Lore Master's note: This is the first "Legends" story we have posted that hasn't been folded into or converted into our new "canon". As such, it is nearly in its original state from 20 years ago when Rogue first posted it. He went over it recently and touched a few things up, but by and large this is his original post, any perceived warts and all. I'm not saying warts in a bad way, it was just the way another longtime veteran described another story I asked to share in the future, and the euphemism stuck with me. Enjoy the trip through memory lane!
In the future, a full "Legends" page will exist with other old Liberty and Alliance tales. This tale will be housed on that future page.
Dramatis Personae
Alliance
Hans 'Lobo' Allen, Pilot/Marine (male Human)
Rob 'Biggs' Baden, Commander Red Squadron, Pilot (male Human)
Andrew 'Dobber' Dobson, Commander Blue Squadron, Pilot (male Human)
Doda Farr, Marine Captain (male Rodian)
Deanna 'Dee' Hashi, Pilot (female Human)
Sooli Kitz, Intelligence Officer (female Zeltron)
LaSalle Larringer, Captain, Rapier (female Human)
Chris 'Pip' Layne, Pilot (male Human)
Lohk`har, Marine Lieutenant (female Twi'lek)
Chelsey 'Vape' Maxfield, Pilot (female Human)
Steve 'Thumper' Michadick, Pilot (male Human)
'Pappy', Chief Mechanic (male Human)
Dargon Seylik, Bartender (male Human)
Paul 'Rogue' Sweet, Pilot (male Human)
Richard 'Wildstar' Vogel, Pilot (male Human)
Jamie 'Shadow' Wetherill, Pilot (male Human)
Imperial
Garik Arnjak, Captain, Harbinger (male Human)
Roan Deo, Soldier (male Human)
Viled Gremory, Imperial Scientist (male Human)
Irena Hesh, Commander (female Human)
Lilith Jahi, Imperial Scientist (female Human)
Tam Ramis, Sergeant (male Human)
Zeff Teer, Lieutenant (male Human)
Prologue
Research lab on board the Imperial factory ship Harbinger, two days ago.
The door to the lab slid open, Commander Hesh walked straight in. Her E-11 blaster carbine was in her hand and her finger on the trigger. She was flanked by two Stormtroopers who also had their weapons drawn. They escorted their shackled prisoners into the room. A total of ten prisoners all wearing orange jumpsuits were marched into the room, as the last prisoner entered the room two more Stormtroopers took position on either side of the door with their weapons held ready. The prisoners were made up of five Humans, two Twi'leks, a Bothan, a Trandoshan and a Wookie.
A man in a white lab coat walked over to Commander Hesh and held out his hand. Irena handed over the data pad that she had been holding in her left hand to him. The man looked at the pad and scrolled through the report, when he had finished reading it he looked at Irena. "I was told I would get two Wookies."
Irena's voice was distorted slightly by the comm. unit in the Stormtrooper helmet she wore. "One of the Wookies broke free and killed two of my people, we had no choice but to kill it. Doctor Jahi suggested that the Trandoshan would be a suitable replacement for you."
"Hmmm a pity but Lilith is right, the Trandoshan will do just fine. Escort the prisoners into those holding cells, put two prisoners in each cell." Doctor Gremory said.
The Stormtroopers did as they were ordered with the guidance of lab assistants as to which prisoner went in which cell. With the prisoners secured, Irena signaled two of her people to take up guard positions at the lab door.
Doctor Gremory looked up from the data pad and spoke. "That won't be necessary, Commander."
Irena reacted to what the Doctor had just said. "Excuse me Doctor Gremory, this is necessary, Imperial guidelines clearly state…."
Irena never got to finish talking as Viled waved his hand to silence her. "This room is going to be sealed and as of now this area is off limits to you and your people. My people will be more than able to deal with any problems the prisoners may give me. That will be all, dismissed." The tone in Viled's voice left Irena with no doubts that protesting would do her no good. Irena turned on her heel and headed out of the lab with the four Stormtroopers marching behind her. Once they were out of the room, Viled closed the door and keyed in a code that locked it.
Lilith walked up to where Viled was standing. "Are you ready to start?"
"Yes, let's proceed shall we?" Viled walked over to a console and keyed in an access code. A panel in the wall opened up revealing five vials of a blue liquid. "Prepare the samples." Assistants loaded the vials into hypo sprays. Viled walked over to where the prisoners were being kept. The detention cells had transparent fronts allowing the Imperial researchers a clear view of their prisoners. "I will point to an individual in a cell, that individual will then place their left arm through the feeding slot and be injected, understood?"
One of the Human prisoners that had been put in with the Trandoshan spoke up. "You can go to hell if you think I'm doing anything for you Imp!"
Viled raised an eyebrow at the man's remark, he stuck his right hand into the pocket of his lab coat and pulled out a hold out blaster. Firing through the feeding slot, he shot the man in his left leg. Crying out in pain the man fell to the floor in a heap. "Now I don't need you all to be fit and healthy for this, so I can shoot you all like our friend here and do as I plan or you can all save yourself some pain and suffering and do as I have asked, it's your choice!" Viled pointed at the five people that he wanted to be injected; one by one they reluctantly came forward and put their left arms through the feeding slots. The assistants went forward and injected the five that had been selected. After all had been done, Viled threw a bacta bandage to the man he had shot. The Trandoshan that was in the cell with the man helped him put the dressing on his wounded leg.
Lilith was at Viled's side. "Now we wait."
"Now we wait." Viled replied, he had a thin smile on his lips.
Chapter one
Two months earlier.
"Break left Rogue!"
Paul yanked the flight stick to the left and up, his fighter responded immediately to the command. Laser and ion bolts shot through the space that Paul's X-Wing had just been. "Any time now would be fine, Thumper!"
"Almost there." Steve kept the R-41 Starchaser in his sights as it tried to get another lock on Paul's X-Wing. Pulling back his throttle to two thirds Steve pulled back on his flight stick, his B-Wing was right on the tail of the Starchaser. Squeezing his trigger he sent a steady stream of laser bolts into the pirate's fighter. A few seconds later the enemy fighter exploded, unable to stand up to the sustained fire.
"Cheers Thumper, I owe you a drink when we get back."
"Any time Rogue."
With the pirate fighter destroyed, Paul looked at his holo display, the pirate's capital ship, a Quasar Fire Carrier, had not been attacked, so far Blue Squadron was dealing with the enemy fighters leaving the Carrier alone. Paul targeted a pirate fighter, it had the body of an X-Wing but the wings of a TIE Interceptor. The 'Ugly' was trying to get a lock on Lobo's B-Wing, but the Blue pilot was making the task difficult for the pursuing pilot by performing a series of evasive maneuvers. Paul managed to get a snap shot off at the Ugly and was rewarded by one his laser bolts clipping the port solar panel. Forgetting about Lobo, the pirate tried to get away from his attacker, but he didn't get very far. A quad burst from Paul's X-Wing turned the Ugly into a fireball that eventually exploded seconds later.
Although the Pirate fighters had almost outnumbered the Alliance fighters three to one the Alliance pilots were the ones that were winning the fight. The Pirate group had relied on its numbers to intimidate their targets into surrendering; their lack of discipline and training was now leading to their destruction.
Over the comm. channels Paul heard several of the Blues shouting out kills. Pressing the top left button on his flight stick a T-Wing appeared in his C.M.D. Switching his fire control over to missiles, Paul tracked the T-Wing until Shade indicated with a steady tone that he had a missile lock. Paul pressed the trigger and a proton torpedo shot out from the port launcher. The torpedo tracked its target despite the Pirates best efforts and slammed into the rear of the enemy fighter. The T-Wing was engulfed in the explosion and when the fireball had burnt out all that was left of the T-Wing was debris. With no more fighters in the immediate area Paul targeted the Carrier and flew towards it. Hans and Steve joined him for the attack run, setting his torpedoes to dual fire mode, Paul waited until he had a solid lock before firing. Between the three of them, sixteen torpedoes were sent at the Carrier. The ship only had two turbo lasers for defense so had no chance of shooting down the incoming torpedoes. The first set of torpedoes hit the Carrier's shields and detonated, for a brief instance the ships shields were made visible by the explosions. The next set of torpedoes struck, again the shields took the damage, but the strain to the shield generators was too much and they overloaded, the Carrier's shields failed. The last four torpedoes impacted directly on the hull, two gouts of flame erupted from the Carrier where the torpedoes had struck.
Paul had one torpedo left and he knew exactly where he was going to send it, "Shade, set the last torpedo to detonate two seconds after impact." Shade whistled once to confirm that the torpedo was ready. "Lobo, Thumper break off guys." The two B-Wings peeled off leaving just Paul's X-Wing flying straight at the Carrier. Targeting the bridge Paul waited for a solid tone to indicate a lock, waiting until the last moment to fire he flew his X-Wing straight at the bridge, his torpedo leapt out of the starboard launch tube. Paul yanked back on the flight stick with all his strength and shot over the bridge, only just missing it, his torpedo however smashed through the view screen. The air in the bridge was sucked out into the void until the torpedo detonated two seconds later. Inside the bridge everything was consumed by the explosion, but the ship's structure wasn't strong enough to contain it and failed, the front of the Carrier was destroyed as the explosion tore through the ship.
As the Carrier started to be consumed by secondary explosions a Muurian Transport shot out from the landing bay. Deanna was the closest pilot to the enemy transport and vectored her B-Wing on an intercept course. Dodging the fire from the transporter's turrets, Dee stayed on course and was soon within weapons range. With her weapons fire linked, both ion and laser bolts hit the transporters shields. The rate of fire coming in from Dee was enough to make the pilot veer off his course and frustrate his efforts of escaping into hyperspace. By now Wildstar had also managed to get into range and let loose two torpedoes at the transport. The gunners were too busy trying to kill Dee to even notice the torpedoes tracking them until they detonated, blowing the transport to pieces.
With the destruction of their ship and base and now their leader, the five remaining Pirate fighters chose to surrender rather than carry on fighting for a lost cause. A shuttle from the Morning Star jumped into the area, it had been nearby in case any of the Blue pilots had gone E.V.A. and needed rescuing. One by one the Pirates ejected from their fighters and were picked up by the shuttle as the last Pirate was taken into the shuttle, Paul asked the obvious. "What do you want us to do with these fighters Chief?"
"Destroy them." Dobber lined up his B-Wing and blasted the nearest fighter to him. There was a short laser barrage as the rest of Blue Squadron targeted the other remaining fighters. When all the Pirate fighters had been destroyed Dobber came onto the comms. "Ok people let's head for home."
The Alliance fighters closed their S-foils and with the shuttle joining their formation made the jump back to the Morning Star. All that was left to show that there had been a battle were the charred remains of the Quasar Fire Carrier and debris that had once been fighters and people.
Chapter two
Morning Star hangar one hour later.
As the ground crew put the ladder against the side of Paul's X-Wing for him to exit his fighter, he took off his helmet and gloves, shoving his gloves into his helmet. He tossed down his helmet to one of the ground crew who caught it. Paul then eased himself out of his flight seat and then made his way down the ladder to the flight deck. Taking the helmet from crewman Paul placed it under his left arm, he looked around until he spotted who he was after. Pappy was issuing orders to his people, by using his Hydro-spanner, he was pointing and waving with it. When he had finished, Paul walked over to him.
"Yes Major, can I help you?"
"I hope so Pappy. The lower port stabilizer seems to have failed and also the energy levels in number three laser seem to be jumping."
"Oh aye, were you hit by any ion bolts whilst you were out?"
"Possibly, I was attacked by a Starchaser whilst in combat but I'm not sure though if he got me or not."
"Hmm, they might have got scrambled by a near miss maybe. I'll get my people to have a look at your ship as soon as possible, Major."
Paul thanked Pappy then moved back to his ship, Shade had been lowered down from the droid slot and was waiting for him. "You good to go little fella?" Shade whistled once to say that he was ready. The pair headed to the turbo lift that would take them up to their quarters. Before getting showered and changed, Paul decided to write up his combat report. It took about twenty minutes to complete and once done he transmitted it to Dobber's data pad for him to review. It seemed strange sending reports to Andrew again, but since Leo had retired and Andrew's promotion to C.O. once again, things were back to normal. Richard was also taking to his role of the Squads X.O. without too many mishaps. People in both squads were still coming to terms with the changes, with Red, it was the loss of their C.O. who was listed as M.I.A. but most people thought the chances of Zoom still being alive were next to nothing. Blue Squadron had also lost a pilot, Lonewolf, he was also listed as M.I.A., with no one knowing what had become of him either, but again most people were assuming that he was dead as well. Shaking himself out of his thoughts, Paul headed to the showers to clean up.
Feeling a hundred times better after his shower Paul went to the Fish Tank. The place was empty, which was a surprise; normally after a combat mission the place would be busy. Paul went up to the bar and sat down on one of the stools.
"Hello Major, and how are you today?"
"I'm fine thanks Dargon, yourself?"
"Getting by, you know. Can I get you a drink?"
"Yeah, can I get an Ale please?"
"Sure thing." Dargon got a mug from under the bar and went to one of the taps; the mug was filled with a light green liquid with a smooth head of froth on it. Dargon placed the mug on the counter for Paul, who reached over and took a long swig from it.
"Ahhh, that's better. How come it's so quiet in here today, I thought there would be a few people in by now."
"You're the first one in Major; I expect the rest will be in soon enough."
Sure enough over the next ten minutes pilots from Blue Squadron started to drift into the Fish Tank. Paul ordered another ale and two fizzies, Dargon handed Paul the drinks, he had a quizzical look in his eyes as he did so. Using his thumb, Paul jerked it to where Hans and Steve were sitting, "It's for the Teetotal twins over there!" Dargon chuckled to himself as Paul headed over to the table that Hans and Steve had sat at. "Here you go." Paul placed a mug in front of both of them before sitting down.
"Cheers." Hans picked up his mug and took a drink.
Steve looked at Paul. "Thanks, what are these for?"
"Well for helping me with the attack run against the Carrier and for fragging that Starchaser that was trying to kill me. Cheers." Paul held up his mug and the three pilots all put their mugs together, then downing the contents in one drink.
As this had been a Blue Squadron mission, all of the squad was in the Fish Tank, there were a few off duty personnel there as well along with some Red Squadron pilots. Chris and Jamie were listening to Deanna as she told them how she had set up the Murrain for Richard to kill it and how the X.O. hadn't even bought her a drink yet for the assisted kill!
After a couple of hours Paul said goodnight to his group and decided to head off to his cabin and get some sleep,there was no point in overdoing things he thought and might as well have a clear head for the morning. He headed to the galley to get himself something to eat before going to sleep. There was some Bantha meat on offer so Paul asked the chef to put it in a roll for him, the chef handed over the Bantha roll to Paul who spotted some spicy sauce on the countertop, walking over to the countertop Paul put a generous helping of the sauce onto the meat. Happy with his food, he took a bite, the meat was nice and tender and the sauce fiery, a nice combination. With his snack in hand Paul once again headed to his cabin and slept.
When Paul awoke the next morning, he was glad that he took it easy the previous night as he didn't have a hangover to deal with as he got dressed. Checking the time to make sure that he would be able to get breakfast before the morning's briefing, Paul pulled on his flight boots. Locking his door as he left Paul headed to the nearest turbo lift and then to the mess hall. Getting a mug of Tea and a cooked breakfast, Paul went over to an unoccupied table and sat down to eat. A few minutes later he was joined by Andrew who sat down opposite Paul.
"Morning Chief."
"Good morning Major. I see we're the only ones who've made it to the mess this morning, then!"
"Looks that way Chief, mind you there's still time for a few more to show up. So how long did the celebrations carry on for?"
Andrew took a sip from his mug before answering. "From what I hear at least several more hours."
"Ouch, there's going to be some sore heads today then." Finishing his breakfast, Paul stood up to go.
"Be in the main briefing room in twenty minutes Paul."
"No worries Chief. I'll see you there." Paul pulled out his data pad from his pocket on his flight suit's left leg pocket and checked the time on the display. He had enough time to head to the hangar and check the status of X-Wing.
Paul made it to the briefing room with a few minutes to spare, Pappy had been as good as his word and Paul's X-Wing was once again combat ready. Seeing Steve sitting on the front row Paul sat in the chair next to him. "Any idea what the briefing is about?"
"None at all, I was just going to ask you the same thing."
The pair chatted whilst pilots from both squadrons turned up, Hans and Deanna were the last two to arrive, Deanna looking a little pale from too much drinking the other night. This caused Chris to comment, drawing a laugh from the other pilots only to be silenced from a stern look from Deanna. Hans lowered himself into a chair whilst Deanna just sat on her chair with her arms wrapped around her stomach gently rocking back and forth.
Andrew and Rob walked into the briefing room, everyone started to rise to attention but Rob indicated with his hand for everyone to remain seated. Andrew took a seat whilst Rob moved directly behind the podium. "Good morning all, I'm glad to see we all made it here in one piece." Rob's gaze lingered on Deanna as he spoke. "Now the reason we're all gathered here this morning is to let you know about an opportunity that has come about for you lucky pilots."
There were a few groans from some of the pilots who were already dreading what command could have dreamt up for them.
Rob held up a hand for everyone to stop talking. "You haven't even heard what's on offer yet! Now this offer is open to everyone except Hans."
Hans shot upright so fast that he had to grab hold of the chair's arm rests to steady himself. "What? Why not?"
Rob smiled slightly. "Because you've automatically been selected for this already." Hans looked like he was going to object again, but never got the chance as Rob carried on talking. "The course that Mr Allen has been selected for, is a three week training programme with his fellow Marines."
At first Hans didn't understand, after a few seconds though a look of understanding came across his face and he relaxed back into his chair.
"Now this course is available for everyone to go on, but it's not compulsory, so before I ask for volunteers, I'll let you know what you'll be getting yourself into. It will consist of hand to hand combat, explosives and demolitions, marksman training, survival training, escape and evasion plus much more. So, do I have any volunteers?"
Again there was some murmuring from the pilots as they discussed the offer between themselves. Steve was the first to put up his hand. "Put me down, you had me when you said explosives and demolition!"
Paul was putting up his hand when he heard Chris shouting from behind him. "I'm game for this and so is Jamie." The look on Jamie's face said otherwise, but he said nothing as Rob added both their names on his data pad.
Noticing that Paul also had his hand up, Rob asked Paul. "You want to go as well Mr Sweet?"
Paul nodded in response.
Rob looked about the briefing room for any other volunteers, there were three, David, Deanna and Chelsey. "Ok the seven of you will leave in about four week's time on the Marine CR90a Frigate, Rapier. Once you have left, the Morning Star and Regis will be jumping to outpost forty-seven at Mon Calamari for some R & R."
From behind him, Paul heard Jamie thanking Chris by punching his right arm, Chris let out a yelp as the fist hit him.
Andrew stood up and moved over to the podium, "Ok, for those of you not going you're dismissed." The pilots that had chosen not to go filed out from the briefing room, most of them with smiles on their faces at the thought of the upcoming R & R. "Right you seven, whilst with the Marines; you will be representing your squadrons and not only that, you'll be representing the Morning Star, so I expect nothing but the best from all of you all of the time. I want you to show these Jar Heads, no offense Hans, that Alliance pilots can also give as good as they get. Ok speeches over so good luck and dismissed."
The pilots left the room and went off to go about their duties. Rob and Andrew had remained in the briefing room, Rob looked again at the list of names on his data pad, "You know Andrew, I don't know who to feel more sorry for, that lot or their instructors."
Andrew laughed at the comment, "You've got to wonder haven't you?" Both men left the briefing room and headed off to organise the pilots duty rosters.
Chapter three
Three weeks ago.
Paul was heading towards the turbo lift that would take him to the armoury, it was the day before the joint three week exercise with the Marines, and he was going down there to collect his assault rifle that he was taking with him. The last month had seen some serious changes aboard the Morning Star, the biggest was that Andrew was now listed as M.I.A. but most people presumed that he was dead, there had been no service for Andrew because as long as he was listed as M.I.A. there remained the smallest of hopes that he was still alive and sometimes that was enough. Richard was now Blue Squadrons C.O. with Steve the new X.O Steve had approached Paul afterwards to see if there was any ill feeling at having been passed over for the X.O. position, there had been none in fact Paul had told Steve that he was glad to stay as the Training Officer as he enjoyed the freedom that the role gave him.
