The silence was deafening. She'd heard it said that in the void of space the silence was the one thing you could be certain of. Pinned in the crumpled remnants of her transport, the sound of her breathing reverberating through her skull, Lieutenant Commander Jane Hartman didn't find it hard to believe. The transport's evacuation siren had fallen silent what felt like years ago, the explosion silencing the alarm as it had silenced her ship. Possibly even her. If it wasn't for the harness into her collar bone, Hartman would have cause to seriously doubt her own existence.
With a soft click her eyes opened. Or shut. In the darkness, it was impossible to tell one from the other. Even concepts such as up and down had become utterly meaningless. Blink. Her hands fumbled for the harness, years of training guiding her hands to the release. Emergency seats. Heavily cushioned, designed to give the crew some sort of support if a collision was deemed impossible to avoid, and they had time to get there. Positioned at the outer edges of the bridge, lining the wall. The most heavily armoured segments of the ship. The clasp should have been somewhere by her waist... The first attempt bought her fumbling hands to something sharp, and she drew back in pain, cursing. This wasn't like training. Training had had emergency lighting. Here, not even the stars offered her any light. She vaguely remembered blast shields springing up around the view ports as the reactor went critical. It all seemed so much harder than it should have been. The Naval Officer gritted her teeth, running her hand down her side, determined to free herself. Familiar fabric passed under her fingertips as her hand progressed down her shoulder. Logistics Division Patch. In the light, it would have shown a Bison rocketing away from some unknown planet, debris parting before the massive ship. Today, it looked like it was her turn to be the debris. Not if she had anything to say about it. Fingers closed around the clasp and, with a grunt of triumph, she pressed it. Her arm drifted naturally to what must have been the wall, clasp impacting against the metal with a ringing clang. As it did so, she felt a tug in her stomach, pulling her back into her seat, not unlike what she'd experienced in flight school. Her hair, normally marshalled into a tight bun was inching out from her skull, making it hard to lift her head from the seat.
It took her mind a few seconds to catch up with what her body was telling her.
Clearwater wasn't still. Whatever was left of the Bison was spinning, end over end, like a sadistic carnival ride. The realization kicked her mind into gear; regurgitating facts and stories from a series of previously forgotten simulations and training operations. Human beings weren't sensitive to speed by itself. They noticed changes in speed, changes in acceleration. If she was noticing the ship spinning, if she felt herself being pulled into the wall, then the Bison must have been accelerating... If the Bison was accelerating, without thrusters or dampeners to slow it down, velocity would continue build up to the point that anyone on board would be crushed to sludge by the increasing g-forces. Eventually, the ship would tear itself apart. Not that it would matter, she would be unconscious long before that happened. She had to find a way some way to slow it down... Even if she couldn't, if she could get to the C.O's chair at the bridge's centre, the gravity might be weak enough to delay crushing her. If the emergency systems were still working, she would be able to trigger the manual distress beacons.
With agonizing slowness, she reached out a hand, questing for one of the ship's manoeuvring points. Little more than rounded handholds protruding from the walls and roof, the points were supposed to give the crew some way around the bridge when the gravity failed. She'd never thought that she'd need to use them. There. Her knuckle bumped one of the familiar protrusions. Jaw set in a grim line, she heaved herself forward, fighting the ever increasing force urging her back.
The Destiny's Embrace prowled the Jersey Debris Field regulalry, using the debris and it's reflective armor to remain hidden from view. The sleek Hathor was in a few odd places today, checking for any Nomadic Activity. It was the same boring job, so the crew left the driving to the AI, Jerrod. Currently, Rika Hunter and a few of the crew were sitting on the floor around a portable poker table, throwing down cards amidst credit chit, baseball cards, and what appeared to be a holographic Charizard card. One of the sensor operators was playing Galaga.
In all, the ship was relaxed. None of them expected to find anything down this way.
"Flush, Clubs. Beat that kid." Solomon said, putting his cards down. He smirked. The other three folded, giving up. Solomon's poker face got them.
Rika set her jaw, and set her cards down. "Straight, clubs."
