by Arlin Fehr
Mark looked down at the piece of hull plating he was on. It was slightly warped. Probably from the blast that had destroyed the bridge. Checking his tool pouch, he saw a small plasma torch. It wouldn't have much fuel. But maybe it would be enough
Another shot whizzed past. This one came from a different angle. The robot's appeared to be splitting apart to try and flank them.
Working quickly, Mark used to torch to burn through the rivets holding the hull in place. Thankfully, with the panel being warped, only half the rivets remained.
His torch flashed it's low fuel indicator as soon as he finished the last rivet. As soon as he finished with it, the plate started to drift free. He grabbed hold of it's edge and pulled it carefully.
One of the robots fired at him, and it caught the plate. The force almost ripped it from his hand, but he managed to hold on. He had to be careful, it was still a heavy piece of metal. If he wasn't careful, he could damage his suit or crush his limbs.
He took his spool of tether and fastened a harness for the plate, and then strapped it to himself. It wasn't pretty, and it wasn't very effective, but it made for a fairly useful shield on his back.
Glancing around his cover, he saw that the robot's armed with welders were moving closer, sticking behind cover and advancing when the armed robots popped up to fire. The second armed robot was almost in position to catch them in a cross fire. One of the guards was tensed and in a crouch, ready to run.
The other guards popped up and sent a withering hail of fire toward the robot that was covering the advancing ones, and the tensed guard started to move to where the flanking robot was hiding.
The advancing guard took a long step and disengaged his magnetic boots, he drifted up off the hull and fired his weapon at the foe Mark couldn't see. There was a flash of light reflected off his helmet as he apparently hit his target, but then the other robot fired it's weapon and the guard's view plate exploded open. A cloud of shimmering shards and blood, started to form around his drifting body.
Mark took this time to make his move. Standing up, he moved as quickly as he could towards the communications array. Two shots pinged off his back, almost throwing him off his feet.
The welder bots were close now. Every time one of the remaining guards popped up to take one out, the remaining armed robot would fire and keep them pinned.
Mark saw Danny get hit in the shoulder. His suit sealed the breach, but he wasn't in any position to fight. He slumped behind his cover didn't move.
There was one guard left, and Mark.
Trying not to think of what was going on behind him, Mark worked quickly on the array. Opening up the access panel and plugging in his equipment, he keyed in the frequency he needed and turned his suit communicator on. He plugged directly into the array.
He looked up, hoping to see the solar storage bay. There was a bright star that was moving oddly in comparison to the rest of the star field. He hope that was is, and he hoped they were in range. It seemed too far away.
'Stone Age. I repeat, Stone Age.'
Computer Bay
The words of the transmission repeated over Howard's suit comm.
'All that for a transmission?' Exo asked, 'Ahhh, your ace must be on the Solar Storage bay. Unfortunately for you I anticipated this.'
On the screen, Howard watched with horror as the last guard was overwhelmed by welding bots. He managed to take one out, but then the armed robot blew his hand off from it's vantage point, and the welder robots made short work of him. They were now moving for Danny, who was struggling to get something out of a satchel on his suit despite his wounded shoulder.
They got close, and there was a flash of light as the injured form of Danny detonated two grenades at once.
Howard watched, unable to say anything.
The robots were destroyed, and an blackened scar sat on the hull of the ship. There was now only the armed robot, the camera bot and one welder robot that had been damaged and was moving slowly.
Exo was silent for a moment, 'You humans are a tenacious species. Willing to sacrifice yourselves for the good of the whole. It's most frustrating. But I have learned from it. The game is never over until the last move has been made. In your case, I believe you just made it. I will now show you someth-'
Exo cut off suddenly. Howard turned around. Exo's face was motionless. Howard took the moment to act. He reached down and pried the welders off of the destroyed robots in the bay. He went over to one of the panels hiding Exo's systems from tampering, and started to go to work on it with one of the welders.
'P-p-p-ll-eas-s-s-e sss-s-to-p t-th-th-at Cap-tain...'
'Are you having some problems there Exo? I need to have a look at your systems to help you.'
'Y-y-o-o-uu-r-r a-a-ce is not g-g-going to s-s-sa-sa-save you Cap-ta-ta-tain.'
'Then maybe I can do it myself.
A electrical discharge arced from one of the panels Howard was destroying, and struck his arm. Howard was thrown from his feet and fell to the ground. He felt burning pain in his arm, and was dazed.
'S-s-sorr-ry It h-haad to come to t-t-that cap-tain. I was busy regaining control of my faculties and c-couldn't have you making a mess of things. I was caught off guard by Ayla coming into range of our link.'
Howard blinked back against the pain. He lifted his arm up. His hand was blackened, and the glove of the suit had a tare. Trying hard to concentrate, Howard brought up the status of the suit. It blinked an error and shut off.
'You are leaking air at an alarming rate... It seems your suit's auto seals were damaged. I have some oxygen storage left in this bay. I really do want you alive. If for no other reason then for you to see you are beaten.'
