S1E8
“SPACEWALK”
Whispers around the compound indicate that major work could be coming soon for the mercenaries of the Temple, but before those plans can reach the newest members of the organization, a rather different type of training is a need…
March 25th, 2097
30 km north of Expanse, North American Sector, Destine
Collaborative post between Forest State and Durmatagno
It had been some days since the initial arrival of the newest group of recruits to the Temple, and their training had of course begun to bring them up to speed with the more developed skills of many of their counterparts who had already been with the organization - the training was of course starting somewhat basic with hand to hand skills and firearms skills forming the basics of what was being instructed, while more advanced things were supposedly further down the line… Amid these lessons, some basic hacking ones from Ophelia had been added to round out what was being taught, and now, they were moving on to something else entirely…
The lesson in this case brought them into a hangar-like area, near the back of the massive facility in a place they wouldn’t have been taken to in the tours thanks to the distance and the fact that it wasn’t immediately relevant to the things they’d been shown before. However, it was one of the largest parts of the building, and there appeared to be a retractable roof for that matter. Around them were… Vehicles of a different kind than the smaller cars and trucks from the garage they had arrived in, and among them, were things such as carts with parts and ammunition, showing that this was also some kind of servicing area in addition to being a hangar.
It was clear the lesson today wasn’t a regular one.
“Space is one of the most important areas of combat,” said Yuka, standing in front of the group of students as they looked on at her and Van. “Additionally, it’s going to be important to some of our operations in the near future… This is the reason why you recruits are being brought on this trip, where we intend to transit our way all the way to the outer stretches of the colonial sphere, to the independent moon of Tarashi. In the process… You’ll get some experience with space walking as we make a stop at the wreck of a container ship and teach you the basics of it.”
“That’s the first thing set to happen on this trip… If you don’t want to be at a disadvantage to everyone else, you’ll pick it up quickly,” Van added, more short with her patience than her counterpart. “I would assume that all of you at least know how to put the equipment on, but I don’t know if I should have that much faith.”
Victoria thought she could figure it out, but she’d never done it before. Nothing similar at least, she’d never had a reason to leave Earth before all this started, let alone put on a suit for a walk. Still, she was smart, and generally knew how seals and such things fit together and worked. It might take her some trial and error, but given a little time she could figure it out. Cecile on the other hand wasn’t so sure she could manage it. Her training had only just started, and compared even to her other ‘recruits’, she was frail and inexperienced. Still, she wasn’t stupid, and she was very, very flexible, she’d find a way, though she hoped not to have to ask for help, lest she incure Van’s wrath again.
Jazmine, of course, had limited knowledge from never having done it before - though she didn’t say anything because she was somewhat aware enough of it to have a rough understanding already. Still, limited experience wouldn’t keep any of them out of this exercise. It was important enough apparently to put them through it even when their training had only recently started.
“Along the wall of the room to my left, you can find the suits and change into them… And report back to here,” Yuka said, gesturing in the direction of a doorway. “We’re departing within the next hour or so if everything happens on time…”
With nothing else, Victoria turned to the indicated room and moved inside. All she knew was that there was an outer suit and then an inner suit, figuring out how to get it all on was going to be another task. Cecile followed behind her, determined to watch someone that seemed confident put on the suit and mimic what they did. Victoria took a bit to get into the suit, but after awhile she figured it out and trudged back into the main room. Cecile mimicked what Victoria did, and while it took her slightly longer, she eventually got it, though the suit was a tad heavy for her underdeveloped frame, it wasn’t as bad as she had imagined, and made her way back into the main room.
Jazmine didn’t have too much trouble getting the orange suit on herself, pulling it on and then triggering the mechanism which sealed it, bringing it closer to her form in the process - it wasn’t the most comfortable thing in the world but there were far worse options in that area, and the wide transparent face shield in the front provided fairly good vision even with the helmet which enclosed the entire head. As the group emerged from the changing room, Yuka turned to them once again and looked them over.
“Everything looks about right…” she said, looking between each of them and then settling her eyes on the vessel that was apparently being prepared to head into space. Not a large one, just a dropship, big enough to carry a group of people but not like the actual corvettes and frigates that made up higher weight classes. “I suppose since you’ve shown you can properly use the equipment, you can head on board the dropship now.”
Victoria was tempted to say something like ‘yes ma’am’, but she didn’t think she could say it without sounding sarcastic. She nodded and climbed on board, finding a place for herself as she watched Cecile and Jazmine do the same. Victoria was still adjusting to her new life here on Destine, but it wasn’t a bad one so far. She didn’t mind the challenge of the training, she had Jazmine, and things were getting more interesting with the new people she’d been meeting. Cecile kept herself away from the other two best she could, not risking prompting Van’s ire by looking like she was trying to hide or flee.
