[TT] "Doomsday" by Murray Gold

Damien slammed his fist on the console. On the bright panel above the keys, a single sentence flashed with pulsing heartbeat.

Critical error, please stand by.

All around him the room shook, a cross beam falling to his right from an upper platform. Damien stepped back and took in view of the four blue hot jets of flame beyond the translucent plastishield, almost dissipating in the oxygenless expanse of space before they began. At the metallic base of the flame, chunks of metal flew off in every direction, the pressure of the engines launching what was once hull plating into planet-rending projectiles.

As he watched the engines turn around the backdrop of the planet, the engineering ring shook again, knocking loose a wiring tube that spattered sparks on Damien when it hit the wall. Damien turned to the door beside him, housing the ladder down to the empty transport chamber at the center of the ship. The door was sealed shut, as flames licked up the wall illuminating the shadow of the stairs.

A line of prison bars holding Damien into his final respite. The ship’s computer, garbled and dissociated called out over the intercom.

“The c-c-c capt-tain ha-s-s aa-ctivated the f-final esc-cap-pe sequence. P-please move t-to the ne-earessst lif-fe poooooooo…” The machine cut off with the final letter, repeating endlessly before Damien picked up a fallen cross beam and smashed the speaker above his head. He remembered standing here two days earlier, the engines flaring then too, cooling off and counterbalancing the momentum the ship had gained in warp space.

As the ship had slowed to a soft momentum, he remembered seeing the ball of blue and green ahead of him. Joseph had stood next to him, grinning as he slapped the young technician’s back.

“It’s not too late Dam.” He had said. “It’s only a matter of time before everyone gets on that rock, why not be the first?”

Damien had turned to his friend and smiled. The look Joseph had given him was playful, kind. The reflection of light off the planet glistening on his face made him look illuminated. Daniel had stepped forward. He remembered it now like it was but a moment ago. He had slipped his hand around Joseph’s waist, running his hand down to grip Joseph tighter against him. The feeling of flesh beneath cloth rich in his hands.

His face only centimeters away from Joseph’s, Damien had whispered to him.

“You’ll have to tell me all about it then.”

Damien opened his eyes his eyes to reality again. Before him still stood the planet. A ball of blue and green. Hope. At least it had been.

Damien’s eyes moved down to the main body of the settlement ship, each deck rotating to maintain gravity. At least the decks that still stood connected. Balls of fire burst out of the ship at every level, the flame dissipating but the shrapnel still being flung outward with the force of the explosion. He could make out bodies being sucked out into the vacuum, some still flailing as they soared.

It was then that it struck his eye. Clambering out of one of the holes. It was unlike anything he had ever seen. Indescribable. It ignored the shrapnel with ease, seeming to know where it would explode, and sidestepping it.

If asked to describe it to God himself Damien would have used only one word.

“Monstrous.” Damien whispered.

The lack of oxygen did not deter the thing as it moved over compartments, tearing off essential plating, seeming to decide where to attack next. As if on command, another moved into view, crawling on the outside of the engine from the non-visible side.

The engines were unstable now, Damien knew it was only a matter of time before the whole ship was ripped apart by flame. What happened then he didn’t know. The flames would reach the antimatter warp core, and only God could tell the destruction that would follow.

As the engineering ring shook again, he heard a thump from outside his compartment. Damien’s breathing became more stressed, his heart now racing.

The thumping went from dull, to metallic. It seemed to be ripping layers of metal away from the hull. Damien fell to his knees, using the broken console for support.

“Our father who art in heaven…” Damien prayed. He looked up to the window again for guidance.

What he could only describe to be an arm had pushed through the plastishield and gripped the inside, ready to pull it off. The last thing Damien saw before he was sucked into space, the vacuum turning him into a projectile was it.

And grotesquely plastered on what its head should have been, as if a joke, a final insult before it tore humanity apart, sat Joseph’s disembodied face.

Damien managed to get out a single gasp, and then it was over.

/r/WritingPrompts Thread