I stepped through the entryway into what was the captain’s quarters. Ragged maps and crude plotting devices were strewn about the metallic floor. Tables and chairs were overturn, remnants of what appeared to be a makeshift barricade. The blinking red light on the console screen behind the desk displayed the time till self-destruct.
I moved towards it, the heavy footfalls of my sabatons resonated throughout the room.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The countdown continued on, each second announced…
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Each instant heralding the next… Every moment calculated and planned for.
All up to the moment of annihilation.
They would destroy the enemy, even at the cost of themselves. When I was a boy, I admired this warrior spirit. That was until I realized it was basic protocol.
I recognized the standarized console set-up and deactivated the self-destruct command.
Sequence Terminated
The synthetic voice chimed in.
I turned to a corner of the room to regard the captain on the floor, back against the wall. Her eyes were the first thing I noticed. A yellow, milky substance had hardened over them. Vauressian Poison by the looks of it, I could not be sure, but the blood dribbling from her mouth was a tell tale sign. With one shaky hand she rattled a pistol towards me. The other clutching a wound in her midsection, probably where the poison had been administered.
“I KNOW YOU’RE THERE!”
Her voice was hoarse, and the screaming caused her to go into a hacking cough. She wiped the blood off her mouth, still aiming the gun at me.
I stepped closer and peered down at the wretched form before me.
“Report”
She dropped her gun and turned away from me, smile creeping its way across her battered face. She was panting raggedly now. “Thank Goodness…Help has arrived”
I gave her a moment to collect herself.
“Finally, you’re here.” She was still breathless, but continued on.
“We were on the last stretch of our patrol of quadrant III in the Gregorian Sector. With the exception of our long range sensors being dampened by the nebulae, we were operating at optimal efficiency. We were about three clicks outside the direct communication range with the nearby planet of Malthusian IX when the Legion ambushed us…”
She paused and took a quavering breath before continuing.
“They disabled our engines before we could react, then held us in stasis for a week or so… W-we were supposed to be back at base within the day, and began to run low on supplies. Some of the crew mutinied and took to the escape pods. At launch they were immediately captured by their grav tracts and taken aboard.” She stopped again.
“From that day on, the Legion played over our comms and vox systems…” She stuttered. “Th-the screams! The screams of them… all of them. The crew. My crew. All the time. The screams.” She whimpered. I waited.
“Then the bastards…” there was a growl in her voice now. “the fuckin’ bastards had this voice on the comms… it said that if we took our own lives, we would be forgiven of our sin, and spared the torment of our shipmates… fuckin’ crazy talk…. But, it worked…. Even my first mate,” she motioned to the other side of the room to where a body was on the ground. He apparently had an unsteady hand, the shotgun he held in one cold hand was aimed too far away from his head, so that when he pulled the trigger of the cannon, it sheared his face off. It was a terminal wound, but a long and painful death.
“I had to listen to him… for the entire time...” Her voice dropped down again.
“Then…” I prompted her.
She recovered. “Then they began their boarding action. They swept through, those of us who were still alive we’re held up in the mess hall. When they came in… we couldn’t even harm them. They wore this armor, like the kind that you here in stories. Made em’ look like titans and the weapons they used, they tore through any barricade we could manage... Th-those who ran we’re the first to be shot down. The rest of us… we managed to fall back. My Chief Engineering officer and his men held them off, to give me time to activate the self destruct.”
“Luckily we were able to send out the three emergency probes. They were too fast for the fuckers to capture…” She smiled at the small victory.
She looked up at me, or attempted to. Her eyes still had the poison’s effects. Looking into the crusty orbs was a bit disconcerting, the victims normally did not last this long.
“So where are you from? We sent three, one to Malthusian IX, one to Quadrant V, and one to Station Gramelies. Which one are you?”
I remained silent as I made a note of the locations.
“Well, I suppose that don’t really matter now… Did you get all of the bastards?”
“Almost” I said
She seemed happier now. It was better this way.
Then I shot her in the face. | 
