The Life and Times of Mathias Sterling

[matster]

He swore quietly. The occasional shock each time he touched the console housing was starting to piss him off. Mathias had managed to get life support going at about ten percent, which would have been too little if not for the fact most of the others had died in the attack on the transport. As it was there were only three people alive on a ship that could hold hundreds.

Engines and artgrav on the other hand…

He couldn’t get sensors up to even figure out where they were. The military had taken them all out of prison and put him in the engineering corps. He had finished his two years but they weren’t keen on releasing him. With no legitimate family to claim him, who would notice?

His Bretonian heritage had led him to some loyalty in the war with Kusar and then the Gallics but this treatment had jaded him. And now here he was trying to keep a dying ship alive with no way to get a distress signal off. He was hoping the radiation leaking from the drive would attract some attention, but from who? Whoever might come they needed to come soon, the dead were stinking up the whole ship.

Suddenly the ship moved under him violently, the wall to his right came towards him quickly and it hit him hard sending him across the room to the other wall. Grasping for anything to stabilize himself he got hold of the console. The shock was annoying but cursing loudly this time he held on tight out of fear.

The movement had stopped so he made his way to an undamaged section with a viewport. A larger vessel had grasped the Transport with two mechanical arms and was cutting into his living space with a lazer.

Junkers!

Moving as fast as possible he made his way to the rashpoint turret he had got working. He had rigged it so he could discharge it a few times before the capacitor would blow, he hoped. He had to manually turn the thing towards the ship which exhausted him but his life was at stake so he found the will. Mathias shoved the switch he had rigged and pushed himself to cover. The turret discharged about a dozen times before fizzling out with no fireworks.

He made his way back to the observation port. Would they care if someone was alive inside? Junkers were unpredictable…