There had been changes in Red Squadron as well; Chelsey had stepped down from her role as X.O. stating that she no longer could give the role her full attention. Rob had put forward his recommendations that Chris be promoted to take on that role, Captain Ru'kaart had agreed and Chris was now Reds new X.O.
At first it had been suggested that the joint exercise with the Marines be canceled due to recent events but after asking the seven pilots if they still wished to go all of them had said yes, so everything was still going ahead as planned. Chelsey was medically certified fit for duty and able to take part much to her relief, Chris and Steve had also been allowed to go even though their responsibilities had now changed; both Rob and Richard said that whilst the Morning Star was at Mon Calamari and the crew on shore leave they shouldn't pass up the opportunity to participate in the joint exercise.
Paul got in the turbo lift and selected the deck that the armoury was on. Stepping out of the lift he headed to the secure area and was greeted by the duty Sergeant. "Good morning sir, what can I do for you today?"
"Morning Sarge, I'd like to check out my assault rifle, ammo clips and could you tell me how many cases of ammo I have please?"
"Certainly sir, one moment please." The man pressed some keys on his data pad and in a moment writing was scrolling down his screen. "According to this you've got a total of seven cases, giving you a total of three thousand five hundred rounds of ammunition."
Paul was handed his rifle and ammo clips. "Could you arrange for four boxes of ammo to be on a loader at docking hatch two, for eight thirty tomorrow morning please Sarge?"
"Yes sir, is there anything else?"
"No thanks Sarge, cheers now." Paul headed back to the turbo lift and his room to get ready for tomorrow. An hour later Paul had what he thought he would need for the three weeks packed in his kit bag and ready to go. On Paul's bed was his rifle, eleven ammo clips and his sleeveless combat jacket, he picked up the jacket and started slotting the full clips into the pouches. With all the pouches full there was one clip left on the bed, Paul picked up the last clip and slotted it into the rifle, checking the safety was on he extended the stock and brought the rifle up to his shoulder in the ready position. He made sure that the scope was working properly and also the laser marker. Setting the rifle back onto his bed, Paul opened two pockets on his combat jacket and got out the items, one was the suppressor which he put on the barrel and screwed it on, the other was a small glow lamp which attached under the barrel, pressing the button on the side the glow lamp sent out a focused beam of light. Satisfied with everything, Paul turned off the glow lamp and put it back in his combat jacket along with the suppressor. Seeing that it was still early Paul decided to head to the Sims and get in some practice for a few hours, he turned off the light as he left his room.
As Paul headed down to the Sims he was passed by Chris and his girlfriend, Sheva. The young Twi'lek woman had her arms wrapped around Chris's midsection and the pair were talking in low voices to each other. Since Chris had started seeing Sheva, the pair seemed to be permanently attached to each other, Paul shook his head as he heard Sheva let out a yelp followed by a giggle as Chris ushered her into his cabin. Paul was still getting used to seeing Chris with a Major's rank now that he was Red Squadrons X.O.
Chapter four
Imperial factory ship Harbinger, one day ago.
"Secure this location, seal those doors, nothing gets in."
The Stormtroopers fanned out with their weapons held ready, moving cautiously through the large area. Several were guarding the doorway that they had just come through, they were sweeping their weapons back and forth across the opening nervously. As the last Stormtrooper came through the door it was shut behind him and locked. One by one the doors to the room were locked. When the last one had been secured, Irena looked at her surroundings to see how best they could defend themselves if it came to it. "Ok I want everyone apart from unit six getting to work on setting up defenses and barricades in case they manage to get in, unit six will be on guard, get to it." The Stormtroopers set about their tasks in silence with an air of urgency in their work, Irena activated her comms. "Captain Arnjak, come in please." There was no reply; Irena tried again. "Captain Arnjak, do you copy over?"
"This is Arnjak, go ahead Commander."
"Sir I've managed to secure myself and several units in mess hall Bravo three. We encountered heavy resistance in the aft sections and had to retreat to this location; I've lost over thirty people so far. Have the three units I sent to the bridge arrived yet sir?"
"Only one unit made it through Commander"
Irena didn't speak for a moment; she was shocked as to how quickly the situation on board the ship was getting out of control. A slow feeling of dread and fear started to claw at her gut, it threatened to consume her if she let it continue and then she'd be no use to anyone. Quickly shaking off the feeling, Irena brought her mind back to the situation at hand. "Sir we need to link up our units and any other combat effective units onboard and see what we can do about taking control of this situation."
"I agree, Commander; if we both head for deck twelve and meet up at the officer's mess and then proceed to the main armoury."
"Yes sir, I'll get my people ready to move out."
"Commander; I've also sent out a distress call but given our location I'm not confident that it'll be picked up, so it looks as if we're on our own."
"Understood sir and good luck, Hesh out." The link went dead. She motioned for Lieutenant Teer and Sergeant Ramis over to her location and outlined to him what the Captain had suggested. Irena had just finished speaking when a scream was heard coming from behind the door they had all come through. Instinctively she raised her rifle towards the door which was still shut, she wasn't the only one as most of the other Stormtroopers had done likewise. There was another scream, but this time it was louder and more desperate. From the other side of the door the person started pounding on the door. Several of the troopers jumped at the noise. The person on the other side could be heard pleading for the door to be opened, Roan started to move towards the door. "Don't open that door." Irena ordered. "Whoever that is on the other side is already dead, there's nothing we can do."
Roan hesitated for a moment but then went back behind to the overturned table he had been behind. The pounding on the door became more frantic as did the screaming. There was a large thump against the door and then from the other side came the sounds of a struggle, the pitch of the screaming had changed, it was no longer one of terror but now one of pain. Now other sounds could be heard, sounds of tearing and ripping. Irena closed her eyes trying to block out what was happening, but it was no use, she knew what was going on behind the door. After what seemed an eternity the screaming from the person stopped, all that could be heard now was the shuffling of feet and moaning.
Again Irena had to force herself into action before the situation threatened to overwhelm her. "Listen up; this is what we're going to do." Irena detailed the plan to her troops, there was no discussion afterwards, she had not expected any, her troops were well trained and followed orders, they were Imperials and that's what Imperials did best, follow orders.
An hour later they had managed to get up to deck eighteen. They had left the mess through another door avoiding what was behind the main one. What should have taken Irena and her troopers a few minutes to reach was taking a lot longer, avoiding the main routes so as not to be spotted was taking time, but if it meant not getting in trouble then it was time well spent Irena thought to herself. The lights in the corridor ahead were out, all that was on was the red emergency lighting bathing the corridor in an eerie red light. It seemed that there had been an explosion, perhaps someone had set off a thermal detonator and the damage had blown out all the lighting. Whatever the cause Irena just cursed to herself. Activating her helmet's night vision she motioned for the rest of her troopers to do the same. As one they moved as silently as they could down the corridor towards the next access hatch up to the next deck. With the red lighting making their white armour look like they were all drenched in blood the troopers moved through the corridor, they had been in the corridor for a few minutes when suddenly there was a shout then blaster fire from the rear of the group. Next all hell broke loose.
Chapter five
Marine CR90a Frigate Rapier, present time.
The noise from the canteen was loud, but that was to be expected, there were over a hundred people crammed into the place. Most people were in groups around tables whilst others stood near the viewing portals. Hans was talking to Doda Farr. Both men had been on the same Marine recruits course, and despite spending three weeks in the same training unit the two friends were still finding plenty to talk about. Right now the pair were talking about previous engagements they had both been in, describing tactics and outcomes. Chris and Jamie were both listening to Deanna explain how she had gotten her black eye. Deanna recounted how she and Lohk'ha, a Marine Instructor had been sparing the other day when Deanna had gotten a lucky punch through Lohk'har's defences and cut open her top lip. Lohk'har responded immediately with a punch that hit Deanna on her left cheek. There was a bit of swelling on her left side and the skin was very black around her left eye. Lohk'har was also on board the Rapier, she was transferring back to her old unit, the cut and swelling on her top lip made the Twi`lek instructor look like she had a permanent sneer on her face. Although Deanna had apologised it seemed that Lohk' har was not the forgiving type and had not spoken to the pilot since. Deanna was not overly concerned by this and was also proudly wearıng her corpsman rank on the left collar of her flight suit, whilst on the course she had trained and passed the exam, a fact that she was now happily telling Chris and Jamie.
The other pilots were all talking about their own experiences over the past three weeks, each of them having learned new skills or improving existing ones. Steve had done a course in demolitions and explosives; he was now a fully qualified Explosives Ordinance Officer. Chelsey and Jamie had both opted for the unarmed combat classes. Chelsey had improved her fighting skills to a level that she now felt confident she would be able to cope in any unarmed situation. Jamie had decided to do this course to keep his own unarmed skills up to date and fresh. He also spent some time with the Marine Recon teams learning from them.
Chris and Paul both sported crossed rifles on their left shoulders of their flight suits. The pair had gone on the Marine Sniping course and now both of them were qualified marksmen. It was something that the two pilots were both extremely proud of.
Hans had been involved in most of these courses in some way and had enjoyed refreshing his Marine skills once again. It had been good to be back amongst his fellow Marines, it made him think that sometimes he would prefer to be part of a Marine ground unit.
"We did the Morning Star proud, wouldn't you say so Steve?"
"Yeah I think we did Chelsey, we certainly held our own anyway."
"Those Marine pilots from the other squadrons were a bit put out when we won the Sim competition though."
Steve smiled at the thought of the competition. All the pilots had gotten medals for taking part in combat events; his medal was in his kit bag. "The X.O. from Centurion Squadron wasn't pleased at all, the fact that we vaped all of his squad before they could even get a shot off put him in a foul mood and when it was our turn for our attack run and we vaped his squad and all the targets, I thought he was going to blow."
"I know what you mean, I swear that Bothan's fur seemed to almost go red the angrier he got. Funny how he didn't shake our hands or congratulate us at the end isn't it?"
"I think we must have vaped his ego as well in the Sims!"
The group continued to talk on for several more minutes until an announcement came over the ship's speakers. The room fell silent so that everyone could hear the message. "Now hear this, now hear this, will Captain Farr please report to the bridge; that is Captain Farr to the bridge; that is all."
After the announcement was made people started talking again, it wasn't long before the noise level was back to what it had been. Doda got up from his chair, "If you'll excuse me, they seem to require my presence on the bridge." Doda made his way through the canteen towards the corridor that would take him to the bridge.
After five minutes there was another announcement from the ship's speakers, again everyone fell silent. "Now hear this, now hear this, will Majors Layne and Michadick please report to the bridge; Majors Layne and Michadick to the bridge; that is all."
Chris and Steve looked at each other, with Steve shrugging his shoulders as to why they would both be needed on the bridge. This time the conversation in the canteen didn't return as quickly, as most people were now wondering what was going on. The pair left the canteen the same way that Doda had gone and headed to the bridge.
The two pilots entered the bridge; they saw Doda standing next to the ship's Captain at a display console. LaSalle looked up from the display as the two pilots approached her.
"Thank you for coming, we've got a situation. We've just detected a distress signal and we're pretty certain that it's an Imperial one."
Chris and Steve must have both looked confused as to why they were being told this. Doda cleared his throat before speaking. "The reason why you're being told this is because if it was just Marines on this ship we'd be going in now to find the source of the signal, but we've got seven guests onboard so we need to make sure with you first."
"Well you can count the pilots from Red squadron in. What about your lot Steve?"
"We`re in, what`s the plan Ma'am?"
"Ok from what we`ve been able to gather from the distress signal it's coming from inside that Nebula." The Captain pointed to the console screen which showed the nebula at the top left of the screen. "The signal itself is very weak, in fact if we hadn't been between jump points we would never have picked it up. It looks like the Nebula acts as a natural dampening field, hence the weak signal. The plan is this; we go into the Nebula, try to locate the source of the signal, then we'll see what options are open to us. Not much of a plan I know, but we'll be sending out a message pod with our actions just in case it's a trap."
The comms officer prepared the message pod for launch, when it was ready he signalled the Captain who ordered it launched. "Pod away Ma'am."
"Ok, sound general quarters, everyone to battle positions."
The comms officer touched a button on his console and spoke into his headset. His voice came over the ship's speakers. "Now hear this, now hear this, general quarters all hands to battle stations: I repeat general quarters all hands to battle stations; this is not a drill."
An alarm klaxon sounded throughout the ship. The lights went from normal illumination to combat red throughout the ship. Around them, the bridge crew readied themselves and were reporting in combat ready in sections.
"Shields are up and fully charged."
"All weapon stations are manned and ready Ma'am."
"Very well set a course for the Nebula, combat speed."
"Aye Ma'am, time to intercept is five minutes ."
"Excuse me Captain Larringer; if you don't mind I'll go and let our group know what's going on."
"Of course Major."
Steve gave a quick salute then headed out of the bridge and back to the canteen to let the pilots know what was happening. When he got there, he quickly told them the chain of events that had just happened and what was going to happen. Telling them that as soon as he had any more details he'd let them know. Steve headed back to the bridge. When he got there the Rapier was nearing the edge of the Nebula.
The helmsman was counting down to when they entered the Nebula. "Nebula interception in five, four, three, two, one, contact."
As the Rapier entered the Nebula the ship shuddered. Steve reached out and took hold of a console to steady himself.
"Sensors are down by fifty percent, Captain."
"Targeting scanners are offline, all gunners switch to manual."
"Distance to signal is now twenty klicks and closing. Distance from the point of entry is thirty klicks."
The minutes ticked by as the Rapier headed towards the distress call. The tension on the bridge also started to build up, with the crew not knowing what they would find once they got to the source of the signal. The silence was broken by the helmsman.
"What the hell is that?"
Captain Larringer got up from her seat and went over to the helmsman. "What is it,Marine?"
"Three o'clock high Ma'am."
LaSalle looked up in the direction she had been given. Standing out against the blue and red of the Nebula was a large black ship. It looked like an exotic dagger in some respects. There were four attachments sticking out from the main body, two on either side. "Full stop, hold position here."
"Aye Ma'am, full stop and holding position."
Steve walked over to where the Captain was looking out of the Rapiers main window "Would you look at the size of that thing!" Steve looked down at the display on the console. "Scans have that thing at six and half kays in length!" From the main body of the ship there was almost a cylindrical section that came down. "That section alone must be three kays long at least."
Captain Larringer was looking at the display on the console. "I.F.F indicates that it`s called the Harbinger."
One of the bridge crew was busy trying to identify exactly what type of ship the Harbinger was, he was scrolling through the displays on his console when he suddenly shouted out. "I got it."
Captain Larringer walked over to the Marine's station followed by Chris, Doda and Steve. "What is it?"
"It's an Imperial factory ship; that much I can tell you. Not much else is known about them. There's only ever been one other recorded encounter with a ship like that, the Arc Hammer. A Kyle Katarn reportedly entered and destroyed it to stop the Empire from starting mass production of Dark Troopers. That's all the information there is, Captain."
"Nothing about defences or if there's fighters?"
"Sorry Ma'am, no."
"Ma'am, the Harbinger appears to be offline, in fact I'm picking up debris coming from the lower section." The crewman zoomed in on the area he was talking about. The display showed that there had been some sort of explosion and there was a hole in the Harbingers structure. "Judging by the size of the opening Ma'am, you're looking at ten, maybe twelve decks open to space."
LaSalle went back to her command chair and sat down; she looked at the Harbinger through the view screen, weighing up her options. "Ok listen up this is what we're going to do. We'll take the Rapier and do a fly by of the Harbinger and assess what state it's in; if nothing happens and the ship is well and truly dead we're going to board her. They've obviously suffered some sort of emergency and I'm not going to pass by an opportunity like this to see what the Imps are up to with that ship. Helm, set a course, I want to do a tour of that ship, stem to stern, but be ready to get us out of here though at the first sign of trouble, understood?"
"Aye aye Captain."
Steve went back over to the crew member that had given them the information on the factory ship. "Any mention of crew size in the database?"
"No sir, I guess Katarn never included that information in his report."
"Typical!"
Chris and Doda came over to where Steve was; it was Doda that spoke. "Well if this Katarn person managed to get in by himself and destroy one as well, just imagine what a hundred plus Marines can do, I mean what could possibly go wrong?"
Chapter six
The fly-by of the Harbinger had gone smoothly enough; the giant factory ship did indeed seem to be dead. Captain LaSalle had decided that the Marines were going to board and if possible seize the ship. A docking bay under the main forward section of the ship, which could have fit at least three ships the size of the Rapier in it, was chosen to land in. Chris, Doda and Steve had all headed back to the canteen. Doda was issuing orders to the Marines who were all getting geared up into their combat gear and checking their weapons, ready to board and secure the Imperial ship.
The seven pilots were also getting ready to go aboard as well. Paul slipped on his combat jacket and zipped it up, all ten pouches had clips of ammo in them, and his rifle also had a full magazine. Pulling back the cocking leaver, Paul made sure that a round was chambered and the rifle was ready to fire. He selected the triple fire setting before flicking the safety on. Using his shoulder strap he slung the rifle onto his shoulder whilst he checked his DL-44, the power level was full. Picking up a satchel, Paul stuffed in some spare power packs for the DL-44 and some more clips of ammo for his rifle; finally he put four thermal detonators in the bag before slipping the strap over his head and letting the satchel rest on his left side.
Doda walked over to the small group. "Are you sure you want to do this?"
Chris spoke up. "We didn't go on that three week course with you guys just to make our Bio's look nice and pretty."
Paul looked at the other pilots, Chris and Hans were smiling whilst the others all had determined looks on their faces then he looked back to Doda. "We`re good to go."
"Ok, you guys will be going in with the second group. As soon as the Rapier touches down and the ramp drops, my group will go first, then you guys with the second group and then the third group will bring up the rear. Any questions?"
There was none, Doda wished them all good luck then moved off to get his group ready. The pilots checked their equipment one last time before moving over to where the second group of Marines were waiting.
Steve came over to where Paul was finishing getting ready. In a low voice he spoke to Paul. "Paul, I need to ask you something."
"Sure, go for it."
"I know that you've got more ground combat experience than me, so if we get into a fire fight and it looks like I'm struggling or going to make a bad choice, take over. I've only been X.O. for a short while now and I'm still finding my feet with this leadership role."
"Steve first things first, this is the Jarheads show, we're just guests along for the ride so most of the combat choices will be down to them. Secondly though, you'll be fine, don't doubt yourself, you`re the right choice for the X.O. job and finally if it does come down to it, we look after each other out there just like we do when we're in our fighters, so no wornies mate, I got your back."
"Thanks, I appreciate it."
"Hey, I'd expect nothing less from you if the roles were reversed. Now, are you good to go?"
"Yeah, I'm good to go." Steve readied his E-11 Carbine by unfolding the stock.
The Rapier entered the hanger, passing through the mag con force field. The gunners scanned the hangar looking for Imperials; they detected none, as far as they could tell the hangar was deserted. The pilot of the Rapier started the landing sequence, slowly moving the ship to the right side to set it down. Six lights on his console went from red to green indicating that all of the landing gear were correctly deployed and the ship was ready to land. A shock ran through the ship as the Rapier touched down on to the landing deck of the Harbinger. A crew member at a console spoke up so that the Captain heard him. "Sensors indicate that there is a breathable atmosphere aboard the ship and radiation levels are well within the norm."
Doda was at the front of his group at the top of the ramp, when he felt the Rapier touch down he shouted to his group so that everyone would hear him. "GET READY!"
The ramp was at the front of the ship and when it lowered down, Doda and his group charged down onto the Harbingers deck, they went a good fifty meters before getting into a defensive pattern. Marines were either lying down flat on their stomachs or taking a kneeling position, sweeping the area. Doda looked over the hanger area; the hanger seemed well and truly deserted. He touched his head set. "Second group move out."
The Marines and pilots stormed down the ramp into the enemy hangar, once everyone was down they also took up a defensive position covering the first group as they advanced forward. The first group took their time moving up, in groups of threes and fours. Once the first group had moved up to a set distance, Lieutenant Lohk'har used her head set. "Third group, go."
The last group of Marines ran down the ramp and took over the defensive position of the second group to allow them to assist the first group. Lieutenant Lohk'har led her group over to Captain Farr`s position.
