"I told you already! Do the damn sealing up on the leg armour, if someone dropped gas on us then you’d think it was a real fucking funny choking on your own blood."
"And the chances of SLA dropping gas on us in the next 15 minutes are? Besides it hurts my thighs."
"I dont care if it makes your arse looks fat, do it up or dont wear it."
"You really are a monster aren't you Cray? A subhuman, drunken beast."
"Ive been called worse, now all I want to do is last the next hour babysitting your paranoid, bad tempered, self until we get on the ship out of here and neither of us have to see each other again."
"What about the ebon, wont do if we have to go EVA and his brains are evaporating out his ears?"
"Corporal! Get the ebon in something capable of hard vacuum."
"Wow, do I get a gun too?"
"No!" Came the reply from the other three.
For Felix the sudden change of attitude between the two senior personnel wasnt exactly unexpected but it pained him to see them argue in front of everyone. It seemed childish for two grown adults to be bickering like they did about little things, ego’s grinding against each other, one a shrill diamond saw, the other a piece of unyielding iron. Humans where funny like that when it came to expressing their emotions about things that irritated them, Rachael had a real talent for it that would have outshone most ebons. But it was lost on Cray who would have to be one of the most single minded, stubborn and apathetic people he’d ever met. He’d never been off planet either in all his short life, the unknown ahead of him was daunting but so was what he left behind and so he sat down again in the APC while Gary strapped him into the suit of Endeavour power armour to contemplate the future.
Out of all the new people he’d met, the sniper was the most open and outgoing personality, a strange mix of hardened professional with the attitude of a party animal. Like most kids he’d been brought up to believe that the rival company snipers where cold blooded murderers, thats what it said on the TV anyway but they where mostly Darknight snipers. A Thresher sniper was a rarer beast that they never showed on TV, probably because they just made mincemeat of the Slops and like they hadn't been able to edit out in time the powerful necanthropes that he’d gunned down like rats.
The wan light of the moon Orange Crush faded below the horizon, "the shuttle will be here soon kiddo, the defenses on the moon make it tough to get down from orbit so the smugglers always wait." Gary tightened the armour on the ebon’s skinny frame, it was a bad fit but he wouldn't have to be in it for too long so he’d live with the discomfort for a little while longer. "Is that why they call them Darknight Gary?"
"Sort of, more likely it’s just a coincidence really for tonight. We’ll have a pretty short window though and theres plenty of other things to worry about before then, cant trust the Darknight so keep your eyes peeled for anything weird or out of place when we’re onboard."
Cray brought the APC up to the landing pad as soon as they heard the ion engines howl, their ride out of here was smaller than he had first imagined. An antique ion drive shuttle coated with corrugated, black sides was quite primitive to existing Thresher stealth technology and judging by the lack of any other external aerials it probably didn't even have any ECM gear. But it would probably work, he hoped, not that there was anything that he could do about being shot down in orbit. With Buzz strapped securely to the roof the vehicle lurched unstably to the left in the soft mud and threatened to bog itself in the ruts from the old tractor that was dragging out the crates from the shuttle.
Mary-Lee was standing up on the rusty metal landing pad overseeing the offloading, she seemed quite small next to the bug-like shuttle, still running its engines and setting off small electrical discharges from four overloaded Ion engines. The realisation that their pilot was probably a hot rodder that liked outrunning his enemies wasnt much of a boost to his optimism either, ion engines where cantankerous at the best of times and only got more irritable when people ran them above spec.
The woman motioned them forward as the last tractor dragged its palette clear of the shuttle leaving a rooster trail of mud. The ground crews didn't muck about he noticed when it came to getting things done in a hurry, they’d moved about 80 tons of cargo in less than 3 minutes which impressed him. The APC rolled in gently as its 30-ton bulk would allow and there was only inches spare either side, Cray let out a sigh of relief that it fitted, he wouldn't have had the time to offload everything and get them moved in.
"Ok corporal, let’s get this critter locked down. You two, do not move," he motioned to the woman and ebon huddled down near the drivers seat looking fearful. Mary-Lee hadn't removed her helmet so it was impossible to judge her current state of being but she started throwing them over chains to tie the vehicle down without saying a word.
By the time they had lifted off Mary-Lee had disappeared back into the hatch up the front of the cargo area, Cray and Gary had barely chained the APC down over its front axles when the shuttle began to gain altitude. There was a distinct possibility of the whole load shifting and crushing both men against the sides so they quickly retreated to the safety of the alcoves in the bay.
"Bit fishy our ride has moved up front boss," Gary muttered over his comm’s and held onto the pipes for grim death while the engines reached a high squeal that shook his teeth and bones from the vibration.
"Yeah, Miss Ansted would you mind sending out the rendezvous message on the Aleph now, with any luck our ride will meet us on the way in." Cray was lifted off the floor momentarily when the shuttle changed its pitch yet again to 65 degrees and now found himself dangling almost horizontal to the floor.
"Last time we pay for economy class boss," Gary made a final comment before saving the last bits of his strength to hang on.
