0922
25. 05. 2505
Everything hurt. But the space between her rib cage and her stomach seem to hurt the most. The cold floor under her felt like ice against her temple and cheek. When she finally opened her eyes, she was met with blurry surroundings. She was laying on her side a few feet away from the fuzzy shape she quickly identified as her pilot seat where she had been previously sitting. Her memory of the last ten minutes was still slightly unclear. Nevertheless, she slowly started to remember that she was in the middle of preparing the ship for landing when weird ship-like shapes on the center screens that were supposed to only show their approaching destination had first caught her attention. She instantly recognized the three ships as foreign and hostile. The fact that they were aiming most of their artillery at the three dock portals obviously gave the latter away. She noticed that while two of them were circling the station and eliminating every ship and escape pods that left the station like one would exterminate pesky flies; the last huge ship was aligning itself to one of the dock portals. Were they attempting a full-on take over?
From an old reflex that she had picked up during her university years practicing for these kinds of situations in high-tech simulators, she had ordered her six co-workers through the staff's rooms' speakers to immediately come join her in the commanding room while she simultaneously switched off the auto-pilot mode. The first thing they had taught her back in the old days was to never trust an algorithm to get the job done during a crisis. And she believed that lesson was ten times truer on a simple commercial passenger ship. But after that point, her memory was not as precise. Did she succeed in turning the ship away from their initial course? Was she able to turn the ship in time? From the look of the inside of the commanding room and her position on the floor they had been hit by a blast of some kind. That could only mean that the warships had spotted them while she was trying to steer the ship away from the danger.
She looked around her, blinking her eyes in a desperate attempt to chase the blurriness away from her vision. She was alone in the room. Most of the screens were flashing with bold red writing and showing different images from the navigation cameras. She finally noticed that two of her largest screens were only showing static. Those were the right-wing camera and the main reactor camera located at the back of the aircraft. It appeared that the back and the right side of the ship had been the zones most damaged by this blast. Not good. The passenger dorms and the staff rooms were located in those areas. She painfully pulled herself back on the chair. She tried to ignore the stabbing pain near her hip. Now was not the time to lick at her wounds. Especially when she came to understand that part of the right side of the ship's fuselage had been severely damaged to the point where the plug doors separating the main corridors from the damaged part of the ships had locked automatically as soon as their sensors had felt the difference of pressure.
Dammit. She understood that the emergency system had evaluated the action as necessary to stop the decompression that had overtaken the right wing second and first floor from reaching the rest of the ship and the other passengers. However, it still felt like the system had just sent all the people that were in those areas during the blast to their deaths. She tried to not think about all those souls lost. Because she knew that there were still other survivors left on the ship. And at the moment, the souls still alive came first; They were her priority now. Mourning the loss of her crew would come later. If there ever would be a later.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Come on, Lorie. Breathe!
She spared a few crucial seconds to try and calm her frantic heartbeat. She even tried to mentally order her hands to stop shaking violently before she reached out for the small switch that would make her next words live throughout the ship. As soon as the small red light next to it turned green, she spoke the small monologue she had not had much time to prepare beforehand.
"This is your Captain and Pilot speaking. The ship is being followed and attacked by an unknown hostile warship. Part of our ship has already been damaged from an attack and locked down to keep the pressure in the rest of the spacecraft at a normal level." She gulped nervously, while glancing at the left-wing camera that she had turned in the direction of the warship following behind them. This small camera was her only available eyes on the enemy behind them since the other cameras had ended up being collateral damage from the first hit. She only had this one and the main one located in the front of the ship still properly functioning. She tried to hide the dread from her voice at the sight of the third warship slowly catching up to them while she saw its brethren continue their original mission around the small station in the background.
