Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Homeworld - Tales of the Vjel-Amaj: Aira's Quest - Part I ❯ Chapter 19 – Aftermath ( Chapter 19 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: Sgt_$parki 
Miscellaneous: Original Stories Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Thriller / Sci-fi / Romance / Drama / Adventure | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 06.27.2008 | Pages: 21 | Words: 29.4K | Visits: 168 | Status: Completed
Miscellaneous: Original Stories Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Thriller / Sci-fi / Romance / Drama / Adventure | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 06.27.2008 | Pages: 21 | Words: 29.4K | Visits: 168 | Status: Completed
“Forfeit that command!”
Almost everybody startled after hearing Pethera's voice thundering throughout the bridge. The note of hectic was still present. Others such as Fenna still shouted at each other but also tried to catch some of the sudden arguing.
“Don't get in my way again, Pethera! This is frakking serious! We are in deep trouble!”
“I've had enough of your insults and blemishing acts, Delixa, and I will no longer tolerate it! You may have been successful in leading this ship out of the M'randara Star System though against MY will - but you are no longer capable of leading this ship as due to your psychological state!”, the accusing S'jeti barked at Hailynn and approached her, “You are clearly overreacting due to your state - You should be removed from command at once!”
“Frakk off - we -!”
“Commander Orelis!”, Pethera suddenly turned herself over to the man who nearly intervened, “Being the highest ranking person of kiithidial supremacy, I demand you to remove this foolish hallucinating officer at once! Do your duty as a serving authority under the supremacy!”
“…”
“By the kiithidial order or not, Orelis, she must be removed from command - Either by my voice or by military impeachment of commandership! I will no longer tolerate these pathetic actions of this woman!”
Orelis hesitated. A pause filled the entire bridge.
Hailynn was about to defend herself through arguing but something held her back. The painful confusion swarming through her mind was the least of what was holding her back from speaking. That dreadful feeling of déjà-vu plagued her. However, it was well-known that she was acting at the edge of insanity. She did not need to look at the other operatives; she knew that all of them were more than worried about her, both her physical and mental state. Though Pethera's accusing was threatening, Hailynn did begin to reconsider.
Maybe she was overreacting.
Maybe the gunfire heard by Kelsea was a misleading sound.
As questions filled her wrecked psyche, she lowered her head in disgrace with her hand upon its side - The break from command would really do her good after all.
“Pethera - I don't care right now if Hailynn is hallucinating or wrecked beyond recognition”, Orelis suddenly replied, “True - Her announcing a sudden lockdown procedure to repel some… boarding insurgency… sounds a bit crazy.. but I'm sticking to the facts here: Kelsea just lost contact to somebody - She said there was some sort of gunfire!”
“D-Don't make me remove you from duty as well, Orelis… There is no real proof that -”
A noticeable and much disturbing tremor cycled through the ship, definitely not caused by the outer turbulences of hyperspace. The tremble was nonetheless powerful enough to make the ship tremor a split-second differently than the usual wild turbulences.
“Ooooohhhh-kaaay…. What the FRAKK WAS THAT NOW?!”, Orelis cursed slowly.
“Th-That was nothing -!”
“D-Detected an explosion…”, one of the logistics operatives announced from the other side of the bridge.
Straightening his wrinkled uniform, the grim officer rushed over to that side, “Explosion?! Don't tell me we were chased into HYPERSPACE! Never heard of missile attacks within hypersp-”
“Th-The explosion occurred internally, Commander! Smoke and fire development detected within the ship! Storage section R-21B, deck eight! W-Within the ship!”, he repeated.
Checking the screens of Zann that neighbored the logistics' operations, Orelis instantly found the section and the adjacency blinking symbols and colors. Following what the operative just said, the section was upon the starboard side somewhere at the stern of the ship.
Worries became larger as Zann excluded the possibility of technical malfunctioning - Despite mentioning high rests of EM fields once emitting from that area, not a single primary technical cross point of such could have done such devastation. Orelis slowly lifted his head over to Hailynn…
Damn… How?
“Wasn't that proof enough, bitch?!”, Hailynn suddenly snubbed at Pethera, pushing her rudely aside, “Retain that order I just gave - WE HAVE BEEN BOARDED!!!”
Practically all operatives shuddered in fright.
“But… how?!”, somebody asked as the rest conducted intruder alert.
“Oh, they snuck on us - and I think I know how! I need a full surveillance check around our hull - starting with starboard!”
“Right away, ma'am! Will need a bit though - The low power profile will force us to an old fashion check up.”
Low quality and heavily interfered images began to phase several snapshots each second from the designated region, practically all of them revealing fabrics and energetic whips of hyperspace attempting to crush and penetrate the `Morovuur' wavefront.
One of the operatives stared at one of the screens revealing the same messy live surveillance of the helm, the same that was definitely freaking Fenna: Dark blue maelstrom waves, thundering fields, tentacles of unknown energy fabrics and many other unexplainable masses were constantly being thrown against the ship, terrorizing the ship… somewhat craving to surge all life onboard… At least that was the impression. The barely visible but countless billions of deformed bubbles of all sizes and forms slowly moved by as wakes and streams strung by… for sure resembling that they were indeed moving through the galaxy's body at an unimaginable speed, formidably against the alternating maelstrom.
“Delixa… You have pushed me around far enough…”
“Not now, Pethera! *mmpf!*”
“Ladies, please - Knock it off! We've got trouble going on!”, Orelis tried to remind them of more important issues, but failed. There was something else `serious' going on between the two sworn enemies.
A vicious grip clenched her upper arm, unfortunately precisely upon one of many bruised regions of her body and was merely torn back, forcing her to stand face-to-face with the aggravated s'jeti.
“*Sniff* You… disgusting… smelly… woman…”, Pethera slowly spoke with a sharp tongue, “I don't care what is going on with this ship but I know it is ALL YOUR FAULT! It is your entire fault… You led us to the kadeshi… You let the vaygr onboard… You are responsible for whatever happen to this crew”, she continuously crushed her arm with her grip - the pain only resembling the portion of the true pain of responsibility, “But let me put this straight, Delixa: If we survive… if you survive this intrusion… You will not escape my grip…”
Tension and fears already struck into the minds of various people - The ship needed to act to the threat but Pethera did not seem to care at all, her arrogant interests was all about something else and even if the ship were about to explode, she'd not refrain from what she was about to do.
Using all that has happened to this date but somewhat also what was caused by the guilt of Pethera and her subordinates, she was loading all of it upon Hailynn like a scapegoat, since she was not only Krin'sa now but also the commanding officer who inherited all responsibilities - however also being witnessed by the entire crew, letting all of them know that all deaths, all trouble was caused by Hailynn, “I will make sure you won't survive to see the next day. I assure you that I will make the kiith and the navy will excommunicate you - granted, your krin'sa cannot be stripped, but won't stop me from endorsing a proposal… Expect execution, woman… No mercy. I will make sure your execution will a slow and painful one, Delixa. ”
Pethera's words were dreaded serious, daunting for all operatives who feared kiithid supremacy for their laws.
“Mmhmhmmmhmmmm…”
“…&# 8221;, Pethera's eyes widened as she leaned back slightly. Her grip loosened slightly. Was Hailynn becoming insane?
“-hmmhmhhehehhehe - hahahaahah…”, Hailynn quietly chuckled.
“W-w…why are you… Wh-What's so amusing?! Answer me, Delixa!”
The chuckle escalated into a light-hearted and short-lived laughter, much for the irritation of Pethera who slipped her hand away from Hailynn's torn sleeve. Pethera even smiled shortly, at first thinking that Hailynn's reaction was caused by her fear - but she immediately stopped smiling, for Hailynn already proven she had more esteem than before when they were within the imperial taiidan mothership.
Pethera cursed inwardly - she missed the chance of crushing her when her will was broken.
The irregular flashes and colorful phases of hyperspace and the wavefront frequently lit the bridge.
Hailynn's view suddenly became serious as she gazed back at the s'jeti scientist, “That I'm as good as dead is something that nobody has to remind me about. As if I were scared about… wait… Alright - hold on. I won't deny it. I am scared - but not about you, bitch of s'jet.”
The s'jeti woman bit her teeth together, but was unable to reply to the insult.
“I'm scared about the well-being of my crew - so let me get this straight, Doc-tor. We've went through a lot of bullshit - and just when I thought it was over, I got fooled again. Not only I, but many others have nearly been killed - and certain deaths are accounting for my failures, no question about that one. And yet I'm still standing. I don't know… *gasp* for how long…”
Others shortly looked upon the two again. Hailynn's words sounded much more serious than ever, “I have doubts that I will survive this day - and even if I do, it's unlikely I will survive long enough due to my health status - which is just… funny… because you are just hoping for me to stay long enough alive for a kiithidial excommunication and execution… Whatever - but let me make this straight, you black-haired beauty queen: Even if I survive to that day to be brought in front a kiithidial court, I'll be taking somebody down with me!”
“What…?!”
“Oh, you heard right. That son of a bitch Asad!”
“…”
Pethera took another step back. Though Asad was a subordinate, he was a much valuable personality of her corporation. In truth, the man was indeed responsible for numbers of deaths - both those of the amaj and of the corporation.
Nonetheless, Pethera knew of his guilt and could cover him through her status, but with Hailynn possible intervention in front of such court might have him executed as well. Furthermore, there were far too many witnesses. She needed Asad greatly, for his persona played a far too important role for the corporation and its future.
“C-Contact!”
Hailynn gave one last look at Pethera before approaching the general surveillance station, placing herself behind the seat of the logistics operative, Orelis and two other supporting operators. The screen revealed a live-feed image of a certain sector on the starboard side of the hull. Despite the image's quality and lack of color, they all spotted regions where the three entropic plasma masses still continuously left awkward trails of smoke. Others also spotted this on secondary screens.
Suddenly, Orelis pointed his hand ahead, “Err… what is that?! Look - another one… Three of them!”
The shock of discovery was proof enough for the hiigaran officer to turn away, “Latched Infiltrator pods! I knew it! Shit!”
“Boarding party…”
“Not just a `boarding party'… vaygr - maybe with taiidan and turanics on top of it! We're in deep shit! Orelis - those thuds, those minor impacts; those were not dud missiles! We must have bypassed stalking infiltrator frigates when we made our last getaway!”, Hailynn explained anxiously, “You… You have no idea h-how much in trouble we are! It must be the warlords last order before we got away!”
Surprisingly, it seemed as if Hailynn had more fears than she previously pronounced. In addition, she had been wasting time with the loud-mouthed s'jeti scientist that she shortly forgot about the trouble.
“Somebody still has to tell me how they managed to penetrate the outer hex-armor…”, Orelis asked.
“Assuming the one on the far side entered the ship, I guess they were lucky… It must have latched itself on one of the many access service ducts. We haven't really had the chance to upgrade and seal it completely, sir…”, another operator explained, “I-I'm afraid I must apologize on behalf of my operation, the c-chaos we went through must have distracted all of us from the worst occurrence…”
“No need for admissions of guilt, S-O - None of your faults! Fact: It happened! Fact: Intruders onboard!”
“Y-Yes, sir… sorry, sir…”, the operator stuttered and rubbed his face.
“Zann! Activate hull polarization on that hexagon plate - a few split second intervals!”, Hailynn's voice suddenly thundered across the bridge.
“Whaaaaaaaat?! But that will cause a freakin' EM discharge through our wavefront… ma'am!”, he yelled back at her, wondering if she was still sane, “That discharge would surge that area! Whoever is at that area would…”
Hailynn need not to explain as he paused. Her shadowed face already gave him the hint that she meant it - and that it had a serious meaning. Whoever was in that area was already likely to be dead, simply caused by the fact of when the thermal heat wave struck upon those regions or when the intruders breached the area.
Silently nodding, he conducted her order and within short seconds, thin fabrics indeed penetrate the wavefront, its fields `touching' through the pods and regions of the ship's outer armor like a ghost. As the interval ended, the wavefront immediately deflected the fabric, causing it to unusually phase into a force of energy that materialized upon the other two infiltrator pods, relentlessly tearing them from their latching points… it only took a single moment until they disappeared into endless streams of hyperspace…
No regrets.
The expected EM discharge only caused negligible damage thanks to Zann's grid decoupling procedure.
“Casualty reports coming from separate sectors and decks of the ship! Intruders confirmed!”, Kelsea's voice announced, awakening Hailynn from her short daydream.
“Hailynn!”, Orelis said to her, “Orders, ma'am?!”
Hailynn threw a short look upon all operatives and officers of the bridge who anxiously awaited her command. Gathering the last bits of strength, she innervated the innermost rest of concentration:
“Everybody! Both the captain and I have expressed such infiltration once during our service onboard the Talon-Vo… I'll cut myself short. The vaygr will stop at nothing. If they have a mission… an objective… they will concur with it. If they don't, they will have only one thing in mind: Exterminate everything that lives!”, remembering the interrogation of a vaygr infiltrator-prisoner several years ago, before he was executed, “They will slaughter anything! Even if that means to blow the ship up, they'd blow up with it! - The eruption… that must have been a portable bomb! Frankly, they probably set up us the bomb in that one sector because of the high resonance readings of that area - Lucky for us that it was the wrong spot, but they surely won't stop now that they know nothing happened! It's likely they will be looking for better areas to sabotage!Frakking vaygr suicide commandos…”
The threatening invasion scared most of the women listening.
She paused shortly and shook her head, “Frakk… The vaygr must be up to a lot more. My lockdown order must be altered… We can't lockdown the entire ship… We have far too many people spread… everywhere! We will have to do it through isolation procedures, sector by sector…”
“H-Hailynn… That's a lockdown procedure that will hardly work”, Orelis noted, “Anybody of our crew… frell, even the refugees will run risk of confronting the intruders if we don't lock the whole place up! Frakking shit… If I had known earlier, I would have raised security to level three!”
“It's too late for any of regrets… Our operatives and whoever down there are poorly armed and will definitely have trouble upon confrontation with the enemy - Frakk, practically nobody of them have combat experiences!”, she noticed that especially those who were not strong-willed would surely end up dead just by the cause of hesitation upon confrontation.
She nervously threw her hand through her hair, “We… We need armed forces… I don't care who, but we will need a force to counter the opposing force - at least separate armed groups to defend themselves! We MUST hold sensitive and vital sectors! Areas like the Engineering Deck, Executive Deck, Sickbay… oh my gods, Sickbay… So many targets of opportunity they have - and we don't know shit! Orelis... Captain Quenton… I need your help…”
“Do not worry, Commander Delixa”, the ex-captain replied, “I will attain a temporary command over tactical and support.”
“I'll do my best to establish secured points through organization and logistics, Hailey!”
“Thanks… but that's not all! We've got see it through your eyes this time, Orelis!”
“What?!”
“Worst case situation…”
“Worst case… hmpf… Betcha it isn't just vaygr, but also turanics along with taiidans who hopped off that different looking pod... Granted, they're going to hit us with all they got! I have no clue how those vaygr are, but I'm sure the turanics will just run and gun… We better have some of our `heavier' gear handed out, pronto…”
“Right… Have rifles and other heavier arms to be handed out to skilled people - but I also want the others to be armed as well!”
“Huh?!”
“I'm talking about refugees! We need every single man or woman at arms we can get! Have logistics hand out weapons and make sure they keep those children or any other civilian away and out of trouble! And I need the marines asap!”
“Understood…”
Taking a few steps away, Hailynn out the transceiver unit of her radio gear and called out, “Major Bahur to combat deployment! Major, where are you?!”
No response; other than a negating tone resembling a failure in establishing a communication uplink with the desired unit.
“Bahur?! Come on, man! Delixa to Major Bahur - come in, Bahur! Damn it! Where are you?! I need you now! More than ever!”
Several operatives and even Orelis gave confused faces.
“C-Commander…?”, Kelsea slowly said to her whilst lowering the handful of communication transceivers, “B-Bahur was killed in action, ma'am… H-Have you forgotten?”
“What..?”
“The taiidan mothership… I don't have exact numbers but… He and several teams of marines sacrificed themselves. W-We only have six left onboard, ma'am… Two of them at sickbay due to health issues, two others in duty supporting the refugee overwatch, one somewhere at the lower decks and one currently at… fighter bay.”
That emptiness in her mind… she indeed forgot. This was not good. She was suffering slight amnesia. Reattaching her transceiver upon her shoulder unit, Hailynn slowly pulled out her handgun.
“Hailynn?”
“Orelis. Our defensive operations will not work without a skilled field commander. We can't overwatch and operate like this!”, she declared while exchanging her the clip of her handgun, examining the slide and then reassembling it, “I wish to you to command armed teams to areas that lack our influences, but mainly to those areas that lack protection. I'm sure the captain will support you and vice versa! We must repel these intruders or we're history…”
“B-But Hailynn…!”
Hailynn began to walk away, “Fenna, keep it up! You're doing it great - don't let us end up getting surged, alright?!”
“No shit, Hailynn!”, she barked back to her as she continuously fought with all controls and the irritating sounds, yells, blurry images and colors lambasting her senses.
“Hailynn - With all due respect, I doubt you will be able to hold them off alone! I can't -”
“I'm sorry, Orelis - but our people need my help, as an experienced marine. I've got to get moving!”, she replied and approached the rear section of the bridge.
“NAJI!”
Looking upwards, the wrecked hiigaran woman discovered the frightened kadeshi girl calling for her. The girl's face was merely drenched in tears; a single drop fell from above upon Hailynn's cheek. For the moment, Hailynn stared upwards with a worried face, for she had totally forgotten about Aira and the Kadeshi Seekers they left behind upon a veiled destiny. The tear upon her cheek was cold. The entire fate of her people must have broken her soul.
“Aira, dearest… I'm sorry, I know you are worried about me - but I have to go, it is my duty. I've sworn to protect the crew, your people, and you, Aira. I… I will hold my promise! We've not much time, dearest - I need you to stick to our plan, otherwise the ship will be lost in space and I dare not to risk echoing SOS over broadband frequencies! The Bentusi, Aira! You know the ship is able to dispatch a frequent subspace distress signal based on basic Bentusi frequencies through hyperspace, but it is your ability that can enhance the signal much further and effectively than any of our conventional SOS beacons!”
Aira dared the attempt to climb down but Hailynn demanded her to stay where she was. There were no doubts in how much to two worried about each other.
“The `Vjel-Amaj' needs you, Aira. Please… Sound your voice to the Bentusi. They will be our only hope…”
Though frightened, the girl only nodded.
“Hold it right there, Hailynn!”, a young woman's voice sounded from behind.
“*sigh* Gods, I gotta get moving - What now?!”
Velle, the low-ranked support operative, strapped herself off of the seat and immediately made her way to Hailynn, “You're not going anywhere without me!”
“I will be having enough trouble babysitting and commanding others, Velle - You'd only be in the way!”
“Wha-?! You're the one who needs babysitting - err…”, everybody shortly turned around, “m-ma'am… Sorry, but I'm ordered to keep an eye on you! I promise I'll do my best not to get in your way and -”
“Alright-Alright!”
A clear chime sounded through the bridge. The sound sounded digital but also naturally, like a bell echoing through a gigantic hall. Surprisingly, the chime briefly caught the attention of all others as it periodically echoed. It was surprisingly how fast Aira was able to conduct the signal.
“Thank you, Aira…”
“Hailynn, where are we going first?!”
“Down the Executive Deck to the Armory, Velle! Orelis… and Captain Sobaan, sir… You have the bridge… Godspeed! Have additional free-hand operatives to meet up with me at the Armory - and have the marines maintain and fortify their positions!”
“Stay alive…”, Orelis lastly replied before both Hailynn and her shadowing operative disappeared through the bridge's rear entry point.
It was going to be a long path to make down the Executive Deck. Hurrying through the corridors, both women dodged other operatives making their way through to the other side. At this point, Hailynn already wondered if she was going even survive the stress as the chest pain and her weary legs already were slowing her down. Using her left hand, she gently held it upon the wounded rib below her bruised skin - hoping she could stick together for the upcoming terror…
Just this one last time…
Almost everybody startled after hearing Pethera's voice thundering throughout the bridge. The note of hectic was still present. Others such as Fenna still shouted at each other but also tried to catch some of the sudden arguing.
“Don't get in my way again, Pethera! This is frakking serious! We are in deep trouble!”
“I've had enough of your insults and blemishing acts, Delixa, and I will no longer tolerate it! You may have been successful in leading this ship out of the M'randara Star System though against MY will - but you are no longer capable of leading this ship as due to your psychological state!”, the accusing S'jeti barked at Hailynn and approached her, “You are clearly overreacting due to your state - You should be removed from command at once!”
“Frakk off - we -!”
“Commander Orelis!”, Pethera suddenly turned herself over to the man who nearly intervened, “Being the highest ranking person of kiithidial supremacy, I demand you to remove this foolish hallucinating officer at once! Do your duty as a serving authority under the supremacy!”
“…”
“By the kiithidial order or not, Orelis, she must be removed from command - Either by my voice or by military impeachment of commandership! I will no longer tolerate these pathetic actions of this woman!”
Orelis hesitated. A pause filled the entire bridge.
Hailynn was about to defend herself through arguing but something held her back. The painful confusion swarming through her mind was the least of what was holding her back from speaking. That dreadful feeling of déjà-vu plagued her. However, it was well-known that she was acting at the edge of insanity. She did not need to look at the other operatives; she knew that all of them were more than worried about her, both her physical and mental state. Though Pethera's accusing was threatening, Hailynn did begin to reconsider.
Maybe she was overreacting.
Maybe the gunfire heard by Kelsea was a misleading sound.
As questions filled her wrecked psyche, she lowered her head in disgrace with her hand upon its side - The break from command would really do her good after all.
“Pethera - I don't care right now if Hailynn is hallucinating or wrecked beyond recognition”, Orelis suddenly replied, “True - Her announcing a sudden lockdown procedure to repel some… boarding insurgency… sounds a bit crazy.. but I'm sticking to the facts here: Kelsea just lost contact to somebody - She said there was some sort of gunfire!”
“D-Don't make me remove you from duty as well, Orelis… There is no real proof that -”
A noticeable and much disturbing tremor cycled through the ship, definitely not caused by the outer turbulences of hyperspace. The tremble was nonetheless powerful enough to make the ship tremor a split-second differently than the usual wild turbulences.
“Ooooohhhh-kaaay…. What the FRAKK WAS THAT NOW?!”, Orelis cursed slowly.
“Th-That was nothing -!”
“D-Detected an explosion…”, one of the logistics operatives announced from the other side of the bridge.
Straightening his wrinkled uniform, the grim officer rushed over to that side, “Explosion?! Don't tell me we were chased into HYPERSPACE! Never heard of missile attacks within hypersp-”
“Th-The explosion occurred internally, Commander! Smoke and fire development detected within the ship! Storage section R-21B, deck eight! W-Within the ship!”, he repeated.
Checking the screens of Zann that neighbored the logistics' operations, Orelis instantly found the section and the adjacency blinking symbols and colors. Following what the operative just said, the section was upon the starboard side somewhere at the stern of the ship.
Worries became larger as Zann excluded the possibility of technical malfunctioning - Despite mentioning high rests of EM fields once emitting from that area, not a single primary technical cross point of such could have done such devastation. Orelis slowly lifted his head over to Hailynn…
Damn… How?
“Wasn't that proof enough, bitch?!”, Hailynn suddenly snubbed at Pethera, pushing her rudely aside, “Retain that order I just gave - WE HAVE BEEN BOARDED!!!”
Practically all operatives shuddered in fright.
“But… how?!”, somebody asked as the rest conducted intruder alert.
“Oh, they snuck on us - and I think I know how! I need a full surveillance check around our hull - starting with starboard!”
“Right away, ma'am! Will need a bit though - The low power profile will force us to an old fashion check up.”
