1Rating: PG
Genre: Science Fiction
Characters/Pairings: Commander Lucas Nostram
Wordcount: 590
Disclaimer: All original concepts and characters are the property of cenowar © 2014 to present. Any reproduction, duplication or distribution of these materials in any form is expressly prohibited. For more of my work, please visit me at Livejournal: Cenowar / Sevenwords.
Notes: Prompt #202 from Livejournal Community 500themes: Vast Horizons.
Excerpt: Wetting his lips with the tip of his tongue, Lucas opened his mouth to speak - then stopped. Who would hear him? What would be the point?
Dead Star
by Cenowar
When the churn of the great, powerful engines of Falcon III ground to a halt, the only sign that Commander Lucas Nostram had become unsettled was the flare of his nostrils. He was at the brig, alone - as he liked to be - gazing out at the vast and expansive starscape before him, when the ship faltered, juddered, and then simply... stopped.
The lights went out. The thrum of vibration beneath his feet disappeared. The only sound was the quiet rush of oxygen hissing from the emergency circuits. It was a soft, soothing sound, as though the ship herself were breathing with him.
Lucas closed his eyes and gripped the cold of the balustrade in his hand.
It was only a matter of time.
He stood for many long moments, still as a statue, breathing in the last of the air supply as he ran his last few thoughts in his mind. When would they find him? Would they find him? Or would he and Falcon III be doomed to float through the vortex of space-time forever, some distant, lost debris that washed into an unearthly atmosphere light-years away? The knowledge of dying completely alone may have made lesser men weep, but not Lucas; it was a truth he swallowed like any other unpleasant pill: quickly and without fuss, as was the manner of his death.
Well, he thought darkly, the hint of a wartorn smile touching his lips. Perhaps not so quickly.
Wetting his lips with the tip of his tongue, Lucas opened his mouth to speak - then stopped. Who would hear him? What would be the point? His men were dead, gone, and much of his ship with them. The computer interface was already spent from giving him the last remaining air, the last remaining light flickering from the emergency bulbs. Soon those, too, would fail and then...
Lucas shook his head.
He always expected his demise would be on the battlefield. He hardly revelled in glory, let alone in war, but there was something appealing about leading an army or a fleet into a blazing, thundering din; about doing something worth remembering.
Absently, without haste, Lucas's fingers drifted to the plain, dull badge fastened at his lapel, near his heart - strange how, towards the end, it was this he reached for rather than the bands of colour on his arm, or the medals adorning his jacket.
His grandfather's words drifted to him as though on a breeze. Folks don't remember things, boy. Do you know what they remember? People. Stories. Find your story, and it's all anyone could ever ask.
Those words had struck a chord in the young Lucas Nostram, whose eyes and heart had been set on the stars for as long as he could remember. And yet, now he had reached them, his story still felt undiscovered, untouched. Had it all been for nothing?
The slow oncoming of silence made Lucas realise the oxygen supply had run dry. Taking in his final breathes, he let his eyes caress the stars above him for the last time. So many untouched. So many unknown. What were their stories? Would he really never know?
The thinning air made the Commander cough, splutter, and he tried to calm the beating in his chest. Such was time. Such was life. You couldn't fight the inevitable.
It was only when his eyes started to drift shut that he heard it. As potent as a candle in the dark, and just as useless: the crackle of the intercom's radio.
Perhaps not so quickly after all.
Fin.