The Night’s Scythe

“Shut down those engines, now!” Captain Marto screamed out over the alarms.
Ensign Rath typed the command whilst using his other hand to spray fire suppressant on the smoking consoles. Marto checked his tac-pad and it was not good news. Complete engine shutdown. Marto and his crew were running cold.
“Damn it.” Marto got out the captain’s chair and flew to the engineering console. “Lo, I want a sit-rep, what's the engine's status?”
Chief Engineer Lo took several seconds to respond. When the connection crackled through, his voice was almost drowned out by warning sirens. “Not good cap', the fuel lines have completely melted and the coolant pipes are just... gone, sir.”
Marto sighed. “Is there anything salvageable?”
“Sir...” Rath grabbed Marto's attention and pointed to the front view screen. Slowly cresting over was the source of the captain's trouble: a sleek, super deadly attack corvette, completely alien. The near-organic ship crept like a shark in black water, only defined against the black of space by its bristling laser cannons and energy conduits.

Marto had been captaining this crate and its crew for over ten years, escaping battles and calamities by the skin of their teeth. It seems luck had finally caught up with the Night's Scythe. He looked around the bridge. Only Rath remained typing out desperate commands trying to fight the already failing systems. The rest of Marto's bridge crew were three decks down trying to salvage whatever they could of this now floating piece of target practice.
“Ensign Rath.” The captain pulled himself to the ensign's console and steadied the kid’s hand.
“Sir?” Rath was startled and looked up. The captain looked in his eyes and they both knew what was next. Marto released his hand and Rath typed one last command and motioned to the console.
“This is Captain James Marto to the crew of The Night's Scythe, all personnel on board prepare for emergency departure. Scrub all systems, make your way to the lifeboats on the double!” Marto looked out towards the prowling corvette.
“That means you too, son.”
“But sir—”
“That's an order Ensign!”
Rath was about to speak out but held his rebuttal. Marto was thankful to the young ensign. Since he came aboard three years ago his youthful resolve had only grown... as did the captain's respect for him. Too damn young, it’s a shame, Marto thought to himself.

“Yessir.” At that, Rath floated up and took the open service hatch to the lower decks. Marto took a seat back in his chair, strapping himself down, and transferred all ship controls to his tac-pad. He checked all available systems. He needed to buy his crew some time. He filtered out the crippled systems. Emergency power didn't leave him a lot to work with: thruster jets, autoturrets, one full missile silo and thermonuclear warhead. If Marto was going to pull this off, he'd have to time his growing plan perfectly. He checked the lifeboats were green and ready to go.
“Sir, we're strapped in and waiting for you,” Rath sounded over the com.
“Gonna buy you some time, Rath. Signal the Homestead, they'll pick you up.”

“Sir, no—” Marto cut off the connection. He remotely launched the lifeboats and used the slight momentum from their launch bursts in tandem with his thrusters to start moving slowly towards the enemy corvette, inviting them in and painting a more inviting target. He began to fill specific compartments with atmosphere and locking down the rest of the decks. The turrets, the missile silo and the nuke were hot and primed.
“Alright, come and get me—” a new alarm caught Marto’s attention. Radar loss, what?
By the time the captain looked back to the viewscreen, the enemy ship was gone. What was a thousand clicks away, spitting distance compared to the volume of space, and ready to unleash hell on this ship had just... vanished, as was Marto’s plan. The crew were hurtling through space, the corvette was nowhere to be seen and Marto was alone.

“Well... this is new.”

Skyler Herzog is studying creative writing and game design at Brunel University. He is a founding member of Chasing Cow Productions.