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So that is how they made all those high ceilings.Enjoy a picture of the Euphrates' construction team.
that's not actually them but it's still inside the Euphrates so yeah
Survivors of the Euphrates- CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT OUT NOW!
- Thread starter FlyingDebris
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Chapter Fourteen- New Constantinople
The next morning, Thomas woke up early and washed himself as best he could using Joshua's sink, and checked his injuries. Only a few scars were left, but he had healed fully. His eyes still glowed blue. "Still there..." he mumbled. Joshua opened the door. "You're feeling better, I'd imagine?" Joshua asked. "Fine, thank you. When can we leave to go see the other wreck?" Thomas replied. "Soon, soon. You haven't eaten in days, and you're still dressed in those rags. How about we go out to the city, and get you some good food and warm clothes." Thomas agreed.
They walked out the front door of Joshua's house. Thomas looked around, and he saw that Joshua lived on the bottom floor of a three story building, surrounded by other buildings about the same height, and they were now in an alley with small trees lining the sidewalks. He looked farther up the alley, and saw the remains of his commandeered ship in two or three clumps in a small crater which broke the concrete road in numerous places. There were a few natives wearing red helmets clearing the debris, and a small crowd looking at the wreck. He saw the remains of the cockpit, and realized that the shattered glass was coated in dried blood in some areas. "You hit pretty hard, frightened some little old lady to death. You're fine now, don't worry." Joshua said. Thomas looked away from the crash, focusing on the windows of the buildings around him. They walked past the crash. "There's a store up here, we can get you something new there." Joshua said. They turned into another alley, and walked into a building.
The building was about twenty meters long and five meters wide, with clean white walls with a single orange stripe running horizontally about a meter off the ground. There were shelves lined with clothes and a counter at the other end of the shop where a native sat, whistling some unrecognizable tune. "Take your pick, I have enough money to pay for it." Joshua said. Thomas walked over to the nearest shelf and grabbed the first shirt he could find that fit him. It was dark blue with a grey stripe running down one side. He grabbed a pair of brown pants, and Joshua went over to the other native and paid for them. Thomas went into the back room and changed into his new clothes, disposing of the ripped clothes he was given by the Scavengers. They walked out of the store, and went a few hundred meters more down the alley into a larger street. There were trucks and four-wheelers lining the street, some of which were dark grey with green stripes and had small turrets mounted to their roofs. "Those are military trucks, they keep the barbarians out of our land." Joshua said. "There's a good place to eat up the road here." They walked into a small store, and Thomas smelled bread being baked and the pleasant scent of meat on the grill. He suddenly remembered how hungry he was.
They sat down at a table, and Joshua ordered for them. While they waited, Thomas asked about the military vehicles Joshua had mentioned. "Like I said before, they keep the barbarians out. They generally patrol along the northern border and to the east, but they usually bring them into New Constantinople for maintenance." Joshua replied. "Who are the barbarians?" Thomas asked.
"They call themselves the Sodiya, a distortion of the word 'Soldier'. Back when our people arrived on this planet, we were embryos that were cryogenically frozen. We get here, get grown, and we land. The captain of the Enterprise, the colony ship that carried us here, was overthrown by the Sodiya. We, the Colonists, are the descendants of the people who supported Captain Walker during their barbaric uprising. True, Walker was not a perfect man, but he was interested in utilizing the planet's resources to their fullest extent, while the Sodiyas were only interested in killing the other race that had built a colony only a few millennia before us. Well that, and trying to propagate some sort of cult about the glow you keep getting worried about. Long story short, their uprising was successful, and they ended up killing Walker. However, during the conflict, the reactor and most of the 3D printers that had been deposited by the Enterprise were destroyed. Our ancestors were sent out into exile after the fact, and they ended up finding what was supposed to be the landing site of the Istanbul. Lo and behold, the Istanbul's supply cache was still intact, and it just took a little time to set up." The waiter brought two bowls of soup and a loaf of bread over to Thomas and Joshua. Thomas began eating while Joshua continued his story. "So thousands of years down the road, we've got a modern civilization meanwhile they only have farms and guns they stole from our patrols." "They saved us from the Scavengers, and they seemed like pretty nice people. They helped us when we first crashed here." Thomas replied. "And they're still at your camp?" Joshua asked. "Do they know that you have the glow?" "Yes, a few of them were watching when we started symptoms, why?" Thomas asked. "Then your friends may already be dead." Joshua replied.
END OF CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
The next morning, Thomas woke up early and washed himself as best he could using Joshua's sink, and checked his injuries. Only a few scars were left, but he had healed fully. His eyes still glowed blue. "Still there..." he mumbled. Joshua opened the door. "You're feeling better, I'd imagine?" Joshua asked. "Fine, thank you. When can we leave to go see the other wreck?" Thomas replied. "Soon, soon. You haven't eaten in days, and you're still dressed in those rags. How about we go out to the city, and get you some good food and warm clothes." Thomas agreed.
They walked out the front door of Joshua's house. Thomas looked around, and he saw that Joshua lived on the bottom floor of a three story building, surrounded by other buildings about the same height, and they were now in an alley with small trees lining the sidewalks. He looked farther up the alley, and saw the remains of his commandeered ship in two or three clumps in a small crater which broke the concrete road in numerous places. There were a few natives wearing red helmets clearing the debris, and a small crowd looking at the wreck. He saw the remains of the cockpit, and realized that the shattered glass was coated in dried blood in some areas. "You hit pretty hard, frightened some little old lady to death. You're fine now, don't worry." Joshua said. Thomas looked away from the crash, focusing on the windows of the buildings around him. They walked past the crash. "There's a store up here, we can get you something new there." Joshua said. They turned into another alley, and walked into a building.
The building was about twenty meters long and five meters wide, with clean white walls with a single orange stripe running horizontally about a meter off the ground. There were shelves lined with clothes and a counter at the other end of the shop where a native sat, whistling some unrecognizable tune. "Take your pick, I have enough money to pay for it." Joshua said. Thomas walked over to the nearest shelf and grabbed the first shirt he could find that fit him. It was dark blue with a grey stripe running down one side. He grabbed a pair of brown pants, and Joshua went over to the other native and paid for them. Thomas went into the back room and changed into his new clothes, disposing of the ripped clothes he was given by the Scavengers. They walked out of the store, and went a few hundred meters more down the alley into a larger street. There were trucks and four-wheelers lining the street, some of which were dark grey with green stripes and had small turrets mounted to their roofs. "Those are military trucks, they keep the barbarians out of our land." Joshua said. "There's a good place to eat up the road here." They walked into a small store, and Thomas smelled bread being baked and the pleasant scent of meat on the grill. He suddenly remembered how hungry he was.
They sat down at a table, and Joshua ordered for them. While they waited, Thomas asked about the military vehicles Joshua had mentioned. "Like I said before, they keep the barbarians out. They generally patrol along the northern border and to the east, but they usually bring them into New Constantinople for maintenance." Joshua replied. "Who are the barbarians?" Thomas asked.
"They call themselves the Sodiya, a distortion of the word 'Soldier'. Back when our people arrived on this planet, we were embryos that were cryogenically frozen. We get here, get grown, and we land. The captain of the Enterprise, the colony ship that carried us here, was overthrown by the Sodiya. We, the Colonists, are the descendants of the people who supported Captain Walker during their barbaric uprising. True, Walker was not a perfect man, but he was interested in utilizing the planet's resources to their fullest extent, while the Sodiyas were only interested in killing the other race that had built a colony only a few millennia before us. Well that, and trying to propagate some sort of cult about the glow you keep getting worried about. Long story short, their uprising was successful, and they ended up killing Walker. However, during the conflict, the reactor and most of the 3D printers that had been deposited by the Enterprise were destroyed. Our ancestors were sent out into exile after the fact, and they ended up finding what was supposed to be the landing site of the Istanbul. Lo and behold, the Istanbul's supply cache was still intact, and it just took a little time to set up." The waiter brought two bowls of soup and a loaf of bread over to Thomas and Joshua. Thomas began eating while Joshua continued his story. "So thousands of years down the road, we've got a modern civilization meanwhile they only have farms and guns they stole from our patrols." "They saved us from the Scavengers, and they seemed like pretty nice people. They helped us when we first crashed here." Thomas replied. "And they're still at your camp?" Joshua asked. "Do they know that you have the glow?" "Yes, a few of them were watching when we started symptoms, why?" Thomas asked. "Then your friends may already be dead." Joshua replied.
END OF CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
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Chapter Fifteen- The Trail
"Dead? What do you mean dead?" Thomas asked. "The Sodiya believe in the purity of their abilities, they think that it's something only they can do. Seeing you and your friends being able to do the same, even if you didn't know it at the time, may give them a reason to try and cleanse you to regain their alleged purity. A holy war, if you will." Joshua replied. Thomas looked at Joshua blankly. "So basically, our encampment of a few thousand is about to be assaulted by millions of barbarian fanatics and all that we have to defend ourselves is a bunch of stun rifles." "For a civilization that was able to build a ship the size of this entire city, you seem to be very lightly armed." Joshua said. "We lost the mechs and the lethal armory in the crash." Thomas said. "Well, let's see if your friends to the north have fared any better. I'm sure that they will rise to the occasion, and I've got a feeling that our defense force will be willing to help out where they can." Joshua replied.
Thomas finished his meal, and they stood up. "So, where exactly is this road to the crash site?" Thomas asked. "Well, it's not exactly a road, we haven't been able to clear out a path that large yet. At the moment, it's more climbing through the thick of the jungle on foot to get to them. I got word that they constructed at least a small path to the crash, but I'm not sure how safe it is. I'd suggest getting a few rifles on our way out." Joshua replied. "There's a defense department on our way out, we can check out a few rifles and maybe some armor there." They began walking north, and after about a kilometer they came up on the defense department. It was a very imposing building, about five stories tall, with small windows and grey walls that ended in small barricades at the top. Thomas could see a blue and green flag on top of the building. "Here we are, the defense department, Wait outside while I get the rifles." Joshua walked inside.
A few minutes later, he came out with a pair of guns which vaguely resembled the assault rifles he saw the Scavengers usually carried. "Here you are, the officer said you needed to come and have a training course, seeing as to how you've probably never used one of our guns before." Joshua said. They went inside the building. It was slightly cooler and drier than the outside air, and had the same dull grey color as the exterior. There were two guards wearing dark grey uniforms with a single green stripe running down the right side of their jackets. "Come with me, please." one guard said, and led them down a hallway into a firing range. "You ever held a gun before, sir?" the guard asked. "I used to be part of a fleet defense force about ten years ago, and I was actually in a bit of a-" "Okay yes, you have." the guard said. "Do you know how to use this specific weapon?" he asked. "Well no, but I-" Thomas started to reply, but was cut off. "Watch closely." the guard replied.
He picked up an identical rifle to the ones Thomas and Joshua were carrying, and pressed a button on the right side. A hole opened in the bottom of the rifle, which the guard inserted a magazine full of blue projectiles into. He pulled the magazine out, and the hole closed. The guard aimed the weapon downrange at a block of clay, and pulled the trigger. A blue bolt flew out of the barrel with a crack. It hit the block with a thud, leaving a charred crater about two inches in diameter where it impacted. "Now, you try." Thomas pressed the button on the side of the rifle, and slid the magazine into the hole. It didn't fit properly. Thomas tried to shove it in. "Is this the right caliber?" Thomas asked. "It's not going in." The guard looked at Thomas, trying to hide a smile. "Some soldier, putting the magazine in backwards." Thomas blushed. He flipped the magazine around and inserted it into the rifle. He aimed at the clay block, but nothing happened when he pulled the trigger. "You forgot something, sir..." the guard said. Thomas looked at the magazine, and remembered he had to remove the magazine to fire. His ears were burning at this point, and he forcefully pulled the magazine out of the gun. Thomas aimed downrange again at a block about a hundred meters out, and fired. The gun didn't have much kick, but the bolt missed by about two feet. "Impressive shot, soldier." the guard said. "I just haven't had any practice with this gun..." Thomas said.
The guard asked Thomas to demonstrate how to load and discharge the weapon again, and Thomas only missed by one foot. The guard said they were good to go out onto the trail. "Happy hunting, soldier." Thomas heard the guard say as he left. "He's just having fun with you." Joshua said. They walked until they approached a wall about ten meters high and made of solid metal, and Joshua talked to a guard on top of one of the towers. After about ten seconds, a hole opened in the wall, and Joshua led Thomas through. Joshua pulled out a small navigational device, and guided Thomas in the direction of the crash site. They began walking, and after about ten minutes they began to walk into denser vegetation. "I hope you like climbing, because I don't see any trail." Joshua said. "I can manage." Thomas replied. Perhaps this wasn't the best option, as they were soon headed up and down ravines while Thomas could barely keep his footing. Thomas noted that he did not feel tired by the time they got back onto open ground. "Hey, is me not being tired a side effect of that glow?" He asked. "Sure is, among other things." Joshua replied. "You mean like being able to breathe in space?" Thomas asked. "I've never been to space, but the schematics of the nanomachines seem to indicate that is possible, yes." Joshua said. "Nanomachines?" Thomas said. "Yes, you didn't know that?" Joshua said. "That glow is caused by the nanomachines that you picked up. It's why you survived that fall, why you aren't tired, it's why I was giving you the Carba sap when you first woke up, all of that... What did you think it was?" Joshua asked. "We thought it was some sort of disease." Thomas replied. "A disease?" Joshua laughed. "No, no no. It's not a disease at all. These machines were given to us by the people who designed the original colony ships we came here on. They're more practical than anything, but some people have forgotten what they are, and are probably planning to kill your friends over it." Joshua said. "Hey, do you hear that?" he asked. They stopped moving. Faintly but surely, they could hear the sound of jet engines. It was a Scavenger transport, and it was headed their way.
END OF CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
"Dead? What do you mean dead?" Thomas asked. "The Sodiya believe in the purity of their abilities, they think that it's something only they can do. Seeing you and your friends being able to do the same, even if you didn't know it at the time, may give them a reason to try and cleanse you to regain their alleged purity. A holy war, if you will." Joshua replied. Thomas looked at Joshua blankly. "So basically, our encampment of a few thousand is about to be assaulted by millions of barbarian fanatics and all that we have to defend ourselves is a bunch of stun rifles." "For a civilization that was able to build a ship the size of this entire city, you seem to be very lightly armed." Joshua said. "We lost the mechs and the lethal armory in the crash." Thomas said. "Well, let's see if your friends to the north have fared any better. I'm sure that they will rise to the occasion, and I've got a feeling that our defense force will be willing to help out where they can." Joshua replied.
Thomas finished his meal, and they stood up. "So, where exactly is this road to the crash site?" Thomas asked. "Well, it's not exactly a road, we haven't been able to clear out a path that large yet. At the moment, it's more climbing through the thick of the jungle on foot to get to them. I got word that they constructed at least a small path to the crash, but I'm not sure how safe it is. I'd suggest getting a few rifles on our way out." Joshua replied. "There's a defense department on our way out, we can check out a few rifles and maybe some armor there." They began walking north, and after about a kilometer they came up on the defense department. It was a very imposing building, about five stories tall, with small windows and grey walls that ended in small barricades at the top. Thomas could see a blue and green flag on top of the building. "Here we are, the defense department, Wait outside while I get the rifles." Joshua walked inside.
A few minutes later, he came out with a pair of guns which vaguely resembled the assault rifles he saw the Scavengers usually carried. "Here you are, the officer said you needed to come and have a training course, seeing as to how you've probably never used one of our guns before." Joshua said. They went inside the building. It was slightly cooler and drier than the outside air, and had the same dull grey color as the exterior. There were two guards wearing dark grey uniforms with a single green stripe running down the right side of their jackets. "Come with me, please." one guard said, and led them down a hallway into a firing range. "You ever held a gun before, sir?" the guard asked. "I used to be part of a fleet defense force about ten years ago, and I was actually in a bit of a-" "Okay yes, you have." the guard said. "Do you know how to use this specific weapon?" he asked. "Well no, but I-" Thomas started to reply, but was cut off. "Watch closely." the guard replied.
He picked up an identical rifle to the ones Thomas and Joshua were carrying, and pressed a button on the right side. A hole opened in the bottom of the rifle, which the guard inserted a magazine full of blue projectiles into. He pulled the magazine out, and the hole closed. The guard aimed the weapon downrange at a block of clay, and pulled the trigger. A blue bolt flew out of the barrel with a crack. It hit the block with a thud, leaving a charred crater about two inches in diameter where it impacted. "Now, you try." Thomas pressed the button on the side of the rifle, and slid the magazine into the hole. It didn't fit properly. Thomas tried to shove it in. "Is this the right caliber?" Thomas asked. "It's not going in." The guard looked at Thomas, trying to hide a smile. "Some soldier, putting the magazine in backwards." Thomas blushed. He flipped the magazine around and inserted it into the rifle. He aimed at the clay block, but nothing happened when he pulled the trigger. "You forgot something, sir..." the guard said. Thomas looked at the magazine, and remembered he had to remove the magazine to fire. His ears were burning at this point, and he forcefully pulled the magazine out of the gun. Thomas aimed downrange again at a block about a hundred meters out, and fired. The gun didn't have much kick, but the bolt missed by about two feet. "Impressive shot, soldier." the guard said. "I just haven't had any practice with this gun..." Thomas said.
The guard asked Thomas to demonstrate how to load and discharge the weapon again, and Thomas only missed by one foot. The guard said they were good to go out onto the trail. "Happy hunting, soldier." Thomas heard the guard say as he left. "He's just having fun with you." Joshua said. They walked until they approached a wall about ten meters high and made of solid metal, and Joshua talked to a guard on top of one of the towers. After about ten seconds, a hole opened in the wall, and Joshua led Thomas through. Joshua pulled out a small navigational device, and guided Thomas in the direction of the crash site. They began walking, and after about ten minutes they began to walk into denser vegetation. "I hope you like climbing, because I don't see any trail." Joshua said. "I can manage." Thomas replied. Perhaps this wasn't the best option, as they were soon headed up and down ravines while Thomas could barely keep his footing. Thomas noted that he did not feel tired by the time they got back onto open ground. "Hey, is me not being tired a side effect of that glow?" He asked. "Sure is, among other things." Joshua replied. "You mean like being able to breathe in space?" Thomas asked. "I've never been to space, but the schematics of the nanomachines seem to indicate that is possible, yes." Joshua said. "Nanomachines?" Thomas said. "Yes, you didn't know that?" Joshua said. "That glow is caused by the nanomachines that you picked up. It's why you survived that fall, why you aren't tired, it's why I was giving you the Carba sap when you first woke up, all of that... What did you think it was?" Joshua asked. "We thought it was some sort of disease." Thomas replied. "A disease?" Joshua laughed. "No, no no. It's not a disease at all. These machines were given to us by the people who designed the original colony ships we came here on. They're more practical than anything, but some people have forgotten what they are, and are probably planning to kill your friends over it." Joshua said. "Hey, do you hear that?" he asked. They stopped moving. Faintly but surely, they could hear the sound of jet engines. It was a Scavenger transport, and it was headed their way.
