Fan Fiction Friday! As always an escape route is provided here if this is not your thing.
This is the concluding part of last weeks story. Thanks to all those who commented even though there was a potential plex in it! The winner was twofold as the first random roll was an ex-corpy which would have looked a bit suspect so I gave away two in the end (or will when I get an alt to Jita to buy some)! Congrats to Jared and Redlack. Sand, Cider and Spaceships hit 150,000 views sometime last Saturday morning!
So finishing off last weeks story, we have two hostile DUST boarding parties holding two separate minor engineering bays in an Avatar class Titan. One team has disabled the self-destruct systems but what is Warlock One's team doing? How is Chief Tech Olo and Technician Catrina going to fair after they've booby-trapped their section and killed the same guy twice, poor old Warlock Five is not a happy chappy is he? Well read on......
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Warlock One grabbed Warlock Five by the arm pulling him away from Chief Tech Olo just as he was about to punch him.
"FIVE! Calm down! What happened?"
"That piece of shit manually rerouted a high pressure plasma conduit through the base of the console and terminated it against the access panel. He rigged it to go off in my face. He worked out why we were here. He killed me.... again..... and fried the console that handles the emergency capsule ejection systems. It's totalled. We cannot flush the egger into space against his will any more!"
Warlock 5 turned to Olo.
"Impressive. But I don't share my friends pessimism that there is no way to eject the pod jockey controlling this ship into space any more. The console may be destroyed, but the rest of this place in one piece. So tell me, how do we flush the capsuleer?"
"Fuck.... YOU!" Olo spat.
"OK have it your way. Five, ask him nicely!"
Warlock 5 stepped in front of Chief Olo who was still bound to the chair by wrists and ankles. He raised his fist and slammed it into the chiefs face. There was a sickening thud. Catrina let out a sob.
"That the best you got, you pussy?" the chief spat through bloodied lips and broken teeth. Warlock 5 pulled his fist back again.
-o0o-
"My god. The capsule ejection sequence!" XO Kapela was bent over the chart table looking at the schematics from sector Y35.
"Could they eject our capsuleer into space?" asked one of the bridge officers.
"Yes. It's an emergency procedure in case the capsuleer has a medical problem whilst inside his pod and cannot eject himself."
"That is their plan then. Stop the ship from being able to self-destruct and then jettison the capsuleer. One free Avatar class titan!"
The bridge crew started to wonder if everything was already lost.
-o0o-
Warlock 5 swung his fist again but this time it was caught by Warlock One and never connected.
"Enough! If you kill him we'll never know how to do it!"
Chief Olo's face was beaten to a pulp. One of his eyes was almost fully closed and his face was black, blue and bloody. Blood ran from numerous cuts, from his mouth and from his nose, turning the front of his coveralls crimson.
Warlock Five took a medikit off the wall and pulled out a small canister. He stuck it against the chiefs neck and pushed, there was a hiss as it pumped its cocktail of drugs into his system. The Chiefs eyes snapped open and veins bulged in his neck. The stimulants brought him back to his senses. Warlock 5 inspected him to ensure he was alert and then walked to the back wall and removed a section of the panelling. Behind it there were hundreds of wires. Some just a hairs width wide, others as thick as an arm.
"Two! Bring him over here!"
Warlock Two gripped the back of the chair the Chief was tied to and slid it all the way across the room to where Warlock Five was running his hands through the hundreds of wires. He selected two which he pulled free in a shower of sparks.
"Not too much, not too little." he muttered "Oh and bring the bitch over here too so she can watch closely."
"NO! YOU LAY A FINGER ON HER AND I'LL RIP YOUR FRACKING HEAD OFF!" the chief yelled in anger suddenly struggling against his bonds.
Warlock 5 started a low hearty laugh.
"Really? Fantastic! It would seem this officer has a thing for his little grease monkey here. May be its time for a change of tactics here. What do you think chief. Give you a rest?" Warlock Five took Catrina's chair from Two and moved it so she was facing the chief, their knees almost touching. Warlock Five stood behind her, leaned over and stared over the top of her shoulder. Even though his helmet's faceplate was down it seemed he was staring into the chiefs eyes.
"So Chief, how do we flush the egger without the primary console?" Five asked.
"No. Please. No." The Chief begged.
Warlock 5 grabbed Catrina's hair and pulled her head back. He reached around with his other hand and slowly pulled down the front zipper of her coveralls. She still had nothing underneath, all her other clothes had been left on the chiefs bedroom floor after the all-stations alarm went off.
