Chapter 32: Ain’t Big enough Part 2

Jon and Paulson made it back to the base camp in main engineering core. Toshiro-sama, and thankfully Sally, had stayed where they were and held the fort. Sally didn’t look too happy at being kept out of the action, but she understood the logic. The pair took their own posts, and kept watch until Maxson and Elliott came back.

Sally had just said, “Think we should go look?” When they walked back into the core though the door to the bot facility.

Weapons were flinched upward before going back down as fast. They both had power armor on, laser rifles now in their hands. Maxson was even in t-45 outcast armor with the sigil of the Brotherhood displayed proudly, and Elliot was wearing a set of T-51 in winterized spec.

Maxson said, “Apologies for the delay. We took both targets. The hangar was a cake walk, so we continued, and found these weapons and armor in the manufacturing facility. More to be had as well.”

Jon smirked, “What luck, huh? Would you trust the seals?”

Maxson said, “In my set? No. It’s worn even by wasteland standards. The t-51? Probably. It’s in mint condition, like they plucked it off the shipment to anchorage.”

Elliot said, “Smells like a new car in here sirs.”

Jon nodded, “Warrant? Apologies.”

He said, “I understand sir. This armor belongs to the Minutemen. You basically.”

Jon scoffed, “Basically.”

Elliot hopped out of the set, and Jon hopped back it. It did smell brand new, and internal diagnostics said the seals were good. He said, “Guess we didn’t need the spacesuit.”

Sally pouted, “Then we killed that poor guy for no reason.”

Jon said, “Yeah. Seems so.”

Some silence followed before Sally pointed and said, “Alright, that's the decompression chamber there. Go though it, and space the rest of the deck. Then go outside and activate the override pylons to get the transporter going. Get up there, and reactivate the system down here. We’ll follow.”

Jon nodded and entered the door to the decompression chamber. He took the laser rifle as well and held it at the ready as he walked in. it was a simple room, with some piping and kept at an orange din. In front of him was the actuator for the circulation system. They would have oxygen for several more hours at least if he didn’t casually walk up and evacuate what was left.

He heard muffled cries on the other side of the door as the klaxons went off. He stood in front with rifle ready until the cycle was complete and the door opened. Two dead Zetans greeted him, lying on the floor clenching their throats. His rifle was kept ready as there stood the possibility that one was in a vac suit, or was close enough to a helmet to save themselves.

His suit held, and all he could hear was the thump of his steps, the servos working, and his own breathing. He felt even more claustrophobic than in power armor normally, and wondered what was wrong with his head that this was his life’s dream. It didn’t matter. He would step out that door and be a space man. That was all there was too it. He was only saddened that it took once again him walking over corpses to achieve it. He wondered if even he was rotten to the core, an Augment and nothing else. He left his own trail of death behind, just as Kellogg said.

The remainder of the lower decks was not a large space, and like much of the ship was fairly linear. He only had to turn back once to continue up a set of stairs. Finally he stood at the last door. The orchestra rolled in softly though his comms, and Jon kept himself from laughing at what should be a serious moment.

Just as the ensemble was picking up, Q cracked over the comms, “Huston to Eagle, you are clear for spacewalk.”

The drums crashed and the music reached it’s full volume. As Jon began to walk he said, “One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”

He hopped the threshold and landed with a clank. The roof of the service ramp opened and showed him the top of the ship and the first glimpses of the black. His breath was shuttered as he came to terms with that fact that he was truly in the wind now. Only his suit protected him from death. A thin tenuous layer air, plastic, alloy and glass. He could handle it the way Augments did, like them, but he refused to take that out as they did. As what lead to global war.

He continued his march and stopped at the very top of the ramp. His breath was simply stolen away at what he saw with his superior eye. The atmosphere of Earth, even this Earth, always occluded much of the detail for him. Now he saw in plain view the beauty of the milky way painted across the canvas of the cosmos. He saw the glittering stars, the pulsar lighthouses, the clouds of creations and eyes of creators. He saw something else that dug a pit in his soul. Near one of the lighthouses he recognized from his study of astronomy. SGR 1806-20. It was about 50 thousand light years away, and no more than a hundred or a thousand light years away from it he saw the flashes of more than just glittering stars.

