0 Years, 0 Months, 14 Days After Eridani Landing
Bellona Colony
Flopping down onto the cot Ben groaned, closing his eyes for a moment he rubbed at his temples trying to clear the headache that had been nearly constant since the Ark had landed.
“You alright?” asked Megan.
Ben opened his eyes and sitting up nodded, “Yeah. Sore.”
Megan rubbed at her own neck in silent agreement and leaning over sat down next to him.
For a moment the two engineers were silent both staring blankly at the metal floor beneath them.
“Where’s Diana?” asked Ben.
“She’s in the common housing. With the other kids. She knows some of them from the Fort. We got most of the kids from there when we filled up the ships. The ones on the surface didn’t have time to evacuate to the Station.”
Ben was silent for a moment.
“We’re it.”
Megan looked over at him, “We’re it.”
“We’re all that’s left. Out of billions. Humanity has never been closer to extinction.”
“When we left Africa there were far less, I think.”
Ben snorted, “When we left Africa we were still on the same planet. Now we’re lightyears away.”
It was Megan’s turn to be silent for a moment.
“Same principal. Humans survive. If Earth couldn’t kill us, and we couldn’t kill ourselves, I doubt some aliens will be able too.”
“They came close, really, really close,” said Ben.
Reaching into a pocket of his suit Ben pulled out his Link and dropped it onto the bed.
Reaching back into the pocket Megan watched with mild interest as he kept his fist closed and seemed to weigh whatever was in his hand for a moment.
_”I’ve had these for years.” _
Ben opened his fist and Megan looked down at the rings, simple and composed of solid metal they were the classical marriage rings of Earth and Mars.
“Titanium-carbon-nanotube composite. I actually machined them out of some commandeered parts, from that little Martian shuttle we looted for parts to fix the Yamato’s power distribution system, after our third battle?” asked Ben.
Reaching down Megan took one and looking at it for a moment closed her fist around it.
“Second.”
Ben nodded his eyes still locked on Megan’s fist.
Opening her hand Megan picked up the ring and quietly slid it onto her hand. Ben quickly did the same, and they both held their hands up in the air. The lights in the temporary quarters which were a small cargo compartment of the Ark flickered and dimmed for a moment before snapping back to ful intensity.
“You feel any different?” asked Ben after a moment.
“No.”
“I’m tired.”
“Me too.”
Ben leaned back onto the cot, and Megan just as exhausted only just managed to set her alarm, giving them both four hours of sleep before she too collapsed into unconsciousness.
9 Years, 5 Months, 21 Days After Eridani Landing
Bellona Colony
Jean was flipped over the console in front of her, and pin wheeling through the air hit the forward display with enough momentum to make the image flicker out for a half second before it resolved itself again. Tom not oriented for the crash slammed the side of his helmeted head into the console in front of him, and Halin the only one anticipating the rather violent encounter with the forward doors was still lurched forwards and thrown into his console by the physics of the situation.
“Ow.” Muttered Jean as she slowly began to float away from the display.
“I guess the strange matter systems aren’t in place yet?” asked Tom.
“They’re in place, just not on the bridge. I’m betting Ben only felt a small acceleration force,” growled Halin, “the aft sections were insulated first.”
“We out of the dry dock?” asked Ben over the ship comm.
“We’re out. Although I think we took half of it with us,” grumbled Halin as he quickly pulled up the nose camera feed of the ship pointing it back along her hull. Arms, cables, and half attached hull plates interrupted the regular shape of the ship, and in some places the emptiness of the different points of the hull showed the internals of the vessel.
The ship that had been on its way to completion now looked as if it had weathered a battle of titanic proportions.
“The dry dock was also not completely depressurized, we kind got blown out” said Tom as he looked back at the doors. The Fort was an armored and multi-hulled station. The innermost, center, and outermost rings were all completely independent from one another in terms of life support, power, and hull construction. They only shared data connections and airlocks, meaning that the station could in theory continue to function even if 70% of her mass or pressure vessels were breached.
