Fan Fiction ❯ Blaaaagh!!! (no title yet...remind me to get one) ❯ Act Two: Faces ( Chapter 2 )

Act Two: Faces

-1-

When I awoke again, I found that my restraints had broken and I was lying beside one of the consoles at the front of the bridge and on my belly. I could feel a sharp pain at my forehead. I flipped over onto my back and felt it with my right hand. I looked at my hand after investigating the pain and found blood covering it. Figures, I thought. More or less I probably had a concussion as well. I decided to get up and survey what damage had been done.

The first thing I noticed was that there was a bright light shining upon the bridge. I looked around and saw that sections of the ceiling had been torn open and that all the windows were either cracked or broken. I felt dizzy as I stood up, but I refused to let myself succumb to the urge of resting. I had to find out what had happened to the rest of the crew quickly. As far as I knew, I could be the only person aboard that was still able to walk.

I heard birds chirping outside as I regained my senses, and, looking outside the windows, I saw that we were now in a forest. Trees, bushes, and other foliage surrounded our ship, and some of them had been destroyed when our ship crashed into them. I was able to see patches of blue sky above through the holes in the ceiling.

Almost everyone that had been in the bridge still was there, but they were lying helplessly on the floor. I noted almost immediately that Trawk, Idal, and Stark had already gotten up and had left the vicinity. It struck me as odd that they hadn't checked around the bridge to see who was alive and breathing and who was dead. Otherwise, I would probably have found myself lying on the grass outside along with the others that had been knocked out.

So I checked around the bridge to see whether or not there were any crew members still alive. My search ended soon, and I found that no one else in the bridge had survived the event. I left the bridge via the doorway where an automatically opening door had once been. The others must have kicked it down somehow, I figured. Or it was locked in a position that kept the doorway open. I walked through and entered the corridor.

My first instinct was to find my friends and see if they were okay. But I knew that they'd be able to take care of themselves. I had to get something that would allow me to survive. And there was nothing that could allow for my continued survival better than a weapon. That in mind, I made my way to the ship's armory.

Now, the armory would be all the way at the stern and one floor below. I made my way there, noting that the inner hall was mostly intact. There was some blood smeared on the walls and dead bodies lying on the floor. The crash landing must have been very devastating. Not many people appeared to still be alive, and I counted myself as very lucky to have been able to at least stand up again. I was hoping the same for my friends.

When I reached the staircase leading down below, I saw that there were two bodies lying at the foot of the stairs. I rushed down and checked them for pulses but felt none. I dragged them from the staircase and sat their bodies onto a nearby wall and then continued toward the armory. There were even more bodies lying lifeless in the corridor.

The power around the ship was down, so there were no lights on here. The only illumination came from the few doors that were open in this corridor that led the way into rooms containing windows. I navigated my way blindly through the mess in the corridor until I stumbled upon the door marked "Armory." I wouldn't have found it if there hadn't been light coming from the room across from it.

Since the power was out, there was no way for me to open the door. I tried releasing the lock but the door would not open. Trying to hit it would only result in pain on my part. And shooting it, if I had a gun anyway, would only result in the laser bolt bouncing off the door and then off the walls of the corridor until the energy in the laser died. So I had to find a way to lift the door up.

The only thing that came to mind at this point was heading down to the engine room and seeing if I could find a crowbar of some kind. But there were no windows in the engine room, which meant that first I'd had to find a flashlight. The only flashlights I knew of were all located in the sickbay, at bow of this level. But there were no lights down that way. So I figured that there should be one in the bridge, being that it was probably the most important cabin in the entire ship.

I made my way back up to the bridge and found that it was just as I had left it. Of course it would be, I thought, for no one else is alive on the ship except for me - that I know of. But I hadn't seen any signs of life anywhere else, besides the fact that Trawk, Idal, and Stark were all missing and had presumably gotten out of the ship to survey the area. Being that they had no firearms, I figured that they should be pretty close by the ship. I decided that I'd look for them later. My survival was what I cared about most right now.

I looked around the familiar bridge and found, under the captain's console, an emergency storage compartment marked appropriately. Opening it, I found inside to be a flashlight, a spare battery, some rations, a blaster handgun with a spare battery, and several other things needed for short-term emergencies. The handgun is most likely for dealing with mutiny, I thought as I took it and secured it between my belt and waist. Taking the flashlight and then both the blaster battery and flashlight battery, I made my way down once more.

