Lyros was thumbing through the cameras doing his routine security check of the ship earlier than usual. He couldn't explain why he just had a feeling. He had almost completed the circuit of rooms when he noticed the engine room looked a bit empty.

"Ryino?" He said pushing the talk button down worriedly.  

He waited a minute then flipped back to the guest quarters. The lounge was empty too. He sighed heavily and locked the bridge door and started transferring controls to the bridge. The alarms went off indicating weapon fire.

"Damn pirates," He grumbled under his breath.

After he transferred the last of the environmental controls, he flipped the speakers wide open.

"I have full control of the ship," Lyros announced.

No one answered him. He paced. He didn't like this. The alarm on the console behind him went off. Someone was trying to open the docking airlock. He made sure it hadn't opened. No more would get on board that way. He set off his beacon to signal a ship in distress. He hoped the nearest Imorium ship might pick it up in time. This was not a well-traveled route for the peacekeepers. 

Now he could hear the weapon fire, and he heard someone punching keys on the lock.

"You won't get in," Lyros said as he pushed the door's speaker button.

He leaned over and thumbed through his cameras. One by one the views became obstructed. The cameras were being destroyed.

"Damnation!" he spat as the someone on the other side continued to distract him by pressing keys. 

Lyros started to feel a bit dry, then his skin began tingling, and then more painfully the tingles began to move across his body and then became constant. He fought the pain and his inability to breathe so he could look at the environmental controls. They were no longer his, they had been stolen. Only he noticed they had used a password.

"Ryino! I will kill you myself!" he yelled as he hit the floor and passed out.

Lyros came to in one of his escape pods. He took the control panel off and began rewiring the jets, maybe he could reach the main shipping lanes in this before the fuel gave out. An alarm then went off announcing loudly that the pod had encountered a large gravitational wave. He looked out his little window and saw a black hole or rather the matter around the hole.

Lyros sighed,"That's it. I'm dead." 

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

He laid his head back and started to make his last preparations. He left a message for his family inside the communal mind. He was sorry to die their biggest disappointment. Then he heard storm like noises outside the pod when he rationally knew it could not be possible. Through the window it looked like flashes of purple light, then he and the pod started snapping and popping with static energy. Then out of his window, he saw a large planet and he was moving towards it quickly.

"Oh no, no, no, no!" He cried as he tried to rehook the propulsion jets up so they would fire and slow his decent.

It was too late, the pod started to heat up rapidly and all the alarms were ringing in his ears. He pulled wires and tried to shut them up. He tried to get the jets to fire again but only half of them sputtered. A new part of the escape pod started to heat up, and as it did he could see it burn up faster. The planet now looked like land, lots of it, and a limitless horizon. At least, he was going to die somewhere beautiful. He wondered what had happened to the black hole. Did he fall through it? He was no longer in the Drengo system. This was not a planet he recognized. But it was beautiful, and lush. 

His pod raced across the planet and into shadow. He was now coming in on the night side. That meant he would be well seen, and whatever populated this planet would know exactly where to find his pod. Maybe they would pity him and bury him. Or maybe if he didn't die they might just finish the job. He waited anxiously for the pod to hit, growing annoyed at how slow time had begun to pass in his anxiety. Lyros looked away from the land and up to his glorious flame trail as he came down hard feeling jolt after jolt as the pod tumbled. He thought it would never stop and then he hit his head and was out again.

As he came to, the wires and relays popped and ignited in tiny fires around him, drying his blue skin again. He banged his fist against a display and it flickered long enough for him to see the sixty-five percent humidity. Water! Oxygen! He could open the pod door and get out of this death trap. He flipped the switch and he heard a noise, but the door did not open. He started kicking at it and it did not budge. He felt to his side and was relieved to feel he still had his welding torch and his weapons. He turned the torch on and cut his way out of the pod. 

'As soon as I can stand,' he thought, 'I will get what I can and move on quickly.' For the moment, he felt lucky just to rest and breathe.

Lyros worked his way out of the escape pod. He gathered his equipment and put it in the pack. He checked his weapons to make sure they were still charged and pulled the small battery from the pod wreckage and placed it in the pack also. The flames were still smoldering, and then down came the rain. He felt so much better now that he was wet. His skin needed the excessive moisture to heal. He heard the fires extinguish and he saw The tops of the trees over the horizon of the crater. He climbed out and headed for the copse of trees. He thought it would be best to sit and wait. Lyros wanted to see what would come for the pod he was curious about what lived here.