Lyra breathed heavily against Solomon's neck as the turrets searched for her and the others. Only his flesh and blood protected her from death. The whining of the mechanics of the turret arm increased in tempo as it searched more drastically and then suddenly spun back on itself, Solomon took in a sharp breath as he just caught a glimpse of a shadow dash across the threshold of the corridors end, and then another. Four shadows passed, well within range of the defence weapon, but it ceased to fire, it searched frantically, but remained silent.
A yelp came from Sykra, Lyra almost jumped out of Solomon's protection in fear of the surprise, "What?" demanded Solomon, too afraid to turn his head, "A hole!" cried out Sykra in reply, the turret spun back quickly to search for something to shoot at, Solomon moved his body to cover more of the area behind him. The turret soon repeated its action responding to another shadow dashing across the corridor. "he means an inspection vent!" called Lyra, almost matching Sykra's excitement "Can you reach it, without getting shot?" asked Solomon, trying to hide the fear of losing her in his voice. Taking great care to not attract a projectile from the defence turret, Lyra and Sykra worked to free the wall of the vent cover, to reveal a wide work space that ten people could fit inside easily, all but Solomon climbed into the temporary safety the metal service inspection box supplied them, and Solomon once confident that they were safe would make his way to the bridge, keeping an eye out of the shadows. Solomon assumed they were crew of The Evergreen, but why didn't they help him? Once the group was safe inside, Solomon grabbed the vent cover from the floor, keeping an eye on the twitching defence turret as it spun following ghosts around its vision sphere, kneeling to meet Lyra's eye, he froze. Her beautiful eyes, bright and loving penetrated his soul, every ounce of fear, hatred and anguish faded as he lost himself within her perfect eyes. Solomon stole a kiss. He felt his heart rise beyond any speed he had ever felt on any battlefield, any good, or wrong decision. Her felt her soft silk lips brushed his rough chin as she playfully bit the tip. Solomon felt himself overwhelmed, only to see an awkward Sykra whistling absently and looking everywhere but their way. "Right, gotta go pull the plug." Solomon said with a sigh, nodding to the abashed Sykra, and set off down the darkened hall, sparks illuminating his path as he scanned the shadows as he disappeared into the void of the corridor.
The echo of Lyra pulling the vent covering into place bounced around the metal corridor, making the foot falls of the shadowed people hard to follow, Solomon thought to call out for a moment, before having second thoughts of who he would be calling out to. Were they crew from The Evergreen?
Solomon pushed the bloodied corpse of a creature that supported itself on sixteen writhing tentacles from the door to the bridge that it had propped itself up against to die. It slumped to the metal grated floor lifelessly. The door was sealed. "SolGord1131" he commanded at the unmoving metal, after a frustrating minute, Eve's voice flooded the bloodied and stained Corridor "Welcome Lieutenant Commander Gordon." and the door slowly ground open, the noise, no doubt echoing throughout the broken vessel, attracting anything with any hunting sense to his position. As the door reached roughly a quarter of the way open, Solomon was greeted by a volley of bullets. Somebody was in the Bridge and firing a weapon on full auto at him. One round found a home in the flesh of his upper arm. Yelling out in pain as the force and surprise pushed him back, tripping over one of the tentacles from the dead creature, the gunfire ceased at the cry of pain. "No further!" cried out a fearful voice from inside the room. Solomon took the minute of tense silence to check the wound. Just a flesh wound, went straight through, taking a little more skin and muscle than he felt comfortable parting with. Taking his belt off, with a jingle of the metal on the grated floor, he proceeded to tie it as a tourniquet around the bulk of his arm, just below the shoulder joint to slow the blood flow to allow it to clot and begin healing with the powder he sprinkled on, and then looked up at the quarter opened door.
"I don't suppose you have any bandages in there, do you?"
"Don't come any closer!"
"No? Well that's a bit of a let down. Is my whiskey still in one piece inside my chair?"
"Don't even try it! I'll kill... what? whiskey?"
Solomon smiled as he heard the individual break off his scared threats, and then pressed again.
"Listen, Sergeant. I just need a bandage, and maybe a drink."
"Ok... Ok... I'll throw you out a bandage! Just leave me alone!"
Solomon smiled.
"Oh... and one minor, tiny little thing... could you disable the auto defence system please?"
There was a pause as the stupidity of the request sunk into the individuals mind.
"Piss off! That thing is keeping me alive!" came the answer from inside the room, Solomon sighed, got to his feet and knocked on the bent and half open door, "Look, I'm not asking for a miracle here Theo. The system is damaged and is attacking everything that is not confirmed as identified crew of The Evergreen. Now, I Know you're Theo Richmond, a Sergeant in one of The Judgement's companies..."
"Meaning?" spat the voice, frustration was obvious.
"Meaning, the second you step out of this room without disabling it, you're dead. The turret out here is searching for you" Solomon spoke as a matter of fact. The man's options were limited. "I'm OK, because I have a valid I.D., you don't. And neither do my friends because theirs is damaged, so be a good sport, and turn it off, so I don't have to clean yours and their brains off the wall later."