Dead Star

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. It was a fact that I now understand only applies to some. As I stared out toward the planet Vessélin my eyes caught one being that didn't abide by cosmic law. This monster did not care that the lack of oxygen in space ment the vibrations from his vocal cords wouldn't be carried to my eardrums, in order to create the sounds of his screams. The sheer force and power of his vocal cords, were all he needed to make the vibrations. The moment he opened his mouth, he did so in order for all to hear his anger, and believe me they were earsplitting screams. Even in my heavily plated spacecraft, the sound was deafening. The lifeless body of a badly beaten young woman was the only explanation needed to understand the depth of the monster's pain. Her tears were frozen to her swollen bruised cheeks, face forever stuck in mid-tearful plea. The suffering she endured was displayed by her squeezed eyes. It was too much for me to bare, and I was forced to quickly avert my eyes. I understood his rage and I felt flames ignition my heart. "Sarah! No." I finished with a whimper.  She was such a sweet young woman, who was so full of spunk and lived with a pure heart disguised behind a tuff persona. When I first met her; some time ago, I couldn't believe that she was the prodigy of the most feared monster from a long forgotten cosmic legend. She was the monster's polar opposite, and he first person to make the gang have some sense of life come back to them. You could say she was the shining light at the end of a long and awful dark tunnel. Now she was dead, snuffed out by some bastard who probably had a hard on for beating weaker enemies. But that bastard had cost his entire species dearly. The monster; nown as Déjin, ad never been known to show mercy. Looking past Déjin, I could see the planet that Sarah was on. It as in the process of imploding on itself.  A good portion of its side had already been sucked into a dark sphere that was surrounded by brilliant green lightning. It had been hiding at the planet's core, eating it from the inside while building energy. I knew what this meant and before I could even smile at the satisfaction of revenge, the sphere exploded.

Blinded by the white light of the explosion, I once again averted my eyes. Shockwaves struck my craft like a giant wave slapping a ship. Warning alarms blared as I was whipped back and forth. I was thankful I'd stayed strapped into my seat while the craft shook violently from the sphere's awesome power.  "Damn that was a big one!," I yelled. I didnt even mean to yell. The pressure from the shockwave crushed me into my chair, with intense force. Opening my mouth allowed the pressure to suck the air out of my lungs while I talked, resulting in me shouting every word I said. By the time I was done saying the last word, it felt like my lungs had been squeezed into puddy. "Damn, I got too close this time!," I thought to myself, irritated. I knew better than to get the ship this close to a target planet, but I had been so worried about Sarah that I didn't notice my craft drifting closer to the planet. "Now I'm gonna be a goner too!" I managed to regain my composure, and with adrenaline fueled speed, I started flipping switches with all the strength someone could muster in an index finger. The more switches I flipped, the more of my crafts componet came to life. Finally I heard the engines wake up and I gave reverse engines the full throttle. They roared in agony, strained more than they ever had before. Like a good machine, my craft slowly started inching back. Right when I thought I was going to be in the clear, the sphere began phase three. This was the scariest part of the whole experience, but still the coolest thing to watch from a safe distance.  This black sphere encased in green lightning is one of Déjin's strongest attacks. Its called the Dead Star Bomb, and it's a planet killer. Not something he uses lightly, and for good reason. It eats away at a planet from the inside. Starting with the core and then the planet itself, it collects material to convert into energy. Once it has collected enough material, the sphere moves to phase two and explodes with the same energy as an explosion of a giant dead sun, hence the name. But phase three is where things get spectacular. The sphere, after expelling its energy, inverts and begins pulling stuff into it with its own gravitational pull while gaining more mass.  Yeah, you know what they call something like that. A freakin Black Hole baby! Which would be cool. If! I wasn't caught in the damn things gravitational pull. Even with the reverse engines at full blast, my old craft could never break free of the void growing towards me. Déjin once told me what it was like being trapped inside a Black Hole. Let's say I'd rather be slow roasted over a fire for an eternity, than be sucked into one of them. Yet here I am, face to face with purgatory. I could feel the moment when the craft stopped inching its way back and free floated in place. That's when I knew the battle was over, and my old companion couldn't fight the good fight anymore.  "Onto death's door and back again, for the void is never ending!" I chanted while thrusting my fist into the air.  As my craft slowly started moving forward, I kept chanting. It was the only thing I could think of doing at that moment, the ol' pilot's farewell. After about the fourth or fifth chant, I felt a giant thud resonate from the nose of my craft, along with the reaction of a moving force hitting an immovable object. The abrupt stop caused my head to whip back and forth like a bobblehead, giving me severe whiplash. The craft took a beating too, evident by the electronics sparking as the jolt ripped their wires from their circuits and shorted others out.  