Chapter Two: Demonix
Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2010 12:17 am
Demonix it'self is formiddable. A fleet killing weapon, It is a ship even larger than a Drake. The main bulk of the ship is called the Fury cannon, Largest ever made. It fires a beam like the solaris, Except one thing. While the Solaris simply fires a beam, the Fury fires an immense cone. it has one main weakness: there is only one of it. To protect it'self, it has a fleet of one thousand Drake and Raptor class ships, all of which it dwarfs. It is a lumbering thing, not fast or agile, but that doesn't stop it from being deadly. This enormous red hulk is so huge, the resources of one entire planet the size of mars was used to create it. You get the picture. Many of it's components are captured terran technology, put together by Terran engineers, tortured into submission. This thing means death for any who come near it, and it has come here.
Warping into existence, the Drathonian Demonix fleet came out using positions deemed safe by the previous drathonian fleet, many places of which were now occupied by Terran and Altresian ships. The Ships colliding at a speed greater than light, every time a pair met up, both were immediately destroyed. there was no warning, no chance to escape. Just the fabled bright light and then, Darkness. Orders of retrat by the ships on the left side of the Hymn were immediately counteracted by a "HOLD FIRM" from both the Kosmos and Battle Hymn. On every ship, the red alert was sounded, on every ship, the guns were unleashed, wraking waves of destruction on the unsuspecting Demonix fleet. The Demonix it'self, being at the rear, was unharmed, it's meatshield, decimated.
In the first five seconds, 37 of the 450 terran ships were Immediately destroyed or damaged beyond repair, 300 of the drathonian ships met the same fate, but still, The Terrans were greatly outnumbered, and this was going to be quite a battle. Their one respite: Demonix's Fury cannon was not charged, giving the Terrans time for more mass destruction of the other, weaker Drathonian ships.
The ride back to the Hymn was a smooth one. Smooth enough, even, for Garrett to take it standing. Once back on his mothership, he went right back to work. There would be more boarding procedures to be endured, and more s___ to blow up, thus he would need more explosives, and more attache gear.
When the red alert sounded, Garrett was ready. He lit up a fresh cigarette and tucked away the lighter as he strode into the launch bay. Soon, they'd be calling for invasion teams, and he planned on being one of the first guys out. No doubt they'd need a demos expert for th...
Garrett stopped midstride to gaze out at the enemy fleet. It was huge, and on top of that they had one hell of a flagship. It was most certainly rivaling the dimensions of the Hymn, but what left Garrett worried the most was the grotesquely gigantic cannon. It could easily blow a moon to bits, not to mention a ship such as the Hymn. This was going to be a battle for the ages...
And Garrett was senior demolitions expert aboard the Battle Hymn.... How exciting.
Kurohime woke in a daze, all she could remember was Demonix, it resembled a huge gun, then the blackness had come.
"Oh no, it's here!" she sat straight up, only to be held in place,
"Whoa there calm down." she suddenly realised she was in the sick bay.
"How did I get here?" she asked slumping back into a sitting position.
"Someone found you on the observation deck and bought you here."
"Do you know who it was?" she queried, she'd not noticed anyone else there, she had been distracted by Demonix
"He wouldn't tell us, he just made sure you were being treated, then left."
"Oh, ok, ummm, when can I go, I really need to get to engineering."
"Well, we've dealt with the blood loss, and stitched up the wound, but we need to know how you got it."
"Well, I was one of the boarding team on that drake, and I got it there, but didn't notice, my gear was covered in blood from other people and all the adrenaline meant I didn't feel it." she was rather embarrased about the whole situation.
"How's the captain?" she asked suddenly
"We had to amputate his leg, even with the first aid he recieved there was nothing we could do to save it, he's currently getting used to his new cybernetic leg."
"Ok, so when can I go?"
"In a few minutes, we just need to check the wound is healing and that you won't do anything too strenuous."
"I won't only strenous thing us engineers do is crawl through the small conduits, and there's enough of us that I can get someone else to do it for me."
A few minutes later she was discharged, given painkillers and told what she could and could not do.
Once out of sight of the sick bay she turned her walk into a jog, she had to get to engineering quickly.
Ten minutes of jogging later she arrived,
"Sorry I'm late."
"We heard." Abul said, "Davidson is with the guys in external weapons getting the overheated cannons back online. And we've finished the clean up here, not that there was much to clean up. Marie is running a full ship diagnostics scan, so we can deploy the teams where they're needed most."
"Ok, that's good." Kurohime sat on a chair by her console.
She could see the results of the scan coming it.
"Right, our top priorities are navigaion and shields, we've got something big and nasty outside and I don't know what it's capabilities are, so we need to be able to withstand anything, or get out of the way real fast."
Steven got back to his ship after asking for updates to what the hell was happening from some of the other captains. He got back to find another group of mechanics working on his ship, and, after shoeing away the mechanics, got to work on his ship himself. He was working on the wiring in one of the wings when his head started throbbing again, and he asked a runner to bring him a cup of coffee.
He was sipping his coffee as he looked over damage stats in the cockpit console, the entire time there was the thrum of white noise on his comm channel. "What the Hell is going on out there," he thought as he worked.
The room Darian was perfectly positioned to see the chaos unfold outside. He just stood and stared ad a Drathonian fleet warped in, wreaking havoc on ships in the vicinity. It took the red alert to wake him from his shock. His mind raced and he bolted toward the docking bay. Upon arriving in the bay, he slid to a stop and stared.
Where is my ship?
One of the Mechanics caught Darian's odd look, and promptly scanned his name badge, bringing up his fighter info on a data device he had. After a bit of searching, the mechanic simply said "take the blue, green and purple frankenfighter over there, It's the best we've got" pointing at said fighter. All in all it was in rather good shape, the best parts of four or five different fighters put together as quickly as possible while still being solid and usable. In truth, the terran engineers had designed the fighters to work this way, for just these situations.
With patient’s blood splattered on his armor, Edward quickly worked with the rest of the medical team to care for those that had been wounded during the raid on the drake. In the middle of a corridor just out side the hanger where many other medical personnel were working, he was patching up a wounded marine who had caught a large chunk of shrapnel in his arm.
"You're very lucky, you know that?†Edward happily said, removing his helmet to wipe his brow. "I just need to finish dressing the wound, then someone can take you to medbay. Also this is going to sting... A lot.†he said as he stuck the tip of a small round cylinder that had "Med-Foam" printed on it's side, into the wound.
Pressing a button on the top with his thumb, a large amount of foam shot into the open wound, purging it of all bacteria, also eating away at any dead flesh inside. The patient let out a scream of agony, at the immense pain. As soon as the wound was taken care of, Edward had another medic take the marine to the medical bay for further treatment.
Pulling himself to the side of the corridor he propped himself up and rested the back of his head against the wall, letting out a big sigh.
"This is insane, and now what... Even though we're in code blue, the battle isn't over", Edward contemplated.
Taking moment to him self, he Looked at his helmet and traced his finger carefully along the word "Doc", printed on the front in rough white paint. Letting out another sigh, he tossed the helmet over his shoulder and walked towards hanger to see if his squad leader was there. Edward having only just arrived on the Battle Hymm before the raid was unable to meet his captain and join up with his assigned squad. In his mind he went through and processed what the captain would be like, whether he was a very strict and overly rule abiding nut case, or if he was more laid back and cool. Either way Edward was nervous to meet him, and was getting himself worked up over it.
After entering the hanger Edward was stunned by the vast number of craft being worked and how quickly the engineers were moving from job to job.
"Wow" he said startled, at the sheer sight of it all.
Lost, he stood looking around to see if he could find someone that could point him in the direction of his captain.
The docking bay was stuffed with fighters and transports, but mostly fighters. Engineers and technicians hacking, reshaping, and refitting ships. Some of them looked so freakish being made of ships painted different colors; some had as many as five different colors, but there were still a large amount made entirely of their original. It was a bit of sour humor in Garrett's mind, seeing all these elegant, lethal pieces of machine looking so disheveled with their mix-and-match bodyparts. Then again, he had a horrible, morbid sense of humor when all things were said and done.
He was crossing the room as he came across a medic, quite out of place considering the man simply stood near the entrance, looking awed. Garrett slapped him on the back of the shoulder. "Wake up, Doc. Round two's about to start, and the last thing I want is my Doc half-asleep when he's trying to patch my wounds." He looked toward the rest of the bay, taking a deep draw on the cigarette. "Beautiful sight, though, to watch these babies take off. Only sight more beautiful is when they blow the enemy to hell." He smirked to himself and looked at Edward. "So what're you here for?"
Waking up from his trance, Edward nervously eyed the man who had just slapped his back.
"I uh... um... I'm looking for a captain Nakamura, I think?" stated Edward, looking up at the rugged man "I'm supposed to meet up with him and join my assigned squad... Well, what ever captain handles the marines I guess."
Wiping the blood from the front of his chest plate and shoulder pads nervously. He once again looked up and read the last name on the man's uniform.
"Hendlow" he quietly said out loud thinking to himself, "Oh... Wait! You’re the demo expert I've heard of you! Er... Sir!†quickly realizing Garrett vastly out ranked him he shot him a quick and well defined salute, one that gave away he was fresh from basic.
"Sir! It's an um, an honor to meet you sir! I'm private Victor sir!" Edward barked indecisively, "Sir, I'm looking for my CO, sir!"
Edward poorly contained his awkwardness, and after about a minute he finally realized he forgot to lower his hand from his salute, and slowly lowered it down to his side embarrassed. Looking up at Garrett he gave him a quick awkward smile and winced.
Kai looked up from his work for a second to see a blood covered medic acting very green to the local demo expert. Kai just chuckled to himself, thinking MAN we really must be hurting for soldiers. He loaded the final micro-missile into the launch tubes then wiped the grease off his hands, and walked over to the confused looking soldier, Asking him "Wacha lookin for, there, son?" though the man was not much younger than him. Before Kai could get an answer, the Red alert sounded, getting everyone to scramble for their respictive emergency stations, though Kai dragged the private along, just in case.
The Battle hymn and Kosmos, the only ships in the fleet with solaris cannons, charged all functioning guns to full capacity and unleashed a volley at Demonix. While ripping through any ships in the way, the three shots barely dented Demonix's enormously heavy shields. The ship stood firm against the greatest might the terrans had to offer. Jaws dropped. One captain on a ship died of heart failure, the radio channels went dead. after a few seconds one thing was heard over every comm on every ship in the fleet. "SHIT". No one knows who uttered it, nor will anyone ever learn, two seconds after that exclamation, the behemoth fired it's cannon. In a blinding flash of light, 640 drathonian and 286 Terran ships ceased to exist.
In the military base on Terra IV, an alarm was sounded, the planet was to be abandoned, in seconds, the people of mankind's last planet escaped in ships designed for just such a travesty, all pointed towards Altres and shot off before the slow Drathonian engineers could figure out where they went. there were no worries about evacuating the towns, that had been done weeks ago. the base however was in a rush to destroy or grab every important secret document they could before escaping and destroying the base. from the orbit, the few remaining ships watched as 1,000,000 kilatons of nuclear warheads destroyed 5 years of hard work and human sacrifice.
