Trajectory, Deck 15, Hangar Bay
With most of Deck 15 under Insurgent control, there were precious few spaces left, where the hapless crewers on the deck, could take cover and hunker down. Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon squad pilots were trapped in the hangar proper, along with several dozen flight engineers. The outer hangar doors have been sealed by Insurgent sabotage, so they were unable to launch until the override was lifted. Quite a few others were killed along with the Marine squad, due to Tythazine poisoning, before, miraculously, the air-con system began spontaneously recycling the atmosphere, and purging the toxin.
Since it wasn't initiated by the deck's environmental control officer - who was lying dead at his station, one of the first casualties of the Insurgent detachment - it was a safe bet someone up at SysCon had figured out what was going on, and recycled the atmosphere before the toxin could reap more lives. Of course, Tythazine had achieved it's main purpose - decimating the Marine squad sent to repel the intruders, with the leftovers being easy pickings for the Insurgents.
Inside the hangar control room, overlooking the bay proper...
"Sir, they've just breached the outer blast doors." - one of the hangar flight crew reported, as the terminal readout before her flashed with a red-hued status update. Then she nervously peered out the viewport down into the spacious chamber filled with fighters, shuttles, and various servicing equipment. She could see pilots and flight engineers milling around, staying well clear of the inner blast doors, which were beginning to buckle slightly inward, as first of the shaped-charges the Insurgents were using to breach them, detonated on the other side. A few of the support staff were armed with needler sidearms, as per the captain's announcement, minutes ago... but most weren't able to arm themselves before the lockdown override was initiated. And now they couldn't even get to the weapons locker room, since it was on the other side of the deck, deep inside Insurgent-controlled areas.
The hangar duty officer scowled. If the inner doors were breached, everyone in that hangar would be subject to the nonexistent mercy of the Innies. The invaders knew that crippling the battlecruiser's fighter complement was a giant step towards gaining the upper hand in the battle outside. Without a full fighter screen, the Trajectory would be subject to close-range strafing runs of the enemy fighters, after they overwhelm and wipe out Alpha and Beta squad out there, and many more missiles would be slipping through the overwhelmed PD grid. Not to mention additional breach-pods, bringing more boarding parties into the fray.
"Can we route more power into the inner doors' polarization grid? It might help fortify the outer layer against the blasts." - the duty officer asked.
"I'll see what I can do... but it won't be by much. Might buy us an extra minute or two, at most." - the flight engineer muttered, moving over to another terminal.
Suddenly, another terminal began flashing. One of the other staff members looked at the duty officer, in surprise.
"Sir, we've got an incoming transmission!"
The officer frowned. "I thought the comms are still down?"
"They are. I don't get it... it's not being transmitted through our comm panel, it's using some kind of... hardline, to transmit a carrier wave. Maybe through the power grid itself?" - the man hazarded a guess.
The officer nodded. That meant that whoever was transmitting, knew what they were doing, engineering-wise. The problem was - he himself didn't. He was a hangar duty officer.
"Can we respond on the same carrier wave?" - he asked reflexively, even though he already knew the answer to that. None of his people here were trained as engineers. Just as the staff member was about to respond negatively, the other staff member cut in:
"Maybe we don't have to! Listen to the wave's pattern!" - she exclaimed.
Everyone quieted down, listening hard to the short bursts of static coming from the terminal. Indeed, they didn't seem to be random background noise - there was a pattern to them.
The duty officer furrowed his brow... before it dawned on him.
"It's Morse code!" - he breathed in surprise.
"A what?" - one of the staff blinked.
"Ancient telecomm signal used many hundreds of years ago, on old Earth, before hyperwave communications... long obsolete. But I've always been fascinated by sublight comms methods... looks like I'm not the only one on this ship! Get me a padd, quickly!" - he reached a hand, brow still furrowed, trying to follow the pattern.
Once he had one, he started tying the words... as best as he could interpret them, from the pattern. As he did, his expression kept changing, from desperation, to... cautious hope.
