Standish pulled the cable off the pad and slipped inside the chamber. Inside she found a control panel for the room, but all the symbols and writing were in a language she couldn’t read. Utilising her datapad AI once again, she closed the outer hatch, then opened the inner hatch once the chamber had pressurised. A tight grip on her rifle, she readied herself for what was on the other side of the circular hatch as it slowly opened into the ship.
The moment the hatch was open far enough, Standish dropped out of the chamber, and onto a long, elevated walkway, that rattled as her boots hit. Scanning left and right along the platform, she couldn’t see anything that gave her pause, but the minute she looked over the edge of the railing, she found herself looking down on a massive cargo hold with several droids moving boxes and crates, one of which was armed, and immediately started peppering her position with poorly aimed laser fire.
Throwing herself over the railing that ran the length of the elevated walkway, Standish took a series of aimed shots at the droid that had engaged her while flying through the air, one of which slammed into its forehead, knocking the machine onto its back in a flurry of sparks and circuitry that went flying from the brain box as it went crashing to the ground.
Hitting the floor, Standish rolled to her side, springing to her feet, rifle up, sweeping for targets to her front, then shifting her posture, she scanned for hostiles to her rear. There were none. The only movement was from dumb droids, none of whom seemed the least bit interested in Standish. They seemed oblivious to the recent impact and damage the ship had suffered and were going about their business as if nothing was out of place or unexpected.
Moving swiftly, Standish moved up to the droid she had destroyed, her rifle barrel trained on it the entire time, and when she reached it, she confirmed it was another Rigel Axiom model similar to the ones the team had encountered on TKM 44 and RBM 45. Standish half wondered if there were other Sentinels on the ship, and at the same time, she was relieved that she didn’t have to go head to head with a machine that outmatched her.
Confident that the machine was destroyed and no longer operational, Standish got to her feet and checked which way she needed to head to reach the bridge of the long-ship, which was towards the nose of the ship. Rifle up and ready, Standish moved quickly passed the enormous stacks of crates of supplies and ore that made up the cargo of the vessel. Standish tried not to focus on what she was walking past, but she realised that this ship was laden with supplies from several systems, and ranged from the common to exotic.
Once she had passed several rows of pallets, she reached a hatch that led off the large storage deck. Readying herself to breach the hatch, and clear the forward section of the ship, Standish paused when she got a very faint incoming communication over her helmets net.
“Standish.”
It was Jun.
She paused, her shoulder pressed up against the wall, ready to open the hatch, move through and kill everything on the other side, but this communication made her hesitate.
“Standish here.” She replied over the net.
“We are pinned down in a room adjacent to the main loading docks. Light Sentinels.” The channel went dead. Scrambled by the sounds of it, most likely by the characters in command of the ship she was on.
The news that her team was still alive gave her the sense that everything was not doomed, and that there was always the chance to reach a positive outcome, and without wasting another second of thought on the matter, she opened the hatch and stepped through into the next chamber of the ship.
Rifle oriented towards her front, Standish entered the next section of the ship, which was a long corridor with off-white lighting spaced evenly along the ceiling of the chamber. The walls were barren, covered in featureless panelling, and at thirty metres long, it presented a very unwelcoming tactical environment. Standish knew that the moment she entered the corridor, she’d be easy pickings to any remote sentry, or droid that came from the other end. Worst case scenario, a machine with combat abilities could enter the corridor, which, due to its narrow nature would make it impossible for Standish to find any cover for protection.
Realising the precarious nature of the space she was in, Standish raced forward, sprinting to the far end of the hall as fast as she could. She knew that she needed to reach the far end before the hatch opened.
The thirty metres disappeared quickly as she ran forward, and as she reached the point where she only had five metres to go, the hatch at the far end suddenly sprung open to reveal another armed drone, and instead of slowing down, or pausing, Standish coolly and calmly fired off a series of shots, blasting holes in the droid, and continued dashing through the open hatch, diving into a combat roll over the destroyed droid’s body, and coming up into a kneeling firing position inside the next room. It was empty.
Standish quickly checked that the droid she had hit was staying down, confident it was out for the count, she got to her feet and scanned the room. There were a series of large data-screens on the walls of the room, all showing graphs and figures that Standish couldn’t decipher, but to her, it looked like a control room. Walking over to the wall on the starboard side of the ship, she started checking what information was being displayed.
After looking at the first screen which was made up of graphs, she looked at the second screen which was showing imagery from a remote camera, but as she examined the image and looked at the other data on display, she quickly realized that she was looking at a live feed from a pair of Sentinels somewhere on the loading docks.
The images she was looking at continued to pan back and forth. She could see the loaders moving from the docks into the hold of the long-ship, as the image continued to sweep back and forth. This gave her a moment of pause, and she took a moment and watched the image closely as it continued to pan from left to right. It made a few sweeps, but then she spotted what she was looking for. A series of blast marks on a wall just next to a hatch in the corner of the loading bay. That must be where her team was held up.
