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Can you hear, can you hear, can you hear my voice?
Coming through, coming through, coming through the noise
“Captain’s log… number 2710.” You sighed. You didn’t know why you were doing this. No one would find you anyway. “Day… 58. I think. 60 days since… lost Starkiller.” You were starting to lose your coherence. You had been hailing for help in as many frequencies as you could, but you honestly had lost hope. There was no one who tuned into the frequencies. No one to listen to your small voice.
I'm floating through outer space
I'm lost and I can't find a way
Oh, all the lights going dark and my hope's destroyed
“My team, gone.” You mumbled as another light shut down. You were in the middle of darkness. The only thing lighting up the ship’s cockpit was the screen showing that it was still recording your words. Well, not that it mattered. The ship’s engine was broken beyond repair, so it was off. All the ship’s auxiliary system had been turned off to save power. Not that you needed it. Or so you thought.
But that had been ages ago. Since maybe… A month ago or so you had shut down pretty much everything except the most important functions when you had realised the ship’s battery was faulty. Probably broke when your ship had crashed badly against an asteroid.
What’s worse was that your Nav system had been glitched out from the solar flare that happened a bit after you were stranded. You had no way of knowing where you were. You were probably somewhere off the Arkanis System. Or perhaps even somewhere in the Unknown Regions. You didn’t know where your ship had drifted off to. You didn’t know if there were any First Order ships or affiliated planets nearby. Heck, you didn’t even know if there were any planets nearby. There was nothing but darkness as far as you could see.
“Help me, is anybody there?” You asked. You didn’t expect an answer. Your ship wasn’t able to reach out to anything anyway. You were alone. In the middle of a vast system. You felt much smaller than you could ever thought. You were just a small part of the bigger sum of things. No one would return your call for help. No one.
(Is anybody there? Is anybody there?)
Save me, I'm running out of air, ooh
You felt yourself drifting off again, and you didn’t fight it. Instead, you happily embraced it. It’s better to die when you were unconscious, you supposed. It would be less painful than how you were feeling now. You knew your consciousness was flipping on and off because of your hypoxia, in addition to not having enough nutrients from food and water. Exhaling once more, you slumped on the floor against the wall of panels and allowed the darkness to take over you once more.
Calling out mayday
Calling out mayday
“Mayday, mayday. This is Xi-class light shuttle, ship ID X-6025, hailing for emergency assistance.” You heard yourself speaking. The durasteel walls didn’t help muffle the echo of your own voice. You were once again met with silence. Sighing, you turned the knob by one. There were over one hundred thousand combinations of frequencies. Of course, you had tried the tens of frequencies that you knew for sure the First Order listened to, but after realising - after tons of attempts - that no one was listening, your hope rested on anyone who would answer your call. Be it Resistance, or even the Republic, or even pirates. You didn’t care. Your supplies were running out, and you didn’t have any way of restocking.
“Mayday, mayday. This is Xi-class light shuttle, ship ID X-6025, hailing for emergency assistance.” You repeated. You wondered if there were any recording device somewhere. You felt yourself stupid for saying the same things over and over again. You should look for one later, maybe you could save yourself the sore throat and boredom of repeating the same exact words. You turned the knob by one again.
One day, you’ll get an answer. You just didn’t know when.
It's so dark, it's so dark out here in space
And it's been so long, been so long since I've seen a face
You awaken once more. Not knowing the time, but you didn’t feel too thirsty. Perhaps you weren’t gone for long. Honestly, you couldn’t tell. You were severely dehydrated. You were famished. You were weak. You could barely even move from place to place. How long had you been sitting on the floor like this? Probably days.
The darkness of the ship, the darkness of space. Neither helped you figure out the time of the day. Everything was the same. It was dark. That was a fact nothing could change. Again, the only small source of light was the recording function on the console closest to you. Oh. Right. You were recording your captain’s log.
“We… I… Have run out of food. Since… 40 days?” You reported, but you were unsure yourself. You tried to keep some semblance of routine and time, but honestly you were bored out of your mind being alone, and the shortage in supplies didn’t help much either. Not knowing the time might actually be better for you.
