18 Survivors

The explosion catapulted Lieutenant Maxene Adams from the bunk of her tiny cabin, slamming her against the wall. She rose unsteadily, feeling broken inside, trying to raise her commanding officer.

“Adams reporting,” she croaked, but got no response from him or anyone else. A chill ran through her. Was she trapped, alone, in a dead ship? The external pressure sensor was blinking amber, indicating the danger of no pressure on the other side of the door; it could be hard vacuum or perfectly normal. There was no time to agonise. She accessed the manual override, her ears popping as the door opened.

She hurried to the closest depressurisation station and got into a bulky suit, slipping her hands into the gloves and pulling the helmet over her long dark hair, just like in the drills. She followed the emergency lighting to the nearest evacuation point, finding it full of smoke and eighteen panicking passengers.

“Help us!” they cried, crowding around her. She pushed through them to a data terminal, calling up a damage schematic. She groaned. The ship had been gutted. An enormous tear through the aft hold was spewing debris and the forward section was… not there.

“The bridge is gone! We’re doomed!” a man cried out and there were screams and shouts. Maxene spun around angrily.

“No, look, right here, past Engineering. This passage leads to the galley, then the observation deck and three escape pods! Follow me!”



She went to the galley and fixed herself a platter of spicy burritos, carrying them to the observation deck. She sat sipping a strawberry margarita while looking out at the cold, hard stars. There was a series of thumps beneath her and she watched the escape pods spin off into the distance. Six people per pod, three pods. Maxene smiled.