Out of Breath

Quetzie was trapped, her whole life she had always wanted to travel the stars, see alien worlds, and meet fantastic people. But now, now she would die in space. Alone, and unmissed. She had left her small underwater village when she turned twenty and had joined a freighter crew that had been looking for new hands. She couldn't have known they were smugglers at the time. Although once she had learned the truth, why had she stuck around? She should have left then, reported them to central authority and gotten far away from that life. But instead, she had stayed silent and kept her mouth closed. And now look where that loyalty and commitment had gotten her.

Quetzie studied the readouts again as she tried to find a way, any way, to remotely fix the ship's damaged reactor core. The ship was old, and had a very antiquated fission reactor that required active cooling to stay operational. The space debris that had killed the rest of the crew had also damaged the cooling systems to the reactor causing it to slowly build up heat. She couldn't switch it off because she didn't know if she would be able to turn it back on.

The air was close and stale as she took another shaky breath, the air scrubbers were mostly damaged and the few that were left were barely doing an adequate job of filtering all the toxins out of the air. She took another slow measured breath, she couldn't afford to get excited or panicked. Both would lead to mistakes and faster oxygen depletion.

She was wearing a pair of gray engineer's overalls that did little to take the edge off the chill that was developing in the ship. While not very dangerous for an endotherm, she was Slaaveth and cold blooded, she knew that she only had a few hours to live before the cold caused her body to shut down. First her heart would slow and she would lose consciousness, then her other major organs would begin to fail and she would suffocate as her lungs stopped. She was used to colder temperatures than this back on her homeworld, but there they had protective gear and electric clothes that kept them warm in the winter.

In her loose fitting coveralls, she might as well have been wearing nothing. The oceans of her peoples homeworld of Abyss were much warmer than most oceans as their planet orbited quite close to its star. Life evolved to survive under the water as the strong radiation of their star could cause permanent damage to those who strayed onto the surface. Her people had evolved to breathe both air and water however as they would take pilgrimages over the small volcanic islands to gather rare resources they couldn't find in the ocean.

The lights in the ship were out, but it didn't hamper her very much. Her large black eyes were designed for piercing through the gloom of the deep sea and she could see as if the room was lit by lantern light. It was dim, but she could tell what her surroundings were. If she was underwater she would have used her voice to create sonic waves in which to scout out her surroundings, but the process wasn't well optimized for the open air.

Passing her clawed hands over her frilled head, she stood and moved over to the small console she had been using the day before to monitor the ship's subsystems. It was dimly lit and had more blinking red lights than green, but it was her only link to the rest of the ship. The door to engineering was blocked by a large fallen support spar and while she was not weak by any means, she wasn't as strong as a female Yeown to go and lift the thousand pound spar single handedly.

She thought back to that morning when the captain had decided to try and take a shortcut through a small nebula in order to shave seven hours off their travel time. They had gotten almost all the way through before something massive passed close enough to disturb their warp field and the ship auto disengaged warp so as not to overload the drive. They dropped out of warp just outside the shipping lane and were almost immediately bombarded by debris. It seemed as though a rogue comet had decided to travel in the very same direction as well and she listened with horror as the others were killed by hull breaches or shrapnel. She was the only one spared, but she didn't celebrate. If she couldn't get help soon this ship would become her tomb.

She had sent out an emergency pulse immediately, but it was only a light speed communication, it might take days for it to propagate far enough to be noticed, and she would be long dead by then. She hung her head in shame and told herself it was all her fault. She should have told the captain it wasn't a good idea, she should have stood up for the ship and crew. But the captain had been a bully, he had been mean and rough. She remembered the time she had made a mistake and cost them a full day of time as she fixed the problem. He had waited for her to deliver the news and then punched her in the gut before telling her if she ever made that mistake and cost him that much time again, he would kill her.

She was glad the savage old man was dead, she had always been told the Atraxses were nice, if a bit grumpy. But he had been cruel and had taken great pleasure in the suffering of others.