The engine room was located two floors below the bridge, which wasn't too much of a journey. There were no automatic doors that closed off that section, save for the emergency pressure-lock doors, which were easily opened manually with the twisting of a valve. No real strength was required to open it, but it was only able to be opened from the outside of the engine room, which meant that the crewmen still left in the engine room were trapped in there.

I rushed downstairs as soon as that thought crossed my mind. Almost tripping over the mess of bodies in the corridors, I was finally able to get to the emergency door to the engine room. It was a solid figure, a red valve at its center. Taking my hands to the valve I began to turn it. When the pressure lock was released, I stepped into an infinitely dark room. I turned my flashlight on and proceeded in, wondering if there would be anyone left alive in here.

-2-

"Who's there?" a voice suddenly called out as I was stepping in. I shined the beam of the flashlight around until I found a figure standing in the far corner of the large engine room.

"Lieutenant Drake," I replied and then said, "Who're you?"

The man ran up to me and I would have drawn my weapon but then I realized that it was Troy Becker. The engine room and the energy cannon control room were directly linked together, which would explain why he was here. I saw that he had sustained several injuries as a result of the crash. His forehead was bleeding and I could see a bone jutting from the skin on his left elbow. It must have been a horrible experience; especially that he was still alive. I realized then and there that I had been lucky. All I had was an injured head and maybe a minor concussion.

"You look like hell," I told Troy. In the small amount of light that was able to creep into the engine room from upstairs, I was still able to make out his features. He had sandy brown hair, pale skin, deep green eyes, and small cheekbones. His glasses were nowhere in sight and I presumed they had been lost and broken. He wasn't very muscular at all. He was more of a technician type of person, which was the reason why they stuck him behind the consoles controlling the energy cannon.

Troy told me, "You could look better yourself!" as he laughed.

"Troy," I started, getting straight down to business, "I'm trying to get the armory door open, and I need a crowbar to do that. Think we can find one in here?"

"You're never going to get the armory open with just a crowbar," Troy said stiffly. "What will get it open are restoring power to the ship or blowing it open with an explosive - but doing that might just blow some things up inside the armory, and that can be very bad."

I sighed. "Then we're looking for survivors?"

"Nothing else could have survived down here," Troy said solemnly. "It reeks of death here. Do you know what it's like to hear the screams of all these crewmen in pitch black? The power went down soon after the pressure doors shut. I don't know if I should be considered lucky enough to have remained conscious through the whole event.

"When we entered the atmospheric pull of wherever the hell we are now, the ship was shaking so much that we all thought it was going to be ripped apart. The gravity regulator adjusted to the planet's gravitational pull and everyone here was pushed to the stern as this thing fell like a meteor to the planet. We hit the ground real hard. That's where I think most of the crewmen down here died. The impact was real heavy. It sent us all flying through the entire engine room. That's where I hit my head. But the crash wasn't enough to stop this death machine. We kept skidding across the ground, hitting everything and what not. I heard one of the wings break off…it was the one that Ash was supposed to be gunning in. Well, through all the skidding and sliding, somewhere along the lines I broke my arm here.

"But after all that, when the ship finally stopped, all I could hear were the screams of pain and agony…some of those being mine. But no one could hear us; because no one came down to get us. After a while, the screams and moans died down. I don't know how much time has passed. Hours, maybe even days, I can't be sure. But the moaning just stopped suddenly, and the engine room was silent. Silence is the worst sound, Cylo."

I didn't know what to say. Troy seemed very weak at this moment, and I could not blame him. I led him out of the engine room and to the main floor of the ship, where we would be able to exit. The ship's exit was located in the opposite direction I had taken to get to the armory. When we reached that door, we found that it had already been opened. There was no need for stairs since it was just a mere hop to reach the ground below.

The ship was tilted on its side and looking at it from outside, it was bent and twisted beyond all recognition. Both wings I saw had been ripped off the main body of the ship, leaving ugly scars of perverse metal where they had been attached. All the windows of the ship were broken. The hull was severely indented, in some areas the hull had even been torn off. I looked up to see where the cockpit had been. The view windows were practically nonexistent now, and I saw the extent of the damage upon the roof. Trees had indeed grabbed and ripped parts of the roof apart.

At that point, I looked around my surroundings. The sky was a beautiful blue, and there were birds chirping a beautiful song somewhere in the near distance. About me were several trees, bushes, and other shrubs. Many had been destroyed or damaged in the ship's crashing. The grass that grew at my feet was soft and springy, and walking on it actually made me feel better. I had been walking on cold, hard metallic floors for many weeks. Natural ground was quite a relief.