What was left of the fleet remained stunned, and all turned to the battle hymn of the republic, as the kosmos had been obliterated in the giant cone of death. The Pride of the terran fleet fled. So did the rest of the terran fleet.
"Dammit! I hate those damn drathonians! why? why? WHY? I wish I could just kill them all! AAARGHH!" The normally calm Admiral Ceres had lost it, kicking and screaming, yelling and banging things. Once his fury had subsided, the admiral broke down further, first to silence, then into sobs. he slumped in his chair and cried, a broken man.
All the people on the ship watched in wonder out of the viewports, most had not seen what had happened, and now all they saw was the blur of the stars as the ship turned tail and ran faster than the speed of light.
Kurohime saw the warp drive kick in, but she had the data she needed, even so, she felt so angry, that monster had wiped out so many people, just like that.
"Ok, guys how are you all doing?" she commed the engineers who were fixing the ships up.
Once she recorded the progress, she turned back to her data, there had to be a weakness somewhere, but there were brains bigger than her's who would be better qualified to study it, but she'd already noticed one thing, the white noise followed a set pattern.
She ran the pattern through a replay of the battle, and frowned.
"A countdown, is it to warn their other ships, not likely, since they don't seem to move out the way, maybe to warn themselves about something, but what?" she muttered to herself.
She sent all this data to the bridge and tactics with a little note:
"White noise follows a pattern, at the same point in each cycle demonix fires, only reason they would have that is as a warning, but to warn against what?"
She shook her head, she needed to eat, so she got up and went to the mess hall on that level. She grabbed a bowl of hot soup, Martian Vegeteble flavour, and some bread, she took a seat and found herself unable to eat, just stir the soup absentmindedly.
Before Edward could address Kai, the red alert sounded, and the Demonix fired it's gun, wiping out almost all of the fleet. He saw it all through a large view port on the opposite wall across where he was in the hanger, being dragged along by Kai. After the red alert was over, and the warp drive kicked in, Edward was in disbelief at what had just happened. His comm radio picked up a garbled message on the damage the Demonix had caused, "Their gone! *bzzzt* The whole fleet and the Kosmos! *bzzt* We're all that's left! *bzzzt*" A random comm officer uttered through the radio before the message became unclear with static.
Obviously, the message didn't help and cluttered Edward's thoughts. Which were already racing through his head, and his right hand started to shake violently.
"You've got to be kidding me... All those people are dead, and there was nothing we could do! Nothing!" Edward stopped and finally shouted, putting his hands on his head as if trying to keep it from exploding, "I just freaking got here, and we've already lost! Game over man! That it, now we're retreating... What next? They follow us, and just kill us all somewhere else!?"
After a few seconds Edward took a deep breath and tried to gain his composure. Sulking in his own actions, he looked around at a few of the crew staring at him. He rarely lost his it, let alone screamed out like he had just done. Though this was the first time he had ever been put into a situation like this, other than the time his planet was attacked when he was younger. This was different, he was older now, and knew what was actually was going on. He looked down at his hand which was still slightly shaking nervously, and let out sigh. Then slowly, looked up at Kai embarrassed at his own actions.
"Sorry sir, I didn't mean to scream out like that... Sorry... Sir.. Just so many people... Dead" Edward said, quickly shooting his look away from Kai.
Kai stared, Dumbstruck at such a horrific act of malevolence rent by one machine on the lives of so many creatures. The fact that it didn't disctriminate between friend and foe just made it that much more terrible. But He was a captain, a captain was supposed to be strong, and steadfast in the face of danger. His remaining real knee buckled, the robotic one still remained erect, not being conected to his emotions. The captain was thankful for it, and planted his hand on the private's shoulder, both to steady himself and calm the medic. "It's okay, we all get to lose it sometimes" His voice came out a bit harsh, as he was attempting to restrain himself too, trying not to lose it.
The red alert subsided as soon as the ship entered hyperspace, the drathonians had no way of catching them here, the stupid beings that they were.
Steven was splicing wires on the fighter's wing again, when the alarm went off causing Steven to get a nasty shock from the wires. He swore loudly, but got quiet as he looked through the doors of the hanger at the horror unfolding outside as Demonix fired it's cannon. He felt a shiver run down his spine. He, along with most of the hanger, stared as Terran ships and Drathorian ships alike were destroyed.
Steven was speechless and uncomfortably cold with a sense of helplessness. He wasn't even at all certain how long he stood staring at the mayhem, but when it cleared he felt sick. So he climbed down off the wing, for he wished to go to the med bay to see Green 2.
Meigan forgot everything when she saw the Demonix firing its weapon. Forgot where she was, what she was supposed to be doing and, not to anyone's surprise, forgot how to stand. She collapsed to her knees and just stared out a glass window of some sort at the large, red, apocoliptic vessle that is Demonix.
Meigan was so out of it that when the lights went red and the alert went out her first thought was, Hey, the lights match my outfit, but then she quickly came back to her senses as the Hymn started to retreat and she lost sight of Demonix.
She got up, her knees were still weak from the shock that was still instilled in her, but she was still able to walk. She walked by the captian and a medic, she would normaly have stopped to say something like "Hey, we did what we could!" but something seemed to be repeling her from being herself. She also walked by the mess hall, where the engineer that helped her squad was sitting, stirring her soup. Meigan would have also stopped to thank her for her help on the Drake, but again she was somehow restrained from saying anything. The last person she walked by was one of those demolitions people, if Meigan was her clumsy self she would probably have accidentily set of a minor explosion by tripping on him or something. But the shock that she was still suffering from was even keeping her from being clumsy. Though she did still feel dizzy.
But then, she smiled. For no reason whatsoever. It was one of those smiles that you don't get very often. One of those smiles that shine light on dark situations.
Darian was shocked. He just couldn't deal with all that had just happened, it overwhelmed him. In the end, he was able to keep going by shunting it off in the corner of his mind. After doing that, he could almost ignore that it had happened. By that time, the ship had slipped into hyperspace, and the red alert was removed. "Damn" he whispered to himself. Then he realized just how exhausted he was. "Time for that nap", And with that he staggered off to his bunk.
Tom breathed heavily, still sitting in the observation deck. Around him the world had almost ended. Everything he had fought for, even if only briefly, had been eliminated. His effort was laid to waste. Yet, no matter how much he told himself this, all that came up was jokes about the original Earth's Hitler. Surely there was something terribly wrong with him. Maybe it was shell-shock. His mind couldn't possibly be properly functioning. All that he could think about was jokes. He should be mourning, not laughing.
His thoughts didn't stop.
Edward looked up at Kai "Um, at least we survived, that's a good thing, I guess, sir", he said trying to some how find a silver light to the darkness that had just dashed everyone's hopes. He shot off a glance to a girl who passed by him, but refrained himself from saying anything or because of the blood on her, asking if she was hurt. It just seemed like she was in no mood to talk.
"I won't let them get away with this" Edward said to himself quietly, turning his head away and clenching his fists, "They will pay, I swear to god I'll make them pay. Who are they to rob our people of their lives, let alone their own! It's sickening!"
Edward stopped to think, replaying the image of the massive hulk of the Demonix firing it main gun obliterating the whole fleet. Then noticing the captain's hand on his shoulder felt a bit at ease. Quickly looking back at Kai, he grimly saluted the captain.
"Sir, PACM Private Victor reporting for duty, and squad assignment sir." Barked Edward, figuring he at least try to help both Kai and himself from dwelling on what just happened, even though it seem ridiculous not to. "Sir, Even though it's not my call or place to be making suggestions, we should probably be getting ready so we can repay the enemy the favor sir."
Steven walked in a daze to the medical bay. He found where they had put Green 2, and sat down by the bed side. Green 2 was asleep, so Steven stuck to a chair at his side. He thought about the battles of the day, what went right or wrong, the mistake he had made, and of the good friends he had lost. He really thought about the monstrosity he had seen, and wanted to get the sight out of his head.
His head was throbbing again, but he didn't notice. All he did was stare at the injured comrade of his.
Garrett merely smirked and nodded at Edward before the Medic was whisked away by his commanding officer. He watched them go then turned his gaze upward as the Red Alert went off. Through the various portholes, a large beam, supposedly the Drathonians, blew a gaping hole in the Republic forces. He froze for a second, awed and perhaps stupefied, though Garrett would never have described himself that way. Shortly thereafter, the Battle Hymn was gone, moved into Hyperspace to elude the pursuing Drathonians once more.
He sighed slowly and approached Kai and Edward. He set the bag down next to the fighter, and addressed them both. "Sorry, probably interrupting, but I was hoping you might have need of some assistance." He shrugged, vaguely gesturing toward his bag. "I'm a loose end now, seeing as their won't be another raiding party for some time. Anything you need help with, sir?" Though Kai and Garrett were, technically speaking, of the same rank, Garrett chose to address him with the respect he deserved rather than try to force a plane of equality between them. After all, neither of them really knew the other.
Kai looked up from the medic and at Garrett. "Well, there are a few hulks that need to be broken down for easier recycling" he said, pointing to a few of the twisted and charred pieces of metal, ceramics, plasics and various other items. "A demo expert can help take even the most messed up ones apart" He hinted, before picking up a rag and beginning to clean his nearly perfect specimen of a fighter, mostly to get his mind off what happened. That was the only thing he found at the moment to help, and immediately began ignoring the other two, heartless as it seemed.
He glanced at the pile of wreckage, and nodded. He could indeed rip it all apart, or make it dissolve into nothingness. The world was a demolitions expert's piece of clay. He could create beautiful works of art, or just tear it all apart. It really depended on his mood. Right now, Garrett was more interested in the art of precision and the display of true skill; he would dismantle the junk properly and cleanly. He looked at Edward now, still standing nearby. "And what about you? Need something? Want to help?"
"Oh me..? Nah, I think I'm good. I think I'll go get a bite to eat or something, um seeing I haven't eating since I arrived. This is still my first day on the ship and all. And already so much has happened." Edward stated with a nervous smile saluting both captains, "sir, just page me if you need me sir!"
And with that Edward rushed out of the hanger making his way to mess hall, before either captains could comment. His stomach had a intense hunger pain, hopefully no one was in the mood to eat after the whole Demonix situation. Besides, he also needed to get away from the whole sight of everyone being depressed.
Arriving at the mess hall he walked over to the counter to order something to eat.
"I'll have a burger please" he said
"Here you go" softly answered one of the mess hall staff behind the counter, handing Edward a premade burger.
"Uh, thanks..."
Edward, could tell the man was in no mood to converse. Slowly walking with his dish to a table, to eat. There he sat down at a table near another table with depressed woman continuously stirring her soup. Edward sat down looked at her and sighed quietly. He unwrapped his burger and began to eat, noticing the blood on his armor was still there, he grabbed a rag from pocket and tried rubbing it of, but only smeared it. Looking at the rag he let out another sigh, and continued to eat.