END OF CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
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Just spent latest 20 min reading through this.....It is absolutely amazing. Keep it up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Chapter Sixteen- The Pilot
"Move, move! Get under something!" Thomas said. Joshua ran into a pile of bushes and was hidden from sight in a matter of seconds. Thomas found a series of fallen trees, and crawled under them right as the transport came into view. Thomas looked around, and could just barely make out the figure of Joshua taking aim at the transport. Thomas looked at his own rifle, and pointed it at the transport, which was now lowering into a clearing and kicking up dust as its landing gear deployed. He aimed his rifle at the area where he figured the pilot's head would be, and pulled the trigger. He heard a clicking noise, but did not feel the recoil of a discharge. Here we go again, he thought, as he fumbled around with a magazine trying to jam it into the rifle. By the time he had successfully loaded the gun after a number of failed attempts, the transport had touched down and the loading ramp had opened on the opposite side of the cockpit from him. A single Scavenger pilot came out, walking with a limp and holding his right arm. He was wearing a pilot's uniform including a mask that covered his entire head and had a pistol on his belt, but did not appear to be in a position to fire it.
Thomas looked at Joshua, who was motioning for him to make a decision on what they should do. Thomas slowly crawled out from under his hiding spot, and Joshua stood up. Joshua stayed in his brush pile with his gun trained on the pilot, as Thomas started walking towards him. Once Thomas was at the edge of the clearing, he started to speak. "Don't even try to run, we've got you surrounded." he said, hoping the pilot didn't notice that it was an obvious bluff. The pilot swung around to face Thomas, drew his pistol with his left arm and aimed it at him. The pilot had a gash in his other arm which was still bleeding. "Or what? I might as well be dead anyway at this point." His voice was distorted by the pilot's mask, which made it barely recognizable as even a human voice. "Listen, if we wanted to kill you, don't you think we would have already? Now just put the gun down and we can help you with that injury of yours." Thomas replied. "You think I'm worried about you? I've got at least ten people on my tail, so unless you and your friend over in that bush actually do have me surrounded like you said, you're gonna get shot to pieces in a few minutes." Joshua stood up and walked over to Thomas' side. "Listen, I can help you. You just need to trust me." he said calmly. "We're not your enemy." The pilot, visibly angry, pointed the pistol at Joshua, who took a step back. "I KNOW that, white-eyes! I'm warning you so you two can get out of here before you get shot!" He was starting to breathe heavily. "I'll start shooting too if I have to so you'll- you'll..." He paused for a moment, starting to shake. "St-start m-moving!" he said, slurring his words. "G-get o-o-out of-" The pilot's voice grew weaker, and he collapsed. "He's going into shock. If you still want to save him, I need you to help me." Joshua said. "What exactly do you need from me? I don't have anything to patch up that arm, and I'm most definitely not a doctor." Thomas replied. "You really don't know anything about this place, do you? Your machines are capable of extending into another body. If we work quickly, they should still be able to heal him. I had to keep myself clean because of my profession, but I can teach you how to do it." Joshua said. "Help me get this mask off, he needs oxygen." Thomas pulled at the faceplate of the mask, but it did not come off. "A little help here?" he asked. Joshua started pulling on the mask as well. Eventually it came free, and the back half of the mask receded into the armor. Thomas realized that the pilot was not, in fact, a man. Her hair was neatly curled into a bun, which was what was keeping the mask from coming off. "Congratulations, it's a girl!" Joshua said. "Bad time for jokes? Fine. I just try to cheer up my work a bit." Thomas glared at Joshua. "Oh right, the machines. Alright. They are, for the most part, activated by the neural transmitters they install the first time they find a new host. So really, it's as simple as imagining one of the functions they're capable of performing. Now, try to picture a big swarm of those little machines coming out of your head and into hers. It's a bit strange the first time you do it, I admit, but that's how it works." Thomas tried to picture what Joshua had described, but he did not see or feel it. Joshua was looking at the wound on the pilot's leg. "It's working...I think..." Thomas concentrated on the pilot's face. She looked to be about twenty or thirty years old with a dark complexion, a thin face and reddish brown hair, and a scar across the bridge of her nose. Certainly not a supermodel, but she looked surprisingly peaceful for someone entering shock from loss of blood. "Alright you can stop, the wound is healing. It'll probably be about three minutes or so before she's awake." Joshua said.
"And just where do you think you're going, Tara?" he heard an eerily familiar voice say from somewhere behind him. Thomas grabbed his rifle off the ground next to him and turned around, expecting to see whoever the pilot was trying to warn them about. There was no one. Thomas felt the urge to talk. He wasn't sure why, but the words formed in his mouth without him even thinking of it. "You and I both know where I'm headed, Derrick." Thomas said. "What are you going on about now?" asked Joshua, looking up at him. The voice spoke again. "I can't let you do that, Tara." Thomas began to feel nervous and his palms felt cold. Why was he scared? It was completely irrational, he knew nobody was there, at least for the time being. "Do you seriously think what they did to that guy was okay? Shooting his friends in front of him to get him to talk? I didn't sign up for that. I'm leaving." Thomas said." Joshua stood up. "Oh no, not this..." he said. "Thomas, it's me. Joshua. Look at me, Thomas! You're experiencing a condition known as residual neural linkage. You're reciting memories from the pilot. You need to focus on the sound of my voice, Thomas. Tell me your name. What is your name, Thomas? Thomas! Look at me, Thomas!" He could feel someone slap his face. Joshua's voice faded away until it was inaudible. "You have a duty to this ship. If not as a crew member, then as an example." the voice said. Thomas heard a gunshot, and looked down at his right arm. It was bleeding. He started running, but he wasn't sure where.
Thomas felt sweat drip down his forehead as he looked back. He could see the blurry silhouette of a man running after him. "You can't run, Tara! Stop trying and maybe you'll only get a few lashes!" Derrick said. Thomas looked back in front of him. He was in the hangar of the Scavenger warship. He ran into a transport, and powered it up, knowing exactly what buttons to press to get it going. He heard someone board the ship. Thomas turned around, and saw the man standing in the entrance. His outline was more defined now, and Thomas could barely distinguish some of the colors on his clothes. He was wearing Scavenger armor. He stood up and charged the man. They fell back out of the ship, and Thomas rolled over on his back. He tried to get up, but the man kicked him in the chest. "Maybe running is your best option at this point." Derrick said. Derrick? The name sounded familiar, but Thomas wasn't sure why. Thomas stood up, and saw the man grab a metal bar. "So start running." the man said. Thomas ran back into the ship, and tried to take off, but the man grabbed him and threw him back out. "Come on, it's obvious that you aren't getting out of here alive." Derrick said. The man hit his leg with the bar. Thomas grabbed the man, and tried to push him away. The man kicked him hard in the leg, and he felt it break. Thomas gritted his teeth and tried to ignore the pain. Thomas looked up at the man standing over him, and saw a knife on his belt. He grabbed the knife, and stabbed the man in his right leg. He yelled in pain as he grabbed his leg and fell back onto the hangar floor. Thomas felt sorry for the man. He knew they had been through a lot together, but he wasn't quite sure what it was they had been through. Thomas took the bar and a piece of cord, and tried to use it as a splint. He stood up, no longer able to ignore his leg which was burning with pain. Thomas hobbled over to the transport, and sat down heavily in the pilot's chair. He activated the console, and he felt the ship begin to fly. His mask extended over his head, and the ship's HUD was displayed on the inside of the faceplate. Thomas closed the loading ramp and began to guide the ship out of the hangar when he turned around and saw the man staggering towards an alarm console. He accelerated through the hangar entrance, and flew out into open space just as the alarm went off. He set the ship to autopilot and instructed it to land near the wreck of the ship that they had shot down. They? He certainly hadn't shot down the...what was that ship called? Thomas couldn't remember. He stood up and walked over to the medical cabinet, but upon opening it he only found a pistol with a single cartridge. "Better than nothing, I suppose." he said, as he strapped it to his belt. Thomas sat back down in the command chair as the ship began to enter the atmosphere. He felt sleepy. His arm was still bleeding, but there wasn't anything he could find to bandage it. The ship descended through the cloud layers and began to land itself in a clearing. Thomas looked out of the cockpit and saw the ship touch down. He stood up, and walked outside. The ground was wet, and he had a hard time navigating it when he heard a voice coming form behind him. "Don't even try to run, we've got you surrounded." He pulled out his pistol as he turned around, and saw two men aiming rifles at him. He took aim at the closest.
END OF CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
"Move, move! Get under something!" Thomas said. Joshua ran into a pile of bushes and was hidden from sight in a matter of seconds. Thomas found a series of fallen trees, and crawled under them right as the transport came into view. Thomas looked around, and could just barely make out the figure of Joshua taking aim at the transport. Thomas looked at his own rifle, and pointed it at the transport, which was now lowering into a clearing and kicking up dust as its landing gear deployed. He aimed his rifle at the area where he figured the pilot's head would be, and pulled the trigger. He heard a clicking noise, but did not feel the recoil of a discharge. Here we go again, he thought, as he fumbled around with a magazine trying to jam it into the rifle. By the time he had successfully loaded the gun after a number of failed attempts, the transport had touched down and the loading ramp had opened on the opposite side of the cockpit from him. A single Scavenger pilot came out, walking with a limp and holding his right arm. He was wearing a pilot's uniform including a mask that covered his entire head and had a pistol on his belt, but did not appear to be in a position to fire it.
Thomas looked at Joshua, who was motioning for him to make a decision on what they should do. Thomas slowly crawled out from under his hiding spot, and Joshua stood up. Joshua stayed in his brush pile with his gun trained on the pilot, as Thomas started walking towards him. Once Thomas was at the edge of the clearing, he started to speak. "Don't even try to run, we've got you surrounded." he said, hoping the pilot didn't notice that it was an obvious bluff. The pilot swung around to face Thomas, drew his pistol with his left arm and aimed it at him. The pilot had a gash in his other arm which was still bleeding. "Or what? I might as well be dead anyway at this point." His voice was distorted by the pilot's mask, which made it barely recognizable as even a human voice. "Listen, if we wanted to kill you, don't you think we would have already? Now just put the gun down and we can help you with that injury of yours." Thomas replied. "You think I'm worried about you? I've got at least ten people on my tail, so unless you and your friend over in that bush actually do have me surrounded like you said, you're gonna get shot to pieces in a few minutes." Joshua stood up and walked over to Thomas' side. "Listen, I can help you. You just need to trust me." he said calmly. "We're not your enemy." The pilot, visibly angry, pointed the pistol at Joshua, who took a step back. "I KNOW that, white-eyes! I'm warning you so you two can get out of here before you get shot!" He was starting to breathe heavily. "I'll start shooting too if I have to so you'll- you'll..." He paused for a moment, starting to shake. "St-start m-moving!" he said, slurring his words. "G-get o-o-out of-" The pilot's voice grew weaker, and he collapsed. "He's going into shock. If you still want to save him, I need you to help me." Joshua said. "What exactly do you need from me? I don't have anything to patch up that arm, and I'm most definitely not a doctor." Thomas replied. "You really don't know anything about this place, do you? Your machines are capable of extending into another body. If we work quickly, they should still be able to heal him. I had to keep myself clean because of my profession, but I can teach you how to do it." Joshua said. "Help me get this mask off, he needs oxygen." Thomas pulled at the faceplate of the mask, but it did not come off. "A little help here?" he asked. Joshua started pulling on the mask as well. Eventually it came free, and the back half of the mask receded into the armor. Thomas realized that the pilot was not, in fact, a man. Her hair was neatly curled into a bun, which was what was keeping the mask from coming off. "Congratulations, it's a girl!" Joshua said. "Bad time for jokes? Fine. I just try to cheer up my work a bit." Thomas glared at Joshua. "Oh right, the machines. Alright. They are, for the most part, activated by the neural transmitters they install the first time they find a new host. So really, it's as simple as imagining one of the functions they're capable of performing. Now, try to picture a big swarm of those little machines coming out of your head and into hers. It's a bit strange the first time you do it, I admit, but that's how it works." Thomas tried to picture what Joshua had described, but he did not see or feel it. Joshua was looking at the wound on the pilot's leg. "It's working...I think..." Thomas concentrated on the pilot's face. She looked to be about twenty or thirty years old with a dark complexion, a thin face and reddish brown hair, and a scar across the bridge of her nose. Certainly not a supermodel, but she looked surprisingly peaceful for someone entering shock from loss of blood. "Alright you can stop, the wound is healing. It'll probably be about three minutes or so before she's awake." Joshua said.
"And just where do you think you're going, Tara?" he heard an eerily familiar voice say from somewhere behind him. Thomas grabbed his rifle off the ground next to him and turned around, expecting to see whoever the pilot was trying to warn them about. There was no one. Thomas felt the urge to talk. He wasn't sure why, but the words formed in his mouth without him even thinking of it. "You and I both know where I'm headed, Derrick." Thomas said. "What are you going on about now?" asked Joshua, looking up at him. The voice spoke again. "I can't let you do that, Tara." Thomas began to feel nervous and his palms felt cold. Why was he scared? It was completely irrational, he knew nobody was there, at least for the time being. "Do you seriously think what they did to that guy was okay? Shooting his friends in front of him to get him to talk? I didn't sign up for that. I'm leaving." Thomas said." Joshua stood up. "Oh no, not this..." he said. "Thomas, it's me. Joshua. Look at me, Thomas! You're experiencing a condition known as residual neural linkage. You're reciting memories from the pilot. You need to focus on the sound of my voice, Thomas. Tell me your name. What is your name, Thomas? Thomas! Look at me, Thomas!" He could feel someone slap his face. Joshua's voice faded away until it was inaudible. "You have a duty to this ship. If not as a crew member, then as an example." the voice said. Thomas heard a gunshot, and looked down at his right arm. It was bleeding. He started running, but he wasn't sure where.
Thomas felt sweat drip down his forehead as he looked back. He could see the blurry silhouette of a man running after him. "You can't run, Tara! Stop trying and maybe you'll only get a few lashes!" Derrick said. Thomas looked back in front of him. He was in the hangar of the Scavenger warship. He ran into a transport, and powered it up, knowing exactly what buttons to press to get it going. He heard someone board the ship. Thomas turned around, and saw the man standing in the entrance. His outline was more defined now, and Thomas could barely distinguish some of the colors on his clothes. He was wearing Scavenger armor. He stood up and charged the man. They fell back out of the ship, and Thomas rolled over on his back. He tried to get up, but the man kicked him in the chest. "Maybe running is your best option at this point." Derrick said. Derrick? The name sounded familiar, but Thomas wasn't sure why. Thomas stood up, and saw the man grab a metal bar. "So start running." the man said. Thomas ran back into the ship, and tried to take off, but the man grabbed him and threw him back out. "Come on, it's obvious that you aren't getting out of here alive." Derrick said. The man hit his leg with the bar. Thomas grabbed the man, and tried to push him away. The man kicked him hard in the leg, and he felt it break. Thomas gritted his teeth and tried to ignore the pain. Thomas looked up at the man standing over him, and saw a knife on his belt. He grabbed the knife, and stabbed the man in his right leg. He yelled in pain as he grabbed his leg and fell back onto the hangar floor. Thomas felt sorry for the man. He knew they had been through a lot together, but he wasn't quite sure what it was they had been through. Thomas took the bar and a piece of cord, and tried to use it as a splint. He stood up, no longer able to ignore his leg which was burning with pain. Thomas hobbled over to the transport, and sat down heavily in the pilot's chair. He activated the console, and he felt the ship begin to fly. His mask extended over his head, and the ship's HUD was displayed on the inside of the faceplate. Thomas closed the loading ramp and began to guide the ship out of the hangar when he turned around and saw the man staggering towards an alarm console. He accelerated through the hangar entrance, and flew out into open space just as the alarm went off. He set the ship to autopilot and instructed it to land near the wreck of the ship that they had shot down. They? He certainly hadn't shot down the...what was that ship called? Thomas couldn't remember. He stood up and walked over to the medical cabinet, but upon opening it he only found a pistol with a single cartridge. "Better than nothing, I suppose." he said, as he strapped it to his belt. Thomas sat back down in the command chair as the ship began to enter the atmosphere. He felt sleepy. His arm was still bleeding, but there wasn't anything he could find to bandage it. The ship descended through the cloud layers and began to land itself in a clearing. Thomas looked out of the cockpit and saw the ship touch down. He stood up, and walked outside. The ground was wet, and he had a hard time navigating it when he heard a voice coming form behind him. "Don't even try to run, we've got you surrounded." He pulled out his pistol as he turned around, and saw two men aiming rifles at him. He took aim at the closest.
END OF CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
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Chapter Seventeen- Tara
One of the two began to look worried. "Thomas! It's me, Joshua! Look at me, Thomas! It's not real, you need to wake up!" he said. The other person looked over at Joshua. "What is he going on about? What happened?" she said. "I'll tell you later, now's probably not the best time." The two ran towards him. Thomas fired his gun, but nothing happened. "Jammed? JAMMED?!" he said. Joshua tackled him and the two held him down. Thomas began to flail about trying to free himself. He felt something hit him on the head, and he went unconscious.