Not that the pressure containment mattered much, in the event of an attack the entire structure was designed to vent like a ship would in combat. A feature that had never been purposefully designed into space habitats.
Still, the irregular hull breach on the outside of the station was rather large, were it not for the outward curve of the damage it could have been easily mistaken for a kinetic weapon strike.
“Jesus,” muttered Halin as he stared back at the damage.
“That was entirely your fault Tom, just to let you know. We get court marshaled that was entirely your idea and your fault.”
“Nice to know you’re on my side.”
Jean chuckled, “Look at it this way, if the bomb goes off than you don’t have to worry about the court marshaling, you’ll be dead.”
“I’m feeling really inspired to live here. The both of you should offer life management courses.”
The two chuckled, a sound that quickly died in their helmets as a vicious lurch sent them careening sideways.
“What was that!?” shouted Tom as he wrestled with the controls of the ship, thrusters and cold jet emergency systems only half functioning sparked to life shooting off gas into space on the opposite side of the ship from whatever had caused them to accelerate sideways as Tom fought for control.
“One of the compartments was sealed and didn’t vent, then something gave and it decompressed,” said Halin as he looked at the status display for the ship.
“I’m attempting to cut a nuclear bomb out of the frame of a very large ship, using a torch that was meant to a few inches and not through whole ship beams. Could you please keep us steady?” shouted Ben over the Comm.
“You know that half the stuff on this ship isn’t working right? How the hell are we supposed to even change our orbit let alone get on a trajectory for Big Blue!?” shouted Tom.
“Figure it out!”
Tom muttered some choice curses under his breath and looked back down at his console, and the trajectory they were on. The Fort was at an even 500 kilometers up from the surface of Bellona, where the colony situated on what was roughly the equator of the icy moon saw it pass over several times a day as the Fort had an almost perfect equatorial orbit.
Smaller defense platforms orbited so that the colony was always protected, but the Fort was by far the largest structure humanity had built besides the Colony. Had the Fort been built in the Sol system it would have been little more than an outpost, but given that it had been constructed in only five years by the remnants of humanity it was made only more impressive.
The roughly symmetrical orbital apogee and perigee coupled with the almost zero inclination made it easy for ships to plan trajectories away from the moon, even without the aid of computers, assuming one had enough time to figure things out.
“We need to accelerate,” said Tom.
“I’m aware of that,” growled Jean as she manipulated her controls, “I gave you that big burst to get us out of the Fort, we overloaded some stuff and some other systems that were supposed to come online failed, they’re missing components.”
“What about explosives?” asked Halin.
Tom and Jean both glanced over at him. He raised his hands, “You know old fashioned rocket fuel! Not the vacuum resonant engines.”
“I don’t think the construction crews would put massive quantities of old fashioned rocket fuel on this ship,” said Tom.
“Yet they loaded all of the nuclear armaments?” asked Halin.
Pushing himself away from the console he was at Halin drifted over to the weapons control console and carefully pocked at it looking for something to work with.
Hands brushing across the panel and activating parts of the weapons systems an alarm immediately began to blare inside of the ship and through the local Comm channels.
The radio’s inside their helmets crackled and a harried voice came over the public fleet-comm channel.
“Unidentified vessel, we are detecting energy pattern’s consistent with the charging of kinetic weapons systems. Power down now! you have twenty seconds to comply.”
Halin’s eyes went wide and his hands started scrambling over the panel again, trying to shut the systems down.
“Having the ground based radar ping us, and then identify us as a threat to be shot down is not the way to resolve this issue!” shouted Ben through the Comm on the ship.
Tom ignored the older man and keyed his mike, “Base this is the HSB Russia, a nuclear device has been activated on her and has been rigged as impossible to defuse without detonation. The evacuation of the Fort was a cover for this event, which was thought to be a malfunction in a firing computer. A skeleton crew is attempting to remove the section of the ship which the nuclear device is attached to so as to spare the Fort, Colony, and the ship from the EMP and blast of the nuclear device. Do you copy?”