It was the flashes of war, the light just now reaching Earth. The battle he saw playing out was titanic, galactic. He noticed other flashes as well as he turned to look. Most the same distance from Earth, 50 thousand years, a pattern, but one or two he clocked at around 100 thousand years, near pulsars at the very edge of the milky way. Jon knew if the galaxy was doubled in size he would see battle at 150 thousand years ago and away. He entered space with a sense of wonderment and child like delusion. Now all he saw was a galaxy in flames, enemies and death all around, him the only one to stand against it.

“Breath you dolt.”

Jon let out his breath and picked it back up at a steady pace. He said, “What do you know of this?”

“Hahaha, now that wouldn't be fun would it? Spilling the plot? What’s the point of exploring then, dolt.”

Jon huffed but accepted that he would get no more insight. He walked in a counter clockwise circle and activated every override pylon in every exposed panel. There were only three in total, and as the last one fell the pad to the upper half of the ship lit up. He was zipped away, and activated the pressurization sequence to the airlock. The door opened and his laser rifle was held at the ready for hostiles.

The the room was empty, and in the center of it was the transporter pad he was looking for. He activated it, and it began its work a moment later. Maxson came up and cleared the room, sweeping his own rifled up and over Jon. Then followed Elliott, Paulson, Toshiro-sama, and finally Sally bringing up the rear. As Toshiro-sama stepped off and breathed heavily and quickly. Paulson put a hand on his shoulder, and showed the samurai that he looked worse for wear as well. Toshiro-sama calmed himself, and then steeled himself. Paulson did as well.

Sally skipped over to the door and said, “Gimmie a second here.”

The crawled into the vents, and after a moment the door opened from the other side. Jon went first, followed by Maxson, and they cleared the room without much fanfare. The rest walked in and hissed at what they saw though the glass in the floor. The Earth was no longer a pail blue dot. There was still some blue and green, mostly in the southern hemisphere where the war didn’t hit as hard, but overall the cast was pale and brown. Even the oceans took to a muddy and dead tint.

“Almost makes you forget we’re running for our lives.” Elliott said.

“Big war that blew everyone up is right.”

“It’s so pretty.”

“Nippon?”

Jon looked to Toshiro-sama and said, “Nippon, Japan. I don’t know.”

He shrugged in his armor. And Toshiro accepted that he didn’t know, and said as much after identifying his homeland. He had heard the barbarians called the land of the rising sun Japan. It was an insult, but at least it let him know the barbarian lord among them did understand him somewhat. At least that he was asking after home.

As they were looking some chatter entered over the room speakers, and not long after a death ray fired off at a random location on Earth, over the ocean so no harm was done. Maxson said, “We’re getting under their skin. They’re trying to scare us.”

“Just piss us off.” Paulson said.

Sally said, “Let me get the next door.”

She crawled though and got the door open. Jon followed her down the hall and to the next transporter pad. Everyone else was behind them. She stomped and said, “Ugh! They shut this one off too! Well I guess you’re going to have to got though the entire ship and activate it from the other side, again.”

Jon huffed indignantly, “Maxson?”

“Right behind you, everyone else stay here and hold this pad.”

They went thought the door, and tracked it’s halls into a weapons lab. The alien resistance was becoming heavy as they advance, but it mattered not to the two wasteland warriors. Jon was on point and laying accurate suppressive fire, and Maxson covered the other angles he wasn’t. There were aliens, ones with cloaks, their drones as well and even some of the kidnapped denizens they hurriedly sicced at the pair. They were raiders, so started shooting at anything they saw.

They made way though the weapons lab regardless of the opposition to them. Along the way they restocked their ammo with whatever supplies the Zetans had stolen. Maxson wanted to pick up the Gatling laser, but thought better of trying to wield it in the tighter halls of the spaceship. As they left the weapons lab, they entered an experimentation room. It looked more like a petty torture chamber to Jon, and alien workers in red suits were fleeing for their lives in the pair’s wake.

They also hear hollow cries and screams coming from further into the facility. They followed the direction of the call, and ran into yet another crime of the Zetans. In an isolated operating room were their subjects. They looked as if they tried to combine human and Zetan DNA into one lifeform, and an abomination that was neither resulted from it. They likely considered them failures, so transitioned to augmenting human DNA to inform them of augmenting their own DNA. That likely failed too, or there would be augment Zetans by now.

