The Marauders

"6-6-6, the number of the beast! Hell and fire were born to be released!"
The ancient rock and roll poured out from the toshibamitzu speakers with it's normal cringe and crackle of its fraying wires. Donovan tuned them down, and sat back putting his feet up on the console. All systems read normal, no life detected, no foreign objects, no planets. Nothing but empty space. He switched off the system link and walked to the galley, it was empty. The rest of the crew still fast asleep. There isn't time in space, he thought, not like on the surface of an earth, so it wasn't early, nor was it late. To be precise, the sun was in the noon position in accordance with the ship, but it was sleep time.
He pulled himself down the hatch into the galley, which was also devoid of any life. He opened a pack of freeze dried beef and chewed off a large chunk in his teeth. It was all you could get out here on the edge of the bubble, in the deep empty of the void. But this was where they cast their nets, this is where the big fish were. Or so someone kept saying. Just one old junker and they'd all be rich as noblemen and they could buy their own ships, their own fleets even. Just one battleship, one weapons transport, at this point he'd take anything, even a passenger transport, the railway of the universe, could load their pockets enough to sail back home and buy some real food for once. But so far it had been two months and they'd seen nothing but empty space. He had been staring at the monitors for what seemed like ages, but they never changed, never flickered, just the same message, no life detected, present course maintained. He started back to the flight deck. Moose would freak if he left his post.
The monitors were still cold blue, so Donovan slumped down in the pilots seat and left it on cruise. Moose kept saying they'd be there soon, but where he didn't know. The edge of the bubble? The edge of the world? The next earth? Wherever it was, it was still far, far away. 16 years ago, 8 of them had left Almera; Alerz and Carus, they died ten years ago when the ship came down with a deep space virus. And Saulh got left behind when the captain learned about his bounty, instead of cashing him in, Moose just let him go. Donovan still never understood that. In the years after they drifted through space, from world to world and station to station, trading what they could, and pirating when they couldn't. And four years, or five? Or six? Or more, since they had last seen another operating ship. They had scalped provisions from deep space freighters and old research vessels that had died deep in the void, and pirated any other small ships they came across, but now? Now it had been two years or more since they had even seen a ship. The food and fuel would soon be running low. They'd have to float back home, if they could even get there. He didn't want to think about that. Years and years. He shuddered.
They had passed other worlds, worlds vast and giant, but without any life. Swirling balls of deadly gas, uninhabitable to anything but dust, one surrounded with a great ring of billions and billions of rocks, but had to pass on. They were empty, lonely sentinels of the darkness. Moose had pushed on. He said he knew it was there, he knew we were close. But he didn't say to what, or where. They pushed on anyway, through the deep, through a field of asteroids, where they almost were crushed about a thousand times, but they had survived, somehow they had survived. And on they floated, into the deep, towards the burning red star on the horizon.
Then they found the great red rock. From a year out they could see it, the orange speck at first, then a big red spot laying in wait before them. That's when, briefly, Donovan's hope had returned, behind the red rock was a blue dot in the distance. He wanted to head straight for it, but Moose said no. They needed to stop, check out the big red rock, he said. The monitors had remained the same, no life detected.
They had found a few minor space craft, small and robotically piloted, but nothing worth raiding for supplies. It was hopeful though, it meant something was out here in the depth of space. Two months of searching the red rock led us nowhere, and Caron got lost in a dust storm and never came back, so we pulled out. Just four of us now, and Moose. The only thing we did manage to find out there was low grade fuel, usable, but not good enough to get us very far. The blue dot though, that was where the others were, he could feel it. The whole reason they had begun this journey, the reason they had given their lives away. To find the other earths, and he had no doubt this was one. Just a year or two more, he thought, and we'll be there.
It had been three years since they left the great red rock, and though that tiny blue dot got bigger and bigger, it still seemed so small out in the blackness. But he was sure now, that blue, blue was ocean, water, the source of all life. They were nearly at journeys end, one of these days those monitors would pick up something, anything. They must be close to their range, he thought, soon we can make contact. But what would they once they arrived? And he thought, what if they aren't a developed enough species to receive the call? What if we're stuck here. But he had resigned himself to that long before, they were stuck out here and they were never going home. Time would not allow it.
