Ahaha! And I'm back with more, not like anybody will notice.
Chapter Fifteen – Our Darkest Hour
The shrill of sirens echoed through the steel corridors of the Jefferson. The ship was utter chaos as even the highly-trained officers, noncoms, and enlisted under Black’s command rushed to reach a lifepod before the ship was destroyed.
Admiral Black sprinted through these halls, now only lit by the emergency lights. He had left the flag bridge immediately after Fox had issued the abandon ship warning. He had ordered Fox to gather as many officers and marines as he could and get them to meet him at Bay 7A.
The ship shuddered from another hit.
Hopefully Fox would make it in time.
Black continued his all-out sprint, dodging other personnel, vaulting over obstacles, and struggling to keep his bearings in the confusing halls of the ship. He made a quick left turn, went through some blast doors, and then, there it was. Bay 7A.
There was only one ship in the bay, and Black was damned lucky he had remembered about it. It was a Dromedary freighter, cut down and modified for speedy smuggling operations. The Jefferson had captured it on the way back into Liberty, dropped the pilot and crew off at Fort Bush, but there had been no time to do anything with the freighter. Fox had only mentioned it to Black in their brief reunion after Black’s return.
Now, Black rushed up into the ship, opened the main cargo doors and made his way to the cockpit. He sat in the pilot’s seat and quickly tried to familiarize himself with the controls. It was a bit strange to him, but he had been trained to fly all sorts of ships and he figured most of it out pretty quickly. He then started the engines and prepared it for launch out of the bay.
The door to the hanger hissed open again, and Fox, along with a few other officers and a handful of marines, emerged. Two marines turned, dropped to one knee, and fired bursts of fire from their energy rifles back through the door. Then, the doors hissed shut and the small party ran to the ship. They jumped into the open cargo hatch, and once Black saw that they were all inside, he closed the hatch. Then, a party of ten Bretonian marines burst through the door, and began firing on the ship.
Black reached over to the ship’s communication system, and pinged a personal override to the docking bay doors. Instead of just one of them opening, they both opened.
Black turned and yelled back towards the cargo bay.
“Strap in and hold on, this is gonna be a ride!”
The entire bay depressurized, and the oxygen, the freighter, and the unfortunate ten marines were sucked out into the vacuum of space. Once the freighter was away from the battleship, Black activated the engines and regained control of the ship.
Commodore Fox came and joined him in the cockpit.
“James, why were there Bretonians aboard the ship?” Black asked.
“It happened right after you left, sir. They stopped firing on us and instead launched boarding parties. But don’t worry, sir. I brought along the self-destruct codes.”
He handed Black a small datascreen.
“Alright. We can’t risk the Bretonians disabling the self-destruct. I’ll give it five minutes. Hopefully everyone will be able to get off by then.”
He entered the time into the self destruct screen and a countdown started.
“Now, time to get out of here.”
He hit the tractor beam, and a few fingers of energy reached out and snatched a few lifepods floating within range. However, this alerted a few Bretonian fighters nearby to their location, and they sped towards the freighter.
Black growled under his breath and gave full power to the engines. The heavily modified ship seemed to leap forward, and when he activated the thruster, the ship blasted away from the scene of the battle. The Bretonian ships, once they realized they wouldn’t be able to catch up, reluctantly turned back towards the Jefferson. After another short minute of flying, Black saw a bright fireball appear in his rear cam. The Jefferson was gone, and so were his hopes of saving Liberty.
There was nowhere left to run. Sure, he could return to Rheinland, but after securing Liberty, the Bretonians were certain to return there to finish off the RLA and assert their control over all of Sirius. It was over. Liberty had been their last hope, and it had fallen. There was nothing left for them to do but hide… forever.
Black remembered hearing a rumor about a base near Manhattan run by Junkers. He doubted the Bretonians would take notice of it, so he set a waypoint for the approximate location and activated the cruise engines.
* * *
The freighter arrived in the debris field on the dark side of Manhattan a short time later, without any incidents along the way. It only took Black a short time to locate the Junker base, called Rochester. It looked deserted. No ships around or anything, but when Black pinged the base with a docking request, a dock controller came on screen and accepted the request. The freighter entered the station and set down on a pad. Before Black could open the ship’s hatch, the doors to the bay opened and a number of gun-wielding Junkers emerged, not looking pleased.
Black quickly opened the hatch and walked out to meet the men. Fox followed him.
The man in front stepped in front of him, his face twisted with rage.
“Guerro, how DARE you bring that disgusting ship and your disgusting rear back aboard this station. You filthy Outcast, you sold us out, you…”
Another Junker stopped him.
“Sir, this is certainly the Matador, Guerro’s ship, but this is not Guerro. I met him, and you never did.”
The first man turned to face the speaker.
“Then who the hell is this? How did he get his hands on the Matador?”
He turned to face Black now, curiosity on his face. His eyes widened as he looked closer, noticing the uniforms of both Black and Fox.
“Liberty… you men are from the Liberty Navy?” he asked.
“Yes. My name is Vice Admiral William Black, and this is Commodore James Fox. Our ship, the battleship Jefferson, was destroyed in combat with Bretonian invaders. We had nowhere else to go.”
“But how did you get this ship? This could be a trap…”
Black nodded. “I understand that you have a history with the previous owner of this ship. We captured this ship smuggling cardamine in Kepler. The captain and crew are now in cells on Fort Bush.”
The man nodded hesitantly. “But how do we know we can trust you?”
“We have nowhere else to go. The war is lost. Liberty is no more. Here, the Bretonians won’t notice us, or you. We… we are prepared to start a new life here. Or, if you won’t accept us, we would like to purchase supplies and be on our way. I am sure we could find work freelancing in the edge worlds,” Black stated grimly.
The man frowned. “Or, we could always ransom you back to the Bretonians for a nice price. I’m sure they’d pay well for such high-ranking officers.” He grinned with greed.
“I don’t think that would be the best idea, friend,” Black said, coldly. He snapped his fingers. The marines, still in their battle armor, emerged from the ship, rifles at the ready. “We have with us two squads of highly trained Liberty marines, in addition to other survivors from our ship.” The marines and the Junkers faced off, guns ready to fire. “Not to mention that the ransom would tip off the Bretonians to where this base is. I’m sure that when they would show up, they wouldn’t be looking to trade.”
The man grimaced. “Fine. You may stay here for a few days, but after that I want you out. I won’t have your being here risk this entire station!”
Black nodded. “Fair enough. We’ll stay here a few days, and then we’ll be on our way.”
On their way to what, Black didn’t know. What he did know, however, was that there was nothing else that he could do. He had failed.
Fri Aug 04, 2006 1:45 am 