Chereads / The Evergreen Files; Banshee / Chapter 58 - Part 58

Chapter 58 - Part 58

Kyril sat at his command chair, The Infinity within his sights, offset, derelict and lifeless. The bridge of The Evergreen was alive with bodies, the double sensory watch had tried to contact both The Hopeful and The Infinity to no avail, Solomon sighed as Kyril ordered the boarding parties to assemble in the landing craft and docking bridges. Solomon began on his route to the armoury, within the hour, his company was ready at docking bridge three. Captain Deeph readied the second company at docking bridge seven, Captain Tricks readied his third company at docking bridge two. Captain Syn of the seventh company was deploying with the landing craft. All other companies are to be held in reserve.

Kyrils plan was a simple one. Secure the Infinity, get weapons and engines back online, see what happened to the crew. Split teams over the two ships to allow them to man it and bring it back to Merriden IV.

Sandra sat inside the crammed full corridor, with a deep breath, she was finally getting familiar to the constant anxiety of combat, the brightly lit metal corridor was filled to the brim with midnight blue armoured soldiers, still supporting their red striped helms from Merriden IV's Red Sector, all still oblivious to its falling to the Banshee. The corridor's environmental setting was set to keep the area cooled due to the high amount of bodies present, overworking, it still couldn't manage to deliver. The humidity of the corridor was beginning to cause Sandra to sweat, Lyra stood at her side, humming softly as she checked her medical bags and pockets for her equipment and then the syringes and bandages that are attached to her chest plate, all five platoons of the first company had assembled in the corridor once again, one hundred soldiers, some battle hardened, some not so much. The level of experience of the soldiers working together as a single entity, as one body is the only thing that would ensure their survival into the bleak deathly corpse of The Infinity that they planned to board.

The Infinity had become infected through a single wounded soldier. His heart had stopped during the flight out of the Gryph Ship from where he was wounded and one of the flight crew performed C.P.R. on the soldier, the mouth to mouth procedure is what doomed The Infinity. The crewman, once back, filed his report and went back to his quarters, where he hugged his beautiful little daughter, kissed his wife, passing the infection on to her, who incidentally was having an affair, looking for a better excuse of a man, that valued her above his work and their average daughter, who then passed it on to her secret lover, who passed it onto his many flings of the night, thus spreading the Banshee infection like wild fire. People started off with flu like symptoms that would not budge, spreading the infection through sneezes and water droplets in coughing, even with all their medications aboard the ship, they couldn't stop it, then The Wounded Soldier turned, and vanished without a trace, soon people started going missing, one or two at a time, then soon it was whole work rooms. then started the death, bodies found in the corridors, or in staff rooms late at night, gutted and sliced open, soon after, everybody killed had turned into the pale killing machines dealing death.

Solomon couldn't help his mind wondering where The Hopeful was only breaking his thought once the boarding light changed colour to a crimson red with a dull beep, and so Solomon and the other three companies walked to their doom.

Errol paced up and down with his pistol still within his grasp and a datapad in his other hand. Breathing slowly as he walked. He had killed the traitor Winslow. The evidence that he had been secretly mounting to get Winslow a death sentence for treason, now was Errol's only hope of not getting the death sentence himself! But it now had vanished! He needed the whole file. He had found small imprints of the data inserted into standardised reports. Muttering to himself the report he was reading upon the slim datapad searching for words that did not belong as the crew worked in his stead. The Judgement had gone for the rescue of The Iron Fist and The Vengeful, just to find, an E.M.P. strike had disabled them, The Judgement provided their ships with new circuit boards to repair the damaged and melted electronics, Errol couldn't finish reading the report with his mind whirling around, his crew eyed him nervously as if he was quietly picking out his next victim as he looked around at them, they did not know of the evidence he was so desperately searching for. "Sir!" cried a tactical officer.

"We have a signature, incoming! Bearing three, nine, two, two, three!"

"On screen."

"Sir, it's just one signature, all the pirate ships retreated once they fired at the planet, are they coming back?"

"We shall see, son. We shall see"

The Bridge light had lowered and a large screen that showed the co-ordinates the tactical officer had shouted. The stars began to turn black in the centre and suddenly appeared the slender frame of The Hopeful, perfectly glistening from the distant sun, Errol ordered his crew to contact them immediately. "Errol, what the hell happened?" came the confused voice of Captain Shu of The Hopeful over the Bridge comms. Captain Errol quickly interrogated Captain Shu over her return. It only took fifteen minutes to complete and for Errol to no longer feel guilty about executing Winslow. Shu told Errol that Winslow had sent them to new co-ordinates and await further instruction, that never came, she knew nothing of The Infinity going dark. It was only when the Gryph distress signal was intercepted from the space station that The Hopeful returned. They had never been sent to The Infinity.