Dear Mary,

They have taken the ship. I am trapped below deck. My lungs wheeze absorbing the remaining oxygen. I can almost see your long auburn hair, with its wild red streaks, twirling in the autumn wind. I fondly recall the dagger you kept in your garter, and the smile of the scorpion tattoo on your calf. “Don’t forget me,” you said, when I joined the Interplanetary Merchant Marines. I have thought of nothing else except you, my love.

The ship is dead in space. Most of the crew are frozen statues. Only a trifle bit of heat comes from burning their remains. I took command, but only after our ranking officer succumbed to gangrene. I didn’t believe I had it in me to lead, but the joviality of the men was inspiring. They’ve kept me alive by daring me to eat the corpses of our fallen brothers. “Lead us, eat us! Eat us, lead us!” They chanted. Their sick drollness in the face of death was inventive. The first bites were like rubber chicken needing salt. After going long enough without food, you don’t even mind the taste.

I have given them all posthumous commendations, despite them trying to kill me.

I joined the IMM to provide for you. I endured the hazing and the Space Pox to prove myself to you. I know your father never approved of me. Now though, my dead—you should move on. I want you to be happy. Your missing lower incisor only added charm to your smile, after your daily injection of “medicine.” I want you to smile, and not think of me out here keeping warm by burning corpses. I recall your father’s words, “You’re not man enough for her,” he said.

Perhaps he was right.

If only I’d obeyed the captain. It was my watch, Mary. I fell asleep. “Don’t do anything stupid,” were the Captain’s last words to me. I was so tired, Mary, from scrubbing the latrines thirty hours straight, as punishment for not closing a lower starboard hatch on launch. I swear to you, my eyes closed only for a moment when the ship hit the rogue comet. The razor ice shredded the hull; sucking forty men were sucked into space through a thin crevasse of steel. Their eyes popped from the pressure, just before their insides were ripped to float like discarded, bloody linguini.

“Help! Don’t let us die!” I heard their voices scream.

If only I had been among them. Nevertheless, after the ship was crippled, I sent a distress call. Regrettably my dearest Mary, I broadcast it on the wrong frequency. This is how the pirates found us. The rogues boarded, and stole the remaining working parts still functioning on the ship. Rather than kill us, they left us to starve. I will not forget the dread pirate Roberts as he said, “You’re a right stupid bastard, mate. I hope they eat you first.”
His voice echoes in my ears.

The morale of the remaining crew remained high, until we encountered the Space Luddites. The Luddites made a deal with the crew, to use my bones as a sacrifice to their god. “Lead us, Captain!” The men now yell from the other side of the door. “They’ll take us with them!” The Luddites are cruel in their prayers to their god. They chant about my entrails as sausage for their pigs, how my charred bones will feed their chickens.

Two of the men defended me; that is, until I accidently killed the battery power by cutting the wrong wire in the stateroom where they had us trapped. “You’re a right stupid bastard, aren’t you?” Corporal O’Malley asked me. Then, Sargent Flannigan shot himself in the head. I must confess, I laughed hideously when the Corporal skewered me with his sabre. However, the Corporal’s knees buckled, unable to finish me off, after losing too much blood. He whispered foul curses as he died in my arms. After these last two loyal men turned on me, I snaked through the lower bowels of the ship, using the air ducts to hide inside the petty officer’s quarters. Nevertheless, they’ve found me.

It’s very cold now Mary. The door won’t hold much longer. I must confess I have missed your grace, your charms. Your calloused hands felt so gentle, after I lost my testicle in my bowling accident. “Hold me and never let me go,” you said, until I came down with that horrible Staph infection. I understand why you kept your distance when I shipped off. Moreover, my dearest Mary, although I have not heard from you in these many months, despite having sent you my Merchant Marine wages all this time, I still love you. I realize only now, in the flickering shadows on the wall of these quarters, that it was a dirty glove during your last physical exam that gave you the syphilis as you claimed, and not another man.
I imagine it exacerbated the eczema on your shins as well.

The howling of the men has stopped. They have finally broken through.

I know the sun is shining, Mary, wherever you are…