Low quality and heavily interfered images began to phase several snapshots each second from the designated region, practically all of them revealing fabrics and energetic whips of hyperspace attempting to crush and penetrate the `Morovuur' wavefront.
One of the operatives stared at one of the screens revealing the same messy live surveillance of the helm, the same that was definitely freaking Fenna: Dark blue maelstrom waves, thundering fields, tentacles of unknown energy fabrics and many other unexplainable masses were constantly being thrown against the ship, terrorizing the ship… somewhat craving to surge all life onboard… At least that was the impression. The barely visible but countless billions of deformed bubbles of all sizes and forms slowly moved by as wakes and streams strung by… for sure resembling that they were indeed moving through the galaxy's body at an unimaginable speed, formidably against the alternating maelstrom.
“Delixa… You have pushed me around far enough…”
“Not now, Pethera! *mmpf!*”
“Ladies, please - Knock it off! We've got trouble going on!”, Orelis tried to remind them of more important issues, but failed. There was something else `serious' going on between the two sworn enemies.
A vicious grip clenched her upper arm, unfortunately precisely upon one of many bruised regions of her body and was merely torn back, forcing her to stand face-to-face with the aggravated s'jeti.
“*Sniff* You… disgusting… smelly… woman…”, Pethera slowly spoke with a sharp tongue, “I don't care what is going on with this ship but I know it is ALL YOUR FAULT! It is your entire fault… You led us to the kadeshi… You let the vaygr onboard… You are responsible for whatever happen to this crew”, she continuously crushed her arm with her grip - the pain only resembling the portion of the true pain of responsibility, “But let me put this straight, Delixa: If we survive… if you survive this intrusion… You will not escape my grip…”
Tension and fears already struck into the minds of various people - The ship needed to act to the threat but Pethera did not seem to care at all, her arrogant interests was all about something else and even if the ship were about to explode, she'd not refrain from what she was about to do.
Using all that has happened to this date but somewhat also what was caused by the guilt of Pethera and her subordinates, she was loading all of it upon Hailynn like a scapegoat, since she was not only Krin'sa now but also the commanding officer who inherited all responsibilities - however also being witnessed by the entire crew, letting all of them know that all deaths, all trouble was caused by Hailynn, “I will make sure you won't survive to see the next day. I assure you that I will make the kiith and the navy will excommunicate you - granted, your krin'sa cannot be stripped, but won't stop me from endorsing a proposal… Expect execution, woman… No mercy. I will make sure your execution will a slow and painful one, Delixa. ”
Pethera's words were dreaded serious, daunting for all operatives who feared kiithid supremacy for their laws.
“Mmhmhmmmhmmmm…”
“…&# 8221;, Pethera's eyes widened as she leaned back slightly. Her grip loosened slightly. Was Hailynn becoming insane?
“-hmmhmhhehehhehe - hahahaahah…”, Hailynn quietly chuckled.
“W-w…why are you… Wh-What's so amusing?! Answer me, Delixa!”
The chuckle escalated into a light-hearted and short-lived laughter, much for the irritation of Pethera who slipped her hand away from Hailynn's torn sleeve. Pethera even smiled shortly, at first thinking that Hailynn's reaction was caused by her fear - but she immediately stopped smiling, for Hailynn already proven she had more esteem than before when they were within the imperial taiidan mothership.
Pethera cursed inwardly - she missed the chance of crushing her when her will was broken.
The irregular flashes and colorful phases of hyperspace and the wavefront frequently lit the bridge.
Hailynn's view suddenly became serious as she gazed back at the s'jeti scientist, “That I'm as good as dead is something that nobody has to remind me about. As if I were scared about… wait… Alright - hold on. I won't deny it. I am scared - but not about you, bitch of s'jet.”
The s'jeti woman bit her teeth together, but was unable to reply to the insult.
“I'm scared about the well-being of my crew - so let me get this straight, Doc-tor. We've went through a lot of bullshit - and just when I thought it was over, I got fooled again. Not only I, but many others have nearly been killed - and certain deaths are accounting for my failures, no question about that one. And yet I'm still standing. I don't know… *gasp* for how long…”
Others shortly looked upon the two again. Hailynn's words sounded much more serious than ever, “I have doubts that I will survive this day - and even if I do, it's unlikely I will survive long enough due to my health status - which is just… funny… because you are just hoping for me to stay long enough alive for a kiithidial excommunication and execution… Whatever - but let me make this straight, you black-haired beauty queen: Even if I survive to that day to be brought in front a kiithidial court, I'll be taking somebody down with me!”
“What…?!”
“Oh, you heard right. That son of a bitch Asad!”
“…”
Pethera took another step back. Though Asad was a subordinate, he was a much valuable personality of her corporation. In truth, the man was indeed responsible for numbers of deaths - both those of the amaj and of the corporation.
Nonetheless, Pethera knew of his guilt and could cover him through her status, but with Hailynn possible intervention in front of such court might have him executed as well. Furthermore, there were far too many witnesses. She needed Asad greatly, for his persona played a far too important role for the corporation and its future.
“C-Contact!”
Hailynn gave one last look at Pethera before approaching the general surveillance station, placing herself behind the seat of the logistics operative, Orelis and two other supporting operators. The screen revealed a live-feed image of a certain sector on the starboard side of the hull. Despite the image's quality and lack of color, they all spotted regions where the three entropic plasma masses still continuously left awkward trails of smoke. Others also spotted this on secondary screens.
Suddenly, Orelis pointed his hand ahead, “Err… what is that?! Look - another one… Three of them!”
The shock of discovery was proof enough for the hiigaran officer to turn away, “Latched Infiltrator pods! I knew it! Shit!”
“Boarding party…”
“Not just a `boarding party'… vaygr - maybe with taiidan and turanics on top of it! We're in deep shit! Orelis - those thuds, those minor impacts; those were not dud missiles! We must have bypassed stalking infiltrator frigates when we made our last getaway!”, Hailynn explained anxiously, “You… You have no idea h-how much in trouble we are! It must be the warlords last order before we got away!”
Surprisingly, it seemed as if Hailynn had more fears than she previously pronounced. In addition, she had been wasting time with the loud-mouthed s'jeti scientist that she shortly forgot about the trouble.
“Somebody still has to tell me how they managed to penetrate the outer hex-armor…”, Orelis asked.
“Assuming the one on the far side entered the ship, I guess they were lucky… It must have latched itself on one of the many access service ducts. We haven't really had the chance to upgrade and seal it completely, sir…”, another operator explained, “I-I'm afraid I must apologize on behalf of my operation, the c-chaos we went through must have distracted all of us from the worst occurrence…”
“No need for admissions of guilt, S-O - None of your faults! Fact: It happened! Fact: Intruders onboard!”
“Y-Yes, sir… sorry, sir…”, the operator stuttered and rubbed his face.
“Zann! Activate hull polarization on that hexagon plate - a few split second intervals!”, Hailynn's voice suddenly thundered across the bridge.
“Whaaaaaaaat?! But that will cause a freakin' EM discharge through our wavefront… ma'am!”, he yelled back at her, wondering if she was still sane, “That discharge would surge that area! Whoever is at that area would…”
Hailynn need not to explain as he paused. Her shadowed face already gave him the hint that she meant it - and that it had a serious meaning. Whoever was in that area was already likely to be dead, simply caused by the fact of when the thermal heat wave struck upon those regions or when the intruders breached the area.
Silently nodding, he conducted her order and within short seconds, thin fabrics indeed penetrate the wavefront, its fields `touching' through the pods and regions of the ship's outer armor like a ghost. As the interval ended, the wavefront immediately deflected the fabric, causing it to unusually phase into a force of energy that materialized upon the other two infiltrator pods, relentlessly tearing them from their latching points… it only took a single moment until they disappeared into endless streams of hyperspace…
No regrets.
The expected EM discharge only caused negligible damage thanks to Zann's grid decoupling procedure.
“Casualty reports coming from separate sectors and decks of the ship! Intruders confirmed!”, Kelsea's voice announced, awakening Hailynn from her short daydream.
“Hailynn!”, Orelis said to her, “Orders, ma'am?!”
Hailynn threw a short look upon all operatives and officers of the bridge who anxiously awaited her command. Gathering the last bits of strength, she innervated the innermost rest of concentration:
“Everybody! Both the captain and I have expressed such infiltration once during our service onboard the Talon-Vo… I'll cut myself short. The vaygr will stop at nothing. If they have a mission… an objective… they will concur with it. If they don't, they will have only one thing in mind: Exterminate everything that lives!”, remembering the interrogation of a vaygr infiltrator-prisoner several years ago, before he was executed, “They will slaughter anything! Even if that means to blow the ship up, they'd blow up with it! - The eruption… that must have been a portable bomb! Frankly, they probably set up us the bomb in that one sector because of the high resonance readings of that area - Lucky for us that it was the wrong spot, but they surely won't stop now that they know nothing happened! It's likely they will be looking for better areas to sabotage!Frakking vaygr suicide commandos…”
The threatening invasion scared most of the women listening.
She paused shortly and shook her head, “Frakk… The vaygr must be up to a lot more. My lockdown order must be altered… We can't lockdown the entire ship… We have far too many people spread… everywhere! We will have to do it through isolation procedures, sector by sector…”
“H-Hailynn… That's a lockdown procedure that will hardly work”, Orelis noted, “Anybody of our crew… frell, even the refugees will run risk of confronting the intruders if we don't lock the whole place up! Frakking shit… If I had known earlier, I would have raised security to level three!”
“It's too late for any of regrets… Our operatives and whoever down there are poorly armed and will definitely have trouble upon confrontation with the enemy - Frakk, practically nobody of them have combat experiences!”, she noticed that especially those who were not strong-willed would surely end up dead just by the cause of hesitation upon confrontation.
She nervously threw her hand through her hair, “We… We need armed forces… I don't care who, but we will need a force to counter the opposing force - at least separate armed groups to defend themselves! We MUST hold sensitive and vital sectors! Areas like the Engineering Deck, Executive Deck, Sickbay… oh my gods, Sickbay… So many targets of opportunity they have - and we don't know shit! Orelis... Captain Quenton… I need your help…”
“Do not worry, Commander Delixa”, the ex-captain replied, “I will attain a temporary command over tactical and support.”
“I'll do my best to establish secured points through organization and logistics, Hailey!”
“Thanks… but that's not all! We've got see it through your eyes this time, Orelis!”
“What?!”
“Worst case situation…”
“Worst case… hmpf… Betcha it isn't just vaygr, but also turanics along with taiidans who hopped off that different looking pod... Granted, they're going to hit us with all they got! I have no clue how those vaygr are, but I'm sure the turanics will just run and gun… We better have some of our `heavier' gear handed out, pronto…”
“Right… Have rifles and other heavier arms to be handed out to skilled people - but I also want the others to be armed as well!”
“Huh?!”
“I'm talking about refugees! We need every single man or woman at arms we can get! Have logistics hand out weapons and make sure they keep those children or any other civilian away and out of trouble! And I need the marines asap!”
“Understood…”
Taking a few steps away, Hailynn out the transceiver unit of her radio gear and called out, “Major Bahur to combat deployment! Major, where are you?!”
No response; other than a negating tone resembling a failure in establishing a communication uplink with the desired unit.
“Bahur?! Come on, man! Delixa to Major Bahur - come in, Bahur! Damn it! Where are you?! I need you now! More than ever!”
Several operatives and even Orelis gave confused faces.
“C-Commander…?”, Kelsea slowly said to her whilst lowering the handful of communication transceivers, “B-Bahur was killed in action, ma'am… H-Have you forgotten?”
“What..?”
“The taiidan mothership… I don't have exact numbers but… He and several teams of marines sacrificed themselves. W-We only have six left onboard, ma'am… Two of them at sickbay due to health issues, two others in duty supporting the refugee overwatch, one somewhere at the lower decks and one currently at… fighter bay.”
That emptiness in her mind… she indeed forgot. This was not good. She was suffering slight amnesia. Reattaching her transceiver upon her shoulder unit, Hailynn slowly pulled out her handgun.
“Hailynn?”
“Orelis. Our defensive operations will not work without a skilled field commander. We can't overwatch and operate like this!”, she declared while exchanging her the clip of her handgun, examining the slide and then reassembling it, “I wish to you to command armed teams to areas that lack our influences, but mainly to those areas that lack protection. I'm sure the captain will support you and vice versa! We must repel these intruders or we're history…”
“B-But Hailynn…!”
Hailynn began to walk away, “Fenna, keep it up! You're doing it great - don't let us end up getting surged, alright?!”
“No shit, Hailynn!”, she barked back to her as she continuously fought with all controls and the irritating sounds, yells, blurry images and colors lambasting her senses.
“Hailynn - With all due respect, I doubt you will be able to hold them off alone! I can't -”
“I'm sorry, Orelis - but our people need my help, as an experienced marine. I've got to get moving!”, she replied and approached the rear section of the bridge.
“NAJI!”
Looking upwards, the wrecked hiigaran woman discovered the frightened kadeshi girl calling for her. The girl's face was merely drenched in tears; a single drop fell from above upon Hailynn's cheek. For the moment, Hailynn stared upwards with a worried face, for she had totally forgotten about Aira and the Kadeshi Seekers they left behind upon a veiled destiny. The tear upon her cheek was cold. The entire fate of her people must have broken her soul.
“Aira, dearest… I'm sorry, I know you are worried about me - but I have to go, it is my duty. I've sworn to protect the crew, your people, and you, Aira. I… I will hold my promise! We've not much time, dearest - I need you to stick to our plan, otherwise the ship will be lost in space and I dare not to risk echoing SOS over broadband frequencies! The Bentusi, Aira! You know the ship is able to dispatch a frequent subspace distress signal based on basic Bentusi frequencies through hyperspace, but it is your ability that can enhance the signal much further and effectively than any of our conventional SOS beacons!”
Aira dared the attempt to climb down but Hailynn demanded her to stay where she was. There were no doubts in how much to two worried about each other.
“The `Vjel-Amaj' needs you, Aira. Please… Sound your voice to the Bentusi. They will be our only hope…”
Though frightened, the girl only nodded.
“Hold it right there, Hailynn!”, a young woman's voice sounded from behind.
“*sigh* Gods, I gotta get moving - What now?!”
Velle, the low-ranked support operative, strapped herself off of the seat and immediately made her way to Hailynn, “You're not going anywhere without me!”
“I will be having enough trouble babysitting and commanding others, Velle - You'd only be in the way!”
“Wha-?! You're the one who needs babysitting - err…”, everybody shortly turned around, “m-ma'am… Sorry, but I'm ordered to keep an eye on you! I promise I'll do my best not to get in your way and -”
“Alright-Alright!”
A clear chime sounded through the bridge. The sound sounded digital but also naturally, like a bell echoing through a gigantic hall. Surprisingly, the chime briefly caught the attention of all others as it periodically echoed. It was surprisingly how fast Aira was able to conduct the signal.
“Thank you, Aira…”
“Hailynn, where are we going first?!”
“Down the Executive Deck to the Armory, Velle! Orelis… and Captain Sobaan, sir… You have the bridge… Godspeed! Have additional free-hand operatives to meet up with me at the Armory - and have the marines maintain and fortify their positions!”
“Stay alive…”, Orelis lastly replied before both Hailynn and her shadowing operative disappeared through the bridge's rear entry point.
It was going to be a long path to make down the Executive Deck. Hurrying through the corridors, both women dodged other operatives making their way through to the other side. At this point, Hailynn already wondered if she was going even survive the stress as the chest pain and her weary legs already were slowing her down. Using her left hand, she gently held it upon the wounded rib below her bruised skin - hoping she could stick together for the upcoming terror…
Just this one last time…
****
Several minutes later.
*Gulp!*
Barely catching the strange looking object, Velle frantically stared upon the item that was just tossed towards her. Hailynn constantly moved from one aisle of special lockers to another, grabbing and spreading several other objects, such as belts and accessories for carrying light equipment.
The messed-up hiigaran woman frequently moaned while desperately trying to hurry. Velle was already handed a small backpack and a belt with a small storage pouch on its right side, obviously filled with several first aid gear and other tools.
Ironically, she was out of breath already - Hailynn likely the same, even with her injuries… but the inner urge of duty fueled the hiigaran's willpower. Trouble was spreading already, that was for sure - and subduing these hideous terrorists was going to be the most difficult task.
Observing the commander, the woman in the severed uniform hasted to swap several specific clips for her special handgun, shoving other things into her belt. Especially the men were surprised as she shortly threw her stained and torn uniform jacket aside, revealing nearly all bruises and injuries she suffered from. Hailynn pointed at the others to grab light protective vests. The vest itself did not really offer much protection but was the only thing the armory had available for all of them. Hailynn's thoughts reminded her of those frightening vaygr repeaters from her past… those devastating handheld weapons.
Staring downwards, Velle recognized the same ugly grey-silvery scheme of those weapons certain people of the amaji military onboard used; a drum-fed weapon with a flexible forward grip stock that was much shorter yet slightly bulkier built than the common rifle.
Surprisingly, the young operative was fooled by the fact that it was much lighter than she previously expected. Velle and the others within the section caught their balance as the ship bounced back and forth, obviously caused by turbulences of the ongoing hyperjump light. This flight was much rougher than her first one.
“Damn it *painful moan*, can't Fenna keep this damn ship flying straight for once?!”
“H-Hailynn, what am I supposed to do with this?!”
Hailynn dropped her shoulders, somewhat throwing an annoyed look, “You wanted to babysit - that's what you get, operative - so do your job. It's an 'Arson Security' 5mm Automatic weapon - Arsec Mark II. A simple favorable lightweight sub machine gun suitable for any situation with a high capacity. We're going to need -”
Velle clumsily lowered the weapon, nearly dropping it accidentally, “B-but I'm an operative - a support operative, not a soldier… marine whatever! Let somebody else who's skillful enough tol handle these things! Just let me be your `mule'! I'll carry anything else but this thing!”
“Don't give me that -”, Hailynn fell slightly forward as the ship shook once more, unfortunately forced ahead, knocking against Velle who held the weapon up, then thrown back slightly, “Every-god-damn-time…”, she cursed as she dropped upon the bench that was luckily between lockers of the aisle, curling herself due to the pain. Hailynn shook her head; how was she going to survive this one?
“Look, I will help you the best I can, but I'll never get used to guns. I'm just an S-O. Remember, what happened back then on the taiidan mothership, boss…”
The more mature woman grabbed her dirty jacket again, “Stop calling me… boss… - Velle, listen, we can't fool around with these invaders hoping on some sort of peaceful agreement, alright?! I don't care if you don't want to kill - we're going to need everybody and I know you support operatives can handle this sort of gear, so cut the damn pacifism… Look, I'm too handicapped to carry and use that firearm myself without getting hurt. I'll be the eyes, you my shooter - Got that?!”
“…”
Hailynn stood up again and shortly demonstrated the younger woman and others who watched from behind how to handle the weapon, hectically yet skillfully showing how to exchange the drum and simple functions.
Lastly, she arranged the belt upon Velle's shoulder as a hanging comfortable mount, “It's a simple automatic gun that is capable of spraying rounds without requiring its user to need extensive training or strength - Now you've got to be careful with that thing nevertheless! I have doubts the standard rounds will do any damage since those vaygr gunners tend to be running in combat armor… We don't have time to put this armory upside down for special rounds - master-of-arms said we're short of them other the handgun clips. Everybody else who is limited to a handgun should be careful with it! And remember, our first objective is get everybody out of the danger zones!”
“How come you know so much about these guys, commander?”, somebody asked behind of the group.
“Talon-Vo, a frigate I served on when - <what was that?!>”
Suddenly disturbed by a mechanical sound, everybody noticed that something was happening around the far corner of the aisle, occurring somewhere behind the wall. Immediately waving and whispering the others to stay back, Hailynn armed her sidearm. Sounds of digital access and disassembling mechanical latches occurred.
Thoughts already bombarded Hailynn's mind.
How did the vaygr get here so fast?! - or was it…
Making a swift approach around the corner, Hailynn and other operatives who followed after all rushed around the corner, catching the figure doing something at the wall by surprise as they aimed their sidearms.
Friend or foe?!, a decision was needed to be made - but before Hailynn actually found an answer, she forced her left hand to knock her aim away. Her right hand trembled with a twitchy finger so much that she feared of doing something wrong.
Thankfully, it was not a foe…
“FREEZE!”, an operative nervously shouted loudly ahead.
“*EEEP!*”, the figure shrieked with a soft voice, barely recognizable due to the weakly lit area.
“<…Freeze… *sigh> Who are you?! Identify yourself!”, Hailynn asked, “huh?”.
Caught and scared by the surprise, the person who was halfway out accidentally tripped out of the open hatch of the wall upon the floor.
“*oooowwwuuch!*”, the familiar voice of a woman queasily moaned.
Relieved of anxiousness and a nearly-made mistake, Hailynn recognized the colored uniform; an operative's uniform, designated in dark green with certain additional indicators resembling the person was a logistics officer.
The woman raised her head, “Oooh… Hi everybody!”, she greeted friendly with a note of astonishment while having the side of her head facing the floor. Everybody lowered their aim as the woman ahead of them hasted to stand up, talking of many things at once, “Scared the frell out of me, everybody, hah! Didn't expect that many of you here! Oh dear, that was a close one!”
The female operative held a shotgun in her left hand as she slammed the hatch into the wall, then immediately leaned against it, somewhat showing the others not to think about heading that way, “Now… DON'T go down there - freakin' chaaaaos down there, mates!”
Ignoring her talking, Hailynn activated a handy flashlight, letting the beam illuminate the face of the woman, “F-Fenna?!”, she called out, but then noticed the short and open black hair, “Ah no… Deena - You… here?!”
The superior logistics officer who clumsily kept herself blocking the hatch lifted her head, trying to look beyond the flashlight's beam, “Hey, that - That you, Commander Hailynn Delixa?! Hahaha, oow, what a coincidence. Big ship, small town, eh? Didn't expect you here, ma'am! Lucky me! Glad you and others are here!”
“Whoa-Whoa wait!”, Hailynn replied and frowned with a puzzled face, “Just what are you doing here?!”
“Haha… yeah - Oh yeah, DON'T go down there - it's pure chaos! I say!”, she replied and lifted herself and the shotgun, “The logistics deck was the first place hit by those bad guys, boss - Two heavily armed vaygr infiltrators alright! One of them broke off to some other area of the ship - couldn't tell much because they started chasing me and a few other mechanics down the corridors before! Ooowww… I'm still anxious”, she frantically spoke, yet in a strange happy way as she pat her chest and caught her breath, “The boys suggested to get the refugees out of the line of action but we confronted one of the infiltrators on the way again… We led a group of them to another storage room that had access to the portside of the ship. Since we needed help, with communication hindered and several refugees and other people not able to climb, I went by myself through the service ducts hoping I could find some help!”
“You managed to get all the way through those confusing tubes?!”, an armed operative asked from the side.
“Yeah, made it here, as you can see - Should've gone the technical path as an operative, huh, pal? But hey, logistics, mate, better pay makes my day!”
“Cut the talk, Deena! This is serious!”, Hailynn reminded.
“Yes yes! Anyways, as obvious as the lousy piloting skills of my twin sister, hehe, we were practically outgunned although we were a bunch-a-people. I told them to make a run for it while others and I tried to hold off the vaygr as long as we could. We ended up in that storage room like I said - they should be elsewhere on that deck now, commander! I didn't want to save my hide, <honestly!> - I was going to have the equipment service lift here at the armory send down some stuff for protection!”
“Good thinking, Deena. Look, I'm glad you're alive and safe. But just hearing your story is making me worried. Five of them already wandering around - Orelis' instincts say there are likely to be more of those punks, perhaps turanics and taiidans. Looks like they did invade through the starboard side of the logistics deck after all and that they bombed storage thinking it was a primary power node.”
