There was an interloper on the ship that I intended to do something about. So I put the note aside and analyzed the once laughing ceiling– that place this thing most certainly dwells. I felt alien and cold on my ship. Now the cold was legitimate and was because I only had one firebox which I left in the dormitory that had been depressurized from the battle; so the firebox was in the vacuum of space, and its warmth a long way away– naturally, I was cold. The other, alien feeling, however, came from the truth that, from the manner the ceiling was constructed, there was no way to hide from this thing.

That is, the roof was hollow like a wall may be hollow: it was planked and there was a gap above the planks where, hypothetically, something may crawl to every place in the ship. Crawl and then come down violently from the planks onto its victim. So it was like the ship had two stories, the first having bulkheads and proper separation of chambers– which is imperative for safety–and the second being nothing but a flat plane above the first with a low ceiling and a very weak material– wood– separating it from below. Now I did realize this safety hazard when I got the vessel and I installed copper barriers so that if there was a depressurized room on the ‘first’ floor, the ship wouldn’t abruptly implode since wooden planks are not airtight.

The barriers worked, of course. Numerous rooms were currently depressurized and the ship held firm with a proper separation of air bodies– it is the reason there are bulkheads: a room floods, and only that room floods– or, rather, is catastrophically exposed to space– ‘flood’ is too gentle of a word. In short, it ensures the most basic survivability that every ship needs.

Yet the barriers didn’t address the root problem which was that this ‘attic’ allowed for something of a rat to live in my ceiling and have something like free reign– I wouldn’t be surprised if it had chewed through a few of the dividers up there to travel freely through all the non-flooded compartments. Luckily, though, it appeared to have had the sense to avoid chewing through a barrier bordering a flooded one– but the situation was still far from alright.

I decided that this needed to be dealt with immediately. The utility closet was in the western hallway which was of course off limits at the moment; I had to get creative. The central control dashboard and the helm in front of it were bolted to the floor with copper nails, so I decided that they would do for a step ladder. My calculations for the angle of the force that mimics gravity was a bit off so, like how the candles rolled, it was very possible that anything not bolted that I would’ve stepped on could’ve fallen over, too, and my left arm was already broken enough-- or so I justified my decision.

On top of the dashboard, I reached my right hand through a large gap in the woodwork; with that one hand, I attempted to lift myself. No dice. I was close to the ceiling, but I did not have a way to get myself up and through the planks to the attic. I pulled my hand back for a moment then tried again, but this time I noticed the draft rushing up through the planks of the wood.

“There’s a leak somewhere in the attic,” I mumbled to myself.

My hands were still numb and incapable of fine work but, luckily, applying duct tape to a small breach was still within the realm of my very limited ability. I stepped down and picked up the duct tape. I already had a lighter on me– that I never parted from– as well as a saber. I used to have guns, and I would’ve been fine and ready to fire them despite the risk of causing a breach, but they were all evacuated when the weapons and ammunition room was breached by HAVE.

So, I was planning to simply face whatever thing was in the ceiling with a saber in one hand and a lighter– to see in the dark attic– in my offhand, but after looking at the duct tape, I had a different idea. I stuck two long pieces of duct tape along the left and right sides of the saber’s blade; the sharp edges of the blade were all still unobstructed and capable of cutting. I could ignite the duct tape with the lighter and have something like a fire sword although its lifespan would be limited. Additionally there was the risk of igniting the wooden ceiling, but I was confident I could avoid that. The fire extinguisher probably had some juice left, anyway.

I put the rest of the duct tape in my pocket and once again climbed up the dashboard. In doing so I looked out the front window unconsciously since it was in my line of sight. There was a nebula in the distance that the ship’s angle finally permitted me to see directly. The ship was currently in open space and highly visible, so I had purposefully set a course to go through the purple, gaseous region of space because I highly suspected that The Army was still following me. Purposefully keeping distance. I refused to believe that they have lost me in a plainly clear and visible portion of space. My initial escape wasn’t all that grand, after all.

“They are stalking me to see if this new weapon of theirs– which is now in this ship’s attic– is effective. There is no other reason why they would withhold an assault which would surely destroy my ship, and end me,” I informed my sword.

I attempted to pull myself up again like last time, an absurd idea that failed, so I reluctantly brandished my sword and sawed a plank into two pieces. Both sloped down but remained attached. I grabbed the longer one and oriented it so that it would rest on the dashboard and be sort of like a bridge. On all threes, I climbed up it and squeezed through the gap it made in the ceiling. The draft followed me up.

And then I was in the attic. It was dark, but light came in from the candles I had lit bellow, so it was safely negotiable over the cabin, at least; the other non-flooded chambers, the eastern hallway, and the medical room, would be darker.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

The second thing of note was that this 'draft' was revealed to really be a moderate gale now that I was standing in the attic proper; oxygen was draining fast, it was as if there was a windstorm in my ship. That couldn’t be allowed to continue. And I started to move in the direction of the wind a step at a time.

