'Of Future Heroism' - Pt.9 - Silently Alive...
I awoke... One of the monitors has fallen from it's sturdy brackets and knocked me unconscious... it lay on the ground a greenish brown sludge softly spilling out across the deck plating. Surprisingly the air was still breathable... but it tasted dry and dirty... the atmosphere regenerators must be running on emergency protocols, either that or something was burning... Probably both. I looked at the readouts... Much of the rear section of the ship was missing... structural integrity was near nil... the shields were damaged beyond repair... the engines... they were floating about 500m in front of the cockpit window. I tried the monitors... nothing. Everything seemed to be on backup... Shmit was most likely dead which strangely didn't seem all that important... I saw the pools of blood on the readouts where I had lain... I had lost a lot of blood... it was the Eel all over again... but with more blood... and I didn't have a friendly capital ship waiting to patch me up this time.
I unbuckled the safety harness... So far so good... I stood... the room began to tip wildly... Was the ship disintegrating?!? had the gravity spontaneously failed, I looked down at my feet, they were still firmly planted on the deck... Ok... all I have to do is get the med locker and not fall on any of the debris while getting there... I wiped some of the blood from my face and made a move... "The central pillar... the door strut... Ok... we're there..." Never had my own voice felt so reassuring. The door console reported 85% atmosphere, 100% containment on the other side, it was safe to open... The seals rend open letting in a foul smelling liquid into the cockpit... the deck was submerged with a strange liquid... It seemed almost sticky... My guess, Rastar oil. As I reached the Doors to the habitation section I saw that the Fire suppression system had opened it to space... but the med locker was still at 100% containment... the emergency hatch into the locker hissed open... the air smelt reassuringly clinical. The med locker was untouched the bio regenerator was just where I had left it... My vision slowly returned to normal as the med computer pumped me full of dangerous looking florescent drugs... I was going to have a head ache in the morning.
As I slipped out of the hatch I got my first real look at the damage, the corridor was filled with broken equipment that had spewed haphazardly from the walls as the shockwave had ripped through the ship... In the cockpit shrapnel had sprayed the cockpit, the seat had protected me from being impaled to the control column... the main console was offline... I gave it a little kick and it fizzed back into life... Unkaart's ship was still docked with the pirate base... I opened an external channel... the sensitive communications grid contained within the nose cone had survived the blast... the gravidar had not faired so well I had to override it to access the station menu... I couldn't find any pirate ships registered to him at that station... I looked at the access key in my hand... a square disk... about the size of a fifty credit chip. I had the key so how does it work? Surely there must be a way to find your ships I waved it over the console... nothing happened... it was useless... burned out... I threw it at the wall... My eyes filled of with tears... I was probably going to die here in this ship... radiation levels were slowly rising... another tazura and it would be at dangerous levels, that's if the ship doesn't get hit by and asteroid or the atmosphere regenerators stop working. I contemplated which death I would prefer... Radiation sickness is a painfully slow death... Each Jazura the Paranid Grand Priest on Trinity Sanctum lights three bright burning torches in each of the Scared temples... the torches in a procession that lasts three and a third tazura are transported to Sez'jakt the capital city of Spring of Belief, there they sit atop in each of the three high towers of the temple where they are tended until their return to Trinity Sanctum during next jazuras procession... It is a tribute to those brave colonists that sacrificed themselves so that future generations might live on the planet without fear of radiation and a promise that the sector shall not be abandoned. The Argon and Boron have no notion of what promise means to a Paranid... I only saw a tiny piece of it's meaning during my stay but it was enough to know that everything written down in the Argonopaedia is woefully inaccurate with regards to Paranid culture and understanding... my tears had stopped... despite all their attempts to push me out of their world I had somehow forced my way into the hearts of those who had brought me up... Trinity Sanctum was more my home that anywhere else in the universe, there was suddenly no fear in my heart I felt contented, my thoughts turned to my mother... I had written to her every single tazura, it had been jazuras since I had seen her... I turned to go back to go and collect my spacesuit... it would be suicidal to go outside in the middle of debris field in an asteroid belt but it was my only chance to see her again... then I noticed something sparkling in the dust... the key had smashed open revealing a smaller chip. The chip was complex almost like a self contained computer in itself... I slipped it into the chip reader drive... it churned violently... maybe throwing it wasn't a good idea I should have checked for something like this before. The computer wasn't happy but I found what it needed... access codes... there was a little yellow and green flash and a ship appeared at the top of the menu, it was displayed in green and was clearly different from the other ships in the list... that must be it!!!
I watched as the 'Sneeker' quietly streaked into view a few hundred measures from the cockpit... I slipped into my space suit checking the pressure seal, to be sure that it had remained undamaged in the blast before slipping into the emergency airlock... 215m, 210m... it was taking too long... every mizura outside the possibility increased that I would be hit by some kind of debris or at worst a mini asteroid... 100m... 50m... I held my breath... It wouldn't make any difference... If containment failed. I closed my eyes... with the five mizura warning I was now 90% likely to find my blood floating outside my body any moment now... 25m left to travel... Thud... I felt the collision dampeners crush... I opened my eyes... I had been so frightened that I have run into the hull of the Sneaker. The ship interior was dirty... Unkaart must have spent all his money he had on booze and space weed... As I exited the airlock into a caged walkway... the entire ship had been hollowed out to make room for the maximum amount of slaves... there was no facilities... The smell of death was in the air many people had met their end in Unkaart's holds... I slipped into the grimy cockpit, argenu takeout cartons litters the readouts... this ship was growing space weed between the gaps in the deck plating!!! I left my spacesuit on more than a little afraid of what might have gone on in this ship. The ship was indeed under my command... as I pushed the throttle slightly to ease the ship closer to the M6's tow point I heard a little click then nothing... the controls must be a little sticky... that didn't surprise me at all! The clips locked into place and I was on my way... to where... home... Trinity Sanctum.
