RSS Mei Zhou
Shuttle bay 3
2014 Local Time, June 8th, 2176 A.D.
Chief Kozlowski stormed out of the shuttle, his mechanic tools clanking loudly in the bag slung over his back as the rest of his staff hurried behind him. Grav sleds stacked with critical engineering components silently followed them down the ramp, guided by the light touches of the boarding party.
A small group of the Mei Zhou’s crew came charging into the shuttle bay, their X-47 rifles already shouldered and pointed at the new arrivals, who threw themselves behind any cover they could as the security contingent from the Warspite raised their own weapons.
As the two armed groups faced off with each other, Kozlowski’s voice cut through the confused yelling as he placed himself between them and screamed at the Mei Zhou’s crew.
“Co do kurwy!? You going to shoot us, you dumb fucks? I look like bug to you, wy głupie małpy? Wypierdalaj! Move!” He started walking towards the Mei Zhou crewmen, who quickly unshouldered their weapons and separated to make a path for the irate chief as he continued to mutter curses, his staff following behind him with the loaded grav sleds.
Looking down at his datapad while he entered the corridor, he ignored the surprised looks from the shell-shocked crew his party came across as he followed the route outlined on the small holo map hovering above the datapad.
As they penetrated deeper into the ship, he found that he couldn’t continue to ignore what he was seeing, the corridors becoming increasingly filled with dead and wounded crewmen the further into the ship they got. As a result, his progress slowed to a crawl, and he began marking locations on the holo map for the medics from the Warspite and sent it to them over the datalink with location pins and triage information.
They finally reached the main junction of the ship, and he angrily cursed as he saw the route to Main Engineering cut off by collapsed bulkheads. Looking at the map scans, he could clearly see the corridor was opened to space sixty-three meters beyond the collapsed sections, and he pulled up the ship blueprints to find an alternate path.
Looking at the new map created by the sensor returns of the datapad, he could see that the missile strike had impacted and torn open a massive section of the Mei Zhou along the port side of the ship. Sections 11-A through 74-C were gone from deck 3 all the way to deck 14, and the powerful warhead had penetrated more than a third of the way into the interior of the ship, exposing almost half of the main engineering sections to vacuum.
“Psia krew!” He muttered quietly as he saw the full extent of the damage being highlighted in blinking red. No wonder most of the ship had no power; from what he was seeing, at least half, if not more, of the on-duty engineering crew would have been killed by the strike or sucked into space.
Luckily, the four reactors had scrammed immediately after the impact and disconnected themselves from the power systems, probably by one of the reactor control AIs when it realized that the main engineering staff had been killed or wounded.
An idea came to him, and he connected his datapad to the ship’s link system before inputting his codes to gain access to the mainframe. Most of the functions were offline, but he gained access to a reactor control subsystem and used that as a backdoor to find what he was looking for.
A few seconds later, a small globe of light appeared above the datapad and spoke to him in a tinny, synthesized voice.
~ Chief Engineer Filip Kozlowski, I am Reactor Control AI sub-mind 3-B. How may I be of assistance? ~
Looking away from the small light bobbing over the data pad, he tapped on the pad several times, pulling up several blueprints and engineering schematics before answering the question.
“First, I call you Marcel, and you respond to your new name, okej? Good. Marcel, scan blueprints and schematics and show me locations where main power transmission lines are cut so I can fix, okej?”
~ I will comply, Chief Engineer. One moment, please. ~
“Dobry piesek!” He muttered happily as Marcel began to highlight all the locations of the ruptured power transmission lines in the vicinity, as well as several possible routes to lay the new connections and bypass the destroyed or blocked sections of the ship.
Turning around to face the waiting Warspite engineers and techs behind him, he began to quickly flick the new info towards their own data pads as he called out the teams in order and assigned them specific areas to repair.As each team was called, they took their grav sleds with them and headed off to the locations assigned to them. It was when only two teams were left that he realized how many additional people there were.
They must have started following them through the corridors, as if they had nothing better to do, and he felt himself getting very angry with them as he stared into their faces. Why were they following him instead of trying to fix their ship?
“What you do here? Why do you follow us like stray cat?” he demanded loudly, immediately feeling bad as he saw them wilting under his angry questioning. They were Mei Zhou crewmen, their disheveled uniforms covered with grime and blood that was not their own.
