41. Death awaits

• “Captain Sebes, come in!” — tried Michael sounding a half pitch higher as he sped up. — “Damn…” — the fear of losing his captain on a mission gripped his core. — “Mr. Sotomayor, use your stuff to identify our attackers and ready to move out.”
• “On it.” — unable to help otherwise than doing his main job, ran the recorders beside his own observations.

Same colored suits laying with holes in them all around, Their nameplates were missing, but same material, design and paint used as to his first attackers. Cutting out a few pieces was a child’s play to him, well oiled moves put away the new hoard in small evidence pouches.

Automatically tagged by the recorder computers with place, universal time, personal and institutional digital signatures. Tiny, invisible wiring running through the otherwise transparent pouches, even tracking damage to the container is partly automatized.

Taking off the helmet proved more challenging though. The locks were to be disengaged with suit controls. As the safety designs, losing control locked the helmet in place. No-one wanted to depressurize due to any little fault, this time caused inconvenience and John wasted precious minutes.

Finally Michael stepped in and yanked open the plastic shell with his exo-skeleton’s power. The human omelette at the feet of John didn’t bothered, he long passed by the super-heated metal infusion the commando treated him to. Recorder quickly locked on to the deceased face, executing its programming in a blink of an eye, new evidence recorded.

• “You know we should do this with all of them.”
• “I fear we don’t have that much time, Mr. Sotomayor.” — pacing from corridor entrance to entrance, Michael’s voice returned to normal pitch — “Two more, quickly, and we move out, Hannen, single vanguard, two corners ahead of us, go.”
• “Yes, Sir!” — the young guy energized by the opportunity, determined to prove himself as the freshman in the best team, bursted through the designated exit corridor.

A minute later John, guarded by Michael at the front, remaining guard at his back, marched through the same entry. Disturbed by the thought they leave Victoria behind, he understood that the mission is the priority. If they at least could reach the other half of the team, radios bringing only background static from anyone further than almost direct view. They even had continuous issues reaching Hannen in front of them.

As they turned a corner, saw a few flashes ahead of them, even John recognized them as the commando’s gun open fire. Hannen waited for them to close up.

• “I saw him moving toward me just as the workers!”
• “You must be mistaken, this guy is long dead, have no suit too.”
• “But I saw it!”
• “We don’t have time for this, Hannen, get it together!” — Michael scanning the next corridors, while John took another samples from the aforementioned body.

So far John ignored half his running sensors as usual, having full of mind and hand with the tasks at hand. A moment of this stop allowed to check his suspicion aroused by the radio problems, took a peek on less used data. Ionized radiation everywhere. Registering rising from the moment they entered, not reaching alert levels yet, but enough to block short range radio.

• “Michael, sir, radios are blocked by ionized radiation.”
• “Is it lethal to us?”
• “Not yet, would take a few more hours if keeps rising as it did.” — casually chatting about their demise while the team was slaloming on their new path outward.
• “Any idea how can we get through to our Captain? Or the separated team?”
• “Not sure, maybe a much stronger radio can reach them. But we haven’t heard from Irondome.”
• “Cause they won’t call us until we call them.” — Michael sped up even a bit more, soon the exo-skeleton’s had to drag John with them forward. — “We get out, and call them through Irondome’s instruments. Hannen, Connan, haul ass!”
• “Hauling ass, sir!” — their team’s agreed command to sprint at max power, Michael and Connan sharing John’s weight as he was now dangling around between the two machines running like a gazelle while weighting more than a rhino.

Disregarding any possibilities of more attackers, as the small team blazed through the wide corridor soon running into the flimsy outer hull just blasted with their weapons. Their battle computers analysing the structural weakpoints under moments, their training for storming high value target working in reverse. Hannen emerged from the dust and debris like an angel of death, Michael and Connan right behind. Then they all froze like black stones.

John on his own power, took a moment to get around them and see the reason. A massive crater near where their drop pod was left. And no drop pod where it was left. A shotgun pattern metal debris pointing outward of the crater. Metal shrapnel everywhere, many pierced the Giant’s wreckage too.