“Communication is beyond its capacity, too. I'm sure our boys at the bridge are doing their best and that the connectivity between you and them should be priority - but there are a lot of people out there that need serious help, boss. ”
“I know, you are right. We've got to get the hand of this place before they can continue! Since when do logistics officers have shotguns as sidearms?”
“Ohh, having a small stash is always a good rule for us logistics people to follow, heh-heh. Anyways, aside to the very few people who were at the cargo, who we evacuated too, we were forced to lockdown crew quarters to ensure the vaygr can't bust through to them. Unfortunately, we have soooo many things and cargo everywhere on the deck that it is sorta… bulky. We even had difficulties getting through ourselves!”
“Don't tell me you logistics people stuffed the entire deck full of all that stuff from that mothership?!”
“Ehhh hehehehe, umm… yes.”
Hailynn rubbed her face, what a mess-up.
“*sigh* Never mind. So we have two vaygr eradicators confirmed…I'm going to contact bridge for more info about other security forces and groups in serious need of help. They should have an assessed the situation by now. Let's get to it!”
“Rrrrroger.”
*Gulp!*
Barely catching the strange looking object, Velle frantically stared upon the item that was just tossed towards her. Hailynn constantly moved from one aisle of special lockers to another, grabbing and spreading several other objects, such as belts and accessories for carrying light equipment.
The messed-up hiigaran woman frequently moaned while desperately trying to hurry. Velle was already handed a small backpack and a belt with a small storage pouch on its right side, obviously filled with several first aid gear and other tools.
Ironically, she was out of breath already - Hailynn likely the same, even with her injuries… but the inner urge of duty fueled the hiigaran's willpower. Trouble was spreading already, that was for sure - and subduing these hideous terrorists was going to be the most difficult task.
Observing the commander, the woman in the severed uniform hasted to swap several specific clips for her special handgun, shoving other things into her belt. Especially the men were surprised as she shortly threw her stained and torn uniform jacket aside, revealing nearly all bruises and injuries she suffered from. Hailynn pointed at the others to grab light protective vests. The vest itself did not really offer much protection but was the only thing the armory had available for all of them. Hailynn's thoughts reminded her of those frightening vaygr repeaters from her past… those devastating handheld weapons.
Staring downwards, Velle recognized the same ugly grey-silvery scheme of those weapons certain people of the amaji military onboard used; a drum-fed weapon with a flexible forward grip stock that was much shorter yet slightly bulkier built than the common rifle.
Surprisingly, the young operative was fooled by the fact that it was much lighter than she previously expected. Velle and the others within the section caught their balance as the ship bounced back and forth, obviously caused by turbulences of the ongoing hyperjump light. This flight was much rougher than her first one.
“Damn it *painful moan*, can't Fenna keep this damn ship flying straight for once?!”
“H-Hailynn, what am I supposed to do with this?!”
Hailynn dropped her shoulders, somewhat throwing an annoyed look, “You wanted to babysit - that's what you get, operative - so do your job. It's an 'Arson Security' 5mm Automatic weapon - Arsec Mark II. A simple favorable lightweight sub machine gun suitable for any situation with a high capacity. We're going to need -”
Velle clumsily lowered the weapon, nearly dropping it accidentally, “B-but I'm an operative - a support operative, not a soldier… marine whatever! Let somebody else who's skillful enough tol handle these things! Just let me be your `mule'! I'll carry anything else but this thing!”
“Don't give me that -”, Hailynn fell slightly forward as the ship shook once more, unfortunately forced ahead, knocking against Velle who held the weapon up, then thrown back slightly, “Every-god-damn-time…”, she cursed as she dropped upon the bench that was luckily between lockers of the aisle, curling herself due to the pain. Hailynn shook her head; how was she going to survive this one?
“Look, I will help you the best I can, but I'll never get used to guns. I'm just an S-O. Remember, what happened back then on the taiidan mothership, boss…”
The more mature woman grabbed her dirty jacket again, “Stop calling me… boss… - Velle, listen, we can't fool around with these invaders hoping on some sort of peaceful agreement, alright?! I don't care if you don't want to kill - we're going to need everybody and I know you support operatives can handle this sort of gear, so cut the damn pacifism… Look, I'm too handicapped to carry and use that firearm myself without getting hurt. I'll be the eyes, you my shooter - Got that?!”
“…”
Hailynn stood up again and shortly demonstrated the younger woman and others who watched from behind how to handle the weapon, hectically yet skillfully showing how to exchange the drum and simple functions.
Lastly, she arranged the belt upon Velle's shoulder as a hanging comfortable mount, “It's a simple automatic gun that is capable of spraying rounds without requiring its user to need extensive training or strength - Now you've got to be careful with that thing nevertheless! I have doubts the standard rounds will do any damage since those vaygr gunners tend to be running in combat armor… We don't have time to put this armory upside down for special rounds - master-of-arms said we're short of them other the handgun clips. Everybody else who is limited to a handgun should be careful with it! And remember, our first objective is get everybody out of the danger zones!”
“How come you know so much about these guys, commander?”, somebody asked behind of the group.
“Talon-Vo, a frigate I served on when - <what was that?!>”
Suddenly disturbed by a mechanical sound, everybody noticed that something was happening around the far corner of the aisle, occurring somewhere behind the wall. Immediately waving and whispering the others to stay back, Hailynn armed her sidearm. Sounds of digital access and disassembling mechanical latches occurred.
Thoughts already bombarded Hailynn's mind.
How did the vaygr get here so fast?! - or was it…
Making a swift approach around the corner, Hailynn and other operatives who followed after all rushed around the corner, catching the figure doing something at the wall by surprise as they aimed their sidearms.
Friend or foe?!, a decision was needed to be made - but before Hailynn actually found an answer, she forced her left hand to knock her aim away. Her right hand trembled with a twitchy finger so much that she feared of doing something wrong.
Thankfully, it was not a foe…
“FREEZE!”, an operative nervously shouted loudly ahead.
“*EEEP!*”, the figure shrieked with a soft voice, barely recognizable due to the weakly lit area.
“<…Freeze… *sigh> Who are you?! Identify yourself!”, Hailynn asked, “huh?”.
Caught and scared by the surprise, the person who was halfway out accidentally tripped out of the open hatch of the wall upon the floor.
“*oooowwwuuch!*”, the familiar voice of a woman queasily moaned.
Relieved of anxiousness and a nearly-made mistake, Hailynn recognized the colored uniform; an operative's uniform, designated in dark green with certain additional indicators resembling the person was a logistics officer.
The woman raised her head, “Oooh… Hi everybody!”, she greeted friendly with a note of astonishment while having the side of her head facing the floor. Everybody lowered their aim as the woman ahead of them hasted to stand up, talking of many things at once, “Scared the frell out of me, everybody, hah! Didn't expect that many of you here! Oh dear, that was a close one!”
The female operative held a shotgun in her left hand as she slammed the hatch into the wall, then immediately leaned against it, somewhat showing the others not to think about heading that way, “Now… DON'T go down there - freakin' chaaaaos down there, mates!”
Ignoring her talking, Hailynn activated a handy flashlight, letting the beam illuminate the face of the woman, “F-Fenna?!”, she called out, but then noticed the short and open black hair, “Ah no… Deena - You… here?!”
The superior logistics officer who clumsily kept herself blocking the hatch lifted her head, trying to look beyond the flashlight's beam, “Hey, that - That you, Commander Hailynn Delixa?! Hahaha, oow, what a coincidence. Big ship, small town, eh? Didn't expect you here, ma'am! Lucky me! Glad you and others are here!”
“Whoa-Whoa wait!”, Hailynn replied and frowned with a puzzled face, “Just what are you doing here?!”
“Haha… yeah - Oh yeah, DON'T go down there - it's pure chaos! I say!”, she replied and lifted herself and the shotgun, “The logistics deck was the first place hit by those bad guys, boss - Two heavily armed vaygr infiltrators alright! One of them broke off to some other area of the ship - couldn't tell much because they started chasing me and a few other mechanics down the corridors before! Ooowww… I'm still anxious”, she frantically spoke, yet in a strange happy way as she pat her chest and caught her breath, “The boys suggested to get the refugees out of the line of action but we confronted one of the infiltrators on the way again… We led a group of them to another storage room that had access to the portside of the ship. Since we needed help, with communication hindered and several refugees and other people not able to climb, I went by myself through the service ducts hoping I could find some help!”
“You managed to get all the way through those confusing tubes?!”, an armed operative asked from the side.
“Yeah, made it here, as you can see - Should've gone the technical path as an operative, huh, pal? But hey, logistics, mate, better pay makes my day!”
“Cut the talk, Deena! This is serious!”, Hailynn reminded.
“Yes yes! Anyways, as obvious as the lousy piloting skills of my twin sister, hehe, we were practically outgunned although we were a bunch-a-people. I told them to make a run for it while others and I tried to hold off the vaygr as long as we could. We ended up in that storage room like I said - they should be elsewhere on that deck now, commander! I didn't want to save my hide, <honestly!> - I was going to have the equipment service lift here at the armory send down some stuff for protection!”
“Good thinking, Deena. Look, I'm glad you're alive and safe. But just hearing your story is making me worried. Five of them already wandering around - Orelis' instincts say there are likely to be more of those punks, perhaps turanics and taiidans. Looks like they did invade through the starboard side of the logistics deck after all and that they bombed storage thinking it was a primary power node.”
“Communication is beyond its capacity, too. I'm sure our boys at the bridge are doing their best and that the connectivity between you and them should be priority - but there are a lot of people out there that need serious help, boss. ”
“I know, you are right. We've got to get the hand of this place before they can continue! Since when do logistics officers have shotguns as sidearms?”
“Ohh, having a small stash is always a good rule for us logistics people to follow, heh-heh. Anyways, aside to the very few people who were at the cargo, who we evacuated too, we were forced to lockdown crew quarters to ensure the vaygr can't bust through to them. Unfortunately, we have soooo many things and cargo everywhere on the deck that it is sorta… bulky. We even had difficulties getting through ourselves!”
“Don't tell me you logistics people stuffed the entire deck full of all that stuff from that mothership?!”
“Ehhh hehehehe, umm… yes.”
Hailynn rubbed her face, what a mess-up.
“*sigh* Never mind. So we have two vaygr eradicators confirmed…I'm going to contact bridge for more info about other security forces and groups in serious need of help. They should have an assessed the situation by now. Let's get to it!”
“Rrrrroger.”
******
======== Chapter 19 (Part 1 of x) =======
Grips entangle Hailynn like tentacles; her eye only recognizes figures immobilizing her limbs, leeching her strengths as she vainly try to resist them. Hailynn shrieks as her mind barely recognizes the figures - people she had confronted throughout her life; faces of sworn, but also feared enemies morph several times. The sole being soon falls into a state before feeling impending darkness covering her view - lost in a world of nightmares… memories … but also of unexplainable events.
- A Hiigaran in Vaygr's way -
A preceding moment…
Grips entangle Hailynn like tentacles; her eye only recognizes figures immobilizing her limbs, leeching her strengths as she vainly try to resist them. Hailynn shrieks as her mind barely recognizes the figures - people she had confronted throughout her life; faces of sworn, but also feared enemies morph several times. The sole being soon falls into a state before feeling impending darkness covering her view - lost in a world of nightmares… memories … but also of unexplainable events.
- A Hiigaran in Vaygr's way -
A preceding moment…
A small weapon slips from her hand. Hailynn's swollen cheek met the rough floor with a hard and painful smack. It took several moments until the mechanical decompressing sounds of the disposal unit finally occurred. The bubbly logistics officer Deena finally conducted Hailynn's plea from a remote location, which probably saved her and the ship from the worst catastrophe. Yellow warning lights still reflected upon the only eye that was left open. After the bleak moment of acute amnesia, the woman's mind was only able to percept the other noise of this huge room - Power injectors… somewhere… running at maximum output, humming energy and inducing fields… a crucial area… but why was she here? Why did she feel this strange feeling of longing victory after hearing the decompression sounds? Why was …
“*gaaasp*…*wheeze*…….*gaaaasp *…”, her lung craved desperately.
Hailynn's right eye ran a constant stream of tears that stung by each scratch they crossed. She did cry for many things; pain, misery and for certain people… but also due to the effect of her environment.
The floor she fell upon was aggressively hot as the skin of her face, regions of her fairly open torso as well as her legs absorbed the painful heat; the surrounding air consisted of an immense thick and hot gaseous mass, sparingly scarce of precious oxygen. The pressure of heat made her sweat like never before, merely sapping her life through every pore of her body. Hailynn licked her bruised and bleeding lip, but that did not help at all.
The heat… That dreaded heat. Radiation… Of course!
A piece of memory recalled. This entire area was still flooded by the thermal radiation caused by one of the three… three… She could not remember. The outer hull still had thermal masses radiating its energy into the ship's interior. The sector was a crucial weak spot.
That smell… The smell of burned plastic, molten electronic equipment, but also that repulsive smell of corpses in burnt amaji uniforms stung her nose. A raging firefight against further intruders. Faint memories flashed a path full of unrecognizable people of her crew that scarred her psyche.
Hailynn tried to breathe even deeper but felt a dreaded stab within her.
Unfortunately, the multitude of injuries was practically the least of her problems due to a serious fracture that occurred internally… A short moment of fear overcame her. One of her lungs must have been penetrated... Shocking enough, it was clear to her now that the collapsing of the lobe of the lung was inevitable - perhaps already undergoing… slowly. She did not know much about internal injuries, but judging what she was warned of, her breathing could fail any moment too soon. The pure soreness of the right side not only gave her the allusion but also assured her that the lung was no longer functioning right. Urges forced her to cough droplets of fluids.
Long before had she thought that her looks could not get any worse… but she was mistaken. She was merely destroyed.
Hailynn suddenly shrieked inwardly. A Vaygr… a single tall but unrecognizable vaygr gunman… Her eye barely could percept the body that was not far from the disposal duct. Another flow of perforated and confusingly mixed images recited memories into her mind. She chased this hulking intruder at first. A long fight… much more intensive than the one long before against a turanic soldier...
After spoiling the plans of the first intruder by fooling and gunning him down at a dead-end corridor, she later chased this second infiltrator from the logistics deck to the lower engineering sector known as an intersection to the engineering deck. Her aiding operatives could not keep up with her. The vaygr had a plan - She simply had to sacrifice her health for the sake of the ship. Her entrusted operatives neither matched the strength nor the experience to take on such a violent opponent.
The sake of the ship… something she said… something she now attempted… She seemed to have turned the tide of the battle. She was the one being chased now, dodging obstacles upon her way with farces of acrobatic movement, fooling her chaser by jumping through a low-gravity corridor, sometimes even bashing through smaller containers that stood in the way, running amidst the path of corpses - lastly herself being assaulted and chased by the armored intruder she desperately tried to elude as she stole something crucial from him before.
She had been assaulted several times. The vaygr attempted to break her bones… she eluded his lethal endeavors - somehow.
The armored body had several deformed holes, definite signs of direct hits from small but violent explosive rounds. Slightly remembering that she used explosive rounds, the burning rash across her hand must have occurred when she pulled the trigger causing a blast at point blank range - explainable by the burns across her right hand.
Luckily, she also remembered she had blasted the gunman's repeater into pieces - It did not matter much since such vaygr intruders were considered weapons themselves. She did not know when it happened - only could she guess that the suit no longer gave him sufficient protection. It seemed as if the deformed plating left him vulnerable for Hailynn's hidden weapon to land several critical hits - judging all sources of her bruises, she must have engaged a last serious close-combat tackle against him before his death.
Aside to these broken hints and memories, she had no other explanation for her condition.
The woman's face then changed into a mix of uncontrolled emotions. Her mind suddenly wrecked havoc, least to say that her blood was being bombarded by uncontrollable release of hormones caused by her body craving not only for mercy and oxygen, but also for the dreaded fix… death's intriguing cocktail known as the drug mixture `cortisine'. Until now, Hailynn had to understand the fact that she must have gone berserk… again. Again, that other self…
Hailynn was being observed by a single remote surveillance camera that seemed to be last one that resists the intensive heat values. Feeding others with live but blurry footage, people observed what was happening to the hiigaran who now suffered some sort of seizure. Two frail voices echoed amidst this large room filled with containers and many other sealed items that were displaced everywhere. Voices crying, shouting… She could not listen well.
Undergoing this bizarre event, Hailynn frantically tried to lift herself… ironically, it was not only the general pain or the inner injury of torso that forced her down. Her left shoulder… The shoulder radio unit was shattered beyond recognition.
There was only one thing that she could recall: A single round of the vaygr's repeater that punched through several things before smacking her down with a crushing blow upon her shoulder. Severe fractures… The unit must have saved her from penetration but the physics still played its role of devastating force. Both legs trembled. The exhaustion rendered them nearly immobile.
Her mind recouped another bit. Disposing a large bomb into a duct, arguing with a dimwit officer woman - killing the vaygr at last... saving the ship as the bomb was disposed within a single moment into the eternity of hyperspace.
“*gaaasp*…*wheeze*…….*gaaaasp *…”, her lung craved desperately.
Hailynn's right eye ran a constant stream of tears that stung by each scratch they crossed. She did cry for many things; pain, misery and for certain people… but also due to the effect of her environment.
The floor she fell upon was aggressively hot as the skin of her face, regions of her fairly open torso as well as her legs absorbed the painful heat; the surrounding air consisted of an immense thick and hot gaseous mass, sparingly scarce of precious oxygen. The pressure of heat made her sweat like never before, merely sapping her life through every pore of her body. Hailynn licked her bruised and bleeding lip, but that did not help at all.
The heat… That dreaded heat. Radiation… Of course!
A piece of memory recalled. This entire area was still flooded by the thermal radiation caused by one of the three… three… She could not remember. The outer hull still had thermal masses radiating its energy into the ship's interior. The sector was a crucial weak spot.
That smell… The smell of burned plastic, molten electronic equipment, but also that repulsive smell of corpses in burnt amaji uniforms stung her nose. A raging firefight against further intruders. Faint memories flashed a path full of unrecognizable people of her crew that scarred her psyche.
Hailynn tried to breathe even deeper but felt a dreaded stab within her.
Unfortunately, the multitude of injuries was practically the least of her problems due to a serious fracture that occurred internally… A short moment of fear overcame her. One of her lungs must have been penetrated... Shocking enough, it was clear to her now that the collapsing of the lobe of the lung was inevitable - perhaps already undergoing… slowly. She did not know much about internal injuries, but judging what she was warned of, her breathing could fail any moment too soon. The pure soreness of the right side not only gave her the allusion but also assured her that the lung was no longer functioning right. Urges forced her to cough droplets of fluids.
Long before had she thought that her looks could not get any worse… but she was mistaken. She was merely destroyed.
Hailynn suddenly shrieked inwardly. A Vaygr… a single tall but unrecognizable vaygr gunman… Her eye barely could percept the body that was not far from the disposal duct. Another flow of perforated and confusingly mixed images recited memories into her mind. She chased this hulking intruder at first. A long fight… much more intensive than the one long before against a turanic soldier...
After spoiling the plans of the first intruder by fooling and gunning him down at a dead-end corridor, she later chased this second infiltrator from the logistics deck to the lower engineering sector known as an intersection to the engineering deck. Her aiding operatives could not keep up with her. The vaygr had a plan - She simply had to sacrifice her health for the sake of the ship. Her entrusted operatives neither matched the strength nor the experience to take on such a violent opponent.
The sake of the ship… something she said… something she now attempted… She seemed to have turned the tide of the battle. She was the one being chased now, dodging obstacles upon her way with farces of acrobatic movement, fooling her chaser by jumping through a low-gravity corridor, sometimes even bashing through smaller containers that stood in the way, running amidst the path of corpses - lastly herself being assaulted and chased by the armored intruder she desperately tried to elude as she stole something crucial from him before.
She had been assaulted several times. The vaygr attempted to break her bones… she eluded his lethal endeavors - somehow.
The armored body had several deformed holes, definite signs of direct hits from small but violent explosive rounds. Slightly remembering that she used explosive rounds, the burning rash across her hand must have occurred when she pulled the trigger causing a blast at point blank range - explainable by the burns across her right hand.
Luckily, she also remembered she had blasted the gunman's repeater into pieces - It did not matter much since such vaygr intruders were considered weapons themselves. She did not know when it happened - only could she guess that the suit no longer gave him sufficient protection. It seemed as if the deformed plating left him vulnerable for Hailynn's hidden weapon to land several critical hits - judging all sources of her bruises, she must have engaged a last serious close-combat tackle against him before his death.
Aside to these broken hints and memories, she had no other explanation for her condition.
The woman's face then changed into a mix of uncontrolled emotions. Her mind suddenly wrecked havoc, least to say that her blood was being bombarded by uncontrollable release of hormones caused by her body craving not only for mercy and oxygen, but also for the dreaded fix… death's intriguing cocktail known as the drug mixture `cortisine'. Until now, Hailynn had to understand the fact that she must have gone berserk… again. Again, that other self…
Hailynn was being observed by a single remote surveillance camera that seemed to be last one that resists the intensive heat values. Feeding others with live but blurry footage, people observed what was happening to the hiigaran who now suffered some sort of seizure. Two frail voices echoed amidst this large room filled with containers and many other sealed items that were displaced everywhere. Voices crying, shouting… She could not listen well.
Undergoing this bizarre event, Hailynn frantically tried to lift herself… ironically, it was not only the general pain or the inner injury of torso that forced her down. Her left shoulder… The shoulder radio unit was shattered beyond recognition.
There was only one thing that she could recall: A single round of the vaygr's repeater that punched through several things before smacking her down with a crushing blow upon her shoulder. Severe fractures… The unit must have saved her from penetration but the physics still played its role of devastating force. Both legs trembled. The exhaustion rendered them nearly immobile.
Her mind recouped another bit. Disposing a large bomb into a duct, arguing with a dimwit officer woman - killing the vaygr at last... saving the ship as the bomb was disposed within a single moment into the eternity of hyperspace.
Chapter 19 - Aftermath
- The last hurdle -
Capsizing into an awkward position, the amaji cruiser enveloped by the `Morovuur' wavefront and the endless torrential streams and fabrics of the violent dimension known as hyperspace began to rotate and yaw, causing the repelling forces to increase at a dangerous rate.
Innervated fields began to fluctuate as the ship engaged this bearing that now seemed as if the ship was flying diagonal - and as it remained at this point, the intensity of the crushing forces caused its malicious effects throughout the entire ship.
Merely lambasted by the alerts and red flashes, Fenna desperately cried as she fought trying to keep the ship's fields together. Despite the harmonic `Morovuur' theory, nobody ever expected the sudden capsizing to cause such devastating fluctuations. The streams of hyperspace flew in such an awkward angle that it was simple for her and the crew to guess that the ship was flying diagonal against the stream, most likely causing a much higher resistance than its previous position. Screams came from all sides. Luckily, inertia fields only fluctuated in remote sectors of the ship.
The chime of Aira's signal continuously occurred in the background that required all of her concentration.
Contacted by a requesting signal, Kelsea immediately forwarded the signal to Orelis, who surely had enough problems at hand, “Commander!”, she yelled as she desperately tried to brace herself from the turbulences, “En-Engi… Chief Brogan on the line - Urgent! He is a-awaiting your -”
“<Alright!> Second-in-Command here, Brogan, go ahead!”
“”I have no idea what is going on or what your pilot is doing - but we're in deep trouble, Orelis!””
“Duh…! We've got some intruders onboard!”
“”Cut the crap, man!””, Brogan's severely garbled voice yelled over the commline, “”As long as you keep those suckers off my zone - but we have a totally different matter to worry about: Conduit breach imminent! I repeat - Conduit breach imminent””
Several others threw astonished faces.
