Lillian Helsbrecht sprinted into the maintenance shaft, hearing the rest of the Security Team chattering on the secure channel. Chasing her. Hunting her. She kept her grip on Nokolai's wrists, but the stunned Unathi was barely able to keep running, much less offer her any sort of assistance. The AI called out her last known location, it's perfunctory tones a damning crescendo to her pounding heart. Lillian knew that a security camera watched over the Solar Access Chamber, two turns and fifty feet from where she was. She released Nokolai, instantly making a decision, and kept running.
She ran right past the camera, and watched it track her. She took a left, and kept running. At the end of this dark and utilitarian corridor was a door. The sensor blinked green as she neared, recognizing her Security Access, and she was in the main Security staging area. She looked past the Head of Security office, now vacant, to the row of lockers along the wall, filled with security gear.
The AI tolled out, as she knew it would. It had been watching. "Lillian is in Security. She is armed."
You think I'm armed now, you silicon bastard... Lillian thought to herself. She swiped her ID across a couple of the lockers, and took out the tasers within, putting them in her satchel. She relocked the lockers, then dragged them in front of the main entrance and the Armory entrance, hoping they might buy her some time.
She finished pushing the last locker up against the door when it slid open with a pneumatic hiss. Brandon Flickenger and Osborn Zimmer stood in the doorway, with a third Officer farther back, covering the hall. Brandon, the detective, held his pistol at the ready, but didn't quite aim at Lillian when he saw her.
They shared a look for a moment, Lillian's face frozen in fear, Brandon's face twisted in surprise. Then Lillian turned and ran. She ran towards the Maintenance entrance she'd come in through, but the door clicked as the AI dropped it's bolts, sealing it into place. Fuck. FUCK. FUCK. Lillian froze, knowing what to do.
She raised her hands and waited. "I surrender!" She called out, hoping they listened, "I don't want to fight."
Brandon came around her, his gun pointed at her face. Osborn wasn't visible, somewhere behind her. Lillian slowly dropped her hands to her sides, saying, "I'm just going to disarm, Brandon. Okay? Just gonna undo my belt, here..." As she said it, she unclasped the belt, letting it drop to the floor with her guns, her stunbaton, her flashbangs, and all her other weaponry.
Osborn said, "Be careful. She's already used flashbangs on us once." His voice was right behind her. He was the Warden, so she knew he probably had an Energy Gun. Considerably more firepower than a taser or even the Detective's rubber bullets could bring to bear. She tensed a bit, but slowly kept dropping more weaponry. After a moment, there lay a rather considerable pile on the floor. Brandon stepped forward and yanked her ID off her uniform, then took her pearlescent red Sec-HUD sunglasses. The targeting reticles and damage analyzers disappeared, and she blinked at the brightness of the lights.
Osborn stepped forward, and grabbed her wrist, slapping cuffs on her. Lillian began talking. "Guys, I did this for a reason. I just want a chance to be heard. Just promise me you will listen to what I say."
Osborn grunted noncommittally and Brandon said, "Sure, Lillian. Shoot."
"The Captain is gonna kill those Unathi."
"Horseshit." Osborn said, almost inadvertently.
"He was. He chloroformed Nokolai, and dragged him to the Staff Room. If I had been a half second slower, the doors would have closed in front of me. I got Nokolai and go-" A pneumatic hiss, and suddenly a presence was on deck.
"CAPTAIN ON THE DECK!" A Blueshield, by the name of Amami Mayedi, bellowed to the assembled Security team. John Kalashnivlak strode forward into the room, his gleaming blue carapace armor obscured by a black webbing vest filled with guns. He looked over the scene before him once, then shook his head, more than a little theatrically.
"Permabrig." He said one word, and suddenly everyone moved with a purpose. Lillian didn't even have time to protest before she was dragged in front of a ominous set of double Secure Doors. Osborn wordlessly and emotionlessly stripped her to her underwear, searching her quickly and efficiently, but humanely. She would have protested, asked for a female officer...
She was the only female officer on station. After this indignity, she was handed a orange jumpsuit and some shower shoes, and ushered into the Permabrig. Lillian hardly looked around, simply donning the clothing without modesty, and moving forward a little to sit on a stool at a metal table in the center of the room. The doors hissed open, and Brandon came in, a notepad in hand.
Lillian opened her mouth to speak, when the doors hissed open again. This time, the Captain and his entourage, the Head of Personnel, the Acting Head of Security (Warden Zimmer), and the remainder of the Security team filed into the room. Everyone took up various positions, but it all pivoted around the Captain. Lillian glanced up as he passed by her, nearly brushing her sleeve, and he sat down opposite her on the table. In his hands was her neatly folded jumpsuit, with her ID on top.
He set them down neatly, then stood back up, turning away from her. Lillian waited, knowing how the game was played. She stared at the back of his head.