• “What the hell went down here…” — Hannen lowered his weapon breaking stance.
• “Stay vigilant! Irondome, Tango lead here, come in.” — Michael tried his radio, but the silence was unnerving. A second, then two, three seconds without answer.
• “Tango lead, we hear you. Lost contact with Bravo team. Dust clearing up, sending drop pods for extraction. What is your status?”
• “VIP 2 and half the team still inside, lost contact. Asking for search and rescue. VIP 1 safe and needs immediate extraction.” — Michael still used codewords if possible even when he was assured of a safe channel.
• “Deploying Gamma and Delta teams alongside.” — a moments pause in the XO’s voice — “Be advised, movement detected. Another unidentified vessel. Alpha squadron, intercept! Lethal force authorized.”
• “Understood, coming about.” — Alpha lead’s helmet drawing up the small ground team’s position on his augmented reality, Irondome’s combat controls streaming tracking data, allowing his armaments to lock on without direct line of sight. — “Fox 3 away.”

Michael lead the team running along the wreckage, moon dust in their wane, closing on the designated landing coordinates of their extraction. The two interceptor fighters circling only a few hundred meters above them, filling all four with resolve under their guarding angels.

• “What the… Irondome, you see it?” — Alpha lead exclaimed as the missile he launched with hundred percent precision so far, missed and detonated far from the target.

Alpha lead already had the distance and detonation zones projected onto his screens, courtesy of the Irondome’s fast analysts working through the previous vessel’s detonation.

• “Fox 3 away.” — stepped in his wingman.
• “Rodger. Alpha Two, remain in position.” — Alpha lead pushed his throttles to the max, staying on parallel with the missile. — “Switching to auto-cannon.”
• “Alpha lead, you are about to enter danger zone.” — heard his flight commander — “But the missile failed again, god speed!” — for the last time.
• “Target acquired, Fox 5!” — the projectiles teared into the speeding vessel, taking out controls, engines, splattering bodies to vapor, some of the heavy bullets exiting on the other side.

A second later the vessel detonated just like the previous one, Alpha lead enclosed by the fireball. The flight commander hoping in vain he can see his best pupil exiting from it. Instead a second fireball consumed the entire interceptor.

Michael and team just avoided the worst, shrapnel shower stopped by the Giant’s body, protecting some of its passengers for the last time.

Slowly the minutes passed by as the next wave of drop pods arrived from orbit. Michael and team holding position, three of them watching three directions, John positioning agains the wreckage.

• “John, what the hell is going on? This investigation ends up in a damned war we started waging.”
• “I have no clue, Michael, beyond the scale of this accident, there is nothing to it!” — “or we just don’t see all the pieces…” continued his thought for himself.
• “Irondome, come in!” — a women’s calm voice heard through the same channel.
• “Captain, is that you?”
• “Yes, Mr. Rivera, secure extraction zone, we are in a fighting retreat.”
• “Great to hear your voice. You with the rest of the team?”
• “Yes, I fell to their level during the first fight.”
• “First?”
• “We have new workers moving against us every few seconds. Half-way to extraction point. Gedeon, on your right!”
• “New drop pods arrive with two squads in two minutes.”
• “Understood, grab Gedeon and move out!”
• “Michael, she is in trouble, we must do something!” — John looked deep into his eyes, in the half-bright moon-shine darkness quickly closing in.
• “Fu… Hannen, Connan, protect Mr. Sotomayor, I lead. Irondome, sending new extraction point and the Captain’s position, need reinforcements ASAP!” — Michael didn’t realize his failure to use codenames as he run back into the wreckage.
• “Understood, Gamma and Delta team, authorized fast insertion.”

With a risk of minor injuries and probably losing their extraction method, the two drop pods filled with the relief teams ignited thrusters toward the new coordinates, burning away their escape fuel for maximum speed.

A few seconds later landing roughly at the designated coordinates and running after Michael’s team in spearhead formation. New interceptor squads joining the skies above them, escalating Irondome’s forces to retrieve its Captain from harms way.

Now entering official records who was one of their VIP.

Read the story leading up to now:

Giant of the Stars

Fictional story of a luxury starliner’s catastrophy