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**Sombs** · 05-10-2018, 06:20 PM,

Day 22 - Location unknown

As the doors opened, the Captain's room was suddenly illuminated. The holographic windows turned on, showing various information about the Apahanta and where every single person on the ship was right now. Ezrael made a step into his little sanctuary on the Apahanta. Moving over to the bed, he sat down at the edge and leaned forward for a while, holding his head in his hands, letting his fingers slowly rake through his hair. For a few minutes, he just sat there like this before he leaned back and let himself fall into the bed, facing the ceiling of the room. Stretching out his arms left and right, he took a deep breath.

"Apahanta, please decrease the lighting of this room by 50%. And, uhm, play something soothing. Some chillwave or synthwave, a retrowave mix maybe. Random playlist of various tracks, please." And shortly after that, the music began to play. Closing his eyes for a few mere moments, Ezrael inhaled and exhaled deeply until he opened his eyes again. He felt tired but not sleepy. His muscles felt sore, especially the back. So he pushed his body up, wanting his legs to lay on the bed as well. Positioning himself comfortably, he began to ball his hands into fists. Then he opened them again, then he balled them once more. He raised his arms from the blanket, letting them hover over it while stretching them.

The music was quite nice to listen to while doing the various exercises of the progressive muscle relaxation. About twenty minutes later, Ezrael was done, feeling significantly more relaxed. Having pushed his shoulder blades into his back to free the torso felt like heaven. With a certain feeling of fuzzyness, the Captain stared at the ceiling. For a few seconds, there was silence, as the current track had stopped. Then the next track started. "Apahanta, could you please decrease the volume of the playlist by 50%? I would also like to record a new audio entry for my personal log, please start a recording now." The AI beeped in acknowledgement and Ezrael took another deep breath.

"Today is, uh, day twenty-two, I believe. For twenty-two days we are now stuck in a supervoid region of space, somewhere between the galaxies. We can't see anything here. No stars, no nebulae, no detectable galaxies on the telescope. Just a black hole, or a black hole-ish anomaly. Sherry and Leon refer to it as anomaly as it doesn't behave like a black hole in the books, but emits light and a rather strong radiation while also having a strong gravitational pull. To be fair, I don't care what it is. It wants to swallow the Apahanta and that is not good.

All this began with the Cultists. We had this emergency call from Omicron Delta, when VS-0074 attacked ships there. A combined fleet tried to take care of VS-0074 but we got horribly overwhelmed as the carrier called in heavy reinforcements. Something we never saw before that. Not having expected that much, the Apahanta took heavy damage and we were forced to blind jump out of the battle. Something went wrong, apparently the jump drive got a hit and didn't stop eating up the batteries, thus we remained in hyperspace longer than usual. We probably would have reached some point in space even more distant, but according to Sherry and Leon, we got caught by this anomaly which affected hyperspace somehow. Does that make sense? Not to me, I have no idea what they are talking about. Situation is, we ended up here, all alone, resources are limited, with a crew of twelve survivors and a warship in a very bad shape."

Ezrael shifted slightly around on the bed, placing his hands on his abs. "There is the possibility of a time dilation between us and Sirius. We left Sirius on March 14, and according to the Apahanta's clock, we're here for twenty two days now. In Sirius, we might be gone for a month already, or for just two weeks. We don't know how time is affected in this area, since we are in an unknown supervoid bordering the gravity well of some black hole-ish anomaly. Sounds like one of those sci-fi stories Sombra wrote about on neural net. Sadly, however, this is all real. Nine people died under my command. Not just crewmen of the Apahanta, but friends, and to some of the remaining crew, family. It is, uh, weird to think about it. I think the fact that Veronica is dead hits me personally the most. A happy but clumsy girl. I remember the first combat situations with her as nagivator and hazard system officer. She used to yell around on bridge." He chuckled slightly. "Captain, let's ram that ship, we can do that!" Another chuckle, then he shook his head. "One day we did and I showed her the repair bills later. She then stopped with that advice.