Kurohime knew someone was in the mess hall with her, but she remained silent.
She suddenly felt she had to let it all out, she'd fought so hard on that Drake, done everything right, and all that effort was wasted.
"AAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, sending her soup flying into a wall with a wild swing of her arms.
Once she had stopped screaming, she stared at her shaking hands, confusion reigned in her mind, anger, hate, fear, it was all swallowing her up and she felt as if there was nothing she could do to fight it.
She needed to let off some steam, but she knew if she saw another lizard, she would go insane.
"Stupid f***ing lizards, they're so gonna die, all of them are gonna rot in hell." she muttered.
Steven watched his friend for a while, and then started to doze. "You awake there Steve?" someone said. Steven looked up with a start and saw that it was Green 2.
"Hehe, how ya feelin' Freddy?" Steven said to the man.
"Like I just finished snuggling with a Drathorian," Fred joked.
"You look like you just did as well," Steven said with a laugh, "Thought I lost ya out there."
"So what happened, where are we now?" Fred asked him, clearly avoiding the last comment.
"We're in hyperspace actually."
"Why are we in hyperspace?"
"Long story, I'll tell ya later."
"Hey, I've got nothing but time, hehe."
Truth be told, Steven didn't want to tell the story, for it would dredge up the horrible memories of that moment in time. But, Steven told his friend all that had happened since landing, because he still felt he needed to get it off his chest. When he finished, both he and Fred sat quietly for a bit, until Fred broke the silence. "So we ran with our tails between our legs aye?" he said in a light tone. Steven knew Fred was thinking about not of Demonix, but instead of the comrades left behind in the void.
"Well, you should rest up some more, so I'm gonna head out of this stuffy room and take a walk," Steven said as he stood up and walked out of the room without looking back.
Kai continued to shine and polish his fighter, the lime green metal hull beginning to glisten in the artificial light of the hangar bay. he looked around at all the hunks of scrap metal, one being taken apart by controlled blasts by Garrett. He was amazed that such a hardy, advanced people could be sent running by such a stupid, corrupt foe. Something was wrong, something missing from his life. He could feel that there was something Humankind had neglected, and was now being punished for. The captain exited the hangar bay, and walked to his Quarters. he looked over at his classic book collection, some over 3,000 years old and incredibly brittle. He picked out one leather bound tome at random. The title read "Holy Bible" he decided to read it, not remembering what it was exactly. Unknowingly, he had found the missing peice, for himself at least.
"Um, are you ok?" Edward coyly asked the infuriated woman, "You know, at least we didn't die... We should be grateful for that"
Edward turned his seat to face the woman, and continued eating his burger. Watching the soup drip down the wall from the corner of his eye, he then looked down at the ground between his feet and leaned forward uneasily.
"Man I just got on this ship before the raid, and already this happens. Hell, I haven't even unpacked my bags yet, I still need to do that..." He said nervously, trying to poorly diffuse the situation and some what change the subject, "Are you new here too? Because, I..."
Edward paused, failing to try to think of anything else to say to break the awkward silence. Tensely he clenched his hands together, just noticing the blood stains on his hands. He felt a slight discomfort in his stomach realizing his forgot to wash his hands, after treating the marine. Then he wondered how the marine he patched up was doing, and began to think of those that never made it back from the assault on the drake.
After a few moments of silence Edward finally inquired, "You where on that drake... Weren't you?"
"No, I'm not new, I'm an engineer, once my area was built I was involved, we had to be, we needed to know everything on this ship worked."
She heard the question about the Drake,
"Yeah, we fried their ship-to-ship communications, making it impossible for them to know what everyone else was doing, making it easier for us to take them out. Then we find the reference to that thing, and that we have at most ten minutes to get ready for it.
We worked so hard and for what, to see our home taken, and the rest of the fleet wiped out in what was it, four shots? The data my team collected is hopefully gonna give tactics a chance to tell us how to take it down." she shook her head.
"Anyway, I just needed to let it all out then, I'll admit, I'm feeling better than before, I guess screaming as loud as possible works." she shook her head,
"Anyway I need to grab some food and actually eat it." she dashed to the counter and grabbed a plate of chips and some sachets of sauce.
She sat down again.
"I'm guessing from th blood and lack of injuries you're a medic of some kind." she said squeezing a sachet of something called ketchup onto a chip before tasting it.
The combination worked well so she squeezed the rest over the chips.
"What did you do before you joined the military?" she asked
Edward sat there listening intently to her answers, after hearing her questions he quietly responded, "Yeah, I know what you mean about the screaming..." he chuckled, " I'm a PACM... er.... let's just say a Combat Medic. I get to go out on missions with the marines and make sure they all make it back in one piece. I have marine training, but I also have advanced medical training too..."
Edward looked up and half smiled at the young woman, he slightly blushed then looked back down at the ground between his feet.
"Me? Before I joined the military, I lived in a boarding house with some old woman who took care of me. When I was younger my sister joined the military as a pilot, but was killed when the Drathonians raided the academy she was training at... She was my only family, she was the one who sent me to the boarding house…" Edward responded numbinglyâ€, but to specifically answer your question not a whole lot..."
He looked around, than continued eating his burger with his blood covered hands. Finally finishing what was left of it.
"Yea that's about the gist of it" Edward added, not feeling comfortable to talk anymore about him self.
He examined her wild utility belt which was crammed with tools, the only ones he really recognized were the screw driver, hammer, and of course her gun.
"What about you? I'm sure with all of those tools you must be some type of engineer right?" He asked.
"Yeah, while we don't technically have a head of Engineering, I have the greatest general knowledge, so I more or less organise the people there." she paused
"I was born on Mars, then the lizards came, when I was about thirteen I left the colony I had been living in, and began my life as a hitchhiker, I quickly discovered a knack for fixing things, so I used that as a means to pay for going on cargo ships and transporters, the ship I stayed on the longest was a scavenger vessel. It picked up all kinds of junk, including Drathonian technology, which is how I became familiar with it.
Then last year, I heard about some big military project, and all of us on the scavenger ship decided to join up as engineers. They initially thought I was too young, but then they found out the Captain was the same age as me, so they let me in. And here I am."
she paused again.
"Oddly enough there were some military eningeers looking at going on the Hymn too, but they knew nothing about the stuff the lizards used, so we got in instead."
Edward smiled feeling a bit more secure, "So, you technically might as well call your self the head of engineering then, right? That's also one hell of a position. You know I really don't understand much of the major technology stuff, you know the warp drives and all that. Just give me a rifle, a few med kits, and I'm set. I'm glad we have someone like you to do that stuff, especially with your Drathonian technology knowledge... Um, one sec..."
Quieting down, Edward stood up and went over to the counter, grabbing a small plate of "french fries", a small bowl of chili, and a big handful of wet-wipes. Returning to his table he opened up a few of the packs of wipes and began to scrub his hands, and then spots of his armor, cleaning off the dried blood. The once white wipes, were now a crimson color with a few tiny spots of gore. He set them on the table, then looking down at them in disgust he threw them into a near by trash bin, making a perfect shot. After that was done he then poured the chili onto the fries and began to eat.
"That marine I patched up, was on the drake also, had a piece of shrapnel lodged in him the size of a small dinner plate" He smiled, putting a fry into his mouth, "So, what exactly was in the Demonix data you secured? Anything interesting?"
"At this point in time we only know that the white noise that it emits it a count down, whether intentional or not, we don't know.
And we've figured out that the main gun is basically one giant Solaris Cannon, butwe need to figure out how they get the cone effect before we can come up with any strategies.
We've only just got the raw data, it needs to be analysed, interpreted and then what we find needs to be put into laymans terms, simply because there would be no point in talking about an Electromagnetic Flux Compensator to you, unless I explained it first, and that takes forever." she sighed,
"Well I need to get back to my job, which is making sure this ship gets fixed before be come out of hyperspace. I'll see you around." she said before leaving the mess hall.
Steven was walking the corridors of the ship as he became lost in thought again. He walked with a lighter heart now that he was sure his comrade was OK; he knew as well that sooner or later he was going to have to be the one to explain to the families of his other wingmen what had happened. He snapped back to reality when his stomach gave a low growl, which made him remember that all he had in the past 24 was the cup of coffee. So he changed direction and walked toward the mess hall.
"Hope Eddies got something good for me today," he mused.
Kai sat on his bed and began reading this book, the Bible. He remembered reading it before, thinking it was just stories, but having seen that, he found deeper meaning within the pages of this book. He found himself skimming through, eyes glancing on random verses, till he came to the book of Revalations, and realized what had been happening the past ten years or so. The young captain realised what he needed to do, to save everyone. He only hoped it wasn't too late for humankind to ask forgiveness, as he slipped off his bed, got to his knees, and Prayed
The Hymn Dropped out of hyperspace, Into utter lonliness. they were halfway to the Altresian empire, but had to stop, in literally the middle of nowhere, since the power generators had been so taxed during the battle. Soon the lights went out, and people and things began floating, and the door to space from the hangar bay closed, as the protective field turned off. the only thing left running was life support. The battle Hymn had outdone herself, and still it wasn't enough. She sat, resting, freezing, waiting to regain enough power to continue her flight. For now, she merely drifted, a grey spot in the blackness of space.
He was almost to the mess hall when Steven noticed the unexpected stop. First the lights went out, then when he took another step he didn't feel his foot connect with the ground. Startled, he looked down and saw that he, and everything else in the corridor, was floating.
"Oh the gravity is gone too," he said in a slightly amused tone, "Always did prefer floating place to place in zero-gravity than walking!" He reached for a pipe on the wall and pulled himself over to it. He used the pipe to propel hisself forward again.
"I wonder if Eddy's chile tastes better in zero-grav," he laughed as he continued toward the mess hall.
As Darian slept, he dreamed. He was back in the heat of battle and dogfighting with a scourge. A shot connected with the wing of his ship, melting circuitry and cutting off all control over steering. As the scourge lined up for a killing shot, Darian panicked and pounded violently on the controls. The scourge fired, the shot blazing into the ship and slamming into Darian.
Darian awoke with a jolt, and hit his head on the ceiling again. He was covered in sweat and disoriented. The disorientation was understandable because of the darkness and the inexplicable lack of gravity. After a few seconds Darian calmed down and began to assess the situation.
They must have powered down to recharge. he thought as he used the glow of his battery powered clock to orient himself. He groped his way into the rooms adjoining bathroom and toweled himself off. If they hadn't been powered down he would have taken a shower, but he knew that they needed the water that had been pressurized before shutdown for the wounded. A shower could wait. He fumbled his way back into the room and found his closet. He reached in and garbed the first set of clothes he could find: changing into them as best as he could.
He left the room in search of a meal, having quickly digested the snack he had earlier. He followed the light path, brown brown green, down the corridors to the mess hall.