The line was silent for several moments.
“Russia, all data here points to the arming of the nuclear device as an error, and that it was not even primed to detonate. Based on the readings, the Russia is now outside of the Fort? You have commandeered the vessel?”
Tom winced at the wording and moved to key the mike again.
“Operator, Charlie-2-5-6-3-4-5-8-9-Hotel-Wiskey. We have an active computer attack virus that is feeding false information to you and most of the computer systems on the Colony and Fort. There is a nuclear warhead primed to detonate on this vessel, further communications might trigger it. Disregard any further warnings and cease communications!” Shouted Ben.
Tom blinked, “What?”
“This thing has no countdown, so either it’s not showing me one or it won’t detonate until a signal is received, or lost! Talking with ground control is not the best way to tip our hand! Someone very high up is involved, you don’t think they can’t listen into communications?”
“Well then aren’t we screwed already?” asked Tom.
“Hopefully the operator follows the code I gave, which by the way I’m going to get in trouble for even using. I’m not supposed to know the Council codes!”
“How do you know them?” asked Halin.
Ben was silent for a moment, “I helped to set up the protocols and the number generation for the system. No ones used them yet, so the first codes we generated are still valid.”
“You’re going to be court marshaled just for that!” said Jean.
“If the Fort, Colony, and hell Russia survive I’ll live with it.”
“What about someone tracking traffic?” asked Tom.
“We’re not broadcasting an IFF, and given all of the traffic around the Fort and the half complete state of the ship I doubt we show up more so than a transport. Unless someone has done an active scan? You detect that?”
Jean looked down at her console and frowned, quickly going through multiple menus and controls looking for the information.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“It’s not like you can’t see the Russia from the surface!” Said Halin.
“Anyone would have a hard time pinpointing this ship. It’s also night time if you hadn’t noticed! And she’s not exactly painted to be reflective in space. For now, let’s keep quite I have no idea what will trigger this thing.”
“You don’t know when or what will trigger the bomb?!” shouted Jean.
“Someone purposefully armed and rigged a nuclear device on this ship, why the hell would they put a convenient counter on it to tell me when it will detonate. Get us on a trajectory for Big Blue and we can dump it unless you’re really eager to find out what will detonate it!”
“The weapons aren’t going to help,” said Halin as he pushed himself away from the console.
“Any other ideas?” asked Tom.
“We’ve got enough thrust to get out of orbit in another two laps, right now the best we can do is raise our apoapsis to 800 kilometers on this orbit. If we want an escape from Bellona now we’re going to need two more engine clusters online without them burning out when I press them to 100%,” said Jean.
Halin flipping over to an engineering console looked at the readouts, “The engine clusters are installed, but they’re not hooked up to main power yet. So they’ve not gone through testing.”
“Meaning ?” asked Tom.
“I could probably hook them up, but if somethings configured wrong they’ll shred themselves,” deadpanned Halin as he looked up from the console to look at Tom.
“Lovely, go!”
“Who put you in charge?” asked Halin as he pushed off of the engineering station and flipping in the air dove towards the exit of the bridge, moving towards the aft compartments and the engineering section.
“You want to fly this thing?” shouted Tom in response, despite the local Comms they were using in their helmets making even a whisper audible.
“No you’re doing great!” Shouted Halin.
Tom rolled his eyes and glanced back at Jean, she shrugged and turned back to the power distribution readouts and displays for the ship.
Tom looked back at his own display and grimaced, “Halin, we got five minutes before we need to make that burn you going to be able to do that?”
“Maybe? Anyone asks later I said yes! I’m in engineering now, looked in at what Ben’s dealing with. That bomb is scary as hell.”
“Thank you for that observation, now what are you kids doing?” asked Ben.
“We threw and fused some breakers on the burn out of the dry dock, and if we’re going to get out of Bellona’s gravity well on this orbit we need another two engine clusters working right now.”