“”Bridge - I don't know about you, but we've got to make a choice here! The ship is about to fall apart - and believe me, it will happen! Coils are already at the edge of shattering - Fields about to collapse all at once - Hyperspace fabrics crushing the whole ship - Great frakking engineering… Guys, we need to end this… and we need to end this now!””
“'End this'?! Damn it, Chief, do you know what that means?! We would end up in -”
More people became aware of their conversation.
“”What's better, CO?! Torn into pieces, killed by some reactor explosion, crushed by hyperspace or… lost in space, huh?!””
“If you are considering a dropout from hyperspace, forget it, man! We'll be stuck in deadspace - and who really knows if the Bentusi will find us! Besides, Hailynn assured us that the wavefront would bring us from A-to-B, no matter the frakking costs! We've got to stick to that fact!”
The ship frequently bounced up and down. Orelis already had a hard time trying to listen to the Chief's concerns as Fenna and others barked and yelled.
“”All due respect to Commander Hailynn, but she's missed a goddamn point! Oh sure, the wavefront will continue its glorious way to hyperspace - with or WITHOUT us!””
“What you say?!”
“”You heard right, Orelis! This ship's capability of holding on this wavefront is dying out - if we hesitate any longer, the worst that could and most likely WILL happen is that the ship will simply slip out of its own shielding wavefront once it loses a certain amount of its maintaining gravity field harmonics. I don't know about you, but if we had the choice of dying, I'd rather take a reactor explosion than getting devoured by hyperspace - honestly! But we still have a chance, Orelis - dropping out of hyperspace… our only chance!””
“Dropout… you say…”
“”Is there a goddamn echo up there?! YES, DROPOUT to normalspace… Make your time!””
Orelis hesitated. Hailynn's plan of riding on this crazy wavefront was all they had for their hopes to return to amaji space - but Brogan knew his work; this wavefront would continue anyhow, regardless if something is riding it or not. Despite her `Plan G' or whatever backup plan she had, lost in deadspace was not really a desired situation for any being.
The vast emptiness of space and getting stuck there belonged to one of the greatest fears of anybody. Zann already announced each and every occurrence happening to the ship's interior systems. The ship's propulsion and other field generating segments were deteriorating and soon to abruptly dissipate. His grip tightened around the transceiver.
The angered officer slowly turned his view towards the others.
Frightened operatives everywhere. Even that `strong-willed' s'jeti woman next to him who tried to act fearlessly all this time through was way beyond from that appearance; It was crazy holding the bars above whilst standing next to the station that dealt with internal operations - but furthermore, Pethera instinctively had been clenching herself upon Orelis' arm... to his annoyance.
Why couldn't she simply stay seated?
The ex-captain also gave him a short gaze in return before continuing his supporting coordinating commands to other stations. His gaze was enough of an answer and opinion.
Nonetheless, Orelis needed to make a choice of his own. They have come this far. Shortly taking a look ahead, Orelis stared for a single moment upon the main screen revealing the awkwardly rushing hyperspace streams.
With each second throwing them another light year closer to home, did they really have any chance in knowing when they would be home? It could be any moment, it be another load of hours later… Having no other choice, Orelis had to accept the fact that this part of Hailynn's plan was nearing failure, “Alright… We must accept the fact that the ship's gone beyond her point. She's done a lot of us and its time we accept that fact. We will have to concentrate on these suckers that boarded our ship once we're off this wavefront!”
“”<She - she - she - Whatever. Just a damn ship!>””
He paused, as others looked upon their commanding officer.
“Chief… Commence hyperspace flight termination! Announce warnings to all decks! We are going to force-terminate hyperspace profile!”
Once again, all operatives astounded.
“”Finally, something that makes sense since these last days… Consider it done, bridge! Nothing easier than that! Engineering, over and out!””
“Hang tight everybody! This could get rough…”
- The Fall -
Materializing after a storm of clashing energies caused by the rift between time and space, the once elegantly-looking vessel finally emerged from the alternating ethereal maelstrom of hyperspace, leaving separate trails of smoke, particles of gas and other rests of fabrics slowly dissipating.
Hyperspace merely tried to tear this lone ship back into its world, but lastly vanished as the last field collapsed. Mauled by battles, natural forces of both space and hyperspace, the once beautiful appearance of the barely surviving `Vjel-Amaj' withered quietly as the three plasmatic masses continued their entropic decay upon its hull. After a period of stabilization, the ship suddenly revealed certain regions.
Within moments, separate long segments and a primary unit were released, jettisoned into the open space.
Everybody of the bridge witnessed the event of the breaching hyperdrive conduit, its module and the coil-shattered nacelles being ejected into space - soon followed by hardly visible explosions, sparks, smoke and other events occurring upon each released unit. Ironically, these distinct and downright small explosions, whilst not being destructively huge ones, would have cascaded into a series of devastating results upon the ship. Cold shivers ran down the spine of many people. A vital core fragment of the ship had just died out. Hence, this event led to the fact that the `Vjel-Amaj' was not only somewhere lost in the middle of nowhere, but also crippled, unlikely to return into hyperspace on its own from now on.
After long peaks of crisis, the crew experienced the foil of all dangers; the last attempts of the intruders were reported as `prevented'…
News spread across the ship in a matter of moments. Victory. Finally, victory. They all had been longing for this moment. For this moment, everybody did not worry about the current situation of the ship being crippled of its propulsion systems.
Contagious cheers spread with ease, noticeable by the practically every crewmember hugging, handshaking, high-fiving, pouring grief through tears but also through silence. Feeling the grip still trembling upon his arm, Orelis straightened himself as he looked down upon Pethera, “…”
It took her some moments to come back to her senses; strange enough to have her clenching his arm all this time through. He hated this woman so much and yet he wondered why she had always been around him throughout the last conflict up to now. Most likely not noticeable by the surrounding people, Orelis was the only one who sensed the inner fear of this woman who always portrayed herself as a - if not, the - fearless representative of an empirical corporation and kiith.
Her closeness felt indeed strange and it took her a long while until she pulled herself together. Lighting slowly filled the bridge, inviting calmness to its surroundings.
”I… I…”
“Nevermind. Doc-tor.”
“…”, quielty hiding her blushing face.
Noticing his view turning elsewhere, Pethera wondered why he suddenly smiled as he rubbed his three-day beard, “What is so amusing?!”, she quietly asked - expecting a teasing smirk, probably since she had been latched around his arm for so long.
Ironically, he responded differently, “No more gas.”
Focusing her view accordingly to his words, Pethera discovered what he meant. All screens revealed nothing but colorful stars, small nebulas, formations and many other stellar appearances myriads of light years away.
None of the navigation or observatory systems were online at this moment, leaving them a live image of the surrounding space, unhindered by gases or any other visual obstacles. Inwardly, Pethera was angry that this ship had left the M'randara Star System on behalf of the other dreaded hiigaran woman she hated so much, but managed to contain her temper.
Orelis suddenly left her behind as he moved ahead towards the front of the bridge, aiming for the helm. Strange that the crazed pilot ahead had not given any sign of victory or cheer.
“Hey, Ensign. Ensign Fenna. What's wrong - haven't heard a single word from -”, he spoke as he approached her sophisticated station and just before he was about to touch her shoulder, his hand froze, “-you?”
~Snoring~.
Lying with her back upon the large seat, her head upon her shoulder with an open mouth, Fenna had fallen into such deep sleep that nothing, not even the loudest cheer, could awake her. The exhaustion, the stress of days, all of it came back to her. Just a single moment long, Orelis was about to explode.
The damn girl fell asleep at the line of duty again…
But he paused. What was he thinking? Despite all the adventures this ship had gone through and Hailynn being unable to pilot the ship, this frantic uneasily amaji youngster nonetheless had managed to ride this ship through a comet, warzones and hyperspace - even to the despair of others and her own.
Line of duty…
Who had not already exceeded the shifts for the cost of their health and for the sake of the ship?
Orelis shook his head. An inexperienced freighter pilot with a much-flawed record and stripped of her license managed to get them so far.
The officer quietly patted her shoulder without awakening her and smiled. She deserved this sleep, pretty much as well as everybody else on this ship.
“Huh?”
Again, Orelis noticed a disturbing silence across the bridge. Turning around, he discovered the kadeshi girl who stood at the center of the bridge. Operatives wondered why she stood there, but it was her usual frightened looks that could bring greatest concerns to any person without doubts. Surprising how fast she climbed down from her station.
“My… my naji- Hailynn… She is in danger…!”, her frail voice said to him.
“Holy… I almost forgot”, he replied, totally forgetting that Hailynn and countless others had been fighting within the ship, “Kelsea, survey - Contact Delixa!”
“Do not worry, Commander Orelis. I will maintain coordination of rescue and medical teams”, the ex-captain said who sat further behind the girl, assuring support and taking most of the other ship's concerns from his back.
“Thank you, Captain.”
After a short moment, Kelsea declared her signal for lost. Receiving slight hints from the operatives she questioned, she gave further information to the surveillance station that backtracked Hailynn's possible path.
“<What? What?!>”, Kelsea said into her headset, “<Wait - okay okay, hold on, calm down!> - Commander Orelis, I've got Chief Logistics Deena Amaj here on the comm - You better hear this, sir!”
“What are you waiting for, patch her through!”
“<One moment… alright, go ahead, Chief.>”
Orelis rubbed his face again, expecting another insane conversation.
“”Bridge, Chief Deena here… Hey, how's my sister, by the way.””
“Fell asleep, no worries. Deena - Report, what's going with Hailynn?! What about the others?!”
Deena made a long pause, not really sounding as `bubbly as usual, “”B-Bridge. We have confronted the intruders while we relocated a whole bunch of refugees and other non-combatants out of danger zones throughout the last stages of this invasion. One of them, a vaygr - of course not to be confused our beloved Ray - attempted another bomb planting.
I-I do not know what really happened, sir. Hailynn attacked the man on her own, forcing him to take on her rather than the others - She left us behind for our safety - only a separate few tried to keep up. The commander eventually fooled the vaygr gunman by taking the bomb unit with her. She also survived a direct shot that was repelled by her shattered communication unit.
That was where the others sort of lost track of her - but then… Hailynn demanded me through a fixed intercom to activate clearance and conduct the disposal of an object through the disposal duct `P-09 Gamma 13-i 5-o' … a separate sector located between the logistics and the engineering deck - s-starboard. It all happened while we were still in hyperspace.””
“Stand by, Deena <Track that info, pronto>!”, Orelis demanded.
The good mood already vanished. Many were wounded and killed… but the worst of their commander's story was about to be told.
““Commander Orelis, excuse me, pal - but the sector I am referring to belongs to one of those hit by the h-heat wave””, Deena continued, “”It is still contaminated by thermal radiations emitting from the those plasma… glob things… upon our ship's hull. It was the only closest place for her to dispose the bomb as she did not know how much time was left. That was also the moment she ordered me to return with an escort to the logistics command center. We better hope she made it out and -””
“Whoa, whoa - thanks Deena, but hang on. Survey's got something, they found her. Standby and uphold the commline, we're going to send you the feed.”
“”Rrrrroger.””
While Orelis walked over to the surveillance station again, Kenta approached the kadeshi girl, whose face was still with tears, wanting to calm her down. Kenta felt sorrows for this girl. This whole crazy adventure was beyond anybody's expectation, but furthermost, the girl had already undergone severe hardships.
With the fate of Shodanii plaguing her, the `kiith' of her people being slaughtered and their future left unknown, Hailynn was the only figure left to guide her. She was in need of guidance. Surprisingly, Kenta hugged a kadeshi girl for the first time in her life.
“Oh… oh my gods…”, one of the surveillance operatives mentioned as he discovered the figure lying upon the floor on his disrupted screens. The live feed images frequently fluctuated and fuzzed. Using his skills, he filtered the disturbances the best he could to allow a frequent flow of the feed to result.
The thermal readings of the sector were dangerously high. Though it had lowered slightly, it was still beyond sustainable levels for a being. Shocking images revealed themselves. No doubt, the figure was Hailynn Delixa.
“S-Shit! Patch us through to her!”
Kelsea immediately settled the communication downlink to the desired section, using the only technical speaker that was left operational followed by Orelis and Deena wanting her to respond. As the surveillance camera zoomed in, all viewers began to discover the how devastated she was, suffering under some sort of seizure.
“<Oh my…>”, Kenta whispered, hoping she could hide the terrifying images away from the eyes of Aira - but no chance at all, Aira somehow had already sensed Hailynn's health being endangered long before they even noticed what was happening. Tearing away from Kenta's embrace, Aira began to cry out for the suffering hiigaran.
Everybody witnessed how she vainly fought to get up. She was seriously injured.
“D-Damn it! Where are the rescue teams?! We need medics - and we need them now!”, Orelis yelled at the other operatives.
“Sir - Medics and other teams are spread everywhere across the ship! Th-They are too far away!”
“Don't give me that shit! Send somebody over!”
“…!”
“Come on! Somebody! Somebody…”, he shouted as his view turned over the screens again. Everybody frenetically witnessed the suffering woman slowly crawling to the exit, craving for air amidst this perilous environment. Surrounding operatives frequently repeated, `Keep moving! You can do it! Come on!'…
The voices… She barely heard them, incomprehensible - yet they cried for her as they seemed to observe her very slow attempt of crawling prone. Hailynn forced the last out of her body. Gasping like never before, she slowly advanced with each movement being nearly an everlasting torture as she approached the exit path. Thoughts now flooded her mind. Her will was fading.
Not only was her lung failing on her, she also began to panic. The promise, her sworn pledge… how was she to fulfill it?
Her heart hammered like never before, least to say it was about to arrest. Every muscle was seizing with each breath she tried to take. The drought never ended.
Unfortunately, it was too late. Hailynn stopped at a certain point. She was not going anywhere from here on - No chance at all. Slowly but surely, she raised her hand…
Amidst a single second, Hailynn's mind soothed. She was not going to survive. Hailynn may have saved the ship - unknown if the remaining intruders would cause further damage -, but her fate was clear.
The screams emitting from the speakers began to fade, somewhat noticing that she was losing the will to live. She would not survive. Seizing all movements, the devastated hiigaran officer of the Kiith Amaj focused her eye upon the camera that still signaled a red dot resembling its activity. She sought for the girl of sorrows, Shodanii, the people lost in their veiled destiny, the everlasting song of the ship and her crew.
Her breathing became dangerously flat.
At this tense moment, Hailynn no longer felt the heat burning upon her skin.
Her life faded with the darkness slowly filling her view, left with a last breath, her shaking hand gave three symbolic gestures of farewell before it fell lifelessly upon the floor - each of them representing the Kiith Amaj… Brotherliness, Freedom… Pride.
The sudden occurrence even scared Pethera for the moment, but furthermost, she slammed her clenched fist upon the side of a panel… with mixed thoughts and feelings plaguing her mind. Others remained speechless, stunned by the body that now laid there… lifelessly.
The soul of the kadeshi girl suddenly shattered. She screamed so long and loudly that it scared almost everybody of the bridge. To the surprise of everybody else throughout the amaji cruiser, a long-going power fluctuation suddenly affected the entire ship that nearly forced auxiliary power to be engaged and took several moments until the basic power grid recovered.
Aira became hysteric, losing control of herself. Before anybody was able to react, the girl ran off, exiting the bridge.
Orelis immediately ordered the operatives to monitor and intercept the girl - but unfortunately was told that the entire communication grid and several other systems collapsed due to the intensive fluctuations. Running off like this was not good - The ship was not completely secured yet. Nonetheless, she needed to be alone… for she has lost another beloved soul…
The soul of her beloved naji.
****
======== Part 2 of 3 =======
- Agony -
(A narrative voice speaks)
The beginning, the end. The flow of life ends at the beginning of death. Both life and death reign the galaxy. The will struggles the soul's instincts of self preservation; nonetheless, death still pulls the soul once the body cannot hold this soul. One may beg for mercy, but death follows its own… intention. But what leads life and death? A question that remains unanswered. Beings will reform speculations, either of scientific fact or religious belief, but will never come to conclusion.
Cells of the body that deteriorate and fail at a given time? Deities reining the choice whenever to take a soul? Some believe their fate can be altered by prayers, others claim to accept what comes. Whichever may be right, they accept that the soul may accept death's invitation some day. Despite the soul that may accept some day, it is death to decide when. Can fate still be altered if the soul is rejected?
(end of narrative speech)
The battered `Vjel-Amaj' quietly floated amidst the emptiness, surrounded by the galaxy's endless beauty of stars and other distant formations. The glowing of plasma masses have deteriorated slightly, but were still present. Echoes of sorrowing song still emitting throughout subspace…
Another figure approaches from the side, gets down and closer to the view point. Instincts suddenly react along with the senses returning… Overwhelming pain strikes the being's body, taking much efforts of influences led into her blood, soon soothing the pain and staggering the from further movement.
A world of misery rushes amidst the mind. Misery is called upon memories of the past, but also scaring premonitions of the future. It is too late. Unable to alter the future, the being is assured that it can no longer change fate and accepts death - but death hesitates …
The eye slowly opened again, its pupil revealing a filled black dot almost at the edge of the iris. Mumbling. Long Moaning.
A blurry halved view, another figure is seen.
A strange beam of light slides by, calling the soul to return to itself… *flash*… *wave*… *flash*… Voices… more voices. Impulses of senses shortly spike, causing short twitches.
The being's mouth suddenly opens and takes a deep breath caused by sudden agony, nearly holding the breath as it raised its right arm to its left eye. The view remains halved - Pitch black... The nothing reveals an eternal darkness. The pain that suddenly returns is immense, felt as a stabbing knife penetrating deeper with each second. Within a single moment, pain spreads everywhere upon her body, pulsing at such tremendous rate that the mind begs for mercy and salvation.
“D-Doctor - don't inject that… give painkiller instead- please!”, a woman's voice pled.
“Useless - I've given far too many painkilling injections! I've exceeded the limit - if I inject one more, her cardiovascular system will collapse… must have develop some damn immunity, but this is my last hope…”
Ironically, something solid but as thin as a hair strain penetrates the arm, the sting does not cause any reaction as the surrounding pain clutches her entire body. Voices praying, hoping the last resort would end the torture. Soon, the influence that is led into her body begins to cause.. soothing. Her body has been craving for this influence for a mere eternity. The longing has come to an end as the body is merely bombarded with emotions of inner euphoria and rapture and as moments pass, the pain fades… and with it, death's hand. Her time has not come… yet.
“Shhh! Shhhh…”, another voice said whilst holding the being's head, “Calm down… calm… down… -! Shhh - It's okay… you are alright!”, the soft voice of a familiar person repeated over and over again, somewhat gaining the trust of the being.
Removing the needle from the patient's arm, Doctor Jonas shortly treated the spot. He had concerns, wondering if it really was a good idea to give her this hideous drug… but he had no other choice, “I hope this was the right thing to do…”
“Doc, she… she's coming back to her senses.”
The halved view slowly focused, needing several moments before the flowing image aligned itself with her mind. Familiar people, one holding her head, others surrounding and watching. The stench of burnt material was in the air, but also the smell of plastics and other medical things. Though unable to really recognize her surroundings, her eye percepts that they are in a wide corridor, filled with a wide plethora of people. Most of the area is darkened. From medical assistants to patients, treating those in need. Every now and then, one would cover a patient's entire body with a plastic coat.
Claps, slight cheers and grief are heard among the surroundings. Her view did not allow much to see though as it was blocked by certain cases and containers acting as a blocking cover from curious stares.
“Commander… do you know who I am?”
Hailynn did not answer at first. The doctor held a set of fingers up.
“Three… Two…”, she barely mumbled.
Her eye then followed the finger from right to left, once again reminded of the black border as the finger disappeared beyond the left. Hailynn torso and head was slowly lifted, letting her head rest on the lap of the familiar person behind.
“Alright, you understand me. Took nearly ten minutes until you regained mental consciousness after the injection. You have no idea how happy we are, gracious that the gods - or whatever - kept you alive... I wonder why we always meet up like this, having you only invited once devastated…”
“*astonishment*”
Loo king upon her body, Hailynn discovered that most of her torso is exposed. The medical units she had forgotten on her were still there, but there was a lot more upon her. A glimpse to the side revealed kits and equipments revealing her life signs but also another internal one that seemed to like an ultrasound echo and x-ray in one. Practically every bruise she had was either minor plastered or covered by thin medical films and transparent band-aids.
She was lying on the floor, having her messed up officer's jacket as a sorry excuse for a blanket. The scratches still burned, but not as much as before. Hailynn's left shoulder was almost as hard and swollen thick as a rock; the arm beyond that point being numb and rendered immobile with a tentative cast. Both were pulsing pain, but at least she felt them.
Touching her forehead, she discovered bandages around, covering the left eye. Most surprising, though, was not only that her view was halved, but that she discovered that the right side of her torso had been operated and was now covered with special medical bandages as well. The doctor shortly removed the larger pad that was covering her right rib.
“I guess we made it. Glad to have you back, Hailynn.”
Hailynn again padded her left eye without answering.
“Don't panic! It's still there. Your left eye is still there, Hailynn. No need to worry, just stay calm”, Jonas reported to her, barely preventing her from fret, “Your augmented eye suffered a harsh hit, though. The surrounding region is swollen and I really suggest not touching it for a long while…”
- Agony -
(A narrative voice speaks)
The beginning, the end. The flow of life ends at the beginning of death. Both life and death reign the galaxy. The will struggles the soul's instincts of self preservation; nonetheless, death still pulls the soul once the body cannot hold this soul. One may beg for mercy, but death follows its own… intention. But what leads life and death? A question that remains unanswered. Beings will reform speculations, either of scientific fact or religious belief, but will never come to conclusion.
Cells of the body that deteriorate and fail at a given time? Deities reining the choice whenever to take a soul? Some believe their fate can be altered by prayers, others claim to accept what comes. Whichever may be right, they accept that the soul may accept death's invitation some day. Despite the soul that may accept some day, it is death to decide when. Can fate still be altered if the soul is rejected?
(end of narrative speech)
The battered `Vjel-Amaj' quietly floated amidst the emptiness, surrounded by the galaxy's endless beauty of stars and other distant formations. The glowing of plasma masses have deteriorated slightly, but were still present. Echoes of sorrowing song still emitting throughout subspace…
Another figure approaches from the side, gets down and closer to the view point. Instincts suddenly react along with the senses returning… Overwhelming pain strikes the being's body, taking much efforts of influences led into her blood, soon soothing the pain and staggering the from further movement.
A world of misery rushes amidst the mind. Misery is called upon memories of the past, but also scaring premonitions of the future. It is too late. Unable to alter the future, the being is assured that it can no longer change fate and accepts death - but death hesitates …
The eye slowly opened again, its pupil revealing a filled black dot almost at the edge of the iris. Mumbling. Long Moaning.
A blurry halved view, another figure is seen.
A strange beam of light slides by, calling the soul to return to itself… *flash*… *wave*… *flash*… Voices… more voices. Impulses of senses shortly spike, causing short twitches.
The being's mouth suddenly opens and takes a deep breath caused by sudden agony, nearly holding the breath as it raised its right arm to its left eye. The view remains halved - Pitch black... The nothing reveals an eternal darkness. The pain that suddenly returns is immense, felt as a stabbing knife penetrating deeper with each second. Within a single moment, pain spreads everywhere upon her body, pulsing at such tremendous rate that the mind begs for mercy and salvation.
“D-Doctor - don't inject that… give painkiller instead- please!”, a woman's voice pled.
