Chapter 5: Jack Spicer
The turbolift managed to reach the fuel depot in time before the mining rooms exploded. When the turbolift arrived at the fuel depot, Ricky quickly got out of the lift and when the lift doors close, Ricky could hear an explosion coming from the mining rooms.
"Phew. That was a close one." Ricky sighed in relief. He turned his head and saw a corpse of a miner on the ground. He walked over to it and kneels down next to it.
"Hello there, sir. I see you managed to survive when the droids gone haywire." A man said, walking to Ricky. The man has red hair and wears goggles and a black trench coat, black gloves, black pants and black boots.
"Who are you?" Ricky asked the man.
"My name is Jack Spicer. I'm a miner who works here at the SS Axiom and I'm a survivor, just like you." The man, now known as Jack Spicer, said.
"What happened when the droids gone haywire?"
"Well, I'm not so sure if you want to hear it. Because it's really a long and dull story and not terribly relevant to our current situation."
"Why don't you tell me anyway? I got all the time in the world."
"Well, somebody went to the ship's main power room and somehow managed to hack into the ship's computer system and reprogrammed the droids at the mining rooms. I quickly went to hide while the droids kill most of my fellow miners."
"Is there anybody else who survive?"
"I'm not sure. I just came up here and quickly take cover during most of the incident. Also, if I'm not wrong, the hacker also managed to sabotage the ship's engines, making the engines suffered a cascade failure and disable the entire ship. Hey, wait a minute, you must be that Templar that every miner's been talking about, right?"
"Well, yeah. We'll talk about that later. Anyways, I did saw a video showing a miner named Eddie Brock discussing with his friends about sending me to some gang called the Falcone Mob in London."
"Really? Eddie Brock. I think I heard about him before. And he wanted to sell you, eh? Well, he was one of the most stubborn miners in the ship. He always hates his job working as a miner and sick and tired of working on this ship."
"Do you think it could be him to sabotage the ship?"
"Maybe, but you can't be too sure."
"Could you tell me about that body there?" Ricky asked, pointing at the corpse.
"Oh right, that poor guy. His name was Athrun Zala. The mining droids did came up here and once they arrived, they immediately killed him. Luckily, I arrived here just after the mining droids left."
"I see. I got another question for you."
"Sure, what is it?"
"Since you work here, I'm looking for a way to the hangar bay. Can you help me?"
"Well, unfortunately, the hangar is sealed behind a containment field during the emergency lockdown. It would be impossible to open it. However, there is another route. You can go to the airlock which is just at the other room. After you enter through the airlock, you could walk across and make your way to dormitory airlock."
"Wait, airlock? You mean I have to walk outside of the ship?"
"Unfortunately, yes. But fortunately, there are lockers next to the airlock and inside the lockers are gas masks which you can breathe properly while you're outside the ship. Still, I recommend you shouldn't go to the dormitory. It's dangerous and probably filled with more mining droids."
"Those miners over there could be in danger. We need to make sure they are alright."
"But continued exploration in this ship can put you in more danger."
"Don't worry, because I'm a templar. And I can fight those creeps myself. I'm going to find those miners and you are going to help me."
"Oh, I don't know. There's little I can do. You see, the airlock is secured by a console and you need to unlock the airlock by typing the password on the console."
"Oh…I see."
"But, you can have my data pad. It contains the airlock password in it." Jack said and he handed Ricky his data pad.
"Oh, thanks. Do you want to come with me so that we can get out of here together?"
"Er…no thanks. I'll just stay here. After all, it's so dangerous outside this room right now. And I don't have any fighting skills."
"Okay, I'll come back for you when I'm able to get to the hangar bay."
"Thank you. And good luck." Jack finished.
After finishing their conservation, Ricky walks out of the room and walks over to the other room where the airlock is. He walks over to the lockers that are next to the airlock doors, took a gas mask, and then walks over the console. He saw a data log in it so he decided to check it out, hoping to find more clues on who sabotaged the ship.
DATA LOG:
"This is Officer Athrun Zala. I'm been too busy to post a log here lately. But anyways, the miners are starting to get restless, especially Eddie Brock. Dash Parr walked to my office and managed to tell me everything about Eddie Brock was planning to do. Dash said Brock is planning to send the Templar to the Falcone Mob in London. Security officers managed to stop Eddie from doing that in time. But I don't think Eddie and his men are gonna give up that easily. Eddie is now being placed at the dormitory and won't be coming out any time soon. The survivor we brought out from the freighter is still in the interrogation room. And I guess this is it. Officer Athrun Zala out." Athrun said. He then logs out from the console.