Ben was silent for a moment, “we just installed them a week ago, they were going to be getting low powered tests this week,”
“Will they work?” asked Halin.
“Things are likely going to blow up in your face, I don’t even think we have the power limiters on them yet. Even if they do work you might just dump all the reactor energy into them and melt ’em .”
“But we’ll still get a burst of thrust right?” asked Halin, now sounding somewhat out of breath.
“Yes.”
“Jean, force as much as you can out of the other engines, the less we have to accelerate with the others the better.”
Jean nodded to herself and continued to mull over the data and the controls in front of her, “Tom I don’t know what half of these subsystems are!”
“Figure it out!” shouted Tom as he wrestled with another random fluctuation in the ship’s course.
Jean started quickly tabbing through the dozens of different options available to her and cursing started trying some of the preset emergency protocols that were in place and available for use.
“Not that one!” shouted Tom as the lights and input controls very briefly went dead on the bridge, leaving them in complete darkness for a moment
“Sorry! Sorry, that was a sensory reset.”
After another moment she found something promising, “I can set the remaining breakers in place, but that’s a protocol for extreme scenarios. If the power from the fusion generator fluctuates too wildly the remaining engines will be fried.”
“How much of a boost will we get?” asked Tom.
“10%”
Tom ground his teeth together, “We need to get this bomb away from Bellona.”
“Which is why I set the breakers before telling you what might happen. We still need those engines to come online.”
A small bang reverberated through the metal of the ship, Jean and Tom looked up to see Ben, his face covered in sweat and a large grin plastered to it bouncing into the compartment.
“All but the last shear point is broken we’re ready to dump the thing,”
“I’m almost done down here, Ben!” said Halin.
“Good, now make sure you get out of their and throw the main breaker from the reactor and not the engine room.”
“The reactor breaker is fused shut, something melted it in place I’m going to have to throw the power on in the main engine room. To get these engines running.”
Ben’s eyes widened, “Kid, give me a second I can rig something up!”
Tom glanced down at the course projection, “we don’t have the time.”
“We don’t?” asked Halin.
“No.”
Ben whipped around to look at Tom, “If he’s still in the compartment, and one of those engines fries itself, it could get messy.”
“See keyword is could,” said Halin. _ _
The lights in the main bridge and the surrounding sections dimmed for a moment, a small shudder ran through the ship and with a jolt everyone on the bridge was thrown back into the far wall or restraints as the vessel once again accelerated.
Alarms sounded and Ben began to swear in languages, that were now technically dead given that no one spoke them any longer. Thousands of years of phonetic history condensed down to only a few choice phrases.
The acceleration forces died down to a more consistent amount and Ben peeled himself off of the aft bulkhead.
“Halin!”
Ben turned to an engineering console and swore, “That entire compartment just got flooded with plasma, it’s vented out now but his suit couldn’t have handled that well!”
“No it didn’t, I melted half of my electronics and I uh slipped.”
Tom frowned, “You slipped?”
“Yeah, one of the access hatches were open, and I kinda fell through it when we accelerated. Point being I’ve got a very good spot check report on the engines, port side are all good, but the inner starboard side assembly is looking a little underpowered.”
Ben shook his head and turned to Tom, “You’re all idiots.”
“He lived.”
“He lived because he was lucky! You lost should not be so eager to throw your lives away! I could have rigged up a system to set the engines off without him being in danger in less than a minute.”
“We don’t know if we have less than a minute, he knew the risks and he activated the engines. Now I need you to monitor the power output of the fusion reactor and try to keep it from burning out those engine clusters if you could,” growled Tom momentarily slipping into his role of the Captain during simulations.
Ben pursed his lips ignoring the demand and looked over at Jean, “You don’t see anything wrong with what just happened?”