“Useless - I've given far too many painkilling injections! I've exceeded the limit - if I inject one more, her cardiovascular system will collapse… must have develop some damn immunity, but this is my last hope…”
Ironically, something solid but as thin as a hair strain penetrates the arm, the sting does not cause any reaction as the surrounding pain clutches her entire body. Voices praying, hoping the last resort would end the torture. Soon, the influence that is led into her body begins to cause.. soothing. Her body has been craving for this influence for a mere eternity. The longing has come to an end as the body is merely bombarded with emotions of inner euphoria and rapture and as moments pass, the pain fades… and with it, death's hand. Her time has not come… yet.
“Shhh! Shhhh…”, another voice said whilst holding the being's head, “Calm down… calm… down… -! Shhh - It's okay… you are alright!”, the soft voice of a familiar person repeated over and over again, somewhat gaining the trust of the being.
Removing the needle from the patient's arm, Doctor Jonas shortly treated the spot. He had concerns, wondering if it really was a good idea to give her this hideous drug… but he had no other choice, “I hope this was the right thing to do…”
“Doc, she… she's coming back to her senses.”
The halved view slowly focused, needing several moments before the flowing image aligned itself with her mind. Familiar people, one holding her head, others surrounding and watching. The stench of burnt material was in the air, but also the smell of plastics and other medical things. Though unable to really recognize her surroundings, her eye percepts that they are in a wide corridor, filled with a wide plethora of people. Most of the area is darkened. From medical assistants to patients, treating those in need. Every now and then, one would cover a patient's entire body with a plastic coat.
Claps, slight cheers and grief are heard among the surroundings. Her view did not allow much to see though as it was blocked by certain cases and containers acting as a blocking cover from curious stares.
“Commander… do you know who I am?”
Hailynn did not answer at first. The doctor held a set of fingers up.
“Three… Two…”, she barely mumbled.
Her eye then followed the finger from right to left, once again reminded of the black border as the finger disappeared beyond the left. Hailynn torso and head was slowly lifted, letting her head rest on the lap of the familiar person behind.
“Alright, you understand me. Took nearly ten minutes until you regained mental consciousness after the injection. You have no idea how happy we are, gracious that the gods - or whatever - kept you alive... I wonder why we always meet up like this, having you only invited once devastated…”
“*astonishment*”
Loo king upon her body, Hailynn discovered that most of her torso is exposed. The medical units she had forgotten on her were still there, but there was a lot more upon her. A glimpse to the side revealed kits and equipments revealing her life signs but also another internal one that seemed to like an ultrasound echo and x-ray in one. Practically every bruise she had was either minor plastered or covered by thin medical films and transparent band-aids.
She was lying on the floor, having her messed up officer's jacket as a sorry excuse for a blanket. The scratches still burned, but not as much as before. Hailynn's left shoulder was almost as hard and swollen thick as a rock; the arm beyond that point being numb and rendered immobile with a tentative cast. Both were pulsing pain, but at least she felt them.
Touching her forehead, she discovered bandages around, covering the left eye. Most surprising, though, was not only that her view was halved, but that she discovered that the right side of her torso had been operated and was now covered with special medical bandages as well. The doctor shortly removed the larger pad that was covering her right rib.
“I guess we made it. Glad to have you back, Hailynn.”
Hailynn again padded her left eye without answering.
“Don't panic! It's still there. Your left eye is still there, Hailynn. No need to worry, just stay calm”, Jonas reported to her, barely preventing her from fret, “Your augmented eye suffered a harsh hit, though. The surrounding region is swollen and I really suggest not touching it for a long while…”
A single memory suddenly flashed into her mind - with a solid elbow just about to strike her left eye.
“… The augmentation itself has suffered much from whatever blow it received, but to my surprise, it is only marginally damaged. I assume the mechanical part inside of is slightly out of focus. Right now, it is showing a specific color upon the iris - a color that seems to be a slight indication of some… damage code of some sort - I don't really know, honestly. Unfortunately, my team and I are unable to conduct any repairs, Commander. I myself lack the knowledge in optical cyber implantations and the required equipment needed to treat such injury… damage…”
Hailynn lowered her view. His words discouraged her as he spoke a bit further about her damages. As he spoke, she noticed that he spoke of her damages as that of a broken robot. The spoils of these implants were revealing themselves for they do steal one's kushanity… slowly.
“I assume you noticed your left shoulder being immobile. It is swollen hard due to the impact of a round. If you hadn't had your radio unit on that side, we probably wouldn't be speaking with each other right now. Again, you were lucky, Hailynn. We've treated most of the injuries you have been running with ever since that day we left that taiidan mothership.
But let's forget about that and talk about the most important thing: We've taken care of your most serious injuries, Hailynn. The internal ones.”
Again, she looked upon her exposed torso. Other medical associates shortly came by, removing some of the larger equipment from their area.
“I cannot recall how many fractures you had spread all over your ribcage, I dare not to even think about what a full tomography would reveal as we did not have a chance to bring you there. Severe tissue damages, perforations, clods… oh my…”, Jonas rubbed and wiped his forehead, “Gods, it amazes me each time when I see what a kushan body can endure. My assistants and I have performed something insane to save the lives of yours and others, Hailynn. Aside to several hospices spread across the ship with hotspots, I assure you that we had stress like never before. When you were brought, we had no time or choice but to operate you here on-site. I will have much to report on my medical log once I get back to sickbay.”
Hailynn's bandaged right hand slid upon her skin again while the person above her moved her hair out of her view.
“The grade of the burn on your hand was a moderate one, but we were able to treat the injury and structure the skin - will take a while. Otherwise, I am glad to tell you that the operation was a success - *shakes head* stressful, but a success. We've distributed several types of nano-treatments to fix the organic damages. It is likely you will suffer slight sickness, maybe chances of pulse and not to forget, pain, but it will wear off - I cannot say how long the psyche will need but… anyways.
The perforation of your lung was our greatest worry. Gods, Hailynn, why haven't you come any earlier to us? I'm not sure what else is happening on the ship, but we've had several power failures and the collapse of the ship's internal communication. We were dreaded tired, Hailynn. I haven't slept much myself really… and yet we managed to conduct this medical surgery - but let's see things on the bright side.
Your physical status is `stabilized' - but as your doctor, I demand you to refrain from any other means of combat and I will use my authority to have you attain rest! This is not an attack, okay, but you've been moving around for so many hours without sleep, food… and I was forced to inject `cortisine' - the last resort to end the seizure and pain, as you somehow developed a serious immunity against nearly all means of tranquilization.
I have failed as a doctor at that moment I gave you the injection, but I had to do what the body was craving for. The crazy thing about all of this is that your body's craving also protected you, making your psyche ignore pain to some point where others would simply pass out, relentless decisions and act - from what I heard of. Probably saved the ship too. *whew* I don't know, I'm just a doctor… The rumor of your possible death struck the crew with great awe and fret, Hailynn.”
The devastated woman gasped and coughed slightly. She wanted to say something but her throat was dry. Feeling hasted movements, the people who lend her head a lap gently gave her water from a packed ration. It took her some moments a few moments until she regained the possibility of speech.
“…H-h…ha…h…”
̶ 0;Slowly, one by one.”
“H-how… did I… get… h-here?”, Hailynn stuttered, “I-I was at a… Heat w-wave… I…”
The doctor looked upon the floor shortly, then looked back at her, “Let me explain <as if I didn't have much to say>. First off, I have to repeat how amazed I am under what extremely harsh conditions a body can survive. Nonetheless, not only were you at the edge of dehydration, you must have also been at the very edge of exhaustion. Your enriched blood must have supported your brain while it lastly forced you to fall into a comatose state. Yes, you nearly died there - but your body used its last possibilities to maintain your life.
The hours of refraining from sleep and the drug fix protected you from dying there, Hailynn. I am not joking, no matter how ironic that may be. And there is nothing funny about it. Among all the hospices, those who heard of your endangered status even refrained from treatment - even those who actually needed most help… despite my medical selection, they forced me to concentrate on your survival, Commander.
Granted… I wasn't sure if I were able to save their lives. Synthetic blood generation wasn't able to cover all needs - gladly that many operatives gave blood donations. However, you don't have the slightest clue how much they love you, as a Commander, as a persona of guidance, Hailynn. Loyalty… Love, even the person who rescued you is still here.”
Hailynn dropped her head upon the person's lap again and looked upwards, soon to recognize the familiar face. Again, astonishment.
“Surprised to see her, eh? No question, she was the one who pulled you out of the danger zone, before others supported her and carried your all the way here.”
A short recall… Velle attempting a hasted jump but clumsily tripped over several obstacles just as charged rounds frequently slammed against her adjacency. Cases fell upon her - Another recall… her eyes revealing tears as the death of a friend occurred. Once hearing the spin of her Arsec's drum occurring, Velle went berserk, firing a stream of bullets wildly upon turanic intruders…
Her eye discovered the young weary-looking amaji woman in a strange unrecognizable suit above her.
“But… how? The a-rea… was… of hostile… environ-”
Velle wiped her tears of joy away, “I told you I would keep a lookout for you, Hailynn…*sob*”
“…”
“Support Operative, rescue and fire control unit - that's my department, ma'am… not guns… ”
“Backslash - `Guardian Angel', Hailynn”, Dr. Jonas noted.
“You ran off that none of us were able to keep up with you. As the doctor said, you simply lost mind of the injuries. You just… ran off… after that vaygr - and we were cut off due to the splinter group of turanic-taiidan intruders”, noticing Hailynn's eye staring upon her suit, Velle explained further, “I-I… I went on my own when I had the chance to go after you. I did not know where you went at first, until I followed the path of busted cases and bullet holes among the path. Noticing the rise of temperature, I deployed my gear that I took with me. I-I am not fond with damage control procedures, but I was trained in the behavior and characteristics in hostile environments, Commander.
Within a short while, I fitted my resistance suit and entered the zone. Communication collapsed the moment I found you. I wasn't able to take you far, therefore were you too heavy - but I still pulled you as far as I could and tried to keep you alive. Not much later, others came to help out - by coincidence as they were worried about me too… yeah… and -”
Hailynn suddenly attempted to get up, but did not go beyond the point of lifting her torso, “The ship! V-Vaygrrr…”, she wheezed frantically.
“No no no… Calm down… They're dead. The intruders, I mean - most of them, to be precise, but the crew is no longer endangered by them. Some of the refugees help us to outgun some of the turanics and taiidans - and you won't believe it, but some of intruders have surrendered and are now being held under custody at the brig.
A few of our people nearly lost their mind and wanted to execute them… Hailynn, this happened some 15 hours ago - and I think the operative was another two or three on top of that. I am not sure what really happened to the ship itself - but rumors say we are stranded…”
“Ladies”, Jonas announced suddenly, “You will have enough time to talk with each other - I need to move on and find out if there are any medical situations at hand. Though rest is important, you are also suffering malnutrition, Hailynn. Since you have been subjected of many fluid injections, I fear artificial nutrition infusions might interfere with the plentiful nanos you have swarming in your body right now.
You haven't eaten anything beyond a day. You've been through stressful situations that nearly destructed your body. Commander, your blood sugar levels are dangerously low - and therefore I demand you and Operative Velle to…”
(Narrative voice)
Deities, beliefs, scientific facts, the answer remains open - One's path may be guided by fate, where death would await one's arrival at the end… But what happens when another being intervenes with one's fate?
(End of narrative speech)
Deities, beliefs, scientific facts, the answer remains open - One's path may be guided by fate, where death would await one's arrival at the end… But what happens when another being intervenes with one's fate?
(End of narrative speech)
= Bridge =
Chimes of the enigmatic echo periodically occurred despite the absent kadeshi girl. The mood of the bridge was quiet and down. Hardly anybody spoke. The crew however finally managed to gain rest. Though many of them were surely in need of psychological care, things remained calm.
Everybody longed for this peace. With the ship being crippled and still affected by the thermal attacks of before, it silently levitated in space. Soon, the silence broke as Kenta spoke up,
“Everybody…”
It took several hours until the observatory was able to give a small result of its deep space probing of the surrounding star formations and comparisons with stellar cartographies, but it seemed as if she found results, “Oh dear... Kerelly Constellation… Taanach Branch… Yutani Cluster… Serroga Yageni Formation… Oh my gods…”, she shrieked slightly, “Commander Orelis, I need Quan here to verify this - but I can tell you this, sir: I think I have good news. If my estimates are correct, we are within amaji sovereign space! Simplified calculations reveal that we are… just… 46 Light Years away, plus-minus 1 in accuracy!”
The bridge emerged into cheering joy for a certain while. Euphoria and again victory cheers were heard. Orelis approached Kenta's station as he repeated, “46?! Alright!”
“Yes, sir - 46 light years!”
They both repeated their words a few times and with each repeat, the joy soon faded away.
“Forty… six… Kenta…”
“Yes - Isn't that great, 46… Forty… Six! Just a few parsecs from home! Just…”
“Light years away…”, Orelis turned himself over to the screen that revealed stellar cartographies, then rubbed his slightly bearded chin.
Currently, the captain and several others of the main shift were not present, most likely all of them were recovering from the days of struggle during the venture through the M'randara Star System. He also took the time to take a nap right at the bridge. At least Pethera was gone
“46 light years away from home… That would be… ah, I hate math. We only got out with our lives tied on the back of this ship”, he mumbled, just before his attention was called upon.
Another communication operative transferred a communication request to Orelis' unit.
It took several attempts until he was able to understand the person's report due to the collapse of all systems. But his mood suddenly rose again when he ended to commline”<No way… Alright, thank you, I'll be right there *veep*> Everybody - I think we have additional good news… and you won't believe it. Wait… no… nah, I've gotta see this first - Could also be that silly Deena trying to play a joke on us!”
“She wouldn't do a joke like that one, sir… I'm sure of it.”
“Hey, she pulled a few heavy ones when the ship launched the first time - Remember that one.”
Orelis suddenly made huge steps towards the bridge's rear exits but stopped shortly. Who was supposed to take over bridge command during his absence?
“Umm, err… Operative Kelsea, you have the bridge for now, alright?”
“*gulp* W-Why me, sir?”
“Because I'm evil. No, really. All is quiet right now and you're the highest ranked operative here at the moment. I've got to check that news…”
Surprisingly, Fenna was awake. She bumped her upon the edge of the upper screens and knocked the controls of this with buttocks while lifting herself and turning upon the seat like a clumsy child, luckily all controls were on inactive, “Hey, what's the *bump* oooww!... oowww… What's the news you're talking about - Commander Orelis, sir?!”
All eyes looked upon Orelis. He really did not want to give false hopes but lastly spoke up, “Well… Alright, I'm not sure if the news is true - I can't believe it and none of you are going to believe it either but... Mess Hall…”
“Mess… Hall?”, Fenna asked.
Another man repeated his words, soon followed by other operatives and operators wondering what he meant.
“Somebody is at Mess Hall, e-eating… It's Commander… and Krin'sa H-Hailynn Delixa… eating a meal there…”
After a long pause featuring puzzled faces, several young operatives jumped upwards, merely dropping what they were doing to kill time. All of them had eyes wide open, practically all of them silently shouting `WHAT YOU SAY?!'. Suddenly, several operatives stood up, some of them forgetfully moving off while pulling their headset plugs from the small plug sockets. Almost everybody, including Fenna, wanted to rush out of the bridge.
“Whoa WHOA HEY HEYHEYHEYHEAAAAAAAAAAHHHEEEEEY!”, Orelis shouted at the avalanche of youngsters coming his way, “Stop people, not everybody now! We still need people here at the bridge! Hey, things could still happen - We could still be surprised by a hyperjump ambush, an attack - or maybe even -”
They still stared at him - unlikely that his order would change their mind either. The whole group begged to see their Krin'sa alive.
“*Sigh* Okay, maybe I am exaggerating a little. Alright, well Kelsea, you maintain bridge command. Don't do anything foolish and -”
“Let's get going!”, a surveillance operator announced at the group and started marching ahead with the group, Orelis being shoved by the wave of people. Within moments, the marching sound vanished as soon as the access doors slid closed.
Left behind, Kelsea quietly turns her head, quietly looking across the bridge's segments and stations. Nothing but screens and the slightly dimmed artificial lighting lit the bridge. Kelsea dropped her shoulders.
“H-hellooooooooooooooooooooo?”, her soft voice called but was left without an answer, “*sigh* They all ran off…”
Left all alone, the bridge again hummed the chime, shown also as a visible resonating wave upon the upper left display of her console. Lowering her view to the other screens, nothing really seemed interesting.
Practically all segments revealed on the ship's mainframe were slowly blinking red and grey layers, each and every zone unable to interact with each other through the special sophisticated communication A.I. system and wave enhancers.
Again, another long sigh. Zann said before that the teams were already taking care of the problem. There were of course several substitute ways of communication, but there was no need of it since the ship was all right. Alas, she used both hands to rub her face, unaware that sets of transceiver microphones were all around her collar and units upon her shoulder.
A good idea appeared in her mind, as of finally taking all of these things off. As she did so, she wondered how she managed to survive doing all the administration between countless stations and people. Hearing the bridge once again hum the echoing chime, she shortly took a glimpse at the sensory station.
Hmm…
The sophisticated sensory station immediately went offline after the girl left. Of course, the ship still used its advanced array, but certainly did not match to what the kadeshi entity was capable of. Thinking back, Kelsea noticed that Aira's capabilities have advanced and promptly prospered as the ship ventured through the M'randara Star System. Even during the chase into the frozen comet surprised her.
Aira was even able to split her psyche to control the scout probe needed to guide the strikecraft wing and also maintain overwatch among the ship's adjacency and the development of incoming aggressors. Using the events to come to a conclusion, Kelsea wondered what this girl was; Her appearance is an adolescent girl of a cult hundreds, if not thousands, of thousands of light years away, her psyche shattered and that of a frightened being, her abilities supernaturally beyond all kushan aspects, her past just as mystical and enigmatic as the present due to her affiliation with `Kadesha's Ark' and its embedded legacy… and yet the girl was lost in a galaxy full of spoil and dangers. There was a lot more to her than what she knew to this point.
Kelsea suddenly stood up and stretched herself. Making another glimpse around, she was still all alone. The young communication operative slowly approached the helm with a bored look.
Hmm… Hmmmmmmmmm
= Corridor to the mess hall =
A group of bridge operatives and an officer made their way to the mess hall. Everyone moved swiftly. While making their way, several of them noticed battle scars written everywhere upon the area. Bullet holes, damaged panels, separately covered corpses and people working and treating the wounded - They all revealed what great miseries that occurred while they were safely upon the bridge.
Orelis made a short glimpse at a charred panel. He had to chuckle inwardly, knowing that Chief Engineer Brogan would go crazy once he sees this.
Bypassing two operatives who held a conversation, Orelis eavesdropped as one spoke, “- Yeah. It was crazy, man. I'm telling you. I was with a few others and the cook - no idea what his name is - noticed two turanics coming our way at the mess hall. Most of us were too scared; we never really fired a gun in our lives. But anyways, the cook ambushed the two intruders just as they entered the place.
Disarming one of them, he immediately shot the first one by surprise, did some crazy fighting and then shot the second gunman out of the mess hall. Just like that - bam bam bam - No remorse, no regret.”
“That sounds crazy - glad you all made it, though!”
“Frell yeah. That body you see over there? That `s one of `em.”
“Wait - I thought he was a cook, where did he -?”
“That was my thought too. All he answered was, `I'm just a cook'…”
“Hey you two”, Orelis called behind whilst walking with the others, “You two know about Hailynn Delixa?”
“Err - Yes, sir. We know that she…”
“If you guys want to see something crazy, I dare you to follow us to mess hall. Right now.”
“… huh?”
= Mess Hall =
At least hundreds of people stayed quiet. Hardly anybody moved or dared to say a word. One could say that there was a dead silence or a minute's silence - but every now and then, noise from a specific person would echo throughout the huge hall. Everybody quietly stared upon the woman who was covered by bruises, bandages, cast and her messed up stained officer jacket upon her shoulder. Scraping sounds again.
Unable to really eat right due to her hindered arm and drugged psyche, she frequently made a mess with trembling right hand. The meal seemed to be a good one, rice and some sauce… if she only had a tasting and smelling sense, which was unfortunately a side effect caused by her medication. Luckily, she no longer was bugged by the smell of her strange stench.
Velle quietly stared at her from the other side. It took a very long while to get her to the mess hall. Each step with the crutch was a painful one, testing her balancing each time. But just as the others, including Orelis and the bridge operatives could not believe their eyes. She was alive, brutally beaten up and… hungry and thirsty…
*Gulp…. Gulp…. Guuuulp…. Gulp….*
Several gulps followed until she knocked the empty cup upon the table, its sound echoing again throughout the mess hall. Everybody nervously observed the reputed to be dead woman. Hailynn breathed heavily a few times before calming down. Again that silent pause. Afterwards, Hailynn then fought with herself to get up - unfortunately falling upon the floor with a painful shriek. Before Velle or any other person helped out, the severely hindered hiigaran wove her hand showing them not to help her up; assured she could do it herself.
Suddenly, Kenta approached her with an open hand to whom she looked upwards to. Though wanting to deny the help, Hailynn knew she could stay on the floor like this all day long, but Kenta would stay there until she would accept. Approached by Velle, both amaji women helped the injured hiigaran to her feat.
At this point, Hailynn now felt how much the crew counted on her… and how much they suffered. They all could not accept her death.
Tears suddenly ran down Kenta's cheek, who suddenly embraced her krin'sa with grief. Despite all of her injuries being oversensitive, Hailynn fought but failed to keep back her tears - Tears that were not of pain, but of joy and thankfulness. Having gone through so much agony, they all were thankful for her deeds, despite all of her flaws. A few of them thanked the gods, others the medics - but also for Velle, rumored to be the one who pulled her out of trouble.
One technician stood up, raising his hand in the gesture of the amaji pride; a formed fist rose high… soon to be followed by other symbolic gestures. Other bridge operatives and even technicians approached her, giving her one embrace after another while every else gave a prolonging applause for a long while. After the long applause, most of the operatives rowed themselves nearly perfectly, then bowed to her. All present crewmembers bowed to her persona as she quietly limped her way with Velle to the exit, accompanied by Commander Orelis.
The once seriously bored Kelsea now sat upon the seat that Fenna had resided upon for days, somewhat playing with the sophisticated controls like a little girl, talking while she amused herself - fairly replaying what she experienced in an exaggerated and self-heroic manner.
= Engineering Deck =
Accompanied by Velle and Orelis, Hailynn exited the lift slowly. Orelis and Velle explained what happened during her absence.
“…So… We're stranded, huh?”
“I believe so, Hailey. I'm not all too in touch with what actually happened though. Brogan and the engineers tossed one module after another off the ship - Nacelles and the hyperdrive's module that - I don't know, shattered coils and all that technical broken talk”, Orelis reported to her, “Unlikely that we will be jumping anywhere. I'm sure this ship has some more tricks under her sleeves, but now how things stand, I really doubt we will be going anywhere. Kelsea said we're… just… 46 light years away from Amaj.”
As Hailynn listened, she spotted a burnt circuit unit with melted cables. Brogan was not going to like this.
“46?! Hoo boy”, Velle commented.
“You bet. Anyways - Casualties are still being registered. Really hating my job today.”
“- Orelis?”
“Yeah, Hailynn?”
“How… are you doing?”
He stopped shortly and hesitated. Likewise, he did not even expect such an answer. Three bypassing operators noticed Hailynn alive, all of them frequently looking back at her as if they saw a ghost.
Orelis chuckled quietly, “Heh… You keep surprising me, Hailey. Yeah… Yeah, besides the fact that we're stranded some forty-something light years away from home, death tolls still to come, tired as hell… Yeah, I'm fine, Hailey…”
It was the first time Velle saw Hailynn smiling again. They continued their slow pace.
“What about Kaydee?”
