by Nick Pond
“Ten... Keagan! It’s me, Jimmy! One of the security officers! We have been trying to evacuate but the powers gone out!”
Still in the complete darkness, Keagan couldn't see anyone, just silhouette outlines of people.
“Where are we? We need to get too an escape pod very quickly!” Keagan explained.
“I don't want to die!” A wailing female voice said.
“If we stick together, we can make it,” assured Keagan.
“So you’re the ship owner! This is bloody outrageous! Not to mention incompetent! I've lost all my friends! And we're probably going to die!” A male voice, much deeper, shouted from amongst the crowd.
Maybe we won't, Keagan then thought.
“Give me the flashlight; I should know what I'm doing with a bit of vision,” gestured Keagan, as the torch was then passed to him, “Right! Everyone! Follow me!”
With that everyone started to exit the cabin, and is following the beam of light shining forward, down the corridor.
The complaining voice then interrupted the silence again, “So what is the hiccup anyway? Heard one of the floors got closed off!”
Normally Keagan would intelligently play down a situation to keep up the morale, but seeing as he wanted to punch whoever owned this voice – he on this one occasion decided to let it slide.
“Space Sharks!”
Zara had managed to wiggle up to the doorway, which was facing above her. With the help of random objects- she was able to push herself up, and guide herself, as she floated without any atmosphere present. But it began to get claustrophobic for her, as she felt the restraints of her space suit take its toll. Feeling trapped, and just yearning to only use the freedom of her own body – a surge of panic begins to overcome her. She realized she couldn’t move anymore, and as she turned round, to her horror – there was the Space Shark at the end of her leg. She saw the Shark’s deep black eyes, eyes of evil, as she started to chew through her suit with her gray sharp teeth. Zara had nothing to fight it off with! Squirming and panicking it suddenly hit her that this could be her time... Her leg was starting to be mauled by the shark, and she didn’t know what to do. Then she saw some more dark shapes materialize behind the attacking predator, looking like sharks – but they had funny shaped heads. Looking shockingly like a hammer. No way! Space Hammerheads! She thought. To her utter surprise they charged for the shark, and threw their heads in full force to her side, like a hammer hitting a nail with precision. The Space Shark was in shock too from this unexpected attack, as she let go of Zara; and was now having to take a battle position to take on her attacking enemies. Zara was weak, as the shark managed to tear into her leg flesh, and was bleeding heavily. The other three space men came up from behind her, and grabbed her – as she signaled they needed to go up, whilst all the creatures were now distracted with battle.
The Space Shark had made some unsuccessful lunges at the Hammerheads, and they had managed to get in some more bashes with their hammer shaped heads. Up against two; the shark’s exhaustion was taking its toll, and is beginning to show. The Space Hammerhead knew this, as she delivered her last blow to her side before the Space Shark just rolled onto her side lifeless.
The four escapees, including Zara who is in critical condition; hover outside a hatch door which leads to one of the escape pods. The keypad looks dead, but one of the astronauts has a further look, and begins taking it apart. It needs a power or charge. He looks around his area around him and spots a nearby floating corpse, a young lad in a clubbing gear (red shirt and jeans) – who is holding a cell phone in his hand. Grabbing the device he takes out the battery and then connects some wires to it; and to his amazement the hatch door opens. In an instant they all pour into the pod, and close the heavy hatch behind them. Luckily the pod runs on its own power, and everything lit up around them as they entered, including many lights, and computer screens. One of the astronauts takes the helm, and seems to know what he’s doing; as he then types on a lit up key pad, and then the pod begins to disengage from the main space ship. Oxygen is also activated, and to everyone’s relief they begin to take off their space suits.
Although Zara was critically injured, she had this natural ability to command a situation; even when she’s bleeding heavily. Maybe it was her experience, or was just a natural gift – but she couldn’t see it as anything special, she always assumes everyone thinks like her. Everyone that seems to work for the Playa De Sontos government seem to forget life as a civilian, and is like they engage in a new way of life bubble unable to look back on the life of struggles and trying to make a living. It wasn’t Zara’s fault, you only know the life you lived, and her humanity is ensuring the safety of the people – she just has tendencies to forget that spirituality view of all humans being equal now and then.
“No! Don’t put me there! I need to see the pilot screen!” She ordered, as two men carried her in on a stretcher.
Everyone was beginning to settle into their new accommodation – a one room sized capsule, which had very little space. Lights flickered everywhere, as they could feel the vibrations from the pod detaching from the parent space ship.
The egg shaped escape pod is completely detached, and began to float away slowly. But an enormous pitch black silhouette of a shark appeared nearby, as her tail motioned from side to side.
One of the survivors inside the escape pod was squinting out the window, trying to view the outside.
“I can’t see any other survivors...” He then blurted out.