Jean glanced at the old engineer and then back down at her console, “I didn’t want him to die, but there are going to be more sacrifices in the future, we were all trained with that in mind. Humanity will not recover if we are too busy being overly cautious. We’re moving a nuclear device away from the Fort and Bellona. The removal of that threat is certainly worth one life. We are ensuring that the last ten years of recovery are not put to waste!”
Ben threw up his hands, “is that what you’ve been taught? To just weigh lives like that?”
Tom slowly turned to look at Ben, “We’re alive only because of the sacrifice of thousands, and they only sacrificed themselves because of the wholesale slaughter of billions. Humanity numbers in the thousands, if one life can save a thousand than even the life of a friend is worth that.”
Ben opened his mouth and slowly closed it glancing back over at Jean his eyes widened.
“Is this how all of you kids feel?”
She shrugged.
“Just because you survived the evacuation and life on Bellona does not mean you owe a debt to those who died! They died simply so you can live! Not so you can throw your life away at every opportunity!”
As Ben spoke he turned back to his computer console and worked, his hands moved in a blur as he worked quickly and expertly manipulating the output from the reactor to limit the raw power flowing unregulated into the advanced microwave elements and resonance chambers.
“Since I’m not dead, can I just get a quick confirmation I’m still in orbit?” asked Halin his voice crackling over the weak connection that his suit was able to output in its damaged state even as the ship move away.
“If you were thrown out with enough force to drop out of orbit you’d be paste,” said Jean.
“I’m not paste? So I’m good?”
“Should be,” said Tom, “I’m sure someone will pick you up.”
“Such a comforting thought.”
“Inject any nano machines you have now, and turn away from the Russia,” ordered Ben.
“Yes sir,” there was a pause, “well shit I forgot about that.”
Ben nodded, “Hell of a thing to forget.”
“Fuck, fuck, Fuck!” said Halin over the fading connection.
Tom winced realizing a second later why Ben had given the order, they were still going to be chucking a nuclear device out of the side of the ship once they finished accelerating , a process that was nearly complete. Halin would be following them on a much lower elliptical orbit of Bellona in only his suit as they made for a loop around Big Blue. If the nuclear device went off in any position but the exact opposite side of Big Blue Halin would be hit with a massive dose of radiation, and a nuclear flash that would be permanently blinding even with the filters in his helmet.
The connection died and Ben winced.
“Acceleration status?” asked Tom, keeping his voice steady.
“Ten more seconds,” said Jean.
The Russia shuddered and again swearing Tom adjusted the course of the ship, leveling her out as she tried to twist in space, something on the starboard lower quarter venting at an odd angle this time.
“Sixteen seconds,” amended Jean.
“Sorry, I was forcing all of the excess power to one engine, the other should continue to run,” muttered the old engineer.
The bridge of the half-finished ship was silent as the three on it felt the acceleration slow, and die away. The pressure pressing them backwards dissipating and sending them back into weightlessness.
“We’re making a loop around Big Blue!” said Jean.
“Tim to dump the cargo then, I need help with that!” said Ben as he pushed himself off of the console and back into the main corridor of the ship. Jean quickly followed, and after a breath Tom pushed off and away from his own controls to join them.
The ship jerked and began to slowly move in other directions, only noticeable when in flight it was enough to be a concern.
“We must be leaking some gas along the hull, I’m guessing we ruptured one of the emergency gas jet lines. We were installing those,” said Ben a he looked at the ship slowly move every time he let go of a handhold.
The lights in the Russia suddenly winked out and died. A spattering of small emergency lights flickered on and Tom shuddered, even the screens showing the outside of the ship had gone dark, leaving them floating in complete darkness for the half moment it took for the emergency lights to switch on.
Ben reached up to his helmet and flicked his flashlight on. Tom and Jean did the same.
“What just happened? I lost visual on you!” said Halin.
“The reactor probably shut down, containment was weak enough as it was considering what we’ve thrown at the ship,” said Ben.
“Hello?”
“I take it the signal boosters in the ship are down too?” asked Jean.
“Yeah, our transmissions are probably being bounced all inside the hull. The discrimination on the signal receivers is a lot lower.”
