…And, so I dared to dream…
Ah, yet another attempt to broach head first into something I sometimes actually think I do a decent job at.(I don't own this show or it's shwag.)
#1 If it was your last day?
"This is the carrier Monastery requesting an approach vector to dock at the orbiting station Faded Glory." The boxy craft engine cones dulled while its request was relayed to the plate shaped refitting station. After a minute, the bridge com set burped a dollop of static, and then an authoritive voice answered their query.
"Sorry, Monastery, we are unable to handle a ship of your class at this facility. Keep moving at vector 1.2.65 in system and you can dock directly at base."
"Alright, thank you much, Glory, Monastery out." The ships twin engines flared and the beat up carrier accelerated in system. Just as expected, all the sensors on the station followed the departing carrier, unable to pierce the thick hull plates. The station therefore missed the small, beetle shaped ship carrying a large box float out from the nearby moon and drift toward the station.
The cockpit was dark, the only illumination coming from the instrument panel. Every now and then, some of the light would glint of what looked like a small metal wand floating in the air.
"Why the hell can't we just blast the damn thing out of the sky?" A male voice floated angrily in the dark. It was another male voice that answered.
"You heard the reply from the station. There is at least one man left alive, and if there is any chance we can save him, or them, we have to try." The voice was calm and sexy, oozing confidence. Silence followed, as the approached the dish shaped station, and continued until they were hovering precisely 5 feet over the hull above what the schematics had labeled storage.
"Alright people this is it, once we make contact you will have 10 to make your way through the station, and take the main control room before they are able to launch the message torpedoes and call the rest of the fleet. As soon as connection is established I'm going to barrage their sensor array with missile. Strap in to your launch tubes, you drop in 2." As she finished, a dim red light filled the cabin, and a room full of monsters drooped down a ladder and got set to rain hell on their enemies.
The sensors had just began to cycle back to scan out, when there was a slight tremor, and then the entire sensor node was nothing but black, ragged edged crater. In the storage area 8 orange rimed holes were burned in the ceiling and 8 EVA suited monsters dropped in and spread quickly throughout the station in teams of two. Four minutes later, the first to reach central control reported in.
"The damned bulkhead is sealed!" he yelled.
"Which one?" Gascogne asked, knowing who spoke, by voice, although there was a pop up indicator with vitals. She was watching the timer and able to provide map support.
"The north." Dita answered for him, being on the same search team. The com frequency they were used was squad, and the other six members of the search squad could here it too.
"Jura here, the west one is sealed to."
"No contact as of yet." Barnette added. The others confirmed the same. No humans or otherwise.
"Parfait and Duerro are headed to engineering to bypass, shift around and see if you can find anything, Acknowledge."
"Rodger!" the chorus of voices answered, followed by silence as the troopers followed the prepared plans. Gasco wasn't worried; she never worried, but was a little unnerved. Everything went according to plan, but where were they, the people should have been there, angry that their sensors were greased, or that there were eight large hole that needed to be sealed. But the main control room sealed and no response from the person or people inside? And if the station had been taken, where were they? Was this the case of a renegade? But there would still be signs struggle, or some left behind. They couldn't do any more than mimic voices without a human, but there hadn't been any mention of another earthling since the assault on Mejale and Tarak, and that was over a year ago. Meia echoed her thoughts as soon as Gasco finished thinking them.
"Something's wrong here, Miss Gasco." Mostly, Gasco did not let anyone refer to her as anything other than Gascogne, and would jump to correct them, but Meia was a different story, and she didn't even notice the breech. "There's nothing here, no signs of struggle, blood, bullet dimples or casings. There aren't even the regular signs of life that normally are around an active ship, much less a station of this classification."
"What do you think, Meia?" Gascogne asked.
"I don't know, but I don't like it. I popped my mask and tried to place it. The air smells stale, Gasco, not recycled stale, but empty, musty. Dead. There hasn't been anyone human here in a long time."
"Thanks for the info, Meia." Gasco knew she could count on Meia to get situational analysis that no one else would pick up. "Switch to the team freq and let them know what's up, then see if you can crack into the command center and find out what sent that message."
"Rodger." Then she switched freq sans spread the word, while Gasco started digging through past shipping records in this system. The mission timer was at 04:43. At 2:45 Meia was report of the all hands freq.
"Meia here, explosive placed and ready to detonate. Blowing the lock in 5…"
"AHHH, what is that thing!"
"Crap there's more than one, what the hell are they!"
"Report! Whats going on…AHHH"
"Dita! Dita!"
"AHHH help me! Mister Alien!"
"ALL TEAMS, OPEN FIRE AND FALL BACK TO THE CENTRAL CONTROL, ON THE BOUNCE!"
"What's happening down there?" Gasco yelled into the gunfire."
"ALL TEAMS, OPEN FIRE AND FALL BACK TO THE CENTRAL CONTROL, ON THE BOUNCE!" Meia shouted on the all hands, already leveling here assault weapon as the first new horror crawled across the wall and around the corner. She let loose a three round burst, watched the monstrosity absorb the metal shredding bullets. She logged it and filed it away, even as she loosed longer bursts into it. It jumped to the floor and finally collapsed as her weapon cycled empty. She heard Misty gasp about the same time as she heard the gas seal on the door behind her. She grabbed Misty's arm and ran past the monster she had just killed, slowing to confirm to herself what was behind the control door.
"Contacts, Everywhere, but they're not Harvest!" Someone shouted and Meia immediately jumped in.
"All teams, 86 that order and fall back to the storage area for extraction. Any units needing pickup report now."
"Jura and Barnette already at extraction, area secure."
"Duerro and parfait, en route."
"Hibiki in the mess hall, Dita is down, require pickup!"
"Rodger, Meia and Misty on the way. Everyone else, head for extraction and hold." She signed off and herself and Misty made their way to the mess hall. Dita was laying on her back, the front of her suit was shredded, but there was no visible injury, but she wasn't responding to anything. Hibiki humped her up on his back, and fireman carried her, with Misty and Meia providing cover to extraction. As the reached the final hall, there were heaps of the monster bodies all over. At the final stretch, Meia broke of, kicked a body over, put one round between it's upper pair of eyes, grabbed the metal on it's back, and dragged it for pickup. Jura and Barnette covered the rests, and were the last to be recovered. There was a small gout of venting atmosphere and bodies until the bulkhead sealed. Hibiki placed the still inert Dita down, and strapped her down on the acceleration couch, before doing the same to himself.
"Gasco to Nirvana, Grease the bastards, we're clear." She fired the jets toward the moon, as dozens of light blue lasers arced through space, penetrating an equal number of places. The station detonated in a giant fireball whose shockwave buffeted the beetle shaped shuttle as it departed, returning home.
Well, that's it for chapter one, let me know what you think, please! (And on Pirate Fleet! I really tried at that one!)