It was now a question of finding a way to get to her team and locating the individual responsible for the ship without getting shot to pieces. The old combat drones were easy enough to take-out, but the Light Sentinels were another problem altogether. She was concerned that the two deadly combat machines in the dock were either shielded or heavily armoured, which could explain why her team hadn’t been able to take them out.
A graphic off to her right gave her a layout of the ship, and looking it over, she could tell that the long-ship was nothing more than a cargo ship, and a heavily automated one at that. The schematic of the ship gave her all the information about how to get from her location to the primary access point for the loading docks, which was two decks below her position.
Giving the schematic another scan, she found the one other room on the ship that interested her, the living quarters, which were one deck directly below her position. Scanning the rest of the room, she pulled a high-explosive grenade out of her utility pouch and set it in the middle of the room, armed it, then slowly walked out of the compartment via the same hatch she had come in. Once the hatch was closed behind her, she activated the grenade. She knew the device wouldn’t destroy the room, but it would wreck a lot of the fancy data-screens and visual display devices in the compartment.
Moving back down the hallway, Standish found a vertical ladder than descended to the deck below, and without thinking, took one step into the void above the ladder, and dropped down the four metres to the next floor, quickly assuming a kneeling position, she scanned the area to her front, then shifted her weight and swung the barrel of her rifle to face the other direction, just in time to catch sight of two giant service droids charging towards her.
Standish quickly fired off a series of blasts at the first machine, which collapsed with a loud thud to the decking, and as she got to her feet and started to move to backwards, the second droid sprung over the first, lunging towards Standish, grabbing the front of her energy rifle. Even thou
gh she got a burst of fire into the machine's torso, it was able to bend the end of her weapon just enough to render it inoperable. Releasing the rifle, Standish quickly pulled her laser pistol from her right hip holster, flipped the safety off, and put another blast into the machines head. The machine hit the decking with a loud clank.
Checking her position, she was twenty metres from the quarters she had seen on the ship’s schematics, and as Standish moved down the corridor swiftly, crossing one bulkhead, she suddenly noticed that the ship’s interior was becoming much more ornate. Gone were the exposed pipes and bare minimum infrastructure, the section Standish was passing through was richly coloured in pinks, golds, and bright green wall panelling. The lighting was more intense than in the other parts of the ship, and the flooring was even carpeted in a lush fur, something she had never seen on a starship before.
Ten metres into the luxurious section of the ship, Standish found a broad set of double doors that were deep red in colour with a giant gold cross on the front. A single access pad was next to the door, but when Standish tried to access it, nothing happened. If these were the quarters of the owner of the ship, then they’d be secured. Stepping back, Standish pulled out one of her two spider charges, armed it, and tossed it at the door. Once it was in place, she moved down the hallway a safe distance, then blew the charge.
The roar and fireball from the explosion rushed down the hallway in both directions and even set the fur carpeting alight. Bringing her pistol up, Standish moved forward through the smoke and into the hole that had been blasted in the doors. The room on the other side was even more ornate than the hallway outside. The chamber massive, but minimally attired, and Standish quickly swept the room using her helmet’s advanced optics and detected no mechanical threats and nine lifeforms in the chamber.
Moving away from the doorway, Standish walked towards a massive throne-like chair that was dominating the centre of the room. On it, she found a beastly looking creature that looked half-dead; a variety of wires and tubes running out of its torso leading up to a massive orb above the chair. The beast was pale in colour, with little more on than a raggedy cloth over its midsection. Its face was distorted with four long tusks protruding from the creature's mouth, which resembled more the face of a wild beast than the owner of a star-ship. By the side of the large throne was a massive metal trough, and when Standish looked at the contents, she almost vomited. The gutter was practically full of limbs and body parts, most chewed upon and half-eaten.
Moving away from the disgusting creature, Standish spotted a large marble slab that was up against the wall of the room with two dead female bodies lying on it in their own blood, and in the far corner of the room, a large cage with eight scared, naked individuals, mostly female, along with two males, all from a series of species that Standish didn’t recognize.
Moving over to the cage, Standish looked at the lock, then looked at the eight creatures inside, then turned back to the monstrous figure that was unconscious in the massive throne, and tightened the grip on her pistol. She had a good mind to kill the creature that was almost certainly the controller of the ship then and there, but she knew that he could be a source of intelligence for interrogation. She also knew that her team was still in distress.
“I’ll be back.” She said towards the cage of detained souls and quickly moved back to the entrance to the chamber, checked the hallway was clear, then stepped out.
It was now time to find the fight. Standish strode with purpose down the hallway, her pistol up at her chest, barrel level with the deck, ready to engage any hostiles to her front. While she was moving, she kept a careful eye on her rear-facing display inside her helmet, a feature that she was finally accustomed to.
When she reached the central loading area, she found it was two levels high and stacked full of ore, and other exotic looking cases and trunks liberated from a dozen different systems. Standish spotted a pair of service droids moving in another set of crates from the transport dock that the ship was attached to, but the droids paid her no attention.