"Well, that happened." Joshua said. "Can you help me carry him?" "Where to?" the pilot replied. "Well, we were headed north when you showed up. Speaking of your showing up, what's your name?" Joshua said. "Tara." she replied dryly. "Nice to meet you, Tara... I'm Joshua, Joshua Verde." She didn't reply. "Not much of a talker anymore? You seemed to love talking a few minutes ago." Joshua said. "Just shut up and help me move your crazy friend" she said. "Alright..." Joshua mumbled as he moved over to Thomas' legs and picked him up. "How far?" Tara asked. "Well... um... it's about a few hours on foot. Carrying him..." Joshua nodded to Thomas "...Maybe the rest of the day. Well, assuming he doesn't wake up, that is." They started walking back towards the clearing, Tara still limping from her injury and Joshua tripping over branches. "How long until he wakes up?" Tara asked. "Dunno. From what he sounded like, it may be any minute now." Thomas started to stir. "Oh, see? He's starting to wake up. Quick, put him down somewhere." Joshua said. They moved Thomas over to a tree, and propped him up against it. Tara looked at Thomas. "You know, this guy looks familiar. What's his name?" Tara said. "Oh, so you only want to talk when it's about this handsome young lad now, I suppose?" Joshua said, winking at Tara. "Say that again. I dare you." she said, glaring at Joshua. "Oh, so you-" "DON'T." "Aaaaalright, fine. His name is Thomas...uhh...Thomas something. He expertly piloted a transport just like yours right into the ground outside my house." Joshua said. "Wait a minute... They shot down a transport with a guy who tried to escape not too long ago. That can't be the same guy, can it?!" Tara replied, confused as to how anyone could have survived a fall from orbit. "I don't know, but he sure plowed himself into the ground. He was unconscious for quite some time afterwards, but his machines fixed him up pretty good." Joshua replied. "Machines? You mean like the medical center on the Styx?" Tara replied. "Never heard the name before, I'm guessing that's your ship?" Joshua asked. "Not mine anymore, but yes." Tara said. "The nanomachine type, not the big clunky robotic ones, right? Seems that's all that these guys had." Joshua said, nodding at Thomas, who was starting to wake up. "What? No. Definitely not. Even they decided to keep those things out of the ship." Tara said, nodding at the sky. "Well, Thomas has some nanomachines in him, and it seems like they're waking him up right about now." Joshua replied.
Thomas opened his eyes, and squinted in the sunlight. "You awake yet, Thomas?" Joshua said. "I've got a person who would looooove to meet you. No, no, no, wait I was just- HEY! I was just joking!" Thomas looked up to see Tara kicking Joshua in the shin. "My head feels like someone dropped a rock on it." Thomas said. Joshua glanced over at Tara, and looked at Thomas. "Well, um... That's because we did." Joshua said. "Why'd you do that?" Thomas asked. "You were raving mad." Tara said. Thomas looked up at her. "Oh, you. Joshua's crazy treatment actually worked..." he said. "...What treatment, and how was it crazy." she said, glaring at Joshua. "Well, I mean it didn't seem very crazy to me..." Joshua said, shrugging. "WHAT. TREATMENT. DID. YOU. GIVE. ME." Tara said, poking Joshua in the chest. "You were going into shock and had a bunch of injuries, so I had Thomas use his machines to fix you..." Joshua said, taking a step back. "YOU WHAT?! Those things aren't still...in me, are they?!" Tara said. "Well... Yes." Joshua replied, backing up farther. "YOU PUT THOSE THINGS INSIDE OF ME?!" Tara screamed at Joshua. "Listen, you were going to die if we didn't do anything. You're fine, it's okay." Thomas said, taking a step closer, trying to calm her down.
She looked at him, her eyes wild with anger. "You! You're the one who gave that disease to me!" she said, walking closer to him. Her eyes began to glow different shades of yellow and red. "Um, Joshua? She's doing the eye thing too, now." Thomas said. "Aaand she's mad. I'd like to recommend backing away slowly and trying to calm her down. Should that fail, running as fast as your legs can carry you." Joshua said. "You're talking like a doctor again, why are you talking like a doctor again?" Thomas said, nervously. "That's because that's a condition of...err...the machines...to put it simply, they cause you to undergo a transformation which, if you're...erm...not exactly happy, you may turn into a mindless killing machine for...a few minutes." Joshua said. They looked back at Tara, who was now starting to glow as if her skin was on fire as she walked towards them, fists clenched with an expression of something that can only be described as pure and unbridled rage on her face.
Joshua turned around to see a pair of transports descending towards the clearing, kicking up dust as the landed. "Um, Thomas? We've got another situation." he said. Thomas looked back at the transports as they were beginning to unload their cargo of soldiers. He began to speak. "You think maybe we could-" "Way ahead of you. Do you have your rifle?" Joshua asked. "I um... I left it back at the tree." Thomas replied. "Thomas, I'm renting these things on the hour. I'd rather not have to pay extra to get the replacement." Joshua said. "We've got ten or twenty soldiers to our rear and a rather scary person to our front and all you're concerned about is how much these rifles cost?!" Thomas said, starting to panic. He looked at Tara, who was now glowing a bright red, and picking up speed. "Alright fine, never mind the rifle. You see the transports? Find a tree near the edge of the clearing and get ready to hide behind it so that we're in plain view of the soldiers. Once Tara comes by us, and here's hoping she sees the soldiers instead of us, we'll hide back behind the trees as she...err...eliminates... our other problem." Joshua said. Thomas found a tree to hide behind and started running towards it. He saw Joshua running towards that exact same tree. "Having a bit of a coordination issue now, aren't we?" Joshua said, panting. "Just a little...Look, there's a tree over there." Thomas said, pointing at a nearly identical tree a few meters away. "But I like this tree, and besides, I got here first. So it's mine. Shoo shoo." Joshua said, cracking a smile. "Now is not the time, Joshua..." Thomas said, as he ran over to the other tree. Tara came by a few seconds later, running at full tilt at the Scavengers. "Hey, who...Oh, there's the little rat." one of them said as he pointed his rifle at Tara. "YOU! I'M GOING TO TEAR YOU TO PIECES, YOU HEAR ME?! DO YOU HEAR ME?!" Tara screamed as she ran headfirst into the group of soldiers. She did exactly that. "And that," Joshua said, looking slightly nervous, "is why I told you to run." They sat there half amused, half horrified, watching Tara rip through the Scavenger group, shots flying in no particular direction as they scrambled to try and get back onto their ships. "Well. That happened." Joshua said as Tara finished off the last Scavenger, and collapsed.
END OF CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
One of the two began to look worried. "Thomas! It's me, Joshua! Look at me, Thomas! It's not real, you need to wake up!" he said. The other person looked over at Joshua. "What is he going on about? What happened?" she said. "I'll tell you later, now's probably not the best time." The two ran towards him. Thomas fired his gun, but nothing happened. "Jammed? JAMMED?!" he said. Joshua tackled him and the two held him down. Thomas began to flail about trying to free himself. He felt something hit him on the head, and he went unconscious.
"Well, that happened." Joshua said. "Can you help me carry him?" "Where to?" the pilot replied. "Well, we were headed north when you showed up. Speaking of your showing up, what's your name?" Joshua said. "Tara." she replied dryly. "Nice to meet you, Tara... I'm Joshua, Joshua Verde." She didn't reply. "Not much of a talker anymore? You seemed to love talking a few minutes ago." Joshua said. "Just shut up and help me move your crazy friend" she said. "Alright..." Joshua mumbled as he moved over to Thomas' legs and picked him up. "How far?" Tara asked. "Well... um... it's about a few hours on foot. Carrying him..." Joshua nodded to Thomas "...Maybe the rest of the day. Well, assuming he doesn't wake up, that is." They started walking back towards the clearing, Tara still limping from her injury and Joshua tripping over branches. "How long until he wakes up?" Tara asked. "Dunno. From what he sounded like, it may be any minute now." Thomas started to stir. "Oh, see? He's starting to wake up. Quick, put him down somewhere." Joshua said. They moved Thomas over to a tree, and propped him up against it. Tara looked at Thomas. "You know, this guy looks familiar. What's his name?" Tara said. "Oh, so you only want to talk when it's about this handsome young lad now, I suppose?" Joshua said, winking at Tara. "Say that again. I dare you." she said, glaring at Joshua. "Oh, so you-" "DON'T." "Aaaaalright, fine. His name is Thomas...uhh...Thomas something. He expertly piloted a transport just like yours right into the ground outside my house." Joshua said. "Wait a minute... They shot down a transport with a guy who tried to escape not too long ago. That can't be the same guy, can it?!" Tara replied, confused as to how anyone could have survived a fall from orbit. "I don't know, but he sure plowed himself into the ground. He was unconscious for quite some time afterwards, but his machines fixed him up pretty good." Joshua replied. "Machines? You mean like the medical center on the Styx?" Tara replied. "Never heard the name before, I'm guessing that's your ship?" Joshua asked. "Not mine anymore, but yes." Tara said. "The nanomachine type, not the big clunky robotic ones, right? Seems that's all that these guys had." Joshua said, nodding at Thomas, who was starting to wake up. "What? No. Definitely not. Even they decided to keep those things out of the ship." Tara said, nodding at the sky. "Well, Thomas has some nanomachines in him, and it seems like they're waking him up right about now." Joshua replied.
Thomas opened his eyes, and squinted in the sunlight. "You awake yet, Thomas?" Joshua said. "I've got a person who would looooove to meet you. No, no, no, wait I was just- HEY! I was just joking!" Thomas looked up to see Tara kicking Joshua in the shin. "My head feels like someone dropped a rock on it." Thomas said. Joshua glanced over at Tara, and looked at Thomas. "Well, um... That's because we did." Joshua said. "Why'd you do that?" Thomas asked. "You were raving mad." Tara said. Thomas looked up at her. "Oh, you. Joshua's crazy treatment actually worked..." he said. "...What treatment, and how was it crazy." she said, glaring at Joshua. "Well, I mean it didn't seem very crazy to me..." Joshua said, shrugging. "WHAT. TREATMENT. DID. YOU. GIVE. ME." Tara said, poking Joshua in the chest. "You were going into shock and had a bunch of injuries, so I had Thomas use his machines to fix you..." Joshua said, taking a step back. "YOU WHAT?! Those things aren't still...in me, are they?!" Tara said. "Well... Yes." Joshua replied, backing up farther. "YOU PUT THOSE THINGS INSIDE OF ME?!" Tara screamed at Joshua. "Listen, you were going to die if we didn't do anything. You're fine, it's okay." Thomas said, taking a step closer, trying to calm her down.
She looked at him, her eyes wild with anger. "You! You're the one who gave that disease to me!" she said, walking closer to him. Her eyes began to glow different shades of yellow and red. "Um, Joshua? She's doing the eye thing too, now." Thomas said. "Aaand she's mad. I'd like to recommend backing away slowly and trying to calm her down. Should that fail, running as fast as your legs can carry you." Joshua said. "You're talking like a doctor again, why are you talking like a doctor again?" Thomas said, nervously. "That's because that's a condition of...err...the machines...to put it simply, they cause you to undergo a transformation which, if you're...erm...not exactly happy, you may turn into a mindless killing machine for...a few minutes." Joshua said. They looked back at Tara, who was now starting to glow as if her skin was on fire as she walked towards them, fists clenched with an expression of something that can only be described as pure and unbridled rage on her face.
Joshua turned around to see a pair of transports descending towards the clearing, kicking up dust as the landed. "Um, Thomas? We've got another situation." he said. Thomas looked back at the transports as they were beginning to unload their cargo of soldiers. He began to speak. "You think maybe we could-" "Way ahead of you. Do you have your rifle?" Joshua asked. "I um... I left it back at the tree." Thomas replied. "Thomas, I'm renting these things on the hour. I'd rather not have to pay extra to get the replacement." Joshua said. "We've got ten or twenty soldiers to our rear and a rather scary person to our front and all you're concerned about is how much these rifles cost?!" Thomas said, starting to panic. He looked at Tara, who was now glowing a bright red, and picking up speed. "Alright fine, never mind the rifle. You see the transports? Find a tree near the edge of the clearing and get ready to hide behind it so that we're in plain view of the soldiers. Once Tara comes by us, and here's hoping she sees the soldiers instead of us, we'll hide back behind the trees as she...err...eliminates... our other problem." Joshua said. Thomas found a tree to hide behind and started running towards it. He saw Joshua running towards that exact same tree. "Having a bit of a coordination issue now, aren't we?" Joshua said, panting. "Just a little...Look, there's a tree over there." Thomas said, pointing at a nearly identical tree a few meters away. "But I like this tree, and besides, I got here first. So it's mine. Shoo shoo." Joshua said, cracking a smile. "Now is not the time, Joshua..." Thomas said, as he ran over to the other tree. Tara came by a few seconds later, running at full tilt at the Scavengers. "Hey, who...Oh, there's the little rat." one of them said as he pointed his rifle at Tara. "YOU! I'M GOING TO TEAR YOU TO PIECES, YOU HEAR ME?! DO YOU HEAR ME?!" Tara screamed as she ran headfirst into the group of soldiers. She did exactly that. "And that," Joshua said, looking slightly nervous, "is why I told you to run." They sat there half amused, half horrified, watching Tara rip through the Scavenger group, shots flying in no particular direction as they scrambled to try and get back onto their ships. "Well. That happened." Joshua said as Tara finished off the last Scavenger, and collapsed.
END OF CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
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I swear....
...these cliff hangers are killing me. I'm slowly losing all traces of my sanity due to this :P
...these cliff hangers are killing me. I'm slowly losing all traces of my sanity due to this :P
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Close enough...
Still makes me want to know what is going to happen next. I guess it would be suspense not a cliff hanger though.
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Chapter Eighteen- Flight to the Wreck
"Is she alright?" Thomas asked. "Oh yeah, she's fine. I think she's probably done with the rampaging for now, I haven't heard any screaming for a while... let's go see. You first?." Joshua replied, extending his arms in the direction of the clearing. "Fine." Thomas replied, annoyed. They came out from behind their trees to see Tara sitting on top of a stump on the other side of the clearing, staring at the bodies of the other Scavengers. "...Tara?" Joshua asked, walking towards her, "How are you feeling?" Tara slowly looked up at him, then back at the transports, and waited a moment before speaking. She sounded calm. "Not bad, actually. You know that feeling you get when you're real angry, but then you just let it all go? That's... that's what I'm feeling right now." she said. "Seems like we can make good time getting to the wreck, now that we have a ship as well." she said, nodding at the two transports that the Scavengers were following her with. Joshua glanced over at Thomas, and looked back at Tara. "Well let's get going, I suppose. You think they're going to send more people after you?" Joshua said. "Probably. It'll be a while before they do though, and chances are we'll be long gone before they come looking." she replied as she stood up. "Take your pick, we've got three ships to choose from." Thomas walked over to the nearest one, avoiding the bodies littering the ground around it. "Quite the...uh...show...Tara." he said, as he boarded the transport. "It was fun. I was mad, but it was fun." she replied. Thomas winced. "Fun? You just killed like fifteen people!" he said as he sat down in one of the folding seats which had been haphazardly bolted to the side of the ship. "Yeah, but they were all kind of jerks so it doesn't really matter." Tara said. "You KNEW those people?!" Thomas asked, feeling a little scared of who he had just helped to revive. "For almost as long as I can remember, yeah. I joined the Scavengers when I was a little girl. They took me in after..." she sighed. "Never mind." she said, strapping herself into the pilot's chair. "After what?" Joshua asked, walking up the loading ramp with Thomas' and his rifles in hand. "Remind me to tell you some time later, and I might. Where's this wreck of yours... North, right?" she asked. "Yeah, it shouldn't be too far from here." Thomas said.
Tara powered up the console and closed the loading ramp, and the ship began to fly. "Just out of curiosity, does this thing have any guns on it?" Thomas asked. Tara reached down and flipped a switch on the console, which was evidently barely being held on by electrical tape attached to a clump of wires. Two screens folded down from the ceiling behind her head, and a pair of joysticks came out from the seats closest to hers. "I take it that's a yes." Thomas said, as he unstrapped himself and stood up. Tara rolled the ship hard to the left, sending Thomas tumbling onto the floor. She turned around and smirked at him. "Don't quite have your sea legs, do you?" she said as Thomas recovered from his fall and strapped himself into one of the turret console chairs. He looked at the screen and found that it was a blank monitor with a cross hair painted directly on the screen itself. "How exactly do I use this thing?" Thomas asked. Tara turned around, and pointed at a button on the side of the screen. Thomas pressed it, and the screen turned on. A radar appeared in the top left corner and Thomas could see the turret's gun protruding from the left side of the camera's view.
"Oh, cool. Not the most high tech system in the world, though...Hey, can you see the Euphrates yet?" Thomas asked. "I...I think I see it. Big pile of grey things sticking up out of the ground...yeah, that's got to be it. Hey...wait a minute... I'm getting a weapons lock from the thing." she replied. The turrets. Thomas forgot about the turrets. "Tara, you need to lose altitude NOW!" he said, straining to look out the cockpit. "How does that thing still-" she started to say as a stream of blue light shot past within a few meters of the transport. "Wooooooah, too close!" she yelled, as she cut the engines. The ship began to fall. "Guys, I don't know very much about aircraft, but something tells me we aren't supposed to be falling..." Joshua said, watching the dirt on the floor begin to float. "It's fine, I'm trying to lose altitude so we don't get shot to pieces." she said, watching a wrench that was hidden under the console begin to float up past her head. "Alright we should be out of their firing arc by now. I'm turning the engines back on, get ready to pull some Gs." she said, reaching for the throttle. Thomas braced himself, while Joshua started to talk. "What's a-" Tara turned on the engines, and the ship came to a dead stop a few meters above the treetops. "...Oh. My head is spinning. How wonderful. Tunnel vision too. Isn't this just fantastic." Joshua said, holding his head. "Please don't do that again, if you can avoid it." "I'm going to find a place to set us down, we're going to have to walk in the rest of the way." Tara said, looking around for a clear spot to land. "How far away do you think the camp is?" Thomas asked. "Not too far, it can't possibly be much more than an hour's walk." Tara replied as she guided the ship into a soft landing in a clearing with just barely enough room to accommodate it. Joshua handed Thomas his rifle. "Try not to lose it this time." he said. Tara flipped a switch, and the loading ramp opened with a mechanical hiss. Thomas unstrapped himself from his seat, and walked out. He looked around, and heard a twig snap behind him. He turned around, expecting to see one of the animals native to the planet. Instead, he was met with the barrel of a gun.