Reaching the small storage compartment Ben reached over and picked up a small plasma cutter that had been strapped to the wall.
“We’re going to have to push this off ourselves, I’ve also rigged up a small thruster to get it further away from us.”
Tom frowned, “A thruster?”
Ben smiled and pointed at a large canister strapped to the floor beneath the bomb.
“Best I can figure the bomb is the center of mass for the compartment,” said Ben as leaning forwards he cut the last shear point holding the entire room to the main spine of the ship.
It didn’t move, the compartment was after all massive compared to Ben and the force of his hasty cut.
“On three, push on the frame through the walls!” Ben pointed down the corridor at part of the unfinished compartments pressure vessel wall.
Tom quickly scrambled up to it and spreading himself out across the corridor braced himself on the wall of the ship to push, Jean did the same going down the main corridor back towards the bridge.
“One, Two, Three!” Ben slammed himself into the doorframe of the compartment, Jean pushed off with all her might, and Tom grunting in exertion pushed his arms forward, feeling the weak artificial muscles in the standard suit rippling madly, aiding him as much as possible.
At first it looked as fruitless as hitting a wall on Bellona, or Earth.
Slowly though the metal compartment began to drift away, and Ben let out a sigh of relief.
“I was afraid I missed one connection point.”
“Uh, Ben How are you going to fire off the canister?” asked Jean as she watched the compartment drift away.
Moving slowly, it took a few seconds for it to clear the hull of the ship, an expose the three left on the Russia to the stars, and the blue gas giant far below.
“Like this,” drawing his handgun Ben aimed and quickly fired two quick shots, hitting the canister dead on at the valve rupturing it. A jet of white gas quickly shot out of the broken valve sending the compartment and the nuclear bomb spinning away.
“You just shot at a nuke,” deadpanned Tom after a moment.
Ben smiled and turned back to him, “I did. Still not the craziest thing I’ve ever done.”
Tom stared at him and shook his head.
“There is something wrong with Humans from Earth. I swear, I thought it was just our instructors.”
Ben chuckled, “We’re the ones who were crazy enough to have people who actually wanted to leave a perfectly safe atmosphere, the perfectly safe gravity, the world we were tailored to survive on and live somewhere else that will never be like home, unless we force it to be. The people who left Earth are insane, because they would have to be,”
Leaning over Ben patted Tom on the shoulder, “You didn’t get a choice, you had to grow up in space.”
Tom grunted in agreement.
“Ben!” said a small voice over the radio channel, almost indiscernible.
Ben looked up, “You hear that?”
“I did,” said Jean.
“Night’s managed to gain access to the Fort weapon systems, but the firing sequence can’t be stopped. The station rotation systems have also been disabled, so the gun will fire in less than five minutes. I’ve walked Night through the process of selecting a new target, the weapon is going to discharge into the plains north of the colony hopefully without causing damage.”
“That’ll work!” said Ben.
The message continued, “Unfortunately the virus, or whoever is controlling it has adapted to these countermeasures. As of fifteen seconds ago it rewrote all of the access logs to make it look as if I were the one to reprogram the Fort and the Russia, data in the logs also points to you as being the one who was last on the Russia and activated the nuclear weapon, something you tried to cover up with a false arming alarm.”
“Who is that?” asked Jean.
“My wife,” said Ben his voice low.
“Engineer Megan from the Yamato as well?” asked Tom.
Ben nodded and they continued listening as the message continued, “I’m betting security will be at our door in any second, and I’m not sure what their orders will be. In any case I love you.”
Ben felt a cold shiver run through his spine at those words. Megan wasn’t one to phrase things like that, as if she were about to die.
The message paused for a moment before repeating.
Ben closed his eyes and swore again. Calming himself after a half second Ben’s eyes snapped back open and he rounded on the younger two.
“To the escape pods, the both of you! They’ve got enough thrust to get you back to Bellona without doing the full loop around Big Blue.”
