Start of a Sci-Fi Story

Chapter 1

He woke to the sound of sirens and the flashing of red and blue lights. For a moment he thought he saw an air ambulance hovering above waiting to pick him up but then reality hit home. The pounding headache on the right side of his head made him wince and when he pulled his hand away he noticed the blood for the first time. He must have been unconscious for a while because some of the blood had congealed and was dry on some of his fingers.

He blinked and regained focus, managing to look around the cockpit, almost rediscovering his surroundings. It certainly looked different in here than it did a few hours ago when they had been cruising through the galaxy. Now it was a mass of cables, wires and twisted metal, illuminated every second by the overhead lights. For a second the cabin would be lit up in red and then plummet to darkness, before being illuminated again in blue and the cycle would repeat.

Reaching out with his left hand he managed to flick a switch that killed the overhead lights and the screeching of the siren ceased. The world fell deathly silent and the audio in the cabin suddenly seemed hollow and deep. Pushing the button to release his seatbelt he felt an audible thud through his body as it was pulled in by the mechanism. Glancing around at the monitors he looked for any sign of power.  The smaller observing screens at the back of the cockpit were built in to offer the co-pilot some visibility of what was going on outside. He spent most of his time looking at these screens and gauges while the real pilot got them in and out of places safely.

The windows were covered in dust on the outside and looking out he could just make out daylight. He coughed and felt a tight pain across his chest where the harness had been. Lifting his shirt with a shaky hand he observed deep, purple bruises criss-crossing the front of his body.

Luckily it looked like the hull was intact and now, regaining some movement in his neck, he was able to look around and gather his bearings. The gravity felt normal so whatever they had landed on had some sort of atmosphere but it would be unclear at this point of its conditions. Flicking a couple of switches that were in arms reach he confirmed what he feared, the power was completely out. Information such as communications and life support systems were an essential part of being a co-pilot. Unfortunately, this also meant that he knew the oxygen would be on backup power and that meant the clock was ticking.

 

He kicked the back of the pilot seat hard in the hopes that the pilot, Captain McCall, would show some sign of life. He kicked again but instead of hearing a slur of profanity followed by the middle finger he saw the bloody head of the captain slump to the side. He was still strapped in to his harness but his head fell limp and blood dripped from his head pooling on the floor of the cockpit.

He clasped a hand over his mouth to hold back a whimper and had to look away for fear of being overwhelmed with emotion. He’d only met Captain McCall a few times but he was the kind of person that he couldn’t help but like. He was a no bull s**t kind of guy and when he was on a job, did everything by the book and had no time for joking around. At first it seemed like the worst partnership but after their second mission together it was actually McCall that had requested they fly together on the next. He never said it but he always felt like they had a mutual respect for one another.

After a few moments he managed to gather his thoughts and reach for his headset. Luckily the communications ran on a different system to the main ships power and as long as they had not lost the batteries in the crash it should still work. Placing the headset on his head he instantly breathed a sigh of relief as he heard static and crackling coming from the ear piece.

“Come in Six, Come in. This is Hartfield reporting an E Six Seven Three. We have ditched on an unknown planet and we are currently running on backup power. The pilot is dead and I am calling for an emergency pickup - over”

Letting go of the switch he heard nothing but static. Hartfield assumed this would be the case but the message would be stored until a signal was found that it could communicate on. There was nothing he could do now but wait for the message to send and then hope a reply would come back in time. That was if the message would send at all.