Doda used his head set to talk to Captain Larringer. "There's no one here Captain, the hangar is deserted, but judging by the lighting levels, the ship is set to alert level." Doda listened to the Captain as she asked him some questions "I'm going to take mine and Lieutenant Lohk'har's group to investigate the ship. Third group will be staying behind to keep this area secure in case we have to come back here in a hurry." Again Doda listened to Captain Larringer before replying. "Thank you Ma'am, Doda out." Doda motioned Sergeant Ruhr over to his location. "Sergeant, your group will be staying here providing cover for us if we have to get back here under fire. Set up a perimeter and some E-webs just in case."
"Aye aye sir." Sergeant Ruhr saluted and went back to his group and issued orders for his Marines to carry out.
While all this was going on Jamie was speaking to Deanna. "Man this is kind of spooky, a big ship like this, deserted. I wonder what happened to the crew."
"What, you think we're on some kind of ghost ship?" Deanna switched on her glow lamp and put it under her chin and started making spooky noises.
"Don't be daft; I'm just saying it's eerie and creeps me out a little."
Steve noticed the pair, "Knock it off you two, keep focussed, you'll have plenty of time to goof off when we get back to the Star."
Deanna and Jamie returned their focus to the section of the hanger they were covering.
Doda ordered the groups to carry on moving up the hanger towards the main corridor. The corridor could be seen in the distance, by the looks of it you could get two AT-ST's standing side by side in it with room still to spare. It took almost ten minutes to get near the start of the corridor. One of the Marines at the front was checking around the side of some storage crates. As he rounded the corner he noticed a boot. He held up his left arm and clenched his fist. Everyone dropped down to a kneeling position with their weapons ready. With three other Marines he slowly crept forward, his rifle ready, as he advanced forward he could see that the boot was attached to a leg and the leg attached to a body. There were a total of five bodies lying on the floor, all of them had been shot several times judging by the burn marks on their uniforms, also all of them had been shot in the head at least once. As the Marine continued forward he noticed a body propped up against one of the storage crates. It was an Imperial Officer. The Officer's uniform was covered in blood from a wound from the right side of his neck. A blaster was lying next to the Officer's left hand. The young Marine moved towards the officer, using his right foot kicking the blaster back and away from the Imperial. The man looked dead, but the Marine still leaned in to check for a pulse on the left side of the Imperials neck. With two fingers pressed on the neck; the Marine confirmed his suspicions, the man was indeed dead. He turned around to tell his three colleagues. It was as the Marine was looking the other way that he missed the Imperials' eyes opening. The Officer lunged forward snarling and bit deep into the Marines throat. The Marine started screaming whilst the Officer once again bit into his throat. The other Marines rushed forward to help their friend. One grabbed the Imperial and pulled him off of the injured Marine. The Imperial Officer turned his attention to him and bit his arm. As the other Marine joined the fray he received a large scratch from the officer on his face as the Imperial lashed out. The fourth Marine aimed his rifle at the Officer's chest and fired twice. The Imperial was slammed back into the storage crates and slid down to the ground leaving a bloody smear down the crate. The Marine that had done the shooting started to relax his aim when the Imperial started to move again, starting to get up. The Marine aimed for the Officer's head and squeezed the trigger. The laser bolt hit the Imperial right between the eyes and burned right through the man's skull, this time the Officer stayed down.
The Marine that had been bitten on the throat was coughing up blood. Drake, the Marine who had his face scratched was now frantically trying to apply a dressing to the wound to stop the bleeding. "I need a medic over here, NOW!"
A medic ran forward along with Doda. As the medic got to work on the injured Marine; Doda asked what happened.
"Vann was checking that Imps pulse, the guy looked dead, but when Vann looked away he attacked him. Took a chunk right out of his neck, he bit Moyer and scratched Drake before I blasted him. I put two bolts into him, center mass but the bastard started to get back up so I head shot him."
The medic called Doda over. "Sir we need to get this man back to the ship, I can't help him here."
"Do it, take these three back with you, and get them treated as well."
"Aye aye sir." The medic took off his back pack and took out a folded up stretcher. With the help of the other Marines the stretcher was made ready and Vann was loaded onto it. As soon as Vann was secure they set off back to the Rapier as fast as they could.
Doda was taking the scene in front of him when Hans came over to him. "What happened?"
Doda explained what had just happened with the Marines and the Imperial. "As far as I can make out with this lot however; the Imp Officer was the one that shot those five after they attacked him, the same way that Vann was attacked, bitten."
"Bitten?"
"Yeah, I'm still trying to get my head around it as well." Doda signaled for the two groups to move out once more.
Hans went back to the group of pilots and in a low voice told them what had happened.
The groups reached the corridor with no further incidents. Moving cautiously down the corridor and well spaced out in case of an ambush they got to the end of the corridor in a few minutes. The corridor ended at a T- junction, Doda called up Lieutenant Lohk'har. "Ok two corridors, two groups; you know where I'm going with this, which one do you want?"
"I'll stick with the tried and tested sir, left hand rule."
Doda nodded. "Ok group one, we're going down the right hand corridor, group two you're going left, good luck. Lieutenant, report every fifteen minutes."
"Aye aye sir." Lohk'har saluted, and then waved to her group to start moving down the left corridor.
Returning the salute Doda and his group proceeded down the right corridor. As Hans and the other pilots walked by Doda spoke to him. "Stay safe and watch your back ship mate."
"You too, see you on the flip side buddy."
Chapter seven
Medical bay onboard the Rapier.
"Damn it, why won't he stabilize?" The medic who had brought Vann and his fellow Marines back to the Rapier was working frantically on the injured Marine. Vann was still bleeding heavily from his neck wound and thrashing around on the exam table. "Hold him down, damn it." Drake and Walker held down their injured friend whilst the medic applied a new bacta dressing to Vann's throat. Moyer dropped the dressing he was applying to his arm and went over to help; he grabbed hold of Vann's legs and tried to keep them steady.
The medic carried on trying to stabilize Vann for several more minutes. "It`s no good, I'm going to lose him. All I can do now is make him as comfortable as possible." The pain and anger in the medic's voice was obvious to the other Marines. As the medic injected Vann with the pain meds, the wounded Marine seemed to relax, soon the medic signalled the others that they could let go of him.
Leaving Vann to die in peace, the medic went over to the comm. panel at the wall; pressing it he called the Captain. "Ma'am, I'm afraid there's nothing I can do for Vann, I've made him as comfortable as possible, but it's just a matter of time now."
"You did the best you could Doc, I'll let Captain Farr know. Bridge out."
The medic walked away from the comm. panel and picked up a spray from the table, he beckoned Drake over to him. When Drake came over to him the medic sprayed his scratches. "This will seal the wound and stop infection. Moyer, as soon as I've dressed that wound for you, the three of you can go out and join the third group with defending the Rapier. I'll stay with Vann until he's gone."
A few minutes later the three Marines had left the sick bay leaving the medic with Vann. Vann's breathing was now becoming very shallow; the medic had to look real hard to see the rise and fall of Vann's chest. "Won't be long now, it'll soon be over."
The machine that was monitoring Vann's heart started to sound an alarm. The medic reached over and turned it off, Vann was dead. Taking a sheet from an overhead locker, the medic covered Vann's body. He made a note of the time of death on a data pad, which he flung on to a table when he was done. The medic looked down at his hands, they were covered in Vann's blood, sighing as he walked over to the sink. He let the warm water run over his hands for a while before starting to clean them. It was while the water was running that he missed the sound of the blanket sliding off Vann's body and falling to the floor. It wasn't a sound that alerted the medic that something was wrong; it was a feeling that he was no longer alone in the med bay. He turned around, there stood before him, Vann. "What the fu......"
Drake, Moyer and Walker stood away from most of the other Marines in group three; they had been talking about the events that had gotten their friend killed. It had been a good thirty minutes since they left the med bay and joined group three. During that time Walker had noticed that Moyer had started to look off colour, at first Moyer had put it down to the shock of what had happened earlier and that he was fine. Walker looked at his friend, Moyer wasn't getting any better, in fact he was getting worse, and his skin was almost taking on a grayish shade. "Moyer, you need to go back to the med bay, you look terrible."
"I think you're right, I don't feel too good, I'll go see if Doc can fix me up with something."
Drake rubbed at his face where he had been scratched. "I'll come with you; this scratch doesn't feel any better either."
"Ok, I'll see you guys soon." Walker watched the pair walk back to the ship and up the boarding ramp.
Drake and Moyer went down the corridor that would take them to the med bay, Moyer was looking really sick under the ship's bright white lights. "Almost there, Doc will soon have you feeling right again." Moyer gave him a weak smile. They reached the med bay, pressing the door open button, the door slid open and the pair both went in. It was only as the door closed behind them that Drake noticed the blood on the floor near the sink. Looking about the place he didn't see the medic anywhere, come to think of it he couldn't see Vann's body on the exam table either. "Wait here." Drake left Moyer near the door and followed the blood trail. It led round a corner.
As Drake went looking for the medic, Moyer leaned back against the wall and lowered himself to the floor, as he was really feeling bad now. He lost sight of Drake as he went down to the floor.
Drake went round the corner, stood looking at the wall was the medic, but he wasn't alone there was someone else with him, Drake couldn't be sure but from the back it looked like Vann. "Doc? Vann?"
The two figures turned towards the source of the noise. Drake recognised them both straight away, one was Vann the other the medic. It was the medic that Drake couldn't take his eyes off though; it looked like half of the left side of his face had been ripped off. Before Drake could even react, he was being attacked. Drake was knocked to the floor by both of them and smacked his head off the floor knocking him out.
Over where Moyer lay against the wall he heard sounds of snarling and tearing. In a weak voice he called out. "Drake, you ok? Have you found Doc?" There was no reply. Moyer called out again, this time as loud as he could. The noises stopped for a moment, and then Moyer heard shuffling. The noise was coming towards him. Moyer looked up, Vann was walking towards him, and his face was covered in blood which dripped from his chin. Moyer started reaching for his blaster. Vann dived at Moyer and grabbed hold of him. The last thing Moyer felt before he lost consciousness was Vann's teeth tearing into his flesh.
Walker was getting anxious; Drake and Moyer had been gone a long time now. He went over to see Sergeant Ruhr. "Excuse me Sergeant, I'd like to go back onboard and check on how my friends are doing, they went to the med bay some time ago."
"Sure thing, there's nothing happening here anyway, so take your time, but be ready to get back out here in a hurry though just in case." Walker saluted then turned and headed to the Rapier's boarding ramp. Captain Larringer was heading down the ramp to go and speak with Sergeant Ruhr, Walker stood to attention and saluted her as she went by, LaSalle returned the salute and carried on down to speak to Ruhr. Making his way to medical he passed two of the ship's crew going the opposite way, they nodded towards him and Walker replied with a nod of his own. He got to the med bay and pressed the button to open the door. The door slid open and Walker was slammed into the wall. Walker managed to shout out for help. The two crew members that had passed him by came running back to help, trying to drag off the person that had attacked Walker. As the two crew members struggled to help Walker, they were also attacked. Walker never managed to get his attacker off him and died without ever knowing who or what had attacked him.
Captain Larringer had been talking to Sergeant Ruhr for a while when one of her crew came running down the ramp. The crew member was bleeding from several places, but the worst was her left hand which was missing. The wound was pumping out blood. The injured woman ran towards her Captain but collapsed half way there, LaSalle, Ruhr and several Marines ran over to the injured woman. LaSalle knelt down and cradled the woman in her arms. "What happened?"
The injured crew member tried to focus on her Captain. "T-t-they've gone mad. A-a- a-attacking anyone, everyone."
LaSalle heard Ruhr shouting for a medic. "Who's gone mad, who's attacking everyone?"
"C-c-crew is."
The medic came rushing over and pushed LaSalle out of the way and got to work on the injured woman. LaSalle stood up, her uniform was soaked in her crew members blood, and she could feel the warm and sticky liquid soaking through onto her skin. "I want a ten man team to come in with me and to find out what the hell is going on."
Ruhr un-slung his blaster rifle from his shoulder. "You Marines to me." A group of Marines came running over to Ruhr. "Captain, I'll lead the team aboard, you need to stay here." LaSalle started to object but Ruhr didn't give her a chance to say much. "Ma`am you`re needed here, that's all there is to it." Ruhr turned to his team. "Let's go." The Marines went up the boarding ramp with their weapons held ready.
LaSalle was watching the team proceed up the ramp; Ruhr had reached the top of the ramp when something out of sight of LaSalle caught his attention. Ruhr quickly turned and fired at the unseen attacker before moving out of LaSalle's sight. The other Marines followed Ruhr into the ship; again there was more blaster fire. LaSalle looked on as the last Marine went into her ship and disappeared from sight. Beside her LaSalle was aware of the medic treating her injured crew member, it wasn't looking good as the woman had appeared to have lost a lot of blood already and her skin was already taking on a pale grayish tinge. LaSalle was brought back to events when her comm. unit beeped; she picked it up and thumbed it on. "Report."
"We've made it to the bridge." It was Sergeant Ruhr. "The crew is attacking everyone in sight, they've gone mad! I've lost four men already getting here." The report was interrupted by blaster fire; LaSalle could see the flashes through the main bridge window. "It's no good there's too many of them and they won't stay down!"
"Sergeant, say again, you 're not making sense."
There was no reply; LaSalle looked up to the window again, there were more flashes, this time for longer.
"Get out of here Captain, before it's…."
LaSalle couldn't make out anymore of the report, all that was coming across the airwaves now was snarling. She tried to reach Sergeant Ruhr again. As she was shouting into the comm. unit, the bridge was engulfed in a huge explosion. The main bridge window shattered then blew out letting a fireball escape.
Un-noticed by the medic that was treating her, the crew member that had escaped the Rapier took one final strained breath then died.
LaSalle and the remainder of group three looked up as flames licked out of the remains of the bridge window and black smoke rose into the hanger. The medic that had been treating the injured crew member screamed out in pain. LaSalle spun round to see the wounded woman biting the arm of the medic. The medic using his other arm smashed his fist into the side of the woman's face making her let go. Holding his injured arm the medic backed away from his attacker. Snarling and lashing out; the woman jumped up and ran at the medic. A laser bolt hit her in the mid section and sent her sprawling to the floor. Captain Larringer kept her laser pistol aimed towards the woman she had just shot, she was still thrashing about on the floor. The crew member got to her feet this time looking straight at Captain Larringer, her lips peeled back as a feral snarl came from her. LaSalle squeezed the trigger and the laser bolt hit the woman in the head, snapping her head backwards and sending her once more to the floor. She didn't move again. Before LaSalle had a chance to speak, crew that were behaving like the woman she had just shot came running down the ramp. One of the attacking crew had most of his stomach ripped open, another the left side of his face had been torn off, a Marine whose right arm was totally engulfed in flames was also charging towards her with others following. It was an image that LaSalle would take to her grave. She raised her laser towards the closest target and squeezed the trigger as the laser bolt hit; LaSalle shouted as loud as she could. "OPEN FIRE!"
Chapter eight
Group two.
The Marines and pilots had proceeded down the left corridor for some time. So far they hadn't encountered anything out of the ordinary. The few rooms they had gone by had been searched and secured but nothing of any importance had been found. The lighting in the corridor was dim and it was hard to see what lay ahead. Steve held his E-11 blaster carbine in his right hand and scratched at the stubble on his chin with his other hand. Looking over his shoulder, he looked back down the corridor they had come, the end no longer visible due to the low lighting of the corridor. He turned to Paul who was slightly ahead of him and spoke in a quiet voice to him. "This doesn't feel right, where is everyone?"
Before Paul could answer a Marine that was on point signalled for the rest of the group to stop. Everyone went down onto one knee and held their weapon ready. Lieutenant Lohk'har moved silently up to the Marine's position to speak with him. After a brief conversation she signalled for the Marine and his group to move out. Signalling for another group to come forward to her position Paul watched as the next team received a quick briefing from the Lieutenant and then moved out. Another room had been discovered and the team of eight Marines were preparing to enter it. The Marine closest to the door panel pressed the door opening button, the door slid open and the light from the room illuminated that section of the corridor. The Marines quietly went into the room and a minute later one came out to signal the room was clear. Lohk'har went into the room whilst the rest of the group stood up from their kneeling position. Paul walked over to the doorway and looked in, it was similar to the other rooms that they had passed but Lohk'har was busy typing at a console, so far all the other consoles had been offline, this one however still appeared to be working. Paul entered the room and went over to Lieutenant. "Find anything useful?"
"I've managed to download the ship's schematics to my data pad and now know our location, but apart from that there's nothing here to tell us what's gone on onboard. Excuse me a minute, I'm going to send the schematic to Captain Farr." Lohk'har touched her head-set. "Captain Farr, this is Lieutenant Lohk'har, over."
"Go ahead Lieutenant."
"Sir I've managed to get a copy of the Harbingers schematics, I thought that you could do with a set for your group."
"Nice going Lohk'har send it over."
"Aye sir, sending now." Lohk'har keyed in some instructions to her data pad. She watched the meter on the display indicating transfer progress, several seconds later the transfer was complete. "That's all of it sir. Nothing much to report from this end. Looking at my map I've got a set of sealed blast doors up ahead, I'll try and get through them. I'll contact you once we're through, Lohk'har out." Lohk'har tapped her headset once and the connection was broken.
Paul went over to the console; he scanned through some of the menus that were accessible, all of them were the standard ones that anybody could use, everything else was secure. Paul headed back to the door; he spotted Steve and waved him over. "Steve, I remember you once saying that you had some basic slicing skills, could you have a go at getting into that console there and see if you can find anything for us?"
"I'll give it a shot, but no promises I'll have any luck." Steve un-slung his backpack and took out a data pad. Using a data link cable he plugged his data pad into the terminal. He typed in a few commands into his data pad and then watched the information that scrolled down his screen. "Ok link established; I'll need a few minutes to see what I'm up against."
Paul nodded and moved over to where Lieutenant Lohk'har was standing. "I've asked Major Michadick to see if he can slice into the console and get any info for us."
"I didn't know he was a slicer."
"He's not, well not really, he's got some skills so I thought I might as well ask him if he could have a go at it, you never know, we may get lucky."
Lohk'har smiled. "You never know, he may indeed." Lohk'har held up her data pad so that Paul could see it; it showed the group's current location. "Ok, I'm going to take most of the team with me to see if we can get these blast doors open whilst Major Michadick tries to access the system. I'll leave you pilots and four Marines here and you can catch up when you're done. Any trouble, give me a shout and we'll be right back, ok?"
"No worries."
Lohk'har signalled the rest of the pilots to go into the room along with four Marines. Lohk`har and the rest of the Marines all headed off towards the blast doors.
The Marines took up a defensive-position inside the door whilst the other pilots spread out in the room itself, Hans came over to where Paul and Steve where "Any luck?"
Steve answered without looking away from his data pads screen. "Nothing yet, but I'm not beat just yet."
Paul spoke to Hans. "So is it good being back with a Marine unit and being deployed as well?"
"Yes sir it is. It's almost as good as being out there in my B-Wing, almost. But being a zoomie does have its advantages." Zoomies was the name that the Marines gave to pilots as they said they zoom in and zoom out leaving all the hard work to the ground troops.
"Hey I've found something." Steve was scrolling through information on his data pad. "Most of it is pretty basic stuff, but you might find this interesting, all of the Harbingers escape capsules are in place, not a single one has been used. Check this out, the Captain has initiated a ship wide lockdown. I've queried as to why and all I got back was one word, Genesis."
"Genesis, what the hell is that supposed to mean?"
Hans responded to Paul's question. "From what I know it can mean a few things, but what I know it to mean to me is Creation, Evolution and the origin of Evil."
"Same here." Steve replied.
"Did you get anything else Steve, like crew size, how marty Stormtroopers are onboard that sort of thing?"
"Hold on." Steve pressed some more keys and a few seconds later he looked up. "You're not going to like this but the crew complement is just over forty thousand personnel. It doesn`t say how many of those are Stormtroopers though."
Jamie whistled softly. "Damn that's a lot of Imps."
"Ok I'll pass it on to Lohk'har. Everyone, get ready to move out and rejoin the main group." Steve touched his head set and passed on the details to the Lieutenant. After he had finished his report he touched the head set again to break contact. "Ok Lohk'har and the group are at the blast doors, they should have them open by the time we get there. Let's go."
