Galactic Marauders

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. Yet, Carter heard plenty of screaming as the third thruster exploded.

With only a single thruster left and the shield generator down, there was only a slim chance of making it to a repair station or settlement. Trying his best to avoid the crowd running in the opposite direction, he picked up his pace as much as he could in the tight corridor. Settler ships were usually held together by luck and duct tape, in fact, most were lucky if they had shields at all, let alone functional ones. The fact that the thrusters conveniently exploded while the shields were down bothered Carter, but there would've been no reason for anyone to sabotage the ship. The people aboard didn’t have anything of value and according to the citadel, not even their lives were worth a credit. It was called the expansion initiative. A cleverly marketed ploy to blast the lesser denizens of the central planets off into space. They were promised a better life, but it was crowd control. The settlers weren't expected to survive.

He only took the job because he was hard up for supplies and the ship was desperate for a crew. The pay was atrocious, but at least he was getting engineering experience. The last time he worked on a transporter he was put on the janitorial staff, not many jobs on a ship for a sixteen-year-old kid from the slums.

Another explosion rocked the ship and everyone dropped to the floor. For a moment Carter was sure he died. His eyes were open, but he couldn't see anything. That was until the auxiliary lights turned on and flooded the hallway in blood red light, which did nothing to help calm his heart pounding away in his chest. A high-pitched ringing in his ears and the distant drone of the alarm told him that he still had his hearing. All air was currently knocked out of his lungs, but he was able to take a painful breath when the weight on his chest mercifully moved away. Standing up on shaky legs, he helped the woman that fell on top of him to her feet as well. Around them, the other passengers were finding their footing as well, if only long enough to once again trample each other in favor of escape. It would be easy to board the escape pods with the fleeing crowd. Most were in rags anyway, so his dirty uniform would fit right in. Although, the pods don’t carry enough fuel to make it back to Central. If the citadel didn’t send the cavalry in time, the pods would become caskets. With a regretful sigh, he left the people to their panic and started running toward chaos once more.

Carter skidded to a stop as he reached the engine room. Engineers and apprentices scurried like slum rats to deal with every new disaster that cropped up. The scene in front of him was too much of a catastrophe to have occurred naturally. Foul play was definitely involved. Violent yellow sparks flew around the room, and he could barely hear Tanner’s booming voice over the noise. The head engineer had a bad temper on the best of days, Carter had no desire to face him in an emergency. Before Carter could consider escaping a second time, he locked eyes with his superior.

“Davon! Where have you been?!” The other apprentices parted from Tanner’s path as he stalked forward.

“Sleeping, sir. Today was my day off, sir.”

“Not anymore.”

Tanner almost lifted his apprentice off the floor with the force of grabbing Carter’s collar and then unceremoniously shoved him towards the EVA suits. Tanner was already shouting at his next victim as Carter started the tedious process of securing his gear. The ship's core was in meltdown, probably due to trying to power a thruster that no longer existed. That could only mean that Carter was expected to search for which one of the damaged thrusters had not fully detached from the ship and manually override the release. He had a knack for machines and as a consequence, given the toughest and frequently the most dangerous jobs.

Approaching the airlock, Carter could see the debris floating by. Some of it looked suspiciously like body parts. If there was another explosion while he worked on the release, his detached limbs might join the floaters.

“Scared, Davon? You look like you’re about to piss your pants,” a voice said behind him. Jace Madden was another one of Tanner’s apprentices. At eighteen, he was the youngest person to ever join the engineers guild. Carter knew this because Jace never shut up about it. He probably could have gotten a cushy apprentice gig on a luxury transporter if he didn’t have a knack for pissing off everyone he ever met. Jace came from a good family too, so working on a settler ship irked him to no end. Carter took advantage of it whenever the chance arose.

“Nice of you to stop your critical duties just to come to see me off. I didn’t know you cared.” Carter gave the older boy his most winning smile, to which Jace returned a sneer. Reaching past Carter, Jace graciously opened the airlock for him.

“Laugh now, you won’t be for long.”

Jace stalked off to find something actually useful to do. Slightly nauseous, Carter gave his gear a last once over before grabbing the tool belt hanging next to him and stepping into the open chamber. After hooking on his harness, he closed the inner door while the warning light gave its customary three flashes. Carter couldn’t help holding his breath as the outer door opened and all the air was sucked out of the airlock chamber. He’d done a couple of spacewalks working for Tanner, but the vast, cold, emptiness outside the ship never ceased to scare him shitless. If his harness detached, nobody would notice him floating silently off into oblivion. With a shiver, Carter gave his line some slack and floated toward the handrail. Making sure that one hand had a firm hold before picking up the other, Carter inched his way towards the giant hole where a thruster used to be. The ship had started malfunctioning after their initial jump from the waypoint station orbiting the central planet of Varis. They were now in Craet 6-W, a solar system once full of mining settlements, now depleted and abandoned except for the jump relays. Carter felt like the ice giant at his back watched him like the brilliant blue eye of some benevolent deity. He hoped they enjoyed the show since he was woefully underqualified for the job he was about to do. Inspecting the release mechanism, he concluded that there was nothing that was causing a jam. One of the other two was causing problems then. Mentally bracing himself, Carter tried not to look down at the open void below him as he kicked off the side of the ship towards the secondary rear thruster. To his dismay, the second thruster had detached successfully too. Of course, it was the last one, otherwise, his job would be too easy. He deserved a raise for this or at the very least an extra helping in the mess hall. It was slow going as he made his way to the front of the ship. From his vantage, he could see that the starboard thruster was his target. Starting to shimmy his way to the release mechanism, Carter spotted a dark shape floating towards them. It was far too big to be space debris and they were nowhere near an asteroid belt. It had to be another ship. A ship approaching on momentum alone, with all life signs turned off. A raider ship waiting to take them by surprise.