The doors weren’t shut behind them yet, they still had some further preparations to make before taking off. As they entered, they would get a good view of the inside of the dropship, and the long corridor that made up the central walkway leading to the front where the control center was. There were metal benches on either side of that main aisle, and storage compartments, and in some places there were racks and the like for holding weapons… The vehicle was designed for function and not just comfort. There were a few other spots, like where the engines were and some of the other machinery behind the vehicle’s mechanisms, but those weren’t in sight for the group that was entering right now.
“Space, huh…” muttered Jazmine, before looking to Victoria, raising an eyebrow. “What do you think of going on a spacewalk of all the things they could have did for training? Seems a bit much to throw us right into that, or am I thinking more of it than I should?”
“Excited honestly. Always wanted to, but never had a reason to, and I’m not a sightseeing type most of the time, though there are some exceptions. As for the training...well if it’s going to be an important skill soon, might as well get us ready while they’re having to train us in general, save time in the long run I suppose.”
“This suit is… Tight in a few areas,” Jazmine said, biting her lip as a slight blush spread across her face when she moved around and sat down in the space suit, along one of the metal benches. “I also don’t know how I’m going to do when they need us to… Be athletic and not just sit around and snipe. That’s, you know, my thing really.”
“You need some more flexibility when it comes to fighting, but I imagine it’s to give them options. You can’t be deployed only as a sniper, I can’t be deployed only as a engineer or mechanic, and so forth. Likely they’ll favor the best person available for the job, but they have a lot of teams and people to deal with.”
Victoria tried to ignore the tightness about the spacesuit, she was well aware of it, though not in the same areas that would ‘bother’ Jazmine. She also avoided staring at the moment, as it would only make things worse for herself in the short term.
As they prepared to take off, Van entered the vessel, moving over to Cecile shortly after she did so. “You managed to get it on?” she asked, looking at her with slight suspicion and examining the suit to, well, make sure that it was actually worn properly.
“Y-yes, was a little tricky but I figured it out.”
Cecile said with a nod. She had mimicked Victoria, and while she hadn’t been as fast, or efficient, she had gotten the suit on correctly. She wasn't a stranger to getting into tight, uncomfortable outfits, her gymnastic days had helped with that much. She let Van inspect the suit without worry, it had sealed correctly this time, though she would have to worry in the future that she forgot steps if she wasn’t around people she could mimic till she had it memorized.
Van looked around, expecting to find something wrong, but she saw that everything was as it should be. “I’m surprised,” she said simply… Though she patted Cecile on the head, probably the most affection she’d shown all day, before she moved off to the front of the vessel to continue with the preparations for taking off. Wouldn’t be long now before they were in the air seemingly, and then, on the way to space and this destination that they had been told about…
Cecile allowed herself a smile, and the smallest of blushes at the head pat. Relishing the moment of praise from the usually overbearing Van. She’d ride that high till the training itself kept her busy and focused on something else. Really at the moment she was most focused on trying to get her body in shape, compared to even Jazmine she was quite below what a merc should be, and while Van had other expectations, Cecile wanted to get in shape to.
The other member of the crew, Yuka, showed up shortly after Van did, and shut the doors behind her by pressing a button on the wall - and as they sealed themselves closed and locked, it became clear that they were really doing this, that they were really going out and heading into space where they would have an experiment in spacewalking not much longer after… Days ago, they would have called it a stretch, but now, it was exactly what they were doing.
Some time after they had already departed, they were gaining on the location where their little exercise was actually happening… A freight vessel which had been wrecked in combat during skirmishes between multiple factions. The vessel, a container ship, of course still had valuable parts and one of the reasons for the space walk was to asses if stripping those parts was even worth it - and if the place was secure or not, which was something of a concern on the drifting juggernaut of a vessel. By now, Yuka and Van had their own suits on… And Van indicated that they should be getting their weapons, too.
“You’re going to want to be armed during this,” she stated, moving out of the control area and picking up her SMG from the rack on the wall that it had been resting on. “There’s a chance we’re not the only ones there… It’s abandoned, of course, but there may be scavengers on board. Of course, if that happens, there’s no one up there stopping us from blowin’ ‘em away without a strict RoE…”
Victoria picked up her own PM80, comforted by the familiar shape and weight of the SMG. She made sure it was in good shape before nodding, and turning back to their instructor-commander, waiting to see what they were doing next. Cecile meanwhile was afraid to even touch the guns, having only recently fired one at all, still she picked up an SMG of her own, better to spray and pray if it came down to it. She wasn’t horrible with them so far, much to her surprise she was surprisingly average with them considering her lack of experience.
By now, the field of wreckage was in view, and it was just a matter of navigating through it until they were in the right spot to make the actual entry to the wreck. Yuka brought the vessel forwards, through the field of debris, and cut the thrust… Allowing gravity to carry it forward for some distance before she pulled back on the main power level, reversing the thrust and helping the dropship come to a stop a safe distance away from the much, much larger wreck of the container ship.