"The warship is rapidly gaining on us. The right engine was hit by the first attack. It is improbable for us to outrun them. None of the stations or planets around us can be reached. This is why as commanding officer of this ship I order the evacuation of all passengers. Please make your way in an orderly and fast manner to the level 0 of the ship. You will find 50 evacuation pods ready to be launched as soon as your safety belt and door is locked. The itinerary is automatically set to the nearest inhabitable planet to our current position." To turn on the small screen on her left, she used her captain key card and swiped it against the side of the device. She had never turned it on before and had always hoped that she would never have to. Well it appeared that the day had finally come. The small holographic screen moved to be projected right in front of her. And a simple question written in bold letters appeared on it.
Are you certain that you want to activate the Evacuation Procedure? Yes No
Her trembling index finger pressed the small square with written Yes on it; as soon as that was done every light in the room and probably in the entire ship changed to a red color. She could hear alarms outside her commanding room. Their sound must have been deafening in the hallway. She turned back to the small discreet interphone on her desk.
"I repeat, make your way to level 0 by using the stairs. Evacuate immediately. Do not waste time looking for your things or traveling partners. Evacuate now." She knew that the last part of her message had not been very professional but honestly, she did not think it mattered right now as long as the message of her announcement had been clear and understood by everyone. She hurriedly made sure that the evacuation pods were ready for use. But now she needed to make her way downstairs where the last control panels for the fifty small one people shuttles were located. The only way her people were going to survive and escape from the notice of the enemy ship was if she created a big showy distraction. She knew that this passenger ship had three small defensive guns hidden on both sides of the spacecraft. Obviously, they would never be able to take down a warship, however maybe she could afford the passengers a few minutes. She at least had to try. She had always strongly believed in the unsaid rule that the captain should always be the last one to leave their ship.
But first, before moving towards the evacuation floor, she decided that she needed to do a last quick scan of the situation inside the ship. She typed her security code and waited for the live footage of each surveillance camera on the ship to appear one by one in front of her. She hurriedly waved her hand through the hologram screen, to check each video one by one. She stopped on the three cameras located in the staircases. All of them were high tech sensitive motion sensor cameras, and at this instant they were retransmitting a perfect image of what looked like to a bit more than twenty passengers, led by two men in Gaia sergeant uniforms, climbing hurriedly down the stairs and through the wide doors of Floor 0. The camera stayed fixed on the doors until each last one of the passengers had gone through. Even then it did not budge from its angle of view, it gave her a perfect sight of the place she needed to be as soon as possible.
As standing and moving away from her desk she thought she saw some movement on one of the other surveillance videos, one that was located on the upper floors. She bent down to have a closer look at the image. And as soon as she confirmed there was indeed something or someone moving, she hurriedly increased the size of all the videos showing that area. From what she could see it was a human earthling. From the four-point gold star insignia on his Gaia uniform, he was a Sergeant-Major. Due to some idiot trying to play hero, she would have to make a small detour. She patted herself to make sure that she had her taser gun, as a captain of a civilian ship and according to Sylph regulations she was not allowed to own a laser gun. Normally, Sylph had negotiated with GAIA to only allow fully turned off and locked down weapons on board. But this man seemed to have made the decision to keep an unlocked weapon on him for the trip.
She also checked for her professional phone, and finally typed in the emergency deactivating code that would instantly disconnect all upper floor command and computer systems. They did not want the enemy to be able to hack into any of Sylph's networks or be able take control of the ships navigation controls or to get their hands on any information on the crew or the passengers. Lorie was dutifully following protocol. She looked one final time at the locked door separating the command room from the crew's dorms. Now was not the time to mourn. Not yet. She had a job to finish. She reminded herself before reluctantly turning around and walking out the door.
She climbed up the stairs two by two. Her heart was pumping in her chest making her feel like it could jump out at any seconds. She had never climbed up stairs as quickly as she was now. Not even her middle school self during her years on earth, while being chased around her school by bullies, had hopped step to step with as much desperation. She pushed the doors to the third floor open without ever slowing down her pace. She instantly spotted that one of the doors leading to the video game room had been pried open and left in that position. Obviously, the Gaia soldier must have still been checking the room for any survivors.