Steven reached the mess hall and swung himself around the door. Everything was dark in there, and he couldn't see to far in. He saw a spot of light in the direction of the serving area. "Just like Ed, working even under these conditions," he thought as he drifted over to the little light.
"Hey there Eddy, think you can get me some chili?" he asked a man who was looking for something by candle light.
"Who's there?" said the man as he held up the candle, "Oh, it's you, and I told you to stop calling me Eddy, my name is Shawn."
"Right, sure, so the chili if ya please," Steven said distractedly.
Steven grabbed a tray and had the cook serve him a sloppy bowl of chili. He pushed himself off and grabbed a spot at a long table, and settled down to eat.
As he neared the mess, Darian could smell chili. His stomach growled in protest of the tantalizing smell. In the mess he saw a few scattered individuals floating in the room, eating meals from the globe-shaped containers designed for eating in zero-gee. Up by the kitchen he spotted someone familiar. It took a few seconds for Darian to recognize the man, it was Green Leader Steven. Darian would have left the room then and there, he hated the idea of confronting Steven. However, his stomach objected to the idea of leaving, so Darian, hoping he wouldn't be noticed, quietly floated into line behind Steven.
"Oh, fantastic," Tom muttered as he slowly began floating out of his seat towards the plexiglas above him. He grabbed the arm of the chair and thrust himself through the darkness towards where he supposed the door had been a moment ago. He was almost right, and caught himself before he ran into the wall.
Fortunately, his uniform had a small light on it, which he used to guide himself down the passageways to his quarters. There he detached the armor plates from his uniform and reemerged, looking for something to eat.
Something that smelled distinctly like chili caught Tom's attention, and he launched himself like an arrow down the passageway, stopping himself just in time to observe where exactly the scent was coming from. He slipped in behind another man who looked somewhat like a pilot.
At this moment, Tom became distinctly aware of the fact that the left sleeve of his uniform was still quite distinctly coated with Drathonian blood. A little perturbed, he did his best to keep his arm out of the light, but it wasn't particularly easy.
Seated at the table Edward was about to put another chili fry into his mouth when the lights shut off.
"What the hell is this?" He shouted startled, and began to float upward, along with his chili fries, "Well this is a change..."
Searching for his armor's spotlight button, Edward pressed a random switch on his armor's forearm plate, activating band of small red hazard lights integrated around the lower collar of his armored chest plate, giving him a dim view of his surroundings in the mess hall. He could see others still eating with their zero-g meal containers.
"Well not exactly what I wanted, but it works,†He said to himself, quickly grabbing at his fries trying to get a get few more in his mouth before they floated to far away from him. Once he reached the top his back slammed into the ceiling, damaging a circuit in his armor, turning off his hazard lights.
Flicking the switch frantically the lights failed to turn back on.
"Piece of junk" Edward shouted furiously "What the hell!"
At this point a man jettisoned in from the hallway demanding chili from one of the cooks. Edward, watching from a dim light the cook was holding, he observed the man grab the chili and launch himself down to a table to eat.
There on the ceiling, Edward sat in the dark, defeated. He Watched two more men float in from the hallway.
"I wonder if anyone will notice me, Must not be that hard to see a armored medic on the ceiling..."he thought to him self, "I shouldn't of used a regular plate for my fries... And I should have taken this armor off before I went to eat, it's so uncomfortable..."
Kurohime sighed as she floated up, she'd just reached eningeering too.
Once the door opened she could see what had happened, the external damamge had meant hyperspace had been more taxing on the generators than normal, the result was an over load.
"How like before the backup generators kick in?" she asked,
"Any minute now."
"Get them powering the gravity systems, sick bay, and the navigation and propulsion systems. And shut the warp core down, it's been under a lot of strain, and I don't want to take any risks."
"Kurohime, we've gotten one of the generators working, but it won't power everything we want it to power, we have to drop one off the list."
"Then drop gravity, sick bay needs the power and we need to keep moving."
"Ok."
Kurohime messaged the bridge, "Engineering here, we've managed to get one of the back up generators working, so sick bay has power and the ship can move at max impulse two, but it's the best we can do at the moment. We're gonna go and check all the generators, see if there are any that only need repairing and not recharging. Also, since the current power situation, I want all crew to report to one of these locations, we may have to seal areas of the ship off to conserve power and we don't want to trap anyone." She also sent a plan of the ship with the designated areas that people could go to.
They included: The Mess Halls on every other deck, the observation deck, and the empty store rooms on the same decks as the mess halls.
Once that was done she began to organise the teams.
"Marie, keep an eye on Life support, if you need to cut power, cut it to these decks." she gave her a list.
"The rest of you into your normal teams, those who would have been with Marie and myself will stay here to keep things running at this end. All the generators are in one of two areas, Davidson and Singh, Take the right set, Jones and Abul take the left set. Fix any damage you find there, the back up generators are the priority, since they should be working. Now of you go."
Steven was eating his chili, when he looked up and saw a man in armor floating around. Steven gaged on the spoonful of chili he had just taken a bite of, and let out a slight laugh.
"You need a hand there buddy?" he asked the floating man. Before he could get an answer the sound of serving trays caught his ear. He looked over his shoulder as two more people were being served. Wide eyed, Steven tried to make out who they were, but it's was to dark to see all that clearly.
"So, want help?" he asked again as he turned back to face the floating man.
When the Hymn came to a sudden stop, of course, Meigan lost balance and fell. But she hadn't it the ground, instead she hit...the ceiling? Her face was looking to the ground and she had a confused look on her face.
"This is..." She tried to think of a proper way to end her sentance but nothing came to her.
It was just like being underwater, thats what she should do, the crimson blood was still all over her and she had to clean it up soon. Meigan air-swam to a small room on one of the lower decks of the Hymn, her own small room that was assigned to her. She entered and looked around, it was all white which was very irritating to the eyes.
She turned the water on in a small shower in the corner of her room, but nothing came out. Come on! We can't have lost ALL power, could we? Meigan thought to herself. Now she would have to live with the now dry blood all over her for who knows how long.
Meigan, knowing that she wouldn't get anything interesting done in her room, left and headed in a random direction. She was still not sure about the ship's layout, maybe this would be a good time to check it out?
Kai was completely lost in self-reflection, not even noticing what had happened. As he left the floor, he didn't notice, and merely remained in a kneeling position, though amazingly it didn't hurt his knees anymore. when his head made contact with the ceiling however, he finally noticed what had happened, and felt lucky to always be wearing a jacket, the newfound coldness of the ship not bothering him. After a few minutes of floating in silence staring at a poster on his wall, Kai's Comm beeped, alerting him of a new message about the turning off of life support on every other deck. Lai's Deck was one that was going to be shut down, so he decided to float on down to the Med bay to see if they had finished growing his replacement biological leg yet.
"No, I'm alright, just you know hanging around..." Edward said out loud jokingly.
Bringing him self around, he pushed off on the ceiling with his legs, launching him self at the ground below. With his arms out forward he stopped his collision with the mess hall floor. Then in a fluid motion pushed off the ground at an angle, flipping him backwards. While flipping backwards Edward was hoping he could latch on to a chair behind him, to bring him self to a halt. Unfortunately he over shot it, whacking his forehead on the edge of a table instead. Which sent him rolling into a wall behind him.
"OW! You've got to be freaking kidding me!" He shouted out in pain holding his head, "Geeze! Man that hurts!"
He sat there for a moment holding his head, he felt a warm wetness on his hands, he was bleeding. Closing his eyes, he reached into a med pouch, and felt around for an antiseptic cloth pack. Finding one, he tore it open, folded it over, and applied it to his head wound. Stopping the blood from seeping out and floating around into the mess hall.
He sat there for a minute, embarrassed at his failed zero-g stunt attempt. And then with out a word launched him self towards the exit, and out into the hallway.
"I feel like such a moron,†he said to him self oddly smiling.
He decided the make his way to the medical bay, hoping he could find his way in the dark. Taking off the cloth he felt his forehead. A shiver ran down his spine as his finger ran across a wide bloody gash.
"Great... I can't fix this my self in the dark...", he thought to him self.
Putting the cloth back on, he pushed down it's edges, making it adhere to his forehead, giving him an extra hand to help him navigate the dark hallways.
After a few minutes of wandering around Edward finally decided he was lost. Until he came upon a woman covered in what looked to be dried blood.
"Hey! Um, do you know which direction the med bay is?" He anxiously said, floating by her, "I really need some directions."
Steven watched with amusement as the man floated maneuvered in zero-g. Until the man collided with a table, making even Steven wince. And finally as the man went out the door.
"Hm, dinner AND a show,"he laughed to himself as he went back to eating to chili, which had begun to float away on him until he pulled it back in. He looked around the mess hall to the faint glow that marked Eddies position.
"Hey Eddy! Think you can warm this chili up for me back there?!" he called to the cook.
"No! And stop calling me Eddy my name is... oh why even bother," came the reply.
He laughed and finished the last of his chili. Now with a full stomach, Steven was quite relaxed, but wasn't sure where on the ship to go next.
"I suppose I could go back to work on the fighter, but then again me plus power tools in the dark equals not a good combination," he said as he let go of his hold on the seat and drifted into the air again.
Upon arriving near the Med bay, Kai noticed that he was slowly descending to the floor. Gravity plating must still work around here. he thought, though it was obvious that a zero-G environment is harsh on a wounded person. making contact with the floor just in front of the door, Kai walked into the familiar feeling of his own weight, though it was a bit off due to the cybernetic leg he was wearing.
the young captain walked up to one of the nurses on dudty and asked "Ma'am, could you help me find wether or not my new leg is ready?"
"Sure, hon" she replied, in a sweet tone, and scanned his name badge, the data popping up on her PC almost instantly. "Yeah, it's just the right time too, Thoughyou've gotta stay in here for 5 hours or till the whole ship gets gravity again, otherwise the medicine won't be able to bind everything togethe and you'll have a nasty limp"
"Ah" was kai's answer before walking into the surgery room to be put under for the operation, wich would be immensly painful if he was awake.
Roger tapped his data-visor and squinted as it switched to light mode. The large brown paper he was examining, easily as wide as he was tall, seemed antique compared to the rest of the repair bay. Still, it was in this crumbling piece of history that Roger'd find what he needed. An index finger pointed at a smaller section of the drawing, labeled FUEL CELLS, and frowned.
"Well, that explains the Mills-Cobbler layover they introduced..." he grumbled, technical babble that would be a second language to any not versed in its subtleties. "But maybe I can work with this."
BEEP! The crackling of static followed by a voice keyed him into his communicator going off. *Roger, get your ass up here. They want to shut life support down temporarily.* Roger chuckled and lifted his headset mic to his mouth to reply. "Tell them to keep the air on, Mika, I'll make do. I think I've found a way to reroute power from the fuel cells on our fighters more efficiently which will let me--" *Sounds awesome. Tell me later, after I finish staring at this wall.* She was clearly attracted to Roger's genius, he decided.