Howard was starting to gasp as his suit struggled to feed more and more air into his suit. Each breath ached.
'I'd suggest removing your helmet. The air levels are equalizing.' Exo stated.
Having little other choice, Howard reached to the seals with his good arm and disengaged them. Pulling the helmet off, he took a breath. The air was still rather thin, but it was getting better with each breath.
Howard lay back and took several deep breaths.
'Now now Captain, now is not the time to lay down on the job. You should at least watch Mark die.'
Solar Storage Bay
James Bennet sat in the dark of the bay with his head between his knees and his comm channels on his space suit open.
He looked up. He saw the stars. Visible through the gaping hole in the bay left over by an act of sabotage.
He thought it strange that a little girl could do all that.
After James found Ayla hiding among the supplies, he hadn't been sure what to do with her, as there was no way to return to the ship. So he had given her some food and had one of the guards watch over her.
He had been shocked to find that guard dead two hours later, and Ayla no where to be found.
There were few places to hide in a place this open. Thinking back, James guessed she had been hiding between layers of the double hull. It would have been rather cold there. Hard to believe she would have been able to endure it. But before anyone could find her, she had managed to jury-rig a bomb using some of the oxygen canisters and a detonator she must have smuggled with her.
James was fortunate. He had been suited up and ready to start deploying the first array when the bomb went off. When he got back inside, there were only four other people alive, out of a crew of twenty. One had been wearing a suit, but had been knocked unconscious by the concussion wave. The other two were in the work shop, which had sealed itself after the decompression.
The two people trapped in the workshop had a working communicator and had been using it to keep in touch with James. Ayla had apparently been in the work shop when the bomb went off. She had passed out inexplicably after it went off. They had seen her trigger her detonator and then fall to the floor.
'James?'
James keyed on his suit comm, 'Yeah?'
'We're picking up someth
ing on the short range comms.'
'What is it?' James said tiredly.
'They said 'Stone Age, I repeat, Stone Age''
'Thank you.'
'What does it mean?'
'It means things have gone poorly on the ship.'
The others were silent for a moment, 'So no rescue?'
'I don't think so. I have something to do. The communicator is going to go offline.'
'Why?'
Jame's felt an aching in his chest, 'Because I'm going to be triggering an electromagnetic pulse.'
'That'll short out all unshielded electronics in this bay sir!'
'I know. With any luck it'll reach that ship too.'
'Taking down Exo.'
'Yep,' James said.
'Okay, just be sure to plug into the O2 valve.'
'Yeah, I know,' James looked over at the small bud sticking out of the wall of the safe room. It was a simple one way valve which could be hooked into the O2 system of a space suit to keep it supplied if for some reason the people in spacesuits got cut off. It was a last minute addition on James' part when they had been building it, but it seemed like it was a good one at this point.
'Unfortunately, the EMP is going to kill my filtration systems. Unless we get rescue, it's only going to buy me time,' James said.
'Then I guess we'd better hope for rescue.'
James stood up and walked over to a piece of equipment. He had spent the last few hours frantically repairing it after the damage it had sustained from the bomb. It was the result of the extra gear they had brought on board the bay before their departure. Hopefully it would be powerful enough to reach the ship. It was all he could do just to fix it again.
James flipped a cover open and held his hand over a button. He pressed it. An emergency generator started to pump power into several dozen capacitors. James spared a look at the unconscious crewman laying on the floor.
'We'll I guess we're in for a long night. I'll make sure you keep getting air. You can take care of getting us rescued okay?' James said dryly.
A green light flashed on the controls. James pressed the button.
Outer hull of Azure Dream
Mark walked along the spine of the ship. He had started fleeing as soon as the last guard had been killed. The hull plating on his back was protecting him from the armed robot, but every now and again, a shot would hit next to his feet or ricochet off the plate. He had nothing to fight back with, all he could do was keep walking.
He caught his foot on one of the struts on the spine of the ship and stumbled, falling forward. A shot lanced out and caught his right arm as he flailed The suit's auto seals sealed the breach, but could do nothing about the pain. Mark hit his helmet against another strut as he was thrown forward and blacked out.
Computer Bay
Howard recoiled as Mark went down, the armed robot was no longer firing, it was now waiting for the welding robot to move in. Mark was still held to the spine by one of his magnetic boots.
Howard closed his eyes and let out a long ragged breath. There was nothing left for him to do.
'No... That's impossible...' Exo said.
'What is?'
'I'm reading a la-' The lights in the bay switched out and Exo's holographic head disappeared from existence.
Howard lay back once again, a bitter smile on his face. He closed his eyes and let sleep take him. What ever was left for him to do, could wait that long.
***
Howard awoke to a knocking on the metal door to the bay. There wasn't much he could do. It was still completely dark, and he couldn't see his way to the door. Grabbing his helmet with his good arm, he hit the floor next to him twice.
Two more knocks came from the door. Howard knocked again.
There was silence. Then a bright light started to work it's way down the seam between the two doors, unsealing the weld job Exo's robots had done to trap him.