“Here we are…” Yuka announced from the front. “You can put on the thruster packs now. You’re going to need them for the short ‘flight’ across to the container ship. One of you will also have to grab the laser cutter… Depending on what we run into, we may need it to get entry into some areas if there’s still remaining locked doors.”
Victoria opted to grab the laser cutter. Her gun wasn’t that heavy, and she was strong enough to support lugging it around. She knew Jazmine could do it, but it would tire Cecile in time, especially if the derelict had anywhere with working power. Of course if they remained in zero-gravity the whole time it wouldn’t matter. Cecile looked down at her gun while this was all going on, knowing only enough to keep her finger off the trigger, and how to make it shoot. That was better than nothing she supposed, she wouldn’t accidentally shoot someone. With that both of them started putting on their thruster packs, Victoria calling out when she was done.
“Ready!”
Jazmine had her rifle despite the awkward size of it for using it in close quarters - she wasn’t quite an expert at using another type of weapon yet, and so she’d take her chances with using the anti material rifle like a marksman weapon. At that point, Yuka was leading all five of them to a place that was closed off but rather important to what they were doing - the airlock. She pressed a button to open the door, stepping inside and waiting for the others before pressing another button on the inside to seal it again before the door behind them shut and prepared them for the vacuum of space.
“Here we go… Doors opening in five… Four… Three… Two…” stearted Yuka, pressing something else on the control panel. “One.”
The doors leading to the outside opened up, and the five would start out in space… And now, it was their job to navigate to the wreck they were already looking at, as it loomed largely in the background.
Neither Victoria or Cecile had any clue what they were doing, but they knew the thruster packs would be key. Cecile fixed her eyes on Van to watch what she did, while Victoria moved her eyes between Yuka and Jazmine, both trying to learn and keep an eye on her friend. Weightlessness took time to adapt to, time none of them had had, so Victoria tumbled a little bit before correcting herself, while Cecile kept herself from flailing, using movies as reference to think it would just make her tumble worse. Eventually she righted herself, and returned her gaze to Van. Both of them mimicked the actions of the person they were observing.
There was, of course, only one direction in which the thruster could fire - and there was the key to movement when using it. It only sent the user forwards, meaning the challenge was manipulating one’s body and momentum to move forwards in the right direction by angling and changing where the thruster was facing… Easy to learn, hard to master. They would need further practice with it, but doing this was a start. And Van and Yuka were already knowledgeable in it.
The two who knew what they were doing helped lead the way as they moved towards the topside of the wreck - which was where they would likely find a real entrance.Vi It was far easier to enter that way than to cut through the side or enter through a breach and navigate until they found themselves in a hallway. “How are you keeping up?” Yuka asked all of them, her voice transmitted over a connection inside of each of the helmets. “We’re going to enter from the top side of the deck. We’re about three quarters of the way there.”
“I’m doing alright, going to take some getting used to though.”
Victoria said. Surprisingly, of everyone, it was Cecile that was likely doing the best of the newbies. Her quick reactions, and acrobatically trained body adapted easily to the zero G environment, and while there was still a learning curve to get over, she was doing better than Victoria. She actually allowed herself a small smile at being able to pick this up, it meant that even for merc stuff she wasn’t entirely hopeless.
Once they had arrived near the top part of the deck, there was a visible hatch which could probably be opened to lead inside, into the actual hallways and corridors of the vessel… Yuka brought herself to a stop in front of it, and Van did the same thing, the former gesturing to Victoria and pointing to the hatch. “Need this open,” she said, guessing that it would be locked. “Can use the laser cutter for that, I think there’s a lock on it.”
Victoria nodded and made her way forward. Planting herself for stability, she pulled up the laser cutter, and carefully opened up the hatch, same way she would cut metal while working on vehicles, just with heavier equipment and thicker metal. Once it was open, she moved aside to let the people that actually knew what they were doing in this environment inside the ship first. Cecile patiently waited her turn to enter from the back.
Van was the first one in, heading in head first and then leveling herself out after she had cut the power to the thruster, heading down a shaft and then hitting the ground in a dark hallway with a thud, landing on her feet and taking a tentative few steps forward as she raised her SMG, reaching down to switch on a flashlight attachment that she had brought for this. “Clear so far, down here!” she shouted out, before Yuka followed her similarly… And she started walking off down the hallway while Yuka followed her, and then Jazmine was the next one down, repeating the same motion but moving somewhat slower thanks to the fact that she had never done this before.
Cecile moved in after Jazmine, repeating the motion she had watched from the others. Clumsier than the first two, but slightly faster than Jazmine. Cecile was just happy to have found something she was half decent at for a newcomer. Victoria brought up the rear, as her height would let her see and fire over Cecile if needed while Cecile wouldn’t be able to do the same with Victoria. Victoria disliked the zero G environment, but that was partially because she enjoy the feeling of sharp high speed turns and the wind on her face when she was riding her bike. This was devoid of anything even close, and felt alien to Victoria.
