7Seven Secret Space Guppies
I might have left some questions unanswered in my previous chapter, but they will all be answered soon... Enjoy!
Chapter 8: Close call
Near the OD space station, in orbit around the Moon
"The objective isn't far away, be ready to leave soon." The pilot said. The ETS was on its way to the 2nd panel.
"Gil, where are you now?" Molly asked via radio.
"With the 3rd squadron from the west. The battle will start soon... Ah shit, enemi..." The signal was cut.
"Gil? Gil? Respond!" Molly said worrying.
"Be ready to leave. This is a large fleet!" The pilot said.
"Impossible. They must have known that we're coming." Nonny thought.
"Come on, everyone, jump!" Molly said, opening the transport ship's door. Everyone followed her. They were now floating in space, around debris. The transport ship just got blown up.
"Holy shit! Okay..." Molly looked around. The station was right above them. It was a long structure with circles connected to it.
"I identified a hangar entry. We could start by looking there..." Nonny proposed.
"Good idea, let's reach it. Stay silent..." Molly answered.
"Silent in space... How possible?" Deema commented.
After dodging space debris and flying up, the group were just under the hangar entrance.
"I'll take a look..." Goby said. He looked carefully into the hangar. One OD spacecraft was ready to take-off. With its speed, the ship didn't see Goby. He made a sign to his teammates. They all entered the hangar.
"Let's stay silent, use your knifes for now." Molly whispered. She pointed forward and everyone followed her.
"Uhm, Deema? You know you can activate your gravity-module here." Oona said.
"But I like flying around more." She said, looking down.
"You won't fly more inside, we have to go through an airlock." Nonny pointed to the high-tech OD door in front of them. It lead to a stair going up. The group entered it and only retracted the helmet of their suit.
"These suits sure are warm! Especially the helmet, let's hope I won't get shot in the head..." Goby commented.
"I presume that the 2nd panel will be in the command room. Nonny, can you establish a map of this station?"
"Hmm, I'll need a monitor to project it..." Everyone started to search, carefully, in the part of the ship they were in. But they didn't find anything, they were in an ammunition depot, so they decided to search elsewhere.
"Crew quarters to the left." Goby read the sign on the roof.
"There we'll probably find one, let's go." Molly ordered.
The ETS followed the hallway, leading to the crew quarters. Then, there was a door in the middle of the hall. The quarters started there, with already 2 doors left and right, directly after the entrance.
"I heard voices, I'm afraid we'll have to engage in a non-stealth way..." Molly whispered. The rest nodded and took their laser guns. Molly and Oona had a laser submachine gun, Nonny a laser rifle, while Goby and Deema had regular laser machine guns.
Molly opened the door, the group moved towards the quarter room, left. The sounds didn't come from there, so the squad decided to enter it.
"Oof, now the monitor. We will guard the door." Molly whispered. Nonny quickly found the needed OD device and entered it to project the map.
"Done. I'll download it, this could take a little moment." He whispered. During the time waiting, OD soldiers patrolled down the hall.
"Hehehe, the WPP didn't expect us to have such a large space fleet ready." A lobster soldier said.
"They clearly come for the panel, but stay wary! The ETS could still find a way through our defences." Another soldier said.
"The ETS, the ETS! I've heard enough of them."
"They were responsible for the annihilation of the Earth HQ. Don't underestimate them, many did and regretted it."
"Times have changed. We know them better now, and we have a special skill up our sleeve."
"Yeah true, but how long will it last before they discover it?" The voices walked away.
"What were they talking about? A secret skill?" Goby asked.
"I have no idea either. Maybe what happened to Zooli earlier today. I'll put it in the report." Molly responded.
"Download complete. We can leave. It's in the other direction we came from." Nonny explained. Molly looked cautiously at both sides of the hall. No enemies, they could continue.
Nonny walked ahead, and his teammates followed him. After going through several hallways and corridors without being spotted, the group arrived in a big rectangular room with a glass roof. There was also a metallic bridge attached to the roof. In each corner of the room were 2 benches against each other with plants planted in between them. In the middle and under the bridge was a circular desk, but nobody was using it.
