In the dark confines of space, a small transportation spaceship floated erratically as it swiveled around uncontrollably.
The darkness was so vast that the nearest light was thousands of light hours away.
Fluid blobs floated in space before disbanding into smaller blobs continuously. Pieces of shrapnel tore off from the ship and even though it leaked fuel, its structural integrity held up.
It was a well-known fact that if a ship exposed a small opening, the vacuum in space would tear up the entire ship. Fortunately, even third-rate states heavily bunkered their fuel tanks to avoid a catastrophic breach.
If a hole got punctured on the Inside the ship would blow up and if it was on the outside the void would destroy the entire ship as such, reinforcing the fuel room would ensure low chances of a breach from the inside and if one occurred on the outside only the fuel would be sucked out.
This would help preserve lives as the passengers and crew awaited emergency rescue from the authorities.
During space voyages, the most dangerous attackers were undoubtedly pirates, as state-owned forces or mercenary corps abhorred killing or plundering from unarmed civilians, as such ships had safe routes that had the authorities on standby and quick emergency response, at least that was the plan until today happened, the Silver Stroke a space travel agency owned spaceship faced much worse.
Red emergency lights blinked all over the craft as sirens blared in every cabin urging the passengers to wear their vacuum suits and gather in the safe room as it was the safest room onboard.
This was a heavily bunkered room close to the Captain's cabin that could withstand third-rate missile bombardment to a certain extent, this would provide more time for emergency response from the authorities in case of a pirate attack.
However, something bizarre was ongoing as there was no movement within the entire ship, gruesome scenes could be seen everywhere as mutilated bodies lay on top of each other, blood flowed nonstop as cleaning bots bumped onto the heavily tattered bodies in a repeated loop that was, honestly, quite harrowing.
Smoke spewed out of deep holes left open by hot lasers that cut through third-class metal and formed a melted pool of slag that clung to the edge of the wall.
Collapsed metallic bunkers blocked hallways as broken walls lay upon each other. Shrapnel lay all around as heavily damaged cabin doors opened but failed to fully close in an eerie loop.
Most cabins had their occupants lying face down as ridiculous large holes spewed out their innards, surprisingly all these were times better than the third-rate state-of-the-art safe room.
It was so damaged that one couldn't tell what used to be the door or where the opening for the door was supposed to be in the first place.
The odd thing about the attack was the lack of ballistic shells, even though it was obvious that ballistic rifles had been in use. Incendiary rounds perhaps? Nobody would ever tell.
The safe room had gaping holes that tore to the Captain's cabin, it was riddled with so many holes that it only required a yellow color for people to mistake it for giant cheese.
But all of these were still incomparable to the horrors that lay in the Captain's cabin. Sizzling sounds could be heard as flesh burnt or when multiple electric cables came into contact with each other, Multiple projector screens were blinking red in sync with the emergency lights on the ship.
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On the cold metallic floor lay mutilated bodies including the captain and officers of the ship, many chairs were arranged in a straight line as though they were front-row seats in a classroom or an opera.
The seats numbered twenty-five in total, but that wasn't all, the real horror was the current state of the occupants of these seats.
The twenty-five occupants had an age range between five and twenty years, but not even little toddlers were spared as their immature bodies were sprawled all over the cabin forming incomplete corpses.
These toddlers were lucky as the seated occupants had faced much, much worse. Some lacked limbs while others had punctures all over their skin, others had protruding bones or worse, bones drilled through by nails, white flesh was visible, and burn marks were prevalent on these unfortunate fellows.
Some lacked their chest cavity, appearing as products of a demented surgeon. The scene depicted a slaughterhouse, headless corpses floated upside down on a gravity-less platform.
A pool of dark-red and black blood flowed around without any hindrance as the cleaning bots were immobile or nonfunctional, a thick mist of blood blanketed the whole cabin as the stench of death flowed through the whole ship.
Brain matter splattered on the walls slowly flowed down and pooled over the cold, hard metallic floor.
Multiple lights blinked green before a cold female, metallic voice sounded in the cabin.
[Emergency! Emergency!]
[Engine break room has been breached fuel leak verified, fuel tank integrity at 70 percent internal space breach imminent estimated time left: 40 minutes]
[Required initiation: ditch protocol, Authorization grade: senior officers, system report: authorized personnel; non-responsive]
[System alert: no response received, please advise]
[Alert! Alert! ]
[STL propulsion engine has suffered heavy damage]
[Warning! Warning! ]
[Oxygen level at 30 percent estimated usage time left: 45 minutes]
[Error! Error! ]
[Citreon satellite navigation software is nonfunctional current location: unknown]
[FTL propulsion engine has suffered minute damage, FTL transit engaged duration: 30 minutes]
[Warning! Warning! ]
[Onboard calculations suggest that craft cannot survive FTL transit, captain required to override command]
[Error! Error! ]
[Override command not received, the current state of captain: unknown, pinging captain: no response, transmitting distress signal: no communication node online]
[Discovered offline communication node on deck 3 attempting contact, estimated time for signal configuration: 2 minutes]
Multiple reports and contingencies were being carried out by the damaged AI when suddenly some stirring was witnessed.
A bloodied and mutilated hand slowly twitched before steadily rising from the side of the seat and slowly reaching the other bound hand and gently tugging at it, trying to free it.
The seventh seat from the right slowly arched back as the figure made slight movements to free itself from the chair.
The figure belonged to a seventeen or eighteen-year-old whose jaw was disconnected and lay motionlessly close to the chest, blood flowed down his shirt as his tongue lay motionlessly on the slacked jaw.
Tears of blood flowed from the right eye, or what was left of it, as his left side was almost non-existent.
Parts of the left side of the brain could be seen twitching as some of its matter flowed and stained his shirt.
His intestines lay on his hips as his chest had multiple holes, his legs were cut at the calves and the stumps were bound to the chair. His hips were loosely tied to the chair as the fastened material ran under the cold metallic seat.
The cold metallic voice sounded once again as multiple processes were run.
[Comm status: online, emergency response channel search: military channel online, status: stable, distress signal transmitting in 5…4…3… Signal transmitted]
All this occurred within the span of a few minutes as the bound boy tried to remove the confinement.
After a short while, another beep and a green light appeared as the metallic voice sounded again.
[Alert! Alert]
[Incoming call, override initiated]
[Stable signal received ]
Immediately after, a bored female voice sounded as the projectors in the cabin flickered before becoming clear.
A lady wearing a military camouflage uniform and a cap was then visible as she viewed the entire cabin through the projection.
"Good day captain you are speaking to lieutenant Jane Grimshaw of the 32nd spiked herons report your sta....." She didn't know when but her voice had turned hoarse, she found it hard to complete her statement, the projection flickered as she slowly slumped back onto her chair.