Nonetheless, as she crossed through the door's threshold, she did not expect to be met by the hostile sight of the soldier pointing a gun in her direction. His eyes were focused on her every movement. In fact, she could see his finger lightly curved around the trigger, ready to shoot at any moment. She hurriedly tried to calm him down by instantly identifying herself and her position. However, she had a hard time hiding the panic and surprise from her voice.
"Wow, wow. What are you doing? I'm not here to attack you! My name is Lorie Martin, I'm the Pilot of this ship. I work for Sylph."
As soon as she was done speaking, he was met by an obvious reaction of incredulity. But what made her the most nervous in this situation was the man's expression and eyes. She could not pinpoint exactly the emotion it was showing. But something told her that it was far from calm or poised. She could see hostility and perhaps shock in the way he held himself. And he examined her in a way that made her have a strange "déjà vu" feeling. She did not have time to analyze the man more thoroughly, because he was shouting questions and ordered her to show him proof of her identity while keeping his gun pointed towards her chest.
"Are you serious?" But as she did a once over of the man's stance and stare she suddenly understood why the man was being so hostile. It was all in his eyes and particularly where he was pointing his gun. He was not aiming at her chest like she had previously believed but he was specifically aiming at her collarbone and neck. That was where you aimed when you wanted to quickly kill a native of the Planet of Lephi, their heart, which was smaller than a human's, and most of their important arteries were located right at the juncture between the neck and the shoulders. Due to this observation, she finally understood what the look in his eyes was. Hatred. Disgust. Resentment. It was the look that the people of Namil', of Earth, and of Xar had been throwing at her for the past five years. Now that she thought about it, some humans had been looking at her that way all her life. It came with being part extraterrestrial and living in a small town in the middle of nowhere. And their opinion of her and people like her had only worsened when her parents' native planets had declared war on each other half a decade ago.
In fact, the man in front of her seemed to be old enough to have served a few years as a soldier in Gaia during the recent war. He seemed to be familiar with the shooting position he was currently in. Perhaps, he had shot and killed people from her mother's home planet everyday with that same cold look in his eyes. However, what she was absolutely sure of was that unless she could change her species right this instant, he would not stop being weary and hostile towards her.
She was quickly proven right, because even after showing him her identification badge his position and stance did not relax. He slightly lowered his gun but she could definitely see that he was still on guard and ready to aim any second.
"So, are you done interrogating me and can we finally join the evacuation? I came here to inform you that these rooms are deserted and that we're the last one still not safely inside the level 0 area."
While she knew she could have said all of this in a friendlier and calmer manner, she did not. She was stressed out by the situation. And this human's attitude towards her did not help her stay calm whatsoever. Nevertheless, the sooner they were in floor 0 the better. So, she decided to not let him continue the conversation until they were in a safer zone. She abruptly turned her back to the man and walked out of the room. She hoped that by turning her back to him he would see it as a show of trust in her action. It might have worked if she could hide the anger and annoyance from her expression and actions.
She was relieved to hear his footsteps a few feet behind her. At least the man was following her back to where they were supposed to be. Now, the next step would be to get them both off the ship in one piece. Easier said than done. As they climbed down the stairs, the ship around them suddenly shook. They both barely grabbed onto the railing to stop themselves from tumbling down the three flights of stairs.
"Their aim is getting better." She muttered as she got back up. Once she had checked that the human was in one piece and the shaking had stopped, she ran down the stairs three by three this time. They did not have a lot of time left. The monster ships were probably almost on them now.
She pushed open the door to floor-0 and did not waste a second before typing her employee and captain code into the computer in the middle of the room. While almost every employee could have access to the video footage. Only a high level employee, a captain, the co-pilot and the chief of staff could have access to the canons' control panel. She heard the soldier lock the floor's entrance door behind them. And slowly approached her from behind; he seemed to understand what she was doing because he did not ask any questions. In the end she was the first to speak up in the silent room. She was mostly reading out loud the information that was appearing on top of the screen.
"Twenty two pods have been launched and are on their way to three different small inhabitable planets less than three hours from here. Right now, there are two living bodies on the ship. Us. From the angle of our ship and the enemy ship, it is advised that we head to planet M15. "
As she clicked on the last confirmation tab, two thin metal-colored handles popped up from each side of the keyboard. She carefully placed her hands on them. These two things that looked like cheap gaming joysticks would be their only line of defense against two fully armed warships.