Roger's thoughts came to an abrupt halt as he floated into the wing of a damaged fighter. A loud bang echoed through the nearly empty room, and Roger groaned. "God damnit, how long does it take for them to bring her back online?" His frustration was evident, as was his determination. Propelling himself through the nightmare of a repair bay without gravity, he sipped some of his floating coffee from its congestion in the middle of the vacuum and went back to reading. Those fighters wouldn't become functional again on their own, after all.
Warping into existence, the Drathonian Demonix fleet came out using positions deemed safe by the previous drathonian fleet, many places of which were now occupied by Terran and Altresian ships. The Ships colliding at a speed greater than light, every time a pair met up, both were immediately destroyed. there was no warning, no chance to escape. Just the fabled bright light and then, Darkness. Orders of retrat by the ships on the left side of the Hymn were immediately counteracted by a "HOLD FIRM" from both the Kosmos and Battle Hymn. On every ship, the red alert was sounded, on every ship, the guns were unleashed, wraking waves of destruction on the unsuspecting Demonix fleet. The Demonix it'self, being at the rear, was unharmed, it's meatshield, decimated.
In the first five seconds, 37 of the 450 terran ships were Immediately destroyed or damaged beyond repair, 300 of the drathonian ships met the same fate, but still, The Terrans were greatly outnumbered, and this was going to be quite a battle. Their one respite: Demonix's Fury cannon was not charged, giving the Terrans time for more mass destruction of the other, weaker Drathonian ships.
The ride back to the Hymn was a smooth one. Smooth enough, even, for Garrett to take it standing. Once back on his mothership, he went right back to work. There would be more boarding procedures to be endured, and more s___ to blow up, thus he would need more explosives, and more attache gear.
When the red alert sounded, Garrett was ready. He lit up a fresh cigarette and tucked away the lighter as he strode into the launch bay. Soon, they'd be calling for invasion teams, and he planned on being one of the first guys out. No doubt they'd need a demos expert for th...
Garrett stopped midstride to gaze out at the enemy fleet. It was huge, and on top of that they had one hell of a flagship. It was most certainly rivaling the dimensions of the Hymn, but what left Garrett worried the most was the grotesquely gigantic cannon. It could easily blow a moon to bits, not to mention a ship such as the Hymn. This was going to be a battle for the ages...
And Garrett was senior demolitions expert aboard the Battle Hymn.... How exciting.
Kurohime woke in a daze, all she could remember was Demonix, it resembled a huge gun, then the blackness had come.
"Oh no, it's here!" she sat straight up, only to be held in place,
"Whoa there calm down." she suddenly realised she was in the sick bay.
"How did I get here?" she asked slumping back into a sitting position.
"Someone found you on the observation deck and bought you here."
"Do you know who it was?" she queried, she'd not noticed anyone else there, she had been distracted by Demonix
"He wouldn't tell us, he just made sure you were being treated, then left."
"Oh, ok, ummm, when can I go, I really need to get to engineering."
"Well, we've dealt with the blood loss, and stitched up the wound, but we need to know how you got it."
"Well, I was one of the boarding team on that drake, and I got it there, but didn't notice, my gear was covered in blood from other people and all the adrenaline meant I didn't feel it." she was rather embarrased about the whole situation.
"How's the captain?" she asked suddenly
"We had to amputate his leg, even with the first aid he recieved there was nothing we could do to save it, he's currently getting used to his new cybernetic leg."
"Ok, so when can I go?"
"In a few minutes, we just need to check the wound is healing and that you won't do anything too strenuous."
"I won't only strenous thing us engineers do is crawl through the small conduits, and there's enough of us that I can get someone else to do it for me."
A few minutes later she was discharged, given painkillers and told what she could and could not do.
Once out of sight of the sick bay she turned her walk into a jog, she had to get to engineering quickly.
Ten minutes of jogging later she arrived,
"Sorry I'm late."
"We heard." Abul said, "Davidson is with the guys in external weapons getting the overheated cannons back online. And we've finished the clean up here, not that there was much to clean up. Marie is running a full ship diagnostics scan, so we can deploy the teams where they're needed most."
"Ok, that's good." Kurohime sat on a chair by her console.
She could see the results of the scan coming it.
"Right, our top priorities are navigaion and shields, we've got something big and nasty outside and I don't know what it's capabilities are, so we need to be able to withstand anything, or get out of the way real fast."
Steven got back to his ship after asking for updates to what the hell was happening from some of the other captains. He got back to find another group of mechanics working on his ship, and, after shoeing away the mechanics, got to work on his ship himself. He was working on the wiring in one of the wings when his head started throbbing again, and he asked a runner to bring him a cup of coffee.
He was sipping his coffee as he looked over damage stats in the cockpit console, the entire time there was the thrum of white noise on his comm channel. "What the Hell is going on out there," he thought as he worked.
The room Darian was perfectly positioned to see the chaos unfold outside. He just stood and stared ad a Drathonian fleet warped in, wreaking havoc on ships in the vicinity. It took the red alert to wake him from his shock. His mind raced and he bolted toward the docking bay. Upon arriving in the bay, he slid to a stop and stared.
Where is my ship?
One of the Mechanics caught Darian's odd look, and promptly scanned his name badge, bringing up his fighter info on a data device he had. After a bit of searching, the mechanic simply said "take the blue, green and purple frankenfighter over there, It's the best we've got" pointing at said fighter. All in all it was in rather good shape, the best parts of four or five different fighters put together as quickly as possible while still being solid and usable. In truth, the terran engineers had designed the fighters to work this way, for just these situations.
With patient’s blood splattered on his armor, Edward quickly worked with the rest of the medical team to care for those that had been wounded during the raid on the drake. In the middle of a corridor just out side the hanger where many other medical personnel were working, he was patching up a wounded marine who had caught a large chunk of shrapnel in his arm.
"You're very lucky, you know that?†Edward happily said, removing his helmet to wipe his brow. "I just need to finish dressing the wound, then someone can take you to medbay. Also this is going to sting... A lot.†he said as he stuck the tip of a small round cylinder that had "Med-Foam" printed on it's side, into the wound.
Pressing a button on the top with his thumb, a large amount of foam shot into the open wound, purging it of all bacteria, also eating away at any dead flesh inside. The patient let out a scream of agony, at the immense pain. As soon as the wound was taken care of, Edward had another medic take the marine to the medical bay for further treatment.
Pulling himself to the side of the corridor he propped himself up and rested the back of his head against the wall, letting out a big sigh.
"This is insane, and now what... Even though we're in code blue, the battle isn't over", Edward contemplated.
Taking moment to him self, he Looked at his helmet and traced his finger carefully along the word "Doc", printed on the front in rough white paint. Letting out another sigh, he tossed the helmet over his shoulder and walked towards hanger to see if his squad leader was there. Edward having only just arrived on the Battle Hymm before the raid was unable to meet his captain and join up with his assigned squad. In his mind he went through and processed what the captain would be like, whether he was a very strict and overly rule abiding nut case, or if he was more laid back and cool. Either way Edward was nervous to meet him, and was getting himself worked up over it.
After entering the hanger Edward was stunned by the vast number of craft being worked and how quickly the engineers were moving from job to job.
"Wow" he said startled, at the sheer sight of it all.
Lost, he stood looking around to see if he could find someone that could point him in the direction of his captain.
The docking bay was stuffed with fighters and transports, but mostly fighters. Engineers and technicians hacking, reshaping, and refitting ships. Some of them looked so freakish being made of ships painted different colors; some had as many as five different colors, but there were still a large amount made entirely of their original. It was a bit of sour humor in Garrett's mind, seeing all these elegant, lethal pieces of machine looking so disheveled with their mix-and-match bodyparts. Then again, he had a horrible, morbid sense of humor when all things were said and done.
He was crossing the room as he came across a medic, quite out of place considering the man simply stood near the entrance, looking awed. Garrett slapped him on the back of the shoulder. "Wake up, Doc. Round two's about to start, and the last thing I want is my Doc half-asleep when he's trying to patch my wounds." He looked toward the rest of the bay, taking a deep draw on the cigarette. "Beautiful sight, though, to watch these babies take off. Only sight more beautiful is when they blow the enemy to hell." He smirked to himself and looked at Edward. "So what're you here for?"
Waking up from his trance, Edward nervously eyed the man who had just slapped his back.
"I uh... um... I'm looking for a captain Nakamura, I think?" stated Edward, looking up at the rugged man "I'm supposed to meet up with him and join my assigned squad... Well, what ever captain handles the marines I guess."
Wiping the blood from the front of his chest plate and shoulder pads nervously. He once again looked up and read the last name on the man's uniform.
"Hendlow" he quietly said out loud thinking to himself, "Oh... Wait! You’re the demo expert I've heard of you! Er... Sir!†quickly realizing Garrett vastly out ranked him he shot him a quick and well defined salute, one that gave away he was fresh from basic.
"Sir! It's an um, an honor to meet you sir! I'm private Victor sir!" Edward barked indecisively, "Sir, I'm looking for my CO, sir!"
Edward poorly contained his awkwardness, and after about a minute he finally realized he forgot to lower his hand from his salute, and slowly lowered it down to his side embarrassed. Looking up at Garrett he gave him a quick awkward smile and winced.
Kai looked up from his work for a second to see a blood covered medic acting very green to the local demo expert. Kai just chuckled to himself, thinking MAN we really must be hurting for soldiers. He loaded the final micro-missile into the launch tubes then wiped the grease off his hands, and walked over to the confused looking soldier, Asking him "Wacha lookin for, there, son?" though the man was not much younger than him. Before Kai could get an answer, the Red alert sounded, getting everyone to scramble for their respictive emergency stations, though Kai dragged the private along, just in case.
The Battle hymn and Kosmos, the only ships in the fleet with solaris cannons, charged all functioning guns to full capacity and unleashed a volley at Demonix. While ripping through any ships in the way, the three shots barely dented Demonix's enormously heavy shields. The ship stood firm against the greatest might the terrans had to offer. Jaws dropped. One captain on a ship died of heart failure, the radio channels went dead. after a few seconds one thing was heard over every comm on every ship in the fleet. "SHIT". No one knows who uttered it, nor will anyone ever learn, two seconds after that exclamation, the behemoth fired it's cannon. In a blinding flash of light, 640 drathonian and 286 Terran ships ceased to exist.
In the military base on Terra IV, an alarm was sounded, the planet was to be abandoned, in seconds, the people of mankind's last planet escaped in ships designed for just such a travesty, all pointed towards Altres and shot off before the slow Drathonian engineers could figure out where they went. there were no worries about evacuating the towns, that had been done weeks ago. the base however was in a rush to destroy or grab every important secret document they could before escaping and destroying the base. from the orbit, the few remaining ships watched as 1,000,000 kilatons of nuclear warheads destroyed 5 years of hard work and human sacrifice.
What was left of the fleet remained stunned, and all turned to the battle hymn of the republic, as the kosmos had been obliterated in the giant cone of death. The Pride of the terran fleet fled. So did the rest of the terran fleet.