“That silly woman… Not sure really. She was brought to sickbay due to loss of consciousness after that trouble with Ray who refused to board at first. Later on, when we were boarded by the vaygr and the other gunmen and while I coordinated the security teams, I heard of her taking on a turanic who was at the cargo bay II.
Don't ask me what happened. I just know that she went for Ray to get him out of his ship - I only heard that she shot the turanic down, then again was to the nearest safe zone due to her loss of consciousness again. Man… I never want to get in the way of a crazed manaani with a shotgun.”
“Thank goodness… she is still alive... I hope the wounded will survive. Please inform them that I am alright and that I hope for them to survive.”
“Roger that. Heh - Think it takes more to kill a manaani. Good thing she's on our side. Anyways, Commander, Chief Brogan surely can tell you more about the ship's status… but under us two - err, three - You better avoid Brogan, ladies. He's probably mad as frell. I was going to avoid actually mentioning the suggestion of heading there at first.”
“Now that you mention it, sir, why are we heading there?”, the young operative curiously asked with large eyes.
“Somebody is hiding there in a little den from what I heard of.”
“Hiding? Who?”
Orelis looked at first at Velle, then at Hailynn, “The emissary…”
The entire story and development of `Kadesha's Ark' incident recalled itself within a single heartbeat.
“You mean… the girl - Aira? But… What is she doing there - Why is she hiding?
“She hasn't heard of the good news, Velle.”
“What?”
Again, Orelis' view went over to the injured hiigaran.
“…”, Hailynn did not answer but stared back at him with a questioning glare.
As Orelis spoke, recalling reminiscences plagued Hailynn's soul. Tense gunfights. Close combat. Viciously repelling the attacks of the vaygr, Hailynn struggled for her life. The unarmed vaygr intruder would suddenly surprise her with a strangling arm that would wrap her neck like an entangling snake. The vaygr knew of all the weaknesses the kushan body had… far too many… Fbut Hailynn was entrusted with experience and knowledge. Barely able, she responded to each attempt that nearly brought her at the edge of dying instantly.
One attempt would lift the hiigaran woman and have her spine be breached by a so-called backbreaker by forcefully dropping the woman upon his reinforced knee - but Hailynn reacted with sharp instincts, turning herself with her stomach downwards. The fall upon the knee was a more than painful one and she did spat a bit more more than just saliva. The pain only existed shortly due to her rage increasing.
The vaygr would attempt to viciously twist her head, but she would react by turning her body accordingly; but while the vaygr attempted further deathstrikes while she intervened, Hailynn would be running out of time for his clutch was blocking a vital part of her neck. The hostile environment did not make matters better - but ironically, at the moment she would pass out, the stinging air would awake her just one more to attempt her last resort. Remembering the lightweight sidearm hidden among her torso, she immediately pulled it out and wildly shot towards her back. Rounds entered the vaygr's body, who then would shortly tumble backwards.
Hailynn unfortunately shot the gun empty with only a scarce few landing hits… but it all led to the fact that the vaygr was bleeding to heavily. Bashing ahead, the vaygr immediately struck a crushing blow upon her chest, knocking her against the duct's wall… The agonizing pain suddenly unleashed her innermost demon… She spoke words...*sudden darkness*
One attempt would lift the hiigaran woman and have her spine be breached by a so-called backbreaker by forcefully dropping the woman upon his reinforced knee - but Hailynn reacted with sharp instincts, turning herself with her stomach downwards. The fall upon the knee was a more than painful one and she did spat a bit more more than just saliva. The pain only existed shortly due to her rage increasing.
The vaygr would attempt to viciously twist her head, but she would react by turning her body accordingly; but while the vaygr attempted further deathstrikes while she intervened, Hailynn would be running out of time for his clutch was blocking a vital part of her neck. The hostile environment did not make matters better - but ironically, at the moment she would pass out, the stinging air would awake her just one more to attempt her last resort. Remembering the lightweight sidearm hidden among her torso, she immediately pulled it out and wildly shot towards her back. Rounds entered the vaygr's body, who then would shortly tumble backwards.
Hailynn unfortunately shot the gun empty with only a scarce few landing hits… but it all led to the fact that the vaygr was bleeding to heavily. Bashing ahead, the vaygr immediately struck a crushing blow upon her chest, knocking her against the duct's wall… The agonizing pain suddenly unleashed her innermost demon… She spoke words...*sudden darkness*
“- was not a great thing. Hailynn, several of us saw you dying… struggling but lastly giving up… the farewell. I'm not the emotional guy… but that did hit me, Hailey. It hit all of us - Gods, I won't believe what I am about to say, but even… Pethera… She seemed… Nevermind that woman - but you don't have the slightest clue what happened when Aira witnessed your death. The sort of screamed and then BOOM - The ship just went haywire! Almost everything collapsed. ”
“Wait… That was HER…?!”, Velle's eyes widened, remembering how much trouble she had trying to get help after the collapse of the ship's internal communication.
“Something big just happened. The poor girl already went through so much - Hailynn's death was definitely the last straw…”
Wanting to hurry, Hailynn began to speed up in her limping pace slightly.
“Whoa whoa, slow down, Commander!”, Velle demanded , ”Let me help you out.”
“Alright you two - I better get back to the bridge. Kelsea is there, probably alone and I'm sure she could need the company before I finally go off duty. Plus, I don't want to put up with Brogan's whining.”
“Yes, sir…”
“Thanks for… everything, Orelis.”
“Anytime, Hailynn, anytime.”
Orelis departed from the two with a salute and made his way back to the lift.
****
======= Part 3 of 3 =======
- More than a companion cube… -
- More than a companion cube… -
Blurry flashbacks…
Beams of charged projectiles and shells frequently impacted upon hard surfaces. The once insignificant large storage became a crucial point of retreat as it was the nearest intersection for the hunted unarmed vaygr-hiigaran refugees to escape their followers. The logistics deck had nearly every corner full of sealed crates, containers and several other unusual things.
Blotched colors fills the view for the moment.
Considering the enemy, the vaygr intruder was a tall infiltrator whose weaponry and armor revealed much to fear of. This hideous killer was a serious threat not to be underestimated. Having an armor that gave full flexibility to the dexterously strong vaygr body was much of a concern Hailynn needed to be aware of. Unfortunately, matters became worse as the amaji defenders confronted and confirmed the presence of turanic gunmen as well. Surprisingly, they did not reveal any similarities to the turanic soldier who assaulted her days ago upon the derelict mothership - other than the ridged forehead most likely hidden beneath their helmets.
Definitely turanics, but there were certain differences Hailynn could not distinguish. It was likewise that the surviving taiidan faction on the side of the vaygr still would have of disciplined uniforms and looks - but these two were looking so individual that they were beyond the point of discipline.
Hailynn had already confronted such in her past as a marine… Those she confronted were crazed mercenaries and scavengers. But still, something disturbed her about the looks of these turanics - She simply had no time to distinguish it.
As expected, the standard rounds of the weapons the amaji had to their disposal barely did anything but bounce off or simply deform upon the vaygr's armor. The armory did not offer much of a variety. She was the more or less only one around who actually had the skills at using explosive and heavy weaponry, other than the hundreds of amajis who only knew the basics and never stood eye-in-eve against a vaygr.
Neither could she quick-train nor entrust such dangerous armaments to them - it was simply too dangerous - not to mention how scary it was to see Deena firing her shotgun with a very lousy aim. Every time she pulled the trigger, she would close her eyes.
All hell and a crisis then broke loose.
While desperately trying to keep her nerves sharp, Hailynn helplessly watched panicking armed operatives spreading out and trying to make their way into safety - unfortunately falling right into the deadly aim of the first confronted vaygr intruder and the two turanic supporters. She shouted and cursed at the operatives, begging them to stay down for the sake of their lives.
The amaji group was fortunately able to extract the last refugees from the danger zone, but the defending group itself was now pinned down. Being several steps away from them, she braced herself as repeater rounds frequently hailed upon her cover. More loose things fell from above to her sides.
Being out of breath, extremely nervous and anxious, Hailynn's hands trembled as she desperately reloaded her handgun with the explosive rounds of ammunition that were powerful enough to cause damage upon the armored enemies. The handgun however was still smoking and already radiated heat, stinging her sweaty grip with each second she held it.
Despite the compatibility and its special frame, it was still prone to overheating when using such gel-gas ammunition excessively - but as usual, she did not have much of a choice.
Unable to save the life of a dying operative, Velle suddenly became hysterical, raising her body relentlessly above cover and began to return fire wildly. Her sudden havoc was so tense and surprising that she actually lost control of herself and her blaring Arsec machine gun.
At first screaming at her to get back under cover, Hailynn dared to make a look beyond the corner.
Ricocheting projectiles merely raining sparks everywhere, even shooting out lighting segments of the ceiling and other harmless falling under the aim of the operative. Ironically, Velle's bizarre outrage surprised the opposing force. Unlike the vaygr who took the hits without suffering any real damage or injuries, one of the turanics unfortunately reacted by instinct, attempting to dodge for a different cover, but suffered several hits upon himself while the other one barely managed to lower himself.
Rounds continuously hailed everywhere upon them. The vaygr was forced back and although he was not able to return fire, he withstood each shocking hit - only waiting for the moment to recover from the frequent blows.
The unlucky turanic, however, was not as well armored. Each hit landed upon him smacked cloudlets of blood, unknown fragments and fluids and screams before dismemberments occurred. Hailynn nervously looked at Velle and froze for a split second.
The wild operative unintentionally managed to give cover for her comrades to retreat to a better spot, but instead of moving back herself, Hailynn's eyes immediately discovered Velle's fears taking over her. The wild gunfire became even wilder; she wanted to make a step to the back but she could not stop firing at them across the large storage room. One empty shell ejected from her wild aim so far, that it even smacked upon the side of Hailynn's left eye. Within a bleak second, rapid clicks and a depleted spinning drum frequently occurred from the weapon that no longer spewed projectiles.
The inexperienced operative was now paralyzed by her fears!
Hailynn held her breath, surely expecting an outburst of pain soon to happen.
Just as the vaygr and the remaining turanic recovered from the rage attacks, Hailynn made an sudden lunge from her cover, blasting three blind snapshots upon their aggressors with her handgun before bashing into Velle; forcefully knocking her down before the enemies took advantage of the stunned woman. Whilst firing and fighting against the intensive recoil, Hailynn surprisingly witnessed her last blind shot busting a terrifying hole upon the turanic, just before falling upon Velle with a painful landing and losing sight.
Locking Velle down upon the floor, Hailynn suddenly yelled, “Snap out of it - and stay down!”, and gave her a smack, surely waking the operative up from her lost mind. Still pinned upon the floor, Velle looked up as she saw Hailynn ducking further down and providing her some cover as rounds of enemy fire once again everywhere.
With the armored vaygr being the last opponent, Hailynn desperately needed to think; her pack of small shells versus an enemy whose weapon hurled vicious micro projectiles at a terrifying rate and force - The noise made it tough for her to form thoughts. Every now and then, the vaygr would launch a bolt of extreme destruction… As of just now, the side of the container they hid behind busted, spraying parts of it everywhere. Velle and the others further behind yelled at despair. Luckily, none of the two women were injured - other than minor scratches.
Confusing images fills her view. For short while, the surrounding changes into a miserably colorful reflection of the taiidan mothership.
Hailynn's knowledge foresaw it all again. The vaygr repeater was a remarkable but also terrifying coupling between two technologies, specifically of bolter and repeater weaponry. The handheld weapon of the vaygr was alike the Arsec Mark II in certain aspects making it hard to classify it; it was larger than a handy sub machine gun, shorter than the commonly long-sized rifle and having a, in this case, very large capacity of micro caliber projectiles.
Unlike such Arsec `Mark II' assault rifle, this vaygr weapon classified as `Stormur Herra' was a hybrid that could wreck havoc upon any organic being and devastate objects beyond the power of a mediocre bolter shotgun amaji services had within its arsenal - merely excluding it totally from the term of a simple assault weapon.
Its micro-sized projectiles may be small as harmless pellets, but once combined with the hybrid rail technology similar to the common one of the turanics, such projectile would gain serious powers - and that without a loud bang.
At this tense moment, Hailynn's mind snapped a thought. Her experience told her that such vaygr intruder would rather follow his objective first than trying to add more kills on his score. Vaygr were usually cunning loners, but he probably noticed that his accompanying allies proven themselves worthy and useful.
The objective… the objective… what was his objective?!, a thought that frequently repeated itself in her mind - and each time she nearly had the answer, another load of projectiles would shatter pieces of the sealed container upon the side of her face... to her annoyance.
…Sabotage! Of course! Bomb plantations…
The vaygr still carried several of these small but seriously devastating units mounted upon the back of his armored suit… and she was sure that he was waiting for some sort of intelligence transmission from the second vaygr intruder. Hailynn became more anxious.
Hailynn sensed Velle frightfully staring from below upon the wrecked hiigaran who still had her thighs upon the sides of her hip - recognizing that face again, predicting Hailynn's psyche having something in mind.
Suddenly, Hailynn griped the unit from her shoulder, changed its settings to a much insecure frequency and shouted loudly enough, “Bridge! Come in bridge command!”
Immediately responding, an operator of the surveillance station replied, “”Responding, Commander! Do you wish to speak with Orelis, ma'am?!””
“No - no! Listen! No time for any explanations - I need you to open the path to ship's main power core section at this deck - deck seven - from my position! Open the way to corridor! We need to get these people out of the sector - let the vaygr to core!”
Hearing the familiar voice of Orelis in the background, both Hailynn and Velle listened to the speech, “”<Over an open line?! Whatever! Let me speak to her> Delixa - What's the -?!””
“No time for explanations! Open D8-S-98-Delta, passage 12 - to the Main Power Core… reactor… three! Open that access door!”, Hailynn desperately shouted again and beyond the edge, making sure she was referring to the correct entry point that was currently locked down, “… and stand by… please standby…”
A long pause… By now, it was clear that Orelis and the operator were having an argument on her confusing request. Most likely, it was Orelis who was probably screaming like crazy. A short look down to Velle showed that she was astonished. They both knew this ship pretty well enough to know that the -
“”Err - alright, Commander””, the voice of the operator replied while being shouted at,”” Doing as ordered! <I'm on it - I'm on it!>””
Hailynn view glimpsed beyond the edge of the protecting container for a single moment before shifting back behind the edge; her face shortly revealed slight concerns.
“Comman- Hailynn, what is this all about?!”, Velle shouted from below with a much confused voice, “Th-That path is not… - Why are you letting him go?!”
“We need to let him get out of here so we can save our people, Velle! His mission is not slaughtering us - yet!”
“But that way is also not leading to a -!”
Hailynn shortly looked down, “Those punks... nearly screwed us back on that derelict mothership - but this time… they are on our turf!”
Velle did not understand what the commander meant. At the same moment, another bolt powerfully smashed the upper half of the sealed container; this time spraying many pieces and its content than before.
Scared by the sudden event, Hailynn's hands slipped to the outside but also caused her to instinctively throw herself upon the operative below her… and albeit the tense and frightening situation, it became a embarrassing confrontation for the moment as their lips and bodies accidently and unintentionally met - but also to the painful experience of Hailynn.
Both body and lips stayed together for another moment while more pieces of shattered hard plastics and seeds fell upon them.
Others stared in astonishment - including Deena who seemed in looking forward to sharing the gossip...
Blurry colors suddenly tainted Hailynn's reminiscences.
Beams of charged projectiles and shells frequently impacted upon hard surfaces. The once insignificant large storage became a crucial point of retreat as it was the nearest intersection for the hunted unarmed vaygr-hiigaran refugees to escape their followers. The logistics deck had nearly every corner full of sealed crates, containers and several other unusual things.
Blotched colors fills the view for the moment.
Considering the enemy, the vaygr intruder was a tall infiltrator whose weaponry and armor revealed much to fear of. This hideous killer was a serious threat not to be underestimated. Having an armor that gave full flexibility to the dexterously strong vaygr body was much of a concern Hailynn needed to be aware of. Unfortunately, matters became worse as the amaji defenders confronted and confirmed the presence of turanic gunmen as well. Surprisingly, they did not reveal any similarities to the turanic soldier who assaulted her days ago upon the derelict mothership - other than the ridged forehead most likely hidden beneath their helmets.
Definitely turanics, but there were certain differences Hailynn could not distinguish. It was likewise that the surviving taiidan faction on the side of the vaygr still would have of disciplined uniforms and looks - but these two were looking so individual that they were beyond the point of discipline.
Hailynn had already confronted such in her past as a marine… Those she confronted were crazed mercenaries and scavengers. But still, something disturbed her about the looks of these turanics - She simply had no time to distinguish it.
As expected, the standard rounds of the weapons the amaji had to their disposal barely did anything but bounce off or simply deform upon the vaygr's armor. The armory did not offer much of a variety. She was the more or less only one around who actually had the skills at using explosive and heavy weaponry, other than the hundreds of amajis who only knew the basics and never stood eye-in-eve against a vaygr.
Neither could she quick-train nor entrust such dangerous armaments to them - it was simply too dangerous - not to mention how scary it was to see Deena firing her shotgun with a very lousy aim. Every time she pulled the trigger, she would close her eyes.
All hell and a crisis then broke loose.
While desperately trying to keep her nerves sharp, Hailynn helplessly watched panicking armed operatives spreading out and trying to make their way into safety - unfortunately falling right into the deadly aim of the first confronted vaygr intruder and the two turanic supporters. She shouted and cursed at the operatives, begging them to stay down for the sake of their lives.
The amaji group was fortunately able to extract the last refugees from the danger zone, but the defending group itself was now pinned down. Being several steps away from them, she braced herself as repeater rounds frequently hailed upon her cover. More loose things fell from above to her sides.
Being out of breath, extremely nervous and anxious, Hailynn's hands trembled as she desperately reloaded her handgun with the explosive rounds of ammunition that were powerful enough to cause damage upon the armored enemies. The handgun however was still smoking and already radiated heat, stinging her sweaty grip with each second she held it.
Despite the compatibility and its special frame, it was still prone to overheating when using such gel-gas ammunition excessively - but as usual, she did not have much of a choice.
Unable to save the life of a dying operative, Velle suddenly became hysterical, raising her body relentlessly above cover and began to return fire wildly. Her sudden havoc was so tense and surprising that she actually lost control of herself and her blaring Arsec machine gun.
At first screaming at her to get back under cover, Hailynn dared to make a look beyond the corner.
Ricocheting projectiles merely raining sparks everywhere, even shooting out lighting segments of the ceiling and other harmless falling under the aim of the operative. Ironically, Velle's bizarre outrage surprised the opposing force. Unlike the vaygr who took the hits without suffering any real damage or injuries, one of the turanics unfortunately reacted by instinct, attempting to dodge for a different cover, but suffered several hits upon himself while the other one barely managed to lower himself.
Rounds continuously hailed everywhere upon them. The vaygr was forced back and although he was not able to return fire, he withstood each shocking hit - only waiting for the moment to recover from the frequent blows.
The unlucky turanic, however, was not as well armored. Each hit landed upon him smacked cloudlets of blood, unknown fragments and fluids and screams before dismemberments occurred. Hailynn nervously looked at Velle and froze for a split second.
The wild operative unintentionally managed to give cover for her comrades to retreat to a better spot, but instead of moving back herself, Hailynn's eyes immediately discovered Velle's fears taking over her. The wild gunfire became even wilder; she wanted to make a step to the back but she could not stop firing at them across the large storage room. One empty shell ejected from her wild aim so far, that it even smacked upon the side of Hailynn's left eye. Within a bleak second, rapid clicks and a depleted spinning drum frequently occurred from the weapon that no longer spewed projectiles.
The inexperienced operative was now paralyzed by her fears!
Hailynn held her breath, surely expecting an outburst of pain soon to happen.
Just as the vaygr and the remaining turanic recovered from the rage attacks, Hailynn made an sudden lunge from her cover, blasting three blind snapshots upon their aggressors with her handgun before bashing into Velle; forcefully knocking her down before the enemies took advantage of the stunned woman. Whilst firing and fighting against the intensive recoil, Hailynn surprisingly witnessed her last blind shot busting a terrifying hole upon the turanic, just before falling upon Velle with a painful landing and losing sight.
Locking Velle down upon the floor, Hailynn suddenly yelled, “Snap out of it - and stay down!”, and gave her a smack, surely waking the operative up from her lost mind. Still pinned upon the floor, Velle looked up as she saw Hailynn ducking further down and providing her some cover as rounds of enemy fire once again everywhere.
With the armored vaygr being the last opponent, Hailynn desperately needed to think; her pack of small shells versus an enemy whose weapon hurled vicious micro projectiles at a terrifying rate and force - The noise made it tough for her to form thoughts. Every now and then, the vaygr would launch a bolt of extreme destruction… As of just now, the side of the container they hid behind busted, spraying parts of it everywhere. Velle and the others further behind yelled at despair. Luckily, none of the two women were injured - other than minor scratches.
Confusing images fills her view. For short while, the surrounding changes into a miserably colorful reflection of the taiidan mothership.
Hailynn's knowledge foresaw it all again. The vaygr repeater was a remarkable but also terrifying coupling between two technologies, specifically of bolter and repeater weaponry. The handheld weapon of the vaygr was alike the Arsec Mark II in certain aspects making it hard to classify it; it was larger than a handy sub machine gun, shorter than the commonly long-sized rifle and having a, in this case, very large capacity of micro caliber projectiles.
Unlike such Arsec `Mark II' assault rifle, this vaygr weapon classified as `Stormur Herra' was a hybrid that could wreck havoc upon any organic being and devastate objects beyond the power of a mediocre bolter shotgun amaji services had within its arsenal - merely excluding it totally from the term of a simple assault weapon.
Its micro-sized projectiles may be small as harmless pellets, but once combined with the hybrid rail technology similar to the common one of the turanics, such projectile would gain serious powers - and that without a loud bang.
At this tense moment, Hailynn's mind snapped a thought. Her experience told her that such vaygr intruder would rather follow his objective first than trying to add more kills on his score. Vaygr were usually cunning loners, but he probably noticed that his accompanying allies proven themselves worthy and useful.
The objective… the objective… what was his objective?!, a thought that frequently repeated itself in her mind - and each time she nearly had the answer, another load of projectiles would shatter pieces of the sealed container upon the side of her face... to her annoyance.
…Sabotage! Of course! Bomb plantations…
The vaygr still carried several of these small but seriously devastating units mounted upon the back of his armored suit… and she was sure that he was waiting for some sort of intelligence transmission from the second vaygr intruder. Hailynn became more anxious.
Hailynn sensed Velle frightfully staring from below upon the wrecked hiigaran who still had her thighs upon the sides of her hip - recognizing that face again, predicting Hailynn's psyche having something in mind.
Suddenly, Hailynn griped the unit from her shoulder, changed its settings to a much insecure frequency and shouted loudly enough, “Bridge! Come in bridge command!”
Immediately responding, an operator of the surveillance station replied, “”Responding, Commander! Do you wish to speak with Orelis, ma'am?!””
“No - no! Listen! No time for any explanations - I need you to open the path to ship's main power core section at this deck - deck seven - from my position! Open the way to corridor! We need to get these people out of the sector - let the vaygr to core!”
Hearing the familiar voice of Orelis in the background, both Hailynn and Velle listened to the speech, “”<Over an open line?! Whatever! Let me speak to her> Delixa - What's the -?!””
“No time for explanations! Open D8-S-98-Delta, passage 12 - to the Main Power Core… reactor… three! Open that access door!”, Hailynn desperately shouted again and beyond the edge, making sure she was referring to the correct entry point that was currently locked down, “… and stand by… please standby…”
A long pause… By now, it was clear that Orelis and the operator were having an argument on her confusing request. Most likely, it was Orelis who was probably screaming like crazy. A short look down to Velle showed that she was astonished. They both knew this ship pretty well enough to know that the -
“”Err - alright, Commander””, the voice of the operator replied while being shouted at,”” Doing as ordered! <I'm on it - I'm on it!>””
Hailynn view glimpsed beyond the edge of the protecting container for a single moment before shifting back behind the edge; her face shortly revealed slight concerns.