Curses from all around were heard as the kid pulled her winnings toward her...but the Destiny's Embrace suddenly jerked to the side, turning diagonal to dodge something. Rika was thrown towards the window, but Solomon caught her and cushioned the impact with his own body.
"Jerrod! Status!"
"Something was in our flight path. It was indistinguishable from the surrounding asteroids; it's spin almost caused a collision."
"So? Asteroids spin." Solomon said with a hint of sarcasm.
"It's spinning a bit faster then the normal debris here idiot." Rika said, frowning. "What is it?"
"The structure appears to be part of a bridge unit. Overlaying know Liberty Warships..." After a minute, Jerrod apoke again. "No match. Overlaying schematics of know Liberty Transports..." The object was overlaied on a couple transports, until Jerrod brought up a Bison."
"We have a 87% match with the Bison-Class Battle Transport. Checking markings." Jerrod took a few moments. "47% Match to the Liberty Navy Logistics Division Insignia."
"Navy? Mom..." Rika looked at the spinning object. Someone her mom knew could be on that.
"Jerrod, alter course! Solomon, prep to men and prepare to rescue! Put the poker, Galaga, and I am pretty sure I'm hearing Hikari, so watch your intro later."
The bridge was a flurry of programs closing, objects being pushed under consoles, and the cool professionalism expected from the crew when on-duty settled.
"Attempt to establish contact." She commanded.
Time to play hero. Oh joy.
"No answer!"
Rika sighed. She studied the bridge, it's spin, it's course. Already her mind was a flurry of thought, seeing which plans would work and which would fail, and which would kill them all. She frowned, plan after plan tested in her head and shot down.
"Keep an eye on it. If the rotation slows...we'll have a chance. Standbye."
Rika crossed her arms. This was going to be oh-so fun.
Natsumi Hideyoshi (The Order) | Alexis Hunter (Liberty Navy) |
Nephthys very heavy fighter quietly stalked the spinning hull of the vessel in question. The entire ship was blacked out - running lights included - as a man on board began preparing.
"Hmph... space walk. Really Terrance? You're going to attempt a space walk." Terrance said aloud, donning his space helmet and making sure it was secured tightly, looking down at his leg holsters to see the side-arm he readily carried. He took in a deep breath before typing in a command code in the console nearby.
"Compartment Depressurizing." Bleeped over his helmets internal comm. He shook his head slowly as he listened to the hissing from oxygen escaping the cabin. Moments afterwards, the cabin fell silent as the canopy opened.
"Phew..." He let out a sigh, his hand shaking as he grabbed a handle, and stepped onto the nose of the ship.
Without a safety line, he had one chance to make it. If he missed... well, he would be floating out into deep space and would probably... no... most likely die of suffocation. With that as his last thought, he crouched, then used his own force to push him off the nose of the ship.
His breathing grew heavier as he slowly drifted from his ship towards the spinning hull, a faint smile on his lips as he approached, he was going to make it... but then the smile disappeared quickly as he noticed the hull was also moving towards him at roughly the same speed. "Oh shi..." He managed just before slamming into the hull. Raking across the hull itself as he frantically grabbed for the nearest handhold, finally just before slipping off the hull, his fingers found what he was searching for. Near death avoided for now...
"Chamberlain... you are not going to space walk again. Hear me? Never... again." He stated shortly after, taking time to catch his breath as he pulled himself back towards the hull of the ship, pressing against it and looking around for the nearest airlock. Once it was in view, he nodded and started slowly and carefully towards the airlock.
Upon reaching the airlock, he looked out towards his ship only to heave a heavy sigh at noticing it was gone from his sights. Turning his gaze back towards the door, he looked down at the display on his arm and typed in exactly one hour on the monitor, pressing enter, the time changed to fifty-nine minutes.
Fifty-nine minutes was his guess on how long it would be until the remnants of the ship ripped itself apart. Fifty-nine minutes to get on, survey the wreckage, find any survivors and then get off.
