“Neither do I, but we still need to know what happened.”
They pressed on; albeit slowly, the whole place was deathly quiet. The faint ghostly scream of twisted metal in the background set their nerves jangling again.
Televis pulled out a scanner as they approached a bulkhead door, he passed his scanner over it; the lights twinkled in the gloom. “There is power in the next corridor.”
They approached the door tentatively. There was a faintly red glowing panel next to it. Michael pressed it and it changed to green; the door rapidly slid open, something flailed against his helmet, Michael involuntarily gasped and fell backwards he levelled his weapon; his heart pounding madly, what the hell was it?
Looking up he saw that it was the form of an E.D. F crewman; slowly swaying, suspended by a bunch of cabling.
“Hung himself, rather than be captured,” Vargev said studying the body.
They shuffled past the rapidly freezing corpse, still gently swaying, and closed the bulkhead behind them.
Here there was light, and they could see much better. Vargev keyed in a control to re-pressurize this part of the corridor. And slowly the corridor re-filled with air.
“Environmental facilities must be working in this part of the station.”
The lights continued to flicker though, casting shadows across the debris strewn floor. Eventually the trio came to a door on the left hand side of the corridor.
Televis pulled out his scanner again. “There is a life-form on the other side.”
“Is it human?”
After a short tense pause the answer came, “yes.”
The three of them breathed a sigh of relief.
They tried the door control but it was locked, “Damn,” Michael cursed.
“I’ll try my override code,” Vargev replied. Punching in a set of numbers, the result came up green, and the door quickly opened.
A hysterical woman charged headlong screaming at them, she had long dark straggly hair and dirty skin. There was evidence of a tattered medical officers uniform underneath all the dirt and dried on blood stains. She hurtled headlong towards them brandishing a long metal knife.
“Get away from me you murdering Krenaran bastards!” She screamed madly with fury and terror combined.
“We’re Human!” Michael shouted back.
It was no use, the mad screaming woman continued to rush towards them. Vargev reacted instantly and grabbed the knife arm; using his immense strength he pushed her backwards against a wall and held her there, by her arms.
“We’re Human!” He repeated.
The woman, unable to move in Vargevs vice like grip eyed him for a second as if silently weighing him up. She seemed to calm a little.
“Not Krenaran?” she said simply.
“No,” Michael Replied.
“I am going to release you now,” the Russian released his grip, and backed off a little from the young woman.
“Who are you?” Michael asked.
“My name is Katherine Jacobs, Ensign, medical officer here,” she replied, her speech slightly broken.
She must be out of her mind with fear; she could still be useful though, Michael thought.
“Okay Katherine.” Michael began as soothingly and calmly as he could muster. “What happened here?”
“What does it look like!” She shouted, breathing hoarsely. “We were attacked; it’s been the fourth goddamn time!” Tears began to roll down her filthy cheeks. “It’s like they’re toying with us, why won’t they just leave us alone?”
“They won’t. Because we have something they want,” Vargev said.
“Like what?”
“Never mind about that there’s no time to explain, let’s just say you shouldn’t be attacked again for a while anyway. Tell me about the attacks,” Michael began questioning her.
“Each time our laser turrets have managed to drive them off; but only just, the station has taken so much damage that it might not survive another attack.”
“Who is in command now?”
“Most of the command staff were killed when a salvo of torpedoes blew apart the command centre,” she replied sadly, as though reliving those events. “Lieutenant Commander Dickinson is in charge now, well on the last check anyway.”
“Where can we find him?” Vargev asked.
“Deck 49, inner section, it’s been rigged up as a temporary command centre. If we keep to the inner sections there is still air and power; follow me.” She said enthusiastically, her tears had gone, for now.
They all unclipped their helmets and followed her.
“Who is he?” Katherine asked in wonder, looking up at the tall form of Televis.
“He’s a good guy, here to help us,” Michael said.
“I’ve never seen anyone like him before.”
“Don’t worry; you’ll be seeing a lot more.”
At that they left what appeared to be a small, dirty, unkempt medical bay and they followed the young ensign through the darkened corridors and partially collapsed decks.
They came upon a giant hole in the floor, where what appeared to be a huge piece of machinery had smashed its way though it. Michael looked down as he passed, and could just about see where the huge lump of machinery finally came to rest several decks below. Slowly and carefully they picked their way around it with barely enough room for their feet.
Eventually they passed through some doors, and the room opened out into what resembled a rudimentary command centre. Albeit half the stations were non-functional; the four of them walked over to the centre of the room.
Katherine Jacobs led them to a man on the floor; a bloodied steel pole poked through this chest. His royal blue E.D. F Naval uniform soaking wet with blood. And she held out a hand is if gesturing to the other three men.
“Lieutenant Commander Dickinson.”
Michael had barely known him; he was the assistant chief communications officer on board Delta base, however Michael had only met the man twice throughout his whole career. He was a by the book officer, although a capable one nevertheless.
Coughing a mouthful of blood he managed to turn his head towards them.
“Is there nothing you can do for him?” Michael asked Katherine.
“We have given him morphine; if we remove the pole, we might risk killing him.”
“Who…who are you,” Dickinson said looking up at the three new men in front of him.
“I’m Lieutenant Michael Alexander, This is Major Nikolai Vargev 1 ^ st E.D. F commandos, and this is Televis.”
“Televis…what the?”
“No time to explain, but he’s on our side. We’re here to help.”
At this Dickinson laughed a throaty laugh, coughing up a small amount of blood in the process. “No one can help us now,” he spluttered. “The E.D. F is finished.”
“Well; I’ve got 69 Solarian battle cruisers outside, that says it’s not.” Michael smiled.
At this news Dickinson was genuinely surprised, “Solarians, who the hell are they.”
“They have come to help us, but we need to know where fleet command is, and what has happened?”
“Fleet command has been transferred to Alpha base,” Dickinson coughed. “The first attacks happened on the Agemman and Aurelias colonies.”
“I already know about those, I was on the Ulysses before she went down.”
“Right; well the fleet was formed into its constituent battlegroups as per the orders given when alert level