The abominations locked onto their targets and charged recklessly against their foes. Jon and Maxson opened up with their laser rifles and charred their leathery hides. They fell and Maxson said, “Disgusting. I just hope they didn’t turn Sarah into one of these monsters.”

Jon said, “We’ll find her.”

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They turned back and finally went though the door to the bio-labs proper. More resistance occurred, but they were simply no match for Jon on point. They weren’t fast enough, their cloaks didn’t fool him or the VATS he had access too being in power armor, and what shots they did get off before dying were panicked and undisciplined. Jon was also supremely lucky, and used that to his advantage to shield Maxson. Maxson wasn't idle himself. He fired his own shots off at the Zetans, and in particular their turrets above.

More abominations charged as they made their way though, obviously being released as a last ditch ploy, but they were even less of a threat that the armed Zetans, though they were numerous. While Maxson wouldn't trust his suit’s seals against vacuum, the worn steel alloy held up fine against the few of them that got into melee range. Jon had no doubts about the scapl that comprised his armor. What they didn’t shoot, they clawed, beat, and walked though to their destination.

After exiting the bio-lab, the next halls were straightforward. They passed though them and found their way into the control room for the death ray they fired. Some aliens were present, and died before they could fire to Jon’s burst of VATS fire. In the center of the circular room was a generator, and around it four more. Jon looked to Maxson, who nodded, and proceeded to deactivate and overload the generators while the Elder kept watch.

Jon repeated the process, activating the coolant pumps, deactivating them, and letting the generators blow before moving onto the next. He had done this three times when the Zetans had counter-attacked. Maxson was the first to open up as they tried to pour though the door. Jon followed not long after. This was probably the last time they could counter attack. Their numbers were thinning at this point, and they were trying one last push to take out the biggest threats. Overwhelm them with numbers.

It didn’t work. They got perhaps two or three shots off, all missing, before Jon activated his VATS and targeted a sequence of attack. His shots started firing, and he took his off hand off the rifle as it worked to grab at a grenade. It was a plasma variant, and put down most of the Zetans clustered in the door way waiting for their chance to charge. It left black stains in the door from the burning blood and flesh, and the last couple left alive were put down from laser fire at normal speed after VATS deactivated.

Jon immediately took to shutting down the other generators. After a couple minutes the death ray was deactivated, and both huffed a quiet sigh of relief. The next room forward had an active transporter pad, and both took it one after another. More Zetans followed behind them from other parts of the ship, but they had barely stepped off when they had, and the close quarters did not favor the small Zetan's against two in power armor.

They continued through, with Jon still on point, and ran into stiffer resistance as they went. It was obvious to Jon the place they were in was some kind of living quarters. There were more aliens, more turrets, and plasma device that erected hemispherical barriers that blocked the tighter halls and catwalks. They weren’t much of a problem, all things considered, as they could be deactivated by sufficient application of firepower.

Most that didn’t want a part in the fighting hid in their rooms, and that was acceptable to Jon. They passed them by as the continued deeper, and up the levels of the living space. They captain had obviously transported abominations in from other parts of the ship and that was the bulk of the resistance they faced going forward.

They got to the highest level, and went though the last hall to the last transport pad to the bridge. After going, though, and were at the final stretch. To the right of them was another pad, and Jon activated to start bringing up the rest of the group. The transported one after another as Jon and Maxson stacked up on the last door. The rest remained in cover at Jon’s signaling, and grabbed a grenade as Maxson worked the door controls.

Jon tossed his ordinance, and it exploded a moment later. It wasn't meant to case real damage to anyone or thing, simply cause a distraction they would use. Jon and Maxson popped out and began firing at the last of the Zetan resistance on the bridge. They were cut down and the pair walked though a ruined and smokey room to confirm. A few workers were still alive and cowering at their stations. The rest of the group followed them in, and Paulson and Sally both took shots at ones they thought were still twitching. Sally found the body of the commander, and emptied the rest of her mag into him, and then began stomping and jumping on his corpse while screaming.

After a moment of that, she stopped and took a breath to collect herself. An alien head appeared over the holo-comms and began sneering and cajoling over it. What ever point he was making was driven home by the second mothership making a close flyby of theirs.

