Back Into The Black - Edited 11-9-2018

We floated in the void for a few minutes before we were picked up. It was both nerve-wracking and relaxing. Once we were picked back up and strapped in, I got the bad news.

“Ma’am, reports are coming in from both of the assault teams that they are running out of ammo. We have quite a few injuries, but no one is down yet. The Ark is under serious attack from those fucking crawlers.”

“Okay, how many are still on the hull? Did you get a good count?”

“No ma’am, but they are everywhere.”

No rest for the wicked.

“Right, looks like we need to save some more people. Switch to full lasers. Load up with Hades. We’re going to walk the hull and purge the hangers-on. Refill all battery packs, swap out air canisters and make sure you have two spares. Backup weapons will need to be our new BRs and pistols. Wilhelm help me load up a tac-pack with extra magazines for each. It’s going to be a long slog.”

We refreshed our loadout.

“Walsh, drop us on one side, then you circle around, keep near the hull and blast away. Try and be careful. I understand there will be some spill over into the hull, but please go with a shallow angle so it can bounce off if you use the railgun. Also, dial it down to under .001c.”

Due to the rounds being magnetically accelerated, instead of a standard explosive accleration, the recoil was such that course deviation was minimal. I instructed my team to go laser, on the other hand, because the short pulses wouldn’t rupture the hull. Our hand-held rail guns couldn’t be dialed down low enough. I would have to work on that design a bit.

I leaned back against my seat just in time to hear our pilot call out.

“Bay opening, ready for deployment.”

Well, no time for a nap. I unhooked from the restraints.

“Single fire line, 10 meters apart. Steady pace forward, one-half time.” We all jumped out, activating our maglocks on the boots to pull us towards the hull and secure us. “Tether up, no need getting careless just because we haven’t had any major problems yet.”

Walsh flew off, his point defense lasers taking out a few of the bugs. I clearly saw several of the launched spines deflect from the hull of the assault craft, knocking him around a little, but not enough for him to lose control. He was a better pilot than I had thought.

“Tether up and pace it off!” I called out, attaching a tether to Lebowski and Wilhelm. The line would start with Goldstein, then go to Wilhelm, me, Lebowski and finally, Janssens would be our other outlier.

It didn’t take long for us to start shooting. A group of three of the bugs came from the bow of the ship, spiraling around the hull. A spine barely missing me, a few landing in the hull just ahead of us, and one hit on Janssens that was deflected by his armor, almost knocking him off his feet making a mockery of the magnetic forces holding us to the hull of the ship. Do I need to say that we unleashed hell onto them? I only managed to fire a short pulse before they were all dead.

We proceeded this way for another two or three minutes when a small sun appeared behind us where the Escort ship had been.

“Hit the deck!” I shouted out, pulling myself down to the hull of the ship, hugging it. I wasn’t sure how long it would take for the debris cloud to hit us, or if there would be a shockwave, but I didn’t want to take chances.

My suit pinged up an alert stating that there was a micro-breach that my MK-II sealed without any orders from me.

“I’m hit, major breach!” Janssens called out. I unhooked the tether connecting me to Wilhelm and jumped. Others chimed in that they had small breaches that sealed themselves, at the same time.

“Lebowski, hold tight, I’m using you as a fulcrum.”

I then used some of my stored air to accelerate my jump. I could see in my tactical link that Janssens was losing air fast. My tether line went taught, almost pulling Lebowski off the hull, then I started down the arc. Debris was bouncing off the hull around us. Then the screaming started.

When Janssens said that he was hit, I was expecting something small due to the amount of calm in his voice. The screaming betrayed that lie. I was not expecting a piece of the hull plating to have split him almost in half. The plating separated his body into several pieces starting just above the hip on his right side, exiting his left side just above the knee. His right hand severed as well, with the majority of his Hades. There was no way I could save him. A small notice popped into my mind about external influence, but that wasn’t important. I was going to lose my friend. Before I could even start sealing his suit, his vitals bottomed out.

“WALSH! Medical evac, NOW!!” I cried into the comms, the beep of his vitals disappearing knocking me out of inaction. I then got to work. I started patching him up. I didn’t know what else to do. “Grab his legs; we’re getting him to Medical!” The tears were clear to hear in my voice. I didn’t care. You watch one of your friends die and see how much of a fuck you give. Where the fuck was Walsh? Logically I knew it had been mere seconds, but my heart told me otherwise.

