flash fiction

SPACE OPERA: CONT.

~ Jenn's Knitting and Cats ~ Leave a comment

The ship shuddered as the wormhole opened in front of the ship, drawing it in like a sucking black hole. Everyone on the bridge who were not strapped in were thrown around, slamming into consoles and each other.

“Nim, find out where the Captain is!” Mr. Erskin cried as another console blew up sending sparks flying around the bridge. Nim only nodded and ran toward the elevators. She stepped into a world of silence as the elevator doors closed. Leaving all the turmoil and confusion behind. The softly playing music felt surreal to Nim as the minutes drifted by. The doors opened upon chaos as passengers and crew either played bloody or dead in the hallway outside the doors. The luxuriously appointed quarters of the elite of their society, and the Captain’s quarters, were in such disarray Nim had to pick her way carefully around broken planters and prone people.

She wanted to stop and help, but finding the Captain was too important. She thought that something must have happened to him. He would have at least been in contact with the bridge even if he couldn’t get to the bridge.

Walking carefully, but still as briskly as possible, she finally approached the Captain’s quarters. Nim sucked in a staggered breath. The airlock seal was red. She stared at the door in a daze. Her mind would not focus on the though that the Captain could be dead. This must be a mistake. He has to be somewhere else on the ship, injured or helping the rest of the crew and too busy to contact the bridge. He couldn’t be gone?

Her fingers shaking she lifted her Phox, “Nim here Mr. Erskin. Can I get a structural integrity report for the port side of the ship? Heart pounding she waited for the report, but she already knew the answer. He was dead. They were on their own now.

Space Opera: Nim

~ Jenn's Knitting and Cats ~ Leave a comment

The sudden silence of the alarm startled everybody on the command deck. Nim listened to the sounds of the ship, her sensitive ears able to pick up the frequencies of the engines. Heart pounding she looked through her monitors, but nothing showed out of the ordinary. The engines were working at capacity, but they had stopped, as if they were being held by something. “But, there is nothing?” she thinks as her hands dance across views of the space field outside their ship and the area surrounding them.

“Aris, I want continued status updates. Mr. Sykes give me a rundown of any injuries and for God sake will someone go calm Mrs. Helmsley down!” barked out Mr. Erskin.

Nim looked around the deck. Toddy was groggily talking to someone over her Phox, while trying to get ahold of the Captain, who was still missing. Nim’s hands were shaking and she clenched them together. She sensed something was out there, but her sensors were telling her nothing was there. She walked over to the large view screen and stared out at the stars. “Something, I know there is something out there.” her intuition sense picked up something slight, maybe a fluctuation in the space folds, but why else would they have suddenly stopped. She felt like someone had taken control of their ship, but not to harm them, but for some other reason.

Fear slithered down her spine. She didn’t like having control taken away like this. It reminded her of her father, the long nights spent in the hole. Her father’s way of making her stronger. She shivered and pushed that unpleasant image out of her mind. “What if someone has taken control of the whole space sector?” She turned back to her desk and quickly scanned through the images of the past few hours. Frustrated she pushed her cerulean hair out of her eyes.

“Sir,” cried Aris, “the engines are still offline, but we are moving. I cannot explain it.” Suddenly, everyone on the command deck could feel the sudden acceleration. Nim looked at her screen. “Sir, this makes no sense. The computer still says that we are stationary.” The words were no longer out of her mouth than she was forced back into her seat by the sudden forces of acceleration. On the view screen a giant vortex opened and Nim could hear Toddy screaming in terror as they sped through the wormhole.

Space Opera Continued

~ Jenn's Knitting and Cats ~ Leave a comment

The explosion cascaded through the command desk sending everyone careening off of ops desks. Toddy slumped to the floor unconscious and Nim looked up just to see that Mr. Erskin bleeding heavily from a head wound, but still calling out orders through the ship’s Conn. Without the Captain there it was mass confusion. Nim made sure that Toddy was okay, she was just shook up, and grabbed her stations med kit making her way over to Mr. Erskin. He quickly slapped on a quick compress from the kit and gestured her toward her station.

As ships navigator it was her duty to make sure that they didn’t hit anything along their route toward New Sienca. The Gennile’s long eight month journey was almost complete and she needed to focus on making sure their last minute calculations were accurate or they could over shoot the  Sienca system. Nim knew her last calculations were good and nothing was within a million secs of their track so she was confused by the sudden impact. “Did I miss something? Was an asteroid hiding behind that belt we passed last week?” she though as she furiously scanned the incoming sensor data.

Puzzled she looked through the data again. Nothing showed on the data screens. They had not nothing and she couldn’t seen anything in their vicinity that would account for the sudden crash.

“Aris, what have you got for me?” she called down to the engineering deck. “I need some news. What do you see?”

Ari’s voice crackled through the Conn network. “I don’t know what to tell you Sir. It does not make sense. Nothing on my scans say we hit anything. I’m still running scans of the ship. I’ll get back to you when I have more information.”

“What do you mean you don’t see what we hit? We had to have hit something?” Just then the ship suddenly stopped. Nim grasped her console, but was surprised not to go flying across the deck. She looked at Toddy, who was now groggily sitting at her own station, and Mr. Erskin, but they both were as perplexed as she was.

“What the…” Mr. Erskin said. The alarms suddenly cut off.

Space Opera Flash Fiction

~ Jenn's Knitting and Cats ~ 1 Comment

Join in the flash fiction fun with a theme of Space Opera. 

The sirens alarmed throughout the ship, piercing Nim’s sensitive ears. She sat up in her berth nearly falling out of the tiny space, “Damn, what now!?” She quickly pulled on her clothes and looked around her small room looking for her Phox. Grabbing it off the sink counter she raced out of her berth and immediately ran into what looked like the entire crew of the Genncile. The blare of the alarm was louder out here and she dodged through the crowd toward the command deck while trying to shield her ears from the noise.

“What is going on?” cried one woman Nim passed.

“Were we hit? What was that noise?” another said.

Nim raced down a side corridor that was mostly empty stearing clear of the passenger lounges. She knew that if she got caught in there answering questions she would never make it to her post on the command deck.

Out of breath she reached her destination and instantly knew that something was very wrong. Mr. Erskin, the second in command, was standing at the communications desk listening to a woman yelling from the other end. Toddy was over by the engineering center jabbing at screens that were partially working, her ear tufts twitching frantically.

“Nim, am I glad to see you. I was about to send a search party to your room.” Toddy got up and hugged Nim to her. This startled Nim for a second, Toddy was not one to show so much emotion. She patted Toddy’s back reassuringly not too sure if it would do any good.

“Toddy, what happened? Where is the Captain? Were we damaged by something? What is going on?” Before Toddy could answer a shock wave went through the ship sending everyone who wasn’t strapped into their seats to the floor.