The pilots and Marines moved out of the room and headed down the corridor towards the blast doors. The small group soon rejoined the main group; a Marine had the door control panel off and was fiddling with the door circuitry.
The Marine looked back to Lohk`har. "You ready Lieutenant?"
"Do it."
The Marine removed a chip from the panel and slotted it into an empty slot. Gears and mechanisms could be heard moving, the door was opening. The corridor was wide enough to give everyone a decent field of fire. The Marines and pilots held their weapons ready. The doors opened revealing another corridor; this one however was completely dark. Paul removed the small glow lamp from his combat jacket and attached it to his rifle. Turning the lamp on, he swept the beam of light down the dark corridor. Several other lamps were also turned on and shone into the corridor.
"Looks like we've found the main access to the ship, I'Il tell Captain Farr." Lohk'har made a report of the new findings to Doda. His group had also managed to get the blast doors open that they had come across and were now proceeding into the ship.
The group headed down the corridor for several minutes before it opened up into a large area. Here there was some light so everyone turned off their glow lamps. It was in the light that they spotted the bodies. There were dozens of them, some of them in bits of Stormtrooper armour, others just in normal uniform. Most of the bodies had signs of close quarters combat; there was blood all over the place. On closer inspection it became apparent that all of the dead Imperials had been shot, most of them more than once. As far as Paul could see all of the dead Imperials had head shot wounds, his mind flashed back to the incident in the main hangar, Hans had told them about the dead Imperials how all but the Officer had been shot in the head. Paul's attention was drawn to a technicians body; the man had only a slight wound on his left leg but it looked as if the man had committed suicide, the E-11 was still in his hand and there was an exit wound at the back of the mans head.
Lieutenant Lohk`har reported to Captain Farr on the grisly discovery and requested instructions on how to proceed. While Lohk'har was talking; Chris and Jamie found some more bodies leading down a sub corridor. It seemed that whatever happened had gone down this corridor. Part of the corridor was damaged; it looked like an explosion had destroyed a section leaving a hole in the floor. Chris leaned over and looked into the hole; sure enough it dropped down to the level below.
"Just what the hell is going on here?" Chelsey seemed to have voiced what most of the group was thinking.
Steve looked around the area again taking in everything. "It's a shame these Imps can't tell us anything."
Paul pointed to the technician's body. "This one tells me plenty. He's saying that he's terrified of something and would rather kill himself than face whatever it was that happened here."
Lohk'har finished speaking to Doda and spoke loud enough to be heard by everyone. "Captain Farr is asking us to proceed and see if we can learn anything as to what happened here. Major Layne, did you notice if we could still get across that damaged section?"
"If we're careful and go one at a time on the right hand side I think we'll be able to manage it."
"Ok, that's what we`re going to do and see where it takes us, let's go."
The group made their way across the damaged section of flooring to the other side. They followed the corridor to its end. It led into a large room, it looked like a briefing room back on the Morning Star but about five times bigger. There were bodies in this room as well, all seemed to be heading for a door in the top right hand corner of the room. The green light on the panel indicated that the door wasn't locked and still working. There also seemed to be another door at the bottom right of the room but as there were no bodies in that direction the group headed towards the top one. A Marine went over to the panel and after getting the signal to proceed pressed the door open button. The doors slid open and things that had once been human beings burst into the room.
Chapter nine
The Marine that had opened the door went down straight away underneath a wave of snarling and bloody Imperials; he never even got a chance to fight back before he was completely overwhelmed. More Imperials were surging into the room, their attention on the Marines and pilots. Without even waiting for the order to fire, Paul raised his rifle and fired at the first Imperial he centered his sights on. The triple burst hit the Imperial high in his chest, one of the bullets hitting the rank markings. The man was knocked off his feet into the Imperial directly behind him. Paul switched his aim to another Imperial and fired.
The Marines and pilots reacted to the weapons fire and soon everyone was shooting the Imperials. The first lot that had burst through the door were quickly cut down but more and more Imperials came through the door trampling over the bodies of the ones that had just been shot.
Paul shot another Imperial sending this one sprawling to the floor, switching to his next target he was surprised to see that it was the first Imperial he had shot was now up and coming at him again. The three bullet holes in the chest and where one had hit the rank markings confirmed it was him though. Paul squeezed the trigger again sending another burst into the Imperial; again hitting him dead center and once more sending the man crashing down to the floor, but the Imperial wasn't staying down and was already getting back up.
There was a scream from a Marine as she was overpowered by her attackers; Hans blasted two of the Imperials that were attacking her allowing her to fight off the others and pick up her blaster and get back into the fight.
There didn't seem to be an end to the Imperials pouring in through the door and ever so slowly the Marines and pilots were being forced back.
Shooting another attacker, Paul was once more under attack from the Imperial he had shot on two occasions. Paul muttered to himself. "Son of a bitch doesn't know when he`s supposed to stay down!" It was as he was taking aim again that he remembered the dead Imperials from before and switched his aim to the Imperials head. The bullets blew the back of Imperial's head off, spraying grey matter over the others behind him. "Now stay down!" The Imperial didn't move again. Paul shot several others to make sure that he was right in his assumption. He was, these ones stayed down as well. Paul shouted as loud as he could to be heard over the weapons fire. "HEADSHOTS! YOU HAVE TO SHOOT THEM IN THE HEAD TO KILL THEM!" To put his point across Paul shot an Imperial in the head and then another.
The rest of the group got the message and soon everyone was going for head shots. This seemed to help the group's situation as the number of attackers in the room was steadily reduced; however there still seemed an endless supply of Imperials coming through the door.
Steve was close to Paul's position and had just blasted another Imperial, he noticed that Paul seemed to be saying something as he was shooting but couldn't hear him because of all the weapons fire. A snarling Imperial that was lunging at him drew his attention back to the battle; Steve swung his E-11 towards the Imperial and let loose a stream of blaster bolts hitting his attacker in the head.
Paul ejected the spent ammo clip from the rifle and reached into his satchel to get a fresh clip. His hand touched one of the four thermal detonators that were also in there, he scooped that out instead. Priming the grenade he hefted back his arm and threw it into the corridor where all the Imperials were coming from. "GRENADE!" The grenade sailed past the heads of the Imperials and into the corridor. The grenade hit an Imperial on his head and bounced down to the floor. The man it had hit didn't even stop to see what had hit him and carried on surging forward trying to get into the room with the Marines and pilots. The explosion of the grenade seemed more powerful than normal, this was due to it going off in an enclosed space. The Imperials in the immediate vicinity of the grenade were more or less disintegrated by the explosion. Those just beyond received massive shrapnel wounds and had limbs blown off, a few were even set on fire. Before the explosion had even passed Paul had inserted a fresh mag and chambered a round. Shouting to be heard above the noise Paul issued an order. "SEAL THE DOORS!"
A Marine ran forward and hit the button to close the doors. Almost tripping on the bodies as he went, he reached the door panel and pressed the button. The doors started to close straight away.
Jamie got several shots off down the corridor at the Imperials that had picked themselves up and were once again coming to attack.
The doors shut with a reassuring clang. "Lock it, I don't want those things getting in." Lohk'har ordered.
Before she could say anything else Chris swore. "Oh shit! Contact rear!" Chris pointed to the door where the group had entered the room and down the corridor, there were more Imperials coming at them. He raised his rifle and started shooting down the corridor.
"SECURE THAT DOOR." Lohk'har shouted.
Deanna ran over to the panel whilst the others laid down covering fire. She hit the button to close the door, nothing happened. She hit it again this time harder, again nothing happened. This time she pounded on the button but it was to no avail the door remained open. "The door's fragged!"
"Over ride it."
"I can't, I don't know how!"
"I'm on it." Hans ran forward to Deanna's position. When he got there he used the butt of his E-11 to smash the panel cover off. "Cover me."
"Copy that." Deanna took up position by the door and started firing.
Ripping out wires from the panel Hans picked the two that he needed, he got the exposed ends together and wrapped them around each other. There was a shower of sparks and smoke from the panel. The doors started to close. Deanna and Hans backed away from the door whilst the others covered them.
The sound that the door made when it finally closed was the best sound she had heard all day Chelsey thought.
From the doors that they had just closed, came the sound of moaning and groaning and every now and then something would pound on the doors, this was also the case at the top doors as well. Jamie pointed his rifle towards the door at the bottom; it was still closed and silent. He ejected the power clip from his E-11 and put a fresh one in. Most people in the room were also doing the same thing.
"Does anyone want to tell me what the hell just happened and what's going on here?" Chris asked.
Nobody said anything; they didn't get a chance to. The Marine that had been attacked and killed at the door when he opened it got up off the floor. His uniform was torn and ripped and covered in blood. It looked like part of his chest had been ripped open and his insides torn out; his right eye was missing, all that was there was a bloody empty socket. Lohk'har's face seemed to drain of colour. "Kline?"
Kline's one eye focussed in on Lohk'har he let loose a snarl like the Imperials had done when they had attacked. He ran at Lohk'har, he took several steps before the bullets from Paul's rifle hit the side of his head. The bullets went straight through and impacted into the wall. The Marine collapsed to the floor and blood started to pool around his head.
The room was silent again. Paul lowered his rifle and looked at everyone; everybody seemed to be trying to make sense of the situation. Taking a swig of water from his canteen Paul cleared his throat. "I've got an idea of what's going on here, but you're not going to like it!"
There was a loud bang on the doors as something tried to get into the room.
Lohk'har turned away from Kline's body and looked over to where Paul was standing. "Major if you think you can explain this!" She swept her hand over to where all the bodies had piled near the doors.
"Ok here's what I think we're dealing with. Un-dead or for a better word, Zombies."
Steve was the first person to speak. "That's not possible is it?"
Lohk'har snorted. "Major, that's Bantha dung."
"Really, then you want to explain to me how Kline was able to get up and go after you after he was dead? Or how about how someone can take over half a dozen shots to the chest and still get up like nothing has happened?"
"I can't. But it doesn't make them zombies either."
"Maybe not but I sure as hell can't think of a better word to describe what's going on here, I said you wouldn't like what I had to say but that's my best guess. How all this happened I've no idea but it has and now we're caught up in it."
Lohk'har seemed as if she was going to object again but instead placed her right hand up to her head set and pressed it against her ear so that she could hear.
"You're serious aren't you?" Chelsey asked.
"I wish I wasn't but it's all starting to make sense with what we've seen so far. Those Imps we shot, they`ve been dead for a while, days even; not when we blasted them." The pounding on the doors seemed to grow louder as did the moaning. Paul tightened the grip on his rifle.
Chapter ten
The bridge of the Rapier was burning fiercely now as the fire started to spread through the rest of the ship. LaSalle and the remains of the third group didn't have time to notice any of this though as they were still under attack by the crew members. LaSalle ejected the spent energy clip from her laser and slapped in a fresh one, she shot an attacking crew member in the chest and the man went down hard onto the ground. The man scrambled back onto his feet and began running at LaSalle once more. LaSalle used both hands to steady her aim as the man charged at her, the shot hit just under his left eye leaving a scorch mark where the laser bolt had burned through his face. The crew member went face first into the metal deck and stopped moving.
A Marine on an E-Web was pouring fire up the boarding ramp blasting the attacking crew members still trying to get off the ship. The ones that had gotten off were being dealt with by Captain Larringer and the Marines. LaSalle had realised that the only way to kill the attacking crew was by shots to the head; once she had passed on this information to the Marines they made short work of the crew. Several minutes later it was all over, all that could be heard was the crackling of the fire as the Rapier burned. Getting the comm unit from her pocket, LaSalle spoke into it. "Larringer to Captain Farr and Lieutenant Lohk'har, respond over."
"Farr here Captain, go ahead."
"Lieutenant Lohk'har, respond immediately, over." There was no reply from Lohk'har.
"Captain I spoke to the Lieutenant about ten minutes ago, her group had managed to gain access to the main ship area and were searching. Is everything alright?"
"Negative Captain, everything is far from alright, we've been attacked and the Rapier has been destroyed." LaSalle gave a brief run down to Doda of what had happened. After several minutes LaSalle had finished her report to Doda.
"Captain, I'm having trouble accepting what you've just told me."
"You're not the only one, trust me."
Before either Doda or LaSalle could continue talking both their comm. units beeped indicating that someone else had joined the channel. "I repeat; this is Lieutenant Lohk'har to Captains Larringer and Farr, please come in."
LaSalle spoke first. "Lohk 'har where the hell have you been, why didn't you respond?"
"We were attacked, we've got one Marine K.I.A. and a few others wounded." Lohk'har gave a brief account of what had just happened to her group. "Major Sweet also has a theory, it`s not one that I share but so far I've got nothing else to go on."
Paul came on to the channel and told them his theory, Doda was as skeptical as Lohk`har but Captain Larringer accepted what Paul told her.
"Well major you're certainly right about one thing anyway; head shots are the only way to stop them. Captain Farr, myself and group three will come to your location. When we join up we'll then see what we can do about getting group two to us and getting the hell off this ship."
It was as LaSalle was stating her intentions that Paul suddenly remembered that the blast doors they had opened to gain access to this part of the ship were still open. "Hell's teeth, Captain you got a problem. The blast doors we came through are still open and those things could be heading in your direction!"
"Roger that, we`re moving out now." LaSalle motioned for the group to form up and set off at a fast jog towards the large corridor.
Doda got back in on the conversation. "Captain, half my group and I will meet you at the T-junction and escort you back to our current location, I'll get the rest of the group to set up defensive positions."
"Copy that Captain, see you there."
As LaSalle and her group moved out there was an explosion from the Rapier, the fire had reached something critical, LaSalle took one last look at her stricken ship as it was consumed by the fire. She prayed that there was no one still left alive onboard; there wasn't anything that could be done to help them now. LaSalle picked up the pace, the sooner she was away from the Rapier, the better.
Chapter eleven
Deanna had just finished dressing the wounds on the four Marines that had been injured during the attack. The worst had been to Vicki, apart from numerous scratches one of her attackers had managed to take a chunk of flesh from her left wrist. Deanna had to use several dressings to stop the bleeding before bandaging the wound.
Lohk'har had ordered several Marines to search the bodies of the dead Imperials to see if anything important could be found. During the search an Imperial had started to move again but was quickly dealt with by the Marines. Nothing of importance was located during the search apart from a few energy packs for E-11 blaster rifles so these were taken. Klein's equipment was also taken and distributed amongst the group; his body was now covered with his Ghillie Poncho and his rifle lying on top of him. His corpse had been moved away from the main group of bodies. "We need to get out of here and meet up with Captains Larringer and Farr." Lohk'har was speaking to Chelsey and Paul. "Looking at the schematics we can make our way back to where Captain Farr has set up his defensive positions." Lohk`har used her finger to indicate the route she wanted to take.
Chelsey looked at the route that Lohk'har had suggested. "We've got no idea if that corridor is clear, there could be more Zomb..... I mean Imperials down it for all we know."
Paul un-slung his rifle from his shoulder and flicked off the safety. "Well I guess we'll know when we take a look at what's behind door number three then."
Everyone got in a defensive firing position, ready for when the door was opened. The Marine by the door panel had been told to be ready to shut the doors straight away if there was anything waiting on the other side for them. He got a nod from Lohk'har and pressed the button to open the doors, his hand quickly darting down to the door close button. The doors slid apart revealing an empty corridor. Steve let out a slight breath of relief.
Using hand signals to keep everything as quiet as possible, Lohk'har motioned for everyone to move out. The first few Marines through the door had the weapons held ready and were sweeping their weapons up and down and across the corridor ready for any attack.
The group moved silently down the corridor and hopefully away from their attackers. Paul felt sweat prickling on his brow and trickling down his back, looking around he saw those around him were also in a similar state as he was. He noticed that Vicki seemed to be sweating more than most but put this down to the injury she had received.
The corridor led to a junction, Lohk'har looked at her data pad and motioned for everyone to carry on into the room directly ahead. Once through the doorway the room opened up into a viewing room which looked out onto a large factory work station. The factory work station was twenty meters below the viewing room; it looked like whoever was in charge of the work station managed from up here. The work station itself was huge, stretching out for at least two hundred and fifty meters. It wasn't this though that made everyone stop and look, it was the fact that there were hundreds, if not thousands of Zombies in the factory area.
The Zombies seemed focused on two large doors, dozens of them were pounding on the doors trying to get through them. One of the Zombies stood out from the rest; this was due to the fact that it was a large Trandoshan in the remains of an orange jumpsuit. The Trandoshan was clawing away at the door seemingly just as determined to get through as the others.
Chris looked over to Lohk`har. "Please tell me we don't have to go through them, because if we do we`re well and truly screwed!"
"No, we keep on going this way towards Captain Farr's group." Lohk'har signaled everyone to get ready to move out again.
"Hang fire for a moment." Paul was still looking out onto the factory floor at the Zombies pounding on the doors. "There are people down there, behind those doors."
"So what?"
"So by the way those Zombies are behaving, the people in that other room could still be alive."
"Again, so what? Major I don't give a damn if Ice Heart herself is behind those doors, we're going on"
"Lieutenant, in case you may have forgotten; we haven't got a ship to get off Harbinger anymore and if there is someone alive down there, they might be able to help us get the hell off this ship!"
"I am not willing to risk any of my Marines to rescue Imperials."
"You won't have to, I'm volunteering to go. What I need you to do is have a look at the schematics and see if there's any other way into that room."
Lohkhar looked to Steve for support. "Major Michadick, he's your man, you tell him."
"Sorry Lieutenant, but I think he's right, any help, even Imperial help to get us off this ship, we should take it."
"Fine!" Lohk`har pressed some keys on her data pad and enlarged the section that Paul was referring to. "It's a sealed room, only those doors can get you into the place."
Paul was looking over Lohk'har's shoulder at her data pad and the room in question. The schematics said the room was a testing room, for what, it didn't say. "Look there's my way in, there's an air conduit that runs above the ceiling, and it says there's a ventilation shaft in the room. See if you find a way into the shaft for me."
Lohk'har scanned the schematic until she found what Paul was looking for. "You can gain access to the system from this room here." Lohk'har pointed with her finger to a room not far away from their current location. "Major, just to make myself clear on this point, I'm not happy at all with your decision."
"So noted Lieutenant. If we make it out of here you can make a formal complaint. However in the meantime I suggest you wait for me there." Paul pointed to a room that was next to the one he would be using to get into the air conduit. "I need two volunteers to go with me to guard the room whilst I'm in the vent."
Hans came over to Paul and said he would be prepared to go with him; Steve also volunteered to go as well. As the trio set off, Paul noticed a length of knotted rope across a Marine. "Excuse me corporal, I'm taking your rope." The Marine gave Paul the rope after Lohk`har signaled him to give it to the pilot. "Thanks." Paul slung the rope over his shoulder and headed out of the viewing room.
The three pilots headed silently towards the room that would allow Paul access to the air conduit whilst Lohk`har and the others would set off in a few minutes.
Hans pressed the button to open the door. The door slid open revealing a storage room. In the top right of the room was a panel covering the air conduit. Once all three men were inside, Hans closed the door and locked it. "Ready."
Standing on storage crates Paul and Steve got to work with their vibro knives on the securing pins of the panel. Slicing the last pin, Steve caught the panel as it fell away. Paul hoisted himself up into the vent. Steve passed him his rifle. "Thanks."
"I hope you know what you're doing Paul."
"Me too Steve."
"Good luck."
Paul nodded and then started crawling towards the vent in the testing room. As he went further in, Paul turned on the small glow lamp that was attached to his rifle. As he neared the vent to the testing room, Paul started to hear noises. He stopped moving and listened to see if he could tell what it was. At first he couldn't make out what it was so quietly as he could, moved forward some more. The closer he got to the vent the clearer the noise was to make out, it was people talking. Reaching the vent Paul peered into the room below him. Through the vents slats, he counted twentythree people, seventeen were Stormtroopers, the other six looked like non-military personnel. Keying his headset to report what he found, Paul spoke quietly so as not to give away his position. "I've located Imperial survivors, twenty three in total, seventeen are troopers, the other six look like civvies, out." Paul turned off the glow lamp on his rifle, it looked to him that four of the Stormtroopers were guarding the door whilst the others were resting. The four that Paul assumed were on guard duty were the only ones in full armor whilst the rest had removed some of their armour. The civilians had grouped together and didn't seem to be mixing with the troopers Paul noted to himself. He was now figuring out the best way to make contact with the group without getting blasted by some trigger happy Imperial. Figuring that anything too covert would probably be answered with blaster fire, Paul decided on the direct approach and called out, "Hello down there."