The flashlight on the SMG lit up a hallway which had seen some better times, although the structure was stable for now it seemed. “We’re headed for the central control room, to have a look at if it’s able to function and display the detailed map of the facilities and damages…” said Van, creeping forward with the gun still raised in the air. “And if there’s anyone else in this place… Hopefully we run into them early. Better that than get hit with ‘em later.”
Jazmine continued after falling back to Victoria, still getting used to moving without the effects of gravity to keep her grounded to the floor. “You think we’re going to run into anything?” she asked in a quiet voice, shutting off the microphone inside the helmet for now and speaking just to Victoria. “I don’t know about getting in a fight in these close quarters…”
“Mmm.”
Victoria shut off her own mic before responding, though she kept her eyes peeled as she stayed behind the leaders. She had a really annoying itch on her nose, but couldn’t spare the time to figure out how to scratch it. She knew old earth astronauts had velcro inside the helmets to do it.
“Populated planet, decent chance there’s someone else here. Whether or not they’ll fight us is a different question. If it comes down to a fight, back up, I’ll keep you covered. This thing was built for tight spaces like this.”
Victoria gestured with the PM80 as she spoke, though she was still ready to fire or dodge, best she could in this environment, if shit kicked off.
Van kept leading in the front, though traversing the massive vessel wasn’t something that was instant. It dwarfed the size of the dropship, which also meant there was a larger chance that there was another vessel nearby and they had just missed it - and that the crew were currently on board this one right now for scavenging purposes, just like the group from the Temple. The hallways, though, seemed like they hadn’t seen use for a long time… Relatively, anyway. The vessel wasn’t that old. Had apparently been wrecked as part of a corporate conflict, however, when things came to blows in the depths of space.
They reached a door at the end of the hallway, and Van stopped instead of turning and continuing to either the left or the right. “Should take us up to the command room on the bridge… At least if my guess about where we are in relation to the superstructure is right,” Van stated. “Victoria, you can cut this open… I think it’s an elevator, so you’ll have to cut the top off, also, if there’s even anything in the shaft right now. Cecile, you can go up first… I feel like watching.”
Victoria moved forward to get the door open. She was glad Van actually talked to her like a normal person and didn’t just scorn her for being near, even if she likely wanted to. Cecile muttered something along the lines of ‘Alright’ before moving forward to wait for Victoria to get it open. Once the path was clear, Cecile moved up into the shaft, going for the ladder to launch herself upward and save her thruster pack.
Van was into the shaft next and then Yuka was, both of them following somewhat closely after Cecile, until the point where they had traversed it successfully and all three of them were nearing the top… But there was nowhere else to go, as the elevator itself was stopped at the top of the shaft, blocking their way. Momentum carried Van into it, but she placed her hands upwards and allowed them to absorb her speed, slowing herself down as she settled. “Need another cut, Victoria. And then the doors.”
Victoria launched herself up, but stopped before cutting, and moved to the edges. She knew many elevators were magnetically locked, which allowed them to move, if the power was still triggerable for this elevator, a bad cut could trigger it and bring it down. She frowned for a moment, as the mechanics and engineering were fairly different to what she had studied, before finding a decent spot to cut open, just in case. She moved through as if they wanted to keep heading up she’d have to cut there, or get the elevator doors themselves open. Cecile just watched, curious as to what Victoria was doing, but not caring enough to actually ask.
Van pulled herself through the gap behind Victoria, turning to face her and the door as she waited for her to cut through that, while Yuka waited just below and prepared to pull herself as soon as it was done… Her rifle at the ready in the event that they ran into anything on the other side, though it was impossible to say just how likely or unlikely that actually was.
Victoria started cutting through the door, and moved back out of the way the moment it was through. If there was anything on the other side, she’d just be in the way till she could get her SMG ready and the laser cutter put away. Cecile in the meantime pulled herself up and back behind Van, peering through the fresh hole to see what was in the corridor beyond the elevator.
As they entered the next corridor, Jazmine coming up in the rear with her longer ranged weapon, there were voices off in the distance… The evidence they were looking for that there was someone else here, multiple people for that matter. Van held up a hand indicating they shouldn’t say anything, as she pushed off the wall and accelerated forwards, SMG at the ready still as they were faced with another hallway to take them to the central control room, according to the signs.
“After me…” she said into her helmet microphone as a whisper, grasping the wall and pushing off again once she had turned the corner down what was maybe the last corridor.
Cecile took the initiative to move after Van, she was the next shortest of everyone here, so in the cramped conditions if a fight broke out the people behind them would be able to fire. With her moving forward, Victoria waited a moment before moving after Cecile, her PM80 readied. Victoria hoped to avoid an unnecessary fight, but wasn’t sure they would with Van at the front. Also couldn’t guarantee the potential enemies wouldn’t do the same the group was spotted by them. A fight was likely unavoidable, but Victoria could pray for peace and be ready for war. She looked back to check on Jazmine as she moved.