DATA LOG ENDS
"So Eddie wasn't the one who sabotaged the ship after all. It was somebody else, but who?" Ricky said to himself. He looks at Jack's data pad and then types in the password and the airlock doors slowly open. As they open, he quickly puts on his gas mask and walks out of the ship.
Ricky walks on a wide metal floor which is built just outside the bridge and the floor leads to the airlock door to the dormitory section of the ship. Ricky breathes through his gas mask and he slowly walks on the floor, hoping not to fall off. Luckily, the ship isn't moving and the winds aren't strong, making Ricky easier to walk on the floor.
After walking to the middle of the metal floor, Ricky heard Saber's voice in his comlink.
"It's about time. I lost your signal after you left the mining rooms. Me and Ben were hoping that you are alright. Anyways, it's good that now you're coming in clear. Except I'm picking you up on the exterior of this ship. That can't be right." Saber said.
"Because I'm right outside the observation window." Ricky replied.
"What?!" Saber yelled in shock. She and Ben looked up, looked through the bridge's observation window and saw Ricky outside of the ship!
"Cool!" Ben yelled in amazement.
"What the hell are you doing out there?!" Saber asked.
"I need to reach the miners in the dormitory section, and this is the only way to get there." Ricky replied.
"You're crazy!" Saber yelled in anger.
"That's not crazy! That's extreme!" Ben cried in amusement.
"Oh shut up, you!" Saber yelled to Ben. She then said to Ricky through the comlink. "Look, you need to get out of there. Quick."
"Why?" Ricky asked.
"What little is left of the ship's venting systems have gone active. Most likely from the explosions in the mining rooms. They're venting the ship's fuel deposits into space through the vents…right into your path."
"Can't you shut them down?"
"I can't. I'm locked out of the main systems here. I couldn't shut it down if I tried. The vents look like they've been rerouted to vent the gases to the exterior, and only in the last few minutes. It's almost as if…" Saber stopped talking when she heard beeping noises from the bridge console. "Oh, what now?!" She frowns as she looks at the console. But her look of frustration turned to a look of shock when she noticed something coming towards the ship on the console. "I don't believe this. There's a Faction drop ship coming in."
"What?! Faction?!" Ricky said through the comlink in shock.
"Yeah. It's sending a docking code to the ship. I got a bad feeling about this." Saber said.
As the drop ship makes it's way to the SS Axiom, inside, a group of Faction soldiers stand together in straight rows as their sergeant said to them, "Alright men, we're about to enter the SS Axiom. Our double agent told our intelligence officers that there are 2 Rebel Templars inside the ship. Investigate the ship and hunt them down.
"Sir, yes, sir!" The soldiers replied. When the drop ship arrived at the ship, the drop ship closes in and parks near the ship.
"Ricky, I think you really need to get out of there before those Faction guys find you." Saber said through the comlink.
"Got it." Ricky said.
When Ricky reached the dormitory, he immediately removes his gas mask as the airlock behind him closes. When he walks inside the dormitory though, two mining droids spotted him and aim their lasers at him. Ricky quickly slashes the first droid. The second droid shot a laser at Ricky but Ricky quickly deflects the laser with his sword and runs over to the second droid and slashes it. He enters the next room but another mining droid is waiting for him. Before the mining droid could lift up his rifle, Ricky quickly slashes his arms and then slashes his head. After he finishes off the droid, he looked around the room and sees four dead miners on the ground.
"Looks like I'm too late." Ricky sighed at the bodies, and then entered the next room.
The next room was a corridor to the mess hall. Ricky found a console at the middle of the corridor and walks over to it. He looks at the console and sees the main functions. He looked at the video for the security camera at the dormitory room.
He saw that in the dormitory room, the venting systems have filled the room with poisonous gas and many room guards and prisoners were lying dead around the room. He then uses the console to shut down the venting systems. After that, he couldsee that the venting systems in the dormitory room are shutting down and the poisonous gases in the room start to vanish.
After that, he uses the console to shut down the emergency lockdown in the dormitory section and the door to the dormitory room unlocks and opens by itself. With that, he logs out from the console.
He enters the dormitory which is a wide room with six prison cells. He walks over to the dormitory room's consol where two dead guards were lying next to the console.
He logs into the console and saw a data log which was recently recorded and watched.