The room went silent straight away. The four Stormtroopers spun round and looked straight up at the air vent, the others reaching for their weapons. One of the four Stormtroopers stepped forward whilst the other three aimed their weapons at the vent. "Who's there? Identify yourself."
Realising that if he told them who he was straight away he would probably be shot. "I'm here to rescue your sorry arses. I'm going to lower a rope and then come down to you, ok?"
The Stormtrooper that had spoken didn't answer straight away. "Ok lower your rope and then come down."
Using his vibro knife, Paul hacked away at the securing pins, when the last one was severed the air vent fell down to the floor below clattering off a large work table. He used his vibro knife again to slice two holes in the top of the air conduit so he could secure the rope. He gave the rope a hard pull to make sure it was secure; satisfied it was he threw the rope out of the opening and down to the floor. Paul slung his rifle over his shoulder, taking hold of the rope he eased himself out of the vent and slid down to the floor.
As Paul stepped away from the rope one of the Stormtroopers noticed Paul's squadron patch. "He's a Rebel!"
Knowing that this was probably going to happen, Paul dove behind the large work table and un-slung his rifle as a blaster bolt slammed into the table. The Stormtrooper that had spoken barked out an order. "Hold your fire." No more blaster shots rang out.
Paul slowly raised his head above the table to take a look, his rifle was held ready. All the Stormtroopers except the one that had spoken had their weapons aimed towards his position.
"You sure have a nice way of saying thanks to people trying to rescue you!"
"We're fussy about who's doing the rescuing. Throw down your weapons and step out."
"Not going to happen, sorry."
"I hardly see how you're in a position to bargain, last time I checked I had the high ground."
"Afraid not. You see if I don't make contact in another thirty seconds with the rest of my team, not only will they detonate the bomb that I set on top of the rope leaving you without an escape route, but they'll also roll in a couple of thermal detonators for good measure." There was no response from the Imperials, all Paul could hear was a few of the un-armoured troopers whispering to each other. "Time's almost up, what's it going to be?"
"Lower your weapons, the Rebel is not to be harmed." The Stormtroopers lowered their weapons.
Paul stood up. He touched his headset and opened the channel. "Steve, stand by, I've made contact with the locals, they're restless but are behaving themselves so far."
In the storage room where Steve and Hans were waiting for Paul, the message made no sense to either of the pilots. "Err Rogue, you ok?"
"I'm fine, hold off on the rope bomb and the thermals for now, I'll be in touch." Paul closed the link on his headset.
In the storage room Steve looked at Hans. "Rope bomb?"
Hans shrugged his shoulders. "Your guess is as good as mine sir."
Chapter twelve
Captain Larringer could see Captain Farr and his group waiting for her and the remainder of group three at the T-junction. A wave of relief washed over her as the distance closed on the two groups, they'd made it. LaSalle's relief was short-lived. A Marine suddenly dropped into a firing position and started shooting down the left corridor. Almost straight away all of Captain Farr's group were shooting into the corridor, Doda was waving LaSalle and her group to hurry. Braking into a run, LaSalle called out to her group. "Haul ass people, we got company coming." As the group finally reached Captain Farr's position she could hear snarling of the attackers over the blaster fire.
Doda was shooting into the attacking group of Zombies when Captain LaSalle pulled up next to him. "Glad you could drop by, Captain."
"Spare me the pleasantries Doda; we've got to get out of here, now."
"Already in hand Ma'am." Doda pointed to a Marine who was planting a trip mine on the side of the wall. "Ok people fall back, we are leaving." The Marine armed the mine as the last man past him then sprinted after the group. Five seconds later a red laser beam shone out from the centre of the mine leaving a small red dot of light on the opposite wall. The Marines were still firing as they retreated down the corridor, most of the shots that hit weren't killing shots but a few laser bolts found their mark. There was an explosion as a group of Zombies reached the mines position and broke the laser trip wire. The Zombies were blown to pieces and others behind them received terrible injuries, this however didn't slow the main group down at all, they simply carried on running towards the retreating Marines even the ones that were maimed or on fire didn't seem to slow down.
As the group ran to where the rest of group one was dug in Doda shouted over to LaSalle. "I've had two more mines placed down the corridor; they just need to be activated as we go past."
"Smart thinking, let's hope those things take the hint and back off."
The group approached the next mine, Doda ran up to it and as soon as the last person had gone past, armed the mine. The corridor soon turned left, up ahead was the blast doors and just beyond was the rest of group one. Doda stopped at the final mine and repeated the same process as before, just as he had finished arming the mine another explosion rang out as Zombies triggered the second mine.
"Damn they're getting closer!" One of the Marines shouted out.
"We're almost at the blast doors; once we're through them we seal them." Doda shouted.
The group sprinted through the blast doors; Doda hit the button to close the doors, but nothing happened. "What? What's wrong with the doors?"
A Zombie that was almost totally engulfed in flames staggered round the corner. It took several steps before collapsing onto the floor; it managed to drag itself forward a few feet before it stopped moving.
"We've got about sixty seconds before those things get to us." LaSalle gasped as she tried to get her breath back.
"Shafer, get over here and close these doors." Doda ordered.
The young Marine ran to the panel, and quickly removed the panel cover, using an adaptor, he plugged his data pad into the door controls. A diagnostic script scrolled across his screen ten seconds later the writing stopped and was replaced with a diagram of the panel's circuitry. "Ok I need to replace the master chip, it's burnt out. I'll need to get one from another door panel, buy me some time." Shafer ran off to the nearest door away from the Zombies.
"Form a line and stand ready." Doda ordered. Everybody took up a firing position ready for the Zombies to appear, they didn't have to wait long. The Zombies piled around the corner, all of them running flat out towards the Marines. "OPEN FIRE." Doda yelled as loud as he could.
The front row was cut down straight away by the hail of blaster fire. Still the Zombies surged forward. It wasn't long before one triggered the final trip mine.
LaSalle felt the heat from the explosion wash over her; there was no sign of Shafer yet.
The mine had bought the defending Marines some precious time, but not much as some Zombies were already coming through the blast area. These were cut down straight away but again more and more were still coming.
"MAKE A HOLE, COMING THROUGH!" Shafer shouted as he barged through the group to get to the control panel. He ripped out the old master chip and threw it over his shoulder; pulling another chip from his tunic pocket he slotted it into place. Shafer's data pad beeped to indicate that the circuit was now complete and working. He hit the close button and the doors began to close.
The Zombies were almost on top of the group when the doors finally shut, one had managed to get his arm through the gap and was slashing away wildly until the doors came together and severed the arm off just below the shoulder. The arm made a wet sound as it hit the floor leaving a trail of smeared blood going down the door to the ground.
LaSalle leaned against the corridor wall and slowly slid down to the floor; she leaned her head against the wall and closed her eyes. "Damn, isn't this a fine situation we've gotten into!" The sounds of thumping on the door followed by moaning could be heard coming from the other side.
"Could be worse though Ma'am."
LaSalle opened her eyes and looked to where Captain Farr was standing. "How could it possibly be worse than this Doda?"
"We could be on that side of the door Ma'am!"
LaSalle laughed once. "You're right, it could be worse."
The medic that had been bitten earlier put out his un-injured arm and propped himself up against the wall, he had started to feel quite sick and dizzy; his arm was really starting to throb where he had been bitten.
"You ok Lien?" One of the medic's friends had noticed him leaning on the wall and had gone over to him.
"Yeah guess I'm not as fit as I thought I was, I feel pretty lousy after that little jog, I must be getting old." Lien pushed himself off the wall; he and his friend rejoined the main group.
Doda spoke up so that everyone could hear him. "Ok Marines we're heading back to where the rest of the first group has dug themselves in, once we're there we'll contact Lieutenant Lohk'har and see about joining up with the second group and then getting out of here. Let's go."
The group moved off down the corridor away from the Zombies that were pounding their fists off the blast doors.
Chapter thirteen
The Stormtrooper that seemed to be in charge walked away from the other three armoured troopers. The trooper raised both hands and removed their helmet. Paul had been expecting a man to be under the armour but was surprised to see a woman looking back at him, he managed to cover his surprise as best he could. Her hair was a dirty blond colour and it was done up in a tight bun, she had piercing blue eyes which seemed to bore straight into Paul's. Looking at her Paul guessed that the woman was in her mid thirties, it also didn't escape his attention how attractive she was.
The woman placed the helmet on top of the work station. "Commander Irena Hesh, in charge of ship security."
"Major Paul Sweet, pilot in Blue Squadron."
"So what can I do for you Major?"
"Shouldn't it be me asking you that question commander? Your predicament seems to be a less than favorable one."
"You've noticed, have you!" A wry smile spread to Irena's lips.
"A ship full of zombies running about the place tends to get your attention. Not an everyday event."
One of the civilians got up from their small group and came marching over "For the love of the sith! Are the pair of you going to stand there all day swapping pleasantries or are you actually going to do something?"
Irena looked at the woman who had interrupted her conversation. "Doctor Jahi, if you don't get the hell out of my face and back to your people, I will open the doors and personally throw you to the crowd on the other side, is that clear?"
The other woman sniffed once then turned on her heel and quickly marched away back to her group, her white lab coat making a swishing noise as she walked away. Upon reaching her group the woman sat down, she gave Irena a hard look before talking to her colleagues in a hushed voice.
"That damn woman has been a pain since we rescued her group the other day! Ok Major it looks like if we want out of here my group is going to have to work along with you and your people, what are your terms?"
Paul was again surprised by Irena's direct approach; there was no posturing or false bravado. "Your immediate surrender and co-operation, those terms are non negotiable, one of you breaks them and the whole lot of you will be left here to rot."
"Agreed." Irena turned to her troops. "Listen up. I've surrendered to the Rebel, he has guaranteed us safe conduct as long as we ALL cooperate, if anyone and I do mean anyone deviates from this then we will all be left here, is that understood?"
Every Stormtrooper stood at attention and all of them responded in unison "Yes Ma'am."
Paul touched his headset and opened a channel to Lohk'har. "Lieutenant Lohk'har, I've located Imperial survivors, they have surrendered to me. I've guaranteed them safe conduct in return for their full cooperation. They're going to be making their way up and out of the room to your location, over."
Lohk'har had trouble accepting what she had just heard. "Major, I hope you know what you're doing, out."
"Hans, Steve, are you two ready to direct our guests?"
Steve replied. "We're ready, send them through."
"Copy that." Paul touched his headset and killed the link. "Ok Commander, just to let you know, as well as myself and fellow pilots there's also a company of Marines on board. You and your troopers will go up one at a time, as soon as one reaches the Lieutenant, the next one heads up just in case anybody forgets our little deal. Your troopers get to keep their weapons though as I've got a feeling that we're going to need all the firepower we can lay our hands on to get off this ship."
"Understood Major, I've given you my word and I always keep to it." Irena pointed to one of the armored troopers. "Roan, you're first up,see if you can fit through in your armor."
The young Stormtrooper snapped to attention "Right away Ma'am." Roan walked over to the rope and took hold of it in both hands, he heaved on the line with all his weight. Satisfied that the rope would take his weight he began to haul himself up the rope. Soon he was at the top and trying to pull himself into the air vent, he didn't get very far. "It`s no good Commander; it's too tight with armor on."
"Very well, come back down and lose the top half of your armor."
Roan came out of the vent and slid down the rope. Once at the bottom he removed his helmet and top half of his armor. With that done, he climbed back up the rope and disappeared up into the air conduit.
Paul touched his headset and opened a link to Steve. "First package is on the way, should be at your location in a minute."
"Understood."
Irena started to remove the top part of her armor in preparation for when it was her turn. Seeing their Commander do this the two remaining fully armored Stormtroopers did the same.
Lohk'har came onto the channel. "First package has arrived and we're ready for the next one."
Paul signaled to Irena for the next person to go up.
"Lieutenant Teer, you're next."
As the Lieutenant started to climb up Paul slung his rifle onto his shoulder. He looked at Irena. "I won't need this in here now will I?"
"No."
One by one the Imperials headed up the rope and into the room with Lohk'har and the Marines. As good as Irena's word, they weren't causing Lohk 'har or the Marines any concerns. This didn't mean that Lohk'har trusted them and had carefully placed Marines about the room to cover the Imperials in case they decided to ignore their Commander's orders.
While all this was happening Paul heard that Captain LaSalle and Captain Farr had reached the rest of group one at the fortified location. Lohk'har was giving a brief report on her group's current location and situation.
"I think the scientists are going to need help getting up the rope." Irena pointed out to Paul.
Paul looked over to the small group, they were still sitting away from everyone else. He pointed to the woman that had come across earlier. "You! Doctor Jahi, come here."
Lilith got up and came over to where Paul and Irena where stood. "Yes?"
"Here it is, if you and your people want out, you have to climb up that rope, if you can`t then you stay, it`s that simple."
Lilith's face started to go red with anger. "How dare you, I demand that not only do you get us out of this room but also safely off this ship!"
This was the Imperial behavior Paul had been expecting. "Is that right?"
Lilith placed both her hands firmly on her hips. "Yes, that`s right."
Paul leaned in towards Lilith and spoke in a low voice so that only Irena and Lilith could hear him. "Listen up and listen good Doctor Jahi. To get off this floating Necropolis we are going to need people that can look after themselves not ones that need looking after. So if you and the rest of your sniveling and whinny group can't get their arses up that bloody rope then you stay. Understood?"
Lilith simply nodded; she called the rest of her group over and told them what they had to do. A few started to complain, but were quickly stopped by Lilith when she pointed out that the Rebel scum wasn't up for negotiating. The Scientists reluctantly agreed to go up the rope, with Lilith being the first to go. She complained all the way to the top and when she got in the air vent Paul could still hear her complaining as she crawled along the air conduit.
"I doubt that she has ever been spoken to like that before." Irena pointed out to Paul.
"My heart bleeds for her, she'll get over it." Soon there was only Irena and Paul left in the room. "Ok Commander, up you go."
Irena took hold of the rope and quickly went up the rope hand over hand without using her feet. When she was in the vent Paul made his own way up. After a quick crawl through the vent he emerged into the room where Hans, Steve and Irena were waiting.
"Welcome back." Steve greeted Paul as he jumped down to the ground from the vent.
"Cheers, let's go and join the Lieutenant."
The four of them left the room and headed down the corridor a short distance, the room that Lohk'har was in was obvious as two Marines were outside it. There also seemed to be a lot of noise coming from inside the room. As Paul and the others entered the room they were confronted with Lohk'har and Doctor Jahi having a full blown argument. Lilith kept on pointing over to Vicki, the Marine that had been wounded in the last confrontation with the Zombies. Vicki wasn't looking any better Paul noticed in fact she was looking worse. Steve and Paul went over to where the two women were arguing whilst Irena went over to her troops.
"What's going on Lieutenant?" Steve asked.
Lohk'har seemed to notice the two Officers for the first time since they had come back into the room. "This Imp witch says that Vicki is a danger to everyone and we have to leave her behind!"
Paul looked at Lilith. "This true Doctor Jahi? Why is Vicki a danger to us?"
"Isn't it obvious? She can hardly stand let alone fight; and you yourself said you can't have anyone that needs looking after."
Paul sighed. "That was said to make your people get up and out of their Doctor Jahi, I had to say that to give you the motivation to get up the rope."
"I'm not interested, she's a liability."
Paul was about to come back with a retort when he noticed that the other scientists were all keeping well away from Vicki, in fact some of them looked terrified of the young woman. Paul looked back towards Lilith, his eyes narrowed down to slits. "Doctor Jahi, what's the real reason you don't want Vicki with us?"
"I've already told you, she's dangerous, a liability."
"Doctor Jahi, I'm only going to ask you one more time, what's the real reason?"
"That is my reason." Lilith turned to walk away. Paul grabbed Lilith with his left arm and using his fore arm slammed her against the wall and pinned her there, the woman's long black hair settled over her face. With his right hand he drew his DL-44 blaster from his holster and pressed the muzzle into Lilith's temple. The other Imperials in the room started to react, some reaching for their own weapons. "Steve! Lieutenant!"
Lohk'har and Steve had their rifles in their hands and were aiming at the Imperials. "Don't move!" Lohk`har ordered. The rest of the Marines aimed their weapons at the Imperials. The Imperials stopped moving.
"Paul, what do you think you're doing?" Steve asked Paul as he covered a Stormtrooper with his rifle.
"Just trust me on this one Steve."
Irena had both of her hands raised and open and walked slowly towards Paul. Hans covered her with his blaster. "What are you doing Major, I thought we had an agreement?"
"We do Commander, but this woman is lying, she knows something and isn't playing straight with us. Doctor Jahi, I believe you have something to tell me?"
Lilith spat out some hair that had gone into her mouth. "I've a-a-already told y-y-you why."
Using his thumb, Paul cocked back the firing hammer on his blaster. The click it made as it locked back was heard by everyone in the room. "Doctor Jahi, if you don't tell me the truth right now, I can guarantee you that when I blow your brains all over this wall, one of your fellow scientists will tell me what I need to know. Trust me I'm serious about this and I'm not just giving you a motivational speech!"
A tear trickled out of her right eye and down her cheek. In a trembling voice Lilith answered Paul. "S-s-she's going to c-c-c-change. She's in-infected"
Paul knew what Lilith meant but he still had to hear it. "What do you mean by infected?"
"She's going to become one of t-t-them, a Zombie. She was bitten. A-anyone bitten or scratched by one of them will die and become one!"
Paul took his left arm off of Lilith. The scientist went crashing down to the floor and started to weep. The blaster in his hand started to feel heavy so Paul put it back in his holster. "You seem to know a lot about these Zombies Doctor Jahi, is there a cure?"
Lilith just lay on the floor weeping and didn't reply.
"IS THERE A FUCKING CURE!" Paul shouted at the top of lungs. Several people in the room jumped, startled by the shouting.
"No." Lilith simply replied.
Chapter fourteen
Captain LaSalle was speaking to Lohk'har whilst Captain Farr listened in. "Let me get this straight Lieutenant, you're saying that if you're bitten or scratched by one of these things you become one?"
"As soon as you die, Captain, yes."
"Do you believe this Doctor Jahi?"
"Yes Ma'am I do, Major Sweet made it quite clear to her what would happen if she didn't talk."
"Ok, what about the Stormtroopers, have they given you any trouble?"
"No Ma'am, Commander Hesh is as good as her word; she also states that her and her troopers knew nothing about what was going on onboard the ship, in fact she's severely pissed at Dr Jahi. She's lost most of her command to these things, so there's no love lost between her and the Doctor."
"Well going off what you've told me, we've got one infected person here with us, I'll be speaking to him as soon as I've finished talking to you. Have you decided what you are going to do with the four people that you have that are infected?"
"Not yet Captain, I'll speak to them as soon as we're done, probably start with Vicki as she's in pretty bad condition."
"I'll back your decision whatever you choose Lieutenant Larringer, out." LaSalle closed down her comm. unit and put it back in her pocket.
Doda killed the link on his headset. "So what are we going to do about Lien?"
"I'll go speak to him now." LaSalle walked over to where Lien was sitting. His skin had gone from a healthy colour to a sick greyish colour; he was also sweating a lot. "Lien, mind if I join you?"
"Not at all Ma'am."
LaSalle sat down next to Lien. "I'm afraid I've got some bad news."
"Let me guess, I'm not well and there's nothing that you can do for me, the fact is, when I die I'm going to become one of those things aren't I?"
"How did you know?"
Lien gave a weak smile. "I'm a medic Captain, normally it's me that gives the bad news or has to tell the lies to the casualties." Lien coughed. "I can feel it, killing me from the inside out. I tell you something though Captain, I`m not turning into one of those things."
LaSalle didn't say anything; there was nothing that she could say that wouldn't be hollow or false.
"Do me a favor please Captain?"
"If I'm able you know I will."
