REM

Powerless

"You know, I'm curious as to why they chose whale sperm as the method of power for this vessel. I mean, there are plenty of energy sources out there. But a mammal's sperm? Weird."

I watched Chris as he peered through the glowing, glass container housing the elongated species.

"They aren't whale sperm, Chris," I reminded him. "They aren't even from Earth."

"So you say... I bet they are some prehistoric dinosaur sperm that scientists brought back to life, just so that we could travel through space." He continued to inspect the swimming creatures while I tried to keep my focus on my screen for other vessels. We were traveling through an area of space that hadn't been deemed as safe as others because it was so isolated from fleet stations and planets.

"Hey Christine, look at this one. It's going the wrong way." I walked over to the glass container and watched as one of the swimming worms turned the wrong way and began traveling down a narrow tube towards a filter.

Before I could do anything, Chris jumped over to the switches and announced, "I'll save it!"

"No!" I protested, but it was too late. Our vessel became silent as the power slowly drained out, the noise dwindling into nothing as the commander rushed toward us from the deck.

"What the hell is going on!?" Men with hair were definitely more attractive, but the rage that filled his eyes made his bald head menacing.

"Hey commander," Chris greeted nonchalantly. "Just doing some maintenance. This little guy got away, so I had to save him from being chewed up in the filter."

"In the middle of an isolated zone!?" The commander was ready to draw his weapon and put Chris out the airlock for basically killing us all.

"Commander, with all due respect–"

"Respect?" he spat. "You just killed us all, you moron!" An alert ping could be heard from the deck, as well as my screen. "Look what you did!" The commander rushed back to the deck and I returned to my post as well.

Upon stepping foot in front of the screen, I saw multiple readings on the radar for incoming vessels. We had no power, which meant we wouldn't be moving any time soon, and since the worm needed to be rerouted back to the main tank for full power, we were sitting ducks.

"Mallens!" yelled the commander. "What's the status on that whale sperm of yours?"

I couldn't believe the commander was giving into Chris' shenanigans.

"Still stuck commander," he replied. "Give me five minutes and we'll be back up and running."

"We better be!" the commander growled. "Wilkens!"

"Yes, sir!"

"Try to get shields up using the reserve, we are either going to get attacked, or boarded, neither of which I want to occur. And what do scanners show?"

"Twenty-two hundred vessels, sir."

"Race?"

"Unknown, but I'm getting a strong telekinetic reading. There is a lone ship coming toward us as well. They wish to board."

"If they can read minds, we're in for the shit. And if we make it out of this alive, I'm going to turn Chris into an alien worm so he can power the ship from now on for his stupid actions!"

"Commander, they are three thousands metres from us now and moving fast. Do I drop the shields to let them board?"

"With twenty-two hundred vessels out there, we don't have much of a choice in the matter. Let them board and be prepared for anything. Mallens, you better fix that shit before your five minutes are up, they're boarding now!"

Chris looked up as he held onto a hand tool. "Don't worry, commander, I'm almost done."

Almost done my ass...

With a telekinetic species now boarding the ship, all I could think of was to hide under the table in the lunch room. I ran in and crawled under it, waiting for the worst to happen.

Several minutes later I heard footsteps. A human woman peered under the table and looked directly at me. "And what are you doing under here?"