***
"Done!" - Annike Rand hissed, buried head-first into a maze of circuit-boards and conduits, in one of the service access tunnels between decks 14, and 15. She glanced up at Kosinski, with a grin, just finished interrupting the current in a pattern he dictated to her. Assuming it did lead where she though it led, from the schematics she accessed - the hangar control crew would have received the message. Whether or not any of them had any idea how to interpret it, was another matter - but it was better then nothing.
"I swear, in all my time in engineering courses at the Academy, I've never even heard of this Morse code. How did you think of it?"
The man shrugged. "A hobby of mine... I used to own a small sublight comms unit as a kid, a birthday present from my uncle. I played around a lot on it, and one of the loaded patterns it could produce, was Morse code. And a codebook for it's meanings. Glad to see my memory's still good."
"So am I, crewman!" - she clapped him on the shoulder... "If they can understand us, and do what we just told them to do, we'll have a chance of getting a jump on those Innie bastards!" - the other seven people in their little impromptu squad, looking at each other with slightly-less-nervous nods of approval.
To say most of them were scared of what was coming, would be an understatement. All enlistees, none of them with any professional small-arms training, only a couple even knew how to operate a needler, before it was shown to them.
"I hope it works... ma'am... I-I don't want to die." - the young woman who was the one operating the surplus inventory terminal, earlier in SysCon, muttered. Since her job was less-then-required in the current crisis, she was drafted - very much against her will - into this group.
Annike glanced at her, and was struck by the wide-eyed fear in the woman's gaze, and the way she was rubbing the butt of a Needler at her belt, like she expected a genie to come out of it, in understated nervousness.
To the woman's eyes, she looked barely out of her teens, likely turned eighteen this year. Probably a graduate of one of the many civilian engineering schools, before she accepted a 'promising' job as a civilian enlistee, on a ship of the line. Not an uncommon practice, and usually a smart opportunity to take, since - again - most Conglomerate warships never actually saw combat action, and any length of service on one, would look very nice in any aspiring civilian tech's work application form, down the line. The girl likely didn't want to make this her career, it was just a stepping-stone to... at Rand's guess... some safe and secure posting on either a commercial freight-liner, or even one of those cushy-plushy pleasure cruise liners operating the Inner Worlds.
She just happened to drop on a wrong ship, finding itself in a wrong shitstorm. With an inward sigh, Annike approached her.
"It won't bite, you know." - she smiled at her, nodding at the needler. The young woman scowled.
"No, it'll just kill. I... I... I don't want to kill anyone. And... I d-don't want to die. Ma'am." - she lowered her gaze, almost afraid how the... intense... woman in front of her would take that admission.
"Hey! Eyes on me, crewman!" - Annike snapped, then smiled wider, once the girl's head snapped up on reflex, to meet her gaze again. "You're NOT going to die. Okay?" - giving her a very unregulatory, firm hug of reassurance.
Several of the others looked at each-other in surprise. Among SysCon personnel, Lieutenant Rand was known for many things, as far as shipboard rumours went, particularily those floating down from the Scapperia staff... but being overly sentimental was not one of them. Certainly on duty, she was cordial enough, yet a bit... abrupt and severe, at times, and her wired, toned frame also inspired a degree of intimidation among some, particularily coupled with her sometimes-fiery temper. While others viewed her as somewhat... loose... given certain kinds of rumours being circulated about her and the captain.
"What's your name?" - Annike asked the young woman, once she released the hug.
"M-Mikaela, ma'am."
"Stick close to me down there. Alright? And when it comes to using that thing..." - she pointed at the needler, "...try to think of it as shooting skeets at a range! Your parents ever take you range shooting in entertainment parks, as a kid?" - to which Mikaela nodded, "You see an Innie, think of him as a big, fat skeet with arms and legs, okay? Like a big donut with cinnamon sticks sticking out!" - making the younger woman giggle, "...but a donut that's so stale that it tastes like crap, and needs to be thrown out. Off our ship! Okay?" - she giggled along with the girl.
This was a very different side of Annike, that by now had several of the others also relaxing fractionally. Some levity was desperately needed, right now, as all of them felt the ship shudder slightly, from yet another missile hitting, out there.