How long had you actually had human interaction? Too long to remember. It was easier to not know. To imagine that this was all just a nightmare. If you fell asleep again, would you wake up in your bunk in Starkiller? With your bunkmates, the worst best people you would’ve ever known? Or maybe on the much more luxurious double bed, with your secret lover?
My eyes are shut but I can see
The void between you and me, mm
It was definitely easier to close your eyes. You felt safer. You could imagine you weren’t where you were. You imagined yourself being a kid again, playing hide and seek with your siblings and friends. Or perhaps in your early teens in the Academy, going out on a survival training with your fellow cadets. Or maybe back in your bunk in Starkiller. Inside the comfortable covers of your duvet.
You recalled the thing people said. When people stare at the abyss, the abyss stares back at you. Well, you didn’t know if it was supposed to be meant literally, but you could feel the abyss looking at you, mocking you for your predicament. Laughing at your for being so insistent on surviving. Telling you that you should’ve ended it a long time ago, perhaps with the vibroknife you always kept inside your sleeves. That the small chance of being saved was not worth the pain and loneliness of surviving alone. It was eating at you. You hated it. Everything was painful.
And I feel, and I feel like I'm going insane
It was easier to keep your eyes closed. It was easier for you. You couldn’t see ghosts of your fallen comrades. You could not see the shadows of your people. Some laughing at you. Some comforting you. Some simply sitting there with you. They made you feel much more alone. Knowing that you weren’t with them anymore. Knowing that your fate was to be alone until you perished. Until your body decided that it would not want to try anymore. That it could not survive anymore.
Help me, is anybody there?
(Is anybody there? Is anybody there?)
Save me, I'm running out of air, ooh
A few months into getting stranded in the middle of possibly nowhere, you noticed an odd reading. The carbon dioxide reading had been unexpectedly high. You knew all First Order ships, no matter how small, were equipped with its own self-sustaining air recycler. Usually, all carbon dioxide you produced (as the regular human being you were) would be converted to oxygen, with near to 100% efficiency - courtesy of First Order cutting-edge chemical engineering.
Your oxygen levels had been rather normal. Though, you supposed, the ships would also be equipped with oxygen tanks in case of emergencies. Leaving the console to run another diagnosis, you went to the nearest cupboard and grabbed a pair of insulator gloves. You would possibly have to check the recycler system manually. You knew vaguely how it worked, but you weren’t sure if you could fix it.
A beep from the console informed you that the diagnosis was complete. You compared the results with the ones you had earlier that day. The readings for carbon dioxide had been increasing, quite substantially. You had also checked the oxygen tank reading, and - you had correctly assumed - you WERE indeed starting to use up the tank. You didn’t want that. You needed the oxygen tank to last as long as it could so that, in the worst case, you could survive for longer. You hoped it wouldn’t have to come to that though.
You opened the panel and checked the recycler system. The first thing you noticed was how dirty the filter was. You hummed contentedly; THAT you could fix quite easily. Next, you unscrewed the cover to the recycler, showing you the intricate parts of the system. You noticed that one of the parts were badly bent. You noted it, thinking to find a way to straighten it at some point. Nothing else seemed out of place. The electrolytic cells looked like it was working fine. Nothing seemed rusted. Peculiar. These two problems shouldn’t cause such a drop in efficiency.
Beside the recycler system was a control panel for it. You used it to run a diagnosis on the recycler. But it didn’t respond. What? You were confused. The control panel ran on the same power source as the recycler, so there was no way for it to be off. The recycler was on! Unless… Your heart sank.
You walked to the main console and pulled up power usage for each individual part of the ship. Fearing the worst, you checked the power usage of the recycler.
Zero.
Calling out mayday
Calling out mayday
You were even more frenzied as you tried to hail as many frequencies as you could. The comms system was still working. But not for long. Your battery had been busted. You estimated another six standard hours before you had to manually shut it down to preserve your power.
Six hours for you to call for help. Beyond that, you were gone. You were 100% gone. There was limited supply of oxygen on board. You would die soon. You were running out of oxygen supply. If you couldn’t hail anyone, you would die. Beyond a shadow of doubt.
