The slow trundle towards the planet’s moon and subsequent death by Abyss trundled ever closer, with minutes stretching out to feel like hours. Malan was trapped, forced to sit and watch as more clawed creatures left the void and made for the moon they would be landing upon. Every so often, he caught another glimpse of that monstrosity mercifully still on the other side of the rift and had to fight back a wave of nausea.

Every so often, it caught a glimpse of him.

Still, there was only so long you could sit in existential terror before your brain adjusted to the situation, and before long Malan had calmed himself down enough to think. Well, enough to attempt to, anyway. His bindings had not cut into his wrists enough that the pain was sharp and constant, and blood smeared all the way around each wrist, with several drops escaping to the floors.

Added to that was the absolute mountain of new information Talia had thrown at him. He was almost positive he’d misheard or misunderstood her about the Jauda. It had been planned. They had caused it. Not him. Them. Of everything, even with all the talk of the Elder Ones, that Talia was somehow working for them, or even the fact he was almost certainly going to die—it was that solitary part that kept overtaking everything else.

It hadn’t been him. All of those people dead. His mother and father. The friends he’d made on that station. The people that had taken the time to teach him because they’d recognised something in him. His sister lying broken and alone in a hospital bed.

Not him. Them.

The pulsing waves of volcanic anger were unlike anything he’d ever felt before. His muscles tensed impotently and his teeth ground. Talia responded to glares that by all rights should have shredded her on the spot with faint condescending smiles. He could do nothing, and she knew it. Took pleasure in it, even.

All those years spent making himself suffer for what happened—torturing himself for a crime it turns out hadn’t even been his. Yesterday, the only thing keeping him from ending it had been his obligation to provide for his sister—most of his wage transferred automatically to her hospital to pay for her care. Without that, he wouldn’t have persisted for two weeks, let alone the two years he’d managed.

Today, he was going to die, and he wanted nothing more than to live.

He stewed in that thought for a good twenty minutes before the buzz of the comms had him sitting up ramrod straight, and eyes wide with hope. Talia smirked, and languidly stretched closer to her monitor ready to respond whilst looking him dead in the eyes and pressing a finger to her lips.

“Attention bridge,” Elena said, slightly out of breath from the work. “That’s the jump drive operational again. Returning shortly. Status?”

Talia pushed the intercom button, and her smirk disappeared, replaced in an instant with the Talia he thought he’d known.

“Great news, Captain! Malan is about to crack the final few passwords. I don’t know what I would have done without him.”

“Excellent work, both of you. Begin powering up the jump drive again, we’ll be with you in a moment.”

The intercom clicked off, and Talia’s smirk returned full force as she turned to him. Behind her, Malan could see through the viewing windows they were close enough to the rift that the creatures emerging from the rift had finally noticed them. They flew towards the ship in a rolling mass on shadowed flesh and tattered wings. In moments, they had surrounded the lone Sparrow, like opportunistic ravens who had happened upon an unexpected meal.

Oddly, though, they did not attack. Malan braced for the ripping and tearing of metal he remembered from the Jauda, but nothing came. They simply swarmed around them, a seething mass escorting them to their fate, only made more unsettling to behold by their deathly silence.

“Now,” Talia began, having moved behind Malan in his moment of distraction. She spoke directly into his hear, her cool breath on his neck making his skin crawl. “When the others arrive, you will give no warning. You see the situation we are in. If I am killed—if there is any resistance at all—the ship will be torn apart, and the butchered remains of its crew will be cast to the stars.”

“And if I co-operate?”

“They will be given a choice. If they choose correctly, they may take the ship and leave unharassed.”

“Bullshit,” he spat. “Those things will tear apart everyone the moment we land. I’ve seen how they operate. What they do.”

Talia sighed next to him, then hissed something in a strange, unintelligible language. A rush of vile wrongness swept across the entire room, as though sea-sickness had gained a physical presence. Malan jerked violently away from her, but froze when he saw the black masses outside swarm before the window, and align themselves in the perfect rows on either side of the Sparrow.

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

For a moment, the ship moved between the creatures arrayed like a guard of honour. Then Talia spoke again, and they scattered, keeping themselves distant from the ship as it travelled, never coming closer than some imagined boundary they all seemed to share.

“Our mission is more important than anything, and I am the one it has been entrusted t—”

Talia froze mid-sentence and frowned, before hurrying back to her own station. The bridge doors slid open and the considerably sweatier and more grimy trio of Beric, Thaddeus and Elena ambled in. The three took a few steps, unaware more of their attention was needed, before Elena stopped cold, her eyes locked upon Malan.

“Shit!”

There was a scramble for her weapon, but Talia was faster. An ocean blue bolt of light burst from her already ready pistol, and hit Elena square in the chest. For one horrifying moment Malan thought he’d just watched his captain die, but then the energy dispersed across her body and she shook as she fell as violent pulses of energy wracked her body. She had been stunned, not killed.

She hit the floor with a limp thud, and continued to shake for a moment before stilling. Thaddeus and Beric looked between her and Talia, ashen-faced before raising their own hands in surrender.

