The Fine Line

Prologue

It was perfect. The dazzling light from the thousand suns cut daggers of intense brightness through the Bridge's many portholes. It shone with a lurid orange glow, its warmth spreading to even the shadowed areas of the small, cluttered room. Captain Benson heard the ship's battered hull sigh with relief. He did the same. It had been eight months since he'd seen any sort of natural light. His skin was as white as a sheet, mottled with purple streaks of the blood vessels coursing and pulsing their way beneath.

Yes, it had been a long, long time. Shielding his dulled eyes from the glare, Captain Benson pulled the radar screen towards him. It really was perfect. There they were, the thousand suns of the Juled System, all burning brightly as big red dots on his scanner. There were an impossible number of them, maybe nowhere near a thousand but still closely packed together in tight formations. Like soldiers on parade, he thought silently to himself.

He edged round the many consoles to the bow of the ship, where the pilot's seat was situated. Of course, Captain Benson was the pilot. He was everything on this ship. The skipper, the pilot, the navigator, the cook and his own company. Nobody had wanted to come with him. They called him mad, and stupid to go wandering off in his tiny little SpaceSloop, 'The Crimson Blossom', especially in unexplored territory. They told him the ship would be torn to bits, smashed by the perils of the dark journey.

Captain Benson didn't listen. He loved his ship more than anything, and would never let it get filched by renegade pirates from the Shadow Colonies, or torn apart by the microscopic Rust Mites that roamed the void of space. All of that had almost happened, and in that time he had saved her. Bursting with pride and the thought of the look on his friends faces when he got home from this sacred place, Captain Benson switched off the autopilot on his vessel and steered her closer to one of the suns. To prove he had actually come this far, he was required to collect and store solar energy from one of them.

Of course, back home doing this was illegal. But out here, in the freedom of lawless space, he could do what he liked, when he liked. He flicked a switch to the right of him, opening up the intakes of one of the reserve engines and letting it feed on the pure rays that streamed across the stars. The ship seemed to breathe in deeply, enjoying its long awaited meal. Captain Benson was once again forced to breathe in and out with her, taking in the strange copper scent in the air.

Disconcertingly, it smelt of blood. He sat bolt upright from his relaxed position and gave another hesitant sniff. It definitely smelt of blood, freshly cut and dripping. Thinking it was him, he checked his arms and torso, even though he knew he would be able to feel it if he'd hurt himself. Nothing. The smell was growing stronger by the second until it choked the very air in the room. Captain Benson, still sceptical, switched on the autopilot once more and got up out of the chair. He headed for the hold, where the main and reserve engines were located.

Maybe it was the solar energy being soaked up, and leaking out of the engines? They were, after all, very old in comparison to the other ships from his home planet. His father had brought him into the world of Golden Age Exploration, when the ships were built lovingly from hand instead of mass produced in some factory on Villengard. The Crimson Blossom was from that hallowed time, and it fascinated him since his childhood how ships like this one were over a hundred years old and still capable of sailing into the unknown – whilst the 'earth-shattering' vessels of today would crumble and die in ten or twenty years.

Captain Benson was proud to inherit this ship from his father – and keep the timeless beauty going. After all he'd been through no engine failure was going to stop him now. As he reached the hold, the smell seemed to get ever more stronger, until his head throbbed with the pain of having to breathe it in. He bent over one of the reserves, staring intently at the metal frame. Nothing was wrong with it. Everything was working correctly and there were no punctures at all. So what the hell was it then?

The stench was nearing unbearable. Captain Benson pulled a handkerchief from his boiler suit's pocket and placed it over his mouth, coughing with difficulty. He scoped the room for the source, although he didn't have a clue what he was looking for. His mind was addled. He no longer had any answers for the ridiculous questions spinning about his mind as he blundered around the room. It was only as he bent down to cough did he notice the hole in the floor.

It wasn't big. It looked like someone had taken a nail and driven it through the underside of the hull, despite the fact the metal was at least four feet thick. Rust Mites again? Captain Benson was now extremely confused, especially at the fact that no air was escaping from the hole. Even the slightest laceration would mean that as soon as he had opened the hold's main door, the vacuum should have blown him away. But there was nothing, just the terrible smell.

Not even the alarms had sounded. Baffled, Captain Benson ran his finger over the hole to make sure it was real. It was. As soon as his flesh touched the surprisingly smooth edge, it expanded. The hole grew longer and wider by the second, ripping and rending its way across the floor beneath his feet. Instinctively, Captain Benson backed off and headed for the door. He shook his head in sheer disbelief. He could now see the void of space right in front of him, looking so much more endless than it did through a porthole. The crates full of food and equipment simply vanished along with the floor in a split second, the somehow invisible force leaving nothing in its wake.

Captain Benson ran. What else could he do? Something was eating his ship and he could do nothing about it. Sweat and tears dripped from his face, his hands so clammy anybody would of thought he'd stuck them in a bucket of water. He ran to the bow of the ship and madly bashed any control he could find. No way were these Rust Mites. They never ate that quickly. But this, creature could do so much damage in such little time.

The tear was coming closer, edging its way up the corridor and past the mess hall. Any second now it would be upon him. Captain Benson didn't even feel real. This couldn't be real. Could it? He should be dead. The tear made no noise. There was no sound of contorting metal or the vicious cry of whatever it was doing this. There was just silence, the hush of the galaxy. He slammed his fists on a panel, so desperate he couldn't remember the last time he'd taken a breath. Looking to his left, he saw the tear stop about a metre away from him.

He swore that he heard it laugh before it jumped on him like a starving, savage beast. The last thing Captain Benson recalled was a woman's voice in his head, so soothing and yet so hopeful.

'The storm is coming.'