“Comman- Hailynn, what is this all about?!”, Velle shouted from below with a much confused voice, “Th-That path is not… - Why are you letting him go?!”
“We need to let him get out of here so we can save our people, Velle! His mission is not slaughtering us - yet!”
“But that way is also not leading to a -!”
Hailynn shortly looked down, “Those punks... nearly screwed us back on that derelict mothership - but this time… they are on our turf!”
Velle did not understand what the commander meant. At the same moment, another bolt powerfully smashed the upper half of the sealed container; this time spraying many pieces and its content than before.
Scared by the sudden event, Hailynn's hands slipped to the outside but also caused her to instinctively throw herself upon the operative below her… and albeit the tense and frightening situation, it became a embarrassing confrontation for the moment as their lips and bodies accidently and unintentionally met - but also to the painful experience of Hailynn.
Both body and lips stayed together for another moment while more pieces of shattered hard plastics and seeds fell upon them.
Others stared in astonishment - including Deena who seemed in looking forward to sharing the gossip...
Blurry colors suddenly tainted Hailynn's reminiscences.
“Hailynn… Hailynn?”
“Uhhhh…. <huh-huh huh-huh-huh…>”
“H-Hailynn? Hey?”, her eye then focused on the person who caught her view by moving in front of her, “Hey, can you hear me - are you okay?”
The person stared straight into the empty eye of the injured commander, who stood there with a worried face.
“Wha… what?”
Hailynn stared back to the support operative who… who… her memory paused for a moment. The young woman in front of her was half a head smaller, wore a strange slick but protective suit usually worn by damage control and fire teams as the first level of protection while carrying a special backpack with a familiar weapon on its side.
The woman's hair was pretty much as messed up as Hailynn's, shimmering faint dark velvet tones as the strongly dimmed lighting reflected upon her hair. Hailynn's senses returned, finally recognizing Velle - An amaji with a common gene `defect' that caused the unusual hair color. Considering former breeding classifications, it was clear that such amaji's genes were prone to further defects, thus leading to low-grade values of the breeding selection.
Thinking beyond, Hailynn recalled what she learned about when she studied some of Amaj's history a few years ago. With all amajis being `indirect' descendants of other major kiithid, it was clear that the natural cosmic radiation of the galactic core and of course the people who lived in the existing core systems received minor gene defects that passed on throughout colonial and repopulation purposes.
Of course, non-excessive mutations happened - only changes deep within DNA-strands. Everybody was affected by that, Hailynn surely as well but with nothing worthwhile to mention. Nonetheless, for some reason, the amaji descendants were more prone to visible changes such as Velle's unusual hair color.
The operative in the protective suit dropped her shoulders, “What `what'? Hailynn… what's wrong?”
“What? Stop shaking me - and stop asking `what?'.”
“C-Can't you remember…?”
“What?!”
“You were just about to tell me about what happened during that confrontation with that other… vaygr… then you saw the arrested turanic… you started talking about colors and other nonsense - then you just spaced out for some fifteen seconds.”
“Eh… Where are… we?”
While shaken gently, Hailynn's eye wandered around as Velle repeated her name. A corridor, with yellow symbols and stripes… Engineering deck. The corridor itself showed signs of chaos that took place a long while ago.
Her mind recognized the area, but it was its emptiness that left her both speech and thoughtless. The area hummed and vibrated quietly as faint trembles periodically phased through. The wide corridor was empty, most likely that the majority of operatives were elsewhere supporting where they could. A slight breeze blew through, probably caused by alternating environment control systems - but also blew some of the weird stench away from her nose. Hailynn readjusted her messed-up uniform jacket upon her shoulders, allowing it to cover her bandaged arms more.
“Engineering…”, Hailynn recognized, then shortly laid her hand upon the bandaged eye that pulsated pain. Another second later, she began to scratch herself due to an irritating itch.
“Yes, uhm, you intended to look for the sensory… girl… Aira. Commander Orelis mentioned her hiding somewhere around the main engineering.”
“Yes, of course. Let's go there”, Hailynn replied and suddenly limped ahead awkwardly.
“Wait”, Velle said, “You're going the wrong way, ma'am…”
“…”
“We're already here, this huge door... Technicians are taking care of the access protocols due to some minor malfunctioning. I don't know really what they were talking about but they told us to wait right here. They also said that one turanic made his way here to the rear sector of the engineering deck but suddenly surrendered for some reason. A marine and an armed operative took that guy to the brig only moments ago - Have already you forgotten about that?”, the young amaji woman spoke as she knocked a knuckle against the wall of the hulking access door.
Hailynn shortly observed the huge access vault. Black and yellow stripes, panels and other iconic things… Again, her psyche phased out, running separate memories of past events in a split second. Noticing signs of disorientation and imbalance, Velle immediately caught the wrecked and mummified hiigaran woman. Looking each other into the eyes, Velle revealed a much worried face than before - if not, than ever.
“*mmhf* Th-Thanks”, Hailynn quietly said to her, then revealed a firm face, “I still must… thank you. You saved -”
Strangely enough, Velle's arms continuously held the weak commander around the upper torso, firmly enough to prevent her from falling, tenderly with care not to hurt her - as if she had sought for such closeness for an eternity. Sobs were heard from Hailynn's shoulder.
Time slowly flew by.
Velle ignored the weird smells as she maintained her embrace.
After a moment of silence, the noise of activating systems shortly awoke the two. Making a short glimpse, both discovered that the access panels became active again before looking back at each other.
The amaji woman fought against her tears, “It-It's alright, Hailynn. You do not need to thank me. I am here to serve the Amaj - Saving lives is my goal… I am a support operative who only wishes to help whenever possible - To serve and be with those I love, those I am fond of *gasp* - I mean - !”
“…”
The clumsy operative threw both hands in front of her mouth… but it was already too late; her words already slipped from her lips. It took a long while until Hailynn's right arm first dropped the crutch and then slowly embraced the amaji who fell for her emotions.
She had to understand that the crew suffered great hardships. Hailynn looked down to her and smiled slightly, assured that it was just worries and concerns - but Velle still stared back with wide-opened and shocked eyes. The hiigaran thought further, counting what this crew survived… from nearly being killed by ion beams, massive trinity bolts, comets, black hole strains, soldiers, hypoxia, ethereal surges of hyperspace…
Oh…. Oooohhhh….., Hailynn's mind suddenly snapped, abruptly ending her enumeration of encounters that nearly ended deadly. Velle's emotions seemed to have a much deeper meaning.
“S-s-sorry - Commander Delixa, ma'am”, the young amaji suddenly stuttered and hesitantly removed her arms from the slightly taller woman; “I… I…”, Velle's eyes bounced from each corner to another as her arms slipped away from the silent hiigaran, trying to avoid eye contact with the taller officer who quietly stared at her.
Hailynn at first thought the amaji's emotions were caused by worries - but they were not only worries; they were sorrows from a being that deeply adored her. A weird confrontation this was - Hours to days ago, Hailynn fought for their lives and the survival of the ship - and now she stood before a person who confessed love and admiration, unexpectedly.
“I've been praying before and ever since the doctors began surgery on you… I brought you to the safe zone, Hailynn”, the operative quietly explained with a blushed face showing tears, “You were severely injured. You even `flatlined' during a crucial moment…”
Velle remembered the moment she found the lifeless body laying on the floor. The entire room merely vibrated as the air revealed intensive heat values - Her protective suit and helmet being the thinnest line of defense against this violent environment. But alike Hailynn, Velle also had troubles recall the whole event.
“How were you able to get me out of there?”, the hiigaran suddenly questioned the nimbly-built amaji woman.
“I pulled you… You are a heavy person but… I don't know, I just pulled you - I can't really recall everything that happened back then.”
The stress, the heat, the terror… It must have been the extreme adrenaline rush that suddenly took control of her. At this point, Hailynn knew that one's body could innervate hidden powers in stressful situations - but there seemed to be more about it in connection with those of amaji heritage.
Rumors once spoke of very unusual events that occurred during a well known catastrophe that happened upon the colony ship orbiting Amaj Prime.
“Just to make this clear: I owe you. I am a person of many debts, a person who still has promises sworn to be fulfilled. You gave me a second chance…”
“Told you I'd keep an eye on you, ma'am. I-I'm sorry I wasn't able to shoot the turanic as you demanded back then upon the mothership… I am not a marine -”
“- but you are valuable to me as the entire Kiith Amaj, Velle -”
“- Just as you are for me, my Commander… Delixa…”, she quietly replied back to Hailynn but kept her view upon the floor.
Obviously, Velle's formal response was sign for her embarrassment wanting to hide.
Certain things became clear to Hailynn. Back then upon the derelict mothership, Velle must have been one of the first to volunteer for the search and rescue division that travelled across the hazardous interiors of the vessel to save both Hailynn and Aira. Despite being ordered to keep an eye on Hailynn, her intentions had a much deeper sense.
Unfortunate for Velle, Hailynn did not mention any word considering her confession. The situation was already a delicate one.
“Just for the record, I will make sure you will get the appropriate response for your heroic efforts by the Kiith Amaji Navy… *pause*A real second chance… maybe it was the third one… I don't know - I never thought I'd be given another one, Velle. I was ready to die; ready to leave my life behind.”
The amaji operative lowered her view again and blushed slightly. Nevertheless, Velle's view seemed to be unsatisfied as she braced herself slightly. The suit, whilst being a passive protection against harsh environments, hardly gave her warmth for her shattered heart.
“Velle. *pause* Look - I will have to go on alone from here. Aira is a very shy one - You know that. I will need to meet her alone as I do not know how she will react. Hence, I wish you go off-duty and take a rest - If the staff officer calls you for duty, tell him to go to frell with a greeting from me.”
Velle nodded, “So… you wish to carry on alone… Will you be… alright?”
“I should make it. Don't worry.”
The amaji made a long hesitant pause again before replying, “V-Very well, m-ma'am. Just be careful with yourself. According to Dr. Jonas, he and his medical team only stabilized you despite the long… surgery. You are merely patched up. As the medic long time ago said, you are in desperate need of an in-depth surgery or the results might end… le-leth…lethal…”, while making small nervous steps away from Hailynn after picking up and handing her the crutch, “I-I better get going… I should be able… to help out other operatives and…”
It was clear that Velle lied. She was burnt-out and tired just like the rest of the crew.
“Velle.”
The amaji woman silenced but astonished inwardly as she turned around. Without saying any other word, the devastated hiigaran stood with an arm raised from her said, inviting her for another hug. Approaching her once more, both hugged each other one more time.
“I'm sorry, Velle…”
Velle did not answer.
“I fear I cannot reflect your admiration… but…“
The younger woman raised her head.
“I still enjoy your closeness, your company. I am not speaking as a commanding officer. I am speaking to you as somebody who wishes to see you as a close friend…”
“Hailynn… I understand if my notions may have been inappropriate. I did not intend to bring you such… embarrassment at a time like this.”
“Velle -“
“No listen… My life was not an easy one. None of the amajis really had an easy life- or a real life… I for my side never had anybody. Never had I met a man that awoke such feelings as what I have for you, Hailynn… but I must apologize to you. I don't want to force what does not exist. I can't really explain `why'… It must be one of my gene defects - probably the reason why people don't like me… I-I didn't wish to disgust you with my notion…”
“No”, Hailynn suddenly replied with a slightly harsh undertone, “No, Velle. Don't say that. People may have interests, notions or whatever - but never shall we to let prejudice lead our minds. Never. I proudly stand behind what all true amajis strive for… eternal freedom, brotherliness… pride. You are an amaji, a being I pledge to protect by the will of kiith. You should never be ashamed of anything.”
Another tear ran down Velle's cheek.
“Thus, I am looking forward to that moment we could speak with each other under four… three eyes. Just you and I, whenever you feel like - whatever you like to talk about. I'm pretty sure I will need somebody to talk to - that's for sure. Will you be there?... I will”, the hiigaran lastly asked and smiled slightly.
Velle nodded one more time quietly.
“Velle. Your notion is natural. You are not a augmented abomination as I am. You are a being with a blessed virtue - love- that all amajis have and wish to share; something all warriors could need in this dangerous galaxy. I may not reflect your love, but I assure you, Velle, I still enjoy being close to you - surely more than a simple caring companion cube.”
Velle's hand shortly touched Hailynn's cheek. Unknowingly, at the same moment the massive vault began to open, both women suddenly recalled memories of the past simultaneously.
Both lips softly connected together at that specific moment more container shreds were displaced.
Velle never expected to be blessed of such moment; the sudden connection filled her inner joy. Amidst this frightening gunfight she found a moment she somewhat strived for, albeit it being a coincidence that would end any time too soon. Stunned by vibrancy, Fenna trembled as she felt the closeness of Hailynn's body.
Hailynn suddenly raised her head and looked up and away from Velle's face as she kept lying low upon her.
She felt both of their hearts pounding, hers of great fear and pleasure at the same time - However, Hailynn revealed even more anxiousness... As if she were just hoping and craving for something specific to happen. She was ready for that `something'…
The access to the desired path opened. Hearing thick and heavy steps, Hailynn's experienced perception detected the vaygr infiltration making his way for the opening path. The burst firing began to stutter, resembling the vaygr making a hasted movement for that specific path. Hailynn suddenly grinned with a vicious gaze and whispered, “Gotcha…”
What did she mean with that?
“BRIDGE - FORFEIT MY LAST COMMAND AND LOCK DOWN THE OUTGOING ACCESS OF THAT CORRIDOR! HURRY!”, Hailynn suddenly screamed into her comm-unit as she anxiously stood up from Velle, crushing, slipping upon countless seeds but catching her balance as she darted ahead - Once again ignoring her injuries. She needed to act promptly and take advantage of this moment!
Those operatives who still had some bravery wanted to follow, but Hailynn wove her hand at them to stay back. To this point, she needed to take on the enemy alone - hoping the surveillance operative would conduct her demand on time.
Velle suddenly felt the urge to follow, followed by two other operatives who decided to break out of cover after all - but nonetheless, Hailynn was too far ahead by now. Hailynn limped but it was remarkable how fast she was. She simply could not let this opportunity fail.
The armored vaygr infiltrator dashed down the short corridor, aiming his deadly repeater ahead as he made his way. Having no defenseless victims on the way, he focused on his destination - soon to discover strange conflicting circumstances. The area further on showed neither any real indications of being a vital part of the ship nor did his sophisticated short range visor reveal high energy readings resonating ahead of his approach; a dead-end that led to another useless storage room. But as he approached that specific area at blinding speed and being almost at the end of the hallway, the vaygr suddenly stopped as the access door ahead sealed itself.
Vaygr were never easy to be confused, but this time, this vaygr showed slight astonishment as the path was suddenly blocked. Though he knew these weak bloods would try anything to stop him, he did not understand why this area was not leading to the reactor unit despite the units and implants intercepting the hiigarans' communication… unless…
Sensing imminent danger from behind, the vaygr infiltrator spun around attempting to align his repeater at once - but just as his aim nearly aligned to the target and began unleashing a barrage of deadly projectiles, an explosive force burst asunder upon his right shoulder causing the side of his body to be forcefully knocked away! Another two blasts would disperse its powerful force upon his left leg and his side. The tense spasm caused by the hits immediately rendered him immobile despite the armor that now has been deformed. Recovering immediately from the devastating blows was merely impossible, lastly forcing him to fall with his back against the sealed access door.
Catching his mind, his view now focused on the puny being that ambushed him - The same leading hiigaran that commanded the groups of lesser individuals moments ago. Holes of his repeater rounds circled the frame of the door around her, only missing her by several centimeters.
The hiigaran was a seemingly injured female who was out of breath, leaning her body against the edge of the ingoing access doorway, holding a smoking medium caliber handgun with a shaky aim. At this moment, it became clear to the vaygr infiltrator that he was fooled and outsmarted by this `undersized' woman.
Hailynn frequently panted. The short sprint and the desperate aiming disrupted by her anxiousness already sapped her most of her endurance - but that all did not matter. Her plan worked out. The vaygr indeed did intercept the transmission that deliberately dispatched by her, luring him into an area that was nothing more than another irrelevant storage compartment.
The defeated vaygr shortly looked upon his side; the repeater was unfortunately too far away - no chance in getting it, for this hiigaran proved herself as a skilled markswoman... He underestimated her. Both sworn enemies stared upon each other with great hatred. Noticeable damages of his helmet also revealed his face partially.
A vaygr saying went through her mind; a saying she had heard of several times throughout her past. 'Vaygr warriors never surrender' - Hailynn's kushanity somewhat conflicted with her enraged psyche. Having the amajis around her, her kushane side frightened to execute the vaygr. Though not all of them would witness his death, her cold blood would once again prevail… and with each death she caused, a piece of her kushanity would crumble… but she had no choice: The vaygr would only dare to continue his onslaught.
“You… may… have… succeeded… but… Lord Makaan's envoy… will… bring… death… to… your… kiith!”, the voice of the seriously vaygr slowly cursed while flawed by blood gargling; swearing the kiith to be hunted until extinction, “My… death… will… curse… your kiith. The Vaygr… will crusade - Heed... my…words… Hii..garan! Blood… by… blood…”
She pinched her eyes.
“Join the kiith…”, Hailynn's lips pronounced.
The muzzle flash immediately hurled the explosive round ahead as the recoil forcefully knocked both the slide and Hailynn's wrist upwards…
Velle never expected to be blessed of such moment; the sudden connection filled her inner joy. Amidst this frightening gunfight she found a moment she somewhat strived for, albeit it being a coincidence that would end any time too soon. Stunned by vibrancy, Fenna trembled as she felt the closeness of Hailynn's body.
Hailynn suddenly raised her head and looked up and away from Velle's face as she kept lying low upon her.
She felt both of their hearts pounding, hers of great fear and pleasure at the same time - However, Hailynn revealed even more anxiousness... As if she were just hoping and craving for something specific to happen. She was ready for that `something'…
The access to the desired path opened. Hearing thick and heavy steps, Hailynn's experienced perception detected the vaygr infiltration making his way for the opening path. The burst firing began to stutter, resembling the vaygr making a hasted movement for that specific path. Hailynn suddenly grinned with a vicious gaze and whispered, “Gotcha…”
What did she mean with that?
“BRIDGE - FORFEIT MY LAST COMMAND AND LOCK DOWN THE OUTGOING ACCESS OF THAT CORRIDOR! HURRY!”, Hailynn suddenly screamed into her comm-unit as she anxiously stood up from Velle, crushing, slipping upon countless seeds but catching her balance as she darted ahead - Once again ignoring her injuries. She needed to act promptly and take advantage of this moment!
Those operatives who still had some bravery wanted to follow, but Hailynn wove her hand at them to stay back. To this point, she needed to take on the enemy alone - hoping the surveillance operative would conduct her demand on time.
Velle suddenly felt the urge to follow, followed by two other operatives who decided to break out of cover after all - but nonetheless, Hailynn was too far ahead by now. Hailynn limped but it was remarkable how fast she was. She simply could not let this opportunity fail.
The armored vaygr infiltrator dashed down the short corridor, aiming his deadly repeater ahead as he made his way. Having no defenseless victims on the way, he focused on his destination - soon to discover strange conflicting circumstances. The area further on showed neither any real indications of being a vital part of the ship nor did his sophisticated short range visor reveal high energy readings resonating ahead of his approach; a dead-end that led to another useless storage room. But as he approached that specific area at blinding speed and being almost at the end of the hallway, the vaygr suddenly stopped as the access door ahead sealed itself.
Vaygr were never easy to be confused, but this time, this vaygr showed slight astonishment as the path was suddenly blocked. Though he knew these weak bloods would try anything to stop him, he did not understand why this area was not leading to the reactor unit despite the units and implants intercepting the hiigarans' communication… unless…
Sensing imminent danger from behind, the vaygr infiltrator spun around attempting to align his repeater at once - but just as his aim nearly aligned to the target and began unleashing a barrage of deadly projectiles, an explosive force burst asunder upon his right shoulder causing the side of his body to be forcefully knocked away! Another two blasts would disperse its powerful force upon his left leg and his side. The tense spasm caused by the hits immediately rendered him immobile despite the armor that now has been deformed. Recovering immediately from the devastating blows was merely impossible, lastly forcing him to fall with his back against the sealed access door.
Catching his mind, his view now focused on the puny being that ambushed him - The same leading hiigaran that commanded the groups of lesser individuals moments ago. Holes of his repeater rounds circled the frame of the door around her, only missing her by several centimeters.
The hiigaran was a seemingly injured female who was out of breath, leaning her body against the edge of the ingoing access doorway, holding a smoking medium caliber handgun with a shaky aim. At this moment, it became clear to the vaygr infiltrator that he was fooled and outsmarted by this `undersized' woman.
Hailynn frequently panted. The short sprint and the desperate aiming disrupted by her anxiousness already sapped her most of her endurance - but that all did not matter. Her plan worked out. The vaygr indeed did intercept the transmission that deliberately dispatched by her, luring him into an area that was nothing more than another irrelevant storage compartment.
The defeated vaygr shortly looked upon his side; the repeater was unfortunately too far away - no chance in getting it, for this hiigaran proved herself as a skilled markswoman... He underestimated her. Both sworn enemies stared upon each other with great hatred. Noticeable damages of his helmet also revealed his face partially.
A vaygr saying went through her mind; a saying she had heard of several times throughout her past. 'Vaygr warriors never surrender' - Hailynn's kushanity somewhat conflicted with her enraged psyche. Having the amajis around her, her kushane side frightened to execute the vaygr. Though not all of them would witness his death, her cold blood would once again prevail… and with each death she caused, a piece of her kushanity would crumble… but she had no choice: The vaygr would only dare to continue his onslaught.
“You… may… have… succeeded… but… Lord Makaan's envoy… will… bring… death… to… your… kiith!”, the voice of the seriously vaygr slowly cursed while flawed by blood gargling; swearing the kiith to be hunted until extinction, “My… death… will… curse… your kiith. The Vaygr… will crusade - Heed... my…words… Hii..garan! Blood… by… blood…”
She pinched her eyes.
“Join the kiith…”, Hailynn's lips pronounced.
The muzzle flash immediately hurled the explosive round ahead as the recoil forcefully knocked both the slide and Hailynn's wrist upwards…
“Friends call me Hailey. Please do so in the future. Okay?”
Velle nodded and silently slipped her hands away, then she wove `goodbye'. Despite the reject of her love interest, she still felt hope inwardly - at least to be close to the strong-willed being.
= Bridge =
The loud voice of an amaji operative is heard as chimes periodically occur in the background.
“<We need support, Vjel-Amaj!> [Course 2-point-3-7 on Alpha arc, 12 degrees] Hang in there, Acolyte! We're coming for you - just hold on!”, Kelsea's voice alternated as she spoke in a desperate manner with herself and then adjusted her hands on the sophisticated controls, pushing most of them accordingly to a random position, “Just hang in there, Acolyte! Coming in to your aid at your 7 o'clock high!”
Her imagination played her scenarios all this time through; each time simulating a much desperate situation and need for a `decisively intelligent' change of course in the awe of life or death, usually resulting in some wild choice of ideas and guesses how a real helmsman would do it and pushing random controls and pedals to separate arcs, positions and depths.
Kelsea's imagination even simulated the force of inertia fields lagging; pushing herself into the seat as the imagined change of course took place.
But just as she spoke again, the familiar voice of Lieutenant Commander Orelis sounded from behind, “Umm… What are you doing?”