DATA LOG:
"It's been an hour after the ship suffered the explosion that triggered the emergency lockdown." The dormitory guard captain, Tucker Foley, said to the console. "Since all dormitory doors and cyro tubes are automatically unlocked during emergency lockdown, I immediately gathered all the guards to keep all the prisoners in their cells. But we never managed to stop Eddie Brock who managed to immediately escape before my guard reinforcements arrive. I just finished helping the dock officer to set up the transmission relay. Not much signal strength, but it's better than nothing. The transmission gives the code to open the turbolift to the bridge if help arrives. The code is…"
"Captain Foley! Couldn't we contact the medical bay? Maybe the templar is awake. If so, she may help us." A guard named Mercy Graves said to Tucker as she walks over to him.
"No good. The link to the medical computer was severed from the hub, just like the bridge console. And we don't even know if Juniper is alright. Even if the Templar wakes up, how can we give the dormitory turbolift code to her? Without it, the dormitory turbolift to the bridge is locked down. Someone has been playing us for fools. And since Eddie isn't here with us, then I'm sure who's behind all of this! Just wait till I get that son of a-"
"Sir? What's happening? Why are the venting systems-" But before mercy could finished what she had to say to tucker, both she and Tucker suffocate as the dormitory is now filled up with poisonous gas from the venting systems. The two and the other guards and prisoners in the dormitory fell to the ground and suffocate frantically.
END OF DATA LOG
"Poor guys. If only I had came down here sooner." Ricky said as he logs out from the console.
He walks through the dormitory until he entered the mess hall which the hall is filled with five more mining droids. The droids aimed their rifles at Ricky. As the droids shoot lasers at him, Ricky quickly deflect them and rushes over to the nearest droid and slashes it's head. The second droid ran over to him and tried to hit Ricky with it's rifle but Ricky defends himself with his sword. The third droid shot a lser at ricky but before the laser hit him, Ricky grabbed the second droid, placed the droid in front of him and the laser shot at the second droid's head instead, making it go offline. Ricky then tosses the second droid's body at the third droid and the two droids fell to the ground. Ricky then shot thunderbolt at the last two droids.
Ricky walks through the mess hall and enters another room. This time, it's the room where the turbolift to the bridge is. The room was also the turbolift's console and three dead bodies. Ricky looks surprised as he recognizes the three bodies. They were Iruka Umino, Dash Parr and…Eddie Brock?
Ricky walked over to the console and saw a security camera recording clip in it. He watches the clip.
SECRUITY CAMERA 214:
"What the- Guys, why did you two help me escape?" Eddie asked. "Is this another trick Dash?! And how dare you backstab me to Officer Zala?!"
"Hey! I reported you to Zala because it was for your own good. And now, Iruka and I are helping you escape from this damn level because we're your friends!" Dash snapped.
"Yeah, we can't just leave you here, Eddie. Even though you tried to make a crime, you're still our friend." Iruka said, while using the console.
"Alright, fine. Anyways, we need to get out of here. The droids-" Eddie tried to said but got interrupted by Dash.
"Yes, we know! They gone haywire and we don't know who the hell sabotaged them! And of course we know it's not you since you were at the dormitory the whole time." Dash said.
"This turbolift is locked down and my code can't unlock it!" Iruka said as he turns away from the console.
"Try the code again! And don't worry about the other miners. By the time help arrives, we'll be on our way to London." Eddie said. Just then, two mining droids entered the room, making the three miners gasped.
"Eddie Brock…you are impulsive…crude…and soon, deceased." One of the droids said. And the two droids then shot down all three men.
"Hello?" The droid said, only this time, he sounded different. "Eddie? Are you there? Oh yeah, I forgot. You're already dead!" The sentence was then followed by an evil cackle. "Oh, and I believe I forgot to mention that I changed the transmission codes to the turbolift to the bridge when I was hacking into the ship's computer system. Silly me!" The voice cackled evilly again.
"Whoa. That sure wasn't a pretty sight. And for some reason, that voice sound familiar." Ricky said, cocking a brow. "Anyways, how am I gonna unlock this turbolift door?" He kept pressing random numbers onto the console but none of them were the code to unlock the damn turbolift door.
"Argh! I'm never gonna get out of here!" Ricky said, banging his fist in frustration onto the console. Just then, he looked up as an idea came to his head. "Oh yes! Why didn't I think of that?!"
He took his Carsomyr sword and destroys the console. After the console got destroyed, the turbolift doors automatically unlock. "Alright!" He said and he enters the turbolift and took the lift to the bridge.
END OF CHAPTER
Ryo: In the next chapter, Ricky reunites with Saber and Ben and they will also find out who is the one who sabotage the ship's system. And will Ricky find Wall-E and get out of here? Stay tune and read and review.