END OF CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
[DOUBLEPOST=1426194989,1426192382][/DOUBLEPOST]I just finished my first drawing of the cast, this is our main man Thomas.
I'm going to draw either Joshua or Tara next, then I'll move on to some scenes once I've actually got this to the point where I feel I can draw scenes without having it be wildly different as in my earlier drawings.
"Is she alright?" Thomas asked. "Oh yeah, she's fine. I think she's probably done with the rampaging for now, I haven't heard any screaming for a while... let's go see. You first?." Joshua replied, extending his arms in the direction of the clearing. "Fine." Thomas replied, annoyed. They came out from behind their trees to see Tara sitting on top of a stump on the other side of the clearing, staring at the bodies of the other Scavengers. "...Tara?" Joshua asked, walking towards her, "How are you feeling?" Tara slowly looked up at him, then back at the transports, and waited a moment before speaking. She sounded calm. "Not bad, actually. You know that feeling you get when you're real angry, but then you just let it all go? That's... that's what I'm feeling right now." she said. "Seems like we can make good time getting to the wreck, now that we have a ship as well." she said, nodding at the two transports that the Scavengers were following her with. Joshua glanced over at Thomas, and looked back at Tara. "Well let's get going, I suppose. You think they're going to send more people after you?" Joshua said. "Probably. It'll be a while before they do though, and chances are we'll be long gone before they come looking." she replied as she stood up. "Take your pick, we've got three ships to choose from." Thomas walked over to the nearest one, avoiding the bodies littering the ground around it. "Quite the...uh...show...Tara." he said, as he boarded the transport. "It was fun. I was mad, but it was fun." she replied. Thomas winced. "Fun? You just killed like fifteen people!" he said as he sat down in one of the folding seats which had been haphazardly bolted to the side of the ship. "Yeah, but they were all kind of jerks so it doesn't really matter." Tara said. "You KNEW those people?!" Thomas asked, feeling a little scared of who he had just helped to revive. "For almost as long as I can remember, yeah. I joined the Scavengers when I was a little girl. They took me in after..." she sighed. "Never mind." she said, strapping herself into the pilot's chair. "After what?" Joshua asked, walking up the loading ramp with Thomas' and his rifles in hand. "Remind me to tell you some time later, and I might. Where's this wreck of yours... North, right?" she asked. "Yeah, it shouldn't be too far from here." Thomas said.
Tara powered up the console and closed the loading ramp, and the ship began to fly. "Just out of curiosity, does this thing have any guns on it?" Thomas asked. Tara reached down and flipped a switch on the console, which was evidently barely being held on by electrical tape attached to a clump of wires. Two screens folded down from the ceiling behind her head, and a pair of joysticks came out from the seats closest to hers. "I take it that's a yes." Thomas said, as he unstrapped himself and stood up. Tara rolled the ship hard to the left, sending Thomas tumbling onto the floor. She turned around and smirked at him. "Don't quite have your sea legs, do you?" she said as Thomas recovered from his fall and strapped himself into one of the turret console chairs. He looked at the screen and found that it was a blank monitor with a cross hair painted directly on the screen itself. "How exactly do I use this thing?" Thomas asked. Tara turned around, and pointed at a button on the side of the screen. Thomas pressed it, and the screen turned on. A radar appeared in the top left corner and Thomas could see the turret's gun protruding from the left side of the camera's view.
"Oh, cool. Not the most high tech system in the world, though...Hey, can you see the Euphrates yet?" Thomas asked. "I...I think I see it. Big pile of grey things sticking up out of the ground...yeah, that's got to be it. Hey...wait a minute... I'm getting a weapons lock from the thing." she replied. The turrets. Thomas forgot about the turrets. "Tara, you need to lose altitude NOW!" he said, straining to look out the cockpit. "How does that thing still-" she started to say as a stream of blue light shot past within a few meters of the transport. "Wooooooah, too close!" she yelled, as she cut the engines. The ship began to fall. "Guys, I don't know very much about aircraft, but something tells me we aren't supposed to be falling..." Joshua said, watching the dirt on the floor begin to float. "It's fine, I'm trying to lose altitude so we don't get shot to pieces." she said, watching a wrench that was hidden under the console begin to float up past her head. "Alright we should be out of their firing arc by now. I'm turning the engines back on, get ready to pull some Gs." she said, reaching for the throttle. Thomas braced himself, while Joshua started to talk. "What's a-" Tara turned on the engines, and the ship came to a dead stop a few meters above the treetops. "...Oh. My head is spinning. How wonderful. Tunnel vision too. Isn't this just fantastic." Joshua said, holding his head. "Please don't do that again, if you can avoid it." "I'm going to find a place to set us down, we're going to have to walk in the rest of the way." Tara said, looking around for a clear spot to land. "How far away do you think the camp is?" Thomas asked. "Not too far, it can't possibly be much more than an hour's walk." Tara replied as she guided the ship into a soft landing in a clearing with just barely enough room to accommodate it. Joshua handed Thomas his rifle. "Try not to lose it this time." he said. Tara flipped a switch, and the loading ramp opened with a mechanical hiss. Thomas unstrapped himself from his seat, and walked out. He looked around, and heard a twig snap behind him. He turned around, expecting to see one of the animals native to the planet. Instead, he was met with the barrel of a gun.
END OF CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
[DOUBLEPOST=1426194989,1426192382][/DOUBLEPOST]I just finished my first drawing of the cast, this is our main man Thomas.
I'm going to draw either Joshua or Tara next, then I'll move on to some scenes once I've actually got this to the point where I feel I can draw scenes without having it be wildly different as in my earlier drawings.
- Joined
- Sep 6, 2013
- Messages
- 2,458
- Reaction score
- 1,312
- Joined
- Sep 6, 2013
- Messages
- 2,458
- Reaction score
- 1,312
Sorry for the late chapter, I was busy.
Chapter nineteen- The Chase
Thomas took a step back. He looked past the barrel of the gun, and saw it was being held by a frightened man with a torn shirt that read Euphrates PD on the arm. "Oh, you're with the Euphrates!" Thomas exclaimed, happy to see a friendly face. "Who?" Tara asked, as she walked out of the transport. The man immediately turned to face her, and pointed his rifle at Tara. She instinctively grabbed her pistol off her belt and aimed it at the man. "Wait, wait! He's on our side!" Thomas said, reaching for Tara's gun. "I'm not putting mine down until he does." she said. Thomas looked at the man, who so far had remained silent. "I'm from the Euphrates too, I was in the front half. I need to get to the camp and contact whoever is in charge there." Thomas said, looking at the man. He slowly lowered his rifle, and Tara did the same. "I'm lieutenant Jacobson, Euphrates Police Department. Who are you two?" the man asked. "I'm Thomas, this is Tara, and that's...Joshua?" Thomas looked around, but could not find him. "...Where are you?" Thomas said, walking around to the other side of the transport. "Joshua?" he called. Thomas scanned the edge of the forest, and saw Joshua looking up at the sky. "See something?" Tara asked. "Yeah, I saw some sort of fireballs, kind of like meteors." he replied. "That's probably the next scouting party coming to look for us." Tara said, looking back at Jacobson. "Your air defenses nearly shot us out of the sky, perhaps we can draw those ships in?" Tara said. "I think so, yeah. Does that thing have any way we can distinguish who's who?" Jacobson asked, pointing at the transport. "I think so, let me check." Tara said, walking back inside the transport. "Mind telling your camp what's up?" Thomas said. "I'd rather not get shot at again, if we can avoid it." Jacobson nodded, pulling a radio off of his belt to explain the situation to the others at the wreck.
"Yep, got it! Does your air defense radar still work?" Tara said, casually walking back outside. "It's... running, but we've had...more than a few errors with it lately." Jacobson said. "You know, it took me a while to get out here for my scouting run and my shift is almost over. Mind taking me back with you?" "Sure, hop in." Tara replied. Jacobson picked up his radio and relayed the information to the Euphrates, and returned the radio to his belt. "Alright, I've told them about your plan. We've been fending off gunships for the past few weeks, but the reactor keeping the whole system going is getting pretty temperamental. To be honest, I don't think we'll be able to keep it running safely for much longer." Jacobson said, strapping himself into one of the turret consoles. Thomas sat down in the one across from him. "Everybody buckled in?" Tara asked, sitting down in the pilot's chair and powering up the ship. "Aaand, I've got two transports on radar, right on time." she said, as they leveled off right above the tree line. "Time to make some noise, maybe they'll follow us." Tara said, as she began piloting the ship directly towards the other two transports. "They're turning, and...yep, they're after us. Um...Okay, they're really after us. Alright Tara, get us going now please." Joshua said, looking at the radar on Thomas' screen. "...Tara, you're still flying towards them. I don't know much about aircraft, but two versus one usually ends badly for the one..." Tara turned around. "You don't hear what's going on in here." she said, knocking on her helmet. "We're flying one of the transports we... I... forcefully removed the crew from. They think we're one of them. Thomas, Jacobson, you guys have those turrets ready?" she said, turning back around. "Tara, I thought we were just going to let the Euphrates handle this?" Thomas said, looking slightly worried. "Yeah, we could...but where's the fun in that?" she said, her skin starting to glow. "I want to make it rain lead today." Thomas saw the skin at the back of her neck, and looked back at Joshua expecting advice. He simply shrugged and provided a look of resignation.
"We'll be within firing range in a few seconds here. Wait until we're nice and close with them, and aim for whatever looks important." Tara said, as they closed the gap with the other transports. Thomas turned back around and lined up on the left transport in the pair, and found what appeared to be some sort of fuel tank in between its stubby wings. "I've got a good line of fire on the cockpit, ready when you are Thomas." Jacobson said. "Thomas?" Tara asked. "I'm ready, I've got a fuel tank or something down range." he replied. Tara shrugged, and turned around. "On three. One...two...THREE! LET 'EM HAVE IT!" Tara yelled. Thomas squeezed the trigger, and watched a stream of blue light exit the barrel of the gun and impact dead center on the other ship. It burst into bright orange flames, and the ship began losing altitude. He held the stream a few seconds longer until the transport's wing fell off, and it ripped itself apart under its own inertia. "I got it, I got it!" Thomas yelled, looking back at Tara. "Good hit, Thomas. Jacobson, what's your progress?" she said, looking over at him. Jacobson turned around.
"I uh... Well, I mean I did hit the thing... but, um... there's more. A LOT more." he said, looking nervous. "Tara, how did you miss them? The radar should have painted them quite clearly..." "More? MORE?! How many?!" Tara said, visibly angry and starting to glow a reddish orange. "Five or six, I think... Listen, we need to get out of here! There's no way we can take them all!" Jacobson said. "I DON'T CARE, WE'RE GOING IN ANYWAYS!" she said, turning around and reaching for the throttle. "Tara you need to turn us around. We got lucky with the first two, but if we really book it we can make it within the Euphrates' weapons range before they can shoot at us." Thomas said as Tara accelerated the ship in the direction of the oncoming fleet. "There's no use, Thomas. My advice is to just strap in and hope for the best." Joshua said, looking around for something. "Joshua, she's going to-" He glared at Thomas and raised his hand, holding something. Thomas and Jacobson turned back around and took aim at the other ships, hoping that what Joshua had in mind would work. Thomas looked around again, and saw Joshua unstrapping from his seat and walking towards Tara. He stopped when he got next to Thomas, and leaned in towards him. "You know how to fly this thing, by any chance?" he whispered. "I can try, but no guarantees. What is it you're going to do? After that display back at the first clearing, I'm not sure you can handle her if she goes berserk again..." Joshua showed Thomas his hand. In it was a small syringe filled with a clear liquid. "Heavy anesthetic. She'll be out a few seconds after I inject her, but you need to be ready to grab the controls as soon as she goes unconscious." he whispered. "And you just carry this stuff with you...?" Thomas said, unbuckling. Joshua went up behind Tara, and stuck the needle into her neck. "HEY! What do you think you're..." Tara started to say, when she went limp. Her body glowed a bright orange around where she was injected. "You've got maybe a minute or so, given how long this stuff usually lasts." Joshua said, tapping the syringe. "Well, I guess it's better than nothing..." Thomas said, sitting down in the pilot's chair.
He reversed the ship's course and dropped altitude until the it was flying only a few hundred meters over the tops of the trees. Thomas looked at the console, and saw the radar indicating that the other ships had picked up speed. "Yep, they're after us." Thomas said. "Maybe five kilometers more until we're within range of the wreck." "Joshua, after what you described, don't you think we should strap Tara down so that we don't all get mauled to death when she wakes up?" Jacobson said, straining to look to the back of the ship where Joshua was trying to buckle Tara into a seat. "She should be fine when she wakes up, don't worry. Momentary bouts of intense rage for the first few hours are about the worst that ever happen." Joshua replied, securing the final strap. "If you say so..." Jacobson said as he turned back around, his radio beginning to crackle. He pulled it off of his belt and spoke into it. "This is Jacobson, what is it?" he said, listening to the radio. "Acknowledged, I'll let them know. Jacobson out." he said, returning the radio to his belt. "What's the word?" Thomas said. "Not good... I think. They're tracking something about three hundred meters long entering the upper atmosphere." Jacobson replied. "Three hundred meters? I thought there was only the one Scavenger capital ship in orbit, and it was something like two kilometers... Is this thing one of ours? Maybe they came looking for us!" Thomas exclaimed, looking back at Jacobson. "I'm afraid we can't tell until we get visual contact. Our sensors array is more than a little broken, the best we can do is distinguish things we already have visual contact with." Jacobson said. His radio began to crackle again, and he held it to his ear. "Thomas, I believe I have your answer!" he said, happily. "It's a Human Confederacy transport ship, they were passing through the system on their way to a mining operation! We're going home!" The radio crackled again. "Just a second, they're probably trying to contact us." Jacobson said gleefully as he raised the radio to his ear. "Wait...what? No... no, that can't be right. What do you mean?!" Jacobson's face turned sour, and his expression was of utter disappointment. He put the radio back to his belt slowly, and looked back up at Thomas. "It's...It's on fire. They're making an emergency landing. That scavenger ship managed to fire off a few missiles just as it was crossing the horizon. The transport lost jump capability and had half of their cargo hold compromised. We've been tasked with guiding them in." Jacobson said, turning around to face his console. "What of those ships which, by the way, are still following us?" Thomas said, not trying to hide his irritation. "Euphrates is spinning up the targeting system, they shouldn't be a problem in a few seconds now." Jacobson said, watching bright blue flashes as they began to emit from the former capital ship and stream past towards the scavenger ships. He saw a bright flash, and one of them went off the radar. "Hit." Jacobson said. He saw another impact, and another ship faded off the radar. "Another hit. Three remaining." he said. "I figured combat would be a bit more interesting." Joshua said, in a voice that sounded almost disappointed. "I'm just glad that we're safe..." Thomas said, turning around.
Thomas turned back around and checked the radar. He saw the large signature of the transport a few kilometers above them. "I have radar contact with the transport, steering towards them." he said. Jacobson watched another Scavenger ship burst into flames, and looked back at the Euphrates. He sat there watching the flashes from its cannons, until they stopped suddenly. "Euphrates isn't firing any more, but there's still two more out there. What gives?" Thomas asked. Jacobson replied "I...I don't know, actually. Maybe they're just-" There was a small flash from the Euphrates, followed by an immense, blinding light which penetrated the cabin. Thomas threw his hands off the controls as he attempted to shield his eyes. He could feel the temperature rising, and he began to feel his skin burning. Suddenly, the light faded away. Thomas put his hands back on the controls and stabilized the ship. He looked around and saw that the other small ships were in the same position, and the cargo transport was beginning to descend towards a small field. "What... what was that?" Thomas heard a voice say. He turned around to see Tara walking up to the cockpit. She seemed to have returned to normal. "Oh my god, Thomas! What did...Are those radiation burns?!" she said, looking at his arms and face. "Guys..." Jacobson said weakly. They all turned around to face him. "You should see this." He showed them his monitor. On it was a large area of forest that had been leveled, and almost all of it was burning, huge plumes of black smoke rising up from the patch of scorched ground. "What happened?" Joshua said, unaware of what the picture was. "That...that's the Euphrates." Jacobson replied, seemingly on the verge of a mental breakdown. "The reactor...it must have finally broken down because of the cannons firing." Jacobson said. "It's gone...It's all gone. The Euphrates is...It's just a crater now..." Jacobson said, exhaling heavily. Thomas guided the ship down next to the transport, and he felt the soft bump of landing. He flipped a switch on the console, and the loading ramp swung open.
END OF CHAPTER NINETEEN
Chapter nineteen- The Chase
Thomas took a step back. He looked past the barrel of the gun, and saw it was being held by a frightened man with a torn shirt that read Euphrates PD on the arm. "Oh, you're with the Euphrates!" Thomas exclaimed, happy to see a friendly face. "Who?" Tara asked, as she walked out of the transport. The man immediately turned to face her, and pointed his rifle at Tara. She instinctively grabbed her pistol off her belt and aimed it at the man. "Wait, wait! He's on our side!" Thomas said, reaching for Tara's gun. "I'm not putting mine down until he does." she said. Thomas looked at the man, who so far had remained silent. "I'm from the Euphrates too, I was in the front half. I need to get to the camp and contact whoever is in charge there." Thomas said, looking at the man. He slowly lowered his rifle, and Tara did the same. "I'm lieutenant Jacobson, Euphrates Police Department. Who are you two?" the man asked. "I'm Thomas, this is Tara, and that's...Joshua?" Thomas looked around, but could not find him. "...Where are you?" Thomas said, walking around to the other side of the transport. "Joshua?" he called. Thomas scanned the edge of the forest, and saw Joshua looking up at the sky. "See something?" Tara asked. "Yeah, I saw some sort of fireballs, kind of like meteors." he replied. "That's probably the next scouting party coming to look for us." Tara said, looking back at Jacobson. "Your air defenses nearly shot us out of the sky, perhaps we can draw those ships in?" Tara said. "I think so, yeah. Does that thing have any way we can distinguish who's who?" Jacobson asked, pointing at the transport. "I think so, let me check." Tara said, walking back inside the transport. "Mind telling your camp what's up?" Thomas said. "I'd rather not get shot at again, if we can avoid it." Jacobson nodded, pulling a radio off of his belt to explain the situation to the others at the wreck.