"Y... yes ma'am! No room for rotten donuts on the Trajectory!" - Mikaela grinned, definitely less terrified. A couple of others, including Kosinski, tried to suppress a chuckle.
But then Rand lost her grin, turning serious.
"I'm scared too, Mikaela. This isn't the kind of night I had in mind, when I got off duty this evening. And it's definitely not what I signed up for. That I can tell you, right now! But if we look out for each other, we'll make it through this! You got my back, I got yours! Right?" - reassuringly.
The young enlisted woman just gave her a brave thumbs-up. Annike nodded, moving away, and addressing the whole group.
"Alright, let's move. If the hangar control got our message, we should be hearing some big noises... right about as we get onto 15! Big enough to grab some serious attention from our uninvited guests." - she smirked viciously.
"If not... we may be gunned down as we step out into the access corridor to the anteroom. All depends if anyone down there has a talent for understanding archaic sublight comm methods." - she added a thought, to herself. It was a longshot, for sure... but that was the only kind of shot that they would realistically have.
***
Deck 15, Hangar Anteroom
"Two more charges! C'mon, let's blow through this bitch..." - the scarred Insurgent female shouted impatiently, motioning at the bent-outward inner blast doors. She was handed one, while another Innie planted the second one, on the inner blast doors. The bearded man turned to Skitt.
"Almost there. You don't have any problems with what's gonna happen to those pilots and techs in the hangar?" - he asked, probingly.
Skitt shook his head. "Collateral." - he growled ruthlessly, using the Conglomerate's favourite term, for needless casualties, in his mind. The bearded leader nodded in understanding. Many of the rebels under his command had similar stories to Skitt's, about what happened to someone they cared about. In Skitt's case... his entire family.
As the two took cover from the pair of detonations, moments later, he continued: "I hope you've got a good plan though. This ship needs a hell of a lot of crew to even operate at minimum capacity. And routing out the marines down in the MOC, and the command staff up in TacOps, will take some creative thinking." - he paused,
"The rest of the rank-and-file probably won't be too eager to die for corpo bullshit, and are gonna switch. But those two... they're indoctrinated to fuck and back, in case of the Marines, trained and armed to the teeth, or just too well-paid to give up, in case of those fuckfaces up in TacOps. You know what the average pay is, for a Command-div officer, these days? Especially the Bridge staff? We're talking a year's wage, in a week, for your average blue-collar worker out in the Colonial Worlds. And all they gotta do, is sit up there and push buttons."
A pair of explosions cut off the bearded man's reply. Both peeked out from their cover, as did the rest of the Insurgents in the anteroom - the doors still held, but multiple cracks now dotted the outer surface.
"Stubborn piece of metal - give 'em another pair!" - before he turned back to Skitt.
"All taken care of, lad. Once we surround and disable this thing, we'll bring in more people from our base in-system. Take the ship fully, take in any switchers, airlock the rest, lock down TacOps and marine areas, then flood them with more toxins."
"Won't be easy," - Skitt shook his head, "...they're critical-level areas, and got their own isolated air-con grid, separate from the rest of the ship. If you're thinking about another Tyth trick - that's not gonna fly. I don't think my level of access codes even has any authority to access the air-con in either sector. You'll probably have to do it the old-fashioned way. And that's gonna take a lot of bodies. Especially for the MOC." - he warned.
"Whatever it takes. I WANT this ship." - the leader growled, then glanced over at the woman and the other Innie, planting the next two charges.
"What's the holdup?! I want this sardine can open."
"Somethin' weird, boss! The charges... they ain't working anymore! It's... I don't get it. It's like their detonator circuits got fried!" - the scarred woman shouted back, confusion evident in her tone, flipping a stick-on brick of explosive in her hands, fiddling with the detonator timer interface.
Suddenly, the light panels on the anteroom's ceiling dimmed slightly, then began flickering... as a subtle crackle of electricity flashed across the bulkhead - making one of the Insurgents, currently leaning on the wall, jump in reaction.
"Just got zapped! What the hell is going on..." - that man growled, rubbing his Needler rifle.
Everyone stepped away from the bulkheads, eyeing the continuing electrical discharges suspiciously dancing across the metallic surfaces. Suddenly, another Insurgent glanced down at his rifle - to see it's power indicator off.
