EVE Fiction

"I's nae gon' dae tha'! She kin b'sav't ye'!" A beast of a man snarled into the microphone nestled against a cheek heavily tattooed in dragon motif, many times repaired captain's chair creaking as he leaps onto the floor of the harvester's bridge. Around him, the lights and the alerts of a dozen decks breached by issue screamed warnings of impending loss to the men rushing about the working bridge of the worn ship; other men paused in their frenzied activity to salvage the remaining men on board the ship into shuttles and boats.

"Cap'n! Ye're 'de on'can' be'pass't! Ye need tae--'de'Arvester; she bae loss't a'ready!" A bearded fool, the thick-shouldered, heavily tattooed man whirls on the man whose eyes, wide with adrenaline coursing through his veins, eye the younger captain almost fearfully. Not too many have spoken back against the man without vicious retaliation in these years. This man may be one of the few.

"Trip; ye nee'tae ma'e 'de option active... ye'll fin't us, one way're 'de otter." The two men, thickly muscled and heavily tattooed one and the other, stare each other face to face, neither one backing down from the other, as sparks erupt from where the young captain had just been sitting. The younger man--Trip Jenner--his knuckles bunch, the longer he looks at the older man, Jocson fists wring as the man doesn't back down. He is one of the few the behemoth Trip respects, but that's come through much time working with him. He's never led him wrong, yet. Jocson reaches a meaty fist across, knocking Trip across the jaw, sending him reeling back. Not letting up, the older man steps forward, shoving Trip towards the hatch leading into the main of the dying harvester, yelling at him as he shoves and strikes out at him. "G't ye gone! Ye've g'a li'e a'ead'o'ye; we'll nae l'dis be 'de end'o us! G't! G't gone!"

Suddenly, the decking lurches, as an explosion registers too late on system; men tumble and scatter; Jocson and Trip shift their gazes through the heavy plexglass of the bridge, the two men grappling each other and the surfaces around them to stay upright. The asteroids burn through the ships outside, too. Nialla's scout has a pillared gout of flame stretching towards the bottom of the belt, and an erupting explosion from within her own ship's bridge. Trip's heart leaps into his throat and his hands wrap around the shoulders of the older man, moving to toss the man aside. Jocson mirrors the hold, using his thicker set to whirl the younger man around, throwing him through the hatch into the main of the harvester.

" 'Dere's no'ting ye kin dae fer'er, boy! 'Dere'll nae b'any'tin' ye kin dae fer us if'n ye dan' run fer it, nao!" The old man roars in Trips face, spraying the shocked man in a spittle of rage. Shocked, Trip stares at the man, almost unable to move. No thought in his face to retaliating against that, the man simple stares at the older man, agape. Until the man shoves a hand against his shoulder. His voice comes quieter, steely as he makes the call. The final decision on the fate of the harvester.

"...abandon ship, then." Another shove given his shoulder, Trip dashes down the twisting metal hallway, hands gripping rails running a flight of steps. Pushing himself to float mid-air through a drop, he narrowly misses cracking his skull on a girder on the wrong side of the metal ceiling before his boots find the grated walkway, again. Another explosion rips through the ship, this time far too close behind him to have been on another deck. A spray of metal shards sends a cacophonous song down the hall amidst the roar of the explosion, the rise of anything not tied or bolted to the walls. Trip's dragon-streaked arms reach, hands wrapping about a hatched door. Shoulders bunch against the pressure ripping at him, calling to him to let go, calling at him to join his men in the shocking vacuum growing behind him. Inching his way into the chamber, his body flipping around and jammed against the inside wall, Trip reaches heavily overhead to grip another girder. Though it gives, he stretches his body taut, throwing himself into the dance of dying gravity. One hand wraps around the edges of a steel-like canister, a face through its viewport staring at him that he doesn't know. The clear canvas of dark skin a stark contrast to his own, tanned and tattooed; unmarked, unmarred by the trials of time. The jostling of the ship has opened the eyes of the body in the canister; it's eerie how the body stares out at him....