Quetzie was shivering now, she wrapped her scaled arms around her middle and huddled her legs to her chest as she tried to conserve heat. She was a little out of shape for a Slaaveth, her people were generally toned and naturally athletic in appearance from their childhoods spent almost entirely underwater swimming. While they could come above water while young, their lungs didnt fully develop untill they neared sexual maturity. What evolutionary reason this served she didn't know, but that's the way things were.

Quetzie once more thanked herself for eating all those extra snacks and putting off her swimming exercises as they had resulted in a thin but insulating layer of blubber under her skin on her chest and belly, legs and upper arms. It was this thin layer of insulation that had kept her alive this long. Her breath misted the air as the air had dropped below freezing about ten minutes before, it was still dropping. The ship's life support was gone and the oxygen scrubbers were offline. But she had plenty of air.

No, she would freeze long before she asphyxiated at this rate. A small orange light blinked on next to her on the control panel. She looked at it and her mind swam as she tried to remember what it meant. She jerked upright in the freezing air as she realised what it was, it was a request to open communications alert. Someone had found her distress call.

She hesitated before she pressed it, her clawed fingers hovering over the button as she thought frantically. What if it was pirates or worse, flesh carvers? They were rumored to operate in this area of space, the horrid stories she had heard as a young pup about cannibalistic murderers in spaceships covered in bloody spikes flashed through her mind. She looked around for anything she could use as an improvised weapon and sprang from her padded chair as she saw a bent length of pipe that had been shorn off the wall near the door. Hefting it in her left hand, she walked back to the console and sat before pressing the accept button.

Immediately a prerecorded voice came through the speaker. Her already cold body turned to ice as she recognised the voice of an Arraxses as he said "Unknown vessel, this is the IS Arctic Heart, are you in need of assistance? You are no longer broadcasting a distress call." The voice cut off into a hiss of static for a moment before the message looped.

She pressed a few buttons on her console and replied in as calm a voice as she could manage "IS Arctic Heart, this is the IS Borialis, we have suffered critical damage and have lost life support. Please, it's so cold…" she said through chattering teeth.

She sat huddled in her chair for a few minutes with no reply, just as she was beginning to give up hope she saw a notification light pop up. They had replied.

Pressing play on the message she heard the man say "We read you, we can see your debris field from here. We are about six minutes from your location, just hold on."

They were too far for direct communication then she noted. She sent another reply that simply said "Hurry, I don't have much time left."

Quetzie could feel her arms and legs going numb slowly, the sensation moved up her extremities and towards her core. She knew that if it reached her chest she would die, but she was so cold she couldn't move.

After an indeterminate amount of time that felt like a lifeage, she began to hear small noises through the metal door of her prison. She cracked her eyes open, she was so cold. She tried to call for help but all that came out was a puff of mist and a slight gurgle. She tried to move but ended up falling off the chair to land on the cold metal floor. She groaned softly in pain and fear as she felt the last bits of warmth leach out of her into the unforgiving surface. It greedily sucked in her life force and left her empty, she felt hollow. Her large eyes seemed to start to fade. Her vision began to turn gray.

Suddenly she heard a mighty crash, loud and close enough to shock her awake. She watched weakly as the doors to her tomb shuddered under a heavy blow, and then began to slowly move apart. She watched as a large figure, powerful and wearing a void suit, forced the doors open with a large bar. The figure saw her and she tried to talk but her mouth only moved silently as she couldn't make any noise.

With a growl of effort the huge figure grabbed the massive metal spar in front of the door and with a titanic heave, wrenched it out of the way. They rushed in on heavy feet and scooped her up off the cold floor into their massive arms as if she weighed no more than a doll. She saw herself being carried through ruined halls as a mask was placed over her face and warm air began to play over her. She looked up into the mask of her rescuer but couldn't distinguish their features through their reflective visor. Her vision grayed and she lost consciousness, falling into a deep dreamless sleep.

