Spaced

An endless expanse stared at my face, as I tried to say my last prayer, but this void could not let my voice be heard. It literally took my breath away. Space. The last frontier. I had given it all to be here, ever since I was a child all I wanted was to work in space. But was this the way it would give back to me. After all the effort I had given to be here. Just to be killed by its hand. Space was this why you called me so deary. This was the sound of my innermost self as I slowly but surely descended into the afterlife. Space taking my breath and I freezing to death in a lasting moment. It seemed to last forever.

"Welcome to the ERN Melissa"

The voice of the captain echoed into my ears as I entered the bridge of the ship. The captain was a bulk of a man of sorts. He was the tallest man I had ever seen, Indian and his dark skin tone perfectly complemented his handsomeness.

"Thank you sir."

I replied with a shaky voice. I was nervous, this was my first assignment. I was just fresh out of the Earth Republic Navy (ERN) Academy and I did not want to blow it. I am one used to making a good first impression with my dressing but that wasn't about to work this time. Everyone was in uniform like me so I just tried to be as normal as I could without showing my nervousness but I'm pretty sure everyone saw through me. I was scared as hell.

"Jess Keaton reporting for duty, Sir."

I said now with the shaking in my voice stronger than before. "Don't be nervous ensign, I am just a captain, I don't bite" The captain replied in a humorous tone.

"Anyway, I am captain Edward Rodgers, but everyone around here just call me captain, it's kinda short that way."

The entire bridge crew broke into laughter. His humour even made him more charming than he looked.

The ERN Melissa was a fair sized ship with a crew of around 300 people. Compared to the other ships in the ERN fleet, it was one of the small ones.

"Ensign Jess"

The captain's deep voice echoed into my ears as I awoke from the daydream of thoughts I had wondered into.

"Commander Eckert will take you to your quarters, have a good night's rest and report to the bridge at exactly 7 hundred hours tommorow morning."

Elena Eckert was a middle sized woman of at least 35 years of age by my estimation.

"Follow me ensign."

Elena said as she led me as she led me down the hallway.

"Who let the dogs out, Who Who Who Who"

The ancient alarm song echoed through the room kicking me off the beautiful dreamland I had ventured into. I don't know how tired I was but by the time I woke up the alarm had rung for five times.

I opened my eyes to look directly at the blinding light above my eyes. As I turned around and scanned my sorrounding I was shocked for a moment.

"Where am I, I shouted out loud."

Then it all came back to me, I was no longer at the ERN Academy. I was here on my first day of duty and yet I washed sitting in my bed wondering where I was.

I got ready as fast as I could and rushed to the bridge. "Good morning captain."

I greeted him with fear in my voice.

"Where have you been ensign Jess, did you get lost." The captain replied sarcastically.

"I'll let it slide this time since it's your first day, but the next time you are late you won't be so lucky."

The captain added. He was humorous but he also was a no nonsense guy. He wanted everyone to be at their best.

"I'm sorry captain, I won't be late again."

I apologized and swore to myself I would never be late again.

"You are lucky ensign, you get to go on a mission on your first day."

The captain said now in a lighter tone. I got more excited at the thought of that. This was why I always wanted to work in the ERN. You get to visit other worlds, get to go to places that no one had ever been to before. As a kid I was always curious about new things. I was never satisfied with the knowledge that I had, I wanted more and more. When I found out that there is an infinite expanse of unexplored planets filled with undiscovered knowledge, I knew this was my place. I was going to work there.

So as soon as I finished high school I applied for the ERN.

"Engineering, ready the shuttle."

The captain relayed the command over the comms. Eckert and three other members of the crew joined us in the shuttle.

"By the way captain, where are we going?"

I asked. I seemed to be the only one who had no inkling of where we were going since I was late to the briefing.

"We have detected some strange signals from the surface of the planet Seath so we are going to investigate."

The captain replied.

"I thought Seath was unexplorable?"

I asked. Seath was one of the outer planets which the ERN had never explored. Long range scans had shown that its surface was too rugged for anyone to explore it safely and there didn't seem to be anything beneficial to Earth anyway so there was no reason to explore.

"We're still going to do a fly by, maybe luckily we will find a surface we could land, there could be someone in danger down there, we just can't leave them to die, can we?"

"You nervous?"

Eckert asked as we settled into the seats of the shuttle. "I am, but am more excited than nervous, Commander" I replied.

"I was nervous too, don't worry you'll get used to it." "Anyway, you can call me Elena."

She added.

"We still need to be careful out there, no one has ever set their feet on Seath."

The captain's first officer Lorraine remarked. Lorraine was the youngest first officer in the navy. At age 21, he had already been first officer for two years.

"There is even a romour that some ships tried to land on Seath, but none of them ever returned."

Elena added.

"Thank you for the comforting word, commander."

The captain chiseled into the conversation with his sarcastic tone.

As the rest of the crew continued conversing I sat there on my chair, my heart rushing out of nervousness and excitement at the same time as I clenched my fist and tried to convince me that this would be as easy as the simulations.

This was my first mission after all

Suddenly the shuttle started to shake like a house in a 7.1 magnitude earthquake.

"We are under fire."

"Strap up everyone, it's gonna be a bumpy ride."

Ryan, the pilot exclaimed. I was amazed by how he managed to stay composed in such a tense situation but something told me if I was to survive I had to learn to do so. Outside we could see shots being fired at the shuttle but for some reason we couldn't figure out where the shots were coming from.

"I'm loosing control."

The pilot shouted, this time no longer composed but scared. I figured he found comfort in knowing he was in control no matter

how tense the situation was, but now he no longer had control he was obviously nervous.

The entire controls and the sensor array seemed to have gone crazy. Just as the pilot was trying to find a way to regain control a whooshing sound reseonated in the shuttle.

“We, are loosing air.!”

Eckert exclaimed as her voice trailed off into the endless abyss of space.

One of the shots had bored a hole into the hull of the shuttle and we were loosing air fast. We were lucky the hole was small enough to be covered so one of the crew fixed it. But by the time it was fixed, we had already lost most of the air in the shuttle and everyone started weakening and fainting.I was a diving champion at high school so it was easy for me to hold my breath for some time but that wasn't the case for the others. Surely there had to be a way we could survive this. As I racked my brains for a solution I remembered something. Each and every shuttle had escape pods enough for its capacity, all I had to do was get myself and everyone to the escape pods and eject them and they would take us directly back to the ship.

Without further ado, I helped everyone to the escape pods and ejected them. As I was about to get into my escape pod, that exact same moment the enemy decided to shoot the final blow. This shot blew a huge hole right ahead of me, exactly where my escape pod was .

The Irony of thiss amazed me. The same place where my rescue stood was the same place where now stood my undoing.

As any semblance of air that was in the shuttle flooded out, so did I, being pulled out like all the stars and the forces in space itself had conspired to make me part of it.

As I closed my eyes and descended into the abyss that was before me I saw a shimer coming towards me. I heard that when someone

dies, they their lives flash before their eyes, maybe this was it. I prepared to go and as I felt something touch my chest I closed my eyes and gave in to death, for I knew, this was the end.