Lien reached under his combat jacket and T-shirt and yanked off his tags and dropped them into the Captain's open hand. "Tell my folks that I died in battle please. They don't need to know how I bought it; can you do that please Captain?"
LaSalle was choked up but she managed to reply. "Of course I will, you have my word Lien."
"Thanks, I just need one more favor from you Captain."
"What's that?"
"I need a grenade and a room and then I need to be left alone." Lien slipped out of his medical back pack and dumped his blaster and spare power packs on the floor. "I won't be needing these."
LaSalle waved over Doda. "Give Lien a grenade."
Doda took one look at LaSalle's and Lien's face and thought it better he didn't argue. He reached back into his back pack and removed a grenade and handed it to Lien.
"Thanks Captain. You to Ma'am." Lien struggled to get himself up. Doda and LaSalle helped the Marine to his feet. Lien headed off to a room, when he reached the doorway he turned and looked back towards Doda and LaSalle. "Once I'm inside I'll give you two minutes to get clear; then I'm pulling the pin." Lien saluted Doda and LaSalle, who both returned the salute. He then went into the room and closed the door and sealed it from the inside.
Doda turned and faced his group. "Ok people saddle up, we're moving out."
One of the Marines spoke up. "What about Lien?"
"He's staying, there's nothing that we can do, if you need a power pack then take one of Lien's." The Marines started to move but it wasn't fast enough for Doda. "Hustle Marines, we're leaving, now!"
LaSalle scooped up Lien's medical back pack and slung it on her back. The group moved out from the barricaded area and away from Lien. They had gone fifty meters down the corridor when there was an explosion. The door to the room was blown apart and large fragments from it embedded themselves in the wall, flames and smoke started to pulse out from the doorway.
The group stopped and looked back to where their friend had been; Doda spoke up so that everyone could hear him. "Lien's done his duty now it's time for us to do ours. Let's link up Lieutenant Lohk'har's group." The group turned away from the room as the flames and smoke grew larger.
Chapter fifteen
Vicki was sitting on the floor, her back leaning against the wall, in her hand she had a thermal detonator, it was all that remained from her kit as she had divided up her gear before Lohk'har and the others had moved out. There were three other Marines in the room with her, they had also been injured in the earlier attack. Lohk'har had said that she would take all of them with her and the group right until the end but each one of the infected Marines had decided to stay behind.
Kern came over to Vicki and knelt down next to her. "Guess this is it, shipmate. I'll say goodbye now, I'm going back to the observation lounge and I'm going to take out as many of those bastards before I go."
"Frag a few for me, Kern."
"Count on it." The big Marine leaned in and kissed Vicki on the cheek, he shook the hands of the other two Marines then left the room and headed back to the observation lounge.
Novak and Rom had both made an agreement to end each other's lives. They came over to Vicki and said their goodbyes before they headed out of the room to find somewhere to end their lives.
Vicki sat alone in the room; she looked down at the detonator in her hand. Letting out a sigh she primed it and then placed it in her lap, the detonator was primed to go off if it was moved. She was determined to fight this thing all the way to the end, she had never run away from a fight and she wasn't about to start now. She heard a muffled explosion followed by a series of blaster shots, it sounded like Kern had gotten started. It wasn't too long before she heard two more blaster shots ring out close by, Novak and Rom were gone, just her and Kern left now. There was another explosion; Vicki could have sworn that she heard Kern shouting as well.
Her breathing was starting to get labored, she was feeling cold now, it wouldn't be long until it was over. She imagined Kern in the observation lounge blasting the Zombies for all he was worth, he had been a good friend. This time she did hear Kern scream, it wasn't one of fear or rage, it was one of victory. It was followed by an explosion that was louder than the previous ones. Kern was gone. He had told the others that when he ran out of blaster packs he would take his last two grenades and throw himself down into the factory area and take as many Zombies with him as he could. Vicki managed a half smile; the big Marine always did like to do things in style.
As she lay there nearing the end Vicki thought back about her life, she wished she could have lived longer, maybe see the end of the Empire, but that wasn't to be. Vicki closed her eyes, took in a shallow breath and died. Her last breath escaped from her mouth.
A minute later lifeless eye lids opened, the Zombie made a move to stand up; the detonator detected the movement and exploded. What was once Vicki, was obliterated completely, nothing remained.
Chapter Sixteen
"Major, I need to talk to you." Irena said it loud enough for Paul to hear.
"What's wrong?"
Irena came over to Paul as he was covering an intersection. "There are more Imperial survivors on board."
"Where and how many?"
"There's thirteen of them, one of them is the Captain. They got trapped on deck twelve. We were all going to meet up at the Officers mess and then head to the armory."
Paul looked away from his rifle sight towards Irena. "The reason you're only telling me this now?"
"You've just left four of your people behind to die Major; I didn't think it would be appropriate back then and there."
"Good point. So are you sure that these people are still alive? When was the last time you had any contact with them?"
"Sergeant Ramis made contact with them when he was in the air conduit, they're all holed up in the Officers mess but there's a problem."
"Of course there is, we can't have anything straight forward now can we!"
"No, they're surrounded by zombies and there's no way out for them."
"Crap! Cover my section." Irena took over guarding the intersection aiming her E-11 down the corridor. "Lieutenant, you better come over here." Lohk'har came over to Paul and he recounted to her what Irena had just told him.
Lohk'har swore in her native tongue, and she looked over to Irena. "I'm sorry Commander but we can't risk it for your people."
"Lieutenant, I'm not leaving my Captain or troops, you wouldn't leave yours if there's a small chance of saving them, wouldn't you try?"
Lohk'har swore again. "Commander, we'll meet up with the first group and I'll let Captain Larringer decide, that's the best that I can offer." Lohk'har headed away before Irena could say anything else.
Paul went back over to Irena. "Well as we're being honest I suppose I should let you know that we haven't got a way off this ship, our Corvette has been destroyed."
Irena's face took on a scornful expression. "Oh, I see, so that speech down in the testing room was a bluff?"
"Yep, sorry."
"Remind me never to play cards with you Major. So tell me how are we all going to get out of here?"
"No idea, still working on that one, hopefully we'll find a ship that will be able to take everyone out of here."
"Well if anyone knows if there's a ship that's capable of that then it is Captain Arnjak, guess that's another reason to rescue him."
"It looks that way doesn't it!" Irena and Paul moved away from the intersection and joined the rest of the group as they headed to the meeting point with the first group.
Forty minutes later the two groups reunited. There had been no further encounters with any Zombies. Captain Larringer studied the Harbingers schematic on Doda's data pad and suggested that they all went to one of the rooms off this corridor so that they could talk without fear of attack. A suitable room was found; it only had one way in and out so the group made their way there. Once everyone was inside the door was closed and locked allowing everyone to rest up a while. The room was large enough to give everyone space to spread out, the Imperial scientists once again kept themselves isolated from everyone else, the Stormtroopers mostly stuck together, but a few were talking to some of the Marines. Some of the Marines were still keeping a close eye on the Imperials and kept far enough away and near cover in case anything happened.
Captain Larringer was standing at a table looking at the data pad with Harbingers schematics displayed on it; with her were Doda, Lohk'har, Chris, Steve, Paul and Irena. They were engaged in a heated discussion about rescuing the other Imperial survivors from the Officers mess on deck twelve.
"I still don't see why we should risk our necks for some Imps!" Lohk'har argued.
Irena kept her voice calm and level, "Because Lieutenant, Captain Arnjak is the only one that will probably know of a way off this ship for all of us. Also we need his command codes because the ship is in complete lock down, that's why we need to rescue them."
Doda was the next person to speak. "I have to agree with the Lieutenant, I just don't think it's worth the risk for that amount of people. I'm confident that my Marines can by-pass whatever command codes they come across."
"I disagree." It was Paul that had spoken out. "We need those command codes if we're going to stand a realistic chance of getting out of here. We can't be trying to slice into a system while we've got a load of Zombies trying to chow down on us; we need instant access to everything."
Chris also joined in the conversation. "I have to agree with Paul on this. I realise that it will be dangerous and we will be risking a lot to try and save these people, but we need those codes."
Captain Larringer looked over to Steve. "Sorry Ma'am but I agree with them. We should try for a rescue."
The arguments went on for another minute or so until Captain Larringer held up her hand for everyone to stop talking. "Commander Hesh, would you please contact your Captain?"
"Yes Ma'am." Irena looked over until she saw sergeant Ramis. "Sergeant Ramis, your comm. unit please."
Tam came over to the group and took out his comm. unit from his utility belt and handed it to Irena.
"Thank you. Captain Arnjak, do you copy, over?"
"This is Arnjak, go ahead Commander."
"Captain, I'm here with the Rebels, their Captain wishes to speak with you." Irena handed LaSalle the comm. unit.
"Captain Arnjak, this is Captain Larringer of the Alliance Third Marine Battalion."
"What can I do for you Captain?"
"I think it's more the other way around, Captain, in what I can do for you. We are currently several decks below your current location and discussing the option of a rescue mission for yourself and the others with you. However if l'm to commit my people to a rescue attempt I'm going to need some guarantees from you."
"I'm listening, Captain."
"Your surrender and full co-operation and also your access codes for the ship."
"You have my surrender and full cooperation." There was the sound of someone objecting in the background. "Silence! However, I will only give you the codes upon the rescue of myself and everyone here. It's not that I don't trust you Captain but if I give you the codes now, I might become expendable and not worth the risk to be rescued."
"Captain, that's not how the Alliance operates."
"Maybe not Captain, but those are my terms and they are non-negotiable. I also want Commander Hesh in the rescue team. What's your answer Captain?"
"Your terms are acceptable but I want an agreement from you Captain that if you get infected during the rescue you still give us the codes and any other information that could save us."
There was silence for a while before the Imperial Captain replied. "Agreed."
"Ok Captain I'll be in contact with you again once we're ready to launch the rescue mission, get your people ready to go, Larringer out." LaSalle closed the comm. unit down and handed it back to Irena. "This is a volunteer mission only, Commander you can take two of your own with you the rest of the team will be made up of Alliance personnel."
Irena simply nodded then turned and went over to her troopers to speak to them.
Captain Larringer looked at the people gathered around the table. "Captain Farr, you're staying. I need you here to command the troops. Lieutenant Lohk'har, what about you?"
"No thank you Ma'am, I don't feel it's worth the risk."
"Majors?" LaSalle was looking at the pilots.
Paul was the first to speak up. "Count me in, I'll go."
Chris shrugged. "Ican't very well argue for something and not volunteer for it, I'm in."
Steve rubbed his chin before he answered. "Wouldn't look very good if the X.O. didn't go now would it, I'll go."
"Very well, go see if any of the other pilots want in on this. Captain Farr, see if there are any Marines who want to go."
"Ma'am." Doda saluted then went off to ask the Marines.
Deanna and Hans volunteered for the mission when Steve asked them; it was the same for Chris when he asked Chelsey and Jamie, Chris, Steve and Paul where heading back to tell Captain Larringer when there was a commotion coming from over where the Imperial scientists were sitting.
Commander Hesh and Doctor Jahi were arguing about something, Irena was pointing her finger straight at the other woman's face; Lilith was standing there with a look of utter contempt on her face. Irena finished speaking to Lilith who in return made a comment back. The punch was so fast that some people missed it, Irena had smashed her fist into the other woman's nose and the noise of Lilith's nose breaking was heard by everybody. Irena hadn't finished with the other woman yet, as Lilith crumpled to the floor Irena drew back her right foot and kicked Lilith in her stomach as hard as she could. It took three of Irena's own troopers to pull her away from Lilith who was now doubled over gasping for breath. Blood was coming out of both of Lilith's nostrils and forming a small pool on the floor.
Captain Larringer shouted out. "COMMANDER HESH, get over here, now!"
Irena shrugged off her troopers that were holding her and walked back over to the table where the Captain was standing.
"What the hell are you playing at Commander?"
"Captain, the reason that all of us are in the mess is partly down to that woman! She has played a major part in creating the Bio weapon that has made these Zombies, that's how she knew what was going to happen to your Marines. If I`d have known this the other day when I saved her and the other scientists I would have left them."
Captain Larringer didn't say anything; again there wasn't anything she could say that would have made a difference.
Several of Lilith's colleagues were helping the injured woman to sit up. From the looks of her nose it was well and truly broken, the blood was seeping between Lilith's fingers as she cupped her nose.
Before the silence got too unbearable Steve spoke up. "All of the pilots have volunteered for the rescue mission, Captain."
The interruption was welcomed by LaSalle "Ok Captain Farr is seeing if there are any volunteers and then we can start planning the rescue."
Paul answered before Steve could reply. "No need Ma'am I reckon that ten of us should be more than enough, anymore than that and it'll be too crowded. Oh one more thing Ma'am I think we should leave the scientist here until we've secured a way off this ship."
"Explain."
"They're none combatants Ma'am, we don't need to be worrying about them as well. This room is secure and we can get them once done. They lock the door from this side, we do it from the outside that way we know they'll be secured."
"I agree, let me know when you've got a plan and are ready to go."
"Ma'am." As the pilots and Irena headed away to get ready Paul spoke to Irena. "Is that true what you said about Dr Jahi?"
"Yes. Why?"
"No reason, just curious. You and your people head over here when you've got the gear you need and we`ll go over the best way of getting those other Imps out of the mess."
"Will do."
Paul headed over to where the pilots were gathered. Chelsey had already told everyone to start getting ready and people were busy checking their weapons and gear. Paul kept his voice low so only Steve could hear him. "Steve, how many demolition packs have you got in your pack?"
Steve kept his voice as low as Paul's. "Three, why?"
Paul didn't answer, instead he asked another question. "Can they be triggered by a remote detonator?"
"Yes, why?"
"I need two of the explosives and a remote detonator, and I need you to do it without being seen by anyone, place them in my satchel." Paul took off his satchel and left it near Steve.
Steve looked at Paul, he didn't like not knowing the reason why Paul wanted the explosives and why he had to do it quietly, but nevertheless he did as he had been asked. Steve slipped off his back pack and reached inside to get the explosives and the detonator. Paul's satchel was big enough to carry the explosives so they fit in easily enough.
"Thanks, keep this to yourself Steve." Paul picked up his satchel and slung it over his head so it was hanging on his left side. He headed away from the group.
Steve watched him walk off wondering what he was up to.
Hans tapped Steve on his shoulder. "Sir, briefing in a minute."
"Yeah I'm on it, I'm on it." When he looked back to where Paul had been, Steve could no longer see him.
Chapter seventeen
The small rescue group moved quietly into position. Using the schematics and Commander Hesh's knowledge of the ship they had come up with a plan of attack for the rescue mission. There were two routes in and out of the Officers mess, both of which had Zombies outside them. The corridor outside the main entrance was too large and from what Captain Arnjak had told them there were thousands of Zombies on the other side, the second route was a smaller corridor therefore restricting the number of Zombies in it. The plan they had decided on was to come up the smaller of the corridor and rescue the Imperials in the mess.
After spending twenty minutes getting to deck twelve the small group slipped out from the access tunnels into the corridor. They were greeted by the bodies of Zombies that had been shot by Captain Arnjak's group when they had first tried to escape, the corridor was pock marked with blaster holes, including the control panel that they needed to use.
Chris, Deanna, Jamie and a Stormtrooper made their way to a door control panel to repair it; once it was working again it would allow them to close the doors to the corridor. Whilst the pilots covered him, the Imperial quietly removed the panel cover and got to work rewiring the controls. The rest of the group quietly made their way down the corridor until up ahead they saw the Zombies. The Zombies all had their backs to them and some of them could be heard banging on the door to the mess.
Irena raised her rifle and took aim at one of the Zombies, but before she could press the trigger Paul put his hand on her rifle and gently lowered it. Irena looked at him, Paul just shook his head from right to left, Paul reached into his combat jacket and removed his suppressor and screwed it onto the barrel. Satisfied it was on properly, he selected single fire on his rifle. He activated the laser marker and aimed the rifle, the red dot from the laser marker was on the back of a Zombies head. There were two clicks on Irena`s comm. unit, it meant the door was ready to be closed. The plan was to close the door as soon as the shooting started, until then it stayed open otherwise the noise from the door closing may alert the Zombies to the group's presence.
Paul kept his voice low. "Be ready to fire, I'm not sure how long they won't notice us." He squeezed the trigger, the bullet left the rifle silently and hit where the marker dot was. The Zombie collapsed backwards and fell to the floor. The others around it didn't pay any attention to what had just happened. "One down only loads to go!"
Over the next few minutes Paul managed to take out over twenty Zombies without being detected, but that changed though when several of them turned round and noticed the small group. The Zombies ran towards the group alerting the others near them.
The group opened fire and the first row of Zombies was dropped. Paul flicked his rifle back on to triple fire.
The Storm trooper back at the door heard the blaster fire and twisted two wires together and the doors started to close, the others stood ready aiming their weapons down the corridor.
All of the Zombies in the corridor switched their attention to the new source of food that was now within their reach. The corridor seemed to be swarming with them, with everyone that was shot seemingly replaced with three more.
Paul's rifle clicked empty, he shouted out to be heard above the blaster fire. "LOADING!" He pulled a fresh ammo clip from one of the pouches on his combat jacket. Pressing the release switch he ejected the spent mag and slotted in the fresh one, he quickly cocked the rifle, took aim and carried on firing.
The group from the blast doors joined the others and added their firepower to the battle. As soon as it had started, the battle was over and all the Zombies had been killed, their corpses littered the corridor, in some cases there were three or four bodies piled on top of each other.
Irena carefully stepped forward, her rifle going from left to right covering the bodies in case there were still some Zombies that hadn't been killed. She reached the door to the Officers mess and hammered on it with her fist. "Captain Arnjak, it's Commander Hesh, open up."
The door to the Officers mess opened, standing directly behind them was Captain Arnjak, he was flanked by two fully armored Stormtroopers both of whom had their blaster pointed at Irena.
Captain Arnjak walked through the open doorway. "Stand down." The two Stormtroopers lowered their blasters. "It's good to see you Commander." Garik looked at the two other women in the group, Chelsey and Deanna; he noticed their name tabs and looked back to Irena. "Is Captain Larringer not with you?"
"No sir, the Captain and the Marines are moving to the rendezvous point, that's where we are all going now."
"Understood, lead the way Commander."
Chelsey stepped forward. "Excuse me Captain, there's the matter of the access codes, we'd like them now please."
"I'm sure you would Major; but I'll hand over the codes in person to Captain Larringer, it makes your job of protecting me all the more important."
"With all due respect sir, you'd have gotten that no matter what, the Alliance doesn't operate that way, even if you do!" Chelsey turned her back on Captain Arnjak and walked back to the access tunnels.
The other Imperials started to leave the mess and come out into the corridor, there were eleven Stormtroopers in total and one civilian. The man was dressed like the other scientists that had been rescued.
Paul used his rifle to point it at the man. "Who's that?"
Before Captain Arnjak could answer, the scientist answered. "I'm Doctor Viled Gremory, head of research on this ship, if it's got anything to do with you Rebel."
It wasn't the name that got Paul's attention, it was the man's job title. A half smile appeared on Paul's face, "Is that a fact?"
"It is." Doctor Gremory walked off with the other Imperials to the access tunnels.
The exchange hadn't gone unnoticed by Irena who was standing nearby. As Paul and Irena brought up the rear she spoke to him in a low voice. "What was that all about?"
"I'm not sure I know what you mean Commander."
"Cut the Hutt slime Major, you know damn well what I mean."
"You're a smart woman Commander, I'm sure you'll figure it out when the time comes." They reached the access tunnels; there was only Irena and Paul left to head down the ladder. "Ladies first Commander."
Irena stepped onto the ladder, started to say something then stopped, Irena started climbing down the ladder. Paul unscrewed the suppressor from his rifle and put it back in his combat jacket, seeing that Irena was far enough below him, he got on the ladder and started to climb down.
Chapter eighteen
In orbit above Mon Calamari.
The Lambda class shuttle broke free from Mon Calamari's atmosphere and headed into space. The shuttle zipped through the busy space lanes heading towards a Mon Calamari cruiser. The cruiser was docked at one of the giant orbiting ship repair yards. Inside the shuttle there was a mixture of people, some were crew for the Mon Cal cruiser others were pilots, all of them were coming back from shore leave.