"The hell? Boss... my gun's dead. The power charge's drained!" - at this, the bearded leader finally caught on.
"EVERYONE SHUT OFF YOUR NEEDLERS NOW, and deionise them! It's an EMP field of some kind, being routed through the circuits in the bulkheads!" - as the subtle electro-discharges suddenly made sense to him.
"But how... ?" - Skitt shook his head, "Nobody on this deck knows how to do that, they're not system engineers! And we've got the comms on the fritz, so nobody from up in SysCon could've told them how..." - as a bunch of Insurgents shut off their guns, took out the power cells, then coated them in deionising grease, before plugging them back in, and reinitialising them. Most soldiers, Insurgent or Marine, knew to carry a bottle with them at all times, in case of EMP grenade discharges. The grease would help shield the circuitry, at least for a while.
However, that still left a whole bunch of needlers out of commission, for the next minute or two.
***
"Let's go! With any luck, we'll catch a whole bunch of rebels in the middle of greasing their pieces..." - Rand hissed, briefly touching the bulkhead next to the access shaft to Deck 15 proper, from the service tunnels. She hastily pulled her hand away, as a mild discharge went through it.
Herself and everyone in her group, had already insulated their sidearms, and were immune, for the time being.
"And put your masks on! No telling if there's any residual Tyth still floating around."
Moments later, they emerged into one of the outer corridors circumnavigating the deck. The tableau of bodies was the first thing that struck them... as well as a lingering stench of charred flesh, from the still-smoking needler-holes in most. A couple of the enlistees retched, while Mikaela leaned on the wall, nauseous.
"Oh my heavens... they... t-they just killed everyone... ?"
"Yeah. Focus, Mikaela, and stick close to me! Let's get to the anteroom. Shoot everything that moves. Guaranteed it's a rebel, all of our surviving people are hunkered down in Hangar Control." - Rand growled, trying to keep a calm tone, even if the scene got to her, too. There were a dozen dead, in this corridor alone. She could all-too-easily imagine, crewmen hustling about their business, reporting to duty stations, as the breach-pods landed and a bunch of heavily-armed rebels poured in. Most of these people probably ate a needle before they even knew what was happening.
"It's too quiet." - Kosinski commented, being the first one to round a corner.
"Agh!" - he moaned in pain, as a riflebutt came into his nose, painting his face with blood and sending him to his back, off his feet, his needler clattering to the side, out of his grip.
Looking up, a large Insurgent that ambushed him, was aiming a rifle at his head... but the weapon didn't go off... before a pair of needle-blasts came from behind, taking the man into his chest armour, staggering him. A third one burned partially through it, sending him on his back, with a moan of pain, but not badly hurt yet. A fourth one burned partially-through again, keeping the man down for the time being.
Rand stepped over Kosinski's downed form, her needler held in a two-handed grip, coming to a stop over the downed Insurgent, and put another needle blast, this time aiming for his forehead, above the chestpiece, killing him. Her face carved from stone, before she turned to look at the downed crewman.
"Don't round a corner without clearing it, Kosinski. First thing they taught us at the Academy. And keep quiet - sounds carry in these corridors." - the woman intoned, offering him a helping hand back to his feet.
"T-thanks, LT... shit... that guy would've killed me, if not for the EMP field! Guess he didn't figure out his gun was off..." - the crewman muttered in shock, feeling his nose gently. It was bleeding and likely fractured, but not fully broken.
"Lucky you. And lucky us. See how many needles he took? These sidearm-grade pieces aren't that good at going through their synthsuits. And they won't have any issues burning through us like a knife through butter with their rifles. We need to secure the anteroom before they can sort it out! Hustle!" - she whispered.
The group moved more rapidly, this time taking care to clear every turn they rounded. They came across two more Insurgent troopers, both dispatched without difficulty, as neither had figured out their weapons needed deionising. So far, so good... but Rand knew that wouldn't last. A third one was caught in the middle of deionising his gun... and he survived, as Mikaela's poorly-aimed blasts didn't take him down, as only one of the four she fired even hit, lightly wounding him, giving him a chance to round a corner before anyone else brought their weapon to bear, and run towards the anteroom, to alert his comrades.