Ducking down, Standish kept her pistol trained on the open hatch that led to the mine, where she could see a variety of activity. There were several heavy-duty droids moving crates up to the ship, where smaller robots took hold of the goods, then brought them into the vessel. Walking towards the open cargo hatch, Standish continued to use the pallets that had already been loaded as cover and concealment. When she finally found a position where she could see the back of two Light Sentinels and the corner room where she suspected her team were holed up, she was able to pick up a clean communications line.
“Beta One-One.” Standish whispered into her helmet microphone. The transmission was instantly received.
“Standish.”
It was Cryne.
“Go.”
“Status?”
“In the enemy ship. Ready to assist.” She replied.
“Understood.” He sent a data file with the position of all the team members. It confirmed Standish’s assumption that they were all in the room off the main loading docks.
“Can you affect the outcome?” Standish needed to know if she could expect help, or if she were on her own.
“Affirmative.” He replied. “Assault in thirty seconds.”
“Understood.” She answered.
Moving closer to the open hatch, she kept her focus on the two Light Sentinels. She knew that if they got a whiff of her, she’d be in trouble, but for some reason, they seemed focused entirely on the room which had peppered with blaster fire.
Twenty seconds.
Lowering herself down onto her hands and knees, Standish scurried forward to the edge of the vast cargo bay doors. She enjoyed the ease of motion her Rescue Tech skin suit offered her over her TX-8 D-O armour, regardless of the significant downsides, namely the complete and utter lack of protection that her RT skin-suit provided her.
Ten seconds.
Taking another glance out of the cargo bay, she checked her distance to the two robots, then glanced down at her pistol. It didn’t have that much stopping power, and she wasn’t even sure if it would be able to penetrate the Sentinel’s armour. Holstering her weapon, she grabbed her second and final spider charge and gripped it tight in her hands.
Five seconds.
She was up and moving when her count reached one. Springing up, she quickly turned the corner, stepping out of the cargo hangar onto the ramp that led down to the transportation docks. That got both Light Sentinel’s attention. They were both standing fifteen metres away, and three metres apart, and once she had popped out of the ship, their motion sensors must have detected her movement.
Both the machines spun on the spot, both equipped with arm-mounted laser cannons and started engaging her as soon as she moved with fire that was dangerously close.
As soon as her left boot hit the ramp, and Standish was clear of the ship, she threw the spider charge at the machine on the right, then dove off the ramp to her right, firing the mini-thrusters that were on her RT suit, pushing her through the air towards the front of the ship.
Flying through the air, Standish tried her best to ignore the incoming weapons fire, and focused on the trajectory of the spider charge, and the instant the explosive charge got within a metre of the Sentinel, she triggered the weapon, sending a shockwave of pressure and fire towards the machine that was roughly the same size that she was. The explosive shockwave was fierce enough to take all the machines limbs off with ease, leaving the torso hanging in the air for just a fraction of a second until it tumbled to the ground.
The second machine wasn’t distracted or interested in the destruction of its teammate, and continued to fire at Standish’s dropping body, and when she hit the ground, she quickly rolled towards the closest stack of ore, away from the ship, and popped up into a squatting position, ready to move away from the approaching threat.
Standish didn’t wait for the machine to close down the gap to where she was, instead, she stayed low, and moved away
from the ship, cutting down the first aisle she could find, trying to move into a position where she’d have a chance to use her pistol at close range if she had to. She knew that without her D-O armour she’d have no chance in hand to hand combat against the machine.
Pulling her pistol out of its holster, she quickly flipped the energy output to the highest setting, giving her a massive single shot on full blast, which might just be enough to disable the machine if she got a good hit in.
Not wanting to put her head up, and expose it to being blasted off, she quickly checked her helmets AI sensors for the most probable location of the enemy robot based off its previous known position and the sounds of weapons fire. Once a solution had been reached, Standish activated the last bit of power in her skin-suits thrusters, and while in a kneeling position, blasted herself along the floor to her left, down the aisle.
Sliding along the floor, she kept her pistol up and ready, and as she emerged from the aisle, she found herself four metres away from the Light Sentinel that was still aiming towards the position she had just come from. Without hesitating, she raised her pistol, and fired a nearly point-blank shot at the machines head, blasting away the entire front of the armour plating and taking the artificial intelligence processing centre with it in a glorious blast of purple coloured energy. The machine stopped cold in its tracks, righted itself, then slowly fell back to the deck, landing with a giant thud.
Standish didn’t waste any time, and moved forward to the downed machine, and placed her remaining grenade just next to the bots exposed processing centre, activated it, then sprinted back down the aisle she had just come up. She waited until the device detonated before she slowed her stride. Coming to a stop, Standish turned and checked that both the machines were still down. Satisfied, she let out a deep breath and heaved over. The pain from her sternum injury was excruciating, and her HUD informed her that her suit was out of the painkillers that had allowed her to fight through the pain.
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