The final chapters...
@Black Aeronaut: If you want to write a small chapter about the arrival of the Roughriders, I would be happy to include it.
##################
Cathy slowly woke up and she blinked to clear her vision.
“What the hell happened?” she asked, trying to make sense of the last things she remembered. “Whats about Lisa?”
“Don’t try to sit up” Vivio sat, offering her a bottle of water. “You were caught in the shockwave of the blasting charge. Please don’t to try to fly into our barricades again, you broke quite a number of bones.”
“That’s a good explanation why I feel like being run over by a truck” Cathy said and sighed. “But whats about Lisa, I still remember her in the lab when they blew our door.”
“We are not sure” Vivio said. “When they blew it with that damned breaching charge forty minutes ago, the Space Marine managed to block the door to the lab.”
“Just tell me what you know” Cathy spit out, not in the mood to wait.
“ We don’t know what happened inside because Lisa’s experiments have disrupted Cortanas cameras, but Serina said she has been building some lightning weapon.” Vivio said silently. “But a few minutes after the Space Marine entered the lab, she overwrote the security system and forced the outer airlock open.”
Cathy flinched. “She didn’t had time for her full space suit, did she?”
“No” Vivio replied, “she had one of our emergency suits, but these things have never been designed for long term operations that far away from the sun. She still has oxygen, but I am not sure how much energy for heating the suit it left.”
“She could still be alive, we have to look for her as soon as possible!” Cathy said, but then she turned her attention to the door of this Module. “This is the last door between us and them, right?”
“Yes, it is... they broke the other door five minutes ago, they will break this one in another twenty or thirty minutes. And there is hard vacuum on the other side, when Lisa blew the airlock half of the stations air got sucked out because of all the holes we have in the internal airlocks.”
“So this is where we will have the last fight” Cathy said and nodded. “The Roughriders first group should be here soon, we can hold it that long.”
“But whats about the wounded? I am not sure all of them can still wear their spacesuit, even if we manage to patch the suits” Vivio returned. They had taken a lot more hits during the standoff in the elevator than before.
Cathy thought about it for a moment. “We put them into some metal box and wield them shut. Air and heat should be enough for a few hours, and the fight should be over at this time, one way or the other way” Cathy said grimly. “If we still have enough in the medic box, give them something that they keep sleeping.”
“Whats about you Cathy?” Vivio asked, unsure how to continue.
Cathy made an unhappy face. “I have still a few shots left in my Gyrojet pistol. I am hurt, but I can still sit and shoot.”
“Just make sure that you stay behind the first line and in cover... please.” Vivio knew that Cathy was too stubborn about things like this.
Just when Cathy opened her mouth to respond, the speaker in their ears crackled. ‘Incoming radio transmission’ Cortana whispered.
“This is the Roughriders to the attacker force at Jenga. You are to lay down your weapons and surrender, this is your only warning. Do so or face the consequences.”
The cavalry had finally arrived.
----
The holes were finally patched and the station was filled with air again. Jenga had reversed its heading and was on its way back to the inner system. There was too much to repair to fulfill the contract in the Trojans right now.
“We can just be lucky that the fight did not go into the tower or through the labs” Cathy said, “otherwise the damage would have been much worse. A couple of tons of Battlesteel and a few weeks, and most of the damage should be repaired.”
Shiara nodded. “Yes, we got lucky... but if we and the Roughriders had not found Lisa, she would have frozen to death during the next hour. She will be okay, but it will take at least a week or two.”
“Its a pity that the Space Marine got himself killed, I bet he would have known some details for Space Patrol.” Cathy said. “Did they said anything they found looking at his armor?”
“I heard from someone that its just an old Boskonian suit, no idea where he got it.The medic system had pumped him full of some crazy pain damper drug, not sure if he event felt when air ran out.” Shiara explained, “they sent his remainder to the White Tower, maybe we will hear about it in a few weeks again.”
“Just make sure that Niaka gets out of the VR rig from time to time. I am worried about her spending all time on the Grid with the virtual part of her pet, I think its still mostly crying.” Cathy wasn’t really that surprised about this, Exocomps never had showed the wish to produce pure virtual software instances. Having the Boskones destroying its physical half had been a traumatic experience for the little machine and Lisa.
“I will make sure Cathy” Shiara promised. “Do you think they will get the rest of the gang after this attack? These Tanglewood boys seem to be really nasty, and that was just a part of them!”
Cathy shook her head. “The guy in the jammer truck blew up their interwave Jammer and their navigational computers. Maybe only the truck had the coordinates back to their base.”
Shiara sighed: “So there will be no repercussions?”
