Huuuugh. Huuugh hoooo. The air vacated my lungs in all of 3 seconds as I reached out for something to grab. Missing the steel support beam to my left, my back made friends with the ground creating a symphony of painful outbursts from my airless diaphragm. It would have knocked the wind out of me but much like an impoverished philanthropist, I had no more to give. The airlock on my ship had failed and I would have failed with it if I had not reached up with my last ounce of breath and smashed in the red and orange flashing reset button on the ship’s door. Slowly, air rushed back into my lungs and they filled as if they were ballons and a children’s party lifting me up off the ground filling my body with life again. That’s life on a spaceship for ya though! Wake up, basically die, and then come back to life, and then eat dinner in the mess hall like nothing has happened admiring the beautiful silhouette of the Alpha Centuri IV as she floats in front of your eyes.
Why am I here? Why am I not back on Earth playing virtual golf in some trailer-skyscraper in Minneapolis? Well, frankly I enjoy a paycheck and having my family taken care of back at home and being able to see sights like neutron stars and entire astersoid fields that people at home can only “experience” in some movie or by reading about it on some computing system.
Weaeaaw! Weaaeaew! Oh that’s the battle bell a.k.a. the best part of my job. See out here on the Crenturis Belt there are bands of mauraders and vandals that try to take ships like ours or “station busses” for scrap on Rentrus XII and my job on this ole bessie, besides stopping failing doors from well... failing, is to defend the ship from attackers like these.
My battle seat is surprisingly comfortable and my glaron soup that I had left in the cup holder was surprisingly cleaned up by the ship’s custodian. Thanks Gladus, you’re the best spacecustodian in the entire galaxy. Ha! See the sweeping depression that accompanies fighting vandals in the desolate vacuum of space causes slight hallucinations that come out as poorly planned, sad jokes. ANYWAYS, it’s not that daunting of a task to hook up all of the battle systems; just have to click in about five million little wires to your arm’s spark drive and then sync your internal opporating system to the chair’s. Oh yeah by the way I’m a cyborg. Last week one of my ship mates found out and was like, “Woah your a Cyborg?!” And my other friend Darven was like, “It’s 3018, you can’t say that anymore”. But now back to the battle station. The radar lights are blinking which means that an enemy ship is approaching so now things are about to get out of this world; ha more sad jokes... ah.
The lights of their ship are blinding. Squinting, I reach for my hypo-transponder and call to the chief areo-officer to see if we have any orders so far. We can make out something over the communication channels and my station mates and I are trying to make it out.
"Just comes across as giberish," we all mutter to ourselves.
Ping! A flash of vibrant red light flashes past my eyes as an arrow would flash past a lucky belligerent. Instantaneously sparks rise from the floor in the station room as a blurry figure begins to materialize in front of our eyes. Satirically, I think to myself, “Great, not only do I have to deal with malfunctioning doors, and cosmic scavengers, but now aliens can teleport...”
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