Snake and the black nebula

[Dratai]

Snake tried turning on the light on his torch, which seemed to just flicker out at the mere mention of straining itself. Either, the bateries just shorted... or something here gave off a strong enough electromagnetic pulse to at least stop a flashlight. He cursed, and put it back in its holster among various other tools, pulled out a sealed tube of sorts, fumbling around for it in the darkness. Finally, the dim light crackled to life, and he held it up to the expanse of darkness above him.

It was still dark, but he could.. hear things.
This was space, in a suit, in vacuum.. But he heard things- from outside.
visitors, He thought.
If there were any, he'd be out for a case of bad juju, very bad juju.
He was out in the middle of the rear end of nowhere's cousin, twice removed.
Nowhere to run. He cast a glance out through the hole he'd pushed through.

The debris out there was crashing into itself, and the.. ring had collapsed.
Just his luck. Nowhere to go but forward, and the abyss was staring back.
Or so he thought.
An automaton seemed to be suspended from the ceiling, the dim lighting of his flare making it look more alivee than it could ever be. This.. was some sort of computer, pretty primitive looking, for that matter, but older than anything he'd encountered, he concluded, simply because it looked that way.

A small screen of light hovered in the ai.. well, space, before him, floating aimlessly, with a last sliver of energy left trying to deliver a dying error message to a man who couldn't read that dialect of alien moonspeak.

"Heh, moonspeak."

---

One of these days, there will be a clever, stylish and/or funny signature here.
This is still not that day, however.