Further down, the final doorway leading to the control room was open, and the voices grew closer… Seemingly speaking Chinese or some kind of other Asian language, maybe Thai, or Vietnamese - either way, they were definitely another group and there were definitely more than one of these others within the room. Van shifted and touched off the ground to slow down her speed as she moved towards that room, but she didn’t have to make it to the entrance of the room herself because the first of the scavengers showed themselves first, a similar space suit to their own appearing in the doorway toting a rifle…
The one to shoot first, of course, was Van with her SMG, which she raised and pulled the trigger for the full thirteen round burst, spraying rather than aiming to hit precisely before even finding out if the other side was hostile - based on the weapon, she could assume the answer was yes. She hit with six shots out of the burst, shredding through the spacesuit as she riddled the chest of that particular scavenger with gunshots and sent the body flying backwards from the momentum of the bullets changing the direction in which the body was moving… Still, there were at least two more scavengers from what they could hear, and Van tapped her thruster to slow down as she approached the door, placing a hand on the doorway and pushing off to stop herself, choosing to press herself against the wall instead of entering just yet and potentially entering a kill zone.
“They’re here alright…” she muttered over her microphone. “Heard two more… At least.”
Cecile floated over and pressed herself against the opposite door. Her breathing was starting to get fast at the sound of actual combat. She could still remember the corporate soldiers, and how close she’d come to execution. She wasn’t sure she was ready for shooting a person, but she did her best to stay put. She had to be useful, she
had to be useful. Victoria floated up and pressed herself against the ceiling. One advantage of a zero G environment was that she could do this, though there was limited space still given her height, it would give them three people that could use the doorway as cover.
“
Not sure I’m ready for this.”
Cecile whispered mostly to herself, though Van and maybe Victoria likely could hear it given their relative close proximity.
“Can’t hesitate around here,” Van said, still pressing herself against the wall while Yuka gripped her rifle with one hand and with the other hand drew the wakizashi that was at her side, sliding along the wall near Van. “Remember… They won’t hesitate to kill
you if they get the chance.”
They didn’t seem to have a clear plan just yet but Jazmine was bringing herself to a standstill and staring through the thermal scope of her rifle, taking a deep breath and waiting for something to come into view, silent on the comms for now while she focused on doing her job as the long ranged shooter of the group… Van released her grip, allowing herself to drift… Slowly. She wasn’t going to rush through this.
“I know, I know, doesn’t mean I’m ready…”
Cecile had those very thoughts running through her head as Van verbalized them. She was shaking, but she stayed against the wall. She didn’t try to run, and she didn’t burst out of cover like some action hero. She was focusing on calming her breathing, which was slowly working. Victoria watched Jazmine as they waited, soon as they could press forward she was going to use her PM80. It dawned on her how bad for spacesuits her chosen weapon was, given it’s penchant for tearing up armor, which even a basic spacesuit would qualify as because of the things needed to shield one from space.
“Yuka… Let’s rock,” Van muttered, accelerating with a sudden burst of the thruster pack as she rushed into the control room suddenly, taking an upward vector in an attempt to avoid an attack form one of the two confirmed voices she’d heard within - she pointed her SMG at the first one she saw when she spun back around towards the doorway as she flew backwards towards the front of the room from momentum, and she held down the trigger for a ten round burst, shredding through another spacesuit and causing another hostile to slam against the wall in the zero gravity environment… A Thai chick apparently, based on the quick assessment Van made from what she could see underneath the face shield. There was still another figure in the room, however, and there was another bright muzzle flash and series of gunshots as fire was returned at her…
At least one bullet should have hit her but she kept out of the way, still drifting and changing her course subtly to make herself harder to hit, as Yuka rushed into the control center and spun to face that second enemy, a Chinese man with an assault rifle in hand… They fired at each other at about the same time, but Yuka was the more accurate one as she one handed the gun without worrying about weight, shifting her body to compensate for the kickback, while her opponent sent a three round burst over her shoulder at about the same time as he was hit, sending the body drifting slowly… “Don’t see anything else…” announced Van. “Clear for now. Don’t know where their ship is, though…”
Cecile moved into the room after the bullets stopped flying, quietly thankful she didn’t have to shoot at a person just yet, though the floating bodies were still making her a little sick, she could handle it for now. She looked around after getting in while Victoria drifted into the room, and found a safe place to plant herself, keeping her eyes and ears focused on the entrance they had just used. She didn’t see any others to the room, but she wasn’t sure. Still, only one known entrance, might as well keep it covered while the others investigated the room.