I used the entire contents of my med-kit, including the shell. I even used my engineering kit. The plasma torch at least, to cauterize everything I could, tack welding the case to the armor to create a seal. Walsh showed up before I was finished, and we threw ourselves and the body of Janssens into the drop compartment.

“Dock us at the airlock on PORT-UP-TWO. That’s the most direct way to medical.” We repressured the moment the bay door was closed, and I stripped Janssens out of what was left of the assault suit. “Once we have a seal, we run the gauntlet. Walsh, stay docked unless you come under fire.”

Observer, are your people still alive? Have them move to Walsh as soon as we dock.

I didn’t listen for a response. I just mechanically stripped Janssens to his duty uniform, using the extra med-kits from the assault ship to seal him up. I did everything I could think of doing. I attached the pulse regulator and threw an auto-breather on him as well.

“Do we have pressure in the Ark?”

“Looks like we are good on this deck.”

“Okay, pop the airlock, let’s run!” I hoisted Janssens into a princess carry. Something I knew he would hate. I needed something to make sure he didn’t die again if we somehow managed to save his ass. Once the pressure was equalized, we ran.

There was a line outside of medical.

“MAKE A HOLE BEFORE I START SHOOTING!” The spacers in front of me jumped at the sound of my voice, then started hugging the bulkheads. Some assholes in the hatch didn’t think I was talking to them, and they were promptly knocked over by an angry Lebowski, in full assault armor.

“Get me a fucking doctor, NOW!” The next couple of moments trailed on into what felt like an eternity. A doctor approached, apparently angry that I was causing a ruckus, then he saw the Marine in my arms.

I vaguely remember being asked what happened, and answering with something about debris, impacts, and not having the proper tools on hand to do the job myself. I sat down against a bulkhead, out of the way, and finally lost it. According to my fire team, I went catatonic. They left me there for a while as they went back onto the hull for more clean-up.

A slap knocked me back into my senses.

“Fucking hell, Commander, pull your shit together. We’re almost done here.” Torres was standing in front of me, something unreadable in her eyes. It took me longer than I want to admit remembering where I was and what had happened.

“Corpsman, any word on Janssens?” She looked at me. It was sadness. Her eyes contained sadness.

“You got him here with some brain activity; we don’t know what is going to happen. His body is dead, but the brain is active, so they plugged him into the Game. They are waiting for more details before anything else happens. Whether you saved his life, or you have forced him into a lifetime into the game has yet to be determined.”

I stood, noticing the scorch marks, blood, and gore covering my armor and uniform for the first time.

“Is the captain or XO secure and available?” I put on my “work face.” That’s all I could do for now.

“Yes, they are both secured in the CIC. Merlin has been trying to explain things to them, That’s the ship AI.”

“Okay, I’ll head there now. How’s the patching going?”

“The survivors have done well. Several of them noticed things were wrong before anyone else did. They shut off all but the most vital communications ports. Far as we can tell none of them were hijacked. We’re continuing to patch everyone just to be sure. Merlin, Jurojin and let me see if I pronounce this right, Xohchipilli, all accepted the patch with no problems.”

“Okay. I’ll go meet up with the Captain and XO. Merlin, can you please let the Captain and XO know that I am on my way? Here are my credentials.” I sent the data pulse up into the ship.

On my visor, I received an acknowledgment and started heading to the CIC.

“All members of the Renegades, please send a status report. Then, resupply for an assault. We need to make sure that there are no bugs left on the hull. Full tactical load outs. Have your assault craft support you out there.” I took a deep breath. “Anyone have any word on the second Escort ship that was out there? I didn’t have the time to take notice.”

“It was hit by a lot of the debris from the other Escort and looks to be dead in the water.” Walsh came in through my comms.

“Good. Let’s keep eyes on it. We’re going to have to head over there and scrub it clean if it isn’t. I know that the scientists are going to want samples of the Behemoths and the Bugs. Also, we need to be conscious of the fact that they can survive in vacuum for several hours. The Bugs at least, not sure about the giants.” I took another breath. “Also, I know Ark-5 and Hera, probably Jurojin and the scientists here are going to want to take a look at the Escort. Walsh set up a sleep rotation with the other two pilots so that there is always at least one awake and watching the ship.”