Cathy grinned. “Of course there will be repercussions... just not for the attackers. How often I have tried to persuade everyone that we have to take personal security more serious? Believe me, when we finished the basic repairs, I will have to talk with all of you again. And this time I will not just give in because you complain about shortening your afternoon nap!”
----
“I don’t know Mr. Randers, I really don’t know.”
The voice of the man sounded frightened, and he was concentrating hard not to shiver.
“I will ask you the last time, Bob... where is Jerry and his boys... and where is my SON?”
“Two days ago, your... your son announced that he would take a boarding team and go on a special mission.” The man answered truthfully. “There wasn’t anyone here with the authority to stop him from doing, so I persuaded Jerry and his team to join him. Jerry has the most experience.”
Randers clenched his fist and breathed in and out. “Okay Bob, I know you are not stupid enough to lie with a thing like this. Tell me what you know!”
Bob nodded quickly.
“He had two of our spacefighters, two full boarding shuttles and a trailer truck with a mounted Jammer. He said he would be back within two days, so I assume he wasn’t heading for the inner system.”
Randers waited impatiently. “And?”
“Two hours ago I got a message from one of our contacts at Space Patrol, they said that Jenga, the spacestation of Catgirl Industries raised an alert that they were under attack. They forwarded the call to the Roughriders, which headed out with a quick response team.”
“Anything else?”
“Nothing besides the radio pulse that announced the destruction of our Jammer truck eight hours ago.” Bob added. “That pulse was the reason I asked you to come back here from Earth as soon as possible.”
“So Miles did his job and activated the self destruct you think?” Randers asked. This was the one good news of the day, and he feared it would be the last one. He would have to make sure his family would be okay.
“Yes, I think so. The coordinates and the timestamp of the radio impulse say it was coming out of a place between the orbits of the Main Belt and Jupiter. That’s far enough out that it would take your son two days to get there and back. And the time between the generation of the pulse and the departure of the Roughriders is consistent with a spacecraft at 20% lightspeed.” Bob was glad that he had finished all this thinking before Randers arrived home.
Randers nodded. “Keep your eyes and ears open, I want to know what has happened there” he said. “If my son is alive, we have to break him out in the near future. Now leave me alone.”
Bob gulped. “And what if he did not survive?”
Randers looked out through the window into the black sky. “Then Bob, someone will have to pay for this.”
@Black Aeronaut: If you want to write a small chapter about the arrival of the Roughriders, I would be happy to include it.
##################
Cathy slowly woke up and she blinked to clear her vision.
“What the hell happened?” she asked, trying to make sense of the last things she remembered. “Whats about Lisa?”
“Don’t try to sit up” Vivio sat, offering her a bottle of water. “You were caught in the shockwave of the blasting charge. Please don’t to try to fly into our barricades again, you broke quite a number of bones.”
“That’s a good explanation why I feel like being run over by a truck” Cathy said and sighed. “But whats about Lisa, I still remember her in the lab when they blew our door.”
“We are not sure” Vivio said. “When they blew it with that damned breaching charge forty minutes ago, the Space Marine managed to block the door to the lab.”
“Just tell me what you know” Cathy spit out, not in the mood to wait.
“ We don’t know what happened inside because Lisa’s experiments have disrupted Cortanas cameras, but Serina said she has been building some lightning weapon.” Vivio said silently. “But a few minutes after the Space Marine entered the lab, she overwrote the security system and forced the outer airlock open.”
Cathy flinched. “She didn’t had time for her full space suit, did she?”
“No” Vivio replied, “she had one of our emergency suits, but these things have never been designed for long term operations that far away from the sun. She still has oxygen, but I am not sure how much energy for heating the suit it left.”
“She could still be alive, we have to look for her as soon as possible!” Cathy said, but then she turned her attention to the door of this Module. “This is the last door between us and them, right?”
“Yes, it is... they broke the other door five minutes ago, they will break this one in another twenty or thirty minutes. And there is hard vacuum on the other side, when Lisa blew the airlock half of the stations air got sucked out because of all the holes we have in the internal airlocks.”
“So this is where we will have the last fight” Cathy said and nodded. “The Roughriders first group should be here soon, we can hold it that long.”
“But whats about the wounded? I am not sure all of them can still wear their spacesuit, even if we manage to patch the suits” Vivio returned. They had taken a lot more hits during the standoff in the elevator than before.
Cathy thought about it for a moment. “We put them into some metal box and wield them shut. Air and heat should be enough for a few hours, and the fight should be over at this time, one way or the other way” Cathy said grimly. “If we still have enough in the medic box, give them something that they keep sleeping.”
