As soon as our ships were loaded into Affinity, there was no reason to stay grounded, so we immediately took off and assumed a planetary orbit. Any remaining recon can be done remotely, and therefore safely. With our ships collected, along with Jack, our only survivor, the only thing left for us on Airis is to collect the remains of our fallen militia.
‘Jack, the ships should be open shortly, I want you to walk me through the events as they took place from your perspective as we take stock of our losses. Afterwards I think you would be interested to see the footage that we were able to capture external to your attack party. Meet me in hanger three in ten minutes,’ I comm.
‘Alright, I’ll be there,’ he replies. He deserves a break, time to decompress, to notify his friends and family, as well as to attend to basic hygiene, but I’m impatient, and the less time he has to forget details about Evelyn and the rest of them, the better. We will be relying solely on his personal recollection, as none of his uniform’s environmental sensors or recording equipment have any data to recover.
With ten minutes to spare, I decide to walk to hanger three. When I arrive, I open the door to the hanger and our three ships are sitting waiting for us, locked up tight.
‘Jason, I needed these ships opened up twenty minutes ago, what’s the hold-up?’ I comm.
‘Sorry for the extra wait, I thought I handled it, but I apparently forgot, I’ll send a crew down,’ he responds.
At least I’ll be able to talk to Jack while we wait.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
After a minute or two more of waiting, Jack arrives and nods in my direction, his eyes however are fixated upon the ships. I suppose I will soon hear of the memories he is reliving.
“So, from your perspective, I want to hear the whole story, grim details and all. Specifically, I want to know about how they all get along and what their group dynamics are,” I say.
“Their names are Evelyn, who you were referring to as Jane Doe, Gabriel, the dark-haired man, Cicero, the tall muscular man, Thomas and Juno, the two blondes, and the last man’s name is Liam. Gabriel is the captain of the ship, he takes a very laid-back approach, the rest of them come, go, and do as they please for the most part. Evelyn has not been with them very long and it shows in her interactions with Liam and Cicero, they don’t have the same ease with her as they do with everyone else, though that may be because of the recent unveiling of her abilities. They were also the only crewmembers to witness the streamlined violence that she unleashed on our crews. Juno was in an emotional disarray after what happened to the mansion and finding out about Evelyn, they seemed to be close. Gabriel and Thomas both coddled her while she was grieving. As far as what happened to the crews, we were all holed up in the arms and munitions room, and right before she opened the door to kill us, we were all lurched towards the door. She used some kind of magnet, and we were caught completely off guard. As soon as she opened the door, we didn’t have a second to react, she killed thirty of us in mere moments. I don’t have much more to say about their group, just that they’re a rag-tag team that happens to be harboring a highly dangerous bioweapon.”
All this was delivered in a dry monotone voice, I can see him picturing the moment in his mind’s eye, replaying it relentlessly.
“If that’s the gist of what you know, that’s good enough for me. Start the official debrief process and get some rest, when you’re ready, look into some therapy for good measure. That’ll be all Jack,” I say.
He nods again and turns to leave. The wait to get the ships open is going to be unbearable.