Insignificantia

From here, it all looked so important. Sitting inside the bridge of the Lancer-Class Corvette Three's a Crowd, Commander Gary Huang surveyed the screens that filled the room. On each one, a chart, graph, scan, or video feed showed, in one way or another, the battle that lay ahead of him. He felt so disconnected. Not only from the battle, but from the universe as a whole. Apart from their sister ship Two's Company, there was nothing for many thousands of kilometers in any direction. 
From the bridge's main window, he saw little more than smudges and sparkles, but still he knew every shimmer of light was an explosion or beam of energy tearing a living being to shreds. From the screens to either side, he saw zoomed-in video feeds of it all. Every missile, every bullet and every plasma bolt appeared as though he was floating there next to them. There was some irony in it all. For so long humanity had stomped out every bug that so much as inconvenienced their march of progress, building on their graves hulking behemoths of metal and glass. Now, the Covenant in their beetle-like starships, covered in a layer of insectoid carapace, had come to stomp on us. 
On one screen he saw a Covenant warship fire a beam of superheated plasma at a human starship. When it subsided, a burst of flame erupted from the ship's hull and lasted only an instant before its oxygen supply was spent or sucked into the vacuum of space. Huang thought it to be a good allegory for this war and this existence Fire. So violent, so captivating, so bright. But all fires burn out at some point, and after that even their ashes will be gone. In the grand scheme of things, humanity was but a flame and the Covenant was another. Competing for air, hoping to burn just a little brighter and longer than the other. 
Perhaps that was the wrong way to think of it. After all, a whale may be nothing to the ocean but everything to a plankter. The time for idle thought was coming to a close. The battle drew ever closer and his crew swarmed him with questions. As the minutes passed, his mind's tirade about his place in the universe shrunk behind his battle preparations. As he swept the last it under the rug, he was called into action.
His weapons officer spoke. "Commander, we're in MAC range. Targeting solution ready to go."
"Shoot." Huang responded.
A powerful hum filled the ship as the magnetic accelerator cannon installed in the Three's a Crowd's bow came to life. Seconds later the ship shook slightly as the gun sent a metal slug directly through the hull of a Covenant corvette and out the other side. Two's Company seized the opportunity she'd been presented with and sent another slug their way. This second slug hit something important. Blue-green flame erupted from the impact hole and shot out into space. Soon the pressure had grown too great for this single hole to regulate and it the ship's hull began to crack and the entire stern of the alien spacecraft was engulfed in fire. 
There it was again. Fire. 
"We're reloaded, Commander." His weapons officer interrupted his thoughts again. 
As he opened his mouth to speak, a vortex opened behind the damaged Covenant corvette. Like turbulent water surrounding a whirlpool, its edges twisted and turned, doubling back and being sucked inward to the void at its center. A rounded, dark-purple bulge peeked through the portal, dragging a massive Covenant supercarrier behind it. 
Gary Huang now knew his place in the universe exactly. He was a plankter, and that thing was one hell of a whale.
Category:The Weekly
Category:Stories