"What's this room?" Oona said, looking around. Nonny looked on the map.
"It's a hub for one of the circles of the space station. We still have a bit of walking to do." He said.
"Warning, intruders detected." A loudspeaker said.
"Ahh great! Use the benches as cover. Spread across the room. When the pressure is too high, go to the desk." Molly explained. It didn't take long before a squad of OD soldiers entered the room via the main entrance.
"Where are they?" A soldier asked. He approached the nearby benches.
"Now!" Molly shouted. Her teammates rose from behind their cover all across the room and started shooting at the OD personnel. The curious soldier and 2 others were shot. The remaining ones retreated back through the main entrance.
"Luckily, inside they don't wear space suits." Deema noticed.
"I have a feeling that they will come from above us. Keep an eye on it." Molly said via radio to the rest. Her feeling was right. The 2 doors of the bridge opened, and OD personnel rushed through them. Now they had the high-ground. The Guppies were contained and couldn't move from their positions.
"Molly! There won't be much left of my cover soon!" Deema shouted. But Molly was busy fighting OD soldiers coming from the ground floor.
"Activate, your, spacesuit, and run to the desk!" She answered. Molly was already there. Deema took the risk, and made it. The rest followed her example. Goby and Oona made it.
"Come on, Nonny, regroup quickly!" Molly shouted. Nonny was hesitating.
"No time for that now!" He thought. Nonny reactivated his suit and ran. Unfortunately, he got hit in the torso. Oona and Goby had to drag him over the desk.
Molly and Deema made the ground soldiers retreat, now that they were safe from the soldiers on the bridge. Footsteps and doors opening above them.
"I think, they left." Goby said.
"Nonny! No, Nonny! Does it hurt? Where?" Oona said, panicking.
"I forgot to activate, my shield, oush. My space suit got pierced, it saved my life..." Nonny said.
"But you won't be able to leave with a hole in your suit! What do we do now?" Oona panicked.
"On the map, I saw some, emergency space, pods. We can use them to escape."
"Oona, accompany him to the pod and leave immediately. We'll take another one when we're done. Good, Nonny, give me the hacking module for the panel."
"You just need to insert it, and done. Good luck." Goby blew up the doors with explosives. He, Deema and Molly went forward. Nonny and Oona went in the opposite direction.
The still-standing trio advanced to the command room. Only one long hallway left.
"This is suspicious, you don't think?" Deema commented.
"Yeah, where are all those soldiers now?" Goby asked himself.
"Waiting for us at the end of this hall. One thing they all have in common, they want to capture us for personal glory. We could have be killed so many times..." Molly responded with. The 2 others gulped.
The trio arrived at a door that opened automatically for them. Stairs went up, to the command room of the ship.
"Eh, Molly? I'm not sure about this..." Goby whispered.
"It's too late, I made a big mistake." Molly answered. The 3 walked up the stairs, arriving in the command room. It was long, and looked like a giant cockpit, with a glass roof and windows in the back. In front of them stood an OD officer. Left and right were soldiers pointing at the trio.
"That wasn't very smart, you fell right into the trap." The officer said. The Guppies put their hands up.
"A trap? Don't get me wrong! You did nothing to trick us." Deema answered.
"Deema, don't heat him up." Molly whispered.
"I'm buying time!" Deema whispered back. Molly rolled her eyes.
"We could try to activate our space suits and run..." Goby whispered.
"They are too numerous, even with our shield, they'll kill us before we have the time to take our weapons. We can only hope for a miracle." Molly whispered.
"Hey! Enough whispering! Let me explain how it will go from now on! You 3, from the famously feared ETS, got captured by me! Admiral Wiesozw. First, we will ship you to a secret location. Second, we will..." Out of nowhere, the sunlight entering the room disappeared. The admiral stopped talking and turned around.
"O mój Boże!" An OD space pod flew with maximum speed into the command room, breaking the glass. Molly, Deema and Goby instinctively activated their space suits, barely on time before the pressure disappeared, and the air vanished. Some soldiers died of the impact, others from the pressure change, but some could activate their suits on time too.
"Shoot them! Shoot them!" Molly shouted. The trio took their pistols from their belts and started shooting at the surviving soldiers, killing the admiral too.