“It’s what, about 5 a minute flight? One patrolling the Escort ship for six hours. Pick off any bugs or anything else that comes out of it. One on standby during those six hours. One asleep, or however else you want to do it, this is just my suggestion. We need more pilots.” I arrived at the CIC and announced myself with an ID pulse before entering.

There was a skeleton crew, all linked up to monitor the systems with their Neurals. That’s how they were able to detect and fight off the puppet attack; they were all monitoring everything so if one were attacked the others would see it quickly. I straightened my uniform up as well as I could before entering the briefing room in the back of the CIC.

“Sirs, Lieutenant Commander Danni Jax reporting. I understand there are a lot of questions and Merlin hasn’t been able to answer everything satisfactorily.” I saluted. Next came the debriefing. That was several hours long. Then I got to the part where I ordered the assault on their ship.

“Sirs, that is why I had my two team load up with non-lethal. We’re all human. It doesn’t matter if we’re Martian, Venusian, or Terran. I was sent to save as many people as possible and to provide the patches for your Neurals so that you could defend yourselves properly in the event of a Puppet attack. As far as I know, yours is the only Ark that successfully defended itself in the first place due to your extra vigilance.”

“As for Ark-9, I would like their last known trajectory data recorded. They may also be safe, like you, but I want to make damn sure. We also need to build a gate so that you can rejoin Ark-5 if you want. You’ll get access to a lot more advanced tech if you come back. We want you back, though it is your right to go where you will. We do have a site we are planning to build out for the colony base, and construction is underway.”

Neith, provide Merlin with the data and schematics on the new weaves you are working on and with the schemas for the Duty Uniform MK-II and the beta, as well as for the heavy assault suits.

“I just pushed data to Merlin on some of the tech that we have been working with.”

We ended the debrief with a discussion on changes made to the wormhole generators to secure them for our use. I offered them the updated codes and construction methods, with an “Eyes Only” security key that would auto-delete from the ship databases if accessed by anyone not explicitly given access.

Finally, I was able to leave the debrief, having been given access to a “guest room” for the pilots and the assault team that was a repurposed cargo space made up like a barracks more than a private room. I needed a shower and some sleep.

Back Into The Black - Original

We floated in the void for a few minutes before we were picked up. It was both nerve wracking and relaxing. Once we were picked back up and strapped in I got the bad news.

“Ma’am, reports are coming in from both of the assault teams that they are running out of ammo. We have quite a few injuries, but no one is down yet. The Ark is under serious attack from those fucking crawlers.”

“Okay, how many are still on the hull? Did you get a good count?”

“No ma’am, but they are everywhere.”

No rest for the wicked.

“Right, looks like we need to save some more people. Switch to full lasers. Load up with Hades. We’re going to walk the hull and purge the hangers on. Refill all battery packs, swap out air canisters and make sure you have two spares. Basckup weapons will need to be our new BRs and pistols. Wilhelm help me load up a tac-pack with extra magazines for each. It’s going to be a long slog.”

We refreshed our load out.

“Walsh drop us on one side, then you circle around, keep near the hull and blast away. Try and be careful. I understand there will be some spill over into the hull, but please go with a shallow angle so it can bounce off if you use the railgun. Also, dial it down to under .001c.”

Because the rounds were magnetically accelerated there wouldn’t be any kick to knock him off course. I instructed my team to go laser, on the other hand, because the short pulses wouldn’t rupture the hull. Our hand-held rail guns couldn’t be dialed down low enough. I would have to work on that design a bit.

I leaned back against my seat just in time to hear our pilot call out.

“Bay opening, ready for deployment.”

Well, no time for a nap. I unhooked from the restraints.

“Single fire line, 10 meters apart. Steady pace forward, one half time.” We all jumped out, activating our maglocks on the boots to pull us towards the hull and secure us. “Tether up, no need getting careless just because we haven’t had any major problems yet.”

Walsh flew off, his point defense lasers taking out a few of the bugs. I clearly saw several of the launched spines deflect from the hull of the assault craft, knocking him around a little, but not enough for him to lose control. He was a better pilot than I had thought.

“Tether up and pace it off!” I called out, attaching a tether to Lebowski and Wilhelm. The line would start with Goldstein, then go to Wilhelm, me, Lebowski and finally Janssens would be our other outlier.