The deck was quiet and comforting to him, the way it curved around him like the walls of some interstellar womb, keeping them safe from the dark that loomed in all directions. He sank in the pilots seat, and felt the warmth of the condensed air from the heater, and closed his eyes. At first, he merely drifted, he heard the monitors blink and beep and hum, but he paid them little mind. It was a chorus he had grown all too accustom in his many years of service at the helm; an orchestra that was mathematically predictable. First, every six seconds, the monitor gave a soft but shrill beep that let you know it was still on and detecting life. Every nine seconds, the console would chirp, mainly because it was old and wired improperly, then after seven more seconds, it would blip, Donovan didn't know why. All the while the rest of the machines and instruments would chrip, beep, blip, hum, drone, and whine all in their different times, a chaotic ensemble of in-cohesive sounds, but still something that now, to Donovan at least, was so eerily comforting. It never changed, it was constant, and he longed for it now. Before he could protest, he was fast asleep, and floating through the deep of space.
He woke up and there was a new instrument leaking through the glorious noise. A beepbeepbeepbeepbeep he hadn't heard in years, and the red letters flashing on his monitor screen, "vessel detected." he rubbed the raw from his eyes, it must be a dream he thought. But there it was, plain as day, "vessel detected." He sprang to life, hailing out for anything.
"this is the Marauder, calling all ships, do you copy?" but no one responded. He brought up the radar, there it was, a great green speck in the corner. He set course and kept hailing.
"what's going on?" Donovan jumped, "whoa it's only me," it was Arrack the ship mechanic.
"you scared me that's all," Donovan said.
"well this alarms going off in all the cabins," Lena was with him. The ships, well, lady, "what's up D?"
"we found something," he grinned, "it's a ship."
"a big ship?" said Arrack.
"a huge ship," Donovan replied. He pointed to the radar, "look."
"what is it?" Moose was there. Captain Moose that is.
"it's a ship sir," Donovan began, but Arrack cut him off.
"a big ship captain," he said.
"you call em yet," Moose went on.
"of course," Donovan said, "but so far, no response." Moose shook his head.
"there's no one on that ship," he was looking up at the window, where the hulk of some old battleship lay limping through the void. It was cut stem to stern, it's pieces scattered around it in a great sloping arc. "Its the Hammer of Heaven, they're all dead."
"it's not the Hammer," Donovan said, "that's a myth."
"what do we do then?" Lena asked.
"we raid her, take what we can, and move on," Moose walked briskly toward the galley saying, "Donovan, wake up Ces, and go see what you can find."
"whose gonna fly the ship?" said Arrack, but Moose was gone. "wow, he's pissed"
"yea but about what?" said Donovan, and he walked out of the deck to get his gear on.
"you think hes right? That its the Hammer?" Arrack was asking Lena. Donovan spun on him.
"it's not the fucking Hammer alright, that ship doesn't exist, it's just a ghost story they tell you in the group homes."
"you don't know that for sure," Lena said, "there's documented evidence of a ship called "hammer of heaven..." Donovan cut her off.
"five hundred years ago Lena," Donovan barked, "now if I hear any more about the ghost ship..."
"you'll do what?" Lena said, folded her arms across her breasts in a defiant pose. How he wanted to lay his head upon those breasts again, to kiss her soft lips, taste her wet love in his mouth, but she wasn't his anymore. That was a long, long time ago, when they were lovers, when she was all his. He stared into her grey green eyes and tried to keep his feelings hidden behind a partition exterior of commanding might, but she wasn't fazed. She knows me all too well, he thought.
"I'll beat you both," he finally said, "I'm your commanding officer, and you'll do as I say." he felt like a heel pulling rank like that.
"I'd like to see you try," Lena said, getting right up in his face. He wanted to kiss her, but she'd probably shoot him again.
"get to your station petty officer," he said, "this discussion is over." she laughed in his face, and walked away. His eye followed her every move.