"Yep, got it! Does your air defense radar still work?" Tara said, casually walking back outside. "It's... running, but we've had...more than a few errors with it lately." Jacobson said. "You know, it took me a while to get out here for my scouting run and my shift is almost over. Mind taking me back with you?" "Sure, hop in." Tara replied. Jacobson picked up his radio and relayed the information to the Euphrates, and returned the radio to his belt. "Alright, I've told them about your plan. We've been fending off gunships for the past few weeks, but the reactor keeping the whole system going is getting pretty temperamental. To be honest, I don't think we'll be able to keep it running safely for much longer." Jacobson said, strapping himself into one of the turret consoles. Thomas sat down in the one across from him. "Everybody buckled in?" Tara asked, sitting down in the pilot's chair and powering up the ship. "Aaand, I've got two transports on radar, right on time." she said, as they leveled off right above the tree line. "Time to make some noise, maybe they'll follow us." Tara said, as she began piloting the ship directly towards the other two transports. "They're turning, and...yep, they're after us. Um...Okay, they're really after us. Alright Tara, get us going now please." Joshua said, looking at the radar on Thomas' screen. "...Tara, you're still flying towards them. I don't know much about aircraft, but two versus one usually ends badly for the one..." Tara turned around. "You don't hear what's going on in here." she said, knocking on her helmet. "We're flying one of the transports we... I... forcefully removed the crew from. They think we're one of them. Thomas, Jacobson, you guys have those turrets ready?" she said, turning back around. "Tara, I thought we were just going to let the Euphrates handle this?" Thomas said, looking slightly worried. "Yeah, we could...but where's the fun in that?" she said, her skin starting to glow. "I want to make it rain lead today." Thomas saw the skin at the back of her neck, and looked back at Joshua expecting advice. He simply shrugged and provided a look of resignation.
"We'll be within firing range in a few seconds here. Wait until we're nice and close with them, and aim for whatever looks important." Tara said, as they closed the gap with the other transports. Thomas turned back around and lined up on the left transport in the pair, and found what appeared to be some sort of fuel tank in between its stubby wings. "I've got a good line of fire on the cockpit, ready when you are Thomas." Jacobson said. "Thomas?" Tara asked. "I'm ready, I've got a fuel tank or something down range." he replied. Tara shrugged, and turned around. "On three. One...two...THREE! LET 'EM HAVE IT!" Tara yelled. Thomas squeezed the trigger, and watched a stream of blue light exit the barrel of the gun and impact dead center on the other ship. It burst into bright orange flames, and the ship began losing altitude. He held the stream a few seconds longer until the transport's wing fell off, and it ripped itself apart under its own inertia. "I got it, I got it!" Thomas yelled, looking back at Tara. "Good hit, Thomas. Jacobson, what's your progress?" she said, looking over at him. Jacobson turned around.
"I uh... Well, I mean I did hit the thing... but, um... there's more. A LOT more." he said, looking nervous. "Tara, how did you miss them? The radar should have painted them quite clearly..." "More? MORE?! How many?!" Tara said, visibly angry and starting to glow a reddish orange. "Five or six, I think... Listen, we need to get out of here! There's no way we can take them all!" Jacobson said. "I DON'T CARE, WE'RE GOING IN ANYWAYS!" she said, turning around and reaching for the throttle. "Tara you need to turn us around. We got lucky with the first two, but if we really book it we can make it within the Euphrates' weapons range before they can shoot at us." Thomas said as Tara accelerated the ship in the direction of the oncoming fleet. "There's no use, Thomas. My advice is to just strap in and hope for the best." Joshua said, looking around for something. "Joshua, she's going to-" He glared at Thomas and raised his hand, holding something. Thomas and Jacobson turned back around and took aim at the other ships, hoping that what Joshua had in mind would work. Thomas looked around again, and saw Joshua unstrapping from his seat and walking towards Tara. He stopped when he got next to Thomas, and leaned in towards him. "You know how to fly this thing, by any chance?" he whispered. "I can try, but no guarantees. What is it you're going to do? After that display back at the first clearing, I'm not sure you can handle her if she goes berserk again..." Joshua showed Thomas his hand. In it was a small syringe filled with a clear liquid. "Heavy anesthetic. She'll be out a few seconds after I inject her, but you need to be ready to grab the controls as soon as she goes unconscious." he whispered. "And you just carry this stuff with you...?" Thomas said, unbuckling. Joshua went up behind Tara, and stuck the needle into her neck. "HEY! What do you think you're..." Tara started to say, when she went limp. Her body glowed a bright orange around where she was injected. "You've got maybe a minute or so, given how long this stuff usually lasts." Joshua said, tapping the syringe. "Well, I guess it's better than nothing..." Thomas said, sitting down in the pilot's chair.
He reversed the ship's course and dropped altitude until the it was flying only a few hundred meters over the tops of the trees. Thomas looked at the console, and saw the radar indicating that the other ships had picked up speed. "Yep, they're after us." Thomas said. "Maybe five kilometers more until we're within range of the wreck." "Joshua, after what you described, don't you think we should strap Tara down so that we don't all get mauled to death when she wakes up?" Jacobson said, straining to look to the back of the ship where Joshua was trying to buckle Tara into a seat. "She should be fine when she wakes up, don't worry. Momentary bouts of intense rage for the first few hours are about the worst that ever happen." Joshua replied, securing the final strap. "If you say so..." Jacobson said as he turned back around, his radio beginning to crackle. He pulled it off of his belt and spoke into it. "This is Jacobson, what is it?" he said, listening to the radio. "Acknowledged, I'll let them know. Jacobson out." he said, returning the radio to his belt. "What's the word?" Thomas said. "Not good... I think. They're tracking something about three hundred meters long entering the upper atmosphere." Jacobson replied. "Three hundred meters? I thought there was only the one Scavenger capital ship in orbit, and it was something like two kilometers... Is this thing one of ours? Maybe they came looking for us!" Thomas exclaimed, looking back at Jacobson. "I'm afraid we can't tell until we get visual contact. Our sensors array is more than a little broken, the best we can do is distinguish things we already have visual contact with." Jacobson said. His radio began to crackle again, and he held it to his ear. "Thomas, I believe I have your answer!" he said, happily. "It's a Human Confederacy transport ship, they were passing through the system on their way to a mining operation! We're going home!" The radio crackled again. "Just a second, they're probably trying to contact us." Jacobson said gleefully as he raised the radio to his ear. "Wait...what? No... no, that can't be right. What do you mean?!" Jacobson's face turned sour, and his expression was of utter disappointment. He put the radio back to his belt slowly, and looked back up at Thomas. "It's...It's on fire. They're making an emergency landing. That scavenger ship managed to fire off a few missiles just as it was crossing the horizon. The transport lost jump capability and had half of their cargo hold compromised. We've been tasked with guiding them in." Jacobson said, turning around to face his console. "What of those ships which, by the way, are still following us?" Thomas said, not trying to hide his irritation. "Euphrates is spinning up the targeting system, they shouldn't be a problem in a few seconds now." Jacobson said, watching bright blue flashes as they began to emit from the former capital ship and stream past towards the scavenger ships. He saw a bright flash, and one of them went off the radar. "Hit." Jacobson said. He saw another impact, and another ship faded off the radar. "Another hit. Three remaining." he said. "I figured combat would be a bit more interesting." Joshua said, in a voice that sounded almost disappointed. "I'm just glad that we're safe..." Thomas said, turning around.
Thomas turned back around and checked the radar. He saw the large signature of the transport a few kilometers above them. "I have radar contact with the transport, steering towards them." he said. Jacobson watched another Scavenger ship burst into flames, and looked back at the Euphrates. He sat there watching the flashes from its cannons, until they stopped suddenly. "Euphrates isn't firing any more, but there's still two more out there. What gives?" Thomas asked. Jacobson replied "I...I don't know, actually. Maybe they're just-" There was a small flash from the Euphrates, followed by an immense, blinding light which penetrated the cabin. Thomas threw his hands off the controls as he attempted to shield his eyes. He could feel the temperature rising, and he began to feel his skin burning. Suddenly, the light faded away. Thomas put his hands back on the controls and stabilized the ship. He looked around and saw that the other small ships were in the same position, and the cargo transport was beginning to descend towards a small field. "What... what was that?" Thomas heard a voice say. He turned around to see Tara walking up to the cockpit. She seemed to have returned to normal. "Oh my god, Thomas! What did...Are those radiation burns?!" she said, looking at his arms and face. "Guys..." Jacobson said weakly. They all turned around to face him. "You should see this." He showed them his monitor. On it was a large area of forest that had been leveled, and almost all of it was burning, huge plumes of black smoke rising up from the patch of scorched ground. "What happened?" Joshua said, unaware of what the picture was. "That...that's the Euphrates." Jacobson replied, seemingly on the verge of a mental breakdown. "The reactor...it must have finally broken down because of the cannons firing." Jacobson said. "It's gone...It's all gone. The Euphrates is...It's just a crater now..." Jacobson said, exhaling heavily. Thomas guided the ship down next to the transport, and he felt the soft bump of landing. He flipped a switch on the console, and the loading ramp swung open.
END OF CHAPTER NINETEEN
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Chapter Twenty- Aftermath
Author's note: Holy carp! We just reached twenty chapters so far, and we're not even halfway done with this thing! I've started doing the character drawings with intent on slowly expanding this into a webcomic-style thingamajig, and perhaps some animations thrown in there. I've started working on developing the storyline into something more focused on a central theme, while having something resembling episodes in every chapter. I've also started an effort to make the chapters I post longer, and more detailed. Thanks to a suggestion by Zyrr, I've started actually revising my work instead of just posting it as-is. Tell me what you think, or perhaps what direction you want the story to head in next!
Thomas checked the radar before turning off the ship's power. There were two small signatures that were speeding for orbit, but the sky was clear other than them. "The remaining transports are headed towards space, we should be clear for a while. Let's go talk to this captain." Thomas said, starting to walk out the back of the ship. Joshua and Tara started to follow him, but Jacobson stayed in his seat. "Jacobson, we've got to go." Thomas said, walking back inside and grabbing Jacobson's shoulder. He turned around, wide-eyed. "I'm...I'm just going to stay...for a while." he said slowly. "I need some time to think." he said, turning back around and slumping down into the chair. "Fair enough. We'll be inside if you need us." Thomas said, as he started to walk back out of the ship. "...Thanks." Jacobson said. Tara and Joshua were waiting outside, looking at the cargo ship, which had deployed its massive landing gear and was resting with the majority of the hull well above the treetops. They started walking towards the ship, and a loading elevator began to descend from the hull. On it were three people wearing body armor and carrying assault rifles, and a small scout ship with its wings folded. As they got closer to the ship, two of the men started working on unfolding the scout's wings, while the third started walking in Thomas' direction. He was an old man who stood about six feet tall with very dark skin, a large mustache, grey hair and glasses. "Well this has been a rather hectic day, hasn't it?" he said, sourly. "I've got fires on three decks, at least six dead, and the medical bay is already full. That, and they blew a good sized hole in the containment vessel of our Alcubierre drive, so that thing is almost certainly out of commission for a while. I'm assuming you three are the ones who were supposed to help guide us in? I lost contact with the Euphrates after that fireball, were you able to raise them on comms?" "That fireball was the Euphrates. As far as we can tell, their fusion reactor was breached, and it cracked wide open." Thomas said. "Oh...Oh no... How many were there? Did anyone make it out in time?" the man said, dejectedly. "I don't know. As far as we can tell, probably not." Thomas said.
The man sighed. "Well, we still have work to do. I've got fires to put out, and we need to set up search parties to go look for survivors. My name is Eric Dalton, I'm the captain of this wonderful ship behind me, the HCS Hunley. She's not much to look at what with all the fires and blast damage, but once we get her fixed up you'll appreciate her beauty." he said, starting to walk back towards the loading elevator. "This is ensign McCracken and that's lieutenant Phelps." Dalton said, pointing at the two soldiers setting up the scout. "They'll be your escort. How many people can you carry in that thing?" Dalton said, nodding in the direction of their transport. "Ten or so, fifteen if they stand." Tara said. "Good luck. I'll be off, now." Dalton said, as he started climbing a ladder back up into the ship. McCracken walked over to them. "Afternoon you three. It's been one heck of a day so far, like the captain said. Here's hoping we can find someone out there." he said, panting. "A little tired, ensign?" Thomas asked. "More than a little, I've been on fire duty for the past thirty minutes now..." he stopped to catch his breath. "It's harder than you'd think." he said. Thomas examined him. He was a small man, only about five feet tall and couldn't have even been in his twenties yet. He had red hair, green eyes, and pale skin, and walked with a casual, but upright gait. He was drenched in sweat and breathing hard. "Do you need a minute...?" Tara asked. "No, no. I'm good to go!" McCracken said. "Fair enough... How long until your bird is in the air?" Tara said, looking over at the scout, where Phelps was locking the clamps which held the wing straight. "Not much more than a minute now, you may as well start powering up your own." Phelps said, not bothering to look up from his work. "You heard him, get moving." McCracken said. Tara shrugged and started heading back to the transport. Thomas and Joshua followed suit. "Well, isn't he just a little bundle of joy." Tara said, sitting down heavily in the pilot's chair. "You don't like him? I find him quite cheerful considering recent events." Joshua said as he strapped in. Thomas looked around as he strapped himself into a turret console, but he could not find Jacobson. "Guys...? We're a man short." he said. "Where did Jacobson wander off to?" he said, unbuckling and standing up. Thomas ran out to look around, but did not find Jacobson. "Missing something?" McCracken said, looking up from the scout. "Yeah, there was another guy in here. His name's Jacobson. You wouldn't happen to have seen him, would you?" Thomas said. "Nope, I'm afraid not. We're powered up and ready to go when you are, we can look for your friend using the scout." McCracken said, helping Phelps climb into the backseat of the scout, then getting in the front seat himself. "See you in the sky." he said, closing the canopy over him. Thomas went back into the transport and strapped himself in. "Well, let's get going, then. The sooner we can find Jacobson, the better." Tara looked back at Thomas and Joshua, powered up the ship, and took off. "I'm going to be broadcasting the radio using the ship's speakers, Just a sec while I set it up." Tara said, typing commands into the console. "Testing...testing... McCracken, can you hear me?" A crackly, metallic voice came from somewhere behind the chairs. "This is McCracken, I read you loud and clear." "We're proceeding in the direction of the Euphrates, you scan the area within a mile or two of the Hunley to see if you can find Jacobson." Tara said. "Copy that, good luck out there. McCracken out."
They flew towards the wreck of the Euphrates, which was now little more than a ring of small forest fires surrounding a vast circle of charred and smoldering ground, getting darker towards the center, where the remains of the wreck were. "I say we start around the wreck, maybe it sheltered some of them from the blast." Thomas said, leaning forward trying to get a good view of the blast. "Agreed. I'll find a place where we can land. Shouldn't be too hard, seeing as to how the blast practically leveled everything within a ten mile radius..." Tara said as she eased back on the throttle, starting their descent. The remains grew larger as they got closer, and Thomas could slowly start to see the damage that had been done. Parts of the ship were still intact and it was recognizable as at least the wreckage of a ship, but the majority of the reactor room had completely disintegrated, along with the bridge and antiaircraft cannons. The cargo hangar at the back of the ship and two of the engines were still there, but they were barely there at all, and a number of fires were raging throughout the remainder of the ship. "For what it's worth, I expected this to be worse." Tara said as she guided the ship in to land. They touched down with a thud, and Thomas unstrapped himself. "Don't you think we should be wearing hazmat suits...?" Thomas asked as Tara flipped a lever, opening the loading ramp. "We shouldn't be here long, we'll be fine." she said, stepping out onto the charred ground. Thomas grabbed his rifle and stepped outside. The ground crunched beneath his feet. "Um... Is that glass?" he said, looking down. It was, in fact, glass. "The explosion was hot enough to leave you with some pretty nasty burns from miles away, I'm not surprised it caused the ground here to glass over." Tara said, casually walking into the smoldering ruins of the ship. "Best not to touch anything, it's probably still scalding hot." Thomas looked around, trying to find somewhere people could hide. "You think the safety compartment survived? We should probably go and check." Thomas said, walking forward into the wreck. "You people just love safety, don't you? I'd be surprised if it survived." Tara said as she reached over to test how hot the metal was. She let out a short yelp, and pulled her hand away. "That's...more than a little warm." she said, holding her finger.
Thomas began walking towards the front of the remaining half of the ship when he heard a noise. It was faint and distant, but it was definitely a voice. "Guys, come here!" he yelled, putting his ear as close to the hot metal as he could without burning himself. Tara and Joshua came running over. Thomas listened for the voice until he heard a faint cry for help, coming from deep within the wreck. They started looking around for an entrance to the section. "Guys, I found something!" Joshua said, and the others came running over to him. They were looking at a door about two feet wide and seven feet tall, leading into a hallway which was at a crooked angle to the ground and went on for a few hundred meters before going around a turn which led it underground. "...Ladies first?" Joshua said, standing aside. Tara grabbed him and pushed him in. "Okay, okay..." he said as he began to walk through the tunnel. "Some sort of service corridor, by the looks of it. Thomas, do you know where we are on the ship?" Tara asked, turning around. "No idea. I mostly stayed in the civilian sections of the ship, only took a trip to engineering as part of a guided tour, and I certainly didn't go down any maintenance shafts." he said as they continued to walk deeper into the wreck. "Hey, I see a light up ahead. Hello? Is anyone there?!" Joshua said, starting to walk at a noticeably faster pace. They rounded the corner, and saw a small room, lit by a dim blue light hanging from the ceiling. In it was a girl about fourteen years old, covered in burns. She was huddled in a corner, with her head between her knees. "Hello?" Tara said, walking towards the girl. "My name's Tara. We're here to get you out of here." she said, kneeling down in front of the girl. She looked up at Tara. "My name's Giana... Giana Jacobson." Tara looked back at Thomas, then back at the girl. "Where is your dad? Were there any other survivors?" she asked. "I was the only one down here, I hide here when there's fighting... My dad...He was on the surface, but he's a sentry. Is he... is he alright?" she asked, her eyes starting to tear up. "Don't worry, your dad was on watch. He's safe now... We're here to get you back to him." Tara said, standing up. "Can you walk?" Giana stood up, slowly. Her skin was burned in numerous places, and her clothes were covered in soot. "Sort of. I hurt my leg in the explosion, but I think I'll be fine." she said. "Let's get going, then." Tara said, helping her to walk out of the tunnel.