Carter flattened himself against the side of the ship. He felt foolish since hiding wouldn't do much good, because had nowhere to go. They would find him eventually. His stomach was in knots as he watched the raiders creep closer. They only had minutes before the enemy ship was in docking range. If he made quick work of detaching the broken thruster, maybe they could reactivate the pilot systems and escape the enemy ship. Fear gripped him and didn’t let go. Deep down he knew it was a pipe dream. Even if he was impossibly fast, he would have to make it back inside to warn Tanner and the others. Besides, raiders preyed on merchant ships that had weapons, shields, and all of their thrusters intact. The settler ship had none of those things. They wouldn’t be able to run from this fight.

A thought took hold. A very dangerous, potentially suicidal thought. They couldn't use the last thruster to escape, but maybe, just maybe, he could use it to damage the enemy ship. In order to approach undetected, the raiders had to turn off their energy shield. In normal circumstances, it wouldn’t have been a risky move since settler ships had no weapons, but Carter was willing to risk their own ship's integrity to fend off the raiders. A quick death would be preferable to whatever the raiders had planned for them.

Staying as flat against the ship as possible, Carter made his way towards the last functional thruster. It was currently turned off, but the core still powered the components. All Carter had to do was rewire the thruster to divert power to the main circuit instead of circling it back to the core. Easier said than done. In reality, he was making a giant bomb that he then had to manually release towards the oncoming ship. If by some miracle it didn't blow up right then and there and damage the ship’s life support, they would be completely stranded. That would be a problem for future Carter. He could only manage one disaster at a time.

Making quick work of the wires, Carter could feel more than hear the thruster hum back to life. Now to override the release. It was ridiculously simple since no one would attempt it under normal circumstances. All he had to do was pull a lever and he could push the makeshift bomb towards its mark. If he survived this, Tanner would kill him. The man ran a tight ship and Carter was about to blow it up. Part of it, at least. Bracing his feet on either side of the release, Carter grabbed the lever with both hands between his legs. It took all of his strength to pull the release and the whole ship shuddered as the thruster detached from the main hull. Carter’s heart pounded in his chest as he positioned himself behind the floating bomb and waited for the raiders to come within range.

A flash of light caught his attention and he peeked around the thruster. A smaller docking ship was approaching him. The raiders must have spotted him while he was working and sent the smaller spacecraft to investigate. Understandable, since there was no subtle way to detach a thruster. Panic rose in his chest. They must have abandoned the element of surprise now that the settler ship was reduced to a floating hull. The docking party swung their ship around the side thruster and used a spotlight to search through the debris. Carter tried to make himself smaller, but since he was the only thing holding the bomb in a place he had nowhere to go. The spotlight fell on him and he waved. The docking ships' blasters pivoted around to face him and all the blood rushed from his face. If they shot now, all three ships would blow up. He’d call that a draw, but it would not be the ideal outcome. Someone on the docking ship must have had half a brain since they didn’t fire. They were locked in a standoff. So, Carter did what no sane person would do, and pushed the thruster away with all his might. The thirty seconds it took for the bomb to hit the raider’s ship felt like an eternity. The resulting energy pulse from the explosion flung Carter clear of the settler's ship and sent him hurtling out towards nothingness. He was caught in a nauseating spin as his feet replaced his head with each turn. It felt like he was flying at a million miles a minute until the harness tried and failed to stop his momentum. The fabric of the EVA suit had torn away. He was floating away freely and his suit was depressurizing. Fifteen seconds. He had fifteen seconds before he lost consciousness and around a minute before the damage to his body would be irreparable. It would be a heroic death if pretty horrific. If the people on his ship survived the blast, he would be hailed as their savior. Not bad for a nobody. He would have patted himself on the back if he wasn’t completely paralyzed. As his last thoughts flitted through his oxygen deprived brain, Carter could have sworn he saw a figure approaching him. Cloaked in bright light, it could have been an angel. A moment passed and the space around him pressurized once more. Sounds started filtering back in through the noise in his ears.

“Why’d you save him? The little shit almost killed us!”

Not angels then. There was a response, but it sounded too far away for Carter to hear. In fact, he would have been very curious about the conversation happening around him if sleep hadn’t already started pulling him down into darkness.