"Ooooooooooo" whistled Five. "Easy access!" He pulled the coveralls down over the top of her shoulders and then took the two wires in his hands. He slowly ran the exposed end of one wire across the other generating an audible crackle and a shower of sparks. "So let me ask again. How do we flush the egger?"
"Don't tell him. He's going to kill us anyway." she sobbed.
Warlock 5 yanked her head back by the hair again and brought both the exposed ends of the wires within a few inches of the side of her neck.
"Such a pretty neck, I think we should start here. Unless you are feeling talkative Chief?"
Catrina now had a far away look in her eyes. As if she was steeling herself for what was about to come, she had stopped crying. She looked more distant more than afraid.
"What ever he does, don't say anything" the fear in her voice betrayed the calm look on her face. "If they eject the capsuleer we and the entire crew are going to die at the hands of these lot! Don't tell him anything Chief, no matter what he does to me!"
"Ohhh she's a brave one. I mean the electricity from these wires will be unbelievably painful on its own. But it is the heat chief, the heat!. They'll be a few hundred degrees Celsius when they make contact and the power starts to flow over this delicate, soft skin. Instant third-degree burns so you need to keep the wires moving otherwise it doesn't work as well, fried nerve endings aren't as sensitive you know. So last chance, how do we flush the egger without the primary console?"
Warlock Three and Warlock Four were still guarding the main blast door at the far end of the access corridor. They casually glanced behind them as they heard a shrill female scream echoing down the corridor.
-o0o-
Captain Larrs looked at the battle in front of him. The Titan was surrounded by battleships and battle-cruisers most of them hostile. The remains of the friendly support fleet were being picked off slowly. However, it looked to be a stalemate overall. The massive Titan was designed to fight capital and super-capital sized vessels. The Titans guns, themselves as large as a cruiser, couldn't track and hit the smaller sub-capital vessels effectively. But then again, the enemy fleet just didn't have the firepower to bring that immense ship down. It didn't appear that there would be a clear winner in this fight.
His cloaked ship strategic cruiser was over 200km away from the fight. But he could see the Titan was hopelessly trapped. They needed to take out those heavy interdictors but the support fleet was going down and the Titan itself wouldn't be able to do anything against them.
He hailed the Titan and spoke briefly to XO Kapela. He knew what had to be done if the boarding parties were successful. He checked the ships systems and the cargo bay. He just had enough liquid ozone to light the cynosural field which would also pretty much guarantee the destruction of his ship. He prayed it would not come to that, but looking at the battle in front of him, it didn't look good. However, having to destroy their own Titan was preferable to letting the enemy alliance take it and use it against them.
-o0o-
Warlock Five was busy rerouteing cables from the fried ejection console to an environmental command console nearby. In the corner Olo was weeping. He felt that he had betrayed her. She'd kept telling him not to say anything between screams and he had held out as long as he could. Catrina was still directly in front of him and still tied to her chair. She was unconscious and slumped over so the top of her head was only a few inches from his face. He was grateful of that as her long dark hair spilled down from her head and spared him from looking at the blackened lines that criss-crossed her body where the intruder had slowly and meticulously dragged the electrified wires over her skin. Olo had finally broken as Warlock 5 had started working up her face and announced he was going to see if the immense heat generated from the tips of the electrified wires was enough to boil the liquid in her eyeballs if he penetrated the exposed ends of the wires in far enough.
"We're nearly there. I've managed to reroute most of the command lines to this environmental console. It won't be pretty, but we should be able to flush according to cry-baby over there." Warlock Five gestured to Chief Olo. Five actually sounded happy for the first time in the last 30 minutes.
"Excellent. Alpha team stand by. We're about to run the sequence and then we need three minutes to Evac. Control, ready the firewall."
Warlock 5 finally finished up wiring the console and went to the front where there was a keyboard ready. His armoured gloves moved deftly over the keys. A bank of monitors came alive with views of the olive-green capsule and the launch tube as well as the exterior of the ship where the battle was still raging. Three battleships appeared to be stationed near the exit of the capsule launch tube.
"Warlock One. One this is Control. We're all set. Ships are in position. Standing by."
"Do it Five."
They watched the monitor as an orange warning strobe light flashed around the capsule before it shot down the launch tube at speed and into space. As it left then launch tube the battleships erupted in a spectacular light-show as they fired their plasma smartbombs. The small capsule was decimated and the consciousness of the Titan pilot was sent hurtling across space to where ever his medical clone was stored.