"Lift your legs up higher than your head, otherwise you might pass out", Rachael helped the ebon from the drivers seat to get himself repositioned with his back up against the crates. Without too much effort he managed to swivel around to keep his legs forward and ended up pushing her back into the seat as she began falling out. He must be scared, normally it was hard to shut him up, the code finished being sent from the Aleph unit and she struggled to stick it back in its little rack on the cockpit so she ended up just holding it with both arms across her stomach. Finally the rushing of air and tearing of gravity died down to the point where it was bearable to move about without fear of being slammed into things, then almost unnoticed all the gravity was gone seconds later. Rachael took stock of the Aleph, which seemed to have survived intact and the message on it she decrypted to say that they wanted a constant signal to lock onto, for a moment she hesitated fearing a SLA trick but if it was chances are there wasnt any escape anyway.
Outside in the red lit cargo bay Cray and Gary hung onto the sides of their alcoves resting from the exertions, "we won’t have to do this very often will we Rachael?"
"Oh hell I hope not, just dont join the infantry, they seem to get off on this type of silliness."
The first sign of trouble came barely a minute later of hitting zero gravity when Cray noticed the environment scanner reading a steady drop in pressure, he checked the HUD display again and noticed it dropping by about 0.1 Bar every 10 seconds. "You awake corporal?"
"Yeah, feels like my arms have been stretched a few inches longer but Im ok."
"Double check your pressure readings."
"You losing pressure too?"
"What’s wrong?" Rachael chimed in.
"Got a pressure drop, no one do anything we’ll be ok as long as the seals hold out on your armour."
"And if they dont hold out?"
"Then you’ll take a little nap in about 30 seconds and wont wake up."
"How long until we’re in hard vacuum boss?"
"45 seconds and counting. I reckon we play dead until then and see what our little friends up front get up to."
"Sounds like a crap plan." Rachael added nervously, "we should do something now!"
"They dont know that we’re proof, we wait until they come in for a peep and then ambush them."
"Our guns aren't going to work real well, temperature’s reading –190 degrees Celsius, propellants wont work at anything under –120 boss."
"We have knives corporal, use them."
"I could cut Buzz loose Cray?"
"No, thats not a good idea ma’am, he’s liable to wreck the shuttle."
It didn't take long before one of the crew from the front of the shuttle came through the airlock with a screwdriver in hand wearing a vacuum suit. Tentatively at first checking to see that his victims where unconscious and then waved in the other 2 following him, they made their way slowly over to where the corporal was lying prone on the floor. The one with the screwdriver motioned for the others to go look at the APC, he reached down with the tool and went for the helmet seals.
Cray watched clutching his J-Bar combat knife and then sent the blade whirling end over end at the Darknight crewman who was going to relieve his corporal of his helmet. It wasnt a good throw, the blade barely connecting with the vacsuit under the left shoulder blade without enough force to cut in deeply, but it did cut. The nanosharpened knife went through all 6 layers of protective fabric and sent a plume of atmosphere out of the 10mm hole that quickly froze into a mist of tiny crystals.
The rest of the crew turned around in the silence of hard vacuum in time to see Gary snatch up a handful of the beleaguered man’s vacsuit and begin slicing through it with his combat knife as he screamed over his radio. That was enough incentive for them to get out of the hold, not even bothering to go to their comrades aid, they blasted out through the airlock on their gas powered maneuvering nacelles and slammed the door behind them.
"What do we do know?" Gary asked over the comm’s panting from the effort and discarding the corpse down the back of the ship.
"Guess we could go in after them? Force them to surrender."
They had barely made it to the solitary airlock when the vibration of the engines engaging was felt and Rachael made her own observations.
"The back doors are opening!"
"Bugger," mumbled Cray and held onto the airlock once again for dear life.
The APC rolled back heavily on its chains as the shuttle went through a series of direction changes at high speed in an attempt to dislodge everything in the hold, both Gary and Cray locked the servos on their armoured gauntlets and hoped it would be enough.
"Im putting a stop to this Cray!" Rachael screamed over the radio only adding to the chaos in Cray’s mind, which only served to fluster and annoy him even more.
"How, you dumb bitch? What are you going to do, use harsh language?"
That shut her up at least Cray was relieved, the last thing he wanted to hear before he died was the shrieking of waspish women, he was horrified to see her emerge from the gun turret with the HERF.
"Put that fucking thing away! Now god damnit!"
"Oh shit!" Came the reply from Gary as he crawled along the wall out of the way of where it was pointed and almost without thinking Cray followed him down the other side. There was no chance of making it to the APC and making her stop so he just had to cover as much distance as he could to get out of its arc of fire.
Nothing at all seemed to happen for the milliseconds that seemed like hours and then she pulled the trigger, all the lights went out in the hold, Cray’s radio was replaced with a hiss of static and the ship stopped vibrating under his feet and gauntlets. Seeing Cray advancing on her, Rachael slipped back into the APC like a jack in the box and did up the locks. Frustrated he hammered on the lid but it was a useless gesture, everyone within 2000 km probably just got a brief whiteout from the EMP burst.
The shuttle was a complete wreck electrically, every SLA warship in the area would soon be bearing down on them like carrion feeders to finish off a wounded beast, they where screwed and Cray felt like crying.