"What do you make of this place Troy?" I asked my friend. At the moment, he was sitting on the grass with his back resting against an intact tree. It was quite a large tree with several branches extending from the main trunk, all filled with alive and healthy leaves. Such was the case for all the other trees around me, except for the ones that the Stone had run over.

"Undeveloped planet, I think. That's what was said on the bridge anyway," Troy reminded me.

"Yes, but do you think it's safe?"

Troy shot a cold stare at me. "Not in any way could this place be safe. We're on a planet we've never heard of before, and as far as we're concerned, we may be the only ones that are alive right now. The animals here could be very familiar or very alien to us. We may see deer; we may see some five-eyed monster. And the only defense we have right now is your little blast pistol. And I don't have any beer."

I could help but laugh at Troy's last statement. It seemed empty seeing Troy without a beer - much less Troy without Ash. "Idal, Trawk, and Admiral Stark have gone off somewhere, maybe scouting the area. Do you feel up to following after them or do you just want to stay around here?"

"Let's…"

"Dragon!" I heard someone yell in the woods behind me. I didn't know how to react to that. My body couldn't decide if it should panic or run or stand still. I turned around to find Trawk alone running toward Troy and me - accompanied by footsteps that echoed louder and louder into the forest that even the birds stopped singing.

Trawk ran right passed me and jumped into the ship. Turning around, he reiterated, "Dragon!"

I still didn't know what to do. I drew my pistol, not knowing if it would do any good at all. And when the dragon finally came into view, my jaw dropped down and my eyes widened. My heart beat faster and faster as the dragon stood over the trees like a tower, standing on its hind, powerful legs as it bellowed a huge roar that shook the entire forest. It was a huge dark green creature, two horns protruding from its forehead. Its eyes were like slits, and its pupils were like fire. A long tail trailed behind it, waving in the air and crashing against the trees, splitting some in half. Two large wings were on its back, both outstretched as if the dragon was about to take flight.

The dragon rested its forelegs onto the ground, both coming down with a loud thud. And as it opened its mouth, I thought it was going to roar again. But out came a large burst of fire. I dodged it, diving to my left. However, Troy, who had been sitting behind me, could not escape the fire. Behind the cover of a thick and healthy tree, I watched in horror as Troy was burned alive. I heard his screaming as the fire quickly burned the skin off his body. When he was finally dead, a burned corpse was all that was left propped against the tree on which he had been resting. There were still flames burning the foliage about the corpse.

I knew that I couldn't possibly kill the dragon with my blast pistol, much less escape it. I was trapped on an undeveloped planet with a dragon about to kill me. All my options were gone. There was nothing that I would be able to do. But then, as if by miracle - which it really was - I heard the signature blast of a pulse rocket. I peeked out from my hiding place behind the tree and watched as a large red blast of energy flew at the dragon, hitting it in its chest area. There was a large explosion or red, orange, and yellow that could make even skyscrapers tumble. With a loud roar, the mighty monster fell to the ground.

I left my hiding place and ran toward the direction from which the shot had come from. I looked toward the starship and found two figures standing there, neither of which were Trawk. I rushed over and as I came closer to the starship, one of the figures collapsed onto the ground.

-3-

"Rico!" I yelled when I realized who the figure that had collapsed was. When I reached the two, I fell to my knees and examined my friend. Rico Weslast had cuts and bruises all over his body. His head was bleeding severely. His brown hair was stained with blood, and it was also over his pale face. His blue eyes looked to the sky as if he didn't even know that I was there. On the ground next to him was the pulse rocket launcher.

"Rico!" I yelled again. "What happened?"

There was panic throughout my entire body. Adrenaline pumped through my blood as I tried to find out how my friend had suffered all these injuries. Injuries from which he would soon die.

But Rico just lay there, still breathing. Finally, he struggled to put his hand on my shoulder. "Cylo," he said weakly, coughing blood. "The one that she talks about…is not me…it's you…" And at that, his entire body went limp. As tears began to fall from my eyes, I lowered his eyelids and said a prayer.

I looked to the person he was with, a young girl. Her brown hair reached down to her shoulders, her brown eyes sparkling in the sunlight. I figured that she saw how close Rico and I had been, and how tragic it was to lose a friend. We looked at each other for a long moment, speechless. I didn't know if she would understand my speech. But Rico had told me that the one that she talked about was me. And I wondered what that meant.

