Bit of a drag of a paragraph but one last thing, they discovered a dead body and an unconscious, severely injured woman aboard Aries.
To the excerpt:
Charlie let nothing but her breathing invade her hearing. The lurching of the ship let her know that it had docked with Aries. Once the green light by the door let her know that the air had been pumped full of oxygen she let other sounds invade her senses. “McCallister! With me, Garrison and Torres, Rhodes and Nelson, Eliot and Hunter bring up the rear! On me!”
She let the air fill the airlock for a little longer before she opened
the door, letting McCallister stamp through first, rifle raised. She followed
him, swinging her gun to the left of the airlock. Light footsteps behind told
her Garrison and Torres were close behind. She and McCallister made it to Aries’
airlock and paused, waiting for Hunter and Eliot to close the airlock to their
own ship. McCallister opened the door and Charlie swept through it first, going
to the right whilst he crossed to the left. They swept through a few feet
before stopping at the interior door that led to the innards of the ship. A
small window in the door told Charlie that there wasn’t anybody nearby.
The sound of the airlock closing let her know to carry on. “Everybody,
cameras and microphones on.” People shuffled as they followed orders and soon,
Charlie was opening the door that led to the main interior of Aries. The
hallway that they were immediately placed in was large enough for two people
side by side. It split off into three different paths, forward, left and right.
“McCallister and I will take forward, Hunter and Eliot left, Garrison and
Torres with the Doctors right. We’ll try to reconvene at the centre of the
ship. Go.”
Everybody pushed off and Charlie took her path first, McCallister
following on the other side of the wall. The light from their torches lit the
walls and floor, checking every possible space for rooms, doorways and
alternate routes. They’d already come across two crossroads and had cleared
both before keeping to their straight path directly to the centre of the ship. As
they went they checked the rooms, finding offices and storage rooms. Everything
about the simple design and small routes has military ship written all over
them.
It wasn’t long before they’d reached the mess hall that led straight to
the bridge on the other side. Hunter and Eliot appeared behind them after a few
minutes as she and McCallister checked the room for traps. The other four
appeared, footsteps loud and careless in the empty ship.
“Nothing,” Garrison said as he entered. “Nobody, no blood, nothing. Just
a few blown fuses and busted wiring. Where’s the people that sent for help?”
“Oxygen low my ass!” Hunter shouted as she paced the room.
“Torres, Eliot, could somebody have faked the levels to an outside
scan?”
Both men looked at each other for a few seconds before offering her a
shrug. Torres spoke. “It’s possible. But the actual temperature in a ship this
old would need to be decreased for a lengthy amount of time.”
Garrison nodded. “You can feel the chill in the air still. But
somebody’s turned the temperature back up when we docked.”
“So where is everybody?” Rhodes asked, voicing the question that had
been on everybody’s mind.
Charlie addressed her pilots, “Zach, Sokoloff. Run a heat signature scan
of the ship. I want body heat signatures now.” Through their radios came
silence, not the usual ‘Aye Captain’ that either of them would have said.
“Zach! Sokoloff! Do you hear me?” Nothing.
Then Aries shuddered violently, jerking everybody off their feet
and onto their knees. “Fuck!” McCallister muttered before he pulled himself
back up.
There was the sound of metal straining and Charlie eyed the ships
ceiling with worry. Then silence. The eerie silence made the hairs on the back
of her neck stand up. It was too quiet, even by ship standards. Many a times
Charlie had walked through the Valhalla and heard very little. But there was
always a humming from the engine. Humming from the systems as they filtered the
air. And even sometimes people still up, unable to sleep.
But this? The only sounds to be heard were her crews stunted breathing.
Nobody wanted to make too much sound. Nobody wanted to advertise that they were
here. Nobody wanted the attention. Not a body. Not a drop of blood. A smear.
Nothing. Nobody. But she could feel eyes on her. Watching her every step.
Whatever it was, whoever it was, nobody wanted their attention. Just in case.
"The fuck do you think happened?" Garrison. Ever the vocalist.
Their radios buzzed and the ship juddered again, forcing them off their
balance. Zach, still aboard the Valhalla was rushing through his words.
"Sir, they jumped me. Dragged me out of the airlock and onto the
Aries."
Charlie's eyes went wide at the prospect. She moved through the mess
hall to find the nearest view port and watched as their ship, her ship,
started to push away from them. "Mother fuckers!" Hunter, her voice
loud and angry, kicked at one of the wooden chairs and sent it flying.
“Son of a bitch!” McCallister added.
“Rhodes, Nelson, go check on Sokoloff and Zach. Garrison go with them.
Torres, Eliot I want you to get to engineering and find out what the fuck this
ship’s condition is. Does it still fly? Can we move it? Go!”
She allowed herself to take a deep breathe, hiding her anger. Somebody
had gotten past eight pairs of eyes. Somebody had waited until they’d passed,
snuck onto Valhalla and then flew their own ship out of there, leaving
them dead in the water. And it must’ve been a small team. Zach had said ‘they’
and it couldn’t have been too many who’d gotten past them. “Captain?”
McCallister approached. “What do we do?”
She let her gaze settle on his, bright and angry. “We get my ship back.”
And because I'm so kind, another one, just a couple thousand words later:
Charlie kicked at the units in the
kitchen, pissed and angry at everything that was going on. EMP. Hijacked ship. Command
screwing them in the ass. Bad luck after bad luck. “Fuck!” The twisting in her
stomach was back and worse. It was scratching its way up into her ribcage. “Fuck,”
she whispered.
McCallister appeared in the door to the mess, one hand on the door frame
the other firmly fixed to his rifle. “Any guesses?”