**********

Quetzie awoke, her consciousness dragged itself from the brink of oblivion like an avalanche, slowly at first before quickly gaining momentum. She opened her outer opaque eyelids and then the nictitating membrane under that. As her eyes adjusted to the relative brightness of the room, she began to make out shapes and colors. The room seemed to be a muted grey similar in color to storm clouds on the horizon. It made her feel calm, she gurgled softly in pain as her muscles seemed to not obey her will, instead they remained stubbornly still. She tried again but was unsuccessful. Giving up on it for now, she tilted her head as far as she could manage and saw she was covered in soft white sheets of some sort of fluffy material. It was white as was the bed next to her and across from her, she surmised that she must be in some sort of medical wing.

She laid her lightly scaled head back down on the pillow as she tried to remember how she had gotten here. There was an explosion and then she remembered coldness. She shivered as she thought about it again. Then she remembered the sound of the doors being forced open and the figure that had rescued her. She blinked her eyes and sighed, they didn't seem to be pirates, and the fact she wasn't handcuffed said they weren't law enforcement either. They must be honest travelers or merchants that happened by in the nick of time. She thought about how close she had come to death and she shuddered again.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

She heard a faint noise outside the medical room door, she turned her head to see the door open and a huge fluffy figure step into the room. She shrunk in fear slightly until she realised that this wasn't the scourge that was her old captain. This Atraxses looked somehow softer, more friendly. Their big sad faces were hard to read at the best of times, but she thought she read concern on the face of this titan standing before her. Holy Current they must have been at least two meters tall, most likely more.

As they lumbered over to her in that strange knuckle walking gait, she tried to think of what to say to her potential rescuer. She had never met someone that would run into a dying ship that close to a rogue comet to rescue a single person who was in all likelihood already dead. The large creature reached her side and then checked the monitor beside her bed before turning to her and asking a question.

“Hmm, I am glad to see you are recovering. You were nearly gone when I found you, another two minutes and you wouldn't have made it.” It was the voice she had heard over the intercom before she had been rescued, this must be captain Tark.

She swallowed heavily and croaked out “Thanks, for saving me…”

She wanted to say more but wasn't sure where to start. She jerked as the man put a hand on her right arm and asked her in a deadly serious voice “Are you a pirate?”

She stared at the man, her rescuer. She saw through the kindly veneer they were wearing to the boiling rage that simmered below, the wrong answer here could mean death. But she feared what lying would do if they found out. “Yes…but…” she tried to say before he cut her off.

“Pirates almost killed my Uncle, they tried to board his ship, this ship, and take his cargo from him. He complied, with the stipulation that they spare him and his crew, the pirates lied to him and said they would. If it hadn't been for the intervention of an unlikely ally they would have been slaughtered. I hate pirates…” he said with a dangerous hiss as he tightened his grip on her arm “Almost as much as I hate lies…” he finished.

She squirmed slightly as he tightened his grip to almost painful levels. “I can explain everything. Please don't kill me!” she said desperately with the wild light of fear in her eyes. She began to sob even as the man let her go and stepped back a pace, seemingly shocked at her reaction.

“What? I wasn't going to kill you.” he said quietly, seemingly distressed at the thought. “Why did you think I was going to kill you?” he asked her.

She tried to tell him but wasn't able to through the crying. She rolled on her side facing away from him and curled into a ball, still crying but more softly now. She felt the bed sag and then a hand on her back, she stiffened but didnt pull away.

“Please, I just want to know what happened…” the man said softly, more gently this time.

Quetzie started to calm a bit, her sobs subsiding slowly as the large hand patted her upper back and shoulders consolingly. She began to tell her story, starting with her dreams to travel the stars. She told him how she was bullied in school and how the others said she was too worthless to ever go to space. She had studied hard and graduated top of her class before taking a job in an engineering firm that worked on the starships. She told Tark how she had been approached by an Atraxses asking her if she would be willing to work for him on his ship. She told him about the cruelty, the beatings, the threats of death and violence. She wasnt a pirate, she had been a slave, and he had freed her only to threaten her as well. She began to sob quietly again as the man moved away and she heard his footsteps recede till the door closed behind him with a faint hiss.