"Dammit! I hate those damn drathonians! why? why? WHY? I wish I could just kill them all! AAARGHH!" The normally calm Admiral Ceres had lost it, kicking and screaming, yelling and banging things. Once his fury had subsided, the admiral broke down further, first to silence, then into sobs. he slumped in his chair and cried, a broken man.
All the people on the ship watched in wonder out of the viewports, most had not seen what had happened, and now all they saw was the blur of the stars as the ship turned tail and ran faster than the speed of light.
Kurohime saw the warp drive kick in, but she had the data she needed, even so, she felt so angry, that monster had wiped out so many people, just like that.
"Ok, guys how are you all doing?" she commed the engineers who were fixing the ships up.
Once she recorded the progress, she turned back to her data, there had to be a weakness somewhere, but there were brains bigger than her's who would be better qualified to study it, but she'd already noticed one thing, the white noise followed a set pattern.
She ran the pattern through a replay of the battle, and frowned.
"A countdown, is it to warn their other ships, not likely, since they don't seem to move out the way, maybe to warn themselves about something, but what?" she muttered to herself.
She sent all this data to the bridge and tactics with a little note:
"White noise follows a pattern, at the same point in each cycle demonix fires, only reason they would have that is as a warning, but to warn against what?"
She shook her head, she needed to eat, so she got up and went to the mess hall on that level. She grabbed a bowl of hot soup, Martian Vegeteble flavour, and some bread, she took a seat and found herself unable to eat, just stir the soup absentmindedly.
Before Edward could address Kai, the red alert sounded, and the Demonix fired it's gun, wiping out almost all of the fleet. He saw it all through a large view port on the opposite wall across where he was in the hanger, being dragged along by Kai. After the red alert was over, and the warp drive kicked in, Edward was in disbelief at what had just happened. His comm radio picked up a garbled message on the damage the Demonix had caused, "Their gone! *bzzzt* The whole fleet and the Kosmos! *bzzt* We're all that's left! *bzzzt*" A random comm officer uttered through the radio before the message became unclear with static.
Obviously, the message didn't help and cluttered Edward's thoughts. Which were already racing through his head, and his right hand started to shake violently.
"You've got to be kidding me... All those people are dead, and there was nothing we could do! Nothing!" Edward stopped and finally shouted, putting his hands on his head as if trying to keep it from exploding, "I just freaking got here, and we've already lost! Game over man! That it, now we're retreating... What next? They follow us, and just kill us all somewhere else!?"
After a few seconds Edward took a deep breath and tried to gain his composure. Sulking in his own actions, he looked around at a few of the crew staring at him. He rarely lost his it, let alone screamed out like he had just done. Though this was the first time he had ever been put into a situation like this, other than the time his planet was attacked when he was younger. This was different, he was older now, and knew what was actually was going on. He looked down at his hand which was still slightly shaking nervously, and let out sigh. Then slowly, looked up at Kai embarrassed at his own actions.
"Sorry sir, I didn't mean to scream out like that... Sorry... Sir.. Just so many people... Dead" Edward said, quickly shooting his look away from Kai.
Kai stared, Dumbstruck at such a horrific act of malevolence rent by one machine on the lives of so many creatures. The fact that it didn't disctriminate between friend and foe just made it that much more terrible. But He was a captain, a captain was supposed to be strong, and steadfast in the face of danger. His remaining real knee buckled, the robotic one still remained erect, not being conected to his emotions. The captain was thankful for it, and planted his hand on the private's shoulder, both to steady himself and calm the medic. "It's okay, we all get to lose it sometimes" His voice came out a bit harsh, as he was attempting to restrain himself too, trying not to lose it.
The red alert subsided as soon as the ship entered hyperspace, the drathonians had no way of catching them here, the stupid beings that they were.
Steven was splicing wires on the fighter's wing again, when the alarm went off causing Steven to get a nasty shock from the wires. He swore loudly, but got quiet as he looked through the doors of the hanger at the horror unfolding outside as Demonix fired it's cannon. He felt a shiver run down his spine. He, along with most of the hanger, stared as Terran ships and Drathorian ships alike were destroyed.
Steven was speechless and uncomfortably cold with a sense of helplessness. He wasn't even at all certain how long he stood staring at the mayhem, but when it cleared he felt sick. So he climbed down off the wing, for he wished to go to the med bay to see Green 2.
Meigan forgot everything when she saw the Demonix firing its weapon. Forgot where she was, what she was supposed to be doing and, not to anyone's surprise, forgot how to stand. She collapsed to her knees and just stared out a glass window of some sort at the large, red, apocoliptic vessle that is Demonix.
Meigan was so out of it that when the lights went red and the alert went out her first thought was, Hey, the lights match my outfit, but then she quickly came back to her senses as the Hymn started to retreat and she lost sight of Demonix.
She got up, her knees were still weak from the shock that was still instilled in her, but she was still able to walk. She walked by the captian and a medic, she would normaly have stopped to say something like "Hey, we did what we could!" but something seemed to be repeling her from being herself. She also walked by the mess hall, where the engineer that helped her squad was sitting, stirring her soup. Meigan would have also stopped to thank her for her help on the Drake, but again she was somehow restrained from saying anything. The last person she walked by was one of those demolitions people, if Meigan was her clumsy self she would probably have accidentily set of a minor explosion by tripping on him or something. But the shock that she was still suffering from was even keeping her from being clumsy. Though she did still feel dizzy.
But then, she smiled. For no reason whatsoever. It was one of those smiles that you don't get very often. One of those smiles that shine light on dark situations.
Darian was shocked. He just couldn't deal with all that had just happened, it overwhelmed him. In the end, he was able to keep going by shunting it off in the corner of his mind. After doing that, he could almost ignore that it had happened. By that time, the ship had slipped into hyperspace, and the red alert was removed. "Damn" he whispered to himself. Then he realized just how exhausted he was. "Time for that nap", And with that he staggered off to his bunk.
Tom breathed heavily, still sitting in the observation deck. Around him the world had almost ended. Everything he had fought for, even if only briefly, had been eliminated. His effort was laid to waste. Yet, no matter how much he told himself this, all that came up was jokes about the original Earth's Hitler. Surely there was something terribly wrong with him. Maybe it was shell-shock. His mind couldn't possibly be properly functioning. All that he could think about was jokes. He should be mourning, not laughing.
His thoughts didn't stop.
Edward looked up at Kai "Um, at least we survived, that's a good thing, I guess, sir", he said trying to some how find a silver light to the darkness that had just dashed everyone's hopes. He shot off a glance to a girl who passed by him, but refrained himself from saying anything or because of the blood on her, asking if she was hurt. It just seemed like she was in no mood to talk.
"I won't let them get away with this" Edward said to himself quietly, turning his head away and clenching his fists, "They will pay, I swear to god I'll make them pay. Who are they to rob our people of their lives, let alone their own! It's sickening!"
Edward stopped to think, replaying the image of the massive hulk of the Demonix firing it main gun obliterating the whole fleet. Then noticing the captain's hand on his shoulder felt a bit at ease. Quickly looking back at Kai, he grimly saluted the captain.
"Sir, PACM Private Victor reporting for duty, and squad assignment sir." Barked Edward, figuring he at least try to help both Kai and himself from dwelling on what just happened, even though it seem ridiculous not to. "Sir, Even though it's not my call or place to be making suggestions, we should probably be getting ready so we can repay the enemy the favor sir."
Steven walked in a daze to the medical bay. He found where they had put Green 2, and sat down by the bed side. Green 2 was asleep, so Steven stuck to a chair at his side. He thought about the battles of the day, what went right or wrong, the mistake he had made, and of the good friends he had lost. He really thought about the monstrosity he had seen, and wanted to get the sight out of his head.
His head was throbbing again, but he didn't notice. All he did was stare at the injured comrade of his.
Garrett merely smirked and nodded at Edward before the Medic was whisked away by his commanding officer. He watched them go then turned his gaze upward as the Red Alert went off. Through the various portholes, a large beam, supposedly the Drathonians, blew a gaping hole in the Republic forces. He froze for a second, awed and perhaps stupefied, though Garrett would never have described himself that way. Shortly thereafter, the Battle Hymn was gone, moved into Hyperspace to elude the pursuing Drathonians once more.
He sighed slowly and approached Kai and Edward. He set the bag down next to the fighter, and addressed them both. "Sorry, probably interrupting, but I was hoping you might have need of some assistance." He shrugged, vaguely gesturing toward his bag. "I'm a loose end now, seeing as their won't be another raiding party for some time. Anything you need help with, sir?" Though Kai and Garrett were, technically speaking, of the same rank, Garrett chose to address him with the respect he deserved rather than try to force a plane of equality between them. After all, neither of them really knew the other.
Kai looked up from the medic and at Garrett. "Well, there are a few hulks that need to be broken down for easier recycling" he said, pointing to a few of the twisted and charred pieces of metal, ceramics, plasics and various other items. "A demo expert can help take even the most messed up ones apart" He hinted, before picking up a rag and beginning to clean his nearly perfect specimen of a fighter, mostly to get his mind off what happened. That was the only thing he found at the moment to help, and immediately began ignoring the other two, heartless as it seemed.
He glanced at the pile of wreckage, and nodded. He could indeed rip it all apart, or make it dissolve into nothingness. The world was a demolitions expert's piece of clay. He could create beautiful works of art, or just tear it all apart. It really depended on his mood. Right now, Garrett was more interested in the art of precision and the display of true skill; he would dismantle the junk properly and cleanly. He looked at Edward now, still standing nearby. "And what about you? Need something? Want to help?"
"Oh me..? Nah, I think I'm good. I think I'll go get a bite to eat or something, um seeing I haven't eating since I arrived. This is still my first day on the ship and all. And already so much has happened." Edward stated with a nervous smile saluting both captains, "sir, just page me if you need me sir!"
And with that Edward rushed out of the hanger making his way to mess hall, before either captains could comment. His stomach had a intense hunger pain, hopefully no one was in the mood to eat after the whole Demonix situation. Besides, he also needed to get away from the whole sight of everyone being depressed.
Arriving at the mess hall he walked over to the counter to order something to eat.
"I'll have a burger please" he said
"Here you go" softly answered one of the mess hall staff behind the counter, handing Edward a premade burger.
"Uh, thanks..."
Edward, could tell the man was in no mood to converse. Slowly walking with his dish to a table, to eat. There he sat down at a table near another table with depressed woman continuously stirring her soup. Edward sat down looked at her and sighed quietly. He unwrapped his burger and began to eat, noticing the blood on his armor was still there, he grabbed a rag from pocket and tried rubbing it of, but only smeared it. Looking at the rag he let out another sigh, and continued to eat.
Kurohime knew someone was in the mess hall with her, but she remained silent.
She suddenly felt she had to let it all out, she'd fought so hard on that Drake, done everything right, and all that effort was wasted.
"AAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, sending her soup flying into a wall with a wild swing of her arms.