"Alpha team, back to the ship! Five, plant the door-virus before you leave. And make sure you wrap up all the loose ends." Warlock One ordered and they started to fall out of the room. Warlock 5 hung back, he retrieved another stim-pack from the medical kit and injected it into Cartina's neck. She sprung up from her slumped position and arched her back, hissing through her clenched teeth as the powerful drugs brought her round. Olo looked worried.
"Well people, I've got to go. Would love to stay and chat but I've got a feeling trouble is brewing. However, I think that's not going to be for a good ten minutes. So I leave you with this."
Warlock 5 stripped a thick cable from the exposed panel and removed the electrical insulation with his knife. He removed about a metre of the red rubberised material leaving a silver, glistening rope. He wrapped the exposed metal wire tightly around Catrina's neck. She instantly started to choke so he loosened it slightly.
There, that's better, done want you dying before the fun starts do we. That's the main power-line for the blast-door by the way. Should the computer try and open the door, say if someone hacked the systems and set all the doors on the ship to open in a few minutes, she'll fry. I've got to say Chief, it won't be nice to watch."
Warlock 5 approached a console and withdrew a data terminal from his pouch. He hooked it up to the console and pressed a few buttons.
"But don't worry Chief. I predict you'll only have to suffer the sight of your lover doing the "sit down dance" and the smell of roasted human flesh for about 60 seconds before your blood boils, your lungs pop and your eye balls explode! As if I'd short change you both with a quick death after all you've done for me in the last hour!" Warlock 5 said putting on a mocking voice.
And with that the trooper left through the hole in the blast door giving the chief a mock salute.
Warlock 5 was waiting for him at the end of the corridor.
"All sorted?"
"Yes sir. Virus uploaded and running. T-minus 9 minutes and...." Warlock 5 glanced at his mobile computer strapped to his wrist. "... 15 seconds sir!"
"I assume you took care of the two Techs? We don't want them causing any problems."
"Of course sir. All taken care of."
The two soldiers headed back towards the ship.
-o0o-
XO Kapela watched the bridge staff fall apart around him. A single capsuleer is able to do the work of a normal bridge crew almost on his own. Capsuleer piloted ships need a fraction of the crew compared with the compliment of a regular ship. Now without the capsuleer the limited crew couldn't hope to cope with running the massive ship effectively.
Kapela slumped in the captains chair. Utterly devoid of any idea what to do next.
-o0o-
The Chief had been thrashing in his chair for several minutes. He had repeatedly slammed the chair into the deck hoping to break it. Finally the legs snapped and he fell to the floor breaking the rest of the chair on impact. The chief broke free of the flexi cuffs and rushed over to Catrina to remove the wires and her restraints. She immediately stood and hugged him, breaking down in tears.
"Cat. You need to let me go. We've not got much time to stop what they have done."
She backed off.
"What is it?"
"I'm not sure but he said those wires would have electrocuted you when the computer sent a signal to open all the doors. Then the reference to my blood boiling. I think they are going to de-pressurise the ship!"
-o0o-
XO Kapela was out of his depth on the bridge. All around him officers were frantically attending to consoles or answering calls from other sections of the ship. His job was man-management. He didn't need the skills to run a ship on a capsuleer vessel, the Empyrean did that. Now he was in command, and didn't know what to do.
One officer approached the XO with an earpiece in his hand.
"Sir. You need to hear this!"
The XO took the comm unit and listened intently.
"Can you stop it?"
"Good. Make it so!"
-o0o-
Warlock One counted the last man into the hull breach which led to their ship as the two automated sentry guns continued to pan the cargo bay looking for threats.
"Control. This is Warlock One. All personnel accounted for. The virus should trigger all the doors to open in T-minus 90 seconds. Mission complete."
"Roger Warlock 1. Hold position. We need visual confirmation of the door control virus success. If we de-pressurise that bay early its mission fail."
"Understood. Cargo bay door still closed. Awaiting virus deployment and visual confirmation of virus success."
-o0o-
Olo was frantically working at the console. Catrina was looking over his shoulder. She needed to hold onto his shoulder for support, but the drugs from the stim-pack were helping.
"I don't get it. The outer airlocks all have a manual control that needs to be activated as well as the main computer authorisation. They can use a computer virus to make all the internal doors, lifts and hatches open. But they cannot open the outer doors automatically so what's the point?"