"Damn... I-I'm so sorry, ma'am... I..." - she sniffed, her death-grip on the needler evident of her again-escalating fear. Rigid and trembling as she was, there was no way she'd be able to aim accurately at anything but point-blank range. Clearly the tension was too much for her. Annike shook her head, more to herself then anyone else... she should've seen it coming.
"It's okay, Mikaela... listen. Get up to the service crawlways, and hunker down there until it's over. You did good." - she shushed the girl.
"B-but... I want to help..." - Mikaela started, but the look in Rand's eyes brook no disagreement. She nodded, wiping her eyes.
"I'm sorry, ma'am... I really am." - retracing her steps back the way they came.
"Useless." - one of the others muttered under his breath.
"Shut up. Better save your breath for what's coming up ahead in the anteroom. They know we're here now." - Rand growled, with a brief glare at him. She wasn't exactly happy about their little plan getting blown... but what's done was done.
***
"Come ON, get those weapons back up! We got company coming." - the bearded leader snapped, as the squad of Insurgents in the anteroom began taking positions behind any cover they could find, their rifles aimed at the access corridor. Most were finished with deionising them.
"You say one of 'em was a wiry-looking woman?" - Ron Skitt questioned the wounded trooper, who was just getting his burn bandaged.
"Yeah. Real looker, too, all jacked-up, tattoos and all, in tight top and slacks... wouldn't mind havin' her scream atop my cock, if we take 'em prisoner..." - the man chuckled.
Skitt resisted the urge to punch him, as he moved away. Annike... ?
"What the hell... why are YOU down here... you oughta be up there in SysCon, handling damage control... " - suddenly not nearly as blase about this whole thing. Yes... he was angry at her. At her... betrayal, in his mind. But faced with the prospect of her getting gunned down by his new... friends... or worse, ending up raped, by assholes like this guy...
...his line of thought never finished, as a bracket of needle-blasts came flashing from the end of the access corridor. Too late now.
"Here they come, boys and girls! Let's give 'em a warm welcome!" - the bearded leader yelled, dropping prone, letting out a pair of brighter-looking, higher powered blasts from his rifle, back down the corridor. Several other rifles joined his, as at least one death-scream came from the other end.
"ANNIKE! GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!" - Skitt yelled atop of his lungs, holding his own fire for the time being.
***
"TOO LATE FOR THAT, RON!" - Rand shouted back angrily, hastily ducking back from a needle-blast splattering less then a decimeter from her face, pinging off the corner bulkhead. She dropped to one knee, staying behind the corner, briefly poking out and taking a shot at an armored figure she could just see behind a stack of tool crates, down in the anteroom.
Firing two blasts, she saw one miss, the other strike home, but doing no more then burnishing the Insurgent's synthweave chestplate. She grimaced, ducking back, as more fire came from the other end. Off to the side, one of the enlistees was dead, having taken one through his gut during the initial exchange, and another was out of the fight, pressing his palm to a nasty burn through his shoulder. They were down to four actives, including her and Kosinski. And the other two enlistees were all-but paralysed in fear, hunkering behind the corner, not even daring to take any shots, after witnessing what just happened to their two friends.
Against who-knows-how many Insurgents on the other end. And one traitor.
"Ma'am... we don't have a chance. We... w-we need to pull back." - Kosinski's tone was anxious, as he also briefly popped out, taking a shot, then hastily ducking back again, as a needle-blast flashed past the corner, singeing his right arm.
Rand ignored him for the moment, gritting her teeth, as she popped out again, taking another couple of shots, at the same shape down the end of the corridor. Again, one struck home, the other missed, but this time her target was quicker in responding, as a return shot came right on the heels of her two blasts, before she could duck back... catching her in a graze across her flank, just below her left-side ribs. She yelped in pain, as a burn-line painted itself along the side of her midriff.
"Bastards..." - the woman hissed, leaning hard against the wall, holding her side. It didn't look that bad, but that was just blind luck, and she knew it. Another couple of centimeters to the left... and she'd be lying dead on the deck right now.
