Chapter Six: Fire in the Void
The silence after the slow gravity zone was deceptive unnatural, almost sacred. The kind of quiet that warned of a storm.
Coain barely wiped the sweat from his face when the ship's red alert sirens howled across every corridor. The heart of the ship pulsed a deep crimson, and then
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. DANGER INCOMING.
"Contact!" the pilot screamed from the deck. "Unidentified aerial creatures approaching hundreds of them!"
The sky outside turned black not from nightfall, but from a swarm of creatures darkening the stars. Flying beasts. Not as massive as dragons, but just as deadly. Thin, winged, with whip-like tails tipped in metal sharp bone. Their screeches echoed through the ship like haunted sirens.
"All soldiers to combat units! Launch the Skyjets!" the captain roared.
Metal roared against metal as the ship's belly opened, releasing jets like angry hornets into the void. Soldiers in black armor launched out into the chaos, their guns blazing streaks of blue fire into the air.
Coain ran to a nearby viewport, heart hammering. He could barely believe what he saw dragons, dozens, no, hundreds, circling like vultures over a battlefield.
Some soldiers remained aboard, strapping to the exterior defense turrets, manning the ship's machine guns. Coain could hear the thunder of mounted cannons above as they opened fire. The air trembled with violence.
"Portside hull breach!" someone shouted.
A screech ripped through the air as one of the dragons tore through a smaller gunship, sending it spiraling in flames. One jet crashed into the side of the main ship, another spun out, taking two dragons down with it in a final blaze of glory.
Seven soldiers down. Two jets gone.
And more dragons still came.
Smoke and sparks poured through the ceiling of the engineering corridor.
Coain didn't flinch.
He sprinted, tools in hand, toward the breach. "We're not dying today. Not after all this," he muttered to himself.
"Coain!" the supervisor called out. "Section 14's outer engine flap is nearly torn off. If that thing rips off completely, the power core will overheat!"
"Then let's stop it from tearing!" Coain barked back, more like a leader now than the errand boy he once was.
He and the remaining engineers crawled through the maintenance shafts, barely able to hear one another over the roaring cannons. Every vibration felt like a punch to the chest. They reached the damaged section exposed wires, melted panels, a heat so fierce it felt like they were inches from a sun.
"Patch the joint!" Coain ordered. "Reroute the coolant pipe!"
One of the dragons slammed into the hull just above them BOOM!
Sparks rained down. One engineer screamed as shrapnel tore through his side. Blood painted the metal floor. Coain hesitated for a breath, just one but then sealed the power circuit with a blast weld, ignoring the burn across his forearm.
"We're stable for now!" he called into the comm.
Back in the cockpit, the captain watched the radar. The number of enemies was thinning. "They're falling back! They're retreating!"
The last jet, flaming but flying, took down the final dragon in a spiral of light and fire.
A brief silence returned.
Smoke. Burnt metal. The dead. The wounded. The sky torn with scars.
For a breathless moment, the ship floated in uneasy silence.
Then, without warning, the lights flickered. A violent stutter shook the deck. Consoles sparked. Monitors blinked red.
"The ship's stalling!" the pilot shouted. "Power drop detected—thrusters failing!"
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
DANGER LEVEL: 20%.
"Hold tight!" the captain barked. "All engineers, to the core!"
Coain was already on the move.
His legs barely held him, his hands burned and blistered from before but he didn't stop. He couldn't. He and the other engineers sprinted down the rattling corridor, dodging leaking pipes and open panels, alarms screaming all around them.
The heart of the ship the engine room was coughing smoke like a dying beast.
"Seal the leak!" Coain barked. "We need oxygen in here!"
They dove into the blaze. Tools clanged. Metal screamed. Coain squeezed beneath a ruptured turbine, barely breathing, his body soaked with sweat and soot. Sparks rained down like fireflies as he rewired what the dragons had nearly torn to pieces.
"This part's been ripped out," one engineer cried. "It's useless!"
"Then replace it!" Coain yelled. "Strip down the rear comms panel take what we need!"
The captain's voice echoed over the comms, grim and tight:
"Coain, talk to me. If we lose control now, we crash. Taiquim's planet is still a day out. We'll fall into the wrong atmosphere. Can we fix it?"
"We're trying!" Coain growled, wrenching a metal plate back into place. "If we don't get thrust restored in the next five minutes, we're not going to Taiquim we're crashing into some uncharted rock!"
The soldiers, though exhausted, leapt into action. No longer just fighters they became builders, haulers, mechanics. Carrying spare parts. Holding up broken panels. Burning their hands to clamp melting wires together.
The whole ship became a single desperate machine, fueled by human will.
Then
A hum. A spark. A pulse.
The main thruster engine throbbed back to life, low and uneven, but alive.
Danger Level: 37%.
"Stabilized," whispered the pilot, breathless. "We're still flying. Slower but flying."
The entire ship exhaled.
Bodies collapsed. Some cried. Some just leaned on walls, eyes blank from exhaustion. Soldiers wiped blood and oil from their hands. Medics patched up burned skin and shattered bones.
Coain slumped against a panel, staring at his trembling hands.
No food. No rest. No strength left. But the ship was still moving and he'd done that.
He looked up.
Out the window, far across the void…
There it was.
A red, cracked sphere, glowing faintly in the distance. The edges flickered like fire. The surface churned with black clouds.
Taiquim's planet.
The radar beeped softly.
The captain stood in the war room, eyes locked on the screen.
"This is it," he whispered.
Coain didn't say anything. He only sat there, in the belly of the ship, letting the soft thrum of the engine echo through his bones.
They weren't dead yet.