.

And then; without warning reality came back to her, and the great sense of enlightenment vanished like rain into the desert sands. She knew that she could try for the rest of her life and would never recapture that feeling, never put it adequately into words, or fully explain it to another living being. She scowled and turned to whatever had disturbed her "Can you repeat that?" she asked Karega who had apparently spoken.

He smiled nervously "Out of all the times to go space cadet on me, and you choose now?"

"I was staring into the void, now was that all you have to say?"

He regarded her curiously but pressed on "I said that since we're not dead yet, we might as well assume that we'll make it out of here alive and should probably pick a point to leave this death trap."

"How long can we safely stay down here?" she asked, the further they could travel the greater the odds of their escape grew, assuming that the Kruhur hadn't been stupid enough to follow them.

"Between one second and the end of time." One navigator called back sarcastically; she fixed her eyes on him until he turned away in shame. She understood that they were in a very stressful situation, but that was no excuse for lip on the bridge.

An Ursiloid bridge officer cleared his throat, John was initially apart of the Virtues and had been raised on the same base as Alice and the twins, but transferred to the bridge after it became apparent that he wasn't suited for combat despite his Grizzly bear ancestry and imposing frame. "Were pushing the upper limits of what the reactors can give us and what the stabilizers can do to keep us afloat, sooner or later one of those is going to overheat and give out."

Astarte furrowed her brows "Which one will give out first?"

John looked back to the monitor "Core temperatures are climbing slowly, but I'd say it will be the stabilizers, they weren't built for this kind of environment."