The fault, dear Brutus...

Posted on Wed Oct 18th, 2023 @ 7:29am by Lieutenant Commander P’rel M.D

Mission: Wrath of the People
Location: Escape Pod D112/A997/47
Timeline: The day after the trial
757 words - 1.5 OF Standard Post Measure

He coughed and found it harder than usual, as if some weight sat upon his chest. He coughed again, slowly blinking as he awoke, and became aware that each cough shifted him around somewhat, softly banging his back into the seat...was it a seat? His blinking become more rapid as awareness returned, yes, he was strapped into a seat. He coughed again, several times and much harder than before; the weight on his chest lifted as a yellow and red mixture of blood and phlegm blasted from his mouth and...flew?

He sat forward, restrained by the strap as he noticed his feet at the end of his legs floating up as if he were underwater. "Shit..." he said with a realisation, that he was strapped into a chair in some kind of craft in zero gravity. The weight on his chest must have been from all the crap which had settled there with the lack of gravity. He looked around, trying to gain some bearings or some indication of what was going on.

It was not encouraging.

This was clearly one of the old Hexi-Pods; escape pods used on the Galaxy Class and her various derivatives; the cubic shape and arrangement of the chairs was itself a good indication, coupled with the airlocks on two of the six surfaces which had originally been designed so that pods could 'daisy chain' together to await rescue.

'How the hell did I get here...?'

Continuing to look around the pod, he noticed that all the terminals had been removed; survival lockers were empty and missing their doors, the floor had been largely removed and beneath where it was, sat only empty space where once arrays of communication, environmental and propulsion would have been.

Unstrapping himself, he slowly drifted from the seat and used the surfaces to propel himself to an airlock window. It was cold in the pod, and the air definitely wasn't at the level it should be. Pressing his face to the transparent aluminium, he looked all around and with a soar of relief saw the Earth.

"Oh no..." he realised.

His final memory before this place, was after Colonel Keating had let him go; running through the wooded area to get away as fast as possible. Obviously he had been caught. But by whom? His conspirators? Colonel Keating? The Vulcan? Either way, the sight of the Earth was not a cause for hope but rather an ominous signal of condemnation. By having the audacity to do this here, they were telling him 'nobody is coming to rescue you'. It was a final torment, to be so close to home and help but so distant at the same time.

He looked around the interior of the pod; was there truly nothing he could use?

No.

Every locker, every single compartment was totally empty. He was floating essentially in a bare metal cube. He sighed and floated against the airlock, pressing his head against the window and leaning in despair against the cold surface. Something was in his pocket, he felt it as his thigh pressed against the wall.

As he moved, the new intertia sent him slowly drifting across the pod as he pulled from his pocket a hypospray. Confused, he held the base of the spray up to the light and shook it, revealing the brownish liquid ready to be injected.

"Into me..." he gasped. This was the punishment.

He cried, and become more desperate as tears pooled against his eyeballs and didn't fall away, causing frantic wiping as he screamed for help, pointlessly.

The hypospray, was that which was intended for Commander Keating.

He had failed, and this was now his fate.

Float and die of starvation, exposure, thirst, asphyxiation if he was particularly lucky; or a quick merciful death from the hypo. The same death he failed to deliver upon Keating. The action which derailed the entire operation and sent the whole plan to ruin.

Sniffing away the last moments of his current despair, he floating and stared at the hypo' in his hand. Could he really give up so quickly? What if, by some anomaly of happenstance he was found and rescued. It was virtually impossible; but not entirely.

Did he wait to die slowly, hoping for a rescue; or did he use the hypo' and just disappear into the universe peacefully?

"Mum..." he whimpered, as Commander Cameron weighed his options, floating in the dead of space, condemned either way to join the vast and cold nothingness.