One of them answered him quietly, her eyes haunted by what she had seen and experienced as her voice trembled with emotion. “Chief, we have been cut off from the rest of the ship, and none of our senior officers have been seen or heard from since the strike. We want to help; tell us what to do, and we will do it.”
Nie mój cyrk, nie moje małpy! was the first thought that came into his head before he angrily admonished himself for such shameful thinking. They were scared; their friends were missing, dead, or dying, and the command structure had been disrupted, leaving them leaderless.
Eyeing their rank badges, he realized that they were all low-ranked enlisted, the most senior of the group being the woman who spoke for them; she was only a petty officer third class herself. Sighing in frustration, he closed his eyes to center himself before opening them up again and looking at the nine strays in front of him.
“Sorry, okej? You want to help?” Bending down, he took a small container off the grav sled and gave it to the woman. “Here, take this and cut through the bulkheads. If way is blocked, make new way, and get the wounded to sickbay, okej?”
She nodded as she took the container from him, grunting at the heavy weight. She carefully put it on the floor before opening it up to see the half dozen plasma torches inside, and she looked back up at him, smiling for the first time with thankful eyes.
“Oh. Here, take this.” He said quickly before reaching into his tool bag and fishing out another datapad scanner. He touched it to the one he was already using, downloading the scans and maps into the new one before holding it out for her to take.
“Thank you, Chief!” She said gratefully as she took the pad from him and quickly looked at the holo map. A change came over her features and bearing as she stood back up before coming to attention and saluting him.
He returned the salute and smiled broadly as the scared woman died in front of his eyes and became the leader her strays needed. She started handing out the plasma torches and pointing at locations to cut through to get them out of the sealed corridors they had been trapped in.
He looked at the two engineers who remained with him and pointed to the section of the sealed corridor he wanted them to cut through so he could access the parallel maintenance tunnel and begin to lay down the new power transmission lines.
As they began to burn through the corridor wall with the plasma torches, he pulled off a heavy crate from the grav sled and placed it on the deck before kneeling to enter his code and unlock it. The top opened, and he smiled broadly as he saw the four repair bots nestled inside the packing foam and pulling one out.
He placed it gently on the floor before doing the same to the other three and then accessing the control menu on his datapad. They all unpacked their little legs and rose up at the same time after receiving the activation command he sent.
He smiled again as they scanned him with their cute little blue lights before indicating they were ready for work. He flicked data over to them from the pad before speaking softly to them. “Moje miłości, go take cables to places I show you and put new cables into old, okej?”
They all beeped before using one of their little repair legs to salute him, just as he programmed them to do on a whim when he first modified them. The sight of his repair bots saluting him like good little soldiers filled him with happiness, and he returned it to them.
Beeping one more time, they separated and scurried off to the grav sled, working in concert to scan the labels before opening several crates and pulling out the necessary equipment.
One of them broke away and began to unscrew the small maintenance port cover from the bulkhead, unceremoniously tossing it to the side in a way that made him laugh out loud as it clattered loudly on the deck a meter away.
They were spicy, and he loved the big attitudes they held in their little bot bodies. He learned that lesson himself when one of the little bastards gave him a mild shock when he tried to move it off a conduit it was repairing before it was finished with its task.
The other three began to drag wires and other components to the opening and form a chain as they fed each other equipment and supplies. Seeing that they had everything well in hand, he took another large crate off the grav sled and entered his code to unlock it.
Like the first one, this one also had four repair bots that he had modified during off hours to suit his needs, and he repeated the process of activating all four as he lovingly cooed to them.
These were more specialized, and he would send them to troubleshoot and repair systems ahead of the boarding party as they worked their way back to what remained of the engineering spaces. He needed to get the reactors back online and reroute all the primary functions to the secondary engineering bays located in the ventral aft sections.
Unlike the other four, these were fully autonomous and capable of utilizing a kind of AI hive mind intelligence to organize the repairs necessary to achieve his goals. They scurried off and began to scan the bulkheads around them, their blue sensor waves capable of penetrating through multiple bulkheads as they built a picture of the damage and mapped their routes.
A loud banging sound startled him, and he spun around on his hands and knees, seeing that the Mei Zhou strays had succeeded in cutting through the corridor bulkhead and kicked the cut portion out into the adjoining space, the cut edges slagged and smoking.
The others began to pick up nearby wounded to carry them through the opening, and the PO3 saw him looking at her. She gave him a thumbs up and a nod before barking orders for the rest of them to start looking for a way out of the adjoining space or to start cutting another exit.