A full three minutes later, he turned, picked up her clothing and ID, and threw them in her face roughly. "Lillian, do you mind telling me what in the HELL you are doing?" His stern features set in a stone mask of cold rage. "You made me trust you, Lillian. You agreed to help me. I feel betrayed. Personally."
Lillian quietly stood up from the stool, holding her head high. She was perhaps an inch over five feet, and she weighed around a hundred pounds on a good day. She had a darker complexion than most of the other human crew on board, and in keeping with her Latin-American heritage, she had black hair, dark eyes, and an intense aspect. Her hair was worn cut short and slanted, with her bangs swept to one side. She clenched her hands into fists and glared at the Captain. "I agreed to help you fire them. You were going to KILL them."
---
Lillian wearily tried the door to Cargo, but without her Security ID, she couldn't get the doors to open for her. She turned, and saw Chase Leech looking at her through the reinforced windows. He waved, then turned, walking down the hall towards a door Lillian knew led to her. She smiled wanly, and her PDA vibrated as the first door hissed open. She pulled it out, checking it.
From: Brandon Flickenger, Detective
Message:
STAY AWAY FROM CHASE LEECH!!!
Lillian took a deep breath as the second door hissed open, and Chase stepped out with an Energy Gun in his hand. He didn't speak, or wait for her to speak. He shot her. First in the face, then tracking down her torso. Each shot was a burst of lightning searing through her, scrambling her synapses. Lillian fell to the floor, in more pain than she'd ever been in her life before, and Chase stepped over her. The gun raised, pointing at her face again, and there was a fla-
---
Lillian kicked one final desultory time against the locker door, and Chase chuckled evilly. "What do we do with her, Captain?"
The Captain picked his way past the crates filled with ordnance that filled the Cargo Bay. "Hmm. Whatever pleases you, Chase." He waved it off, and turned back to the entrance to Cargo. Lillian swallowed with difficulty as Chase turned back, his hardsuit helmet obscuring any humanity he might have once had. He pushed the locker against the Unloading doors, and waited for the Supply Shuttle to fly off. He smiled at her, then hit the buttons that opened the door.
It did not go as he expected. Inside the heavy metal locker, Lillian slid a bit. The atmosphere in the Cargo bay rushed out, sucking all four of the Loyalists, including the Captain, across the floor, tumbling, to slam into the locker, flattening Chase against it. Inside, Lillian cackled madly. "Not enough AIR PRESSURE YOU FUCK TARD!" She giggled like a giddy schoolgirl as they struggle to shut the doors. "The Captain's pet psycho fails to deliver."
The Loyalists sealed the door and stood up, checking for injuries. Chase turned, putting his gun to the slits in the locker door, ready to fill it with laser fire, when there was a rumble, and then a violent shaking. Air alarms started flashing all over the room. The four loyalists scattered, fleeing the Cargo bay for fear of a hull breach.
Lillian sat inside the locker awhile, looking out. She leaned forward, and her nose bumped into the locker door, which Chase had locked and welded shut. After the strain of her kicking it and the crew slamming into it, the door's hinges and the spot-weld were about ruined. She strained, looking around for any sign of the loyalists, when the door dropped, then fell flat with a resounding slam.
Lillian's face scrunched up tight as she winced. She quickly grabbed an ablative vest and a LWAP sniper rifle off a nearby table, then Chase's Miner ID, setting off into the station...
---
A round tore into her leg, blowing out the thigh meat. She bit back a cry and stopped dead in her tracks, barely able to stand. She gasped a little, and Avery Price, the Nanotrasen Approved Commissar and Morale Officer, came around in front of her. She realized she'd done this once before today, but with different people and smaller guns. He aimed his combat shot gun right at her face and cocked it once. An empty, smoking shell popped out, attesting to it's user's determination and will to fire. Lillian kept utterly still. She dared not move a muscle.
The Captain gloated, his voice insultingly close behind her. "Yet again we meet, Lillian Helsbrecht. This time for the last time I thi-" He was silenced by a familiar pneumatic hissing, and the rattle of two sets of boot steps. The three loyalists turned from their helpless quarry to face Brandon and Oswald, loaded for bear. In a half a second, a flurry of fire killed two people, leaving Oswald facing the Captain and Avery Price. Oswald rolled forward, taking cover under the edge of the table, and the Captain stepped forward, holding his recharging laser pistol in a one handed grip, firing ceaselessly. Oswald ducked down, and fired a single shot with his sniper rifle, the round tearing into the Captain's throat.
Captain Kalashnivlak held one hand to his neck, dropping his pistol, and fell back into the table beside him, blood pumping out of him in copious quantities. Avery Price took a step forward, and fired his shotgun at Oswald. Half the spread caught Oswald, but his armor saved him. He bounced behind a table, and Lillian made her move. She whipped out her sniper rifle and fired at Avery from behind. He heard the shot and turned, taking it from lethal to merely soon-to-be-lethal, and fired his shotgun once. Lillian felt for an instant like she was having the worst heada-
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Topic: Space Station 13: Urist McStation (Read 2163648 times)