Van accelerated back down to the ground and landed on her feet, drifting over to one of the central computers… “This thing is going to be a bitch to get running, if it’s even possible to do it,” she said, taking a look at it. She wasn’t like Ophelia when it came to working with computers, but she knew enough basics to take advantage of loose security. It was just something that was useful enough for the job to learn, in a world where everything was connected by technology. She attempted to power the main console up, and was met with flickering displays lighting up - she started to enter commands on the keyboard in front of her, and while it brought her to some kind of login page, the technology behind it wasn’t all that advanced and Van returned to entering commands, bypassing the screen altogether and looking through the ship’s menus… Or what was functional, anyway.
“Looks like a lot of the systems aren’t past salvaging condition,” Van said, looking at a map of the different systems and rooms. It was color coded. Green for the ones in working condition, yellow for the ones damaged or otherwise inoperable, and red for the ones that had been destroyed entirely… But many of the important ones such as the engines and the hangar and the like were only yellow rather than red. “Seems to have been destroyed more by hull damage than systems damage…”
“Mmm,” muttered Yuka, pulling up next to Van, looking at the map for herself. “Didn’t realize there was even a hangar here… Makes me wonder if they got here through that room.”
“We didn’t spot it because the entrance is on the front side… I’m going to see if I can get the life support running… And get the exposed parts of the vessel closed off. Should be able to control every working doorway in the thing from this panel, it’s fairly automated,” Van replied, typing more commands at the console. It seemed beyond her skill level, however, because she would only receive back error messages when she tried to put in that command in specific.
“I can try to bypass the command prompt and trigger the power through the wires, no guarantee it’ll work, but I can give it a shot.”
Victoria offered. She knew Van didn’t like her, but she was going to put being useful over avoiding possible confrontation. The Moved over and popped the panel underneath the console, examining the wires for a moment. Reaching inside, she fiddled with some of the wiring, watching reach one responded when getting an error as Van tried to command the life support. Locating what she thought would be the right one, she stripped it, wired it to a different path, and gestured for Van to send the command again. Error or no, the power was going to go through the wires to turn on the life support, though remote control was likely disabled.
“Didn’t need your help, but okay,” Van complained, typing at the console and sending the command through with a sigh, looking up at the display again to see if the result would be any different.
It would work, if barely, any control over the system beyond powering it on and off was disabled with the improvised pathway, but it worked. Life support would come back online, though Victoria couldn’t attest to what state it was actually in. Pushing back, she allowed herself a smile at getting this correct, a trick she’d used to bypass car computers in the past, though on a more complicated machine.
“Least it’s online.”
Victoria moved away to let Van do whatever else she was going to do while Cecile watched, curious to see what exactly Van did. She’d never messed with computers much before getting here, not beyond some art programs.
With the areas that were affected by space being sealed off effectively, and the life support system powering up once again, the antigravity systems triggered and they were soon touching the ground again rather than floating, as… Normal operations were restored. The map of the systems had shown that one as being one of the working ones, after all. “We’ll take a quick break because it’s going to be a lot of walking to do…” Van announced to the others. “And then we’ll investigate the hanger. If there is another dropship in here, it’s probably in good condition and it would be worth bringing it back. The scavengers had to get here somehow, after all. If you want to take a look around or regain some energy or something along those lines, this is the time.”
Cecile decided to collect the weapons of the once floating bodies they had created. She didn’t know how needed the move was, but extra weaponry always seemed a good idea, plus she could say she contributed something by hauling the things back. Victoria moved back out into the hall, weapon ready, to see what was in the accessible rooms nearest to them, though she was going to be careful not to wander too far away. Could be other people lurking nearby that were waiting to ambush them.
Jazmine was already moving towards Victoria once the break was announced, however, and she had ideas of her own already. “Come on, let’s move around a bit…” she said. And she didn’t wait, grabbing Victoria by the wrist and practically dragging her away, heading further into the hallway and into one of the side rooms that were off to the side a bit further back.
Once they were more alone, Victoria shut her mic off to prevent her broadcasting her voice, and arched an eyebrow at Jazmine, she crossed her arms. She didn’t know what had gotten into Jazmine at the moment, but she was going to find out.
“What are you doing?”
“Wellllll,” Jazmine said, stretching the word out as she looked up at Victoria expectantly, a slight blush on her face at the moment. “You know this space suit keeps rubbing… Uh…” she said, shifting uncomfortably, her voice trailing off. “And it’s uh… A little problem…”
“We don’t have long but uh...I’ll help.”
Victoria replied, a blush spreading to her face before she stepped forward. She wasn’t quite sure why Jazmine was risking this, but then again it was Jazmine. Her self control wasn’t great at the best of times, seemed it had cracked in the situation. Jazmine just smirked a little, pressing the button to release the pressure from her space suit.