“Let’s go, people. We have a ship to fix. Get the rest of the wounded who can be safely moved through the opening. Chin and Smith, stay with the wounded who can’t be moved until the medics from...”
Turning to face him again, she called out to be heard by him over the noises. “Chief, what ship are you from?” His face blushed as he realized that he never asked for her name, nor gave her his. He never even bothered to look at her name tag or the ones of the others.
“Our ship is the Warspite, and I am Filip Kozlowski, Petty Officer...?” Smiling at him, she responded loudly, “Saputra, Chief Kozlowski. Aulia Saputra. I do not recognize the ship name; is it fresh out of the shipyard?”
“You could say that. You see the ship after we get this mess straightened out, okej?” She nodded at him before turning back to face her people. “Chin and Smith will stay with the badly wounded until the medics from the Warspite arrive. Everyone else, let’s go!”
Before stepping through the opening, she gave him one more nod, and soon the rest of the strays followed her, leaving him alone in his section of the corridor. He shook his head to get the face of the smiling Saputra out of his mind and took another heavy crate off the grav sled.
Stolen story; please report.
As the top popped open, he murmured happily to himself as he activated the four repair bots within. He had another sixteen bots to activate, and soon his little children would have this ship running properly again.
RSS Mei Zhou
Main Bridge, forty-seven minutes after missile strike
“Captain, can you hear me? Please wake up, sir.”
Michaels heard her voice, sounding like it was coming from very far away. Everything was dark, and he tried to remember how he got here. He felt something pressing against his neck, and he instinctively raised his arms to defend himself, crying out as the worst pain he had ever felt hit him.
He gasped from the incredible agony, making it even worse. It felt like his entire chest was on fire and being stabbed with a thousand knives, and he started panicking in the darkness as the voice spoke again.
“Captain, please don’t move. Your ribs are busted all to hell, and your left lung is punctured. Your back is broken, and the scanner shows that you are paralyzed from the waist down. Just stay still for a moment and let the painkillers do their job.”
He recognized the voice; it was Miriam. The jumbled memories suddenly aligned in their proper places, and the sequence of the last events he remembered came to him. He was holding her hand, and he remembered feeling all his ribs cracking as he was thrown against his harness by the missile impact.
Trying to breathe as shallowly as possible, he focused on the sensation of the nanobots repairing his wounds, the combination of the itchy tickling almost maddening as he resisted the impulse to scratch at his chest.
“Why can’t I see? Do I still have my eyes, Miriam?” He whispered, afraid of the answer to his question as soon as he asked it. She snorted before she answered him. “You have to open them to see, Captain.”
Relief flooded through him, and he tried to prevent himself from laughing at his ridiculous question and her serious answer, failing miserably as he began to wheeze. It hurt, but not nearly as bad as it did before. There was one more thing he needed to know before he opened his eyes.
He carefully lifted his right hand and placed it right below his stomach, trying not to lift his elbow off the ground. As he began to move his hand down towards his crotch area, she snorted again, much louder this time.
“The package is secure, Captain. You can still check if you want to, but you’re all good down there. It’s just your ribs, your lung, and your back that are messed up. Good news is, the type of paralysis you have is easily fixed, according to the medical scanner.”
“Oh, thank God!” he whispered gratefully. Still, he wanted to verify it for himself. His hand reached the area, and he was forced to lift his elbow a little bit to get everything into his palm. Ignoring the pain, he moved his fingers around until he counted off the three parts.
He almost wanted to cry when he realized he could feel what he was doing down there, so he still had sensations in that area, which meant it was still working. He was going to try to move his legs but decided against it. He didn’t see the sense in aggravating himself by trying and failing; it would just be a major distraction he didn't need right now.
He heard Miriam's voice in his head: 'The package is secure,' and he started to wheeze laugh again, not caring how bad it hurt as he slowly opened his eyes. It was fuzzy at first before clearing up, and he was not ready for how dark it was.
Staring straight up at the dim overhead, he spoke again a little louder this time, causing him to make a rattling sound deep inside his chest. Shit, my popped lung is filling with blood. Miriam heard it too, and she spoke again. “I need to turn you over to your side, so your good lung doesn’t fill with blood, Captain. This is going to hurt you. Badly. Are you ready?”