"You okay, LT? We- we must pull back!" - Kosinski repeated, nearly beside himself with anxiety, as he watched his commanding officer wounded.
"Yeah... let's hope they chase us, at least... take some pressure off the hangar crew. DAMN IT!" - she growled reluctantly, tone laced with pain, accepting his helping hand, and leaning on him a bit as they ran back down the adjoining corridor. The other two lingered, still frozen...
"Come ON!" - Kosinski prompted them impatiently, shaking them out of it, as they joined their retreat.
***
"You two know each other?" - the bearded leather approached Skitt, as the firefight died down, and he sent half his squad in pursuit of the fleeing attackers.
"She... she was a friend. Uhm... look... I'd like the chance to talk her down, boss. Maybe get her to come over to our side--" - the man began reluctantly, before he was cut off.
"She didn't seem all that eager to talk, lad. Time for second-guessin' is over and done, got it?! We got a job to do here, and I won't have Gloomie cunts messin' around our business." - using the Insurgents' slang term for Conglomerate loyalists.
"Hell, if she's just an ex-squeeze, you'll get another! Cutie-pie like you..." - the scarred woman put in with a lascivious smirk, to which Ron threw her a glare.
"She wasn't a... !! I mean..." - he started, but was cut off again.
"Go on lad, try it. It's a big deck, odds are they'll be takin' cover somewhere. If you think you can talk 'er down, be my guest. Better do it before my boys catch up to 'em though. And DON'T get in the way! Or you'll be a valid target too. Your piece stays right here!" - the bearded man grabbed and yanked Skitt's gun out of his holster.
"Let's just say I don't like second-guessers on my crew. But I can respect a man tryin' to keep his woman safe. Get the fuck out of here. Remember - stay outta the way, if they get a shot, or you're a target too." - he growled, before Skitt could protest.
Ron bit his lip, but just nodded, rushing off down the corridor.
***
TacOps, Bridge...
"Just got off the line with SysCon - comms are still down. And it looks like Lieutenant Rand took a team down to 15 to try a more hands-on approach to restore our security. We've also sent a runner down to MOC, as per your order, to get them to send more Marines up, but without comms, there's no way of knowing if he even made it down past all the boarders. Sir - we need to make a choice soon, before the rest of those Veritrax squadrons catch up and corral us down the throat of those three flanking gunships. We don't have enough fighters out to keep 'em at bay." - the XO murmured in Alzer's ear.
The man nodded, torn between his concern for Annike, for his ship, and stark survival.
"Nav, set course for the asteroid belt. We won't get the rest of our fighters out in time. 125% past redline!" - he ordered. The time had come for them to start taking a few... calculated... risks. Not that they had a choice.
"With our engines under the weather, that might--" - the woman started nervously, but cut herself off, at a glare from the captain.
"Yes, sir."
The XO pursed his lips. "We still don't know if it's mined or not... we didn't have time to get a full readout on our tachyon scans."
"Tell me something I don't know... but we need to buy time to get our fighters out, and keep. We have to take the chance, and it's better then diving into the atmosphere... they could just lock down the orbital paths and keep us in there while they pump-in atmospheric charges by the hundreds. I'll take the rocks over being depth-charged, any day. And who knows - we could even use some of those asteroids to our advantage. using our tractor beams. Mass-driver style! If nothing else, they'll interfere with missiles coming at us, and take the pressure off our PD's." - the graying man murmured, a flash in his eyes.
***
The Trajectory, looking rather under the weather by now, explosive-scorings visible on dozens of points on her outer hull, and trailing a slight wake of ionised particles, indicative of damaged coolant lines, veered out of it's parabolic course hugging the planet's upper atmosphere, speeding into the system, towards the distant asteroid cloud. A myriand tiny shapes, friendly and enemy fighters, trailing it, with five larger ones bringing up the rear, enemy gunships.
The cloud looked beautiful, from this range... but was in fact comprised of trillions of chunks of rock and debris, held together by their own gravity and particle clusters. It was a veritable soup, with chunks in it, that the battlecruiser was about to dive nose-first into.
TO BE CONTINUED...