King's Short Story for English

Please excuse some of the grammatical errors, this is the rough copy.


My Final Flight

Drip. Drip. My eyes open. The sound of water on metal, resonating through the cold, steel hull slowly brings me to focus. It takes me a while to remember where I am. I slowly get out of bed. As soon as my feet touch the heated, fuzzy, carpet, the wall-screen turns on. “Hello Captain Shepard. How was your sleep?” asks M.I.R.A, the ships A.I.
“Well enough,” I respond grudgingly, “But can you pour me some coffee?”
“Right away, Captain Shepard.” Despite how realistic talking to M.I.R.A feels, she was nonetheless a program, designed to aid the crew. I shuffle over to the bathroom.
Drip. Drip.
I step inside and wince as the powerful H.E.L light bulb flashes on. The faucet is loose again. Great. That is when I notice something peculiar; the red intercom light is flashing insistently. I press the button quickly. A hologram of Chard, the ship’s head engineer, appears in front of me. He does not notice me since he appears to be tinkering with something. “Chard.” I say somewhat loudly.
He jumps and humorously bangs his shark-like head on the low-lying ceiling.

“OOF!” He exclaims in agony, although I know that he’s just being a baby and will be fine in a few seconds. Chard was a tough one, but a whiny one at that. “Captain Shepard, good morning. I have been trying to contact you. What exactly were you doing?”

“Chard, you know very well that we humans need sleep.”

“My apologies, Captain. Let’s cut to the chase here. We are having some sort of disturbance near the right airlock. I’m sure it’s nothing, but it’s mandatory to check it out.”

“Will do,” I tell him. I hop in the shower and then put my uniform on. As soon as I knot the last bootlace, I jump out of my room.

Some crew members jog past me, headed to the main deck. I follow them through the ship’s long and twisted hallways. In one, I look out the window and see that we were about a day away from hellhole, an ugly, lifeless, and above all boiling hot excuse of a planet.

Although it’s a bad place for an empire, it’s the perfect place for the HQ of a rebellion. More precisely, it is the perfect place for a rebellion against the C.O.F, or Calderean Occupation Forces.

I should maybe explain what I am talking about.
About 50 years ago, humanity, for the first time in its history, made contact with extraterrestrial intelligence. Sadly, the species they first interacted with had to be the Calderans, one of the most ruthless, evil, and oppressive civilizations in our galaxy. They quickly overpowered the human race, which was in a state of infighting and bickering amongst the so-called “powers”. It was nicknamed the war of 60, as it took 60 minutes for the humans to capitulate before their technologically advanced opponents. They spared humanity, in one condition: That humanity is to remain their slaves, just like countless other races who had the misfortune of encountering them.

For ease of reference, humans and the other enslaved races from this point will be referred to as the fallen. The fallen have been spread out between many backwater planets near Caldera, such as Alpha-Gamma, Jorgas-1 and of course, Hellhole.

About 5 years ago, the first true sparks of a revolution against the C.O.F occurred on Hellhole. A young man, named Adrian Thomas, refused to pay his shop-rent. When the Calderean police came to his apartment, they did not find him. Instead, they found a well placed booby-trap, of which none survived.

News of the event spread quickly, first through Hellhole, then eventually seeping into the other colonies. The C.O.F quickly found Adrian, and had him publicly executed as a warning for other mishaps, but it was far too late: The sparks had ignited the fires of the uprising. Which brings us to this day: I am Captain Jonathan Shepard, one of the leaders of the rebellion as well as the Captain of the H.H.R Elizabeth. The Elizabeth is my prized possession; she has served me as a ship for over 3 years. She is large, and has a huge cargo space for the Vapor we smuggle to other colonies. Specifically, Vapor-2, a powerful hallucinogen with limited side-effects, which makes it extremely expensive. One pound can be sold for almost 30,000 credits: We need credits to fuel our fight.

Up till this point, I had thought that we were not going to be caught. I was dead wrong.