“No, but let’s do it anyway. Give me an update on the crew, the ship, and the 3rd Fleet. I can focus on that while you move me. How is the crew doing? Have we been hit again?” He asked as he felt her two warm hands sliding under his back, and he tried to brace himself for what was to come as she began to update him.
“Just the one missile strike, it seems, Captain. I was out of it for a while; Lieutenant Alvarez said I had a carotid dissection, probably from my head almost being ripped off my neck by the impact. He treated me and stabilized you before moving on to the others. We only have contact with certain parts of the ship, and Naomi is offline.”
She grunted as she began to slowly lift him, and he focused on her talking as the pain made him almost want to cry. “As of now, there are thirty-three confirmed KIA, sixty-seven missing, and over a hundred wounded. That is only for the areas we still have contact with. Ship-to-ship comms are down, but runners have reported seeing most of the 3rd Fleet still in formation around us from the little they could see out of the portholes. There is no weapons fire being exchanged as of right now, but some ships look really bad off.”
He didn’t reply as she finally got him fully onto his left side, the itching and tickling sensation seeming to go into overdrive as the nanobots reacted to whatever damage the movement incurred to his chest. He didn’t trust himself to speak, and Miriam took that as a sign to keep talking.
“Main power is out, and the backup power systems did not come on for the bridge and the surrounding areas. We are running on batteries, and I sent teams out to cut through the sealed-off areas and try to reconnect with Main Engineering to see what is going on.
Runners have returned and updated me on the extent of the damage they saw so far, and it’s pretty bad, sir. It looks like almost the entire port side is gone, and the casualty list is being rapidly revised as more runners return and update us.”
Michaels grunted in response after she finished, feeling like a useless sack of shit as he lay on the deck. His crew was dying, his ship had been mortally wounded, and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it right now.
From behind, he heard a sudden commotion, and his frustration with the inability to do his job grew as he strained to listen to what was being said by the new arrival, who sounded like she had just run a marathon while she gasped out words in between her heaving.
“Commander, shuttles... from another ship. Aft sections, cutting... through to engineering.”
“Stop talking and catch your breath, Rheingold.” Miriam snapped as he felt her gently tap his arm before getting up off the deck. He heard her footsteps moving away from him as the runner continued breathing heavily.
After a few moments, Rheingold began to update Miriam again, making far better sense this time, though she still sounded ragged as hell. “Shuttles landed in Bay 3. Rescue teams from the Warfight? Sorry, the Warspite. Several teams of engineers, techs, and medical personnel have landed, and they are making their way to Main Engineering now.”
Her voice petered out, as if unwilling to continue. Miriam was not having it and pressed her to keep going. Rheingold faltered for another moment before finally continuing.“Commander... From what another runner told me, most of main engineering is opened to space. Sections 11-A through 74-C, from deck 3 to deck 14, are gone, up to interior Bulkhead 3 in most places and past Bulkhead 5 in the Main Engineering space.”
There were loud gasps all around the now deathly silent bridge, and Michaels closed his eyes as he whispered a prayer for his crew. He heard Rheingold quietly inquire about him, and his shame for being unable to be there for his crew and run his ship became unbearable.
“Commander, inject me again. I am done lying on this deck while my crew and my ship are suffering. Use the emergency vials; that’ll have to do until I can get to a sickbay.” He heard footsteps coming closer, and then he saw her feet coming into view before Miriam took a knee in front of him and leaned her face close to his as she whispered to him.
“Ean, are you crazy? That shit is just as likely to make you throw a clot and have a pulmonary embolism as it is to get you back on your feet. And if you do survive the injection, you are almost guaranteed to need to have multiple organs replaced.I strongly recommend you don’t do this; the crew would fall apart if you died on us, and I will curse you for all my days because of the paperwork you will leave behind for me to deal with after you shuffle off this mortal coil.”
He wheezed at the Shakespeare reference, a private joke between them after they saw a particularly amateurish Hamlet revival put on by the galley crew a few weeks ago. He suddenly stopped laughing as the thought of them reminded him of the torn-open port side of the ship.
Half of the crew quarters were located there, as were the three crew galleys. Chances were, they were most likely dead if they weren’t at battle stations somewhere else in the ship during the missile strike.
Thinking of them increased his sense of urgency about returning to a functional state and being there for his crew until they were out of danger.“Do it, Miriam. I am not just the captain of this ship; I am also responsible for the 3rd Fleet. They followed me here, and I am done laying on this deck. Inject me.”