Fortunately, these weren’t the kind that took forever to get in and out of…
After determining that it was time to make the long walk across, Van had made the decision that she and Cecile would head for the hangar while Yuka and the others hung back for now rather than sending everyone to check out something that might not bring any results - and the walk was indeed long. Ships of this class were designed to carry a lot of things, and to do that, they needed a lot of space. The hangar was all the way on the other side of the vessel which made it a bit of a challenge to get all the way over there, but they were nearly there at this point, and hadn’t heard anything yet.
“Is space what you expected?” Van asked, breaking the silence - her voice was softer for once… It was often angry, or strained, like she was about to snap at any moment… But this was perhaps the one calm she had. Not the down time like this, but the missions like these. The intensity of the situations a mercenary was put in, maybe, allowed her to focus on something other than her problem. And there was a difference in how she sounded here and how she often sounded back home. The latter, of course, was angstier than she was now, out in the field. “It’s… Something compared to small city life back on Earth, isn’t it?”
“Wasn’t what I expected at all, but then...I kept to myself for the most part. Focused on school, and work. Never expected to leave Earth, let alone go on a space walk.”
Cecile responded quietly, her voice seemed to just be a naturally soft and quiet one. She wanted to scratch her head, both a nervous tick and a legitimate itch, but the suit prevented that. She looked down at the gun in her hands, still unfamiliar to her, a weight she may never adapt to. She didn’t know if she could actually shoot someone, but she had no reason not to try, and many reasons to do it.
“I traveled through space for the first time when I was young… Alone. I was sent there from Expanse for private school, because my parents wanted me to experience both worlds… Destine and Earth. I lived on Earth for years, it’s where I met Jazmine. But then… Things happened and I ended up traveling back - but I didn’t spacewalk until I was with the Temple. Almost had my suit penetrated, too… But I stabbed through the face shield of my opponent and watched them suffocate, instead. It was a combat mission, of course. Breaching a vessel and taking a VIP,” Van said, speaking somewhat slowly as she recalled things, still keeping a steady pace while moving through the corridor, the end of it in sight in the distance by now. “Back then, I still didn’t have much fear for it, either… But running through the slums in Expanse does that to a person.”
“Very different from me. At least suits have multiple seals, one breach isn’t a death sentence, just...painful and risky.
Cecile sounded glad that Van hadn’t had her suit penetrated, the kind of pain, even just partial exposure, isn’t a pain Cecile would wish on anyone. Parts of space could be freezing, or extremely hot, so what kind of burn, including radiation burns, was completely in the air. Cecile looked down at the gun in her hands.
“Still not sure I’m ready to actually shoot someone, though I won’t know for sure till I try.”
“When it comes to this field, your gun is what keeps you alive and what makes you your money,” Van said as they kept going. “If you can’t shoot someone… You may as well have better chances of success just finding your way back home and going there. Because no matter what you specialize in… With this kind of thing, you live with the gun and die with the gun at the end of the day.”
“I said I don’t know if I was ready, not that I couldn’t do it.”
Being ready to shoot someone, and being able were different. So was being willing. If the need came to it, Cecile could and would shoot someone, she just didn’t know how she was going to handle killing a person. She’d only even started learning weapons recently, shooting a target was much different than shooting at a living, breathing person.
“If I wasn’t going to at least try, I wouldn’t have even loaded the gun.”
“We get into another fight and you’ll have to pick it up fast…” warned Van as they reached the end of the corridor, overlooking the hangar… There were some ships in there that seemed older in nature, not the one they were looking for, but what caught her eye and caused her to immediately start down the set of stairs that led to the ground level of the hangar was the sight of a dropship not unlike the one they were using themselves - except, it was white, which contrasted with the greys seen elsewhere in the vessel and in the hangar. This was apparently an unrelated vessel, probably the one the scavengers had arrived with. “Up there… Have the feeling that’s what we’re looking for.”
“How we going to approach?”
Cecile asked, unsure of how to do this. She tightened her grip on the SMG, unsure of herself. She wasn’t a killer, not yet, and she’d only ever run from fights before this. Now though, now she had very little choice. She took a deep breath to steady herself, hoping to just stay calm enough to not be a problem for Van.
“Moving to this side and then around the back and to the other side, should make it hard for anyone to get the jump on us without us seeing and then I’m breaching the left side entrance,” said Van, not breaking her stride as she spoke, not wanting to waste a second in the event that one of the scavengers had heard their voices and movements from within the dropship. She went in roughly the pattern that she had just spoken about, but she didn’t see anyone outside as she came around on the left side. It left her with an electronically locked door to enter the dropship once she was on that side, and she replied to it by firing into the lock… And once breaking the circuitry caused it to break open, she pulled herself into the vehicle and found herself in between the cockpit and a cabin area, the latter separated by a door. She waved to Cecile to come after her.