There were large gaps in the floor of the attic, and the planks ranged from unaffected, to rotten, to broken. All of them creaked with every step. The ship is not big, nor is the cabin, nor should the space above the cabin, but in that darkness it seemed colossal. The cabin felt much grander than only thirty or so feet in each direction.

I heard a noise behind me. I severed the makeshift sling holding my left hand and faced the direction it came from. I unsheathed the lighter and flicked it on. So now there was a mixture of light in the attic; warm candle light from below and a fire in my hand, much whiter than those in the candles– white fire like the white of the distant star whose solar winds I sailed on. White and orange– and an evil pitch black– dominated the area around me, but there was nothing. Or at least nothing visible. The light came from below and told me nothing at all. Even the copper barrier that was above the bulkhead to the eastern hallway was intact-- that was all the light said.

Most ships have a hum of life. It is typically from the engines, but most captains get somewhat poetic about it, and to them it's always something else. The console, the automatic weapons, the air conditioning, the heating, the boiler.

My ship doesn’t. Because it doesn’t have engines, aim-assisted weapons, central cooling-- paradoxical for space-faring vessel-- or anything else of any of those kinds. My ship has only solar sails, and manual, mechanical weapon systems. Therefore, when it is quiet, it is absurdly quiet. And it was quiet in the attic, then. And it was silent and dreadful.

I didn’t want to turn around, but air was leaking. So I made myself and made my way to the source of the leak, my back to what could be a monster of a thing within just feet of me– just out of sight. Or so some unwanted thoughts told me. The cabin was the largest room, and the trek along the planks took several minutes of careful deliberation over each and every step.

I came up to the leak and it was larger than what I expected. About an inch, maybe an inch and a half. I sheathed my sword and used my right hand to handle the duct tape, while my left illuminated the working site with the white of the lighter. It was on one of the exterior walls of the ship, not the barriers I installed, and located in the cabin, the leak, so I was glad to have caught it so soon since the cabin was of course the place where I was planning to hold up since the dormitory, and pretty much everything else, was gone. I unraveled an appropriate amount and pasted the tape. Simple, easy.

When I was finished, I leaned against the exterior wall– it was hard, cold and made of titanium– and watched the darkness that constituted the rest of the space above the cabin’s ceiling, the rest of the attic that was over the cabin. The darkness was not absolute, but the light from below really did not illuminate much. I considered that in this space, which was moderately sized but still ultimately small in the grand scale, there was something else that, so far, had not done much to me and yet I wished to kill.

I took out the note it had written.

“Companion, you seem to have gone a little mad. Would you like something to talk to?”

Initially I had read it in a somewhat sarcastic tone, but it could’ve been genuine– possibly. If it really wanted to kill me, it could’ve gone and did it before I even suspected that there was something else here. It announced itself willingly. But that doesn’t necessarily absolve it of murderous intent. It may see this as a game; it may be something of a fan of psychological warfare. It must be-- it simply must. There was no reality in which this thing was attempting to be my friend. It was evil, and a vassal of The Army, or at the very least a danger they knew about and wish to observe the effects of on what they think is a needless outlaw of a man.

I put the note in my mouth, chewed it up, and spit it through a space between the wooden panels.

“You will not play games with me, Creature,” I announced to the darkness.

But before there could be any answer, the ship abruptly jolted. I fell hard on my arm left arm which was already broken. I had the sense to close the lighter just before my grip loosened from the pain and it tumbled down into the cabin below, so there was no fire, but still my secondary light source was gone. There was a great disturbance below me. Now the candles didn’t move, I had used an adhesive to keep them on the surfaces I placed them– I am able to learn– but almost every other item was moved in the same direction I was, including the fridge which toppled over with a loud noise, spilling some of its contents on the carpet of the cabin.

My face was right up against the floorboards now and I could, through the gaps, see out some of the windows. Outside, it was all purple. I had entered the nebula and most likely encountered a heavy ‘draft’ from the alteration of the solar wind I had until then been riding; the heat of the three dimensional lighting that occasionally connected cloud to cloud like staircases of light would most likely be the culprit; the cause of what was now becoming turbulence in space. I was about to get up from the floor and head down when I saw it: a mass among the many gaseous clouds of the nebula. And the entire ship was shaking as if, too, afraid.

Nebulas are never ending storms that remain after the death of a star almost like a wrathful ghost of a million year old object. They are thousands of miles wide. I found this one in the star dictionary and planned to weather it through. The only reason they are dangerous– aside from the effect they have on solar wind if there is a nearby star– is the effect they have on electricity. But in my present state, my ship running on zero electricity and using only fire and sails, there was next to no danger for me, at least.

But what I thought was only one mass was steadily revealed to be several arranged and ordered together in a line, broadside. Although I couldn’t see them directly. It was only the occasional light of the thunder and the fleeting light from the nearby white star which leaked through the thin purple clouds at the perimeter of the nebula which revealed at, the most, their dark silhouettes. And, as soon as they appeared, they then vanished. The thunder, and the light of that helpful star, revealed nothing more.

“The Army.”