"If only I actually had breach charges." He smiled, his hands worked to remove the security pad, while his eyes glanced around for anything that looked like an exterior vent (why a space ship would have an exterior vent is beyond him,) or a location to get on board the ship.
Even from the outside it was immediately obvious the transport was barely holding together. Scorch marks marred the battered hull, the tailing sections barely distinguishable in the sea of twisted metal. Shield plates lay dormant on the nose, silent as the metal that composed them. As Chamberlain watched, a series of canisters drifted free of the few remaining metres of the ship's cargo bay, spiralling through the gaping hole and out into the void. The security panel came away easily in his hand, exposing the mess of optics beneath, though with the ship's reactor torn away the systems failed to respond to his touch.
Like the eyes of an ancient God, omniscient and inescapable, scanners hovered over the crippled ship, feeding a stream of data back to the waiting gunboat. Most of it was irrelevant, class and type specifications blurred by battle damage and motion, but the systems highlighted a burst of heat from the otherwise silent transport, previously hidden by the ship's rotation. Computers scrambled for a moment, frantically ascribing names to the hot-point before settling on manoeuvring thruster alpha. A jet of flame burst up from the hull's nose in a burst of liquid fuel and oxygen as the thruster flickered on once again, accelerating the hulk's roll further. Independent of a ship's central drive system, manoeuvring systems were considered primitive at best. Consisting of little more than a propellant, oxidant and ignition source the rockets were barely more advanced than the rudimentary craft that had first ferried man to the moon eons ago. Their simplicity was simultaneously their greatest weakness and defining strength - a thruster could be activated without complex electrical systems to monitor it, but once it fired there wasn't a force in Sirius that could deactivate one.
From his position near the breach, Chamberlain could make out the dark outlines of twisted railings stretching further into the ship's cargo bay, secured to some sort of loading platform. Barely visible in the gloom, a heavy sheet of iron hung from the wall behind the railing, only recognizable by the void behind it as the remnants of an airlock. Beyond the open doorway, the ghost ship's shadow stretched into the corridor seeming to rob the Bison's interior of colour. Light fell strangely flat in the vacuum, lending to the illusion of flatness that pervaded the craft.
He cursed under his breath as he fumbled with the optics, trying to make the doors open, only to give up a few minutes later, coming to the realization that they wouldn't be opening any time soon without power. Having spotted a way inside while he was messing with the security panel, he slowly made his way over. Once he was finally inside the cargo bay, he planted his feet firmly on the platform and grasped the railing with his right hand, searching through his pocket with his left to find the pack of glow-sticks he brought with him.
His eyes scanned the darkness as he snapped one of the glow-sticks, and gently tossing it towards what he thought to be the way into... nope... that's space. With a light sigh, he cracked another glow-stick and repeated the process, smiling softly as it illuminated a heavy iron sheet, or beam, and next to that, a dark corridor. "Bingo." He uttered out loud, his words falling on deaf ears as no one was in this particular part of the ship, other than himself.
Using the railing as guidance, he began drifting with moderate speed towards the doorway he was just able to make out from the glow-stick, reaching out and catching it in his hand as it was slowly drifting back towards him - having bounced off the beam he tossed it towards. He was thankful that the glow-sticks lasted longer than three minutes.
"Ship looked to be in a fight from the damages on the outer hull. No boarding parties so it wasn't attacked internally before being completely destroyed." He muttered to himself, having seen the scorch marks on the outer hull, his eyes scanning the surface of the interior walls. "A ship this size should have at least ten to twenty people on board. Either they're secured in a pressurized compartment, managed to get to the escape pods on time, or they're floating in space somewhere."
He continued his way down the corridor, hoping to find a sealed hatch leading into a pressurized part of the ship, his eyes quickly glancing down at the monitor on his arm. Fifty-minutes. At least... to his knowledge, completely unaware that time was cut in half due to the firing of the thruster, a detail he hadn't actually noticed while boarding the ship.
"Dammit!" Solomon said, before catching his tongue. Great. Cursed in front of the kid. "Rika."