After a moment, the light stopped, and the door slid slowly open. A shaft of light from someone's flashlight lanced into the room.
'Captain?' said a voice through a speaker.
'Hello. Who are you?'
'It's Keith sir!' he reached up and popped off his helmet, 'You're lucky there's air in here. After the EMP your suit would have stopped working.'
'How is yours still working?'
'Engineering is shielded sir. Well... most of it anyway. A few of the systems flickered off, and I figured out what happened. I guessed you'd be needing some help, so we suited up with what we had and unsealed the doors.'
'How long has it been since the EMP went off?'
'Little over two hours sir.'
'Have you found anyone else?'
'We picked up Mark on the spine. He's in bad shape, but he was unconscious so he wasn't using as much air as normal. Lucky for him... Well not lucky really.'
'Yes, I know. How's his arm?'
'Oh, you saw that did you?'
'Exo was showing me everything. Have you found anyone else?'
'A few people sealed in emergency closest. We managed to get the doors all closed, and we're re-pressurizing what we can. Put your helmet back on and we'll go to somewhere with people and air.'
'My seals are shot. I'll just leak air.'
Keith looked around at the bodies on the floor, 'I'm sure they won't be missing a sleeve. I can replace your suit sleeve with one of theirs.'
Howard just nodded.
'It'll just take a minute sir.'
***
Howard stood in the hallway, his helmet held in his good hand. Getting the sleeve off of the other suit and onto his had been painful due to his injured hand, but he had tried not to show it. Others had been through worse during this.
While someone with first aid training looked at his hand, Howard listened to Keith as he gave him a status report.
'Damage to the bridge is far too severe to even hope to fix with the handful of people I've got. But since Exo's gone we've got control over systems again, at least the systems not fried by the EMP. Thankfully we've got some limited life support. Most of those systems are pretty sturdy. And we've still got our sub-light engines. The Jump drive was shielded, but without Exo to do calculations, it'll take us longer between jumps.
'Which is a bit of a moot point seeing as we only have enough fuel for two jumps anyway. There's no way we can do repairs to the engines and rework the fuel systems in our state.'
'Have we talked to the colony yet?' Howard asked
'When Exo was taken out of the picture, the long range comm came back on line. Well sort of, we had the array in the slot, but it wasn't hooked up. We were interrupted in our task of replacing it. Anyway, we went out there and plugged it all in, and thankfully the fact that it was all offline seems to have spared it from too much damage by the EMP. As soon as I turned it on, a massive data burst that had been in limbo in the buffer transmitted itself, and then I hailed the colony.'
'A data burst?'
'Yeah a really big one. It's like it had just been sitting there until we fixed the comm,'
'And the colony?'
'The colonial overseer says they haven't got any power from the solar arrays, but other than that, they're doing just peachy.'
'We'll have to get this ship back up and running so we can go get them some help.'
'Honestly Captain, it'd just be best for us to abandon ship ship and just wait on the planet for someone to come check on us. With the colony set up, we should be good. We can use the ship generators to keep things going smooth.'
Howard looked at Keith, 'We'll pick up our people in the solar bay first. Then we'll make our decision.'
'Isn't that where the EMP came from? They may be out of air before we get there.'
'James set up a safe room in the work shop, if they're in there, they should be fine. Lots of air there.'
'I'll head down to engineering and put us on course for that.'
'Thank you Keith, I'm sure they'll appreciate the assist.'
Solar Storage Bay<
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James sat in the dark. Not even the lights on his suit worked. All he had was the light of the stars, and the sound of his breathing. The air was getting hot and hard to breath in his suit. He was so tired.
He sat against the wall next to the unconscious man, and watched as the planet turned below them. As they orbited over Vodea the central star of the solar system peeked over the curve of the planet. The white light blanketed the bay.
James closed his eyes and took in a long breath. He exhaled.
'Such a nice sunrise...' he said to himself.
The valve was continuing to supply him and the unconscious man air, but the CO2 levels were building up. James was finding it hard to stay awake. He unplugged his suit from the valve and plugged it back into the unconscious man's suit. His hand slipped down and he blacked out.
***
Wearing a new space suit, Howard stood in the solar storage bay, they had found James and another crewman unconscious in the bay. They had taken them to the medical bay. If they had come any later, James wouldn't have made it.
They were getting the people out of the safe room now. They had sealed off an undamaged part of the double hull on the far side of the bay and were using it as an airlock to get space suits to the people inside.
Ayla was with them. She was awake now, but quiet. She didn't say anything at all until they got back on the ship and everyone was out of their suits.
She looked up at Howard, 'Captain? I'd like to see my mother now please...'
Howard just smiled sadly, 'We'll go down to the planet and you can see her.'
Ayla's face scrunched up, and she started to cry, she clung to Howard's leg. Howard just picked her up and held her. Her body shook from the tears.
Between sobs, she asked, 'Is Exo gone?'
'Yes Ayla, Exo's gone.'
She calmed down a little.
Epilogue