Scared by the sudden appearance, Kelsea froze. Unfortunately, she thought she would be able to hear when people would be coming in - either that or she was way too distracted. She stuttered several times in deep embarrassment.
He had to smile for a moment, “Don't worry, we're alone, Kelsea.”
Another periodic chime flew by.
“So. You like the helm or are you just bored?”
After a long pause, the communication operative nodded.
Kelsea's hands slid over the controls as she replied, “Yeah… Yes. Well, I was bored, to be honest. I just sat down and wanted to `feel' how it was - How it was to fly a ship. I know it sounds strange, sorry sir. I never insisted to do so since it had a lot more responsibilities to be aware of. It did scare me at first how much things you need to know about it - but… now, I've grown some interest and just wanted to know how it `sort of feels like'. I guess I got a bit carried away with it.”
“A bit *chuckles*? Well, everybody has their way to take a break from work when nobody is around. You look like you insist to do something. Since Hailynn won't be able to fly the ship all the time and Fenna being the only active pilot around - are you really considering testing that job?”
“Hey, it may sound crazy. I might not be able to do it even nearly as well as Commander Delixa - but at least I wouldn't be whining, screaming and shouting around about… about EVERYTHING like Fenna, Orelis!”, Kelsea answered and began to slag Fenna off for her outbreaks during the entire journey through the M'randara expanse.
He crossed his arms, “Good countering point ”, he smirked.
“There is something I like about it - a-anyways. I better get back to my station and -”
Orelis' hand landed upon her shoulder, pushing gently her back upon it, “Take it easy, Kelsea. I'm actually not here. You can handle it alone here for a bit longer, or not?”
“Huh? Well, yes, I'm still full of energy, sir. The pills are keeping me awake but they'll fail any moment soon.”
“All right. You're still boss of the bridge. I just wanted to drop by before hitting my bunk just to make sure everything is quiet. It is likely we won't be getting any visits for now <And I double-dare our luck of a battlecruiser popping up right next to us again>. A group of technical support operatives will come by some time around, allowing you to head off-duty. Maybe other operatives will show up, too. Nonetheless, I think we should see if we can do something about that desire of yours if should get back home in the future, don't you think?”
“… but…”
Orelis already made on his way to the rear exit, “Casualty reports will be coming in later on - and some damn interrogation on those arrested intruders, two things I'm not really looking forward to. Gonna need to sleep it through before I digest that one. Just take your break - and hey, `you got an Acolyte to save'”, he snitched in the end.
- Den child -
= Main engineering sector=
Entering the main engineering brought a surprise to the hiigaran who slowly limped into this huge world of technological masterpieces - especially since the cruiser was considered a `nimble' one. Despite most of this region weakly lit most of the systems not emitting much power and vibrancies and considering the ship recovering from the attacks, shifts of technicians, operatives and other engineers were still around working at full capacity.
Several of them would shortly wave down to the commander, become surprised of her looks but sooner or later would return to what they were previously doing - obviously, hardly any of them heard about the rumor. As she walked further, the itch she had previously returned, slightly more annoying than before.
The smell of charred equipment filled the air but - wait… She was carrying the smell with her. She was the one emitting that smell - but other than that, the surroundings of this world emitted dreary howls caused by systems and other smells from elsewhere. Unexpectedly, there was a missing segment of the entire area: the hyperdrive module and its surrounding conduits - the actual core of propulsion. The emptiness infused worries into heart of the hiigaran.
Bypassing technicians shortly greeted her before carrying on with their duties. She had to admire them for their deeds. Then again, the entropic plasma masses were still present, despite their intensity deteriorating during the passing hours.
While slowly limping along the railed platform, another pair of male technicians wearing damage control symbols on their suits held a conversation.
Hailynn eavesdropped as she walked by.
“… So what about that `gravity leak' reported at the intersection between deck seven and eight, mate?”
“Nothing big, wasn't really a big `leak' there. Just one of the cohesive field units failed at that area surrounding the gravity lift - y'know the typical inertia field that always fails first.”
Hailynn's eye suddenly widened as a flashback ran before her eye within a heartbeat.
Hailynn continuously bashed through and clumsily jumped over countless obstacles that loosely stood upon the floor. Due to her foregoing training in operating such low-g area, each jump was a `skilled' choice of movement that allowed her to move ahead without losing much of her velocity. The gravity of the area was very low. Certain jumps would cause her to even bounce against the ceiling every time she miscalculated.
Nevertheless, she was in a desperate hurry!
All injuries trembled only and suppressed dull pain, delayed by split moments with every rapid pounding occurring within her as she frantically `ran' for her life, holding an active bomb unit whilst being chased and fired upon by the second vaygr saboteur.
Hailynn's communication unit was smashed; luckily, it saved her from a hyper-velocity projectile round penetrating her tissue after struck through several dense objects - losing most of its devastating power. Ironically, the bestial pain caused by the impact, the crushing of her unit and lastly the bone fracturing of her left shoulder, also evoked temporary numbness, rendering her unable to sense the pain for a while.
Hailynn's mind heard of such occurrence where the body would prevent critical pain through a moment of shock - Lucky for her, it was only local... for the outcome of becoming unconscious would have been disastrous.
Her memories leaped moments back into the past.
Only recently did she, Velle and others found the bomb recently planted - at the same moment the round smacked upon Hailynn's shoulder. *Loss of mind* Hailynn suddenly knocked Velle aside with a painful arm swipe, picking up the bomb unit - cursing and provoking the vaygr gunman by his objective… now she sprinted away like never before… - shouting at Deena on the way to make her way immediately to the logistics center - all happening in a sudden instance.
. Another recall revealed itself, lapsing back into the moment recalled before.
Knowing the ship better than the vaygr, Hailynn ran for the anti-gravity service lift. With a certain field of the deck being inactive, she was sure that she could jump all the way down without receiving too much injury.
The bomb needed to be disposed - and there was only one place for it. Hailynn was unable to do two things at the same time. Despite her left hand holding the bomb unit, she felt absolutely nothing. Her left arm was merely lifeless - but she was thankful she was not feeling the pain right now.
Almost at the lift, Hailynn knew that the vaygr would have a clean aim for her. If she would not counterattack, she would be shot in the back…
Calculating her next hasted jump, Hailynn used all of her strengths to spin herself around; simultaneously spotting that vaygr that appeared around the corner not far from her.
Unexpectedly, Hailynn surprised the vaygr as he made his move ahead. Due to his superior physical strength, his leap ahead was much more powerful than hers - but did not expect to spot the aim of the reversely-drifting hiigaran holding handgun straight at him.
“FRAKK OFF!”, the hiigaran woman yelled at him and unleashed three powerful rounds from her handgun - The last round sounded a noticeable click that revealed there was only one round left in her handgun. Each hit caused minor explosions that exploded upon the torso region of the vaygr… his armor immediately deformed - noting signs of a lost consciousness.
*flash… jolt of fear*
“Not yet!”, Hailynn yelled.
At the same moment she rotated and flew over the gap of the anti-gravity service lift, Hailynn sensed the missing field returning - but it was too late to stop, the field was slowly building up…
“*egads*!”, a powerful grip suddenly caught her in mid-air… The vaygr! He was still alive. The vaygr reached her at the same moment she leaped downwards. Both now floated downwards with a descent that hardly increased - thankfully … The fall to deck was not deep, but due to the situation, it was a small eternity as she fought for her life.
Luckily, the regenerating field only increased marginally. It was going to a moderately landing… despite their momentum about to hit the walls during their descent. Tackled in mid-air whilst floating downwards, Hailynn desperately fought against the hulk that tried to kill her.
A long flight… perhaps a final fight - The painful landing ended along with Hailynn pulling the trigger of handgun at the utmost closest confrontation with vaygr… A powerful flash lit between in front of her along with an explosive yield of energy that engulfed most of her hand…
Her hand curled her sore-bandaged left eye. The recall of the flash evoked intensive pain.
“Gods, I hate that field generator.”
“You got that right. You had to see the other technicians though. Hopping around like a bunch of kids in the near-to-zero-G zone. I thought they needed a short while to fix it, but no, they were having a good time in it *sigh*. Whatever, bridge command actually had a backup system to reestablish full gravity, but some surveillance operative aborted it - making the whole damn backup system frakk up. - Whatever reason, man, I just hope the executive officers will never evoke that low-grav flight - or whatever- profile again like we did before pulling that `Morovuur' jump.”
“Oof, tell me about it, mate. Nearly puked just because of that.”
“You only `nearly' did… I did. Trust me, not fun. Believe it or not, there are still ships in the navy that still using low or even zero-g areas naturally on the ship. Can you believe that?! They use inertia stabilizers just to avoid getting crushed on the wall during accelerations!”
“Man, now that's crazy!”
“Yeah. Other than that, that procedure still exists on this ship too - for which I hope never to come alive.”
“Well, it does have its uses, mate. Can carry some heavy gear and stuff in no time.”
It did not take long until Chief Engineer Brogan found the unusual person walking along the catwalk - usually, he would ask the stranger if he or she was looking for a job, else he would show the exit. After exchanging experiences shortly, both slowly walked side by side as the chief gave his report - and his usual complaints about the ship, bridge command and several other issues…
“So, one turanic intruder nearly made it in here?”
“Yeah, happened outside the sealed door when armed operatives stumbled upon that guy. The weird thing was that that was when that guy surrendered. Took them some discipline to lead that turanic away. For some reason, they also said that it was as if the turanic intruder received some sort of order. ”
“I see… Well, we'll worry about that later. Orelis told me that we are stranded in deadspace?”
“Officially - Yeah, we're stranded, Commander”, the stressed man replied to her, “But there is a lot more to it.”
“That would be?”
“Y'know, Commander, this ship is special one. I'll cut the story with the Bentusi gimmicks about it - We are actually still able to hyperjump, but the methods available are way too bizarre. Unless you want to be surged by hyperspace with a chance of some 98 to 99%?”
“You're saying we are still capable of jumping?”, she asked with a surprised tone.
“Hey, hey - Don't take it for granted. I was just saying that it is possible. Don't even try pulling another thing like that one. This ship is a weird one. You have no idea how many hidden capabilities and things it has. Thing is that practically all methods are not suitable for… let's say, for sane living beings of carbon basis. *waves hands* Anyways. The `Vjel' is currently beaten up and licking its wounds - but now that I mentioned it - there's something crazy I have to show you before I bring you on to the stray girl.”
Shortly activating a stored file upon a vacant console, the screen immediately ran a surveillance image of several occurrences.
“Check it out. You see what's happening all of those footages?”
Hailynn witnessed several occurrences during attacks upon and within the ship through the screen. Numerous areas within the ship bled fluids, but regenerated and sealed themselves over time. Those specific regions would first swell then shrink to its normal size over a long period of time accordingly to the time-lapsing feeds.
“Bentusi alright. I didn't know she was one of those bio-mechanical… living ships.”
“Damn right you are, Commander - and why do people keep referring this ship being female?! Damn crazy enough that I have to put up with all of these haywire systems - now I notice it's a damn living ship! I'm not going to start talking to it like as if it were some kind of problem child either!”
“We should reconsider that one…”, she replied.
“Yeah, yeah, I know - I know. We should be thankful `she's' a livin' Bentusi ship, saving us from getting grilled alive and all that stuff. Look, I'm not mad at you or anything, Commander - but I think the kiithid navies done it all wrong. They should've stated the operational area of the `Vjel-Amaj' within, not beyond, amaji territory. Whatever. If I had known this ship was bleeding blood… Should've hopped on that standard cruiser instead when I had the choice - made by hiigaran hands…”, Brogan complained but then noticed that Hailynn's mind was elsewhere.
Hailynn's halved view frequently skimmed the entire area. Many places to hide; many places to be. Clearly enough, all possible spots hardly had any activity going on. It took her several moments until she discovered a potential location.
“She's over there, isn't she? Down at one of those bulky comb things?”, Hailynn quietly asked and began limping ahead.
Brogan's mouth fell open with a puzzled face. Her guess indeed marked the spot where Brogan found the girl.
“Now just… how did you know that girl was over there?”
“The girl's like a Polsvoice mouse, Brogan.”
“A -what- mouse?”
“Polsvoice mouse, a common animal and pet on Hiigara. Cute little mice that don't like crowding loud areas, but places that have a special low vibrating sound and that are nearly enclosed. Hard to find when they escape. When I was a kid, I used to have a few as pets and they frequently escaped but they stayed at the place where I lived and slept.
Polsvoice mice love to build a den around those vibrating sound areas, commonly deep sounds - for instance, any sound that is a soft periodic thump or what we would assume as a constantly annoying vibration with our ears. Anyways, they were dependant on my food - so I let them keep their den and fed them just like that. I had to of course keep an eye on every step I made when I entered the room.”
Hailynn smiled shortly. He raised an eyebrow as he heard the story.
“Aira is pretty shy and hates loud noises… I just sense she is there.”
Brogan followed the woman who limped ahead of him. She seemed anxious to see her. After a long walk, Hailynn began to slow her pace as she looked ahead upon the many rows of metallic combs and other disassembled units resting on the lower level. Far away from the activity of other crewmen, Hailynn's ears did percept a specific noise correctly.
“Yeah, the girl's in that one, over there”, he pointed out upon one of many combs, “Had me worried for a long time, Commander.
After the ship gone haywire, it was said that she ran across the ship hysterically and later somehow managed to get into the engineering area through remote access. No idea how she managed to get through the locked-down sectors.
Anyways, Aira has been there for hours and it doesn't seem like she will be coming out. I told the boys and girls to leave her alone since she was very unease and frantic; nervous breakdown, I don't know, I'm an engineer, not a rocket surgeon *smirks*. We wanted to help but - maybe it was better leaving her alone after all... and with this ship full of sub-reactor units around the engineering deck, I really didn't want to see her get the`unicorn syndrome'.”
“What's that?”
“Never heard of it? Several years ago, somebody was once unknowingly exposed to an area that was recently contaminated by depleted uranium segments. He woke up and something changed on his body. Over the time, a third toe grew from his forehead…”
“Now that's crazy.”
“Yeah, I know - it's a fairy tale joke we senior executive engineers keep telling to the greenhorns - get it? Hahahahahhaha!“, Brogan suddenly joked and laughed, but noticing Hailynn not really reacting the joke, he began to calm down, “hahahahe-ehehe… *clears throat* Sorry, cracks up any senior engineers and scares the crap out of recruits… but no really, she better get checked up for everything. She's been moving around areas and I really don't want anything happening to her afterwards.”
“It's alright, Brogan - I'll do what I can to get her checked-up afterwards. Aira acted like that because she saw me nearly getting killed… well, it looked like I was killed - but tell me, Chief, what are those things she is hiding in?”
Brogan straightened his back slightly and rubbed the back of his neck as he explained further, “Discarded stuff. Specifically, that thing she's hiding in is one of many discarded modules of the hyperspace conduit we blew into space. We removed the valuable stuff already.
The comb itself is disposable and consists of absolutely clean material that can be dumped into space, burn off in an atmosphere or sun, you name it. Stuff we will be disposing whenever I get the chance. The discarded module is an old `Comb - Beta' alcove that is still hooked to the power grid, just idling before I disconnect it when I'm in the mood. It's not burning power away, just flowing with it - The ship's basic regenerative power is practically unlimited anyways.
Engineering teams insisted to use this far rear section as a place to dump all the other stuff that we will be disposing some time around. Yeah, I think it was around that time they inspected the area and found the girl crying her eyes out.”
Hailynn approached the railing as her ears heard a specific undertone emitting from the comb further ahead and below - not a cry at all, but a much different sound.
“Thank you, Chief. I will handle it from here on.”
Brogan nodded, but just as he was about to depart from her, Hailynn suddenly mentioned something, “Wait.”
“Yeah?”
“This stuff - this junk is not really in anybody's way or?”
“Err… well… officially, no - not at all. My engineering teams were actually going to send this stuff up the logistics deck, but that damn logistics officer cramped and crapped that entire deck full of stuff they looted from that taiidani mothership we were on. I even had some of the material we have here brought to a few support operatives so others could show them how to use a welding torch through a crash-course training about sealing spots. Anyways, it was crazy when I inspected what the frell my teams were talking about - y'know, the loaded deck. Why the frell do they call her `Chief Logistics Officer'?!”
“I know, I know… Deena can be strange one every now and then. But she knows every corner of this ship.”
“*sigh*<Every now and then, she says…>”
“Listen. I want you to keep all of this junk.”
Brogan dropped his shoulders, “…uhm… what?!”
“Brogan, please. Aside to her quarters, Aira has nowhere else to go - and it will surely be worse during the time I can't be in my quarters. Aira was in desperate need of finding a spot for her own. This is the only place that seems to suit her needs. Under no circumstance are you to remove anything from this area. Just make sure it is sealed down enough to avoid things flying around if we should ever get into action again. Never disconnect from its idling phase. All right?”
“This place is very secure, Hailynn, natural fields - whatever. But -”
“It's an order, Chief. She needs that den.”
After a long hesitant pause, he clearly had no other choice but to nod again and depart from Hailynn, “*sigh* Mice…”
It took Hailynn some time until she managed to reach the lower level. Of course she could have taken the lift, but she insisted to use the ladder. Gravity was not so intense anyways. As she finally approached the mess of hulks, her view focused on the specific bulky discarded alcove. Now it became noticeable: The alcove resonated the deepest alternating rapid bass sound she ever heard. It was quiet, but surprisingly, anybody could sense it several meters away with ease. Hailynn became slightly anxious as she approached and touched the cold frame of the hollow purring bulk.
At last... Leaning downwards, she spotted a sorrowing figure amidst this hollowed darkness.
- An emissary's plight -
The frail soul within the comb shrieked as she spotted the shadowing figure further ahead of her. A familiar form, but her eyes were too strained from tiresome weeping. Wiping tears away, she could not recognize the shadow…
It couldn't be… It was another hallucination, surely… Aira was too assured that her prayers would not be heard. When suddenly… the figure lowered itself, dropped a strange object and hesitantly began to crawl into the alcove.
Aira's back pressured hardly against the curved wall, having no escape as the figure barely advanced. Fears filled her soul…
The figure sounded pain. It was barely mobile. One of the arms was hindered; the legs hardly responding due to pain.
Again, Aira shrieked.
It can't be… So far away from Kadesha's; so far away from Rahji's… Her prayers… they were heard?
It took several moments until the hiigaran finally came close enough to the kadeshi being - Face to face. The purring of the alcove continued as they both stared at each other.
It had to be an illusion…
The being in front of her sobbed quietly. Aira could not believe her eyes.
After a much careful approach, her hands hesitantly approached the face: Her hands slowly slid upon bruised skin, over bandaged eye, messed up hair, shoulders and lastly returned to the eye that dropped a tear… Another one ran down Hailynn's cheek, just before the girl burst into tears, merely grappling her arms around the strained neck of the woman.
Both beings fell into a cry of joy… until Aira suddenly pulled back again - She began to stutter in her kadeshi language, speaking gibberish, fast and nervously as her hands once again felt Hailynn's bruised face. Hailynn breathed heavily into her face as she once again sobbed. Moments went by until Aira calmed herself down slightly, “It… illusion… N-Naji… can't… b-be…”
Hailynn forced her body to crawl further, circling herself around the girl the best she could, giving her the most caring embrace… an embrace the kadeshi girl had not felt for a very long time - She was alive - barely.
The girl's hands curled around Hailynn's stained and messed up uniform jacket Hailynn gently threw over them as a blanket. Hailynn needed several moments and repeats until she managed to calm Aira down - carefully telling her that she was truthfully alive. Aira's soul finally accepted Hailynn's existence as she felt her warmth and embrace. It was the true reality.
It took another long time until Hailynn was able to explain the girl what happened and how she survived, excluding the terrifying details to avoid scaring her further. Despite Aira accepting that Hailynn was alive, the hiigaran still sensed great fear and unease from the girl. Hailynn's hand went though Aira's silky hair. Wondering what still kept her under fear, the hiigaran asked her - Aira suddenly went silent.
Closing her eyes slightly, Aira began to tell the entire tale, the sorrowing legacy and the pilgrimage of the Kadesha's Seekers, the turmoil within the Garden of Kadesh and the `Ark' across the galaxy for the truth with the same words she expressed from the majestic kadeshi emulator and her plight as an emissary amidst the path of legends… Each word spoken revived the timeless journey she expressed during her symbiosis.
Never had Hailynn felt deepest sorrow for the girl who admitted her endeavors, her pleas , her prayers for Kadesha and Rahji and thus Aira's quest ending in failure; Never expecting that there was a lot more to it about the kadeshi and her everlasting desolation.
This was the moment the girl cried most that intensified by her following words…
“…I… I am not a being - I… am not… a living being…”
Hailynn's mind did not understand she meant.
The sobbing girl continued with a sorrowing tale about her true self - about the fact that she was not unique as everybody perceived her but a `mirroring entity' of a so-called “The First”; herself being the last duplicate among many. Deepest doubts tainted Aira's mind; even deeper disbeliefs of her existence troubled her soul; the woes of being an emissary possessing both `Eye and Tear of Kadesha' surfaced and plagued her even more.
Hailynn felt the girl becoming more and more anxious and unease…
The moment became so tense that Aira's psyche began to even question why Hailynn embraced such `abomination'… a being who did not possess a soul but a mere... illusion of a chosen being - The being of the true Aira that has died generations of years ago.
How could such a farce assume and be assumed as the emissary chosen by fate to follow the legend of her legacy? Again and again, the girl would question her existence - What is she? Why is she?
Hailynn's arm tightened around the girl, hoping her embrace would calm her down - and it did take much time and care until it soothed most of her woes. Something seeded the girl's with corruption and awe of her existence. The hiigaran pinched her eye slightly as she was shortly reminded of Pethera's remark that the girl was a liar and farce alone just by her trying to follow a `myth'.
That time and again. That question…, Hailynn thought. That question she asked herself days, if not months, before when she first met and accepted custodial care for the girl. Though disgusted by the fact that she ever questioned Aira's self, it returned with a definite note of mystery. Ironically, Aira's self questioned Hailynn why she embraced this untrue `something'.
Was she untrue?
Hailynn's hand smoothly drove through the girl's silky hair. No doubts, throughout the few months she had been with this adolescent being, it has grown.
The hiigaran forged further thoughts. Aira had practically all aspects of a living being; she breathed, she is growing, she is alive, she had the scent of a living being - Most importantly, emotions that resembled her as shy person with fears - blood flew through her - everything of a living being… and yet, Aira is assured she was an unnatural existence. There were indeed certain aspects that spoke against her true self, starting with her abilities, her hyperactive sensibility with the ship, her song... her affinity to things not a single kushan could express and many more aspects of mystery.
Hailynn lacked knowledge for answers. If Hailynn was an `augment', what was the girl then - beyond being an `entity'… no… `unbound? There was an enumeration of possible things, but she was going to have to leave this for later - she was too tired for it now.
Why does Aira exist? - There was a use of her - but there was something else. Nobody but the Bentusi seemed to know who she was… There was simply more to it… The question was no longer `who' - it was `what?'.
What is she? - What will her future be from now on, now that the `Vjel-Amaj' left `Kadesha's Ark' and its suffering fleet of believers to its veiled destiny - now that Aira was the only soul who could do something about their future… How was Hailynn to fulfill her pledge, her sworn promises?
Hours went by as Hailynn quietly listened to the girl's woes until she fell asleep…
The purring comb finally soothed the girl of her misery. Once more, the hiigaran stroked the hair of her mysterious little sister. Everything that had to do with the girl's self ran through Hailynn's mind before her fatigue lastly made her fall asleep - probably also caused by the cramped up position she had attained for hours in this dark metallic purring bowl.
At last, sleep finally took over her; something they both had been craving for days. Nightmares and dreams awaited both souls…