She stared at him with a long, searching look, and he focused his eyes on her, seeing her matted hair and the grime on her face. Finally, she gave the slightest of nods and looked behind him as she ordered for the emergency vials to be brought over to her.
He could hear the chime of the medical cabinet being opened behind him, the others beginning to talk in hushed tones again as they returned to their stations and tried to get the ship working. Miriam reached her hand over him, and it came back with a bright red and yellow packet that she laid on the deck in front of him.
She unzipped and opened it, and he saw the three differently colored vials inside, the sight of them filling him with fear for what was to come.The Stimpak was only for emergency life-saving measures. Its use was strongly discouraged, especially on fully conscious patients, unless they were going to be immediately put into a medpod that would induce a coma and prevent them from experiencing the effects.
Knowing what she was about to do to her captain, Miriam’s hands shook as she took the three small vials and inserted them into the subdermal injector. The injector flashed an angry red before a strongly worded warning appeared in small text above it. They both ignored the warning as Miriam looked him in the eyes again, her fear mirroring his own.
He nodded to her, never so afraid in his life as he was right now. She leaned her face close to his, and he could feel her hot breath as she whispered to him again. “Captain, please don’t make me do this to you. If you die, I’ll never be able to forgive myself. Please, Captain, don’t do this. I’m begging you.”
He could see the pleading in her eyes, and he forced himself to ignore it, afraid it would destroy the little courage he could muster to go through with it. He smiled at her, trying to convey how much she meant to him and how grateful he was for her before replying.
“It is an honor to serve with you and call you friend. No matter what happens, just know that. Do it, Miriam.”
Choking back a sob, she put the injector into her left hand before using her right to grab his in a wrestling grip, clenching it tightly as she stared into his eyes. The bridge fell silent, and he gave Miriam one last nod. Her left hand brought the injector down and pressed it against his right shoulder, and he heard it hissing as it emptied itself into his body.
He felt the fire of its contents as it began to spread from his shoulder, immediately regretting his decision as the agony reached the other parts of his body and sent lancing stabs of pain through his lower spine.The last thing he heard was Miriam whimpering how sorry she was as his entire upper body involuntarily clenched before the primal scream of pure pain erupted from his throat.
He felt Miriam trying to remove her hand from his grip, and he couldn’t do anything to help her as he felt his hand slowly crushing hers and breaking bones. He screamed in his head, trying to will it to let go of her. He couldn’t stop it, and he was vaguely aware of his own fingers being broken as other hands grabbed them and tried to break his hold on her.
The pain of his now broken fingers barely registered as he was consumed by the agony coursing through his veins and burning every fiber of his being. His hand was suddenly empty, and he tried to tell her he was sorry as the drool dripped out of his mouth and ran down his cheek.
The agony finally reached his mind, and he begged God to be merciful and end his suffering before his thoughts melted in the fire consuming it and he was no more.
Brood Chamber of the Hive Mother
Hive Mother watched as Bandit-Friend made claw signs to her and her sister drone, telling them the dangerous animal ship had taken the Hive ship and their traitor sister hostage. She made claw signs back, asking him to tell the animals that she was grateful for them saving the empire and the Queen World.
As Bandit-Friend began to make noises to the small device to share her thoughts with the animals, she shifted carefully to face the drone her sister had taken, the birthing tunnel still painful from almost tearing herself away from it.
For the time I have left, my Hives will join with and stand with the animal Hives against all others. I will teach my coming daughters to love and respect them. Never again will we make war on them, and we will make war on any who tries to cull our animal friends. This I promise to you and to them. May my promise and the promise of my daughters last until the end of time. Only when the last star disappears from our skies, and the last of us have left the world of the living, will this promise too fade into nothingness.>
Leaving Aurora’s mind, she turned her eyes to Bandit-Friend, who was facing them both and waiting, unmoving like a rock. Thinking about how to ask for the gift she wanted, she framed the question in her mind before slowly signing to him.
Bandit-Friend moved a claw up to his head carapace and pressed against it, making the mirrored faceplate flip up to expose his face. As she stared into his yellow eyes, she saw him grimacing with pleasure, and she felt excitement rising inside of her as he began to make claw signs.
She was about to receive a name, and a joy she had not felt for many cycles enveloped her essence as he honored her with the precious gift.