Chronicle of Nautilus

Chapter 48: The End

Ermac floated inside a tank filled with shiny red liquid, multiple wires connected to his spine, his eyes closed, but his vision as sharp as ever. The three dimensional image of infinite space surrounding him shook. Projected trajectory round a star, Nautilus was approaching, with many digital indicators attached to it, went out of control, changing and wrapping in spirals and disappearing. This can't be, a glitch, perhaps? Ermac thought. He opened up a menu with the eight engines, half of them blinking in red. Instantly, his insides turned, panic took him over. He felt the universe crashing in on him, his life losing its meaning.

He breathed in quick irregular intervals, forgetting the place he was in and the thing he was inhaling. The red liquid enriched with oxygen acted as a sedative and calmed him down. Now, breathing steadily and slowly he focused on the situation - four of engines out of order.

It took a minute to enter manual engine controls and disconnect the broken engines from the system, shut them down, stop energy transmission flowing into them. Now, surprised, he felt the ship shifting. His mind connected with the controls, not used to react to such multitude of sudden changes, had difficulty adapting. His consciousness was slowly slipping away. After doing everything he could, to stop the damaged engines and stop all energy flow he initiated their self-destruction and detachment to stop the fires from spreading into the ship.

Once Ermac got back to the trajectory screen, he felt a slight shock. The ship had begun to spin, its center of balance shifted. The Nautilus' trajectory was now passing the outer layer of the sun. With the last bits of remaining consciousness Ermac weighted all possible options and came to the most plausible solution.

He once again got into the engines screen, four engines in green color remained. One by one he detonated them and the ship shook once again.

Ermac returned the trajectory screen. He took a deep breath, felt his insides calm down and looked at the picture in front of him. To his relief, the trajectory line, now bypassed the sun at a great distance. The ship was now out of his or anyone's control. He could allow himself to pass out now. And he did, with a smile on his face.

Words 'Disconnection initiated' appeared on the window in front of the tank. The liquid surrounding Ermac drained rapidly, the connections on his spine unplugged as the level of liquid decreased. As a puppet with strings being cut one by one, in little short falls he dropped down.

Scarlet ran closer to him and covered his naked figure with a large towel. She wrapped him into the towel and gently slapped him.

With closed eyes Ermac silently said, "It's all for nothing, we failed miserably."

"No. There is still hope for the ship."

"For the ship, yes, but not for humanity," Ermac coldly replied.

  ------

Tom entered the city through a wrecked wall on the first floor. The exit was guarded by two security agents, they kept a small group of civilians away from the gate. Smokes from the explosions were already put out.

"Is everything under control?" Tom asked and walked towards a cab in the middle of the wreckage.

"Yes, the terrorists are all caught or eliminated." A female agent replied emotionlessly. "How did you do sir?"

"I did fine, situation is secured." Tom lied, speaking with his back turned towards the agents, trying to hide his frustration. He added. "Fix the wall and return to the HQ. I've got a rebriefing to do."

"Understood." Another, male, agent replied.

Tom sat into the cab and ordered it to go to the Security HQ at a slow speed. As the cab floated above the rooftops, Tom saw no panic on the streets. People seemed to go about their lives, having no clue about what had just happened. Sure, they must have heard or seen the explosions, but they knew that ship's security had handled terrorists swiftly and mercilessly and was now in control of the situation. For them, if the explosions had stopped, the world has returned to normal.