The thundering sound of heavy boots barreled through the ramps leading up to the open deck above. The galactic sky unraveled around them like a giant, starry blanket. An atmospheric generator at the top of the mast holding the solar sails provided breathable air to the crew of the Nero battleship as they huddled by the rails, murmuring to each other as they tried to figure out the source of the commotion.
Even at the unfathomable speed in which it crossed the cosmic pasture, the vast distance between the stars and planets hanging in the black sky made them appear as though they were lazily drifting by in the speed of a pedal-boat in a calm lake, so there was no real reason to be in a hurry. Only the loud whispers carried by the artificial atmosphere gave any sense of urgency.
However, this time it really was something special that was worth such a commotion. Something that could begin and end in a fraction of a second.
“It’s about to hatch!” the lieutenant exclaimed, pointing to the illuminated red giant in the distance. A webbed pattern glowed in glaring white streaks on the star’s surface as they ejected matter from the depth of the depleting core, which held a secret within it that was as terrifying as it was fascinating. “Bason, fly us closer!”
Bason, Nero’s senior navigator, didn’t rush to answer the lieutenant’s orders. From his spot in the bowels of the ship, surrounded by interstellar maps of their area, he knew this was an absurd request.
“I can’t do that, Lieutenant. If we get any closer, we’ll be violating the galactic safety protocol, stating that the minimal distance between any spacecraft from a supernova is—“
“Don’t you get that it’s not just any supernova?!” The captain barked into the communicator, cutting Bason off. “A high-quality recording of a hatching Tageri could get us out of any possible legal blunder!”
Bason paused, putting the line into radio silence. Even though the captain was right, it didn’t mean that was the right thing to do. “Are you sure about this, Captain?” Bason’s voice returned to the communication channel, hesitant, but steady.
“Up to the edge of the blast zone,” the captain ordered, straightening up as the Nero turned and started moving towards the massive object that was in fact an egg. The Tageri were a species of creatures that hatch from dying stars, and when fully matured their sheer size is simply incomprehensible even to the few who were lucky enough to see one with their own eyes.
Bason pushed through the blaring alarms now filling each and every screen under his command, flooding the room with a red, ominous light. He was the only one placed in charge of the ship’s route. Most of the time it was a simple job that only required him to move them in a safe route between one destination to another. Sometimes the crew insisted on detours in favor of sightseeing around nearby planets, and while he wasn’t supposed to adhere to such deviations, Bason often allowed it, as long as schedules were upheld, and the area posed no foreseeable danger to the ship and its crew.
He liked keeping the crew happy, and for the most part they appreciated his willingness to bend the rules enough to respect the times he refused.
But this was different. This really was a once-in-a-lifetime, so rare that if all you’ve ever done with your life was producing a quality recording of it – you could comfortably retire and keep bragging about it for the rest of your life.
Bason never really cared for eternal glory, or money and riches. As much as he wanted to see his crew happy, it was an integral part of his job to keep them out of harm’s way – and a planet-sized egg on the verge of hatching definitely qualified as such.
***
“Since when is Bason talking back to us?” the lieutenant wondered, activating the built-in recording function in his visor along with the rest of the crew.
“It’s been a long mission. Maybe he needs a check-up when we dock back at the station,” the captain dismissed, leaning closer against the rail as if it’ll produce better footage.
The commanding duo and the rest of the crew stood and gazed at the dimming star in silent anticipation, waiting for the moment when the surface would finally give in and collapse.
Space is a frighteningly quiet place.
Even more so when an entire star bucks and splits without a sound, and even more striking when something emerges out of it, flinging enormous chunks of crust and mantle in every direction. The shockwave from the explosive energy of the hatching hit the side of the Nero and threw the team around and into complete disarray. Most got knocked down to the deck and a few might’ve found their grim demise being thrown overboard to the vacuum of space, but the remaining crew didn’t have the luxury to make sure of that. Forced to run back to the hull of the ship, they tried to salvage and reinforce anything that sustained damage from the initial shock, when the Tageri hatchling – still half-blind – frantically squirmed and writhed as it moved towards the ship, while trying to orient itself in its new, strange environment.
Screaming alarms were cut off and silenced when the Tageri’s tail hit the ship as it barreled past them, slithering out of sight as fast as it reached them from the hatching site. One after another, sections of the ship turned dark and as engines and back-up generators failed, sustaining critical damage from the hit.
“Bason, what do we do?!” the captain hollered as the dark chased the remaining crew in their tracks, quickly losing his cool.
“The cryogenic pods, Captain. It’s the only hope.”
The crew listened and made their way to the cryo-room, where enough elliptical pods to house all the ship’s inhabitants were arranged in a circle against the walls and on the floor. One by one, each crew member took their place in their designated pods, and once inside the were sealed and slowly filled with a mixture of sleep-inducing chemicals.
On the brink of falling into a forced stasis, the captain opened his personal communications channel.
“Bason?”
“Yes, Captain?” Despite the chaos, the navigator remained calm.
“How far is the nearest maintenance ship?”
Silence.
When the navigator turns quiet like that, it was never a good sign.
“There’s no going back for us, is there?”
“Oxygen supply to the rest of the ship is damaged, Captain. It’s only a matter of time,” Bason explained, the constant calm in his voice putting the captain into an odd sense of ease, “but it’s better that you dream your final moments.”
The captain nodded. There was nothing else left to say.
In his final moments of consciousness, he looked to his side through the translucent cover, as the lights in the room flickered as maintaining power to the room became increasingly harder. Through it all, red letters glowing on the sealed door to the adjacent room posed a final, stark reminder that he should’ve listened:
Battleship Artificial
System Onboard Navigator