"What the hell was that?" Goby said. Deema put her hands on her knees.
"Needed a miracle?" Oona said, looking out of the pod.
"Oona! I'm so glad to see you! But, how? What? I'm confused." Molly said, crouching.
"You left your radio on. We heard what happened, so we took off." Oona explained.
"Ohh, perfect..."
"Critical damage! Critical damage! Command room out of use! Auto-destruction in 5 minutes." A loudspeaker said.
"We must hurry, the panel quickly!" Everyone started looking around.
"Molly! I think it's this monitor. The interface is similar to the first one." Goby said, pointing at it. Molly approached the panel with the hacking module.
"... System error, no reboot possible. We can leave." Everyone approached the space pod and climbed into it. There was a lack of place.
"Still alive?" Nonny asked.
"Yeah... But, Gil!" Molly remembered. She looked down.
"We'll find him, Gil can survive alone." Deema said, rubbing her friend's back.
"Alone, when I'm with him..."
"Ahh great! I think I forced this thing a bit too hard. We're stuck in the big station." Oona said. She pulled the handlebar as hard as she could, no change.
"Autodestruction in 1 minute, please evacuate!" The loudspeaker said.
"Pull it harder!" Deema shouted.
"I'm trying my best!" Oona shouted back. Goby went to her to help.
"Autodestruction in 3, 2, 1..." Far-away explosions were hearable. They were approaching.
"PULL!" Oona and Goby used all their force, and just on time the pod broke away and took distance from the station. Everyone removed the sweat from their heads.
"Mission accomplished." Deema said.
"The OD will have a hard time finding that monitor with the device of the panel on it. And even if they find it, it's already hacked." Nonny mentioned.
"I was about to ask why we couldn't just blow up the space stations." Goby said laughingly.
Molly sat, and looked down. "Where could you be, Gilly." She thought.
"H...e...o. He...Lo? Hello? Can someone hear me?" A vague voice came from Molly's radio.
"G, Gilly?"
"Molly? Molly!"
"Gilly! You're alive! Where have you been? I'm so happy to hear you, Gilly! What happened?" Molly said in a hurry.
"Mosquitos attacked us, they were more numerous than planned. My radio was defective, out of a sudden. But I'm alive, we'll meet on the Hannibal soon!"
"You're absolutely right, Gilly. Molly, over." She said with a big smile.
"Gil, over."
WPP space HQ, in Orbit around the Moon
20 minutes later, Oona brought Nonny to the infirmary.
"That's Gil's ship! Oh, Gilly!' Molly ran at her boyfriend. Gil smiled and hugged her.
"I'm alive, it's nothing..." He whispered in his ear.
"ETS! I'm glad you all succeeded, once more." Mccrab said, entering the hangar. "Except then for soldier Nonny, but he will recover quickly. This operation clearly showed the 'E' in ETS. Even in unexpected situations, you made it!"
"Of course! Nothing can stop us!" Gil answered.
"A high self-esteem, but don't let it turn into arrogancy. This unexpected situation was well... unexpected. This never happens. Hopefully the final report will bring answers to this... Oh well." Mccrab replied.
"Do we know something new about Zooli?" Gil asked.
"She is operational again. The scientists did everything possible to find an answer, but they are still clueless. We should focus on the missions now, but we will eventually find an answer to what happened there." Mccrab finished and left.
At the infirmary, Oona was taking care of Nonny.
"Stay still or I won't be able to remove the bullet." Oona said.
"Have you seen anything suspicious with Gil these last days?" He asked.
"No?"
"Ashh!" Nonny said out of pain.
"Here you go, now a bandage on it." Nonny remained silent.
"She doesn't suspect anything, but Goby does. I better keep it to us 2." Nonny thought.
"And why did you ask that about Gil?"
"Nothing nothing. Misunderstanding..."
"Hmm. Okay."
"But I still suspect him... Something isn't right. Sometimes, I don't believe in coincidences..."
I can't hide it anymore, if you haven't gotten it yet, something is clearly wrong. Nonny is suspicious, and he's always right, right? We'll see that in the next chapter. Stay healthy!