It didn’t take long for us to start shooting. A group of three of the bugs came from the bow of the ship, spiraling around the hull. A spine barely missing me, a few landing in the hull just ahead of us, and one hit on Janssens that was deflected by his armor, almost knocking him off his feet making a mockery of the magnetic forces holding us to the hull of the ship. Do I need to say that we unleashed hell onto them? I only managed to fire a short pulse before they were all dead.

We proceeded this way for another two or three minutes when a small sun appeared behind us where the Escort ship had been.

“Hit the deck!” I shouted out, pulling myself down to the hull of the ship, hugging it. I wasn’t sure how long it would take for the debris cloud to hit us, or if there would be a shockwave, but I didn’t want to take chances.

My suit pinged up an alert stating that there was a micro-breach that my MK-II sealed without any orders from me.

“I’m hit, major breach!” Janssens called out. I unhooked the tether connecting me to Wilhelm and jumped. Others chimed in that they had small breaches that sealed themselves, at the same time.

“Lebowski, hold tight, I’m using you as a fulcrum.”

I then used some of my stored air to accelerate my jump. I could see in my tactical link that Janssens was losing air fast. My tether line went taught, almost pulling Lebowski off the hull, then I started down the arc. Debris was bouncing off the hull around us. Then the screaming started.

When Janssens said that he was hit, I was expecting something small due to the amount of calm in his voice. The screaming betrayed that lie. I was not expecting a piece of hull plating to have split him almost in half. The plating separated his body into several pieces starting just above the hip on his right side, exiting his left side just above the knee. His right hand severed as well, with the majority of his Hades. There was no way I could save him. A small notice popped into my mind about external influence, but that wasn’t important. I was going to lose my friend. Before I could even start sealing his suit, his vitals bottomed out.

“WALSH! Medical evac, NOW!!” I cried into the comms, the beep of his vitals disappearing knocking me out of inaction. I then got to work. I started patching him up. I didn’t know what else to do. “Grab his legs, we’re getting him to Medical!” The tears were clear to hear in my voice. I didn’t care. You watch one of your friends die and see how much of a fuck you give. Where the fuck was Walsh? Logically I knew it had been mere seconds, but my heart told me otherwise.

I used the entire contents of my med-kit, including the shell. I even used my engineering kit. The plasma torch at least, to cauterize everything I could, tac welding the case to the armor to create a seal. Walsh showed up before I was finished, and we threw ourselves and the body of Janssens into the drop compartment.

“Dock us at the airlock on PORT-UP-TWO. That’s the most direct way to medical.” We repressured the moment the bay door was closed, and I stripped Janssens out of what was left of the assault suit. “Once we have a seal, we run the gauntlet. Walsh stay docked unless you come under fire.”

Observer, are your people still alive? Have them move to Walsh as soon as we dock.

I didn’t listen for a response. I just mechanically stripped Janssens to his duty uniform, using the spare med-kits from the assault ship to seal him up. I did everything I could think of doing. I attached the pulse regulator and threw an auto-breather on him as well.

“Do we have pressure in the Ark?”

“Looks like we are good on this deck.”

“Okay, pop the airlock, let’s run!” I hoisted Janssens into a princess carry. Something I knew he would hate. I needed something to make sure he didn’t die again if we some how managed to save his ass. Once the pressure was equalized, we ran.

There was a line outside of medical.

“MAKE A HOLE BEFORE I START SHOOTING!” The spacers in front of me jumped at the sound of my voice, then started hugging the bulkheads. Some assholes in the hatch didn’t think I was talking to them, and they were promptly knocked over by an angry Lebowski, in full assault armor.

“Get me a fucking doctor, NOW!” The next couple of moments trailed on into what felt like an eternity. A doctor approached, obviously angry that I was causing a ruckus, then he saw the Marine in my arms.

I vaguely remember being asked what happened, and answering with something about debris, impacts, and not having the proper tools on hand to do the job myself. I sat down against a bulkhead, out of the way, and finally lost it. According to my fire team I went catatonic. They left me there for a while as they went back onto the hull for more clean-up.

A slap knocked me back into my senses.

“Fucking hell, Commander, pull your shit together. We’re almost done here.” Torres was standing in front of me, obviously angry. It took me longer than I want to admit remembering where I was and what had happened.