"I think they must have rigged an airlock with explosives or their ship is attached to the hull some how." Olo replied "They could have cut their way in. When that ship detaches the atmosphere will leak out of the hole they made. Their leader said 3 minutes to evac so they cannot be far. There are 4 airlocks in three minutes running distance and 62 rooms against the hull over 6 decks. I just need to find either the airlock or the..... got 'em!."
Olo activated the main monitor and a blurry image of Warlock One appeared on the screen beside the melted hole in the hull and the automated sentry guns from one of the cargo bays security cameras. Olo quickly ran across to another console and started typing in commands. Catrina was confused.
"What are you doing? I've never seen an interface screen like that before!"
"Its a command screen. The XO has transferred some of his controls to me. I thought they'd might have entered through one of the cargo bays and most of the cargo we're carrying is for fighting this stupid war. I'm seeing if there is anything there that might help us. Ah! Perfect!"
Catrina looked at what Olo was doing.
"You cannot activate THAT inside the ship! It'll cause too much damage. Actually no, no it won't. You cannot assign a human inside a ship a target! You cannot lock him. It won't work, it'll just sit there!"
Olo smiled as he opened the preferences and set the option to 'Aggressive'.
"No need for target acquisitions. I'm sure they'll sort that out for us!"
-o0o-
Warlock One turned as there was an almighty crash behind him. He spun around and raised his weapon. One of the cargo boxes had exploded and a light scout drone hovered above the wreckage. It was by pure Instinct that Warlock One raised his plasma rifle but he didn't fire. He realised the drone would not attack him. It was a second generation Hobgoblin light scout. A standard Gallente anti-ship drone that was usually used in flights of five. The AI of these drones was very simplistic. Their programming was basic and designed to follow the direct commands of a capsuleer. The only way they'd respond without a command is if they were fired upon, the AI did have self-preservation routines built in. He lowered his gun. The drone would return fire if they had been set by the capsuleer to an aggressive state but it would not initiate combat without a target lock and an order to attack. Warlock One smiled to himself thinking it was a nice try but the AI wasn't sufficient to help who ever activated it to save the ship. He wondered if it was the wily Chief Tech they had captured who was doing this. Five said he was dead but may be he'd survived long enough to boot up the drone remotely. His concentration was broken when he heard the double bleep of one of his sentry guns signifying target acquisition and firing solution. He knew he had no time, Warlock One instantly dived for cover.
The plasma guns of the two automatic sentry emplacements had locked onto the movement of the drone and with no friendly transponder signal had identified the drone as a threat. The sentry guns were basically anti-personal cannons as used on the battlefield by heavy assault troops. The fire-power they dealt did very little against a drone that was designed to slug it out against frigates and destroyers. The sentry fire glanced off the drones thick armour plating. However, the drones twin cannons were designed to fire on starships. The AI took less than a 100th of a second to identify the two threats that had fired upon it and plotted a strafing line across them. The drone's cannons thundered in the enclosed cargo hold. The automatic sentry guns were obliterated in an instant as the drones fire strafed across them. As they were set up either side of the hull breach, a large number of hybrid charges passed down the tunnel and through the open hatch of the transport ship.
The hybrid slugs fired by the drone were designed to rip apart starships, armoured humans were tinfoil in comparison. Warlocks 7, 8 and 9 were shredded by the large calibre rounds. The slugs that were designed to be used against armoured starships continued through their mangled bodies and raked the internal hull of the transport ship. The armour of the transport ship was designed to absorb hits from the outside, not from the inside. An entire section of the hull was blown away. The crew compartment was vented into space in an instant with two more of the Warlock soldiers were lost as they weren't strapped in.
Warlock One grabbed hold of a deck anchor used to tie cargo nets to the deck as he was blown off his feet. The cargo bay was rapidly de-pressurising He saw the drone struggling to hold position before being blown into the hull breach and partially block it. Warlock One's suit would save him from the vacuum that was consuming the cargo bay, but he was now trapped.
A beep went off on his wrist computer. Time was up and the virus had triggered. But the cargo bay doors were securely fastened. All doors on starships were designed to seal themselves in the event of an adjacent compartment de-pressurising Special mag-locks engaged automatically to prevent the door opening until the pressure was equalised. The door was sealed tight and his mission had failed.
He was trapped and could do nothing as he heard the command for the transport ship to disengage and retreat.
With the cloaking device inoperable due to the damage on the ship, the remnants of the support fleet engaged and the destroyed the transport as it detached. All Warlock One could do was listen to the death of his comrades in arms knowing that the CRU containing all of his clones was destroyed.