I paced behind the crewmen, who were carrying some parts to the bridge. As soon as we reach it, all the officers stand up and salute to me. The crewmen, confused, look around, then realizing that I am behind them, drop the parts and salute as well.
“At ease, gentlemen,” I tell everyone. “Lieutenant Heftis! What is the currant situation on the right airlock?”
The officer shuffles up to me. “Well sir, I- We are not exactly sure what is going on. We still need to send a team to check.” After a bit of argument, I decide to lead the team, and we head off to the armory to get suited up. On the way there, the fire alarm goes off. I swear when I feel the sprinkler’s go off. We rush to the armory and get inside. “Well, at least there is no sprinkler’s in here,” I tell the team, although they already knew that. As soon as we suit up in our combat armor, we shuffle out into the hallway. There seems to be a dull humming in the air, which gets louder as we approach the airlock. Once we arrived, the hum has increased to what literally sounds like a swarm of furious bees. “Corporal Jericho, get on that door!”
“Aye, sir.” He begins walking to the door. The buzzing stops. I realize what’s happening. “Get b-” The explosion sends us flying. My head is pounding, and breathing in smoke certainly does not help. I try to get up, and look at the bodies lying around me. Their vitals are all listed in my visor. Corporal Jericho. Dead. Private Vincent. Dead. Sergeant Powell. Dead. I shuffle over to the alarm panel. As soon as I pull the lever, the beeping of the fire alarm gets replaced with the banshee-like wail of the alert system. I rush down the corridors, knowing very well who was behind me. Only DEEP-SWAT 9, the C.O.F’s most dangerous “anti-terrorism” team to ever exist. I also know that it is only a matter of time before they catch me. Quick, I have to think of a way out of this mess. That’s when I remember what comes with each unit of combat armor: a self-destruct option! I crawl out of it, and get the trigger. This should incapacitate those 6 eyed monsters. I hear there footsteps coming near to where I donned the armor. I pull the trigger, and the SWAT get a taste of their own medicine, or should I say, explosion. Two of them go flying past me, their dark shapes only somewhat visible in the smoke. That should give us enough time to retaliate. It takes me half an hour to crawl back to the bridge. When I get there, however, I find my whole crew either gone or dead. “What happened?” I shout to no one in particular. I jump as I feel a hand grab my ankle. “Get-get- the vapour- to hellhole.” It’s owner croaks out before collapsing. This is not my day. This is terrible. I sit in the darkness of the bridge, illuminated only by the red glow of the alarm. M.I.R.A buzzed to life on the screen. “Hello Captain Shepard, how are you today?” I simply turned it the screen off. The A.I did not even understand what was going on. This could not get any worse. My whole crew, now dead. My ship, my beautiful ship, filled with evil. My f- “Psst, Captain!” I look over to the source of the voice. It’s one of the ensign’s, and he’s hiding in the air vent. “Captain, we’re in here!” I walk over to him. “Open this stupid grate right now and let me in.” He nods and opens it. I crawl in the vent. It’s a lot more roomy then I thought.
“Hello, sir.” Chard. “Chard, are you alright?” “Alright and alight, I always say,” He responds somewhat wistfully. “What are you guys doing in here?” I ask them. He explains that as soon as they heard the alarm, they knew that there was a series of air vents that could allow us to move freely throughout the ship. They found people huddled in each room, and now there is a group of 7 people waiting for my orders. Funny, because SWAT-9 also has about 7 people left after my booby trap, most likely injured.

So this is it, I thought. The next few engagements will not only determine who will see tomorrow, but maybe even the fate of our entire rebellion. I knew that at this very moment, DEEP SWAT-9 was looking for us. Well, they are going to find us. And it’s not going to be pretty.

The following hours were painfully slow, and painfully grueling. One of us would crawl out of the air vent at certain locations, plant an explosive, then wait for the SWAT to pass by. It did not always work out, as sometimes the SWAT caught the man and shot him on sight. We were whittling each other’s numbers down. It was down to me, Chard, and Ensign Levy to determine the fate of several species. We thought that SWAT-9 had about 2 people left. Levy got out to plant the explosive, but the two SWAT members emerged from each side of the corridor in wait. He pulled his pistol and shot one, but the other got him square in the back. He collapsed to his knees, dead before his head touched the ground. We looked at each other in horror, as we knew that there was only one Swat left. DEEP-1. With over 300 years in the C.O.F, he is one of the most battle-hardened, fearsome, and overall dangerous troops to ever live. He had wiped out an entire colony of pirates single-handedly. It was me and him, the hero and villain. “Chard, I need to do this on my own.” “Captain, I can’t let you do that, it’s far too dangerous.” “I want you to stand down, that’s an order.” “Yes sir.” I crawled through the air vents to the left side of the ship. I popped it out and crawled down to the air vent. I then pressed the intercom button on my wrist-tablet. “Attention DEEP-1. Meet me at the left airlock for our confrontation.” I had studied this bastard for too long, I knew how dangerous he was, but I also figured out his weakness. His pride was going to defeat him. Soon enough, he came round the corner, gleaning at me with his sharp teeth. He thought he was going to enjoy this.
Not on my watch.
We threw down our guns, knowing very well how the C.O.F did this. We pulled out our powerswords, which used vibrations to regulate the size of the blade, going from the “dull” option straight to “do not drop the sword or you will never see it again” option. As I flicked the power switch on, the blade began to vibrate with the penetrating power of an atomic bomb. We then began to circle each other. I had done this in a hologame before, something about ninja’s and samurai. It had something to do with old Earth. Well, at least what it was before the Caldera sucked it dry of water, causing mass extinction and the destruction of the atmosphere. Why did they have to do this? Cause such destruction on a massive scale? They had done it countless times before. Earth, our HOME, was simply a number to them. How many liters of water were on it, how much resistance. In a few days, they destroyed what took nature millions of years to create. That’s why this revolution was so important, because they had done this not only to Earth, but to every other species home as well. And it is all going to be decided now. One wrong move, and humanity is doomed to slavery.

He was an aggressive one. He thrust forward, narrowly missing me and slicing right through the wall as if it were air. I sliced at him, but he simply ducked under my blade.
We continued to fight, sparks flying when our blades clashed. We fought for a few hours, neither of us making any progress. But I was tiring, and he knew it. He started to go on the defense, dodging my attacks and pushing my blade aside. He simply laughed as I clumsily missed him and banged into the wall. He kicked me aside with superhuman strength, taking out my wind. So this is it, this is my final flight. He looks at me with a triumphant grin, and began his victory monologue. Sadly for him, I had no idea what he was saying. That’s when my wrist-watch began to beep. I looked at it and it simply said: Brace yourself. I hugged the nearby ladder and Deep-1’s grin was replaced with a look of terror. He leaped for me, his sword above his head, but he stopped in mid-air, and then flew backwards, right out the airlock. The doors then closed, and I found myself gasping for breath. The intercom’s blaired into life. “Your welcome, Captain Shepard. Also, your coffee is waiting,” Said M.I.R.A’s cold, computer voice.

I remember this. Good times.