Ensign Wraw was one of the people on the shuttle; he was still thinking about the pretty Rodian navigator from the Redemption, a Dreadnaught battle cruiser. They had spent five wonderful nights together, and Wraw felt like he was in love. He was remembering the way her blue skin looked under the moonlight and how she laughed. He pulled out the holo cube that he had and activated it. An image of Shan appeared; she was wearing the white dress that she had on the first night they had met.
"She's a nice looking woman Ensign, what's her name?"
"Shan." Wraw said breathlessly, he looked round to see who had spoken to him and suddenly noticed the rank markings of a Lieutenant Colonel. "Uh, I mean Shan, sir!"
Richard laughed. "Don't worry about it Ensign, there'll be plenty of time for rank once we're back aboard the Morning Star. I'm glad you had a good shore leave."
"Thank you sir."
The shuttle entered the hangar of the Morning Star and touched down on the flight deck. The landing ramp lowered and everyone made their way down the ramp. Wraw deactivated the holo cube and stuffed it into his pocket; he picked up his kit bag and headed down the ramp. As he reached the bottom one of the ship's security officers came running towards him, the officer ran past him and pulled up in front of Richard.
The officer quickly came to attention and saluted. "Colonel Vogel, the Captain requests your presence on the bridge straight away sir."
"For heaven's sake, I've only just this second got back on board can't it wait?"
"I'm afraid not sir."
"Do you mind telling me then what's so important that I can't even freshen up?"
"It's the Rapier sir, it's over twelve hours overdue, all department heads have been called to the bridge, and you're the last one sir."
Richard looked around and saw the deck officer, "Deck officer." The man ran over to Richard.
"Sir?"
"Make sure my kit bag gets sent up to my quarters when you've got time please."
"Yes Sir."
Richard turned back to the security officer. "Ok let's go."
The two men jogged off towards the nearest turbo lift that would take them to the bridge. Wraw watched the men go. He spoke to no one in particular as he headed out the hanger. "Looks like it's back to reality then!"
Chapter nineteen
The rescue group reached the rendezvous point without running into any Zombies, Captain Larringer and the Marines were waiting there when they arrived.
Captain Arnjak walked up to where Captain Larringer was standing and came to attention. "Captain Larringer, I offer you the formal surrender of myself, crew and the ship."
Captain Larringer stood at parade ground rest, with her hands behind her back "Captain Arnjak, I accept your surrender and that of your crew, the ship however I can do without!"
"Understandable under the circumstances I suppose. If you'll allow me access to a terminal I'll enter my command codes. I must warn you though, as soon as I enter these codes as well as getting the main systems and engines back online, most of the doors in the ship will automatically open if they detect movement, so those things will have access to most of the ship."
"It's a trade off that I fear we are going to have to risk Captain."
"Very well." Garik went over to a terminal and entered his command codes, and within moments the lights in the room became brighter, the doors to the room opened up.
"Secure those doors." Doda ordered. Marines responded and went over and manually locked the doors.
For the next twenty minutes, the two Captains were in deep discussion about the situation. Garik told LaSalle all that he knew and what had happened aboard his ship two days ago. When LaSalle told Garik about the Rapier's destruction he simply nodded. "I may have a solution to that problem, in both rear upper pylons there are hangers in the back right one is my VT-49 Decimator."
"I've never heard of such a ship, what is it?"
"It's an assault ship, she's got upper and lower turreted quad blasters, concussion and proton launchers, laser and ion cannons."
LaSalle interrupted Captain Arnjak. "It sounds like a lovely ship, Captain, but how does it help us?"
"If you'd let me finish, I'd have told you. It's a similar size to a YT-1300 so I believe we'll all be able to squeeze in, it`d be tight but I think we'd manage it."
"Ok I'm sold Captain, what's the quickest way to get to it?"
"We need to head back to this intersection here." He indicated on the ship's schematics the location he was talking about. "Then we need to cut across to the right hand side of the ship and then head up twenty decks."
"Sounds easy enough, let's hope that we don't run into any unwanted guests on the way."
"Indeed. Oh and Captain, if anything should happen to me the access code for the Decimator is 74 Alpha 12 Delta Without that code nobody goes anywhere."
"Thank you Captain Arnjak."
Before Captain Larringer could carry on speaking to Garik, Doctor Gremory came over to them, "I was informed that some of my colleagues had also survived yet I can't seem to find them."
LaSalle answered Viled, "They're in a secure location Doctor; it was felt they would be safer left there than coming with us."
Viled's lip curled up into a nasty sneer. "You Rebel bitch! Who the hell do you think you are to abandon my staff?"
LaSalle's eyebrows went up in surprise at the verbal abuse she was receiving from Doctor Gremory. "Doctor, I have abandoned nobody, as I said, they have been left in a secure location until we can go back and collect them. It was too risky taking civilians with us in case we got into another combat situation."
"Lies! You just say that to justify your real actions of leaving them behind to die." Viled's voice was rising in pitch. Other people in the room had stopped talking to listen to his rant. "You Rebel scum are all the same, you pretend to care about everybody but all you really are cowards!"
Captain Arnjak slammed his fist down onto the table. "That is enough Doctor Gremory. I suggest you shut up this instant before I personally throw you to one of those creatures."
Viled remained silent, the look on his face however said that he wasn't finished telling LaSalle and everyone else exactly what he thought about the Alliance. He stalked off and sat down away from everyone else.
Garik watched Viled for a moment longer before he turned back to face LaSalle. "Captain Larringer I can only apologise for his behavior, I am truly sorry."
"Captain, I`ve been called worse by more important Imperials than him, so don't worry. Mind you, they`ve all normally ended up dead afterwards!"
"I can believe it, Captain. However I suggest that when we head out Captain, that we take Doctor Gremory with us, otherwise I think he might become a problem if left on his own!"
"I can`t help but agree with you Captain, as much as I would love to leave the loathsome little creep here, I know it makes sense to keep him in sight and with us."
Chapter twenty
The group of Alliance and Imperials made their way through Harbinger, they had managed to cut back to the central part of the ship and were now heading to the right hand side. Captain Arnjak had informed them that there was a service platform that they could use as a lift to get up to the hangar; the only drawback was it would probably take two journeys to get everyone up to the hangar deck.
The responsibility for looking after Doctor Gremory for the journey had fallen to Lieutenant Teer. He and three other Stormtroopers made sure that Viled stayed in the middle of the small group, and on several occasions Zeff had to remind him to be quiet and stop complaining. As patient as Zeff thought he was, he was fast losing it with Viled. This time he was moaning about the Rebels and how it was an insult to the Empire to be co-operating and working alongside such scum. "Doctor, if you don't shut your damn mouth right this instant I'll break your jaw! Understood?"
Viled simply looked at Zeff with utter contempt. "Lieutenant, you shouldn't try to be scary, it simply doesn't suit you."
Using the butt of his E-11, Zeff rammed it right into Viled's stomach. Before Viled could collapse, Zeff yanked him upright by his collar and leaned in close to him. "Last warning Doctor, stay quiet otherwise you'll see how scary I can really be!" Zeff released his grip on Viled and started walking again.
With both hands clutching his stomach and gasping for breath, Doctor Gremory staggered forward.
Jamie had seen the assault take place but simply kept quiet, from what he had heard Doctor Gremory say to Captain Larringer and how the man acted he probably deserved a great deal more.
It took another twenty minutes to reach the right hand side of the ship but Captain Arnjak had been true to his word, there was the service platform that would take them up to the hangar deck, he was also correct that it would take two journeys for everyone to get up there as the platform was only big enough for half the group. The Marines quickly set up a defensive perimeter around the platform.
Captain Larringer got her comm. unit and activated it. "Captain Farr, what's your location?"
"We're on the level below the bridge Ma'am; we're going to attempt to re-take the bridge once we've got there."
"Very well, is Captain Arnjak there?"
There was a brief pause as Captain Arnjak came onto the channel. "Go ahead Captain Larringer."
"Are you sure about this Garik?"
"LaSalle there's no other way, the ship needs to be destroyed and if I use the self destruct option there's no guarantee that all of the infected people will be killed. The Harbinger needs to be sent into a Gas Giant, a Sun or a Black Hole, there's no other option. If just one of these things gets off the ship then it'll make the Death Seed plague look like a common cold."
"Ok let me know when you're good to go, once we've got everyone onboard the Decimator we'll come and get you. Good luck."
"Good luck to you, Captain." The link went dead.
Before they had set off for the hangar, Garik had told LaSalle that they needed to destroy the Harbinger. After convincing Captain Larringer that this needed to be done he also told her that he needed to be on the bridge to complete this task. Captain Arnjak had proposed taking the eleven armoured Stormtroopers with him for support; this idea was immediately objected to by Doda who said he would prefer Marines to be the ones going with the Captain. In the end a compromise was reached. The group would consist of Captain Arnjak and four Stormtroopers and Captain Farr with four Marines. When the main group set off for the hangar, Garik's and Doda's group had headed for the bridge.
The small group was in the corridor that led to the bridge, Garik turned and faced them. "Remember; try to avoid hitting the consoles if we shoot the wrong one, we're screwed before we even begin. Are you ready Captain?"
Doda gripped his blaster rifle in his hands. "As I'll ever be I suppose, let's get this over with." Doda touched his headset and opened a link to Captain Larringer. "Bridge team are go, will be in touch if and when we're successful, out." He killed the link and then as one the group moved towards the doors that opened up onto the bridge.
As the group came within range of the door sensors the doors opened, inside there were dozens of Zombies, the noise of the doors opening alerted them to the presence of the group. The Zombies charged at the group, the ones at the front being stopped by the laser fire coming from the group.
Back at the service platform Captain Larringer had activated the lift after Doda's report. Her group was now riding up the platform, most of the passengers were Marines, however Doctor Gremory and his escorts were on board along with Chris, Deanna, Jamie and Paul. Paul had objected saying that he would stay behind and wait for the platform with the second group but Steve had told him no, simply saying that this was some of the perks of being the X.O. and besides somebody had to prep the ship and that responsibility was down to Paul.
As the lift ascended Paul looked down at his friends wishing that he could be down there with them. His gaze shifted to Irena, she was looking back at him, he was surprised by the feelings that he felt for the woman considering that he had only just met her but seeing her cheeks flush slightly as she looked up he couldn't help but wonder if she had some feelings for him as well. He was brought out of his thoughts when one of the Stormtroopers down on the ground opened fire, seconds later everyone else on the ground was also firing back into the corridor they had all come up. The noise of the platform rising had been loud enough to attract the attention of a large group of Zombies.
Lieutenant Teer turned to Captain Larringer. "We need to go back down and get them."
"We can't, there's not enough room on the platform for them." LaSalle replied.
"Captain, we just can't….."
"Lieutenant, I don't like the situation any more than you do, but there's no other way."
Viled spoke up. "Forget them; they're all going to die."
Paul turned on the Doctor. "You shut your damn mouth Doctor!"
"That's the problem with you Rebels always trying to save everybody. Leave them to their fate, that's what I say."
Paul's fist hit Viled squarely in the mouth; Viled's lips burst open letting blood flow down his face onto his white coat. Viled staggered back into Zeff who simply pushed him away from him and back towards Paul. Paul grabbed Viled by his throat ready to hit him again.
"Wait! Don't hit me anymore." Viled pleaded.
"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't?" Paul snarled.
"I'Il give you all the information on project Genesis."
"What's that?" Captain Larringer demanded.
"It's what myself, Lilith and the others have been working on. The War Zombie project."
.
With his right fist still poised to hit Viled, Paul dragged the man closer to him. "You`re telling me you`re the cause of all this?"
Doctor Gremory simply nodded; sweat was now running down from his forehead and dripping off of him along with blood from his burst lips.
Paul smashed his fist into Viled's face again, Viled hung limp in Paul's grip. Paul let go of his throat and Viled crashed down to the floor of the platform. "YOU SCUM!" Paul shouted at him. "You think you can bargain your way out of this? I'll make sure that you`ve got nothing to bargain with." Paul reached into a pocket in his flight suit and pulled out a remote detonator, he flipped on the power to the remote and pressed the button.
Back in the secure room, Lilith was sitting at a table, her face was obscured by the rag she had held against her broken nose, she heard a quick series of beeps. Before she even had time to wonder what was making the sound, Lilith felt the briefest change in temperature as the explosion from the demolition pack that had been placed under the table consumed her before she even knew what was happening. The room where the Imperial scientist had been left was completely destroyed by both of the demolition charges, all the people in it were killed instantly.
Above the sounds of the platform and the sound of the blaster fire from below the sound of the explosion was heard, Paul threw the remote to the floor.
LaSalle's eyes widened at the realisation of what Paul had just done. "Major, what have you done?"
"What needs to be done Captain, why do you think Captain Arnjak's willing to risk his life to destroy the ship?"
"But you killed those people!"
"Captain I've killed hundreds, probably thousands of people, believe me if anyone ever deserved to die, they did."
The platform reached the hangar level, any further conversation was pointless. Unfortunately for those on the platform there was a welcoming committee of Zombies in the hangar. They came at the group as fast as they could, most of them running, some scampering on all fours. Firing as they moved, the group got off the platform and sent it back down to retrieve the other group. Captain Larringer was speaking into her comm. unit as she shot at a Zombie. "Lieutenant, the platform is on its way to you, do you copy?"
"Loud and clear Ma'am, as soon as it is here we are leaving!"
The sounds coming from LaSalle's comm. unit told her that the Zombies were getting closer to the group waiting for the platform. "Be advised we've got company up here as well."
"Understood. Lohk'har out."
Zeff had hold of Viled's lab coat and was more or less dragging the stunned man with him as he shot at the Zombies.
The VT-49 Decimator was about a hundred meters away, although it felt as if it was over a light year away to Chelsey. The power cell in her rifle died and she quickly slammed in a fresh one. Targeting an attacker she squeezed her trigger sending an energy bolt straight into the target's head. Chelsey didn't have time to reflect on how good her shooting had gotten over the past few hours; she was already targeting the next Zombie as she slowly moved forward with the group towards the Decimator.
Paul shouted over to Captain Larringer. "CAPTAIN, GIVE ME THE CODES FOR THE DECIMATOR!"
LaSalle moved closer to Paul so she could hear him. "What? Why?"
"I'm going to go forward and prep the ship; we're taking too long to get there."
"You'll never make it on your own Major!"
"I wasn't planning on going alone Captain, I'll be taking these three with me." Paul jerked his thumb towards the other pilots.
Although she was reluctant to let Paul and the others go she knew it made sense. "Very well Major, good luck, the code is 74 Alpha 12 Delta."
"Thanks, cover us as best you can." Paul moved over to where the three pilots were fighting. "Come on, we're going to make a run for the Decimator and prep the ship."
Chelsey's mouth hung open for a second before she could speak. "Major, with all due respect you're insane."
Paul grinned. "Yep, that's the perks of rank for you. Chelsey, you're Co-pilot."
"Copy that."
"Deanna and Jamie, you two get on the turret guns straight away."
Both of them replied at the same time. "Yes sir."
"Ok, ready, let's go." The four pilots ran at full speed towards the Decimator. Paul heard Captain Larringer yelling for the others to cover them. They got about half way there before they had to stop and fight.
A group of Zombies seemed to be coming right for the pilots. Jamie was firing with his E-11 and his DL-44 right into the group.
Deanna was steadily hitting the oncoming Zombies making each shot count as the group once again started making its way to the ship.
Five Zombies seemed to be going straight for Paul. He picked off the first two easily enough, the third and fourth were also dispatched. He targeted the fifth one which was almost on top of him and squeezed his trigger, nothing happened. Paul squeezed the trigger again and all he heard was a click, "Shit! Ammo out." The zombie lunged at Paul. With no time to slot in a fresh clip of ammo, Paul did the only thing he could; using the butt of his rifle he slammed it into the Zombies head with all his strength. The Zombie collapsed to the floor giving Paul time to draw his DL-44, letting his rifle dangle by the strap, Paul aimed his blaster at the Zombies head and squeezed the trigger. At this proximity the Zombie's head almost blew apart. Paul stepped over the body and carried on towards the ship.
"ALMOST THERE!" Chelsey shouted.
The pilots reached the edge of the assault ship. Paul reached up and activated the landing ramp controls, the ramp started to come down. While the ramp was deploying Paul shot a few more Zombies that were getting too close with his DL-44 "Deanna, Jamie, when we go onboard, you two make sure none of those things come onboard, cover the ramp until the Captain gets here and then get on those turrets."
Jamie spoke up. "We've got you covered sir."
The pilots ran up the ramp, Paul and Chelsey headed straight for the cockpit whilst Deanna and Jamie covered the boarding ramp. Paul jumped into the pilot's seat whilst Chelsey got into the Co-pilots chair. Finding the keypad Paul entered the code that Captain Larringer had given him, he pressed the enter key. Lights came on in the cockpit and Paul could feel the ship come alive "Yes!"
Chapter twenty one
Roan wished that he had the protection of his armour as the Zombies got ever closer to his position. He had always thought that his posting aboard the giant factory ship was going to be a dull and boring one, up until the last few days he'd been right but now he'd had more action than some people would have in a lifetime. As he blasted another Zombie he swore to himself that if he ever got out of this mess he would never complain about feeling bored again. He could hear the platform coming down to their location and almost looked up to see how far it had left to go, however the amount of Zombies coming at them meant that he didn't dare take his eyes away from his blaster sights, targeting another he hoped that the platform was almost there.
The platform had reached the bottom and the group was now backing onto it whilst still maintaining their defensive fire. Hans reached into a pocket and withdrew a thermal detonator, activating it he threw it into the crowd of Zombies. "FIRE IN THE HOLE!" The grenade detonated, blowing Zombies to pieces and knocking others down. It gave the group the breathing space they needed to load everyone onto the platform and start it going up.
Steve was one of the last people to get on the platform. The relief he felt when it started to go up was immense. As the platform went steadily up one of the Zombies came running towards the platform, it was a Bothan in an Orange Jumpsuit. The Bothan jumped and grabbed hold of the platform's edge and started to haul himself up. The Bothan snarled as Steve stepped towards it. "Hungry huh? EAT THIS!" Steve slammed his boot into the Bothan's face; there was a loud cracking sound as teeth and bones were broken. The Bothan lost its grip and fell to the floor. It was soon back up on its feet and looking up at Steve and snarling; blood was pouring from its mouth and nose and staining its fur. Steve let out a breath as the platform steadily increased the distance between the Zombies and them.
Irena spoke loud enough so that everyone heard her. "It's not over yet, as soon as we get to the hanger there's more of them up there so everyone puts in a new power pack and stands ready!" The sound of people putting in fresh power packs was all that could be heard for the next few seconds with spent ones hitting the floor.
Captain Larringer and her group were just reaching the ship when the platform arrived with the other group on it. Marines and Stormtroopers were now guarding the boarding ramp; Deanna and Jamie had gone to the turrets. The two pilots were laying down covering fire as best they could with the turreted lasers. When they hit a Zombie with a burst of quad fire the Zombies were more or less obliterated.
Captain Larringer was ushering people up the ramp, apart from the four Marines that were outside laying down covering fire for the approaching second group most people were now on the ship. Lieutenant Teer and Doctor Gremory however were not. Zeff still had hold of the Doctor's lab coat. Viled was semi conscious and kept trying to crawl up the ramp only to be held back by Zeff.
"Lieutenant, time for you and the Doctor to get on."
"I can't do that Captain; I need to inform Commander Hesh about this piece of filth!"
"Lieutenant, we don't have time for this."
"With all due respect Captain, he's one of ours and it should be right that his fate is decided by one of us. As Captain Arnjak isn't here the responsibility falls to Commander Hesh." Zeff raised his carbine and blasted away at a Zombie until it dropped and stayed down.
With covering fire coming from the ship and the others by it, the second group was able to make faster progress to it. It wasn't long before people from the second group were making their way up the ramp and into the ship.
Zeff gave a very brief report to Irena about what Doctor Gremory had told them about the Genesis project and that it was up to her what to do with him. "Leave him with his creations, it's what he deserves."
Zeff released his grip on the Doctor; the man slumped to the hanger floor.
"No you can`t leave me, I won't let you." Viled reached into the pocket of his lab coat and pulled out his hold out blaster.
