Deep Trouble in Deep Space

I was running away as fast as I could. Which is about as accurate a description as I can give when you’re floating through a ship traveling through space at zero gravity, being chased by a gang of dangerous criminals who have already boarded your ship and are right behind you. I was able to make it into the next room and press the button that makes the door close directly behind me. It locks, and I lose sight of all of them.

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I stopped to catch my breath and hopefully calm down a little bit. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. This was my ship, and I’m responsible for all that inhabits it. The room I was in only had two doors. One door was closed and locked shut with these criminals on one side, and on the opposite end of the room was the entrance to the cryo-sleep chamber. In the cryo- sleep chamber lay my entire family. I knew what these criminals wanted. I knew that they were here for the life support systems. Taking out the life support system of just one person would kill them in just a few short minutes, without them ever even waking up, and would easily be able to fund a comfortable life for the entire gang chasing me. There were 10 live support systems here, and I knew that they weren’t going to give up that gold mine.

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It’s my job once every week to wake up and make sure that all of the systems are still online and that the ship is running smoothly. It’s usually a job that takes me a quick three hours, and then I join the rest of my family in cryo-sleep. I can’t tell if this was me getting lucky or me getting terribly unlucky to wake up, start work, and just happen to be boarded by these criminals. I look out the window of the room I’m in. I see their space shuttle flying by in a small hover. There’s no one else on board. That means that they’ve brought every single one of them on my ship. I see the markings on the side of their ship, and I immediately recognize the gang with their part of. They’re known for their absolutely barbaric methods. They don’t like to just steal. I don’t believe it’s enough for them. They’ve been known to capture and torture, and on some accounts, I’ve even heard of cannibalism among their ranks. I vaguely remember one of them carrying a knife. I haven’t seen that kind of animalistic technology in years. Anyone who travels the way we do carries a laser cutter. It’s infinitely cleaner and infinitely easier to use. The only reason anyone would wanna use a knife is that they wanted to do a sloppy job or just enjoy what using it entails.

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I have no idea what I’m going to do. I’m absolutely terrified. I don’t even know what I could do. I have to save my family. I have to make sure that they’re OK. I have to make sure that we get to where we’re going safely. I also know that I can’t allow these criminals to stay here on my ship; they could be in at any moment. Any moment I think again. I look at the clock in the room. It’s been about two minutes since I closed the door. I heard them pounding on the door as hard as they could when it first closed, but I haven’t heard them in a few minutes. I can’t tell if they’re planning something new or if they’re just sitting there waiting, knowing that I don’t have enough food in here to last forever, and eventually need to do something. anything. The only answer I can think of is that I have to get rid of everyone on the other side of this door that I’ve closed and locked. I’ve never killed anyone before. I don’t even know how I could do that. We have an armory in the cryo- sleep room, but that was never ever used for anything besides hunting, and that was strictly just for food because we need to eat. I couldn’t imagine pointing and aiming that at another human to take another man’s life. I remember making eye contact with one of them while they were chasing me. It couldn’t have been a child more than 13 years old. How in the world could I bring myself to do something like that?

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I sat, and I wrestled with the idea. I look at the clock. It’s been 10 minutes since I walked through the door behind me. I’m currently floating in the air with my knees against my chest and my arms around hugging them. I have my forehead buried into my knees as well. I was like a floating ball. I was just doing the best to comfort myself, but what I really think I was doing was coming to terms with the fact that I had to kill everyone on the other side of that door in order to save myself and my family. I knew that they would not stop, no matter what I did or said, unless I stopped them myself. I went into the cryo- sleep room, and I saw my family still sleeping there silently, completely unaware of everything that was going on in my life right now. I don’t know how I could possibly join them again after this. I imagine I’ll be up awake monitoring the ship for at least another month before I could feel safe enough to go back to bed.

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I slow myself as I begin to get closer to the armory. I grabbed the laser rifle with the most stopping power. A more primitive version of this weapon that I assume more people would be familiar with would be a 12-gauge shotgun. I went back to the room I was waiting in. I take one look at the clock just to make sure that I don’t miss a single detail, and I’m completely ready to do what I must do. Since I’ve closed and locked the door. It’s been just over 11 minutes. I think about my family, I think about the danger they’re in. I think about myself, I think about if I can even bring myself to pull the trigger once I open the door, and I open the door.

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The door hisses as the hydraulics open it, and I steady my gun in the direction, looking down the sight with my finger on the trigger, ready to do what I have to. The door opens all the way, and I slowly put the gun back down. There it was. I look in awe. The second I closed the door about 11 minutes ago, the room depressurized and cut all oxygen, and they all suffocated to death, and they were all already lying on the floor dead.