Vroni was one of the girls I met during my time with the Core. I mean, she was one of those girls. Met her on Alabama when I observed the progress with the Apahanta and she was at the gym, watching me when I refreshed my kickboxing. She never hid her interest, and on the Apahanta, she was always showing up for the morning workout." A short break. Ezrael sighed, kneading his mouth flesh slightly with his teeth. "I feel sorry I didn't get to spend more time with her apart from a few nights. But now she's gone. Lorena Hawkins was her best friend, and nobody was suffering more than her when she heard Veronica died. She tried to hide it all the time but I had some moments with her when we talked about all this. But... this doesn't matter much now.

I, uhm... Since we are now here in this unknown system without a chance of returning to known space or at least getting any resources, Sherry convinced me to, well, reduce our resource consumption. She checked the skill sets of all people on this ship and advised me to put the people who aren't really required for the current jobs into cryo capsules. She was pretty quick at suggesting me to do that with Sombra, since, well, she is merely a transport pilot. Her skills aren't required in our situation. At least for nothing that is absolutely necessary for our survival. So I had to stuff her into a cryo capsule. I didn't manage to tell her that it might have been the last time we will see each other, since, well, chances for survival are generally bad right now and that means at some point we will all enter cryo capsules and hope someone finds us before the Apahanta's power core is dry and we fall into the anomaly, dying instantly.

So I tricked her, telling her she was only testing the cryo pods for a few hours, to check them. But I guess in the end she found out herself. She was crying when I closed the capsule, begging me to wake her up if we really need to die, as she wanted to spend the last hours with me. It... broke my heart to hear her say that. I know she loves me, but this is just... wow. I had memorable emotional moments with Maren as well, but I doubt she would have said something like her. Maren just isn't that type of woman."

His upper body remained unmoved as he angled his leg, placing the boot-covered foot on the blanket. The Apahanta was always clean thanks to the KSRs, so he was not thinking about spreading dirt over the blanket. "I wonder how Maren is. I really miss her. I mean, I was about to marry her. The ring is here. Quality work, done by a really nice molly. Walking around on that Molly base was pretty impressive. Even the villains in Bretonia are charming folks. At least they treated me nicely." He looked down at his thigh, now that he could see it better. The black rubber-esque material of the Apahanta suit was slightly reflecting the lights of the holographic monitors at the wall. "I really don't know how Maren handles this situation. If she loved me at all, she would probably just hide her concerns about my disappearance. Maybe Valery just erased me from her memories and turned her into Unschuld again. Sombra and Leon sort of told me about their true opinions on Maren, which was weird. They like Maren but fear her, because of Valery.

Valery. Little Blue. Sans Valeur. Nomad Incubus. The Evil Within. How often did she threaten me? Maybe Leon and Sombra are right and I should be glad I am rid of this nomad madness. They are not here. No nomads. No incubi. No wild. Just twelve humans who can survive here for maybe years until we run dry. Maybe I should wake Sombra up again. Spend my days with her until the very end? I lost hope sooner than I was willing to admit. And then Leon and Annie came up with a plan. A plan with a tiny chance of success. Leon wants to return home so badly, just for Nancy and Curacao. He proposed to scrap big parts of the ship to prepare it for the anomaly. We enter the anomaly, charge the power core with radiation, charge the jump drive with this energy and do a blind jump out of here. All-in. We could survive for years or die in less than a second. I asked him to give me time to consider his plan, but seeing how confident he was about it, I agreed. That was one week ago."

Another sigh. His hand moved up to his head, scatching it for a short moment. Then he moved his other hand up as well, placing the back of his head on both hands. His laying leg was angling now, the other lifted up to place it on the angled leg, allowing his foot to hang in mid-air. "He said the modifications will take more than a month. In all the time between I can only do so much. I keep checking the new crops we planted in the hydroponics. The potatoes are already sprouting thanks to the plant lights and the good soil. Literally crap. Sombra, Lorena and I had fun mixing the soil. Now Sombs and Lorena are frozen and sleeping. Now the only available woman, for me, is Sherry, who is more like a robot than our KSRs are. But to be honest, if we're doing this leap of faith thing Leon proposed, I might just wake Sombra up and do as she begged me to. Because, even if the plan works, we don't know where we end up. Sirius? Maybe. Lost Sector or Cassiopeia? Maybe. Some weird unknown system very far away from Sirius? Much likely."