Once I was done being thrashed around, I repositioned myself in my chair. I looked out to see the craft moving back from the Black Hole at a good pace. "What the?," I say, shocked by the energy that the maker of the sphere would have needed to make it this powerful. "How in the hell am I moving?," I thought. There was no way my ship could have started pulling away on its own. I couldn't wrap my head around what was happening, which I blame on the whiplash. One moment I stared eternal torment in the face as I was pulled into its grasp, the next I was being saved by some unseen force.  When the craft cleared a safe distance from the gravitational pull, it stopped again. I undid my harness to relieve the pain from where they'd bruised me during my thrashing. I sighed at the instant release. That's when the airlock alarm went off, sending me flying out of my seat.  "What the hell is going on here?", I say, rubbing the side of my head. "Did they get off planet before it blew?" I jumped to my feet and rushed to the door. Had the Boganaz forces really survived? Their ship's had tractor beams that were advanced enough to pull craft into their grasp. That thought had fueled my actions as I slammed the dagital pad next to the two ton hydraulic door. I impatiently waited as the door slid apart, and I broke out into a sprint when there was enough space for me to get through. I'm not the fastest person but I managed to clear multiple rooms and doors in a single minute, which was a new record for me. I didn't stop until I got thirty feet from the cargo room door. There, just walking through the door was Déjin holding Sarah's body in his arms. "It was you that pushed my craft to safety?", I said, stunned. "What, you thought I'd let you die because you love her?", Déjin said without an ounce of emotion. I didn't answer with my words, but my facial expression gave me away. He was right, and I knew I was bad at hiding it. This whole time I thought he was waiting for the first opportunity to get rid of me. "If I wanted you gone, you would have been", Déjin said annoyed. He decided to put a little sting to my predetermined assumptions,  "there were plenty of chances for me to get rid of you when you first started tagging along with us. But you're still here, aren't you?" "Well you did a good job at trying", I said. I couldn't let Déjin win this argument, so I added, "And no, I thought maybe the Boganaz force had grabbed the ship". Dejin began walking towards me, wasting no time like usual. Even with Sarah in his arms, his only thought was on what comes next.  "This is your fault," I said weakly, staring at Sarah in his arms. "How could you have made her do this on her own?" Déjin caught my line of sight, and let a little chuckle escape. "Why are you laughing!," I shouted, enraged by his chuckle. "You sent her down there to take care of this herself, and now she's dead!" Of all the times he could've shown some emotion other than a stone wall he chose to laugh now. Sarah was dead and he was laughing? He really was a monster like the legend said he was. A heartless, murderous manifestation of evil.  "She's not dead", Déjin said, cutting off my internal monologue of how shitty of a being he was. Déjin walked right up to me, standing just a foot apart from me. Its the way he usually begins our verbal battles, with a show of intimidation. "Then why'd you blow up their planet?," I asked, taunting him to respond. I just couldn't believe what he told me. there was no way she was alive. The proof was laying in his arms. She'd clearly been battered, and I didn't see her breathing. "You couldn't have made the Dead Star Bomb any bigger," I continued, "and you screamed". "I didn't make that bomb", he casually said, "she did, and I yelled," Déjin added, "because she screwed up the damn mission". The last part held the weight of aggravation. He was a get it done my way or else kinda guy. Blowing up the planet was definitely not part of the plan. At least not her part of it anyways.  But she'd finally done it. She'd finally was able to manifest the Dead Star Bomb. It was the attack any cosmic reaper had to know in order to do their job. "Well it doesn't matter now, does it," I spat, "She's not breathing. I'd call that dead". That's when I saw it. Faint, but I was still able to see her chest struggle to rise as she took a shallow breath. My eyes widened as relief filled my body. She was alive, like he said. Barely, but she was still hanging on. "Holy wormhole, she is alive!" "Not for long", Déjin said, clarifying the situation, "She's been poisoned, and it's attacking her heart. Right now her heart has slowed to a beat per hour to try to fight off the poison, but eventually it'll stop beating altogether". Déjin held Sarah out to me, and I wasted no time taking her into my arms. I couldn't feel a pulse but I knew she was still with me. Her body was freezed to the touch from being out in space. "How do we stop it?", I asked while I stared down at her. "I don't know?", he said, with a little compassion that worried me. I looked up at him, and my eyes began to form tears. Before they could fall, Déjin gave me some hope and I felt the possibility of her living evaporate the water from my eyes.  "I know someone who does, and they're not far from here." ****