The moment I jumped into Emperor Mines I was commed... The Priest Duke of the trading station was anxious to ensure my safety... Soon I was joined by a tug. I released the clamps and watched as the powerful ship grappled with the wreckage at lightning speed and soon we were underway. As I docked with the shipyard in Trinity Sanctum I was met by the chief shipwright... He bowed curiously... "We are honoured to welcome such as you onboard..." I smiled and curtsied. I had never ever been welcomed so warmly... it was frightening and exciting all at the same time... I got to watch as he scanned my battered ship... "Ah.. it seems that you picked up a passenger!"... Shmit was indeed alive... the turret was surprisingly intact... not a scratch on it... Shmit had suffered oxygen depravation... The engineers and shipwrights swarmed the turret... they said that it could that several wozura to repair the Broken Sword at the least... how much of this was research time... I wasn't about to ask. Two things weighed on my mind... Chi'zaia and seeing my mother. I had the Paranid completely take the Sneaker apart and completely re-engineered (not to mention cleaned)... Oh I almost forgot... It seemed that Unkaart is just a little paranoid... the Throttle control was rigged to explode but the pirate was cheap and had neglected the most important part... the detonator.
As I entered Family Pride I switched the engine additive system to emit the split red to blend in with all the other TP's. The new regime was keen to show off it's new power... There was a carrier from every family in the sector... The trading station docking crew had been rushed off it's feet and so did not ask for any verification they just gave me clearance to dock! As the airlock connected to the landing hatch I was having second thoughts... Maybe it hadn't been a good idea to come on my own... but it was too late now. The Promenade had been converted into a great hall to celebrate Ronkar's official coronation... more food was being spilled on the floor than was being put into peoples mouths but if they weren't eating then they were indulging themselves with all the slaves surrounding the tables... The star attraction would be the daughters of Chin... my family hadn't just lost a Civil War... It had lost the right to existence... those of the former first family were to be made an example of...
It wasn't difficult to find where the Chin were being kept... there was no shortage of slaves willing to satisfy my every whim although they seemed slightly relieved that it would just be information. I took the lift down into the Concubine Quarters... My revealing dress gave me a free access pass into the chambers. As I walking into the dressing chamber there was a sense of inevitability in the room... Then I saw her... The burn marks covered most of her face but I knew it was her... It was something about the way she moved... "Chi'zaia?" She turned to look at me startled by my voice. "Th-kirin" it was Paranid... bad Paranid at that but it was close enough for me... I held her tight... "Yes it's me... I've come to rescue you..." "Res-cue? how" I pulled my blaster out of it's holster... it felt like a smooth movement... the guards seemed incapable to comprehend until the hyper energetic blast ripped into their chests... "That's how" he looked at me with a little fear in her eyes... remorse would have to wait until later I had to concentrate on getting us out alive. The survivors my Split family were contained in this small room... Split security was centred around the promenade... the alert went out but they would have to chace us to the docking bay... sirens wailed loudly as we entered into the docking arm... the security team were ordered to take the prize alive which was going to make this easier... Chi'zaia met me in the cockpit... "we go?" I slowly strapped myself in... Ronkar security forces came over the comm "split say surrender or die"... A smile came over my face... "Let me see..." My fist slammed into the throttle bringing much of the docking rig with us towards the station gates... Eel time!!! I yanked at the steering column sending us hurtling at the sealed doors... Chi'zaiacovered her eyes... A squeal of joy leapt from my mouth as we crashed through the doors and streaked out into space... That bit I had planned... how to get past the fleet outside... errr... yes...
The sector was a wash with fighters but with our powerful Paranid engines we might just make it... There was one thing that might stop us... The Dragon... As we past the shipyard it seemed to be lifting off... We might just get to the get... I engaged SETA... In the hope that we might out run this ship... but just as it began to peruse us it seemed to spontaneously explode... As the shockwave spread out the shipyard seemed to shake and then begin to disintegrate... It all seemed to happen in fast forward... the loss of life would be immense but it couldn't have happened at a better time... As we pulled into pirate space a Paranid carrier was waiting, it was our escort to Paranid space...
Having Chi'zaia back with me awakened feelings in me that I had forgotten... Over those few Tazuras she helped me find my humanity again... feel more like myself. As I docked with the Equipment Dock in Three worlds I felt the excitement building in me... How would my mother react to the new members of the family... We docked and transferred over to a shuttle down to the surface... I entered the Administration building... short of breath... sweating... "Tikirin to see... My mother." I smiled trying my hardest to remain coherently Argon... "Of course! The Senator will see you now" I rushed into her office and into her arms... Tears flooded from my eyes... to be back in her arms after all this time... "Hello mother... There's a few people I want you to meet..."
Part 10 already in works...
'Of Future Heroism' - Pt.9 - Silently Alive...
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silentWitness
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I was getting quite good at beat the intro ![[ external image ]](http://www.boincstats.com/signature/user_277.gif){kind=link}
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silentWitness
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