"I'll distract them. Get in one of the pods on the left." She gave her orders while slowly putting on display in front of her the videos of the last remaining cameras. She focused her attention on the one located to the rear of the ship. It showed her that the first ship was easily gaining on them. She could not see the second ship because of the bad camera angle but she assumed that it was still too far to be an issue yet.
"That's strange, their shooting directly; they could have landed a few more hits on us by now." She unconsciously stated her observation out loud.
She almost jumped in surprise when she heard the deep voice of the human right next to her ear. She had been so focused on her task that she had not noticed the man was now leaning over her shoulder to observe what she was doing.
"They probably do not want to damage the ship."
She did not like that the man was standing right behind her watching every move she made. Furthermore, his hand was still on his gun he had reattached to his uniform's belt ready to pull it out at any moment.
"I told you to evacuate. Why are you still here? Get to the pods!" She had to remind him who was the one legally in charge here.
But the man did not budge. His attention remained fixated on the screens in front of them. If he was not going to follow her orders, she would have to make him. Using the man's focus on the information displayed on the screens to her advantage, she made a quick assessment of the number of weapons he hid on him. One GAIA-made laser gun tucked safely in its holster around the man's hips. She pretended to turn her head slightly toward the left in the pretense of looking more closely to the screen on that side furthest from them. The man did not seem to notice that her stare was not actually on the screen itself but on the wide open door leading into the biggest pod in the evacuation room. The medical pod was meant to fit five people including one or two gurneys in case a passenger was critically injured and thus needed immediate care. Usually the ship's main medical staff, often a flight attendant with the medical training needed, would evacuate alongside the patient.
Unfortunately, she just had time to assess the distance between herself and the medical shuttle's wide open doors, before she felt warm fingers suddenly wrap themselves around her forearm. The grip was tight and unrelenting. And unsurprisingly, the man's dark glare was back on her. He was probably suspicious of her small moment of silence. She quickly needed to distract him. Angering or taunting was the most efficient way and only way to keep his attention on her she could think of.
"If you're done brooding and glaring at the back of my head, I would advise you to evacuate." For the last word, she made sure to pronounce every syllable slowly and separately, like an elementary teacher would do when introducing a new word to a class of six-year-olds.
She could swear she saw his right dark eyebrow twitch in irritation. But words did not seem to be a sufficient method to communicate with the obstinate human. Because he instantly turned his focus back to the control panel, acting as though she did not exist. Either from desperation or frustration, she decided to give up on civilized conversation, and attempted a more physical way to make her point. As soon as she saw his right hand reach out towards the small hight tech desk, she slammed herself in between him and the screens and pushed with all her strength to the side and as far away from the screens as possible. His moodiness seemed to give way for a few seconds to surprise. She swore she had seen a glimpse of a grimace when realized that her hands had made contact with his chest while pushing him. Her anger only grew tenfold, and she used it to fuel the next part of her plan. She did not give him time to get back his bearings before advancing aggressively in his direction.
"Listen here, I am the captain of this ship. Whether you like it or not that makes me the one responsible for every passenger on this ship and their safe evacuation. And that includes you." She poked her finger against his chest at the end of every word she yelled out. Using his disgust of her in her favor. When she finally earned a reaction from the man, she had already successfully made him backtrack a few steps from the control board.
She did not think it was possible for his glare to intensify and darken, but she was proven wrong. She had finally made his patience snap. And before she could poke his chest a hundredth time, he grabbed her right wrist tightly in his hold. He pulled her closer to him. Probably in an attempt to make their height difference stand out, and thus appear more threatening.
"I refuse to take orders from a simple civilian, especially from someone like you. Lives are at stake…"
She saw exactly when the man realized that the weight on his belt had suddenly become lighter, and the object poking his abdomen was not her finger. But just to make her threat clearer, she pressed the gun that she had discreetly swiped in the middle of their little altercation a bit harder into his stomach until he finally got the message and let go of her wrist.