Rika frowned. "Jerrod, grappling lines two and three. Have one prepped just in case, and aim four but to do not fire. Solomon, get your men ready to go EVA." She pursed her lips, then started to calculate.
"Jerrod, fire one shot from Turret Three. Shear the engine off and then fire lines Two and Three. As the rotation continues, fire four and start to draw four in to counteract the roll."
"That can snap the lines. And could cause an explosion."
"Well, it's not like we can tractor it in now. And lovely, let them sue us if it causes a bad explosion. Hence the timing." She snapped back. "Prepare line one in case line four fails."
"And if all fail?"
"Then we'll do something extremely stupid - we'll lock onto the surviving airlock and hit our maneuvering thrusters in reverse."
The four grapple launchers came from their hidden spots and took aim. Rika prayed that whoever the idiot was that went EVA and slammed into the rotating hulk was somewhat safely inside, and any survivors, would not end up pancakes.
The third turret, timed by the power of Jerrod's processing, fired a single shot. With perfect aim, the wildcat thruster was sheared off into space. But an explosion caused by a slight turn started to throw the bridge into a complete out of control two way spin.
In two seconds, the locks had been made. The lines fired, two hitting within ten meters of one another, and, as they began to roll, the fourth gun fired, hitting near the underside of the bridge. Line One fired, hitting the area near the removed thruster, it's own thrusters pushing against the roll. The Hathor then strafed, attempting to achieve equilibrium with the Bridge and each direction it was spinning.
All the lines began to retract.
Lines two and Three went first, before line One was cut. Then line four, the perfect triangle made by the grapples keeping the remains of the Bison from going all over the place.
"The Bison is stable ma'am. Life signs still detected. One of them appears to have an Order transponder. Shall I check the database?"
"No. Only one person is that mind-boggling stupid to try such a stunt."
"Of course ma'am. Shall I attempt to hack in and find out the biosigns of the Naval Officer using the codes you stole from your mother?"
"No." Rika sighed. "Solomon, go EVA. We'll hold the Bison in place."
"Five minutes ma'am." Was the curt reply.
"Jerrod? Possibilites of causing them injuries with that stunt was high, correct?"
"Correct."
"Have Doc Kelsey prep to take on an injured or so."
"Done."
Rika sat in her command chair, crossing her legs. Tapping the small pendant around her neck, the nanites in her bloodstream went to work, changing her hair follicles and iris color to one of her two or three programmed settings.
"You're a little nanotech genius." One man quipped. Rika merely grinned.
"Pipe down, I need to prepare my entrance so I can make sure people will never live this down...that they got saved by some kid who's not even old enough for a learner's permit."
Natsumi Hideyoshi (The Order) | Alexis Hunter (Liberty Navy) |
The majestic Liberty assault cruiser flew silently in the new york starlight<IWO JIMA had recived the report a mere 4 hours ago and sense the her shuttles and sensors had been repeatidly trying to pick out the bison in the debris,as the jima herself hovered just on the edge of the feild,she was a reservist shipand her number got called up.
"sensors,report,were looking for a bison class transport or any markings in line with one " the Jimas comamnder,Acting Major Tomas Andrew Mathers of the liberty marines commanded.
"no sign of anything sir...dare i say we might need to enter into the feild itself" came the reply over the comline as mathers walked onto the bustileing main bridge "power sheilds,configure them to give us a wide berth on anything a sort of "plow" if you will,whatever is slow enough to drift into the sheild threshhold is gonna scratch the hell outta the armor plateing,but we are recovering our brothers in arms ,be it alive or in body bags"
with a low hum the ships imiense sheild generators powered up and she deftly turned on a beline for thestart of a grid-based search pattern,intell reports listed anything from simple pirates to even a rare order patrol to a simple design flaw,neverthe less the jima slipped into the wreckage..the hunt for her fallen comrades was on.
The Bison groaned like a wounded animal as the lines were shackled to the hull, sending a shudder rippling through the hulk as it ground to a stop. Hull panels drifted from the nose where grappling lines had bitten into the ship, taking segments of the craft's external armor with them as they begun to retract. A second thruster was blasted to fragments by the force of the impact, clouds of fuel crystalising as they drifted into the vacuum. To someone standing on the hull, it looked as though the ship were bleeding. Despite the squealing protests, iridium struts held keeping the remnants of Clearwater intact, if not the people inside it.