“Rubbish! The amount of escape pods on board, thousands will be scattered round this area...” Zara said, as she clutched her chest at the pain, whilst still lying on the floor.
“Oh... My... God! What was that?” The same man shouted back, with an ascendance of fear in his tone.
Everyone looked round with a bit more alarm.
“What was it?”
“I don’t know... It was moving... Like a fish?”
The whole escape pod roared into laughter, apart from Zara. Really the adrenaline sent everyone delirious, and naturally laughing was soothing and brought a minute of normality. Zara had this habit of knowing a lot more than the majority of people. That was all apart from Zipper. With him, his intelligence always kept her lower in ranks and feeling like a novice – which she questions if it’s the reason she felt attracted to him. Everyone else just seemed redundant in knowledge, and more just machines to power the economy – because of this apart from the few dates in high school; Zipper has been her only boyfriend. He just gets it. Everyone else, they just seem to have a wall up against her. A threshold to their mind, that is completely unobtainable to her.
Keagan and the following crew had found some spiral stairs labeled as a fire escape – which they begrudgingly climbed feeling they were getting no where. They found themselves on the theme park floor, as they saw the huge Ferris wheel poking up in the middle, and being surrounded by tracks and tracks of roller coaster – as if a kid had just run into a room full of Hornby trains. The room felt very open, and gave the impression of being outside as they struggled to even see the next floor above. It was the largest space contained on board, as the “Dub Starz” wanted to be the first space ship to host a theme park. But the place also felt spookily empty, as they couldn’t seem to see anyone else. As they proceeded to walk further into the theme park, they heard a bang, and a cluster of red helium balloons were let loose and floated up.
“Hello?!” Keagan shouted.
He ran towards the location of the noise, as he passed a log flume with the sounds of heavy trickling water, and an old fashioned teacup ride which appeared eerie whilst it’s motionless and empty. Keagan then turned when he saw a big circus tent coated in red helium balloons. Before he could get a chance to look inside, four suited men appeared each holding a laser gun – the most common type of weaponry used in the solar system. With the ability to turn light into a menacing burning laser, the victim usually experiences an instantaneous death. The more mean criminals r
egard it as a gentle execution; and usually prefer a more painful method – but these guys aren’t about torture, just getting their way. But the leader of the pack was agitated.
“Finally! I’ve been looking for you Keagan!” He muttered, almost resembling a dog barking up at a fence.
Keagan’s face dropped, as he was beginning to feel heroic ushering his herd through a space ship for survival; but now he was in real trouble.
“Look... There has been a misunderstanding that’s all, come on guys, we got bigger problems at the moment... Can’t we sort this out after we get to safety?”
Two men behind the leader marched up to Keagan and grabbed him, as one couldn’t help but indulge in punching him in the face. Blood emerged from underneath Keagan’s nostril.
“Our escape pods round the corner! You! You got no chance my friend! Once you cross me... You cross…” The leader didn’t think this sentence through, and was lost for how he was going to finish it, “you cross... Yourself! Yes!”
That wasn’t a good save for the leader from looking a bell end, but he kept going.
“Even in your escape pod! Chances of your surviving are zero! We are being attacked by Space Sharks! Your only hope is... Me! You know nothing about the creature, and I’ve got studies on them backdating years!” Shouted Keagan, who suddenly felt he was dealt some aces again, “They will chew your asses before you know what even happened.”
The mobsters laughed, and looked at one another.
“You’re an idiot!”
Suddenly lasers projected out their guns, hitting the people behind Keagan as they screamed, and everyone dispersed in different directions from this sporadic attack, whilst Keagan still stood his ground.
“You sick fuck! They did nothing to you! They were innocent passengers!”
“We don’t have room for everyone! You’re coming with us!”
“I thought...”
“Although I think what you’re saying is ridiculous! We don’t have a clue what’s happened to the ship, and we’re not taking our chances!” The leader barked, who then held his own gun to Keagan’s head, “Now we must go!”
Chapter 2: from the frying pan into the fire, with a hint of Space Shark
Zipper awoke in a small dark room, with the only source of illumination coming from a hanging light bulb in the center above a square wooden table. Zipper was placed in a chair facing the opposite two interrogators. They no longer wore sunglasses; as their exposed faces shared very round faces with stubble. Also they were of stocky build, both wearing leather biker jackets and ripped jeans. There accent was noticeably different from the locals at Playa De Sontos, and whilst trying to remember all the previous events, Zipper still couldn’t work out where he had been taken.
“Your girlfriend is dead, man! We don’t like having our things STOLEN! NOW TELL ME WHERE IT IS!” The guy on the left screamed, who then proceeded to stand up, putting lead bullets into his revolver.
“You’re wasting your time! Do you know who I am?” Zipper retaliated.
“Look... We don’t want to hurt you, I am sure we can come to some arrangement,” Said the guy on the right.