Tom and Jean glanced at one another, “Sir you need to go back, we can fly the ship.”
“I’m the one who dragged you up to this ship and into this mess. I’ll be damned if you die because of it. You’re leaving now!”
“Is that an order?” asked Jean.
Ben turned to her, “It is. I can save this ship, you cannot. My wife will be in custody when I return, if you want to help ensure no foul play takes place in regards to that please do, in fact I beg you too. In any case you are not staying here. That bomb will be going off any time now, so you need to leave!” Ben shouted pointed down towards the aft of the ship. The Engineering section and engine compartments had the only functioning escape pods at the moment, the ones their being the ones most deeply imbedded in the hull and superstructure of the ship.
Tom and Jean looked at one another again and Tom nodded in agreement.
“Good luck sir.”
Ben grunted in agreement, “If this does work out I know who the first crewmen will be on the list for the Russia.”
“Really?” asked Tom.
“Yes, but only if I’m not labeled as a traitor and or terrorist, either or.”
“Such high odds for that.”
“Yeah. Fun isn’t it?”
Tom frowned and pointed at his helmet, “You do know we’re required to record everything right? Hell we get back to Bellona it’ll upload to the central servers automatically. Might want to create local copies though if a virus is still in the computer systems.”
Ben looked up at the small lens, “Score one for documentation then. You’re stalling now though, go!” said Ben once again pointed down the corridor.
Tom and Jean turned and pushing off of the railings shot towards engineering, moving as quickly as they could. Ben watching them go turned back and pulling himself along at a more sedate pace moved back into the bridge.
The Russia shuddered, the chemical rockets of the escape pods firing sending them out into space, and on the direct opposite trajectory of the ship back towards Bellona, hopefully with enough velocity to drop them into an elliptical orbit if not a landing trajectory. They would probably be trying to pick up Halin.
The bridge was dark as he drifted into it, the only working strip of emergency lighting working in the half constructed and now damaged bridge was the one near the engineering console. Ben looked around at everything and shaking his head moved over to the kit console and slowly sat down in the seat, slotting his feet into the appropriate holds.
Patting the console Ben shook his head, “You make it through this you’re the toughest ship yet.”
The nuclear bomb had been sent adrift nearly five minutes ago, and Ben had no idea when it would go off. It was far away from Bellona now, and on a trajectory around Big Blue almost in line with the Russia’s projected path.
The hope was that the ship and bomb would be far enough apart when it detonated. Already most systems were at critical, either from the impromptu launch or their incomplete status, and a nuclear detonation wouldn’t be helpful. The only system on the ship displaying fully operational was sensors. A system that without active scans took minimal power.
“Better close that up,” said Ben to the empty compartment as he ordered the sensors to close and retract. A raw nuclear blast was something they could handle and filter, but it was better to avoid it.
The sensors went dead another moment later and Ben swallowed looking around the ship. It was empty, a strange feeling. A human ship always had at least five on the bridge at any one time.
Looking around the bridge Ben couldn’t help but think back to the Yamato.
It had been a simpler time he had been fighting Mars. He had been fighting other humans, and surviving wars like generations of soldiers. Wars, where at the very least he could go back home and see something he had fought to defend. The Earth-Mars war had been a war between nations, both at least civil enough to not hit civilians, both civil enough to not cause wonton destruction for the sake of damage.
The sabotage of a ship with a nuclear weapon? It was a tactic from the war, one that the Martian’s had used to great effect. Ben chuckled, it was comforting to at least know that he was fighting a human, and not some crazily advanced alien ship.
Ben continued to think back on the Yamato, he had nothing on Earth, and everything on that ship. Even after the war it had been the only important thing.
Megan.
They had first met and hated one another. Both of them were intelligent and both sure they were right in every situation. Takuya and everyone else on the ship had thought they would either kill one another in a week, or go at one another like horny teenagers in a broom closet.
