The engine's humming grows quieter as the Federation Cruiser slows. The only sounds I can hear aside from my own breath and heartbeat are that of the blinking buttons in the cockpit. Stars and planets, visible through my window, slowly return to a stilled state. I feel the ship’s gravity systems working to stabilize my G forces. The overhead light systems are dark throughout the interior, I turned them off. Myouren is putting out the fire in the weapons room, I can see him stomping out the last of the flames through my surveillance feed. In the corner of the screen I see a black, charred figure sprawled about the floor. A sickness fills my stomach. I turn off the surveillance camera, the lights were off so I wouldn’t have to look at her.

Myouren is a Rockman, a race that gets its name from the fact that they all have fire resistant skin resembling that of a pile of rocks. Rockmen are naturally xenophobic, for some of his kind the disdain of outsiders stems from family tragedy, for others it’s rooted in their religion. I’m unsure where he stands with us human on the crew, but from what little I saw of his face I gathered that he felt very little for the life lost in the room in which he stands. A red light illuminates on my screen. “NO FUEL” it reads in bright lettering. That jump wiped out last fuel cell. The Impulse Engines are still functioning but attempting to use those to flee would be comparable to crawling up a hill. “NO FUEL” the screen continues.

My eyelids shut as I sink back into my chair, losing myself in the warm darkness. This reminds me of a time from my youth, I used to stay up all night running flight simulations in my bedroom. I had set up a makeshift cockpit out of pillows and a desk I dismantled and shuffled around. With my bedroom lamp off, the AR flight goggles made me feel like I was really in space. What I wouldn’t give to back then.

Thoughts come seeping in, I see the fire, my muscles tighten and my tear ducts scream. Dhara was manning the weapons bay when the rebel firebomb teleported into ship. The doors jammed up from the heat and she was burned alive while trying to get our Heavy Ion back online. Her golden hair was framed in an orange glow while she struggled through the pain to get the systems running again. As the flames engulfed her she got a single Ion blast to shoot out, disabling the Rebel Fighter’s engines just long enough for us to jump out of there.

As protocol we’ll take her corpse to the medbay to see what we can reuse of her biomatter before dispersing the waste into space, she deserves better. They all deserve. I worked with her brother during my training, he was the jokester of our class. There was one day, Halloween, we were all supposed to come in for a special flight training and this dumbass genius had hacked into the simulation program, replacing all the enemy ships with these poorly drawn ghosts and zombies. When brought in by our supervisors he told them that it was meant to test how we’d react under scary situations. The next year he and his crew was slaughtered during the first Rebel Fleet invasion. What was left of their remains was scavenged and used as biofuel by pirates.

A knock on the cabin door drags me out of my trance. Pistons hiss and the door slides open, light footsteps on the hollow flow reach the back of my chair.

“Captain Wraith, Dhara didn’t make it.” They say in an urgent, soft voice. As much as I want to find comfort in the sweet sound of someone else, a deep shame prevents that. I’m the captain, her death is my responsibility. Just like Ace and Greer before her, all of their lives weigh on my chest.

“I saw.” My voice is usually low and full, but even with all my body trying to appear strong the word ‘saw’ shook in my throat with an unhidable pain. I turn in my chair to see the silhouette of Florence, our shields operator, staring back at me. The tiny flickering lights on buttons reveal tiny amounts of her figure: flashes of her hickory brown hair, her black suit, her grey eyes. With each blink, in her eyes, the reflection of a scared, young boy looks back at me.

“We’re meeting in the engines room, Myouren and I, we think you should come too.” She turns and leaves without waiting for me to respond. The pistons fire once again, closing the door behind her.

When we first evacuated the Federation base our crew was 6 strong: 4 Humans, 1 Rockman, and 1 Zoltan. Ace was a human and Dhara’s fiance, they were planning on getting married before the Rebels attacked. Greer was a Zoltan, a species made entirely out of energy, giving them a green glow. Her and Myouren got along well, he was always listening to her stories tales of her homeworld, hell we all were, she was very wise and a very good storyteller. She was the first one we lost, I never got to know her well. We got caught off-guard in a nebula in sector 2, our scanners were down and it wasn’t until she was half dead that we found out we had company. Some pirates snuck up on us and teleported 2 Mantis crew members inside our ship, the Mantis race are deadly fighters, Greer didn’t stand a chance. Myouren went insane when he found her scattered remains in the medbay, he beat our invaders into a soggy, dripping pulp before teleporting himself onto their ship. We were trying to disable their engines, but by the time we got their shields down the ship’s crew had already been slaughtered. When Myouren returned he went straight for the showers, leaving a crimson foot trail behind as he walked. With each stomp his simmering rage echoed off the hull. He didn’t talk to any of us for an empty 12 jumps after that.

We lost Ace in sector 3, it was our first run in with the Rebels one on one. We accidentally let a Rebel scouting drone jump away before we could destroy it, giving away our position to the fleet. It had an orange hull and a blue stripes along the side, the Rebel Fighter ship, I can still remember it hailing us to surrender or perish. We fought back and defeated them but not before they could bust a hole in the engines room. Part of the hull crashed on his leg, shattering it beyond repair. With no way to drag himself out of the room, he suffocated as the oxygen we pumped in was being sucked out into space. It’s sadly poetic, the two lovers both lost their lives to Rebel Fighters.