Before I could open my mouth to question her, she backed away quickly, her eyes displaying the look of fear as she pointed behind me. I turned to that direction and found that the dragon was coming back to life, though severely wounded. Its body was draped in blood. Defiantly, fighting death itself, the dragon stood on its hind legs and roared. As it came down again, its mouth was wide open to breathe more fire upon me.

I grabbed the pulse rocket launcher and grabbed the girl by the hand, leading her to safety just as flames burned the area in which we had just been. Rico's corpse disintegrated in the fire. With a new rush of energy at seeing my friend's corpse defiled like this I stepped back into the open, the launcher in my hands. My eyes shot a glance of challenge at the dragon. And it seemed to understand me, for with a loud roar, it came moved closer to me, fire growing in its mouth.

I fired a pulse rocket at the dragon. The recoil was a large one and I found that I was almost knocked off my feet. Somehow I was able to keep my balance by shifting all my weight forward instead of allowing it to go with the recoil. The red pulse rocket shot through the air at a blinding speed and entered the dragon's open mouth as it was about to breathe fire on me. There was a great explosion of red, orange, and yellow, accompanied by bits and pieces of the dragon's head. The body fell to the ground, dead for sure now.

Placing the pulse rocket launcher onto the ground, I looked around for the girl that Rico had been with. She was not among the crew of the Serrated Stone, and besides, she wasn't even in the standard Navy uniform of black and blue, as I was dressed in. I wore a dark blue shirt, black pants, black boots, and a black leather jacket on which my name and the symbol of the Wembley Navy had been patched onto my left shoulder. The girl, however, had a long tunic on and baggy breeches that were a dull brown.

She wasn't anywhere in sight, but I figured that wouldn't matter very much for now. Most likely she would return. My first priority was to question Trawk about where he had been and what was happening.

Jumping back into the ship, I took a glance down the corridor and found that the armory door was open. Actually, there was a large hole in the middle of it through which a person could easily fit through. Investigating this, I found that the metal door had somehow been manipulated this way. It didn't look like a flame had been used to create this hole. And the hole was perfected rounded as well.

I stepped into the arsenal and found that many of the weapons had actually fallen onto the ground and had been accidentally triggered. It was quite a miracle that such a powerful and large weapon as the pulse rocket launcher had been left unscathed. As I looked around the messy floor of the arsenal, I picked out an undamaged assault carbine blaster, a short-barreled rifle. With that, I found several batteries to power it inside a cabinet under a gun rack. I decided it would be best if I gathered everything useful left in the ship and bring them with me in a backpack.

This in mind, I ran up the stairs and to the living quarters just behind the bridge. Back through the messy corridors I went until I reached my room. The door was open, luckily, so I stepped in and found that there was nothing left unturned. I reached into my closet and pulled out the backpack I kept in there. It was a brown, travel-worn backpack - but it was still very durable. As I made my way back to the arsenal, I saw Trawk once again, standing in front of the door to the bridge.

-4-

"You're not supposed to be alive," Trawk said when he saw me passing by. "Everyone was supposed to die in that crash, including myself. But you - you killed the dragon. Either there's an angel watching over your or you're just plain lucky." There was an evil glare in Trawk's eyes as he stared at me. I was a few feet away, at the T-shaped junction between the corridor that led to the bridge and the corridor that led to the living quarters.

My hand went for the grip of my blast pistol. "What are you talking about Trawk?"

He began laughing hysterically. "The Cyrillians will win the war - and you know that. But they needed a way to dispose of one of their greatest threats - Admiral Stark. Did you know that Stark was going to be given the command of a large warship armed with two energy cannons? And that he was going to be the bane of this war for the Cyrillians!"

"Trawk, calm yourself. We're still alive…"

"We're not supposed to be alive! We're all supposed to be dead! You're supposed to be dead! I'm supposed to be dead! We're the only two left alive. I killed Stark. I killed Idal. They were the only two people that had awakened before me, and we believed everyone else to be dead. That dragon was no mere accidental encounter. I found it. I set it upon Stark and Idal. They died quickly but painfully. Then I set it upon you and Becker. Yes, an angel must be watching over you to have been saved by Rico. Too bad about your friends though. I see that they're dead now. And you'll be joining them!"

In a quick motion faster than a blink of an eye, Trawk drew a blast pistol and began to shoot at me.