Not that it had never happened, it had been more than a week before the tension had broken in the predictable fashion. Which had also been after their first jury-rig of the Yamato’s systems. Getting the ship running after what should have been a crippling disaster. Involving a high impact kinetic strike that had nearly split the main fusion reactor.
Reaching into his jacket Ben pulled out the small toolkit he always carried and sticking it to the side of the console with its small magnets carefully extracted two small screwdrivers leaned down across the bridge to the Captain’s chair and console.
Squinting to see what work had been done on it Ben carefully started to finish installing the thing, it looked as if the engineering team had been nearly finished.
Frowning Ben wondered why they had quit, another few minutes of work and it would have been complete.
Grumbling to himself about laziness and work shifts Ben didn’t have time to react when the nuclear weapon on nearly the same trajectory as his own ship detonated in a burst of energetic accelerated debris and raw nuclear ferocity.
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Continued
Megan carefully pulled off the left leg and set it down on the ground next to the right one.
The last thing she wanted was for the enhanced prosthetics to be used as an excuse to say she had a weapon raised.
Looking at the two mismatched hunks of metal for another moment Megan tore her gaze from them as the door to the apartment was caved inwards.
Men in full combat armor streamed in,
“Down!” Shouted the first man into the room, not seeing her on the floor apparently.
“I can’t not be down!” said Megan, and looking up at the squad she raised both stumps at the men.
“Hand behind your head!” shouted the man, apparently unfazed and his reaction mostly hidden beneath his helmet.
Megan raised her hands and moving slowly laced them behind her head.
Another man, in a more limited version of the Martian mech suit quickly stepped forwards and latched restraints onto Megan’s wrists, and shoved her forwards down onto the ground.
“We have her,” said the first man, “their was no struggle and she’s unarmed.”
“I’m unlegged, I’d like to keep my arms!” said Megan as another man stepped forwards and along with the first dragged her up.
Sans legs Megan hung between the two men.
“No sir, no struggle.” Said the First man.
“You guys arrested a woman without legs! How the hell can I stuggle?” asked Megan.
The men ignored her and Megan rolling her eyes at thm turned her gaze to the Link set up on the counter displaying local events.
The nuclear warning flashed across the screen, and Megan heard the alarm blare in every helmet.
The lights in the apartment flickered, but remained on.
“So no EMP, he got it far enough away. That’s good,” said Megan despite the fact no one was listening, all of the men in the apartment still trying to determine how they should respond to the nuclear alert with a prisoner.
“Let’s go!” said the first man after he briefly looked around again.
The other men nodded in agreement and began to move towards the door, dragging or rather holding Megan up.
“Could I do a piggyback ride? Hanging from my armpits like this hurts!”
The men ignored her.
Megan was the only one who heard it, and she froze.
The tinkling patter of small feet, and multipl bodies. Megan looked up, they were out of the apartment now and she was being dragged towards the transport tunnels. Above her was one of the thousands of air ducts that ran through the colony.
Which also served as the corrdidors for others.
The vent above her popped open, and a Tanuin leapt out of it landing on the lead man.
Dozens more bodies leapt from other vents, some streamed up from the floor. The man holding Megan up both quickly dropped her and moved to raise their weapons, but the guns jammed as small limbs were shoved into the triggers.
“Megan!” came a squeaky voice.
Rolling on the floor and sitting up Megan blinked looking at the three men, two in mechanical armor who were being restrained by hundreds of Tanuin, all of whom were either sitting in mechanical points or working together held them in place.
Not even a single shot had been fired from any weapon, and each man was further restrained by the presence of wads of their own uniforms shoved into their own mouths, material that was supposed to stand up to kinetic weapons having been quickly sheared.
“Yern?” asked Megan looking at the Tanuin.
“Night said only to intervene if you were hurt, you complained of pain! We helped, and we did not kill the other confused humans, this was the right thing to do?”
Megan blinked again and nodded, “Yeah, that was the right thing to do. I just wish you hadn’t done it, this is going to make things awkward.”