Sally said, “Shit, of course it couldn’t be over. Get on the death ray controls, it looks like they just bypassed the sabotage.”

She directed each of them to a station, and the red workers kept out of their way, moving when sally dragged them from their seats. Maxson took the main gun controls, and Jon trued to watch the transport pads from enemy reinforcements. Sally aimed, and everyone else monitored what they could, basically calling out if everything looks like it’s going haywire. Toshiro-sama took a spot off to the side, and in a corner ready to pounce on any boarders with surprise and speed on his side.

A shot came in from the enemy and rocked the ship, but Maxson worked the distribution controls and had everything into the ship shielding. He lowered the power output and fired his own volley in response, full power on weapons before turning it back to shields. The went back and forth a few times, and all the while the enemy ship was transporting borders to retake the bridge. Jon was quick with his VATS every time they did, and cut down many with Toshiro-sama leaping from his spot and cutting down his own targets with quick and efficient cuts of his ancient blade.

After some more blasts of the death rays, the enemy ship rumbled in the black, and finally blew up after some expert aim from Sally. She was closer to Jon than anyone else on the bridge, and could see the weak points developing in the shield matrix. Maxson’s expert timing and intelligent use of the distribution controls aided the process along. The Shockwave bashed against the shield, and so did debris from the wreckage. There was dead silence on the bridge.

Sally nearly whispered, “We did it. We’re free.”

Jon broke the silence again when he hopped out of his power armor. His boots thundered on the alloy floor as he walked over to the nearest red suit. They were cowering under a control panel, and started squealing as Jon picked them up by the collar and brought them face level.

He yelled, “Shut up!”

And the Zetan did. Jon continued, “You’ve been kidnapping and studying us for centuries. I know you understand me. You will fly this ship back to Boston. Where you took us from. When you do this, the rest of you still left alive will be given the chance to continue living. Understood!?”

The Zetan nodded, and Jon released his grip, dropping the worker from nearly 6 feet. They landed with a thud, but got back up quickly and clearly used to working under abusive conditions. One master was as good as another, they must have thought. The one pulled another up, and they more, and the last of the bridge crew got to work manning various stations.

The group got out of the way and didn’t say a word as the large ship lurched forward in space. Non would or could tell them the ship was built in vacuum and never designed to land. They probably wouldn’t care anyway. Their leader told them to land the ship, and that is what they would do. The mothership was only in orbit, and it didn’t take long to begin hitting the atmosphere. The view port glowed hot with fire as friction did its work on the shields. The ride got rougher, but whatever internal dampener system they had was still working.

In a few minutes they cleared the upper atmosphere, and slowed enough to end the fiery part of the decent. They were on a downwards sloping trajectory towards the commonwealth. As the ship got closer and closer it leveled out and slowed down. The repulsor engines were never designed to work so close to a gravity well, and they strained against the effort. The aliens chittered back and forth, and silenced alarms when they would pop up. The real problem was the landing itself, without crushing the lower levels. It didn’t take an ingenious white suit to figure out they would be mad if all the pods were crushed.

Jon had keyed the Minuteman frequency as soon as he caught it on his pip boy, “All Minutemen units, this is General Singh, do not, I repeat do not fire on the craft approaching from the south.”

Maxson was calling the same on his own frequencies. The outcast code in the armor was older, but it checked out and everyone knew that they got abducted. Of course the large mothership approaching the airport was him and the General.

The ship got low and slow against the ground as it approached the primitive airstrip. The engines continued to stain, and the sounds only got louder as the reached their slowest speed yet. The Zetan on the flight controls couldn’t and wouldn't ask, so he simply slapped the button that solved his landing problems. The lower decks were designed to separate from the main saucer. Why the idiot captain didn’t do that before they got to the upper decks was beyond him. Probably something to do with mocking the other idiot captain was doing, and the rivalry they had. Jettisoning the lower decks was a bad look.

The plan went off brilliantly. The lower decks dropped relatively softly on the flat airstrip median, and the main saucer carried forward a bit more. The engines were already straining, but now that the upper decks were separated from main engineering, the secondary engineering core didn’t have a chance. It was designed to propel the ship though space in an emergency that they had to jettison the core, not so deep in a gravity well as it was.