Chamberlain was halfway down a buckled corridor, and beginning to feel the effects of the building g-forces, when the grappling lines hit, bring the craft to a jarring halt. With a screech of protest that reverberated through the suit's barriers, the handrail gave way, ricocheting off what could have been the floor before it drifted beyond the limited circle of light provided by his glow-stick. The momentary change in orientation was disconcerting, but at least it bought an end to the unpleasant sensation that came with one's breakfast planning a second visit, giving him a moment to focus on his surroundings.
A message screen hung off the corridor, the doomed ship's evacuation orders still frozen on the screen. Four bright red arrows directed the viewer to move to one of the ship's four escape pods with all due speed and assemble in evacuation parties. All four 'pod' icons were split along the ship's hull, two points at the bow and two at the stern, and were shaded a dark grey, in stark contrast to the clear white and black of the rest of the map. Evidently they had managed to launch before the screens went offline. Beyond the glow-stick's light, the corridor stretched ahead to a pair of heavy doors, in substantially better condition then the battered cargo bay Chamberlain had entered from. Though he had passed other rooms on the way down, all the compartments close to rear of the ship had been blown up, armor torn asunder by something that had left bubbles of slag where tri-plated hull reinforcement had been. Conversely, the corridor stretching ahead of him seemed in surprisingly sound shape, text imprinted in the wall declaring the bridge was... Directly ahead of him. In the darkness, it was all too easy to miss what simply appeared to be another wall. The heavy door stretched from floor to ceiling, locking and meshing over itself too many times to be sure of. A control panel sat snugly in the wall, its display as dead as the rest of the ship.
"starting leg two of grid bravo,major,waypoint 4 delta next heading" Helm responded as mathers now sat in the centerline command chair a distince that would of made the bridge of the bison look like a crew quarters,as the command deck spread a good 3rd of Deck "alpha" or one in normal vessels.
"maintain search patterns,enhance scan resolutions by another thirty-precent i want every sensor we have looking for this ship or what attacked her,have the shuttles fan out maintain comms disipline." Mathers commanded when CIC chimed in "unknown contact extreme range ,weve detected weapons fire as well on bearing 224 mark 6"
"intercepct course it might just be a bunch of pirates but we need to verify,maintain condition two throught the ship"
" that wasent a furball,it was one quick blast from some kinda weapon,mabye the bision is trying to signel other ships" Cic added as the jima now raced off to the direction of the shot.
By this point in time, Terrance was highly annoyed that the railing broke, confused as the entire ship shuddered, and sick to his stomach. He slowly turned around to see a grappling hook near the entrance and sighed heavily. Someone else was here... pirates? No, they wouldn't care... had to be Junkers, or a passing Navy patrol coming to gather the wreckage and search for any survivors. Thankfully... Chamberlain was on the scene first, and he just so happened to be wearing a Liberty Navy flight suit. At least, it'll provide him enough cover to escape for when he needed to make his escape.
He turned his attention back towards the heavy pressurized doors and taped his finger against the visor of the helmet, thinking on how he was going to get into the Bridge without killing everyone inside - if anyone was still inside. Sound needed oxygen to travel, so no one was going to hear him shouting, and shooting a weapon off wasn't the brightest idea that crossed his mind, so he settled for the next best thing... knocking.
As he drew closer to the door, he inspected the security pad which was offline, figuring that it would take to long to find a reliable power source, he balled his hand into a fist starting to bang on the door, in a code he and everyone else in Sirius would know.
Three knocks...
Short Pause...
One knock...
Short Pause...
Three knocks...
He hoped the knocking was loud enough to be heard on the other side. Allowing his eyes to break free of the door, he glanced over to another panel, the communication one, and wondered if it was possible to connect his suit's Comm system into the ship's. Although, he settled for this method for the time being.