“Corpsman, any word on Janssens?” She looked at me with a mixture of pity and distain.

“You got him here with some brain activity, we don’t know what is going to happen. His body is dead, but the brain is active, so they plugged him into the Game. They are waiting for more details before anything else happens. Whether you saved his life, or you have forced him into a lifetime into the game has yet to be determined.”

I stood, noticing the scorch marks, blood and gore covering my armor and uniform for the first time.

“Is the captain or XO secure and available?” I put on my “work face”. That’s all I could do for now.

“Yes, they are both secured in the CIC. Merlin has been trying to explain things to them, That’s the ship AI.”

“Okay, I’ll head there now. How’s the patching going?”

“The survivors have done well. Several of them noticed things were wrong before anyone else did. They shut off all but the most vital communications ports. Far as we can tell none of them were hijacked. We’re continuing to patch everyone just to be sure. Merlin, Jurojin and let me see if I pronounce this right, Xohchipilli, all accepted the patch with no problems.”

“Okay. I’ll go meet up with the Captain and XO. Merlin, can you please let the Captain and XO know that I am on my way? Here’s my credentials.” I sent the data pulse up into the ship.

On my visor I received an acknowledgement and started heading to the CIC.

“All members of the Renegades, please send a status report. Then, re-spec for an assault. We need to make sure that there are no bugs left on the hull. Full tactical load outs. Have your assault craft support you out there.” I took a deep breath. “Anyone have any word on the second Escort ship that was out there? I didn’t have the time to take notice.”

“It was hit by a lot of the debris from the other Escort and looks to be dead in the water.” Walsh came in through my comms.

“Good. Let’s keep eyes on it. We’re going to have to head over there and scrub it clean if it isn’t. I know that the scientists are going to want samples of the Behemoths and the Bugs. Also, we need to be conscious of the fact that they can survive in vacuum for several hours. The Bugs at least, not sure about the giants.” I took another breath. “Also, I know Ark-5 and Hera, probably Jurojin and the scientists here are going to want to take a look at the Escort. Walsh set up a sleep rotation with the other two pilots so that there is always at least one awake and watching the ship.”

“It’s what, about 5 a minute flight? One patrolling the Escort ship for six hours. Pick off any bugs or anything else that comes out of it. One on standby during those six hours. One asleep, or however else you want to do it, this is just my suggestion. We need more pilots.” I arrived at the CIC and announced myself with an ID pulse before entering.

There was a skeleton crew, all linked up to monitor the systems with their Neurals. That’s how they were able to detect and fight off the puppet attack, they were all monitoring everything so if one was attacked the others would see it first. I straightened my uniform up as well as I could before entering the briefing room in the back of the CIC.

“Sirs, Lieutenant Commander Danni Jax reporting. I understand there are a lot of questions and Merlin hasn’t been able to answer everything satisfactorily.” I saluted. Next came the debriefing. That was several hours long. Then I got to the part where I ordered the assault on their ship.

“Sirs, that is why I had my two team load up with non-lethal. We’re all human. It doesn’t matter if we’re Martian, Venusian, or Terran. I was sent to save as many people as possible and to provide the patches for your Neurals so that you could defend yourselves properly in the event of a Puppet attack. As far as I know, yours is the only Ark that successfully defended itself in the first place due to your extra vigilance.”

“As for Ark-9, I would like their last known trajectory data recorded. They may also be safe, like you, but I want to make damn sure. We also need to build a gate so that you can rejoin Ark-5, if you want. You’ll get access to a lot more advanced tech if you come back. We want you back, though it is your right to go where you will. We do have a site we are planning to build out for the colony base, and construction is under way.”

Neith, provide Merlin with the data and schematics on the new weaves you are working on and with the schematics for the Duty Uniform MK-II and the beta, as well as for the heavy assault suits.

“I just pushed data to Merlin on some of the tech that has been discovered.”

We ended the debrief with a discussion on changes made to the wormhole generators to secure them for our use. I offered them the updated codes and construction methods, with an “Eyes Only” security key that would auto delete from the ship databases if accessed by anyone not explicitly given access.

Finally, I was able to leave the debrief, having been given access to a “guest” room for the pilots and the assault team that was more a barracks than a room. I needed a shower and some sleep.