“Shut up Jake! We kill him now!”
Zipper then pondered, this is the worst good cop bad cop routine I’ve ever witnessed!
Suddenly the loud bangs from the revolver went off, followed by the window smashing – as the mean interrogator shot the window in an attempt to intimidate the captive.
“I’M LOSING MY PATIENCE!! JUST TELL ME WHERE THE DAMN BLUEPRINTS ARE!”
The guy on the right then added, “Over a nice pint of beer and plate of Chinese?”
The door to the room burst open, and a short small man came in, shaking in a state of panic. He has balding features and wearing a green polo shirt.
“Err... There’s been an accident... A few of our men may be dead, including our vital ones for our plan...”
“What’s happened? Zara!? I knew it!”
“No… There’s been a big accident on the “Dub Starz!” The government is already in a crisis meeting! No one knows what’s going on, and if anyone escaped! Apparently they’ve lost all communication!”
The seriousness of the disaster really took height on an already tense atmosphere anyway, as the two interrogators were taken back and in shock, leaving the room quickly with the desire to interrogate Zipper drifting from their minds within a split second. Zipper also had his own surge of thought – Zara..
Zara is drifting in and out of consciousness, as the blood loss made her weaker by the minute.
“I think she needs help! She’s not going to make it!” One of the dark haired escapees shouted, as he sat next to her trying his best to stop the blood circulation.
It must have been twenty minutes since they been inside the escape pod floating around waiting for something to happen. The “Dub Stars” was still in view; but the other two survivors squinted out the window. It was pitch black, and the only thing offering a fraction of light is the port hole beams from the main ship in the distance. But they both noticed something. The ship was no longer on an even keel, the back of it looked like it was being pulled down; gradually moving the whole ship to a 90 degree slant.
“There’s something going on with the “Dub Starz”! It doesn’t look right...”
They then realized they could see yellow flames flickering out through some of the port holes, getting bigger and more lethal. It wasn’t long before the whole ship was engulfed in a massive fireball no longer being visible.
“JESUS CHRIST!”
Keagan, who was inside another escape pod, along with his captors, had also witnessed the spectacular explosion. It didn’t take long for the fire to die off from the lack of oxygen, but the ship had turned into a mass of floating burnt debris – varying from mangled metals, to furniture, and ship parts. The pressure from the oxygen inside, and the invading space vacuum had become too much, and caused this once impressive structure to implode on itself.
“My home! My dream!” Keagan cried, who literally had his heart ripped out.
“Keagan..”
“What?”
“Shut your face!”
Everyone remained silence, as the loneliness and darkness of the large space surrounded them. They just waited, in hope someone would come to their rescue. It felt like time was now stuck and motionless; and no longer a feature to their environment. They were trapped, and literally hopeless. The capsules would only be able to supply oxygen for the next 24 hours, and they barely had any resources like food or water. And the room also felt like it was getting smaller and smaller, and Keagan hated closed spaces. He was very hacked off, and then noticed the other guys passing a bottle between each other.
“You got water?” Keagan gasped.
“Sure!” One of the men then offered the bottle, “I thought you’d have your own though?”
“Didn’t think that far ahead I guess…”
He drank a few swigs, and pulled a face of disgust, but proceeded to drink more anyway. His thirst seemed to overbear him, and he couldn’t get rid of the need.
“So you want to explain Space Sharks? Where the hell are we?”
“Yea, they have been covering it up for years... But space seems to offer their own animal species, and a group of space sharks have been terrorizing our solar system for a few years now... The governments of Amazbos and Playa De Sontos have kept it covered up, hunting them, but they just keep coming back!” Keagan explained, before taking another gulp from the glass bottle he was gripping firm in his hand.
“So why the hell are we here? I checked our co-ordinates; we are well out of course from the “Dub Starz” voyage route!” The angry mobster leader shouted.
“We were meant to view them, show the passengers, and create a new buzz for the on board party! How was I to know they’d start attacking us?!”
“So you did this?”
“I don’t steer the ship, it was the captain!” Shouted Keagan, but he knew deep down this wa
s a lie.
“A captain who follows orders? Was you the mastermind of all this?!”
“No!! I just merely live and fund the ship, I make no decisions for the ships voyages,”
“YOU’RE LYING!”
“THINK WHAT YOU LIKE! JUST GET OUT MY FACE!” Keagan barked, as his defense mechanism sprang up under pressure on being the receiving end of an accusation.
The mobster leader then laughed as if the whole thing was a joke, “You bite too easy, and you know it!”
Keagan’s face dropped.
“What the hell am I drinking anyway?”
“Urine! It’s the art of survival!”
Keagan then started retching in complete and utter disgust.
Panic had escalated in Zara’s pod, as the realization that they were now sitting alone in deep empty space sent a surge of anxiety through their spines. Some did better than others at coping with the stress.