Before he had a chance to use it Hans reacted, from his boot he pulled out his vibro knife and threw it. Viled screamed out in pain as the knife entered Viled's right hand making him drop the blaster.
Irena turned to Captain Larringer. "Time to go Captain."
The remainder of the Imperials, Marines and pilots went up the boarding ramp into the now crowded assault ship. LaSalle pressed the button to close the hatch and bring up the ramp. As the ramp retracted Viled could be heard pleading with them not to leave him. LaSalle closed her eyes as the hatch fully closed.
The light on the control panel went from red to green indicating that the door was closed and the ramp up. Activating the repulsors Paul lifted the Decimator off the hanger deck and retracted the landing gear. He raised the craft high enough above the deck so that no Zombies could jump on. As he pivoted the ship he saw Doctor Gremory picking up his blaster with his left hand. Paul activated the ship's shields; he didn't want to take the chance of Doctor Gremory getting off a lucky shot and damaging the ship. He needn't have worried, Viled was shooting at the zombies that were running towards him. He managed to hit a few but the end was inevitable. A Wookie that was in the tattered remains of an orange jumpsuit was bearing down on the Doctor, despite taking several blaster bolts to its body the Wookie still came at the Doctor. Paul noticed the Wookie had its claws fully extended from its hands as they plunged into the Viled. Viled was still screaming as the Wookie bit deep into him. Paul had seen enough and pivoted the ship away towards the hanger exit. Doctor Gremory had gotten what he deserved.
Captain Larringer forced her way through the crowded ship and through to the cockpit. "Let's go Major."
"Not possible Ma`am, look out there." Paul pointed out of the cockpit towards the hangar exit. The familiar blue and white colours of hyperspace were visible. "We can't go anywhere until we come out of hyperspace."
LaSalle reached for her comm. unit. "Captain Farr, come in please."
After a brief pause the familiar voice of Doda came over the speaker from the comm. unit. "Go ahead Captain."
"Congratulations Captain, it looks like you've made it."
There was another pause before Doda spoke again. "Sorry for not getting in touch sooner, we only just finished a few minutes ago. Captain Arnjak says we'll be dropping out of hyperspace soon. Once that's happened he says to come to the docking station on the port side of the bridge."
"Understood, well done to all of you. Larringer out." LaSalle killed the link and pocketed her comm. unit.
Shortly the blue and white of hyperspace turned back into the normal blackness of space with stars cluttering the backdrop. Paul nudged the throttle forward and the Decimator eased out of the hanger. Paul was impressed at how well the ship handled and steered it towards the docking station on the port side of the bridge. It was as he was turning the ship towards the bridge that the unmistakable silhouette of a red Gas Giant came into full view. "It looks like the Captain has chosen which method he's going to destroy the Harbinger then. Vape, get ready to initiate the docking sequence."
"You got it." Chelsey pressed a few keys on the console, she nodded to Paul to indicate everything was ready.
Paul eased the Decimator up to the docking station and killed all movement.
Chelsey pressed another key and started the docking sequence, after thirty seconds a light went from red to green indicating a secure seal between the two ships and that the doors could be open. "Docking sequence complete."
LaSalle made her way back through the ship to the hatch. She pressed the key to open it. The hatch slid open, standing there was Captain Arnjak with three Storm troopers and Doda with two Marines. The Marines and the Storm troopers made their way past Captain Larringer into the docked ship. Behind Doda and Garik dozens of bodies lay on the floor, LaSalle could see the bodies of two Marines and that of a Storm trooper. "You've paid a high price but it was worth it, come on let's get you both aboard so we can get away from here."
Doda spoke first. "I'm afraid the price was a lot higher than you think Ma'am." Doda moved his left arm away from his side; part of his uniform had been torn away and on his green skin a line of scratch marks could be seen.
Garik walked up to LaSalle. "I'm afraid we're both staying, Captain Larringer."
LaSalle noticed for the first time a blood patch on Garik's right sleeve. "I'm so sorry. I wish that there was something that I could do for you."
Garik put his left hand on LaSalle's right shoulder. "There is, get my people out of here before we all get dragged down into that Gas Giant. It's a pity I never got to know you better Captain; you would have made one hell of an adversary and an even better friend."
"Likewise I'm sure Captain." LaSalle stepped back and threw up a salute.
Garik responded in kind then held out his right hand. "Goodbye Captain LaSalle."
"'Goodbye Captain Arnjak."
Irena stood behind Captain Larringer, she moved forward so that she could speak to her Captain. "Any final orders sir?"
"Yes Commander, make sure you choose a better side next time. Good luck Irena, it's been an honor knowing you."
"The honor was mine sir." Irena saluted her Captain for the last time and then headed back into the Assault ship.
While this was going on Hans had come through to speak to Doda. "Do you need me to do anything?"
Doda handed over the tags of the two dead Marines and his own. "Yeah, take these and let my folks know that I went out doing what I believed in, skip the gory details though."
"No worries, shipmate. Anything else?"
"Yeah, you're one of us. So get your sorry butt back to the unit proper Hans."
Hans stood there for a while not knowing what to say, after a moment he spoke again. "Soon as I get back to the Morning Star I'll put in my transfer to come back to the unit full time."
"Semper Fi Marine, Semper Fi. Doda saluted Hans before clasping his hand. Keep your head down."
"See you at the next LZ!"
LaSalle shook hands with Doda and then they both saluted each other. Hans and LaSalle made their way back through to the Decimator, once she was inside she closed the hatch.
The light on the console where Chelsey was sat came on indicating that the hatch was now shut. "Disconnecting from the Harbinger. We're detached and good to go."
"Copy that." Paul pushed the throttles all the way forward. The Decimator started to pull away from the huge factory ship a lot slower than Paul would have liked. "The controls feel sluggish. We're in the gravity mass of the Gas Giant, Vape see if you can shunt any more power to the engines."
"I've taken the weapons and shields offline and redirected the power to the engines."
The distance between the two ships started to increase at a greater speed, soon the controls felt normal again in Paul's hands. "Ok Vape, you can give me back shields and weapons."
"You got it." Chelsey made the adjustment and the shields and weapons were once more online.
The Harbingers silhouette stood out against the red Gas Giant as it went on its final journey. LaSalle once again made her way forward to the cockpit area and watched the Harbinger until it disappeared from sight, she was about to look away when she saw a series of small explosions followed by a larger one then nothing. The Harbinger was gone.
Moments later the Decimator disappeared into hyperspace leaving no trace that anyone had ever been here.
Chapter twenty two
Alliance platform Forty Seven in orbit above Mon Calamari.
"Commander Kern, I've just received a transmission from the Pride of Yavin, the Assault Frigate we sent out to try and locate the Rapier."
"Have they found them?"
"No sir. They went to the coordinates that Rapier sent us in the message pod and entered the Nebula. After an hour of searching they located some debris but it didn't belong to the Rapier, still no trace, they came out of the nebula to contact us. They also said that the Nebula was playing havoc with their sensors so they are asking if they should go back in and search again."
"Tell them to have another look and see if there's anything else in……"
Commander Kern never got a chance to finish speaking, another officer at a console interrupted hìm. "Commander we`ve got a contact that's just jumped into the edge of the system, its Imperial sir."
Commander Kern walked over to the officer's console who had just spoken to him. "Tell the Pride I'll get back to them. Show me where it is."
The officer pointed to the display on his console. "Right there sir, we have a squadron of A-Wings on patrol in the area that can intercept it in two minutes."
"Tell them to engage. Put the station on yellow alert."
The lights in the command room dimmed and a klaxon sounded throughout the station. Another officer confirmed that the station was now at yellow alert.
"Commander, the Imperial contact, it's broadcasting to us!"
"Let's hear what they've got to say, put them on speakers."
The officer flicked switch and the transmission was relayed to the speakers so that everyone could hear it.
"...... again, this is Major Paul Sweet of Blue Squadron off of the Morning Star, call sign 'Rogue' do you copy over?"
Commander Kern picked up a head set and put it on. "This is Alliance platform four seven to the approaching Imperial craft, power down your shields and weapons or prepare to be destroyed, fighters are being vectored to your location, any aggressive moves and you will be destroyed."
A new voice came over the speakers. "Kern you idiot, are you deaf? This ship is under Alliance control."
For a moment Kern was too stunned to reply, he was sure he recognised the voice that was insulting him. "LaSalle, is that you?"
"Damn right it is, I've got Alliance and Imperial survivors on board this thing and I don't fancy getting vaped by a trigger happy fighter jock after what we've all been through. Now tell the hanger crew to get ready to expect us, in bay two. Tell them to have a quarantine zone set up for us as well."
"Captain Larringer this is highly unusual to say the least! Where's your ship?"
"The Rapier's gone."
Not pressing the issue further, Kern got onto the channel that the A-Wings were on and told them to escort the Imperial ship to bay two of the platform.
The fighters took up position around the Decimator and stayed with it until it landed in bay two.
The personnel from bay two had been cleared, the only people that Paul could see as he shut down the Decimators system where security personnel suited in protective hazardous material gear.
LaSalle went into the ship's main compartment. "Ok people listen up. I want all of your gear and weapons left on the ship, the security people are going to be jumpy enough without being confronted by fully armed Marines and Stormtroopers." LaSalle un-slung the medical back pack she had taken from Lien and put it on the floor along with her laser and comm. unit. The Marines and pilots all followed her actions. Some of the Stormtroopers though seemed reluctant. "Commander Hesh, I give you my word that you and your people will all be fairly treated."
Irena nodded to LaSalle. "You heard the Captain, helmets and weapons are to be left on the ship." Irena unclipped her weapons belt and placed it on the floor; as soon as she had done this the rest of her troops did the same.
Roan turned to Sergeant Ramis. "What happens to us now, Sarge?"
Tam looked at the young trooper, "I don't know about you soldier, but I'm thinking that the Alliance could do with a fully qualified and combat experienced Sergeant to help bolster their ranks."
Roan couldn't believe what he was hearing and who it was coming from. "Sarge, are you saying that you're going to defect?"
"Son, I'Il tell you this, the Empire would have made all efforts to save the research on the Harbinger, all of us would have been expendable assets. I think it's time I signed up for a side that actually cared about its people."
Roan was shocked, he had never thought of serving the other side, he had always thought that he would give his life in service to the Empire. Sergeant Ramis's words were now bouncing around in his head, and Roan had never thought of himself as an expendable asset before.
Captain Larringer made her way to the hatch and pressed the button to lower the ramp. "When we exit the ship I want everyone to place their hands on their heads and interlock their fingers, do exactly as you're ordered, I don't want any casualties now after we've all come this far." The ramp touched the hangar floor; Captain Larringer was the first to walk down it. She followed the instructions of the security officers and waited as one by one people came down the ramp and lined up.
As the Decimator started to empty Paul got out of the pilot's seat and stood up. He un-slung his rifle, flicked on the safety and then hung it by its strap on the back of the seat. He did the same with the satchel that he was carrying and his holster with his blaster. Finally he unzipped and shrugged off his combat jacket and placed that on the seat. He headed out of the cockpit towards the exit ramp. Waiting at the hatch was Irena. "Something wrong Commander?"
"No I just thought that I'd wait for you Major, after all you waited for the rest of us in the hangar."
"Hell I wasn't about to cut and run Commander."
"Nevertheless, I appreciate it and please from now on call me Irena."
"Sure as long as you call me Paul."
"Good, in that case shall we go, Paul?" Irena gestured towards the exit ramp.
"Yeah why not, ladies first Irena."
Both of them placed their hands on their heads and interlocked their fingers and walked down the ramp, the security forces directed them over to where the others were standing.
Epilogue
Everyone remained in quarantine for two days. Nobody else had been infected much to the relief of everyone. The Alliance and Imperial personnel had been kept separated from each other much to the displeasure of the survivors. Captain Larringer was extremely vocal in her complaints about segregation, insisting that the Imperials be treated well.
As soon as the quarantine had been lifted the questions and debriefings started. Everyone was being kept on the platform confined to the quarters they had all been assigned; command had said it would be easier if everyone was in the same location. Sooli had requested to be the officer that debriefed the pilots, giving the reason that a familiar face would mean the pilots would be more at ease during the interview. When command granted her request she came over in a shuttle to the platform from the Morning Star. Steve had been particularly pleased with this news and when his turn to be interviewed came up he almost ran to the interview room. It came to Paul's turn to be interviewed, he went with his escorts to the interview room. When he entered the room he saw Sooli and a man that he had never seen before sat at the table in the center of the room, Paul walked over and sat in the single chair that was opposite his two interviewers.
"Why don't you sit down Major?"
The sarcasm in the other man's voice was not missed by Paul, he looked at Sooli. "Who's comedian Sooli?"
"This is Captain Voss; he's from Fleet Command Intelligence."
"I'll come straight to the point Major, we want the codes for the Decimator, the ones that Captain Larringer gave us no longer seem to be working."
Paul eased back in the chair. "Straight to business, I like that. I've decided that under salvage law I'm going to keep the Decimator as my own personal craft."
Voss's eyes widened. "You can't!"
"I think you'll find I can and I am. The R & D boys got a Missile Boat off of me recently so I'm keeping this ship; I'm rather fond of it."
"Well we'll just see what command has to say on the matter."
"I think you'll find that command has better and more important things to do, don't you? But hey, if you want to make a name for yourself, feel free."
Voss had nothing more to say on the matter, Sooli started the interview and most of it was conducted by her, they covered the events that had taken place and what actions Paul had taken whilst aboard.
It was only towards the end that Voss spoke. "So you freely admit to killing six Imperial scientists and beating another one, a Doctor Gremory and then leaving him to die?"
Paul folded his arms and looked straight at Voss when he answered. "Yep."
"Yep? Is that all you`ve got to say on the matter?"
Paul pretended to think the matter over for a moment then looked back at Voss. "Yep."
Voss's patience seemed to be wearing thin with Paul. "Damn it Major, you killed those people in cold blood, those people could have given us valuable information."
"Captain, my heart bleeds for your loss. I, however, won't be losing any sleep over them at all."
Voss's temper finally gave way. "You callous son of a bitch! You fighter jocks are always so damn arrogant."
Paul smiled slightly. "You mean you callous son of a bitch Major, don`t you, Captain?"
"Go to hell, Major!"
Paul unfolded his arms placing both hands on the table as he leaned forward; he was also losing his temper now. "Been there, it was called Harbinger. I'lll be damned if I was going to allow those bastards to leave that ship to be looked after by you people whilst they never paid for their crimes."
"You didn`t have the right!"
"I was there, you weren`t, it's that simple, this interview is over." Paul stood up and started walking away.
Voss jumped out of his chair and went after Paul; he grabbed hold of Paul's right shoulder. "Don't you dare walk away from me damn you!"
Paul twisted out of Voss's grip and grabbed the man by his throat, using all his strength he smashed Voss into the wall of the interview room. Applying pressure to Voss's throat Paul leaned in towards him. "You ever touch me again Voss and the Med's are going to be real busy with you, understood?"
Voss managed to nod.
Sooli was grasping at Paul's right arm trying to make him let go of Voss. "Major Sweet let go of him."
Paul released his grip on Voss's throat; Voss took in a large gulp of air as he rubbed his throat. Grabbing Voss's uniform, Paul drove his right knee as hard as he could into Voss's groin. Voss collapsed onto the floor moaning in agony. Paul started heading back towards the door.
Sooli called after him. "What the hell was that for Major?" She was reaching down to see what she could do for Voss.
Without looking back Paul answered. "If he's going to bring me up on charges I might as well make it worth my while." Paul exited the room.
Four hours later.
Later that day there was a memorial service for the Marines and Imperials that had been killed during the mission. Captain Larringer and the surviving Marines were there in their full dress uniform as were the seven pilots. Irena along with the Imperial survivors were also there, they were dressed in Imperial uniforms that had been taken off previous Imperial P.O.W's. Captain Larringer stood at the podium that had been placed in the hanger, she read out the list of the dead. When she had finished Commander Hesh walked up to the podium and did the same for her fallen troopers. There were two coffins near the hangar exit, one had the Marines unit flag draped over the other was an Imperial flag. The flags were removed when the service was over and the coffins ejected into space, as the coffins began their journey into the heavens, the honor guard raised their rifles and fired their final salute to the dead.
The next day there was an awards ceremony, Captain Farr received a posthumous Marine Cross medal for his assault on the Harbingers Bridge, the other two Marines that died were awarded Marine Corps Commendation Medals. The seven pilots were all awarded Joint Service Commendation Medals, this was given to them for their meritorious service whilst with the Marines. There were several other commendations given out, Lohk`har was promoted to Captain to replace Doda, Captain Larringer pinned the new rank marking on her collar. Lohk'har received the promotion with mixed feelings.
After the ceremony Captain Larringer came over to the pilots. "I would just like to offer my own personal thanks. You all handled yourselves well and I would be proud to serve with any of you again."
Steve answered for everyone. "Thank you Ma'am, we appreciate it."
LaSalle moved over to where Hans was standing. "It seems that I'm in need of a new Lieutenant. I wonder, Mr Allen, does the position appeal to you?"
Hans was shocked by the offer. "Ma'am?"
"Your transfer request to come back to the unit has been approved by command, although from what I hear fighter command was reluctant to let you go."
"I didn't realise it would happen so quickly. Yes Ma'am I accept on one condition."
LaSalle's right eyebrow arched up. "What might that be?"
"That I get to go back to the Morning Star and have my going away party in the Fish tank."
"I think we can accommodate that, Lieutenant Allen, congratulations." LaSalle came to attention and saluted Hans.
Hans returned the salute.
As she was walking off, LaSalle called over her shoulder back to Hans. "We ship out at Oh Seven Hundred tomorrow, don't be late Lieutenant."
The other pilots crowded around Hans, congratulating him and saying they would be sorry to see him leave.
The party in the Fish Tank went on into the early morning with Hans and Steve drinking Fizzies whilst the others drank Ale and other potent brews. In the morning Hans was surprised to see that all the pilots had managed to make it to the hangar to see him off, though some of them looked like they would be back to the quarters as soon as he was gone. Hans shook everyone's hand and said his goodbyes. When he was done he turned and walked over to the waiting shuttle. He stood at the bottom of the boarding ramp, turned and saluted his friends. The salute was returned by everyone. With the ramp rising, Hans made his way into the shuttle and sat down. As the shuttle passed through the Mag con force field he took one last look at the Morning Star as he headed away from it, he would miss his friends and being a pilot but he remembered his promise to Doda and knew that he had made the right choice to go back to his unit.
Several hours later.
Paul was walking down the corridor that led to his quarters, several of the lights were out and others were flickering on and off making the corridor feel rather eerie. He hoped that the maintenance crew would get the problem fixed soon. Reaching his quarters he keyed in his door code. The door slid open, as Paul was about to step in a Zombie lunged at him and knocked him to the floor. Grabbing its wrists Paul tried to keep it back and stop it from scratching him. The Zombie leaned in towards Paul; its split and cracked lips peeling back to show its teeth. As hard as he tried to get it off him Paul couldn't get the Zombie off him. Paul screamed out as the Zombie got ready to bite him. "Nooooo!"
Paul sat bolt up right in his bed, his bed sheets clinging to his sweat soaked body. It had been a dream, just another bad dream, it was the second time he'd had this one. He hit the light switch controller on his bed side table and suddenly the room was flooded with bright light. Shade was over in the corner charging, he tootled a question to Paul. "No I'm ok little fella, just another bad dream." Paul got up and headed for a shower, there was no way he would get back to sleep tonight. He came back to his cabin and checked the time it was just after four in the morning. He headed over to his console and punched in a series of numbers. After about ten seconds Irena's image appeared.
"I see you can't sleep as well?"
"No, keep having damn nightmares, you?"
Irena nodded in response.
Paul rubbed the back of his neck with his right hand. "Look, seeing as we're both up, how would you like to have a really early breakfast with me?"
"Sounds like a good idea to me."
Paul felt a huge smile spread across his face. "Excellent, I'll be over to the platform in twenty minutes and then you can tell me how it's going for one of the Alliance's future newest members."
"It's a date. See you soon."
Irena's image vanished from his screen. Shade whistled and beeped at him. "You never know little fella, you just never know." Paul headed out to the hangar to get the shuttle over to the platform and Irena.