“MAYDAY! MAYDAY! THIS IS XI-CLASS LIGHT SHUTTLE, SHIP ID X-6025! REQUESTING ASSISTANCE IMMEDIATELY! WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF OXYGEN SUPPLY! EMERGENCY!!!” You would find yourself yell. You were hoping that you would hear a crackle and then someone talking. But no answer. As it had always been.
“Please… I don’t want to die…” you begged to no one in particular.
Far from the sun
Beyond stars I hear their song
How were you not dead yet?
You didn’t know how many times your consciousness had faded. You didn’t know how much time had passed. You ignored the rumbling in your stomach. You ignored the dryness of your throat. There was nothing you could do, anyway. You had nothing. You had eaten all you could eat, and drunk all you could drink. Your water supply had dwindled two days ago, and your food supply more than twenty days ago. All you could do at this point was wait until your soul faded. Until your body stopped functioning.
“That’s very pessimistic of you, Captain.”
Eh?
Oh. You were too oxygen-deprived and famished that you were probably hallucinating. It was one of the First Order triumvirates. Your… friend? Your lover? It was hard to explain. But the voice soothed you. At least your psyche wanted you to leave the world with an accompaniment of your loved one.
“You should find a way to survive.” The voice said. There was no other way. You had exhausted all you could. You had spent literal sleepless days trying to revive the recycler system. Even more sleepless days to fix the battery. More days to fix the Nav system. Trying to make use of all you had. Even wrenched open your datapad for spare parts to fix the water filtration system - which you succeeded in doing, until it broke again and you ran out of spare parts.
“Look outside. Locate where you are. Remember your nav training.” The voice said again. But you didn’t want to. Opening your eyes gave you nothing but despair. Despair from the fact that you were nowhere. That the space was too vast for someone as small as you. “Don’t give up.” You were starting to get irritated by the voice. Even though it was the voice you had created for yourself, technically.
They're coming closer
Talking without sound
Calling me home
You heavily opened your eyes. In shock you noticed a flicker, soon getting brighter. Your hazy brain slowly figured it out. You were getting pulled into an object. But it looked like a planet. Or a sun. You didn’t know. It was too far to determine. But what was the use? Your ship had no power. You had no energy to even move. You couldn’t do anything even if you wanted to.
“Move. Will yourself to move. Aren’t you a First Order officer? MOVE!” The voice bellowed at you. Wow. Way to motivate yourself, you mused. You wanted to move. So badly. You wanted to check it out. If it could be a hint. But you couldn’t. You couldn’t feel anything.
The thermostat had been turned off for power saving; it had taken most of your power as it was much too cold in space. Your limbs were numb from underuse AND the cold. You couldn’t move your legs. You couldn’t move your arms. Heck, you couldn’t even move your head.
“Start small.” You blinked several times. The voice was right. Baby steps. Once blinking didn’t feel too heavy, you moved your tongue. Then your jaws, then your lips. Then your neck. Soon enough, your entire head was movable. You felt empowered.
“Come on, you can do it. Come home.” This time, you could nod to yourself. You moved one finger, then two, then three. And so on. Repeating the process slowly but surely as the light from the sun-planet thing got brighter as your ship was pulled in.
Calling out mayday
Calling out mayday
With strength you were surprised you had, you crawled to the console and pulled yourself up to the seat before it. Your hazy mind remembered how to check the power and turn on certain functions. With great surprise you noticed you had a few minutes of power left. You did not hesitate.
“Mayday,” your voice sounded hoarse. You couldn’t help it. It was dry. It hurt to speak. “Captain (L/n) speaking. Save me. Please.” Your voice turned into a whisper in the end. You couldn’t even properly say it again. You were going to run the recording you had some time ago but you couldn’t even remember where you had saved it.
Save me, I'm running out of air
I'm running out of air
I'm running out of air
I'm running out of air
I'm running out of air
I'm running out of air
The console flickered, logging in another day the ship had been flying. Marking 153 days since it last touched down.
You could hear a crackle before you were once again enveloped in the darkness.