Once they were back on the ship, Tara radioed in to McCracken that they found a survivor."You did?! I uhh... Well, I'll be quite up front with you. I didn't expect you to have found anyone." he said. "Any luck finding..." Tara looked back at Giana, who was being treated for her burns by Joshua. She turned off "Not yet, I'm afraid. We've looked through all the clearings, but...wait... Okay hang on, I think I see something. Yeah, that's a person." McCracken said. "We're getting out to go talk to him. Can you meet us here?" A waypoint appeared on the console. "Sure thing. Tara out." Tara said, turning around. Thomas looked up, and walked over to her. "What's the news?" he said, kneeling down beside the pilot's chair. "They found him, we're on our way there now." Tara replied. "Glad we did, else we'd have to explain to Giana why we can't find him." she said, looking back at Giana. The radio buzzed again. "Tara, this is McCracken. You need to get here NOW."
Tara looked at Thomas, and back at the console. She turned on the loudspeakers. "Everybody buckle in, we're going to have to speed up a bit." she said, reaching for the throttle. Thomas sat down in the turret chair and strapped himself in, and saw Giana and Joshua do the same. A few minutes of flying later, Tara could see the scout ship with three people just outside of it. They seemed to be arguing. She brought the transport in right beside them, and unbuckled. McCracken had found Jacobson, but something was wrong. She stepped outside and began walking towards the three. Jacobson's voice was the first she heard. "...What's the point, anyway?! Why should I just sit here on this worthless rock, being hunted by Scavengers, and now I don't even have the last remnant of my family! She's dead, they're all dead! Nobody could have survived that!" he said, breaking down in tears. Tara started running over to Jacobson, and saw that he was holding a gun. "Jacobson, wait!" she said, swatting the gun out of his hand. "Giana's fine! We found her, she's in the transport being treated for minor burns." she said, looking him in the eyes. Jacobson took a step back. "How...how did you..." he started to say, before he fell down and began to cry. Tara grabbed his gun and ran back inside the transport. "Joshua, get her out here now." Tara said, grabbing Joshua on the shoulder. "Alright, alright..." he said, helping her up. "Come on, let's go see your dad." They walked outside. Giana looked over and saw Jacobson, who was now standing. "Dad!" she exclaimed, running as fast as her leg could carry her into her father's arms. "She's got a fractured right leg... To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if that little run just snapped it entirely..." Joshua said, looking slightly worried.
Jacobson looked up at the three. "Thank you, thank you so much for saving her. She's all the family I have left..." he said. McCracken looked over at Tara. "Nice job handling that, by the way. Perhaps we should get back to the Hunley now?" he said. "Agreed. Let's let them have their moment for now, though." she replied.
END OF CHAPTER TWENTY.
Author's note: Holy carp! We just reached twenty chapters so far, and we're not even halfway done with this thing! I've started doing the character drawings with intent on slowly expanding this into a webcomic-style thingamajig, and perhaps some animations thrown in there. I've started working on developing the storyline into something more focused on a central theme, while having something resembling episodes in every chapter. I've also started an effort to make the chapters I post longer, and more detailed. Thanks to a suggestion by Zyrr, I've started actually revising my work instead of just posting it as-is. Tell me what you think, or perhaps what direction you want the story to head in next!
Thomas checked the radar before turning off the ship's power. There were two small signatures that were speeding for orbit, but the sky was clear other than them. "The remaining transports are headed towards space, we should be clear for a while. Let's go talk to this captain." Thomas said, starting to walk out the back of the ship. Joshua and Tara started to follow him, but Jacobson stayed in his seat. "Jacobson, we've got to go." Thomas said, walking back inside and grabbing Jacobson's shoulder. He turned around, wide-eyed. "I'm...I'm just going to stay...for a while." he said slowly. "I need some time to think." he said, turning back around and slumping down into the chair. "Fair enough. We'll be inside if you need us." Thomas said, as he started to walk back out of the ship. "...Thanks." Jacobson said. Tara and Joshua were waiting outside, looking at the cargo ship, which had deployed its massive landing gear and was resting with the majority of the hull well above the treetops. They started walking towards the ship, and a loading elevator began to descend from the hull. On it were three people wearing body armor and carrying assault rifles, and a small scout ship with its wings folded. As they got closer to the ship, two of the men started working on unfolding the scout's wings, while the third started walking in Thomas' direction. He was an old man who stood about six feet tall with very dark skin, a large mustache, grey hair and glasses. "Well this has been a rather hectic day, hasn't it?" he said, sourly. "I've got fires on three decks, at least six dead, and the medical bay is already full. That, and they blew a good sized hole in the containment vessel of our Alcubierre drive, so that thing is almost certainly out of commission for a while. I'm assuming you three are the ones who were supposed to help guide us in? I lost contact with the Euphrates after that fireball, were you able to raise them on comms?" "That fireball was the Euphrates. As far as we can tell, their fusion reactor was breached, and it cracked wide open." Thomas said. "Oh...Oh no... How many were there? Did anyone make it out in time?" the man said, dejectedly. "I don't know. As far as we can tell, probably not." Thomas said.
The man sighed. "Well, we still have work to do. I've got fires to put out, and we need to set up search parties to go look for survivors. My name is Eric Dalton, I'm the captain of this wonderful ship behind me, the HCS Hunley. She's not much to look at what with all the fires and blast damage, but once we get her fixed up you'll appreciate her beauty." he said, starting to walk back towards the loading elevator. "This is ensign McCracken and that's lieutenant Phelps." Dalton said, pointing at the two soldiers setting up the scout. "They'll be your escort. How many people can you carry in that thing?" Dalton said, nodding in the direction of their transport. "Ten or so, fifteen if they stand." Tara said. "Good luck. I'll be off, now." Dalton said, as he started climbing a ladder back up into the ship. McCracken walked over to them. "Afternoon you three. It's been one heck of a day so far, like the captain said. Here's hoping we can find someone out there." he said, panting. "A little tired, ensign?" Thomas asked. "More than a little, I've been on fire duty for the past thirty minutes now..." he stopped to catch his breath. "It's harder than you'd think." he said. Thomas examined him. He was a small man, only about five feet tall and couldn't have even been in his twenties yet. He had red hair, green eyes, and pale skin, and walked with a casual, but upright gait. He was drenched in sweat and breathing hard. "Do you need a minute...?" Tara asked. "No, no. I'm good to go!" McCracken said. "Fair enough... How long until your bird is in the air?" Tara said, looking over at the scout, where Phelps was locking the clamps which held the wing straight. "Not much more than a minute now, you may as well start powering up your own." Phelps said, not bothering to look up from his work. "You heard him, get moving." McCracken said. Tara shrugged and started heading back to the transport. Thomas and Joshua followed suit. "Well, isn't he just a little bundle of joy." Tara said, sitting down heavily in the pilot's chair. "You don't like him? I find him quite cheerful considering recent events." Joshua said as he strapped in. Thomas looked around as he strapped himself into a turret console, but he could not find Jacobson. "Guys...? We're a man short." he said. "Where did Jacobson wander off to?" he said, unbuckling and standing up. Thomas ran out to look around, but did not find Jacobson. "Missing something?" McCracken said, looking up from the scout. "Yeah, there was another guy in here. His name's Jacobson. You wouldn't happen to have seen him, would you?" Thomas said. "Nope, I'm afraid not. We're powered up and ready to go when you are, we can look for your friend using the scout." McCracken said, helping Phelps climb into the backseat of the scout, then getting in the front seat himself. "See you in the sky." he said, closing the canopy over him. Thomas went back into the transport and strapped himself in. "Well, let's get going, then. The sooner we can find Jacobson, the better." Tara looked back at Thomas and Joshua, powered up the ship, and took off. "I'm going to be broadcasting the radio using the ship's speakers, Just a sec while I set it up." Tara said, typing commands into the console. "Testing...testing... McCracken, can you hear me?" A crackly, metallic voice came from somewhere behind the chairs. "This is McCracken, I read you loud and clear." "We're proceeding in the direction of the Euphrates, you scan the area within a mile or two of the Hunley to see if you can find Jacobson." Tara said. "Copy that, good luck out there. McCracken out."
They flew towards the wreck of the Euphrates, which was now little more than a ring of small forest fires surrounding a vast circle of charred and smoldering ground, getting darker towards the center, where the remains of the wreck were. "I say we start around the wreck, maybe it sheltered some of them from the blast." Thomas said, leaning forward trying to get a good view of the blast. "Agreed. I'll find a place where we can land. Shouldn't be too hard, seeing as to how the blast practically leveled everything within a ten mile radius..." Tara said as she eased back on the throttle, starting their descent. The remains grew larger as they got closer, and Thomas could slowly start to see the damage that had been done. Parts of the ship were still intact and it was recognizable as at least the wreckage of a ship, but the majority of the reactor room had completely disintegrated, along with the bridge and antiaircraft cannons. The cargo hangar at the back of the ship and two of the engines were still there, but they were barely there at all, and a number of fires were raging throughout the remainder of the ship. "For what it's worth, I expected this to be worse." Tara said as she guided the ship in to land. They touched down with a thud, and Thomas unstrapped himself. "Don't you think we should be wearing hazmat suits...?" Thomas asked as Tara flipped a lever, opening the loading ramp. "We shouldn't be here long, we'll be fine." she said, stepping out onto the charred ground. Thomas grabbed his rifle and stepped outside. The ground crunched beneath his feet. "Um... Is that glass?" he said, looking down. It was, in fact, glass. "The explosion was hot enough to leave you with some pretty nasty burns from miles away, I'm not surprised it caused the ground here to glass over." Tara said, casually walking into the smoldering ruins of the ship. "Best not to touch anything, it's probably still scalding hot." Thomas looked around, trying to find somewhere people could hide. "You think the safety compartment survived? We should probably go and check." Thomas said, walking forward into the wreck. "You people just love safety, don't you? I'd be surprised if it survived." Tara said as she reached over to test how hot the metal was. She let out a short yelp, and pulled her hand away. "That's...more than a little warm." she said, holding her finger.
Thomas began walking towards the front of the remaining half of the ship when he heard a noise. It was faint and distant, but it was definitely a voice. "Guys, come here!" he yelled, putting his ear as close to the hot metal as he could without burning himself. Tara and Joshua came running over. Thomas listened for the voice until he heard a faint cry for help, coming from deep within the wreck. They started looking around for an entrance to the section. "Guys, I found something!" Joshua said, and the others came running over to him. They were looking at a door about two feet wide and seven feet tall, leading into a hallway which was at a crooked angle to the ground and went on for a few hundred meters before going around a turn which led it underground. "...Ladies first?" Joshua said, standing aside. Tara grabbed him and pushed him in. "Okay, okay..." he said as he began to walk through the tunnel. "Some sort of service corridor, by the looks of it. Thomas, do you know where we are on the ship?" Tara asked, turning around. "No idea. I mostly stayed in the civilian sections of the ship, only took a trip to engineering as part of a guided tour, and I certainly didn't go down any maintenance shafts." he said as they continued to walk deeper into the wreck. "Hey, I see a light up ahead. Hello? Is anyone there?!" Joshua said, starting to walk at a noticeably faster pace. They rounded the corner, and saw a small room, lit by a dim blue light hanging from the ceiling. In it was a girl about fourteen years old, covered in burns. She was huddled in a corner, with her head between her knees. "Hello?" Tara said, walking towards the girl. "My name's Tara. We're here to get you out of here." she said, kneeling down in front of the girl. She looked up at Tara. "My name's Giana... Giana Jacobson." Tara looked back at Thomas, then back at the girl. "Where is your dad? Were there any other survivors?" she asked. "I was the only one down here, I hide here when there's fighting... My dad...He was on the surface, but he's a sentry. Is he... is he alright?" she asked, her eyes starting to tear up. "Don't worry, your dad was on watch. He's safe now... We're here to get you back to him." Tara said, standing up. "Can you walk?" Giana stood up, slowly. Her skin was burned in numerous places, and her clothes were covered in soot. "Sort of. I hurt my leg in the explosion, but I think I'll be fine." she said. "Let's get going, then." Tara said, helping her to walk out of the tunnel.
Once they were back on the ship, Tara radioed in to McCracken that they found a survivor."You did?! I uhh... Well, I'll be quite up front with you. I didn't expect you to have found anyone." he said. "Any luck finding..." Tara looked back at Giana, who was being treated for her burns by Joshua. She turned off "Not yet, I'm afraid. We've looked through all the clearings, but...wait... Okay hang on, I think I see something. Yeah, that's a person." McCracken said. "We're getting out to go talk to him. Can you meet us here?" A waypoint appeared on the console. "Sure thing. Tara out." Tara said, turning around. Thomas looked up, and walked over to her. "What's the news?" he said, kneeling down beside the pilot's chair. "They found him, we're on our way there now." Tara replied. "Glad we did, else we'd have to explain to Giana why we can't find him." she said, looking back at Giana. The radio buzzed again. "Tara, this is McCracken. You need to get here NOW."
Tara looked at Thomas, and back at the console. She turned on the loudspeakers. "Everybody buckle in, we're going to have to speed up a bit." she said, reaching for the throttle. Thomas sat down in the turret chair and strapped himself in, and saw Giana and Joshua do the same. A few minutes of flying later, Tara could see the scout ship with three people just outside of it. They seemed to be arguing. She brought the transport in right beside them, and unbuckled. McCracken had found Jacobson, but something was wrong. She stepped outside and began walking towards the three. Jacobson's voice was the first she heard. "...What's the point, anyway?! Why should I just sit here on this worthless rock, being hunted by Scavengers, and now I don't even have the last remnant of my family! She's dead, they're all dead! Nobody could have survived that!" he said, breaking down in tears. Tara started running over to Jacobson, and saw that he was holding a gun. "Jacobson, wait!" she said, swatting the gun out of his hand. "Giana's fine! We found her, she's in the transport being treated for minor burns." she said, looking him in the eyes. Jacobson took a step back. "How...how did you..." he started to say, before he fell down and began to cry. Tara grabbed his gun and ran back inside the transport. "Joshua, get her out here now." Tara said, grabbing Joshua on the shoulder. "Alright, alright..." he said, helping her up. "Come on, let's go see your dad." They walked outside. Giana looked over and saw Jacobson, who was now standing. "Dad!" she exclaimed, running as fast as her leg could carry her into her father's arms. "She's got a fractured right leg... To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if that little run just snapped it entirely..." Joshua said, looking slightly worried.
Jacobson looked up at the three. "Thank you, thank you so much for saving her. She's all the family I have left..." he said. McCracken looked over at Tara. "Nice job handling that, by the way. Perhaps we should get back to the Hunley now?" he said. "Agreed. Let's let them have their moment for now, though." she replied.
END OF CHAPTER TWENTY.
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Chapter Twenty One- The Mess Hall
Captain Dalton was waiting for them when they got back to the Hunley. "I heard you found one..." he said, strolling over to them. "Impressive. There have been a few people walking up to the Hunley since the explosion, we've got most of them in the hangar right now." he said. "Come with me, I've not had the time to meet you formally yet." he said, adjusting his cap and turning around to go back up the loading elevator. "Captain, the person we did find is seriously injured. Is there a medical station set up?" Joshua asked. "How bad is she hurt?" "Severe burns on the majority of her skin, and at least one fracture if her leg hasn't already snapped in two." "I'm afraid she's not our most pressing patient, at the moment. You're a doctor, correct?" Dalton said as he started to climb the ladder. "Yes, I am." Joshua said, following him. "Good, we need every doctor we can get. I'm sending you to the medical bay to help treat our wounded." Dalton said, reaching the top. Thomas and Tara went with him, while Jacobson and McCracken started the elevator for Giana. When Thomas reached the top of the ladder, he looked around at the seemingly vast interior of the Hunley. He was in a large hangar, filled with...tanks. "Captain, I thought you said you were on your way to a mining operation...?" he said. "We were, but our cargo was geared more towards stopping the...uh..." He paused. "Terrorists that have been plaguing the site." Dalton replied cautiously. "With tanks? I don't recall anyone ever having to bring in armor for that sort of thing. How bad is it?" Thomas said. "Very. These terrorists are currently in possession of an...um... armory platform in a high orbit above the mining operation." Dalton said, as he began to walk towards a door at the far end of the hangar. Thomas followed him. "What's an armory platform doing in orbit above a mining colony?" he said. "Well...uh, there's been a bit of news lately regarding the war... Supposedly, our positions near the planet are being targeted. Only time will tell, I guess." Dalton said, as he opened the door. "Your room is this way, I believe." he said, extending an arm into the doorway.
Thomas walked through, into a room filled wall to wall with machinery and makeshift beds. It smelled strongly of oil and burnt metal. Thomas coughed. "Hey, another one!" a voice said. "What patrol were you on?" A tall man stood up from behind a crate. "I'm not with a patrol, I came from the front half of the Euphrates." Thomas replied. "The...front half? You mean there are survivors there too? This is fantastic!" he said, walking into the dim light. Thomas saw that he was smiling and wearing ragged clothes similar to Jacobson's. "It's...not exactly great. We only recovered one survivor from your end." Thomas said. "What do you mean?" the man said. "I mean we only found one girl still alive after the reactor detonated." Thomas replied. "The...the reactor? It went off?" The man sighed, and sat down on a barrel. "I told them it was gonna blow..." he said, no longer in a good mood. "You're sure no one else made it out?" "She's the only one we found, other than the sentries that were posted well away from the blast." Thomas replied. "Alright... Well, the mess hall is through there, second turn on the right." the man said, pointing down a hallway. Thomas walked down the hallway, and opened the mess hall door, which opened grudgingly after a hard push. It was dimly lit like the first room, and consisted of a counter with rations lined up behind it and a series of crates stacked to resemble tables. Thomas grabbed a ration, and sat down at the nearest table to the counter. The door opened again with a screeching noise, and he looked up. It was Tara. "Hey." he said, returning to his food. She walked over to the counter, grabbed a ration, and proceeded to open it. "I just got back from the hangar. Wherever these guys were headed, they're packing some serious heat." she said, opening a can of beans. "Didn't do them much good in this instance though. There's not much here in the way of space-capable anything. Lots and lots of air to ground, air to air missiles, ten or twenty gunships, and enough transports to carry everyone here, but there's only two space capable ships on the entire planet that we know of and you're currently sitting in one of them." she said, stamping the metal floor. "We could put up a good fight if the Styx ended up in-atmosphere, but I know that Vadim's not stupid enough to do that twice." she said between bites of a dry cracker. "Vadim?" Thomas asked. "He's the captain of the Styx. Salty old man, probably somewhere in his sixties. Missing an eye, just like the old sea pirates always seemed to be." she said, finishing her beans. "So, how exactly did you end up on that ship?" Thomas asked. "If you don't mind my asking, of course."
