Rescue
Tuesday, February 19th, 2008I take six men with me. My gut is telling me why Walters hasn’t reported back, but I don’t listen to it. I don’t want to think of that possibility.
Yet it seemed like the only one. The gray ooze from the nest egg dissolves a ship’s hull directly under it, give them access to the inside. And along the edges of this new hole it fuses the hull with the nest egg, keeping the vacuum of space away from the ship’s interior. They then slip inside without the sensors detecting them. Once a nest egg hits your ship, your only chance is to get off before they get aboard.
And my gut is saying we’ve missed that chance.
We slowly make our way down the corridor towards Bay 3. Our flamers are out, ready to unleash a fiery death on anything in our path. There’s a noise. We all stop, listen closely. It sounds like a human in pain. We round the corner and we see Walters on the ground. He’s missing one of his legs. The trail of blood coming from the door tells us he dragged himself from the cargo bay. He looks up at us, his eyes full of pain.
He starts to talk, his voice cracking in pain. “In the bay…hundreds of them…We have to leave… Leave now…”
I motion for three of the men to come up. “Take him to the Medical bay. Check back every five minutes. Understand?” They nod their heads. “Good. Now go.”
They go over and carefully lift and carry Walters away. He’s mumbling incoherently now. There’s enough in the med bay to make sure he makes it until we get to a real doctor. I look at the three men I have left with me. A look of unease is on their face.
I flick my wrist and the com channel opens up.
“Command, do you read?”
Sasha responds. “This is Command. We read you.”
“The Scarabs have broken through the hull. Walters in the med bay. We need to pull everyone out right away.”
“Copy that. Where have they broken through at?”
“Cargo bay 3.” There is no response from Sasha. “Is everything O.K.?”
“That’s the shortest path to the remaining escape pods.”
“I know. Have everyone head to the Command Deck of the Med Bay. I’ll head to the Command Deck and we’ll go as a group to get the rest at the Med Bay. Peters out.”
I flick my wrist and the com channel closes. I motion for my remaining men to follow as we make our way around the cargo bay.