“Whats about you Cathy?” Vivio asked, unsure how to continue.
Cathy made an unhappy face. “I have still a few shots left in my Gyrojet pistol. I am hurt, but I can still sit and shoot.”
“Just make sure that you stay behind the first line and in cover... please.” Vivio knew that Cathy was too stubborn about things like this.
Just when Cathy opened her mouth to respond, the speaker in their ears crackled. ‘Incoming radio transmission’ Cortana whispered.
“This is the Roughriders to the attacker force at Jenga. You are to lay down your weapons and surrender, this is your only warning. Do so or face the consequences.”
The cavalry had finally arrived.
----
The holes were finally patched and the station was filled with air again. Jenga had reversed its heading and was on its way back to the inner system. There was too much to repair to fulfill the contract in the Trojans right now.
“We can just be lucky that the fight did not go into the tower or through the labs” Cathy said, “otherwise the damage would have been much worse. A couple of tons of Battlesteel and a few weeks, and most of the damage should be repaired.”
Shiara nodded. “Yes, we got lucky... but if we and the Roughriders had not found Lisa, she would have frozen to death during the next hour. She will be okay, but it will take at least a week or two.”
“Its a pity that the Space Marine got himself killed, I bet he would have known some details for Space Patrol.” Cathy said. “Did they said anything they found looking at his armor?”
“I heard from someone that its just an old Boskonian suit, no idea where he got it.The medic system had pumped him full of some crazy pain damper drug, not sure if he event felt when air ran out.” Shiara explained, “they sent his remainder to the White Tower, maybe we will hear about it in a few weeks again.”
“Just make sure that Niaka gets out of the VR rig from time to time. I am worried about her spending all time on the Grid with the virtual part of her pet, I think its still mostly crying.” Cathy wasn’t really that surprised about this, Exocomps never had showed the wish to produce pure virtual software instances. Having the Boskones destroying its physical half had been a traumatic experience for the little machine and Lisa.
“I will make sure Cathy” Shiara promised. “Do you think they will get the rest of the gang after this attack? These Tanglewood boys seem to be really nasty, and that was just a part of them!”
Cathy shook her head. “The guy in the jammer truck blew up their interwave Jammer and their navigational computers. Maybe only the truck had the coordinates back to their base.”
Shiara sighed: “So there will be no repercussions?”
Cathy grinned. “Of course there will be repercussions... just not for the attackers. How often I have tried to persuade everyone that we have to take personal security more serious? Believe me, when we finished the basic repairs, I will have to talk with all of you again. And this time I will not just give in because you complain about shortening your afternoon nap!”
----
“I don’t know Mr. Randers, I really don’t know.”
The voice of the man sounded frightened, and he was concentrating hard not to shiver.
“I will ask you the last time, Bob... where is Jerry and his boys... and where is my SON?”
“Two days ago, your... your son announced that he would take a boarding team and go on a special mission.” The man answered truthfully. “There wasn’t anyone here with the authority to stop him from doing, so I persuaded Jerry and his team to join him. Jerry has the most experience.”
Randers clenched his fist and breathed in and out. “Okay Bob, I know you are not stupid enough to lie with a thing like this. Tell me what you know!”
Bob nodded quickly.
“He had two of our spacefighters, two full boarding shuttles and a trailer truck with a mounted Jammer. He said he would be back within two days, so I assume he wasn’t heading for the inner system.”
Randers waited impatiently. “And?”
“Two hours ago I got a message from one of our contacts at Space Patrol, they said that Jenga, the spacestation of Catgirl Industries raised an alert that they were under attack. They forwarded the call to the Roughriders, which headed out with a quick response team.”
“Anything else?”
“Nothing besides the radio pulse that announced the destruction of our Jammer truck eight hours ago.” Bob added. “That pulse was the reason I asked you to come back here from Earth as soon as possible.”
“So Miles did his job and activated the self destruct you think?” Randers asked. This was the one good news of the day, and he feared it would be the last one. He would have to make sure his family would be okay.
“Yes, I think so. The coordinates and the timestamp of the radio impulse say it was coming out of a place between the orbits of the Main Belt and Jupiter. That’s far enough out that it would take your son two days to get there and back. And the time between the generation of the pulse and the departure of the Roughriders is consistent with a spacecraft at 20% lightspeed.” Bob was glad that he had finished all this thinking before Randers arrived home.
Randers nodded. “Keep your eyes and ears open, I want to know what has happened there” he said. “If my son is alive, we have to break him out in the near future. Now leave me alone.”
Bob gulped. “And what if he did not survive?”
Randers looked out through the window into the black sky. “Then Bob, someone will have to pay for this.”