Once she had stopped screaming, she stared at her shaking hands, confusion reigned in her mind, anger, hate, fear, it was all swallowing her up and she felt as if there was nothing she could do to fight it.
She needed to let off some steam, but she knew if she saw another lizard, she would go insane.
"Stupid f***ing lizards, they're so gonna die, all of them are gonna rot in hell." she muttered.
Steven watched his friend for a while, and then started to doze. "You awake there Steve?" someone said. Steven looked up with a start and saw that it was Green 2.
"Hehe, how ya feelin' Freddy?" Steven said to the man.
"Like I just finished snuggling with a Drathorian," Fred joked.
"You look like you just did as well," Steven said with a laugh, "Thought I lost ya out there."
"So what happened, where are we now?" Fred asked him, clearly avoiding the last comment.
"We're in hyperspace actually."
"Why are we in hyperspace?"
"Long story, I'll tell ya later."
"Hey, I've got nothing but time, hehe."
Truth be told, Steven didn't want to tell the story, for it would dredge up the horrible memories of that moment in time. But, Steven told his friend all that had happened since landing, because he still felt he needed to get it off his chest. When he finished, both he and Fred sat quietly for a bit, until Fred broke the silence. "So we ran with our tails between our legs aye?" he said in a light tone. Steven knew Fred was thinking about not of Demonix, but instead of the comrades left behind in the void.
"Well, you should rest up some more, so I'm gonna head out of this stuffy room and take a walk," Steven said as he stood up and walked out of the room without looking back.
Kai continued to shine and polish his fighter, the lime green metal hull beginning to glisten in the artificial light of the hangar bay. he looked around at all the hunks of scrap metal, one being taken apart by controlled blasts by Garrett. He was amazed that such a hardy, advanced people could be sent running by such a stupid, corrupt foe. Something was wrong, something missing from his life. He could feel that there was something Humankind had neglected, and was now being punished for. The captain exited the hangar bay, and walked to his Quarters. he looked over at his classic book collection, some over 3,000 years old and incredibly brittle. He picked out one leather bound tome at random. The title read "Holy Bible" he decided to read it, not remembering what it was exactly. Unknowingly, he had found the missing peice, for himself at least.
"Um, are you ok?" Edward coyly asked the infuriated woman, "You know, at least we didn't die... We should be grateful for that"
Edward turned his seat to face the woman, and continued eating his burger. Watching the soup drip down the wall from the corner of his eye, he then looked down at the ground between his feet and leaned forward uneasily.
"Man I just got on this ship before the raid, and already this happens. Hell, I haven't even unpacked my bags yet, I still need to do that..." He said nervously, trying to poorly diffuse the situation and some what change the subject, "Are you new here too? Because, I..."
Edward paused, failing to try to think of anything else to say to break the awkward silence. Tensely he clenched his hands together, just noticing the blood stains on his hands. He felt a slight discomfort in his stomach realizing his forgot to wash his hands, after treating the marine. Then he wondered how the marine he patched up was doing, and began to think of those that never made it back from the assault on the drake.
After a few moments of silence Edward finally inquired, "You where on that drake... Weren't you?"
"No, I'm not new, I'm an engineer, once my area was built I was involved, we had to be, we needed to know everything on this ship worked."
She heard the question about the Drake,
"Yeah, we fried their ship-to-ship communications, making it impossible for them to know what everyone else was doing, making it easier for us to take them out. Then we find the reference to that thing, and that we have at most ten minutes to get ready for it.
We worked so hard and for what, to see our home taken, and the rest of the fleet wiped out in what was it, four shots? The data my team collected is hopefully gonna give tactics a chance to tell us how to take it down." she shook her head.
"Anyway, I just needed to let it all out then, I'll admit, I'm feeling better than before, I guess screaming as loud as possible works." she shook her head,
"Anyway I need to grab some food and actually eat it." she dashed to the counter and grabbed a plate of chips and some sachets of sauce.
She sat down again.
"I'm guessing from th blood and lack of injuries you're a medic of some kind." she said squeezing a sachet of something called ketchup onto a chip before tasting it.
The combination worked well so she squeezed the rest over the chips.
"What did you do before you joined the military?" she asked
Edward sat there listening intently to her answers, after hearing her questions he quietly responded, "Yeah, I know what you mean about the screaming..." he chuckled, " I'm a PACM... er.... let's just say a Combat Medic. I get to go out on missions with the marines and make sure they all make it back in one piece. I have marine training, but I also have advanced medical training too..."
Edward looked up and half smiled at the young woman, he slightly blushed then looked back down at the ground between his feet.
"Me? Before I joined the military, I lived in a boarding house with some old woman who took care of me. When I was younger my sister joined the military as a pilot, but was killed when the Drathonians raided the academy she was training at... She was my only family, she was the one who sent me to the boarding house…" Edward responded numbinglyâ€, but to specifically answer your question not a whole lot..."
He looked around, than continued eating his burger with his blood covered hands. Finally finishing what was left of it.
"Yea that's about the gist of it" Edward added, not feeling comfortable to talk anymore about him self.
He examined her wild utility belt which was crammed with tools, the only ones he really recognized were the screw driver, hammer, and of course her gun.
"What about you? I'm sure with all of those tools you must be some type of engineer right?" He asked.
"Yeah, while we don't technically have a head of Engineering, I have the greatest general knowledge, so I more or less organise the people there." she paused
"I was born on Mars, then the lizards came, when I was about thirteen I left the colony I had been living in, and began my life as a hitchhiker, I quickly discovered a knack for fixing things, so I used that as a means to pay for going on cargo ships and transporters, the ship I stayed on the longest was a scavenger vessel. It picked up all kinds of junk, including Drathonian technology, which is how I became familiar with it.
Then last year, I heard about some big military project, and all of us on the scavenger ship decided to join up as engineers. They initially thought I was too young, but then they found out the Captain was the same age as me, so they let me in. And here I am."
she paused again.
"Oddly enough there were some military eningeers looking at going on the Hymn too, but they knew nothing about the stuff the lizards used, so we got in instead."
Edward smiled feeling a bit more secure, "So, you technically might as well call your self the head of engineering then, right? That's also one hell of a position. You know I really don't understand much of the major technology stuff, you know the warp drives and all that. Just give me a rifle, a few med kits, and I'm set. I'm glad we have someone like you to do that stuff, especially with your Drathonian technology knowledge... Um, one sec..."
Quieting down, Edward stood up and went over to the counter, grabbing a small plate of "french fries", a small bowl of chili, and a big handful of wet-wipes. Returning to his table he opened up a few of the packs of wipes and began to scrub his hands, and then spots of his armor, cleaning off the dried blood. The once white wipes, were now a crimson color with a few tiny spots of gore. He set them on the table, then looking down at them in disgust he threw them into a near by trash bin, making a perfect shot. After that was done he then poured the chili onto the fries and began to eat.
"That marine I patched up, was on the drake also, had a piece of shrapnel lodged in him the size of a small dinner plate" He smiled, putting a fry into his mouth, "So, what exactly was in the Demonix data you secured? Anything interesting?"
"At this point in time we only know that the white noise that it emits it a count down, whether intentional or not, we don't know.
And we've figured out that the main gun is basically one giant Solaris Cannon, butwe need to figure out how they get the cone effect before we can come up with any strategies.
We've only just got the raw data, it needs to be analysed, interpreted and then what we find needs to be put into laymans terms, simply because there would be no point in talking about an Electromagnetic Flux Compensator to you, unless I explained it first, and that takes forever." she sighed,
"Well I need to get back to my job, which is making sure this ship gets fixed before be come out of hyperspace. I'll see you around." she said before leaving the mess hall.
Steven was walking the corridors of the ship as he became lost in thought again. He walked with a lighter heart now that he was sure his comrade was OK; he knew as well that sooner or later he was going to have to be the one to explain to the families of his other wingmen what had happened. He snapped back to reality when his stomach gave a low growl, which made him remember that all he had in the past 24 was the cup of coffee. So he changed direction and walked toward the mess hall.
"Hope Eddies got something good for me today," he mused.
Kai sat on his bed and began reading this book, the Bible. He remembered reading it before, thinking it was just stories, but having seen that, he found deeper meaning within the pages of this book. He found himself skimming through, eyes glancing on random verses, till he came to the book of Revalations, and realized what had been happening the past ten years or so. The young captain realised what he needed to do, to save everyone. He only hoped it wasn't too late for humankind to ask forgiveness, as he slipped off his bed, got to his knees, and Prayed
The Hymn Dropped out of hyperspace, Into utter lonliness. they were halfway to the Altresian empire, but had to stop, in literally the middle of nowhere, since the power generators had been so taxed during the battle. Soon the lights went out, and people and things began floating, and the door to space from the hangar bay closed, as the protective field turned off. the only thing left running was life support. The battle Hymn had outdone herself, and still it wasn't enough. She sat, resting, freezing, waiting to regain enough power to continue her flight. For now, she merely drifted, a grey spot in the blackness of space.
He was almost to the mess hall when Steven noticed the unexpected stop. First the lights went out, then when he took another step he didn't feel his foot connect with the ground. Startled, he looked down and saw that he, and everything else in the corridor, was floating.
"Oh the gravity is gone too," he said in a slightly amused tone, "Always did prefer floating place to place in zero-gravity than walking!" He reached for a pipe on the wall and pulled himself over to it. He used the pipe to propel hisself forward again.
"I wonder if Eddy's chile tastes better in zero-grav," he laughed as he continued toward the mess hall.
As Darian slept, he dreamed. He was back in the heat of battle and dogfighting with a scourge. A shot connected with the wing of his ship, melting circuitry and cutting off all control over steering. As the scourge lined up for a killing shot, Darian panicked and pounded violently on the controls. The scourge fired, the shot blazing into the ship and slamming into Darian.
Darian awoke with a jolt, and hit his head on the ceiling again. He was covered in sweat and disoriented. The disorientation was understandable because of the darkness and the inexplicable lack of gravity. After a few seconds Darian calmed down and began to assess the situation.
They must have powered down to recharge. he thought as he used the glow of his battery powered clock to orient himself. He groped his way into the rooms adjoining bathroom and toweled himself off. If they hadn't been powered down he would have taken a shower, but he knew that they needed the water that had been pressurized before shutdown for the wounded. A shower could wait. He fumbled his way back into the room and found his closet. He reached in and garbed the first set of clothes he could find: changing into them as best as he could.
He left the room in search of a meal, having quickly digested the snack he had earlier. He followed the light path, brown brown green, down the corridors to the mess hall.
Steven reached the mess hall and swung himself around the door. Everything was dark in there, and he couldn't see to far in. He saw a spot of light in the direction of the serving area. "Just like Ed, working even under these conditions," he thought as he drifted over to the little light.
"Hey there Eddy, think you can get me some chili?" he asked a man who was looking for something by candle light.
"Who's there?" said the man as he held up the candle, "Oh, it's you, and I told you to stop calling me Eddy, my name is Shawn."