Tara sighed. "Well, it's been a while. I was taken from my home planet when I was just a little girl. I don't really remember much before they found me, to be honest. I was playing outside with my friends, and suddenly a bunch of sirens started going off. I ran back to my house and turned on the holovision, and there was some reporter blubbering on about some experiment with nanomachines. As I listened, she started saying how they were, like, eating the whole planet. Then, the screen switched over to the public advisory channel, and it told everybody to get off the planet however they could. My mom was still at work when it happened, so I just started running towards her office. I ran, and I ran, and things started feeling really pretty weird... You know that feeling when you're out in space and you get real hot on one side and cold on the other?" she asked. "I haven't been in EVA much, but I think I know what you mean, yeah." Thomas replied. "Well, it felt like that. I looked up at the sun, and it seemed really bright, but the sky was getting dark and there were all these ships flying away..." She looked down at her food. " And then there was this really big earthquake, and I fell down. I sat there crying for a while... " she laughed. "I was a little crybaby back then. All I did was scrape my knee... So, I eventually got over it and started running towards my mom's office, but people were running around and I couldn't get to her... I got caught up in a crowd that was probably heading for a spaceport, and I got knocked down... There were all these people running around and screaming, and I got scared... So, I crawled over to a wall and curled up into a ball and just stayed put. I guess I figured my mom was going to come get me or something. But, she never did... I was sitting there, just rocking back and forth, waiting for my mom, but I started breathing really hard, and I remember trying to lay down, because, you know, I figured I was just really tired or something from running almost all the way to my mom's office. There were a few more earthquakes, and I looked around and there weren't any more people left...I thought I could see lava or something way off in the distance, too. I looked up again, but this time there was only one ship...this big, black and red ship. I just kind of sat there watching the thing, and I could see some transports heading down from it. They ended up landing not too far from me, and some people got out and started running towards my mom's office... So I, being the child I was at the time, decided that they were definitely going to get my mother, and I'd better wait for them at the transports. I got up and walked over to these things, and sat down in the pilot's chair of one of them. I waited for a while, and here come these guys again. I looked at them, but my mom wasn't with them... All they were carrying were some papers, and a few rocks, so I got up and went to ask them where my mom was... I remember talking to..." she sighed. "Well, I asked this guy where my mom was, and he looked over at the other people. He told them to go get in the other transport, and he got down on one knee and looked me in the eye and told me that my mom was probably already dead, and that we needed to leave now... There was something in his eyes, I...I knew he was right. I just rolled over on the ground and started crying, so he looked over at the other guys as they got in their transport, and he picked me up and carried me into his ship..." She took a slow bite of her food, and continued. "He flew me away to the big ship, and he took me to a room and tucked me into a bed... He walked back outside, and I just sort of sat there, crying. Eventually, he walked back in with this big guy with really dark skin and an eyepatch...Captain Vadim. I remember him having a really hoarse voice, but he was nice to me... He gave me his hat and tried to make me feel better... Someone came up and tapped him on the shoulder and he ended up leaving, so there was just this other guy left... He told me his name was Derrick, and that everything was going to be perfectly fine, and that we'd all be happy..." Tara said, opening her drink.
"Well, I ended up adjusting to the ship well enough, learned all the basics like how to fix the sink in my room that was always breaking, and by the time I was fourteen I was already flying my first fighter. Apparently I was really good, because the day I turned eighteen they had this ceremony and everything in the ship's hangar, where they swore me and two other people in as part of the crew." She looked up. "So, things were pretty quiet, we were going around doing sort of a mix of good and bad stuff... Mostly contract work, even took up a letter of marque from the Human Confederacy, but after a few years of that we ended up doing our own stuff. Which, in time, led us to you." she said, looking at Thomas. "So, why'd you leave them?" Thomas asked. "Well...I-" "Attention all hands, this is captain Dalton. We have radar contact with a number of enemy strike craft closing on the Hunley. Estimated time of arrival, ten minutes. All combat personnel report to their stations, all nonessential or civilian personnel report to the hangar immediately." The lights turned a bright red, and sirens started wailing throughout the ship. Tara stood up. "I'll tell you later." she said, running out the door towards the hangar. Thomas stood up and started to follow her.
END OF CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
Captain Dalton was waiting for them when they got back to the Hunley. "I heard you found one..." he said, strolling over to them. "Impressive. There have been a few people walking up to the Hunley since the explosion, we've got most of them in the hangar right now." he said. "Come with me, I've not had the time to meet you formally yet." he said, adjusting his cap and turning around to go back up the loading elevator. "Captain, the person we did find is seriously injured. Is there a medical station set up?" Joshua asked. "How bad is she hurt?" "Severe burns on the majority of her skin, and at least one fracture if her leg hasn't already snapped in two." "I'm afraid she's not our most pressing patient, at the moment. You're a doctor, correct?" Dalton said as he started to climb the ladder. "Yes, I am." Joshua said, following him. "Good, we need every doctor we can get. I'm sending you to the medical bay to help treat our wounded." Dalton said, reaching the top. Thomas and Tara went with him, while Jacobson and McCracken started the elevator for Giana. When Thomas reached the top of the ladder, he looked around at the seemingly vast interior of the Hunley. He was in a large hangar, filled with...tanks. "Captain, I thought you said you were on your way to a mining operation...?" he said. "We were, but our cargo was geared more towards stopping the...uh..." He paused. "Terrorists that have been plaguing the site." Dalton replied cautiously. "With tanks? I don't recall anyone ever having to bring in armor for that sort of thing. How bad is it?" Thomas said. "Very. These terrorists are currently in possession of an...um... armory platform in a high orbit above the mining operation." Dalton said, as he began to walk towards a door at the far end of the hangar. Thomas followed him. "What's an armory platform doing in orbit above a mining colony?" he said. "Well...uh, there's been a bit of news lately regarding the war... Supposedly, our positions near the planet are being targeted. Only time will tell, I guess." Dalton said, as he opened the door. "Your room is this way, I believe." he said, extending an arm into the doorway.
Thomas walked through, into a room filled wall to wall with machinery and makeshift beds. It smelled strongly of oil and burnt metal. Thomas coughed. "Hey, another one!" a voice said. "What patrol were you on?" A tall man stood up from behind a crate. "I'm not with a patrol, I came from the front half of the Euphrates." Thomas replied. "The...front half? You mean there are survivors there too? This is fantastic!" he said, walking into the dim light. Thomas saw that he was smiling and wearing ragged clothes similar to Jacobson's. "It's...not exactly great. We only recovered one survivor from your end." Thomas said. "What do you mean?" the man said. "I mean we only found one girl still alive after the reactor detonated." Thomas replied. "The...the reactor? It went off?" The man sighed, and sat down on a barrel. "I told them it was gonna blow..." he said, no longer in a good mood. "You're sure no one else made it out?" "She's the only one we found, other than the sentries that were posted well away from the blast." Thomas replied. "Alright... Well, the mess hall is through there, second turn on the right." the man said, pointing down a hallway. Thomas walked down the hallway, and opened the mess hall door, which opened grudgingly after a hard push. It was dimly lit like the first room, and consisted of a counter with rations lined up behind it and a series of crates stacked to resemble tables. Thomas grabbed a ration, and sat down at the nearest table to the counter. The door opened again with a screeching noise, and he looked up. It was Tara. "Hey." he said, returning to his food. She walked over to the counter, grabbed a ration, and proceeded to open it. "I just got back from the hangar. Wherever these guys were headed, they're packing some serious heat." she said, opening a can of beans. "Didn't do them much good in this instance though. There's not much here in the way of space-capable anything. Lots and lots of air to ground, air to air missiles, ten or twenty gunships, and enough transports to carry everyone here, but there's only two space capable ships on the entire planet that we know of and you're currently sitting in one of them." she said, stamping the metal floor. "We could put up a good fight if the Styx ended up in-atmosphere, but I know that Vadim's not stupid enough to do that twice." she said between bites of a dry cracker. "Vadim?" Thomas asked. "He's the captain of the Styx. Salty old man, probably somewhere in his sixties. Missing an eye, just like the old sea pirates always seemed to be." she said, finishing her beans. "So, how exactly did you end up on that ship?" Thomas asked. "If you don't mind my asking, of course."
Tara sighed. "Well, it's been a while. I was taken from my home planet when I was just a little girl. I don't really remember much before they found me, to be honest. I was playing outside with my friends, and suddenly a bunch of sirens started going off. I ran back to my house and turned on the holovision, and there was some reporter blubbering on about some experiment with nanomachines. As I listened, she started saying how they were, like, eating the whole planet. Then, the screen switched over to the public advisory channel, and it told everybody to get off the planet however they could. My mom was still at work when it happened, so I just started running towards her office. I ran, and I ran, and things started feeling really pretty weird... You know that feeling when you're out in space and you get real hot on one side and cold on the other?" she asked. "I haven't been in EVA much, but I think I know what you mean, yeah." Thomas replied. "Well, it felt like that. I looked up at the sun, and it seemed really bright, but the sky was getting dark and there were all these ships flying away..." She looked down at her food. " And then there was this really big earthquake, and I fell down. I sat there crying for a while... " she laughed. "I was a little crybaby back then. All I did was scrape my knee... So, I eventually got over it and started running towards my mom's office, but people were running around and I couldn't get to her... I got caught up in a crowd that was probably heading for a spaceport, and I got knocked down... There were all these people running around and screaming, and I got scared... So, I crawled over to a wall and curled up into a ball and just stayed put. I guess I figured my mom was going to come get me or something. But, she never did... I was sitting there, just rocking back and forth, waiting for my mom, but I started breathing really hard, and I remember trying to lay down, because, you know, I figured I was just really tired or something from running almost all the way to my mom's office. There were a few more earthquakes, and I looked around and there weren't any more people left...I thought I could see lava or something way off in the distance, too. I looked up again, but this time there was only one ship...this big, black and red ship. I just kind of sat there watching the thing, and I could see some transports heading down from it. They ended up landing not too far from me, and some people got out and started running towards my mom's office... So I, being the child I was at the time, decided that they were definitely going to get my mother, and I'd better wait for them at the transports. I got up and walked over to these things, and sat down in the pilot's chair of one of them. I waited for a while, and here come these guys again. I looked at them, but my mom wasn't with them... All they were carrying were some papers, and a few rocks, so I got up and went to ask them where my mom was... I remember talking to..." she sighed. "Well, I asked this guy where my mom was, and he looked over at the other people. He told them to go get in the other transport, and he got down on one knee and looked me in the eye and told me that my mom was probably already dead, and that we needed to leave now... There was something in his eyes, I...I knew he was right. I just rolled over on the ground and started crying, so he looked over at the other guys as they got in their transport, and he picked me up and carried me into his ship..." She took a slow bite of her food, and continued. "He flew me away to the big ship, and he took me to a room and tucked me into a bed... He walked back outside, and I just sort of sat there, crying. Eventually, he walked back in with this big guy with really dark skin and an eyepatch...Captain Vadim. I remember him having a really hoarse voice, but he was nice to me... He gave me his hat and tried to make me feel better... Someone came up and tapped him on the shoulder and he ended up leaving, so there was just this other guy left... He told me his name was Derrick, and that everything was going to be perfectly fine, and that we'd all be happy..." Tara said, opening her drink.
"Well, I ended up adjusting to the ship well enough, learned all the basics like how to fix the sink in my room that was always breaking, and by the time I was fourteen I was already flying my first fighter. Apparently I was really good, because the day I turned eighteen they had this ceremony and everything in the ship's hangar, where they swore me and two other people in as part of the crew." She looked up. "So, things were pretty quiet, we were going around doing sort of a mix of good and bad stuff... Mostly contract work, even took up a letter of marque from the Human Confederacy, but after a few years of that we ended up doing our own stuff. Which, in time, led us to you." she said, looking at Thomas. "So, why'd you leave them?" Thomas asked. "Well...I-" "Attention all hands, this is captain Dalton. We have radar contact with a number of enemy strike craft closing on the Hunley. Estimated time of arrival, ten minutes. All combat personnel report to their stations, all nonessential or civilian personnel report to the hangar immediately." The lights turned a bright red, and sirens started wailing throughout the ship. Tara stood up. "I'll tell you later." she said, running out the door towards the hangar. Thomas stood up and started to follow her.
END OF CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
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- 1,312
Chapter Twenty Two- Back into the Forest
Tara ran back through the hallway back out into the hangar, which was now filled with flashing red lights and people running about towards their various stations. There were gunships being towed towards the loading bays and missiles being loaded onto the ones that were still waiting. "Tara, wait for me!" Thomas said, catching up to her. She turned around, putting on her helmet. "You heard the captain. I'm a pilot and I've got a ship, so I'm taking off with them." she said, nodding back at the activity behind her. "I still need a gunner though-" "Tara, Thomas!" a voice echoed from the hallway they had just left. "I seriously hope you don't intend to fly into combat with that...thing you call a ship...do you?" It was McCracken, strapping on a pilot's helmet. "Come with me, I'll see if I can get you two a spot on a gunship. I know for a fact that we have more aircraft than pilots." he said as he shuffled past them towards the ladder that led to the ground. Tara looked over at Thomas, shrugged, and started following McCracken. "I...guess we will." Thomas said as he began to walk with Tara. He started climbing down the ladder as he watched another loading elevator inching its way to the ground, carrying a pair of gunships with their wings folded. "Thomas, this one's ours!" He looked to his right, and saw Tara running happily towards a sleek blue-grey ship about twenty meters long, with a small cockpit on the front of the craft and two small wings extending out from the top of the ship and a pair of large engines hanging off from beneath them. It was sitting in the field with its wings unfolded and the cockpit open. "This is niiiiiiice!" she said, hopping up into the pilot's chair. He reached the end of the ladder and started walking over to it. "She's ready to go, sir! All fueled up and weapons armed." a maintainer said as he stepped away from one of the weapons pylons on the wing. Thomas climbed up to the side of the cockpit and saw Tara sitting in the back seat. "I'm flying, you get to do the fun part." she said, as he climbed into the forward seat. "So...do I get a helmet?" Thomas asked, strapping himself into the chair as the canopy closed above him. "Yeah, um... hm." Tara replied. "Hm what?" Thomas asked, trying in vain to turn around and look at Tara. "Well, you kind of need one to track targets, aaand I don't see a helmet in here." she said, rummaging around under her chair. She sighed, and sat back up, flipping a switch which opened the canopy. "HEY! McCracken!" she yelled, and a few seconds later he came running up to the ship and leaned over into the cockpit. "Yeah, what do you need?" he asked, panting. "Thomas doesn't have a helmet." she said, sticking her thumb out in his direction. "That...is a problem. Um..." McCracken started looking around, as the other gunships started turning on their engines. "Listen, we need to get in the air now." Tara said, getting irritated. "Just a second, I need to go get one from the hangar." McCracken said, stepping off and running back towards the ship. "Great, we're stuck here because you forgot your helmet. Great job, Thomas." she said, slapping the console in front of her. "Me?! Nobody told me I needed one or offered me a helmet. It's not my fault they didn't give me any stuff before throwing me into this thing... Heck, I don't even know what half these buttons do." he said, waving his hands at the console in front of him. "Oh look, there they go...off into the wild blue yonder without us." Tara said, pointing at the other gunships as the took off and started heading towards the oncoming Scavenger fleet.
McCracken came running back towards them with a helmet in his hand. He stepped back up onto the ship and leaned over into the cockpit. "Heeeeere you are, Thomas." he said, as he slapped the helmet over Thomas' head. "Fits good? Nothing stuck? Okay, flip the visor down." he said, slapping the helmet's visor down over Thomas' face. "Where did I put that checklist...WHATEVER, you're good to fly! he said, slamming the canopy down over them. "Oh, wait a minute..." he mumbled, wrenching the canopy open again. "Almost forgot to turn your power on... eheh..." he said, reaching down and flipping a switch on the side of Thomas' helmet. "Aaaalright, that'll do it! Good luck you two." he said, slamming the canopy down again. He stepped off the ship and started running back towards his own gunship, which was waiting with its canopy open. "That...was even sketchier than the preflights they do on the Styx." Tara said, flipping the master arm switch.
"VA four-fifty one Sparrow in-flight operating system version one-point-three, online. Radar online, tracking multiple entities. Weapons system online, registering eight AA seventeen version three variant HE missiles, one heavy cannon..." the helmet rambled on giving weapon statuses and radar contacts. The visor lit up a bright green, flashed the Human Confederacy emblem, and the avionics displayed. "IFR online, registering channel..." the ship continued to warm up its systems. "Testing, testing, testing. Thomas, can you hear me?" Tara's voice came through the helmet. "I hear you, Tara." Thomas said, giving a thumbs up. "Alright, good. Engines are warming up now, we'll be in the air in about a minute. Now, do you see the panel in front of you?" she said, continuing to flip switches Thomas did not know the meaning of. "Yeah, this big screen. right?" he said, tapping the only screen on his console. It flashed red, and the helmet buzzed a warning tone. "Deploying countermeasures." the computer said, and Thomas could feel a thump from back behind the cockpit. "Great job, Thomas... Try not to touch anything if you don't know what it means." Tara said with a sigh. "Alright, you should have a pair of joysticks off to the sides of that. It's basically the same thing as the turret you were using earlier.