“Smart boys. Now kick her weapon across to me.” The pair complied quickly, and Talia slung the rifle across her own shoulders. She took out a handful of extra cable ties, and threw them at the pair. “Now, between you, bind the good captain to her chair and take a seat at the back of the room whilst we wait for her to rouse. No funny ideas—the stun setting is a flick of the switch away from becoming lethal. I’d rather not kill any of you, but I won’t hesitate if you force my hand.”

The two men complied shakily, and with only a minimal amount of grunting and laboured breathing gingerly lifted the captain and placed her in her seat. Beric hesitated before applying his half of her bindings, prompted only, Malan suspected, by a pointed look from Talia.

They sat on the floor at the back of the bridge, exactly where they had been told, Talia shutting down any attempt at talking with her they tried. After a minute or two of trying, they accepted their fate and waited for the Captain to wake. Though they were sat behind him, Malan saw out of the corner of his eyes the moment they noticed how close to the rift and moon they were, and saw when they noticed the creatures surrounding them.

Then he saw the moment that each came to accept their own deaths.

Elena woke, groggy and weak-limbed almost as soon as the ship began to shudder as its landing gear moved into place, the moon looming behind her in the window like a pale halo. She slurred a confused noise, before beginning to strain against her restraints, until Talia spoke.

“Don’t bother. They’re well-tied.”

“You!” Elena hissed, clearly thunderstruck. “I don’t understand—what’s the point in any of this?”

Talia sighed. “Look, I’ve already explained myself once. Things for you at this point are very simple.”

At that moment, the rumbling grew to a climax as the Sparrow lowered itself towards the surface of the moon, ready to touch down.

“The ship’s autopilot is locked by password to this moon. Option one is I have the datastick that will give you access, and the ability to turn off the passwords remotely. I will take Malan onto the moon’s surface, unlock the ship’s navigation and you fly away entirely unimpeded. You ask no questions, you never look back, and you never see me or the Abyss ever again. Option two? Well, I think you know option two.”

She hissed again in that strange language, and the creatures surged towards the ship as it tried to land. Beric screamed as one dove straight for the viewing glass, only to turn away at the last minute and continue to swirl around them, claw and tooth gleaming in the low light of the distant sun. The Sparrow finally touched down with one last lurch, and the creatures landed upon the surface of the moon, awaiting their exit.

“Fuck you,” Elena spat. “This is my ship. My crew. I won’t abandon any of them to the Abyss. I’ll die first.”

Talia chuckled. “Very brave. And you probably would. Fortunately, it’s not really up to you. A Captain doesn’t really have much authority when she’s allowed herself to be tied up.” She turned, raising an eyebrow at Beric and Thaddeus. “What about you two? More brains than our Captain here, I hope. Willing to die horribly on principle for poor, little Malan, Beric?”

Malan nearly laughed at the idea of Beric doing anything for him, principle or not, but it died in his throat when Beric didn’t say a word. His cold grey eyes simply glared at Talia with a hatred that caught Malan off-guard. Nothing he’d ever sent Malan’s way had ever come close to that look.

Surprised as he was, this whole affair was ridiculous. He opened his mouth to volunteer and put an end to it, when Thaddeus spoke.

“I will accept your offer,” he said, eyes glistening. He turned to Malan. “I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry. But I can’t die here. I won’t. My granddaughter—”

“It’s fine,” Malan cut in, doing his best to force a shaky smile onto his face. “It makes no sense for us all to die here. You should all get away, if you can. Better one of us than all of us. Just—” he hesitated, before allowing the words to tumble out. “I have a sister, she’s sick and we have no other family…”

“If it's the last thing I do, I will ensure she is cared for, Malan. I swear it.”

Malan nodded at Thaddeus and smiled. “Thank you. Now, Talia, if I’m to die today, let’s get to it, so these people can get themselves away.”

Talia simply smiled, always having been supremely confident that they would accede, and cut him loose. “Remember, nothing stupid. You act out, fight, anything, and the Abyss will rip this entire ship apart. For the rest of you, no movement until we’re off, after that just be on your way, and you’ll be able to leave unaccosted.”

She walked him off of the bridge at gunpoint, but Malan allowed himself a deep breath, and a small smile found its way to his face, despite the abject terror clawing at his insides. This felt right. He had dreamed of being a hero. Of sailing the stars, rescuing people and risking his on daring missions to keep the galaxy safe.

They arrived at the on-foot exit of the Sparrow, and Malan hardly heard Talia’s order to put on his environmental suit. Nor did he pay particular attention to the exit ramp of the ship lowering, and kicking up a cloud of silver dust as it hit the surface of the small moon.

He took his first step on the ramp and felt two years of self doubt and blame and guilt wash away as he walked down it to his own death. His story might have been one of terrible circumstance and wasted potential, but at least at the very end, he would die with some meaning. He would die, so that three people could live and that, in the end, was a good thing.

His foot touched solid rock, and he scoffed.

Even if one of those people was bloody Beric.