She turned, ran her hands over her face and sighed, planting them on her
hips. “Command fucked us over. Big.”
He turned his head over his shoulder then back as he stepped into the
room. “I know.” His head twisted back over his shoulder, “But, should they
know?”
Charlie sighed, ducking her head. “I’ll keep my voice down.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Her eyes flicked up. “Do we know for sure
Command screwed us over?”
She took a seat at the table in the mess, threw her gun onto the table
and leaned back, profile stiff, tense. “It sure feels that way.” Her hands were
running over her face again with another sigh. “Everybody’s thinking it
McCallister, I’m the one fucking say it. Command fucked us. Please, tell me
what part of this does not scream ‘screw you’.”
“I know.”
“Denying me access
to public knowledge. Deleting the knowledge
minutes later. Leaving us with nothing to go on! Leaving us blind! That
screams screwed over!”
“I know!” McCallister
called back. Silence echoed back. “I know.” More silence. “But I don’t think
everybody else needs to know how you feel about it all. It won’t go down well
and we don’t need Hunter or Garrison running their mouths or their arrogance.” Silence.
“Let’s just,” he pulled a seat out and took a seat across from her. “think
about how we’re going to get out of this mess and what we’re going to do next.”
Charlie hated to
admit it but McCallister was right. There’s no need to rile the crew up. The
Captain can’t be seen getting angry at her own bosses. If she was angry at them
it would reflect in the crew and they wouldn’t want to follow orders. Just to
cause trouble. She was glad McCallister was her first in command. He had a
level head when she didn’t. He couldn’t, wouldn’t want the responsibilities of
Captain. Both of them knew that.
But she was still
pissed. The reasons Command guessed her crew didn’t follow orders was yes,
because she would break the rules to get things done when appropriate. But Valhalla
wasn’t her first ship. And even then she broke the rules. Broke them because
Command gave her nothing but Bullshit.
Charlie stood,
grabbed her gun and stared McCallister in the face. “I’m not losing another
team. Not because Command wanted to screw me over with no information.” And she
left, heading straight for engineering.
“Captain,” Nelson’s
voice over the comms stopped her in her tracks. “You might want to get to
medical. Something you should see.”
She turned on her
heels and came back to the mess, McCallister still seated in the same seat. She
nodded her head, a silent ‘come with’ gesture, and they moved through the ship.
Medical was less clean than the one on Valhalla but the intention was
still there. And so was the blood. “How the hell did we miss that?” McCallister
said.
“Nelson!”
The man appeared
seconds later, saw the blood by their feet and nodded. “Yeah, the place was
locked and dark when we went past. But, we couldn’t see anybody through the
windows so we moved on.”
“Just like that?”
she asked. McCallister tilted his head in her direction and she sighed. “What
did you want?”
Nelson pointed to
the other side of the room, in the direction of the smeared and drops of blood.
They followed him into the next room, where several beds were set up for long
term medical treatment. Beds lined one wall, each with its own curtain and set
of magnetic stabilising that kept the beds in place and the people in them safe
if the ship took damage. What he was referring to was the two bloodied bodies,
a male and a female, both unconscious and their states unknown. Another bed was
covered in blood, gauze strips, patches, scrubs, all bloodied and scattered
across the bed, floor and room.
“Conditions?”
Nelson moved to
the bed that held a young man in his late twenties, early thirties. Black hair
was matted back, thick with patches of blood. His uniform had been ripped open
and white gauze covered in red still lay across his stained chest. “This one’s
dead. Two bullet wounds to the chest and another in the leg. The first was the
critical, piercing a lung and severing an artery at the same time.” Charlie stepped
closer to the bed and pulled on the uniform until his name became clear,
Carter.
Nelson moved over
to the next bed where a woman lay, her face looking peaceful and content. Her
leg was bandaged and her shoulder was wrapped in red stained fabric. Blonde
hair was stuck to the skin, thick with sweat and small streams of blood. If
Charlie had to guess the woman was in her mid-thirties. The rank on her uniform
screamed Sergeant. She pulled on the uniform until a name was clear again, Murphy.
“This one’s alive. Well, just about. Broken leg, bullet wound to her shoulder
and that’s only on an external examination. I’ve asked Torres for the emergency
backup in medical to be a priority. I assumed you wanted her alive.”
“Good thinking. So
she’s not up to talking then?”
“Not just yet. I’m
gonna give her some pain killers in a bit. I doubt whoever treated her knew
exactly what would be appropriate.” He gestured to the many rummaged drawers
and thrown open cupboards.
Charlie let her
eyes linger on Murphy’s body for a few more seconds before she tapped her radio
on. “Rhodes to medical, Garrison and Hunter I want you there too. Torres, get
the back-up power working now.” She let go and looked back at Nelson. “Take
over from Rhodes on the bridge, keep an eye on Sokoloff and Zach just to make
sure they’re fine.”
Nelson moved out
of medical and Charlie shared a look with McCallister. He spoke before she
could, “Whatever they’re planning to do with our ship, looks like they can’t
risk the injured. Left her here in hopes we take care of her.”
“Yeah well, out of
the goodness of our heart we’ll keep her drugged up and safe. For now.”
McCallister quirked a brow. She rolled her eyes. “I’m kidding. But she has a
hell of lot of explaining to do.”
Rhodes appeared a
minute later, already moving around the infirmary and pulling gloves on.
“Torres better get the power back on down here. I don’t want a patient dying.”
“He’s on it.”
So, there we have two new excerpts. Now, I'm gonna get my ass back onto writing.
Enjoy.
No comments:
Post a Comment