Lillian snapped awake, and immediately got up and started dressing. She zipped up her blue jumpsuit with gold trim, and belted on a utility belt. More often than not, she needed a wrench and not a pistol, as commanding a research station was not exactly a -combat oriented career. That said, as she slipped on her satchel, she still dropped both her standard issue MIV Vindemiatrix-pattern energy gun and her personal recharging pistol into pockets on the satchel. She opened the door to her little cabin with a wave of her ID, and took about five steps down the hall, opening another door into her office. Lillian frowned, and quickly punched in the code for her wall safe. She opened the small but thick metal door, and tossed the Nuclear Authorization Disk and it's pinpointer into the safe.
She absent-mindedly started chewing on her nail as she opened the communications console's interface and started reading the orders for the day. Generally, it was the same exact thing, "Promote synergistic cooperation amongst the departments on station, provide managerial insight and morale support" blah blah blah. Today, it was different. She skimmed it, then stopped halfway in, an expression of surprise on her face. Lillian went back to the beginning and started reading it again, slower and with greater concentration. She read the orders for the day three times over to herself, making sure she was absolutely sure she understood it.
Nanotrasen was now in direct warfare. This was an insane prospect. Everyone knew that war, real war, had gone the way of the dodo long ago. The way of war now was terrorism, sedition, and sabotage. But yet, this document was telling Captain Lillian Helsbrecht of the NTSS-13 that she was now at war with some unknown alien lifeform, or collection of lifeforms. The report was somewhat unclear on that part. Her orders were to ensure the infrastructure of the station was active and self-sustaining, to form a militia of the ship's crew, and arm them all, and to defend the station from any engaging forces, and to be prepared to receive refugees if necessary. If she felt that the situation was too untenable, she could attempt to call for evacuation, but there was a very real prospect that escape would be impossible.
Lillian shook her head as she shut down the console and locked it. She swiftly, but not hastily, put on her full suit of pressurized armor, carefully checking the seal on each piece before finally settling the helmet into it's receiver ports. She brought up her helmet's HUD, and checked the crew manifest. No engineers, of course. She sighed, then PDA'd the Detective, and immediately brevetted him as a temporary Head of Security. She jogged down the hall to Engineering, a good five hundred meter jog from her office, and ducked into the Chief Engineer's Office. She sidled around his desk and hit the Secure Access button, then entered the Engineering bay itself, a rather cavernous room surrounding the Gravitational Singularity Engine. Lillian sighed, hating the necessities of skeleton crews, and tried to remember all the steps to activating a GSE. She needed to do the jobs of four people and a Head of Staff, by herself, in damn near record time.
And so she did. A few minutes later, with frost rime still melting on her armor, she jogged down the hall and opened the general comms channel. "All crew please report to Security to form a militia. You will be armed and armored if possible, to repel boarders." A chorus of responses and demands for more information greeted her, but she repeated herself once, and shut off her headset. Nevertheless, as she came to Security, there were still three people outside the doors waiting for her.
Malachi said, "What do you mean, we need to form a militia?"
Luke Bennett said, "Guns? I don't... I've never used a gun... I don't think I can do this..."
Devon was silent, his face pale and tense.
Lillian brushed past them all, and opened the doors. She went straight through the Warden's office, and opened the Armory. She kept waving people in, and more kept coming. Guns were handed out, and riot armor was issued. Malachi even asked, "Can I have the Armored Biosuit, out of the locker?" Lillian shrugged and blink-clicked the locker on her HUD, unlocking it. Everyone milled about, and eventually back into the hall. A short, but sharp klaxon blared, a familiar blare. Central Command was sending a message.
A clean and crisp voice of somewhat indeterminate gender said, "Central Command has sent supply shuttles to what stations they could with armaments. Please be prepared to receive armaments. That is all. Loyalty to Nanotrasen!" The klaxon blared one more time, then all was silent. Lillian jogged past the crowd, into the Arrivals area. The supply shuttle whipped into view in an instant, about a hundred meters out from the station. It came in fast, frighteningly fast, until the last ten meters, then it slowed to an aching crawl in an instant. With a heavy thud, the docking seal was complete, and the doors hissed open. Lillian and several others entered the ship, to find a single crate sitting in the center of the massive cargo hold.
There was a pregnant pause, and Lillian stepped forward, gently toeing open the crate with her right boot. Inside was an armory. Four L6 APPW, four Ricochet model Scatterlasers, two D99 PDWs, and four Remington 12 gauge riot shotguns. Lillian snagged a Ricochet, and backed away as everyone else swarmed over the crate.
Lillian took time to run to the Bridge and take the Medkit from the desk there, stuffing it into her satchel, along with a pair of insulated gloves she didn't remember stealing from Engineering, then she ran back to Security. If nothing else, then at least she was getting her exercise for the day. She took a stun baton from one of the secure lockers, and stuffed the Head of Security's energy pistol into her Internals box, when people started calling out for Cargo to be fortified. Lillian shrugged and opened the Armory again. She unbolted the two rechargers from their mountings, and took them to Cargo. People swarmed in and out of Cargo, and someone said to her, "We need access. Change our access, Lillian."
Lillian said, "Oh, right. Everyone hold still." She blink-clicked a few times on her HUD, then waved, "Alright, go ahead. You all should have Captain-level access. Abuse it while you can." Lillian turned as Isiah Poehl started speaking to her, then James Deacon started screaming over the comms about aliens in Escape.
Lillian ran, digging out her personal recharger pistol, and turned the corner to the Escape wing. There was some green blood, but nothing else. She ran forward, getting to the Escape doors, when she saw the lights were off in Escape, and the doors were unpowered. She crept close, using cover to screen herself, and peeked through the glass of the doors...
And looked right into the maw of some alien monster. Lillian shrieked as she jumped back, her gun coming up, stitching a line of laserfire through the door and into the creature on the other side. Lillian landed solidly on her rump and back, thumping the back of her helmet on the floor with frightening force. If she hadn't been wearing a helmet...
Another monster loomed in the glass of the doors, and Lillian fired again, ruthless and accurate this time. More creatures swarmed to the doors, and some crew arrived to support Lillian. The monsters couldn't open the door, and were dying by the droves. Finally, they fell back, leaving a number of fried corpses behind.
I'm actually only halfway done, but I have some stuff to do. I'll try to finish the GOOD half when I get done.
Author
Topic: Space Station 13: Urist McStation (Read 2145498 times)