-o0o-
"Well sir the short version is this. A modified transport ship latched onto your Avatar undetected during the battle. It cut through the armour with some kind of special laser into one of our cargoholds. Two teams of the immortal soldiers penetrate into the ship and moved to capture the secondary data nodes that specifically catered for the self-destruct sequence and the emergency capsule ejection sequence."
"I know this. What I don't know is what happened after those bastards flushed me and podded me."
"Yes sir, sorry sir. A total of 23 crew were killed in the raid. One other was critically injured and I have authorised the medical centre to provide a full prosthetic arm to replace the one he lost. Two others were seriously hurt, in fact they were tortured sir. I've authorised the medical centre to provide full cosmetic surgery to fix their injuries and granted them a months leave to recuperate in Federation space. They are receiving trauma counselling as well. Following your forced ejection the intruders......" the XO continued to explain what had happened finishing with the incident with the drone in the cargo bay.
"You appear to be very generous with my ISK Kapela." The capsuleer said apparently ignoring everything except the financial costs the XO had authorised.
"Sir. The first man raised the intruder alarm even after having his arm shot off. The other two were able to save the ship by activating a scout drone in the cargo bay and using it to damage the enemy ship. By de-pressurising the cargo bay early the emergency safety locks on the internal cargo bay doors engaged. When the intruder's computer virus triggered every door in the titan to open, that was the only one that couldn't with the emergency hull breach locks engaged. They saved the lives of over 100,000 people and ensured there was still a crew alive to get your Titan to safety. To be quite honest sir the ISK which it is costing to patch them up and give them a holiday is nothing compared to what they suffered to save you 100 billion ISK or so."
The capsuleer studied his XO.
"Not many people speak to me in that tone."
The XO looked extremely worried realising he may have overstepped his mark.
"However, I suppose you are right. What happened to that intruder who was trapped?"
"Well sir he realised he was stuck, the door was locked down and the drone was jammed in the hull breach. When our back up finally arrived he realised he was on the losing side. As the prepare for jump alarm sounded, he removed his helmet. Died instantly to the vacuum rather than letting himself be captured alive."
"Nasty." grinned the capsuleer "If we had destroyed the CRU, is he still alive somewhere?"
"I don't know sir." replied the XO "Obviously the implants these soldiers use are a very different from the technology used in your capsule. I don't know if the range is limited or if they are like your pod and can send the consciousness anywhere in the cluster."
"Lets hope he took his helmet off knowing that was the last time he was going to die. Now if you'll excuse me, we're making another push into that system, this time only with battlecrusiers thankfully."
-o0o-
The sun was bright and warm even though it was late in the day. The rhythmic lapping of the waves on the shore was soothing.
"Another drink?" Olo asked as he signalled one of the waiters who was discreetly waiting by the tree line at the top of the beach.
Catrina stretched out on the sun lounger, her recently fixed flawless skin glistening with a sheen of tanning oil and sweat.
"I was hoping we might slip back to the room so you can check there are no missing patches on the skin grafts. I mean I feel 100% and I think I look 100% but I think you should give me another thorough check over. Make sure there are no missing bits!"
Olo burst into laughter.
"The Doc ordered us to take it easy. Plus we're supposed to be meeting the therapist in an hour. What am I going to do with you?"
Catrina smiled.
"Well if you don't know, I'd better show you! I've actually got an idea. Do you think our therapist is hot?"
Olo stuttered trying to diplomatically answer the surprising question.
"Obviously you think she is then." Catrina smirked "So do I. Well I'm sure if I whisper in your ear what I'd like to do to her then I'm pretty confident we can be finished within the hour. And then at our counselling session with her, you can let your imagination run riot ready for round two after she leaves. Now that's what I call therapy!"
Olo laughed and shook his head with a smile.
"Well if that's your plan, I can see a flaw. No way I could last an hour with you whispering stuff like that in my ear. What are we going to do for the other 59 minutes?"
With that she stood and extended her hand. "Oh, I'll think of something!". She pulled Olo to his feet and led him back up the beach towards their cabin.
"A bottle of chilled champagne please." she said to the waiter who had started to walk over. "And ice, we're going to need a lot of ice!"
Fin.
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Hope you enjoyed it. That was the alternative ending in a "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story" style. Originally the Chief and Catrina were stabbed by Warlock 5 as he left and they succeeded in capturing the Titan. I read it and didn't like it. I felt Olo and Cat should survive. Hence it was rewrote as above.