A long time later, Quetzie was awoken by a noise, she opened her eyes to see the door was open and captain Tark was walking towards her again. She knew now that he was unlikely to hurt her, but she still instinctively cowered away from him. He gave her a sad look before he set the tray he was carrying down on the table next to her bed.

“I think we met together on rather thin ice, I would like to apologise for my behaviour, my name is Tark, captain of the IS Arctic Heart. She isn't much, but she’s mine, and that's all I ever wanted. I made you some breakfast, I'm sure you are hungry, please, dig in.” He made a slow gesture towards the food and then sat heavily in the bed next to hers.

She gave him a slight distrustful look before sitting up and moving to the edge of the bed. She was dressed only in her underclothes and the large man averted his eyes in an embarrassed way as she sat bare chested before him on the edge of her bed. She smiled to herself, this idea of modesty isn't lost on her as her species generally wore clothing to protect their reproductive organs, which were internal, from casual view. But she had no need of a shirt as her mammary glands were internal and her nipples were protected in shallow pockets to the sides of her chest. Her general streamlined shape was designed to glide through the water with as little resistance as possible, and the large breasts that some of the other species of the SCU exhibited were a ridiculous idea to her. No wonder Humans and Nerivith were awful swimmers.

She smiled softly at this slight weakness displayed towards her and she asked “Should I put a shirt on?”

Tark glanced at her and averted his eyes again before he said in a slightly higher voice “Er, yes please, and some pants too maybe.”

She looked down at her bright blue smallclothes which she had heard referred to as a bikini or panties. They covered the bare minimum of her toned figure and allowed her to swim almost unimpeded through the water without causing an undue amount of distress to those around her. She stood and went to the table Tark had indicated and found a set of clothing that was obviously not made for Slaaveth, but would fit her well enough. She slipped into the wide pants and loose shirt and tucked it into the pants to keep it from billowing out too much. As she turned around she caught Tark staring at her, he quickly flicked his gaze somewhere else and she raised an eyebrow.

It seemed that the good captain Tark was interested in her a bit more than he was letting on, she decided to pretend she hadn't noticed and walked back to her bed before sitting and grabbing a pronged spoon from the tray. As she ate, she heard Tark begin to speak about himself and his own life experiences. She found herself genuinely interested, especially as he recounted his Uncle's tale of his encounter with a bloodthirsty pirate named Medrigil.

She shuddered as he described the casual violence he had entreated upon the captain and his crew before she gasped in disbelief at the story of his Uncle's rescuer. Tark described the titanic metal monster that had called itself Skorr, their burning eyes full of madness and hate, their indestructible body, their incredible strength.

“So this creature, they found it in deep space, on board a wrecked Slaaveth ship?” she asked.

“That's what my Uncle Filch told me. He said the debris he had been cut from looked ancient and when he had the metal dated later it was clocked as being well over fifty million years old.” he said in an ominous voice leaning forwards and wiggling his huge fingers in a spooky way.

She giggled and replied “Fifty million, pfft. What was that guy chewing, I want some!” she burst out laughing, the slight gurgle in her voice becoming more pronounced as she was caught in her laughing fit.

Tark slapped his hands on his knee and said “I know right, what a loon. But the rest of the story is true, I have some pictures, you want to see?” he said excitedly.

Quetzie sobered immediately and sat upright. “Yeah, show me.” she said animatedly as she bounced slightly on her bed.

Tark nodded his large head and smiled widely as he raised his wrist worn assistant and tapped on it for a few moments. He pulled up a small image folder and leaned forwards to show her but she hopped up instead and plunked herself right next to him on his other side. He made a surprised noise but didn't move and she smiled again. This guy was a big ol softie after all, probably never even had a girlfriend, not that she could brag about her relationships either.

She said “Come on, I want to see!”