She allowed herself one last satisfying verbal taunt, taking pleasure in the incensed look he was shooting at her.
"I don't think you have a choice, Sergeant Major. Now back up. " He followed her command, while seething at every step he took. He moved too slowly to her taste. He was probably looking for a way to disarm her or disable her. But she never gave him the opportunity. As soon as she had made her advantage obvious to him, she had quickly taken a few steps back keeping her weapon out of reach but still close enough to have a good shot if needed. All of these reflexes and habits she had collected years ago, had never left her. It was like riding a bike.
When she had enough of his pointless delaying, she urgently repeated her order. They did not have time to waste. they had already spent too much of it arguing.
"I said BACK UP!"
He lifted his arms in a surrendering sign, however his eyes told a completely different story. In the end she only needed him to take one last step back. In an instant, she had pressed the button inside the capsule on the right of the pod's door and quickly snatched her arm back out before the pod door's could close on themselves completely. At the sight of the doors closing between them, the man had fully realized his predicament. They were finally separated by a five inch highly impenetrable door. A small window in the middle of the latter, was the only way for them to keep sight of each other. As soon as she heard the ship's automatic evacuation announcement, she finally let herself relax the tight hold she had on her weapon.
"Medical Evacuation pod 2. ready to launch. Keep seated on one of the seats available, two hand-holds are located on each wall to help you keep stable."
As they both glared at each other through the glass, listening to the final part of the automatic message, she could not help herself from smirking and doing a mock gesture of the GAIA salute.
"Destination M15."
As she watched the outer protective outer doors close around the medical pod and heard the sound of the pod separating from the main ship and dropping through the ship's evacuation tunnels, she whispered under her breath.
"Good luck, Sergeant-Major." Who knows, perhaps after a decade or two when he's surrounded by little grandchildren and holding the hand of a long time partner, he'll think back to the halfling Lephi' that saved his life in a more positive light.
Speaking of saving lives, she still had a job to do. if she wanted the pods that had just evacuated to pass unseen and untouched under the ships and away from this mess. She needed to make a big distraction. Those pods were not known to be fast or discreet. Luckily for her, the second warship was too far away to be a threat yet. Therefore she could focus her full attention and artillery on the first. From the lack of blasts and shaking around her, she agreed with the Sergeant-Major's idea. They were probably trying to keep the ship as intact as possible. Sylph ships were some of the most expensive and technology advanced ships offered by a private non-military company. Since the latter was not attached to any specific country or planet and remained a neutral pacifist business, every part of the ships were all made on different planets and assembled in a wide number of galaxies according to the price of the market that year. This is what made the SYLPH space crafts so unique. And a lot of organizations would kill to own one and resell it whole or if they were smarter in small parts for a high price on the black market. This goal of theirs would be to her advantage.
She ran towards the control board and quickly grabbed one of the small cheap controllers while swiping her hands through the main screen to type in her security code. It did not take long for it to confirm her ID.
Captain, you have turned on SYLPH artillery commands during an evacuation protocol. Do you wish to continue?
Yes No
What a waste of a question. She hurriedly swiped on the right answer.
Would you like to go through the step by step instruction guide?
Who knew the artillery control system would ask the same dumb starters question as one of the many pointless video games on her wrist screen? She swiped past the instructions. She did not need them. She always made sure to stay up to date with Sylphs security systems and protocols during her free hours. Even after the holographic screen showed her the left camera's view of the warship behind them, the feeling of playing one of those cheap vintage earth video games her father used to collect in their attic did not completely go away. She could only control the direction of all the guns at the same time; and shoot by squeezing a long thin button on the side of her right controller.
