After the preemptive reaming from SecMajor Henderson and the sense that I somehow got off the hook lightly, Jeremy and I made our way toward the elevators. I still wasn’t entirely sure what had happened — Ro took me on a joyride, she hurt or even killed people, got herself on crappy duties in the brig, and somehow got me enlisted to Miltech.
“She didn’t kill those people you know. She Only disabled those craft,” said Jeremy breaking the silence, taking a correct stab of a guess at my thoughts.
“So Ro took me on a joyride and now I’m a part of Miltech? How does that even work?”
“I may have used up a favour to help you out. Besides you have combat experience, something we need since losing a few platoons worth of personnel on failed Ferry launches.”
“That bad huh? Well it's on you Major Jeremy Lewis when I eventually fuck up. Just so you know.”
Jeremy cracked a smile, still as calm and collected as when I met him, even with my admission that it wasn’t if I messed up, but when. Even though he had helped me stay out of the brig or from being assigned some monotonous job, it wasn’t really something I wanted to be a part of. Many people seemed to hate Miltech and it was easy to see why.
Miltech are essentially a force unto themselves. While their primary goal is to ensure safe passage of transporters, uphold new space laws and treaties, they do have their own agendas while almost entirely given free rein outside of everything they uphold. It’s not hard to see why people were reluctant to their presence, with some being very outspoken and passionate about their dislike of them.
Little did I know at the time but it was actually Miltech that forced me to join my branch of the Regional Protection Force in those last years on Earth, as the Nations started to pull all skilled police and military from active duty to start serving in a new combined force. It was essentially their doing that made it kill or be killed. Their doing that created rogue groups that terrorised the innocent forgotten in a bid to escape. It was hard not to sit on the dislike-side of the fence when it came to Miltech the more I came to think of it.
As we continued our way back to my home deck, we quickly ducked into one of the small Miltech stations that were on pretty much every single deck besides their dedicated operation decks, and he put me through the system officially making me a conscript and I was now Private A. Carter. Yippee.
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Just as I was sarcastically saying ‘yippee’ to myself as we were wrapping up, an alert came over the Salvations broadcast system.
“Emergency stations - Ship lockdown - Anomaly detected” repeated the announcement with a blaring alarm. It was disorienting, overwhelming, and had already caused panic throughout the nearby hallways.
“Alright Carter, training starts now” Shouted Jeremy while pulling me to the lockers of the Miltech station and throwing me my very own charcoal and black suit and helmet.
“Time to muster” he joked over the Miltech voice-link which was met with over the top yeehaws and yips from the other squads.
Over the next 30 minutes we swept across the decks, moving down a level after we cleared of people back to their rooms. We had gotten down to deck 7 and had just cleared it when this time a distress call came over the open channel…
“This is Sergeant Peterson, we need support on deck nine right now. We’ve been pushed back to our station and holding defensive positions. A large crowd is—“ the call suddenly went static.
“Peterson, how copy” Jeremy replied.
My heart rate scrambled with adrenaline as I stared at him waiting for a reply, and when no response came though, Jeremy, in an instant switched from larrikin to cold and calculated. He had shutdown all elevators ship-wide and completely locked down decks eight and ten while simultaneously organising several squads over voice-link and his slate - it was impressive and left little doubt in my mind now how he held such a powerful position within Miltech.
The only way to get through to deck nine was through the manual service ducts and Miltech service-ways. We had gotten down to a darkened deck eight where we met up with a dozen or so other Miltech personnel. With Jeremy leading, we got to the station on the deck where he handed out a mix of stunning and lethal rifles.
We had split off in groups of four with Jeremy still calling the shots over the voice-link as I sat in the middle of his group. After making our way down a Miltech service shaft, we got to deck 9. There was total silence as the comms went cold while the teams got in position, my breathing had gotten shaky and my hands began to tremor as rifles were raised in preparation to breach.
“Go. Go. Go”
A small shockwave pulsed by me and time slowed while my mind kept running a hundred miles an hour. The two behind me pushed in front, leaving me at the tail end of our team before I decided to join. Comms on the voice-link were so rapid that I could barely keep up. Bright flashes and dull rings of weapon fire ran into the side of my helmet when suddenly I went tumbling forward. The lights started flickering, revealing the scene in flashes. The tumbling didn’t stop.. gravity had all but disappeared, and bodies were floating amongst all of the loose items. It seemed like carnage. An absolute shit show.
Comms became replaced by high pitched squeals and static, reaching painful levels that made me claw at my helmet for it to stop. It finally did stop just at the same time gravity restored. Quiet enough to feel the the thud, crunching and pain shoot through my body as it hit the floor.