Then, for quite a while, Ezrael stopped talking. Multiple times he was sighing, breathing audibly, shaking his head. "This is different than the other times I was facing death. When I got shot by a Core loyalist during the defection of the Apahanta, it was suddenly. And the sudden rage powered me enough to forget about the pain and the consequences. I still have nightmares of me obliterating the young guy. He shot me with his plasma pistol, hit my shoulder and I went berserk, shooting him with the pulse stunner just to break his neck with my boot as he was at the ground." He closed his eyes, narrowing them. "All he did was being loyal to the Core. He was young. Younger than Leon. Luke Shaw was right to judge me for it, for killing my own crewman while forcing the other Core-loyal people to use escape pods. I wonder what Auxesia did with them. I never asked." Opening his eyes again, he looked to the side, where little metal crates with several supplies were standing like a little pyramid. "When I burned in the engine room during the cloaking test accident, it was sudden. There was no time to react. Just instincts. I still remember the pain, the horrible pain of my body burning. I would have died if Adrianna wouldn't have ignored my order to leave the ship." As he exhaled, a horrible chill was running up his spine. The memories were vivid.

"When... when I almost died on the Titanic, it was sudden. I felt nauseous, dizzy and then lost my consciousness. I didn't feel much pain. Only after it. Radiation sickness, not much fun. But I survived. Each time I survived, as if a guarding angel was watching over me. Not that I believe such things exist, as a man of science. Yet, this time, it is different. It feels like death is approaching. Painfully slow, yet fast. In about a month, maybe more, maybe less, we might die. And I have so much time to think about it. To reflect. To think about my adventures and, as Elena called it, escapades. And how inconvenient this way of dying is, to just disappear. If I had died in Delta, people would at least know about it. But now, Maren and all the other people out there in Sirius must be wondering. Is he gone? Did he die? Or did he just leave her?

I remember the days with the Core. Each week they published a list of casualties. Confirmed deaths, and the list of people missing in action. MIA. I think the Apahanta's crew must have been listed on the latter list for a while as well until they found out about me being still alive. And the Apahanta. I remember the day I was working with the Core again, meeting all the new faces. Nodtviet is dead, Matt Bishop never met me and the old guy who ran APM back then was gone as well. Back then, there were this black guy, Nathan Archos, the new Supreme Guildkeeper. And Enma. And Martin McKinsey. And Jack Daniels. And Luke Shaw. And the grumpy granny, Cordelia Lyell. A weird mix, to be honest, and each of them following their own agenda. Quite funny and ironic, to be honest. The Core used to exploit its members. Now it's the other way around. Lyell made her deals with me, McKinsey is just interested in APM being a blooming corporation, Enma used the Core as her own army to get Malta back and it seems Archos was more interested in allying with Gallia than in what we found on the Vault.

Jack Daniels however. I believe there is noone who impersonates the warrior spirit of the Core more than he does. From what I heard, he is one of the clones the Core produced on Alabama. The doctrine of the Core was implanted into his mind. Weirdly enough, he was one of the people who were not hostile to me at all. But it makes sense, since the Core admires power over anything else. Maybe I proved myself as powerful by pulling off the defection and staying alive for so long. Well, until now."

Annoyed, he sat up on the bed, sitting cross-legged. "I can't believe I just started to pity myself. I really don't want to listen to myself being like this. I have a month of time to do all kinds of things I never got to do. Taking Sherry on the Captain's seat. I really wonder how she is dealing with all this, come to think of it. I mean, I should just ask her about it. If we die anyway...

Apahanta, stop the recording, add it to my personal logbook. I doubt I'll get to listen to it again, but why not." A beep, and the recording stopped. Ezrael sat on the bed, again raking his fingers through his thick hair, getting it into shape again. Then he slid down from the bed, checking on himself in the mirror at his cabinet. There was a satisfied smirk on his lips. "Apahanta, please turn the music off." And the music stopped. Like that, Ezrael headed for the door, leaving the room. The lights turn off behind him, the door shut and he faced the door to Sherry's room right ahead of him. Making his steps towards it, he used the door bell.

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