Still, she didn’t intend to wait to begin the actual action, as she pressed herself against the wall and moved against it to get to the door, tentatively pulling it open… And the move was met by bullets, but they weren’t fired at her in specific, but rather at the spot where someone would be if they were coming through the doorway. She’d have to time this properly… But she also couldn’t afford to wait too long. Finally making her decision, and spinning, Van opened up the doorway and rushed in, firing as soon as she was able to, but she missed the middle of the aisle narrowly and dove for cover behind one of the seats on either side of the dropship… As the other side fired back.
A burst of four simply hit the metal seat instead of her, the rounds either doing nothing or deflecting awkwardly, which gave Van a second chance… She wasn’t going to pass on it. Spinning out of her cover, she fired off one more blast, this one a larger one at the full 13 shots she could reasonably fire in one attack… All of them hit, and unlike the earlier bullets in zero gravity which sent their victims flying, these ones simply made the opponent twitch and drop to the ground as two other figures emerged but showed immediately that they had given up on fighting and potentially having the same fight their ally just had, indicating this by raising their hands.
Cecile moved in not yet knowing they had surrendered, but skidded to a halt as soon as she saw them with raised hands and no weapons. Cecile kept her gun on them, not really knowing what to do. Van was the one in charge here, the one that knew how to do this. She sighed with silent relief that she didn’t have to try shooting someone yet, not with every time she was readied to try, Van or Van and Yuka took out all the targets.
“Your little scavenging party is done,” said Van, moving forward and keeping her SMG trained on the pair in front of her, moving closer to examine them more specifically. One of the scavengers looked like the rest of them did, someone from USEAN most likely, the other one was a bit more peculiar… A bit more European in appearance, the sole member of the group that Van had spotted who was like that. “Either of you going to tell me what you’re doing here? Eh? Start talking, I’ve still got enough bullets for both of you.”
“I owe people some money, was given to the crew to help them on missions to pay off my debt.”
The girl said, keeping her hands raised. Cecile focused her SMG on the one that wasn’t talking. She tightened her grip on it again, no longer shaking the way she had started to when she thought she was about to be in an active fight. Cecile listened to the words, but said nothing, she had her own mixed feelings about Van, and didn’t know how Van would respond to that.
Van simply responded by unloading another three rounds and blasting through the face shield of the man standing next to the woman speaking, as if it were nothing… “And your debt is ours now, isn’t it? I mean, if no one from the other side makes it out…” she said, training her SMG on the girl again, her voice calm - though there was a hint of sharpness, and the erraticness that was needed to quickly shoot someone as she had.
Catharine nodded quickly, flinching at the gunshot into her crewmate. They hadn’t exactly been nice to her, but they hadn’t tormented her either. She wasn’t glad to see them dead. Still she had a debt, and if it was being transferred by force, it was being transferred. She’d make the most of it.
“Alright, my debt belongs to you guys now.”
“With that being said, if you try to short us on what the amount that debt actually is…” said Van, gesturing with her SMG to make a point as she also backed up slightly and waved for Catharine to follow her off of the vessel, towards the open doorway. “Well, that wouldn’t be a fun time for you.”
“Couple hundred thousand, gambling debt and loans. Don’t know how much I got left exactly, last I knew was around three hundred grand, maybe three fifty.”
“You can pay seven fifty since I’m going to assume you’re lying,” Van said casually while she climbed out of the vessel, jumping to the ground before she switched on the microphone and sent a brief message to the rest of the team. “Yuka, gather the others up and get them down here to the hangar… We’ve secured a find, we can move out soon but we’ve got something for you to fly back here…”
“Greeat.”
Catharine let out an exasperated sigh, from one debt owner to another. Well she’d be in debt for a while to come regardless, so for now she was going to have to just make do. Cecile moved Catharine to make her sit in a seat, and gathered the weapons she could see, like she had on the bridge. She’d be keeping an eye on the new girl, didn’t want her bolting or trying to take the shuttle.
They had a little bit of waiting now while they waited for the rest of the group to show up, at which point Van made her way over to Cecile and placed a hand on her shoulder, taking one more look around the massive room they were within. “Well, kid, I think you did alright today,” she said, shrugging slightly. “I may not always be the nicest in what I say… But progress is progress. I’ll make sure to tell Verity that you didn’t look like the weakling we brought in earlier.”
“....thanks Van, I’m doing my best.”
Cecile knew it was high praise coming from Van, especially given how nervous and tense she’d been the whole mission. Still, she appreciated it, a rare moment of warmth from Van, two no...three times in one day. Cecile didn’t expect it to show again anytime soon, so she was going to hold onto these moments to help keep her sane.
“Me, Hester, Verity, Yuka n’em, we’re all just trying to do our best… ‘Cept for Yuka, she’s always on top.” mused Van. “Guess you’re not that far off from most of us that ain’t her.”
With that she moved to walk back towards the shuttle, not elaborating further on her comments. They still had a bit of waiting time before the others showed up but soon enough they would be done with this exercise, and on their way to their actual destination where they supposedly had some high profile work to handle. For now, there was a slightly longer period of calm before the storm…