Unfortunately, the angle of the camera was very limited. She made a quick assessment of the spacecraft on the screen. The nose itself was huge and she could pinpoint the obvious canons located on each side of it. It did not seem to have small artillery on its front. That meant they might hesitate to use the big ones so close since it would probably damage the SYLPH ship irreversibly. At least she hoped so. She quickly noticed that both cannons were extra-muros types. They were held by a flexible mechanical arm protruding from the fuselage. These models were more precise for aim and easier to move and direct than canons attached and anchored directly into the spacecraft's walls. However, one of their biggest inconvenients was that they were easier to disable and detach from the main body, especially if you had a good aim. Lorie was an amazing shot according to her trainers. She just hoped that this piece of junk of a control board would allow her to show it.
She made sure to test out the sensitivity and reactivity of the guns before carefully aiming towards the small piece of metal keping the two movable pieces of the mechanical arm holding the warship's right cannon; But her attention was grabbed by the direction the huge gun was aiming. It was obviously pointing downwards. The pods. It was aiming to eliminate the pods falling under them. She did not hesitate a second, before pressing and keeping the trigger under her index finger. She kept her hands in the exact same position until she finally saw the metallic arm start to tear itself away from the main body. One down a second one to go. But as she tried to change the aim of her weapons to her next target, the ship around her suddenly shook and she felt herself lose balance and crumble to the floor. She might have finally caught their attention after the little counter-attack she had just attempted. That was good and bad. Good because that meant their guns and focus was not on the evacuation pods anymore. Bad because now all those things were directed at her and she did not have the element of surprise on her side anymore. Furthermore from the recent violent shaking and loud noise coming from the back of the spacecraft, she concluded that keeping the small SYLPH ship intact might not be one of their main priorities anymore.
Getting back up was harder than she thought it would be. The pain in her abdomen's side that she had sustained during the first blast had come back with a vengeance. She used the corner of the desk support. And even after getting back up on her feet, she chose to continue leaning on the edge of the table in a hopeless effort to keep her balance in the very dizzy and painful world around her.
A small lit white screen on the lower side of the main ones instantly caught her attention. It took more time than she would admit for her to understand that the little green dots and the numbers displaying on the side were supposed to represent all the evacuation pods and the distance between them and the main ship. The majority of the dots were obviously heading towards the planet M54. But what happened next, horrified her to the core. One by one these twenty or so small lights disappeared and were replaced by red unmoving ones that were meant to show the last location known of each shuttle.
Had they all been annihilated one by one by a fourth ship she could not see? Was it waiting for all of the shuttles to be out and grouped together in the same direction, before eliminating them? had she just lost the majority of her passengers in less than a second?
And the next words that came out from the computers' speakers confirmed her greatest fear.
"92% of the evacuation shuttles have been lost and can not be reached or located anymore."
She felt her heart rip itself into pieces; she had failed all of these people. She had let them die.
As she let a few tears finally escape, and stared down through the camera footage at her future executioner, she tried to pay attention to the few sentences the computer's monotonous voice spat a few seconds later.
"8% of the evacuated shuttles, all heading towards M15, have crossed the safe distance of 500 000 km. They are now completely undetectable and unreachable by any spacecrafts' weapons or radar located in a perimeter of 100 000 km around this SYLPH ship.
Those weirdly specific data details helped make a decision. 8% was not an impressive number of locatable survivors. As many of them as possible needed to survive, and somehow report the attack to the authorities. Who knows how long it would take for the Allied Planets and GAIA to uncover what had really happened. By the time they would notice the disappearance of a small research station, the perpetrators whoever they are might already be long gone, the warships dismantled and hidden or sold and any trace of the people taken from the station lost.
She grabbed the gun that had slipped on the floor, trying not to wince at the terrible pain she felt when crouching down to pick it up. Then she made sure that her wrist computer and her SYLPH key card were both intact. Finally, she made her way towards one of the evacuation shuttles closest to her. With one arm she climbed into it and slid into position placing the borrowed gun against her chest in an almost protective move. The loud voice around her and the strong vibrations against her scalp from the movement of the small capsule only made her head hurt more and her vision get blurrier. She has no idea how much time had passed between the first attack and now. However, from the dark spots appearing at the edge of her vision, she knew that her body was ready to let the unstoppable exhaustion take over. And only then did the pain finally stop.