"This is Sparrow one-three requesting support, two hostiles on our tail!" "Sparrow two-five, you're leaking fuel out of your right...Sparrow two-five is gone, I say again, Sparrow two-five is gone." The helmet filled with radio chatter. "Crap, they're getting hammered!" Tara exclaimed. "Alright long story short, look at your targets using your helmet, and fire using the buttons on the joysticks. Here we go!" she said, as they began to fly. "This is Hunley actual, we've got enemy reinforcements on radar, estimated time of arrival ten minutes." the radio went off again. "More of them... Faaaaantastic." Tara said as they began to gain altitude. Thomas could make out a series of white contrails and large black clouds of smoke from missile detonations. Occasionally, a contrail would connect with a smaller one and erupt into fire, veering sharply off of its original course. "We'll be within weapons range in thirty seconds. Thomas, go ahead and start sighting targets. "Um... how do I tell who is who?!" he yelled into the helmet's microphone. "No need to shout, thank you!" Tara said. "Do you see little blue and green boxes around the other ships?" she asked. "Uh...no." Thomas said, quitely. Tara sighed. "Well, great. Alright, look at the console. There should be a button that says 'Activate target distinguish.', do you see it?" "Um..." Thomas looked around the console. "Found it!" he said. "Alright, press that button and you should see boxes." she said. He tapped the screen, and the boxes appeared around the other ships. "Alright, I've got it. Green ones are the good guys and blue are the bad guys, right?" "NO NO NO WAIT!" Tara yelled. "Blue is friendly, target the green boxes!" she said, exasperated. "Uhhhhh alright." Thomas said, nervously. He looked at one of the green boxes, and heard a high pitched tone screeching from his helmet. "Uh, what's that noise?!" Thomas asked. "That's the lock tone, Thomas. It means you can fire at the ship." Tara said. "Oh, okay." Thomas said, pressing one of the buttons on the joysticks. He felt a thump from off to his left, and saw a missile detach from the wing and speed towards the green box. "Missile away!" he said, watching it streaming towards the other ship. "Missile impact in five...four...three..." the computer counted down the time left until the missile detonated on top of the enemy ship. "...two...one... Missile impact confirmed. Target destroyed." Thomas saw the box go away and could just barely make out the enemy craft streaming smoke as it caught fire and began to fall towards the surface. "This is Sparrow Three-One. Welcome to the party, you two. Took you long enough to get here." a voice came out of the helmet. "We're wrapping up against the current threat, however the Hunley says there's more coming. We need you to fly out and engage them, try to draw them away from the main force while we wrap up here. I'm dispatching a pair of gunships to assist you, they should group with you in a matter of seconds. You are to proceed South until all enemy contacts over the Hunley are destroyed." "Acknowledged, Sparrow Three-One. Proceeding South until the Hunley is clear." Tara said. Thomas could feel the ship veer sharply to the right, and they accelerated away from the Hunley. The other gunships flew up and leveled off on either side of them. "Afternoon, you two. Glad to see me?" McCracken's voice came on over the radio. Thomas looked out to the side, and, sure enough, McCracken and Phelps were flying the gunship to his right. "Seems we got the easy job, all we have to do is-" McCracken's voice was interrupted by a steam of blue light cutting between him and Thomas. "...I stand corrected. So long as we don't get caught up in a dogfight with them we should be fine. They don't seem to have any missiles, or anything with a range of more than a few kilometers, for that matter." McCracken said. "I've got contacts due South, about a hundred kilometers out." Phelps said. "You heard the man, here we go." McCracken said, and his ship accelerated.
Tara began to accelerate to keep pace with McCracken, and Thomas looked at the radar as he watched the Scavenger fleet close in on them. He wondered how, in a few weeks time, he went from an ordinary, boring linguist to a nanomachine-infested gunship pilot on an alien world. "Heads up Thomas, we're almost within range." Tara said, snapping Thomas back to attention on the task at hand. He looked at one of the growing number of green boxes, and heard the tone. He fired a missile off at the box, and after a few seconds the streaming white line impacted the center of the box, and something far away burst into flames. "Got one!" Thomas exclaimed, targeting another ship. He felt a small, faint rumble from somewhere back behind the cockpit. "Thomas, um...Can you check the lubricant pressure?" Tara said, sounding slightly nervous. "Sure, um... How do I do that?" he said sheepishly. "There's a bunch of graphs on the console, right? Find the one that says oil pressure or something." Tara said. "You'd think they would have it up there where the person flying the ship could see it..." Thomas said, scanning the dashboard. He saw a series of bars indicating various statistics, and started looking at the names under each bar. "Fuel, electrici-" the ship bucked and threw Thomas against the back of his seat. "Tara, can you keep the thing steady? These words are really small, and you flying like that certainly isn't helping." Thomas said, straining to look back behind him. "Wasn't me, but I've got a feeling you won't need to check the lubricant. I'm... getting a warning signal that our port engine is on fire." she replied. "Fire?! Did we get hit?" Thomas yelled, trying to look out at the engine. "Nope, you would have noticed. Something tells me we're out of oil and the engine just overheated." Tara said. "I've shut it off, but I doubt we can make a vertical landing now." she said, grunting as she pulled hard to the right on the control stick. "It's getting hard to control the thing as is." "Thomas, Tara, you two having problems down there? You're losing altitude." McCracken's voice came on over the radio. "Our port-side engine caught fire and we're running low on lubricant...You did the entire preflight on this thing, right?" Tara asked. "Well, I mean we did all the important stuff on the list..." McCracken said slowly after a short delay. "You SERIOUSLY didn't-" Tara began to yell into the radio at McCracken when the ship's remaining engine emitted a loud grinding noise and fell apart in a cloud of blueish black smoke. "We've just lost our last engine, we're going down!" Tara yelled, gripping the control stick with both hands. "Thomas, pull your ejection lever, it's the big yellow striped handle between your legs!" Thomas reached down and pulled on the lever, but it didn't budge. "It's not working!" Thomas yelled back at Tara, who was frantically trying to keep the aircraft level. "Just keep pulling, it's got to come loose sooner or later!" she said. "You've got ten seconds 'till we hit the dirt, Thomas!" He looked over the dashboard and saw the ground coming up to meet them. "That's it, we're too low! Hunley actual, this is Tara, we've suffered a catastrophic failure and are going down over grid coordinates one tw-" she was cut short by the sudden thump of the aircraft hitting the ground, and a series of branches smashed through the hull as they slid. A large, gnarled branch smashed the canopy and broke the console behind Thomas, barely missing his head. Another branch tore off the top of the canopy, and Thomas could hear Tara scream as he turned around to try and look at her. He looked forward again just in time to see a branch as it hit him directly in the forehead. He blacked out.
END OF CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Tara ran back through the hallway back out into the hangar, which was now filled with flashing red lights and people running about towards their various stations. There were gunships being towed towards the loading bays and missiles being loaded onto the ones that were still waiting. "Tara, wait for me!" Thomas said, catching up to her. She turned around, putting on her helmet. "You heard the captain. I'm a pilot and I've got a ship, so I'm taking off with them." she said, nodding back at the activity behind her. "I still need a gunner though-" "Tara, Thomas!" a voice echoed from the hallway they had just left. "I seriously hope you don't intend to fly into combat with that...thing you call a ship...do you?" It was McCracken, strapping on a pilot's helmet. "Come with me, I'll see if I can get you two a spot on a gunship. I know for a fact that we have more aircraft than pilots." he said as he shuffled past them towards the ladder that led to the ground. Tara looked over at Thomas, shrugged, and started following McCracken. "I...guess we will." Thomas said as he began to walk with Tara. He started climbing down the ladder as he watched another loading elevator inching its way to the ground, carrying a pair of gunships with their wings folded. "Thomas, this one's ours!" He looked to his right, and saw Tara running happily towards a sleek blue-grey ship about twenty meters long, with a small cockpit on the front of the craft and two small wings extending out from the top of the ship and a pair of large engines hanging off from beneath them. It was sitting in the field with its wings unfolded and the cockpit open. "This is niiiiiiice!" she said, hopping up into the pilot's chair. He reached the end of the ladder and started walking over to it. "She's ready to go, sir! All fueled up and weapons armed." a maintainer said as he stepped away from one of the weapons pylons on the wing. Thomas climbed up to the side of the cockpit and saw Tara sitting in the back seat. "I'm flying, you get to do the fun part." she said, as he climbed into the forward seat. "So...do I get a helmet?" Thomas asked, strapping himself into the chair as the canopy closed above him. "Yeah, um... hm." Tara replied. "Hm what?" Thomas asked, trying in vain to turn around and look at Tara. "Well, you kind of need one to track targets, aaand I don't see a helmet in here." she said, rummaging around under her chair. She sighed, and sat back up, flipping a switch which opened the canopy. "HEY! McCracken!" she yelled, and a few seconds later he came running up to the ship and leaned over into the cockpit. "Yeah, what do you need?" he asked, panting. "Thomas doesn't have a helmet." she said, sticking her thumb out in his direction. "That...is a problem. Um..." McCracken started looking around, as the other gunships started turning on their engines. "Listen, we need to get in the air now." Tara said, getting irritated. "Just a second, I need to go get one from the hangar." McCracken said, stepping off and running back towards the ship. "Great, we're stuck here because you forgot your helmet. Great job, Thomas." she said, slapping the console in front of her. "Me?! Nobody told me I needed one or offered me a helmet. It's not my fault they didn't give me any stuff before throwing me into this thing... Heck, I don't even know what half these buttons do." he said, waving his hands at the console in front of him. "Oh look, there they go...off into the wild blue yonder without us." Tara said, pointing at the other gunships as the took off and started heading towards the oncoming Scavenger fleet.
McCracken came running back towards them with a helmet in his hand. He stepped back up onto the ship and leaned over into the cockpit. "Heeeeere you are, Thomas." he said, as he slapped the helmet over Thomas' head. "Fits good? Nothing stuck? Okay, flip the visor down." he said, slapping the helmet's visor down over Thomas' face. "Where did I put that checklist...WHATEVER, you're good to fly! he said, slamming the canopy down over them. "Oh, wait a minute..." he mumbled, wrenching the canopy open again. "Almost forgot to turn your power on... eheh..." he said, reaching down and flipping a switch on the side of Thomas' helmet. "Aaaalright, that'll do it! Good luck you two." he said, slamming the canopy down again. He stepped off the ship and started running back towards his own gunship, which was waiting with its canopy open. "That...was even sketchier than the preflights they do on the Styx." Tara said, flipping the master arm switch.
"VA four-fifty one Sparrow in-flight operating system version one-point-three, online. Radar online, tracking multiple entities. Weapons system online, registering eight AA seventeen version three variant HE missiles, one heavy cannon..." the helmet rambled on giving weapon statuses and radar contacts. The visor lit up a bright green, flashed the Human Confederacy emblem, and the avionics displayed. "IFR online, registering channel..." the ship continued to warm up its systems. "Testing, testing, testing. Thomas, can you hear me?" Tara's voice came through the helmet. "I hear you, Tara." Thomas said, giving a thumbs up. "Alright, good. Engines are warming up now, we'll be in the air in about a minute. Now, do you see the panel in front of you?" she said, continuing to flip switches Thomas did not know the meaning of. "Yeah, this big screen. right?" he said, tapping the only screen on his console. It flashed red, and the helmet buzzed a warning tone. "Deploying countermeasures." the computer said, and Thomas could feel a thump from back behind the cockpit. "Great job, Thomas... Try not to touch anything if you don't know what it means." Tara said with a sigh. "Alright, you should have a pair of joysticks off to the sides of that. It's basically the same thing as the turret you were using earlier.
"This is Sparrow one-three requesting support, two hostiles on our tail!" "Sparrow two-five, you're leaking fuel out of your right...Sparrow two-five is gone, I say again, Sparrow two-five is gone." The helmet filled with radio chatter. "Crap, they're getting hammered!" Tara exclaimed. "Alright long story short, look at your targets using your helmet, and fire using the buttons on the joysticks. Here we go!" she said, as they began to fly. "This is Hunley actual, we've got enemy reinforcements on radar, estimated time of arrival ten minutes." the radio went off again. "More of them... Faaaaantastic." Tara said as they began to gain altitude. Thomas could make out a series of white contrails and large black clouds of smoke from missile detonations. Occasionally, a contrail would connect with a smaller one and erupt into fire, veering sharply off of its original course. "We'll be within weapons range in thirty seconds. Thomas, go ahead and start sighting targets. "Um... how do I tell who is who?!" he yelled into the helmet's microphone. "No need to shout, thank you!" Tara said. "Do you see little blue and green boxes around the other ships?" she asked. "Uh...no." Thomas said, quitely. Tara sighed. "Well, great. Alright, look at the console. There should be a button that says 'Activate target distinguish.', do you see it?" "Um..." Thomas looked around the console. "Found it!" he said. "Alright, press that button and you should see boxes." she said. He tapped the screen, and the boxes appeared around the other ships. "Alright, I've got it. Green ones are the good guys and blue are the bad guys, right?" "NO NO NO WAIT!" Tara yelled. "Blue is friendly, target the green boxes!" she said, exasperated. "Uhhhhh alright." Thomas said, nervously. He looked at one of the green boxes, and heard a high pitched tone screeching from his helmet. "Uh, what's that noise?!" Thomas asked. "That's the lock tone, Thomas. It means you can fire at the ship." Tara said. "Oh, okay." Thomas said, pressing one of the buttons on the joysticks. He felt a thump from off to his left, and saw a missile detach from the wing and speed towards the green box. "Missile away!" he said, watching it streaming towards the other ship. "Missile impact in five...four...three..." the computer counted down the time left until the missile detonated on top of the enemy ship. "...two...one... Missile impact confirmed. Target destroyed." Thomas saw the box go away and could just barely make out the enemy craft streaming smoke as it caught fire and began to fall towards the surface. "This is Sparrow Three-One. Welcome to the party, you two. Took you long enough to get here." a voice came out of the helmet. "We're wrapping up against the current threat, however the Hunley says there's more coming. We need you to fly out and engage them, try to draw them away from the main force while we wrap up here. I'm dispatching a pair of gunships to assist you, they should group with you in a matter of seconds. You are to proceed South until all enemy contacts over the Hunley are destroyed." "Acknowledged, Sparrow Three-One. Proceeding South until the Hunley is clear." Tara said. Thomas could feel the ship veer sharply to the right, and they accelerated away from the Hunley. The other gunships flew up and leveled off on either side of them. "Afternoon, you two. Glad to see me?" McCracken's voice came on over the radio. Thomas looked out to the side, and, sure enough, McCracken and Phelps were flying the gunship to his right. "Seems we got the easy job, all we have to do is-" McCracken's voice was interrupted by a steam of blue light cutting between him and Thomas. "...I stand corrected. So long as we don't get caught up in a dogfight with them we should be fine. They don't seem to have any missiles, or anything with a range of more than a few kilometers, for that matter." McCracken said. "I've got contacts due South, about a hundred kilometers out." Phelps said. "You heard the man, here we go." McCracken said, and his ship accelerated.
Tara began to accelerate to keep pace with McCracken, and Thomas looked at the radar as he watched the Scavenger fleet close in on them. He wondered how, in a few weeks time, he went from an ordinary, boring linguist to a nanomachine-infested gunship pilot on an alien world. "Heads up Thomas, we're almost within range." Tara said, snapping Thomas back to attention on the task at hand. He looked at one of the growing number of green boxes, and heard the tone. He fired a missile off at the box, and after a few seconds the streaming white line impacted the center of the box, and something far away burst into flames. "Got one!" Thomas exclaimed, targeting another ship. He felt a small, faint rumble from somewhere back behind the cockpit. "Thomas, um...Can you check the lubricant pressure?" Tara said, sounding slightly nervous. "Sure, um... How do I do that?" he said sheepishly. "There's a bunch of graphs on the console, right? Find the one that says oil pressure or something." Tara said. "You'd think they would have it up there where the person flying the ship could see it..." Thomas said, scanning the dashboard. He saw a series of bars indicating various statistics, and started looking at the names under each bar. "Fuel, electrici-" the ship bucked and threw Thomas against the back of his seat. "Tara, can you keep the thing steady? These words are really small, and you flying like that certainly isn't helping." Thomas said, straining to look back behind him. "Wasn't me, but I've got a feeling you won't need to check the lubricant. I'm... getting a warning signal that our port engine is on fire." she replied. "Fire?! Did we get hit?" Thomas yelled, trying to look out at the engine. "Nope, you would have noticed. Something tells me we're out of oil and the engine just overheated." Tara said. "I've shut it off, but I doubt we can make a vertical landing now." she said, grunting as she pulled hard to the right on the control stick. "It's getting hard to control the thing as is." "Thomas, Tara, you two having problems down there? You're losing altitude." McCracken's voice came on over the radio. "Our port-side engine caught fire and we're running low on lubricant...You did the entire preflight on this thing, right?" Tara asked. "Well, I mean we did all the important stuff on the list..." McCracken said slowly after a short delay. "You SERIOUSLY didn't-" Tara began to yell into the radio at McCracken when the ship's remaining engine emitted a loud grinding noise and fell apart in a cloud of blueish black smoke. "We've just lost our last engine, we're going down!" Tara yelled, gripping the control stick with both hands. "Thomas, pull your ejection lever, it's the big yellow striped handle between your legs!" Thomas reached down and pulled on the lever, but it didn't budge. "It's not working!" Thomas yelled back at Tara, who was frantically trying to keep the aircraft level. "Just keep pulling, it's got to come loose sooner or later!" she said. "You've got ten seconds 'till we hit the dirt, Thomas!" He looked over the dashboard and saw the ground coming up to meet them. "That's it, we're too low! Hunley actual, this is Tara, we've suffered a catastrophic failure and are going down over grid coordinates one tw-" she was cut short by the sudden thump of the aircraft hitting the ground, and a series of branches smashed through the hull as they slid. A large, gnarled branch smashed the canopy and broke the console behind Thomas, barely missing his head. Another branch tore off the top of the canopy, and Thomas could hear Tara scream as he turned around to try and look at her. He looked forward again just in time to see a branch as it hit him directly in the forehead. He blacked out.
END OF CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
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