"Right, sure, so the chili if ya please," Steven said distractedly.
Steven grabbed a tray and had the cook serve him a sloppy bowl of chili. He pushed himself off and grabbed a spot at a long table, and settled down to eat.
As he neared the mess, Darian could smell chili. His stomach growled in protest of the tantalizing smell. In the mess he saw a few scattered individuals floating in the room, eating meals from the globe-shaped containers designed for eating in zero-gee. Up by the kitchen he spotted someone familiar. It took a few seconds for Darian to recognize the man, it was Green Leader Steven. Darian would have left the room then and there, he hated the idea of confronting Steven. However, his stomach objected to the idea of leaving, so Darian, hoping he wouldn't be noticed, quietly floated into line behind Steven.
"Oh, fantastic," Tom muttered as he slowly began floating out of his seat towards the plexiglas above him. He grabbed the arm of the chair and thrust himself through the darkness towards where he supposed the door had been a moment ago. He was almost right, and caught himself before he ran into the wall.
Fortunately, his uniform had a small light on it, which he used to guide himself down the passageways to his quarters. There he detached the armor plates from his uniform and reemerged, looking for something to eat.
Something that smelled distinctly like chili caught Tom's attention, and he launched himself like an arrow down the passageway, stopping himself just in time to observe where exactly the scent was coming from. He slipped in behind another man who looked somewhat like a pilot.
At this moment, Tom became distinctly aware of the fact that the left sleeve of his uniform was still quite distinctly coated with Drathonian blood. A little perturbed, he did his best to keep his arm out of the light, but it wasn't particularly easy.
Seated at the table Edward was about to put another chili fry into his mouth when the lights shut off.
"What the hell is this?" He shouted startled, and began to float upward, along with his chili fries, "Well this is a change..."
Searching for his armor's spotlight button, Edward pressed a random switch on his armor's forearm plate, activating band of small red hazard lights integrated around the lower collar of his armored chest plate, giving him a dim view of his surroundings in the mess hall. He could see others still eating with their zero-g meal containers.
"Well not exactly what I wanted, but it works,†He said to himself, quickly grabbing at his fries trying to get a get few more in his mouth before they floated to far away from him. Once he reached the top his back slammed into the ceiling, damaging a circuit in his armor, turning off his hazard lights.
Flicking the switch frantically the lights failed to turn back on.
"Piece of junk" Edward shouted furiously "What the hell!"
At this point a man jettisoned in from the hallway demanding chili from one of the cooks. Edward, watching from a dim light the cook was holding, he observed the man grab the chili and launch himself down to a table to eat.
There on the ceiling, Edward sat in the dark, defeated. He Watched two more men float in from the hallway.
"I wonder if anyone will notice me, Must not be that hard to see a armored medic on the ceiling..."he thought to him self, "I shouldn't of used a regular plate for my fries... And I should have taken this armor off before I went to eat, it's so uncomfortable..."
Kurohime sighed as she floated up, she'd just reached eningeering too.
Once the door opened she could see what had happened, the external damamge had meant hyperspace had been more taxing on the generators than normal, the result was an over load.
"How like before the backup generators kick in?" she asked,
"Any minute now."
"Get them powering the gravity systems, sick bay, and the navigation and propulsion systems. And shut the warp core down, it's been under a lot of strain, and I don't want to take any risks."
"Kurohime, we've gotten one of the generators working, but it won't power everything we want it to power, we have to drop one off the list."
"Then drop gravity, sick bay needs the power and we need to keep moving."
"Ok."
Kurohime messaged the bridge, "Engineering here, we've managed to get one of the back up generators working, so sick bay has power and the ship can move at max impulse two, but it's the best we can do at the moment. We're gonna go and check all the generators, see if there are any that only need repairing and not recharging. Also, since the current power situation, I want all crew to report to one of these locations, we may have to seal areas of the ship off to conserve power and we don't want to trap anyone." She also sent a plan of the ship with the designated areas that people could go to.
They included: The Mess Halls on every other deck, the observation deck, and the empty store rooms on the same decks as the mess halls.
Once that was done she began to organise the teams.
"Marie, keep an eye on Life support, if you need to cut power, cut it to these decks." she gave her a list.
"The rest of you into your normal teams, those who would have been with Marie and myself will stay here to keep things running at this end. All the generators are in one of two areas, Davidson and Singh, Take the right set, Jones and Abul take the left set. Fix any damage you find there, the back up generators are the priority, since they should be working. Now of you go."
Steven was eating his chili, when he looked up and saw a man in armor floating around. Steven gaged on the spoonful of chili he had just taken a bite of, and let out a slight laugh.
"You need a hand there buddy?" he asked the floating man. Before he could get an answer the sound of serving trays caught his ear. He looked over his shoulder as two more people were being served. Wide eyed, Steven tried to make out who they were, but it's was to dark to see all that clearly.
"So, want help?" he asked again as he turned back to face the floating man.
When the Hymn came to a sudden stop, of course, Meigan lost balance and fell. But she hadn't it the ground, instead she hit...the ceiling? Her face was looking to the ground and she had a confused look on her face.
"This is..." She tried to think of a proper way to end her sentance but nothing came to her.
It was just like being underwater, thats what she should do, the crimson blood was still all over her and she had to clean it up soon. Meigan air-swam to a small room on one of the lower decks of the Hymn, her own small room that was assigned to her. She entered and looked around, it was all white which was very irritating to the eyes.
She turned the water on in a small shower in the corner of her room, but nothing came out. Come on! We can't have lost ALL power, could we? Meigan thought to herself. Now she would have to live with the now dry blood all over her for who knows how long.
Meigan, knowing that she wouldn't get anything interesting done in her room, left and headed in a random direction. She was still not sure about the ship's layout, maybe this would be a good time to check it out?
Kai was completely lost in self-reflection, not even noticing what had happened. As he left the floor, he didn't notice, and merely remained in a kneeling position, though amazingly it didn't hurt his knees anymore. when his head made contact with the ceiling however, he finally noticed what had happened, and felt lucky to always be wearing a jacket, the newfound coldness of the ship not bothering him. After a few minutes of floating in silence staring at a poster on his wall, Kai's Comm beeped, alerting him of a new message about the turning off of life support on every other deck. Lai's Deck was one that was going to be shut down, so he decided to float on down to the Med bay to see if they had finished growing his replacement biological leg yet.
"No, I'm alright, just you know hanging around..." Edward said out loud jokingly.
Bringing him self around, he pushed off on the ceiling with his legs, launching him self at the ground below. With his arms out forward he stopped his collision with the mess hall floor. Then in a fluid motion pushed off the ground at an angle, flipping him backwards. While flipping backwards Edward was hoping he could latch on to a chair behind him, to bring him self to a halt. Unfortunately he over shot it, whacking his forehead on the edge of a table instead. Which sent him rolling into a wall behind him.
"OW! You've got to be freaking kidding me!" He shouted out in pain holding his head, "Geeze! Man that hurts!"
He sat there for a moment holding his head, he felt a warm wetness on his hands, he was bleeding. Closing his eyes, he reached into a med pouch, and felt around for an antiseptic cloth pack. Finding one, he tore it open, folded it over, and applied it to his head wound. Stopping the blood from seeping out and floating around into the mess hall.
He sat there for a minute, embarrassed at his failed zero-g stunt attempt. And then with out a word launched him self towards the exit, and out into the hallway.
"I feel like such a moron,†he said to him self oddly smiling.
He decided the make his way to the medical bay, hoping he could find his way in the dark. Taking off the cloth he felt his forehead. A shiver ran down his spine as his finger ran across a wide bloody gash.
"Great... I can't fix this my self in the dark...", he thought to him self.
Putting the cloth back on, he pushed down it's edges, making it adhere to his forehead, giving him an extra hand to help him navigate the dark hallways.
After a few minutes of wandering around Edward finally decided he was lost. Until he came upon a woman covered in what looked to be dried blood.
"Hey! Um, do you know which direction the med bay is?" He anxiously said, floating by her, "I really need some directions."
Steven watched with amusement as the man floated maneuvered in zero-g. Until the man collided with a table, making even Steven wince. And finally as the man went out the door.
"Hm, dinner AND a show,"he laughed to himself as he went back to eating to chili, which had begun to float away on him until he pulled it back in. He looked around the mess hall to the faint glow that marked Eddies position.
"Hey Eddy! Think you can warm this chili up for me back there?!" he called to the cook.
"No! And stop calling me Eddy my name is... oh why even bother," came the reply.
He laughed and finished the last of his chili. Now with a full stomach, Steven was quite relaxed, but wasn't sure where on the ship to go next.
"I suppose I could go back to work on the fighter, but then again me plus power tools in the dark equals not a good combination," he said as he let go of his hold on the seat and drifted into the air again.
Upon arriving near the Med bay, Kai noticed that he was slowly descending to the floor. Gravity plating must still work around here. he thought, though it was obvious that a zero-G environment is harsh on a wounded person. making contact with the floor just in front of the door, Kai walked into the familiar feeling of his own weight, though it was a bit off due to the cybernetic leg he was wearing.
the young captain walked up to one of the nurses on dudty and asked "Ma'am, could you help me find wether or not my new leg is ready?"
"Sure, hon" she replied, in a sweet tone, and scanned his name badge, the data popping up on her PC almost instantly. "Yeah, it's just the right time too, Thoughyou've gotta stay in here for 5 hours or till the whole ship gets gravity again, otherwise the medicine won't be able to bind everything togethe and you'll have a nasty limp"
"Ah" was kai's answer before walking into the surgery room to be put under for the operation, wich would be immensly painful if he was awake.
Roger tapped his data-visor and squinted as it switched to light mode. The large brown paper he was examining, easily as wide as he was tall, seemed antique compared to the rest of the repair bay. Still, it was in this crumbling piece of history that Roger'd find what he needed. An index finger pointed at a smaller section of the drawing, labeled FUEL CELLS, and frowned.
"Well, that explains the Mills-Cobbler layover they introduced..." he grumbled, technical babble that would be a second language to any not versed in its subtleties. "But maybe I can work with this."
BEEP! The crackling of static followed by a voice keyed him into his communicator going off. *Roger, get your ass up here. They want to shut life support down temporarily.* Roger chuckled and lifted his headset mic to his mouth to reply. "Tell them to keep the air on, Mika, I'll make do. I think I've found a way to reroute power from the fuel cells on our fighters more efficiently which will let me--" *Sounds awesome. Tell me later, after I finish staring at this wall.* She was clearly attracted to Roger's genius, he decided.
Roger's thoughts came to an abrupt halt as he floated into the wing of a damaged fighter. A loud bang echoed through the nearly empty room, and Roger groaned. "God damnit, how long does it take for them to bring her back online?" His frustration was evident, as was his determination. Propelling himself through the nightmare of a repair bay without gravity, he sipped some of his floating coffee from its congestion in the middle of the vacuum and went back to reading. Those fighters wouldn't become functional again on their own, after all.