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Author Topic: Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night [One Shot]  (Read 350 times)

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Offline Lion

Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night [One Shot]
« on: April 23, 2018, 05:51:54 pm »
Spinning. The world was spinning, and no amount of passing gray and vague green could stay within frame enough stay in memory. There was nothing he could hold onto that image, the spinning of that skiff nor the spinning in his head. Every time the half-crescent marble passed across his vision, his confusion compounded and Grisham’s head only hurt more. The voices were fading away, the echoes familiar and when they were gone, he tried to reach out for them and heard nothing. That vacancy hurt more and more the longer his skull thumped, the little gray and green dot passing by again and again.

Heavy breaths, his heart pounding and for an abrupt hot second he feared the blood in his helmet came from his lungs, if something inside ruptured. If a routine mission had gone wrong because it couldn’t handle the pressure of leaving the atmosphere and guiding a satellite into orbit. An inkling fear that his body had betrayed him and would no longer let him do the job he’d been trained to do day in and day out.

His heart was still pounding and the blaring sirens coming from his flight couch dash made the silence in his head all that much more deafening. Grisham growled, his panting breath coming out in soft puffs as he tried to reach forward. A blink and the small pebbles of tears beaded away from his eyes, his gloved hard slamming hard on the dash to try and silence them. His hand trembled, grunting more to try and get the sirens to stop, flipping gauges and trying to right himself in the seat as his trajectory continued.

“FUUUUCK!” he hissed, his hand slamming again and the small pressure valves erupted from the skiff’s dented and damaged hull to try and counter the force by which he was spinning. The hiss righted the small vessel, the pressure eventually slowing the velocity. Small segments of the hull had been smashed to bits, and there was a crack in the cockpit viewfinder. Grisham’s gray green eyes blinked slowly taking in the damage as the sirens made him see red. Grisham undid the buckles that strapped him to his chair, the lock behind him trying to click into place.

Gloved hands wrapped around where a small object was lodged in between the from and the lock itself. Repeated attempts to connect met with failure and every second he took to dislodge the small piece of metal, the greater the chance of the emergency door ripping open completely. Why it hadn’t yet he didn’t know and he wasn’t going to wonder at. Not now.  With a loud grunt eventually the piece of metal was wrenched out and the lock clicked into place. The hiss of securing itself, made Grisham drift back to his flight seat and strap himself back in.

A few more flipped switches and taking hold of the flightstick and the sirens finally ceased their screams, leaving his head vacant once more.

What the fuck had happened? Did he remember? Where were the others?

”Lock, stock and barrel? Can you read me? Krush? Lizard Skinner.  Am I coming in clear?” he broadcasted out.  And received nothing for his troubles. Nothing but silence.

The throbbing of his temples did nothing to alleviate the struggle for recollection. He had no marbles to reach out to, and he tried first to control his breath. Calm down, Alberich. This isn’t your first courser. And it ain’t no intergalactic cruise ship.  You’re on a skiff in the middle of nowhere. How did you get here?


——
“Easy does it. We’re closing in on the coordinates now. Don’t rush it, Chatterbox…” That was his voice uttering those commands. Was Matt doing something wrong? No…  No, nothing was going wrong. Everything was in place. The Talon Satellite was up and almost fully operational. The squadron had done what it was trained for - if anything this was a routine mission and he would be back home to message Yavul that he’d made a decision on the bathroom tiling they were discussing.

It was routine…  All they needed to do was enter in the correct diagnostic array and it would be up and running. His job was to get it into orbit. Make sure it worked then he’d be home in time for supper. 

It was routine… Lasagna…yeah that sounded good with a nice glass of ice cold sweet tea. Yavul’s favorite. Maybe a hint of brandy for the old dog since he couldn’t have a drink - his own fault really. Who made bets like that?  Grisham didn’t even want to think of the embarrassment he felt when it at blatantly backfired on him. Boy did the ol’ Yote know how to sweet talk him, and squirm in all the right ways.

He’d be home in no time he told himself. It was routine.

The trajectory of flying debris surrounding the planet he’d called home had come out of nowhere. The mission would be quick, but when the diagnostic array failed to connect, Grisham went forth himself to reposition it. Just a millimeter more, was all it would take the array would connect. That was all it needed. Just a little bit more. Aaaand there.

Grisham slowly used the pressure valves to push him away from the satellite. It was perfect and when he heard confirmation of the lock on, he could head back with the rest. The timing was just within the orbital debris. Or so he’d thought. Suddenly something slammed into him so fast that it caught the tail end of the skiff and sent it into a spin, sending it out and away. The skiff hissed and the glass cracked, and before he could counter the spin or maneuver out of the way and even larger piece of debris crushed the left side of the ship, the force of which slammed Grisham’s head against the inside of his helmet, and everything went black.


Everything came screaming back to him. The sirens, the voices of his squadron. The realization that the gray green dot that he’d seen floating past the cracked window was not earth, but some other rock. That he’d been slammed so far off the star map his own squadron couldn’t even reach him. His comm had been dead.  And the gauges were all ready low or near-empty. He didn’t know where he was, and even if he did, he didn’t have enough fuel to get back.

Grisham Alberich, Pilot Royal and Commander of the Hellions, was a sitting duck in unknown territory, and the quadrants he tried to read on his scanner fizzed out. Did he risk sending out an emergency beacon? Anyone could find him, and if Edanis or Librans found him first, he was already toast. A Pilot Royal would make a mighty prize for anyone and he checked his comm again, smacking it because that was the Solartan way to get anything to work.

Radio Silence…

Grisham’s hand hovered over the distress signal beacon.  He glanced down at the rifle he had in the compartment next to his flight couch. He wasn’t unarmed. If someone wanted to burn him, they weren’t going to take him alive.  A second of hesitation and nothing more, and the power levels were stripped to the barest minimum - no lights, no outgoing calls, even the life support that kept the temperature regulated was to be activated if need be. Grisham activated the beacon and pulled the rifle close.

“Fire fire,” he whispered, staring out into black. “Burning bright.  Like a beacon in the night…”

 ”Look the red dot just north by northwest of Amristah, Coyote Man, that’s where you’ll find me. Don’t worry. I’m going up just for a few. I’ll be back before you know it.” Those were distant words now. But words he repeated nonetheless.

This time he said it aloud and to nothing more than the silence in his helmet. “I’ll be back before you know it, Yavul. You have my word.”

 

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