It was just enough to carry it over the lower decks, however, and it crashed down in a controlled manner in front of it, only about a power armor width between them. Did these primitive recognize what they just saw? Experienced? Probably not with the gun to the back of his head. Seems much hadn't changed for the red suits.

Maxson growled though the suit modulation, “What did you do Zetan? What about the cryo lab?”

The Zetan slowly reached down, and hit a button for a translator. A mechanical voice followed theirs, “I had too get rid of it. We would have crushed it. The main core is sill there keeping the pods powered.”

The gun slowly heft the back of their head. Maxson said, “Lead us out. You are all now prisoners, and will help up understand what you have spent centuries using against us.”

The Zetan got from their post, and the others followed with their hands up. The group followed behind with their weapons ready at the first sign of treachery. They got to the shortest hop down, an airlock at the side of the large saucer section, and the Zetans waited for their next command.

Maxson said, “Everyone else wait here. We’ll get a lift set up for you. They’ll expect us to go though decontamination procedures, just follow what the scribes and medics tell you to do.”

“Like a bath?” Paulson asked.

“Exactly. A very thorough one.” Maxson replied.

Maxson was the first to hop out, still trusting the servos after having been in it. Jon followed immediately after, and let him take the lead. They were on his base after all, the only place they could park it. The air strip was massive, and while they had guard posts around the perimeter, the fence shored up, they only really reclaimed a small mart of it. The mooring at the main tower. The airplanes in this place were cartoonishly large, and the strip had to compensate for that.

They looked around, and already Brotherhood birds were circling the ship, and a perimeter was being set. The Minutemen bird also joined the fray and two set down just inside the perimeter. Every person that stepped out was in their own power armor. Going by his hud identification, off the brotherhood bird was Gladius back from the glowing see now that a full operation had been set up, and Jake was riding with them in a borrowed set. Off the Minutemen bird came curie in a borrowed set as well, Piper in his suit, Garvey in his, and Daley with Sheila behind them as a guard dog most likely.

The assembled group got up and Maxson took the first word, “That lower section has a cryo lab it it.”

Jon added, “Thousands of people.”

Maxson nodded, “They say it’s still powered, but I don’t trust it. Get on it immediately.”

Jon said, “Curie, there's a warrant officer up there that's a pre-war combat medic. Compare notes and get him with you on that lab as soon as he’s able. Let the Brotherhood handle our decon and exams.”

“Oui, Monsignor General.” She said though the suit modulation, and then turned to follow Gladius. A third vertibird was coming in to set up the decon procedures, and Maxson gave a nod and walked off to begin coordinating that, and to be the first one to use it.

Jon said, “Cowpoke. Garvey.”

Jake shook his helmet, “Slick, I got no words this time.”

Preston scoffed, “I do, that’s a goddamned spaceship you brought back!”

The group chuckled and Jon said, “Shouldn't have kidnapped us like that. There are some people up there, so help how you can to get a lift set up. Garvey, one of them is a warrant officer, as I said. That's a rank between enlisted and full officers. They handle specialized technical matters, or train others to handle them.”

Preston said, “Kinda like a scribe.”

Jon nodded, “Yeah, not far off. He’ll train our medic corps.”

Preston said, “Yes sir, we’ll get to it.”

Jake, Preston, and Daley walked off to help in the effort to contain and evacuate the crashed mothership. He had to give credit to the pilot. They couldn’t have done a better job. He was left with a private moment with Piper.

She said, “So blue. How was space?”

Jon put his mechanical hand up, and the latched their joints together. He said, “I saw things Piper. Things that scare me.”

She said, “What things?”

He replied, “Battles from long ago. Battles I know in my hardened bones will repeat for us. War Piper. I saw the galaxy, the breadth and beauty of the cosmos, and I saw the marks of war scaring it all over.”

She took a step closer, and laid her other hand on his winterized breastplate. She said, “You’ll handle it blue. Like you always do.”

He didn’t share her confidence, but he was glad to have it anyway. The stood next to each other, her presence soothing him, as they waited for the decon to be set up and used. It was obvious that the real reason he was brought here was out there, not down here on Earth. He would have much to think on about the issue. Whatever it was, he would have no choice but to face it. Who would he be if he didn’t? An Augment and nothing else.