Florence wasn’t asking when she invited to the meeting, I’m the captain, I have to be there. She was being polite, she wanted to give me some time to breath before we move on.

Moving on, that’s not the right wording. I haven’t moved on, I still see Greer and Ace and Dhara everytime I close my eyes. It’s like a hook pulling me down from my chest, I don’t want to get up from my chair. I wish I was back on earth. I wish I was 7 and riding in the car with my dad on the way to his work, him telling me about all the different spaceships the Federation had and all the species that lived up amongst the stars. I wish I was 6 sitting in my families kitchen, flying a toy Kestrel that my mom had bought me for my birthday around like it was really in space. I wish that when I blink, and the little hint of true black occurs, that when I open my eyes again I’m no longer piloting a ship with no fuel and half its crew dead.

I feel water drip on my pants, I’m crying. I wipe my eyes on my sleeves and force myself onto my feet. Pausing, I take a deep breath. My lungs reluctantly take in the air, it’s as if they don’t want me to breath. Like they would prefer I just never take another breath and let myself die. I breath out, my head feels light. I haven’t slept well this entire sector, and it seems that’s only bound to get worse now. My head aches as I take the first step towards the door, I have to keep going. I make my legs step through the doorway and suddenly I find standing in front of the engines room, almost as though my mind had shut down during the walking process.

The doors to the engine room slide open, Florence are Myouren are seated with a third chair left empty for me. Neither of them had talked, they were waiting for me. I walk up and stand behind my chair, now that I’ve finally gotten myself up I don’t feel like sitting anymore.

“What now?” Myouren shatters the silence.

“We have to repair the weapons systems now that the fire is out.” Florence responds calmly.

“That’s not what I meant? We have no fuel and we’re stranded in a Mantis controlled sector!”

“We need to make sure our ship is in order before we can do anything else.”

“We’re sitting ducks! If those Rebel bastards catch up to us we’re damn chum!”

“With our weapons online at least we’d be armed.”

“You’re being ignorant!”

“And you’re being loud.”

“Both of you, calm down,” I cut in, “Florence will work on repairing the weapons and Myouren, you… deal with Dhara. I’ll turn on the emergency beacon.”

“You’ve gotta be shitting me.” Myouren scoffs.

“It’s our only chance at getting any fuel.”

“But you’ll be giving us away to any bastards that travel through this sector.”

“But we’ll also be giving it away to any potential Federation supporters.” Florence nods in agreement at what I say.

“He’s right, it’s our only shot.” She says.

“Jesus,” Myouren gets up, knocking over his chair, “If I see a damn Rebel ship anywhere near our position, I’ll make sure that I’m the ones to kill you first.” He says as he stomps out of the room. Florence turns to me.

“He doesn’t mean that.”

“I wish he did.” I let out quietly as I turn to walk out the room.

“It’s not your fault.” Florence whispers as she grabs my forearm.

    I want to respond and say, “I know,” but I my throat is so tight I can’t form any words. Even if I could, I would be lying. Each one of these deaths could’ve been avoided if I had just chosen a different jump point, each one of these lives would still be living if it weren’t for me. I break my arm free from Florence’s grip. Even without being able to see her face, I know she’s frowning. It’s a frown of pity.

    I didn’t know any of the members of my crew before we had to flee. If you were a captain, you were given a crew and told to fly off as fast as you could. If you were a specialist, you were randomly assigned to a ship that didn’t already have a specialist of your type. That’s how it was for the first few ships, at least, including mine. As the Rebels got closer and less and less ships became available, there was less order. They were just filling ships with 8 crew members and sending them off, it didn’t what specialties anyone had. “You’ll learn what they need to learn!” was the reassurance they got, or so I’ve been told. The last few ships to head out didn’t even have trained captains. Some crashed while trying to fly out of the hanger, others were easily shot down by Rebel ships, and the ones that actually made it off the planet likely got caught by the Rebel fleet due to their inexperience with jumping.

    I arrive back at the cockpit, I flip on the monitor to see it still shouting at me that we have “NO FUEL”. I look at the bottom right hand side of the screen to see a button that reads “DISTRESS BEACON”. I breath, in and out, and push the button. I tiny red light next to it starts blinking. I pull my hand back, it’s shaking, I’m shaking. I let myself fall back into my captain’s chair. All that’s left to do is wait.

    I stare blankly out the window in front of me. My eyes lazily shift from one star to another. There's a blue planet I can see, not close enough for us to dock at, but just close enough for me to observe. Even if we could dock at the planet, we’re in Mantis controlled sector and ever since the Federation-Mantis War tension between the Mantis and Human race have been high. I try to force myself to think simply about what I’m looking at. There are streaks of light blue against royal on this planet, I assume from clouds above the land. Maybe light blue is actually land, and the royal blue streaks are water. Maybe it’s the other way around. I let my mind wonder and my eyelids slowly droop down to a close. Despite the repetitive light, it’s still quite dark. What the inhabitants of this planet weren’t Mantis? What if they were some new species of blue creatures hiding away in this territory? They could have 4 arms and eyes that are attached to their shoulders. Big eyes, with bright pink irises. Their skin could feel like tree leaves, they could be plant creatures?

    I feel my breathing calm, my heart beat slow, and my muscles relaxing. Before I know it, I’m dead asleep, dreaming of some crazy, fake alien species that inhabits this boring planet before us.