Tark nodded at her a little dazedly and moved his assistant closer to her. She looked on in amazement at the crisp images of a huge titan of dark metal. The pictures seemed to be stills from some sort of security footage and showed scenes of the huge monster killing a group of pirates. She gasped in shock at one particularly grisly image of the titan stomping a man into goo under one of its huge taloned metal feet.

She looked up into Tarks face and said breathlessly “Wow that's incredible, I wonder what it is? Some sort of robot?”

Tark looked at her and then blinked a few times before he answered “It's a, er, no. It's some sort of, cyborg…”

She blinked her eyes up at him and smiled. He really was a good guy, maybe she should try and catch him. He had a ship and a crew, and she wouldn't need to do bad things anymore. She could be free. But she couldn't lie to him now, not after garnering so much trust.

“You need to destroy that ship.” she said suddenly, leaning away from him to get his attention.

“I huh? Destroy the ship? But what about the salvage, I know it's probably not all good but there is a lot of good scrap there. And unless you want to claim it, it's free to take according to congressional salvage codes.” Tark said in response.

She gurgled in frustration and moved to stand in front of him with her hands folded across her chest. “No, you don't understand. They were bad people, they were smuggling some bad stuff, it needs to be destroyed, all of it. I heard they were on their way to some place called Geodrome to deliver the goods when we got hit by that comet. The goods must never arrive, please trust me. Does this ship have any weapons?”

Tark looked at her for a few moments before he sighed. “I still don't even know your name, and now you ask me to give up a potential haul?”

She gave him a stern look and said ”I didn't survive the impossible to waste your time, and my name is Quetzie by the way.” she said hotly.

“Quetzie…” she heard him whisper in his not so quiet bass. She rolled her eyes, this guy really was interested in her. She would give him a chance to get her attention later, but for now she needed to focus on destroying that poison on her old ship. She didn't remember the name of it and it was likely unimportant, but the cargo was deadly, dangerous genetic research and noxious chemical experiments were on board from what she had gathered working in the engineering area. They should not be allowed to survive, they need to be destroyed.

“Listen Tark.” she placed her hand on one of his shaggy shoulders “Please trust me. I trusted my life to you, allow me to help you in return. There is nothing on that wreck but death. It must be destroyed, do you have any weapons?”

The large man nodded silently before he shuffled sideways a bit and stood. He raised his assistant and spoke into it “Veela, That ship is carrying hazardous materials and could be contaminated. We need to destroy it.”

A small voice came through the speaker, the high musical quality marked the speaker out immediately as a Swanith. Veela said “What? Destroy it, but it is just loaded with illegal modifications, we could turn those into the station for a big fat paycheck.”

Tark looked at her again before he responded “Yes I'm serious, I got it on first hand knowledge that it's better off lost to the void. Charge the canon and blast its fuel cells. That should do it.” he grimaced at the mention of such wanton destruction. The Atraxses were generally a rather gentle race, abhorring violence in all its forms and practicing patience and tolerance. Except for that son of a sluurge that had tricked her into slavery.

Tark pulled up an external feed of the wrecked ship on his assistant, Quetzie watched in fascination as a bright purple beam stabbed into the mess and a second later the wreck flashed into molten slag as the reactor fuel cells detonated like a bomb. The wreck was consumed in the fires and its remains scattered to the void. It began to recede from view and Quetzie realised they were moving away from the scene now, probably back to whatever they had been doing before they had picked up her distress beacon.

Tark stood beside her, a full forty centimeters taller than her, she reached up and grabbed a handful of the shaggy fur under his chin and pulled his head down. He began to protest before she planted a kiss on his leathery cheek. Letting go of his beard, she smiled at him again and said “Thank you Tark. I hope I never see anything to do with those scum again. In the meantime I want to go for a swim. Do you have any pools of large tubs on this ship?”

Tark just stared at her, open mouthed, so she grabbed one of his hands and tugged him after her saying “C'mon captain. I want to go swimming. Do you ever go swimming? I could teach you, you know.” she giggled as he made a few stuttering sounds while they walked down the hall together.

End of Story