| Jovian APAworks | Volume 1, Number 6 | May, 2001 |
A rough pat on the shoulder told Master Sergeant Galen Pax that Jack was having trouble closing the outer door of the airlock. Jack gestured to the hand crank that he was using, indicating that he needed another set of hands, while Galen stepped around the badly injured Beatriz Halmique. Bea had stopped her wild convulsions and was somewhat calm now, or as calm as a person with a spear of armored door through her midsection can be. It was difficult to see her face for the inside of her pressure suits face shield was covered with blood. Jena gave a look of concern as she tended to their wounded comrade.
Galen and Jack arranged themselves on either side of the hand crank and, after nodding their readiness, proceeded to turn the small crank. Stubbornly, the crank coaxed the manual closing mechanism on the airlock door towards its sealed conclusion. As the gap in the door became smaller, turning the crank became more difficult.
Each man strained to turn the handle. The grip was too small for the hands of both men and it fit awkwardly into its slot near the door. It was a very simple piece of engineering, but far two clumsy for two men to turn. The grip was not wide enough to accommodate more than one set of hands and it was very easy for the handle to unseat itself.
With one final effort the door slammed shut, moments before the handle slipped out of its socket. Jack, who was pushing the handle over at the time, slammed into Galen and the force threw both men into the wall. Galen looked up at the display by the door and watched as the light flickered from red to green. The seal was good. He then looked at what was left of the handle.
The act of two men turning the stubborn mechanism had broken the crank at the bit. Half of the end was still in the slot, rendering the device useless.
Liliane spun her Retaliator to the side, evading another Bazooka shell, a task that was becoming more and more difficult. Slowly the Wyvern Marine that she was fighting was pressing her more and more on the defensive. She was low on missiles and her rail gun shots were going wild.
Liliane had to try something, anything. She was getting desperate and running out of tricks and ideas. It was a dangerous moment for a pilot and she knew it. She had to rely on her instincts and reactions, honed as they were by years of Jovian academy training.
The Wyvern backed off a bit and the barrel of the bazooka swung into view again, readying into a firing position. Liliane was beginning to become all too familiar with this weapon. She had been shot at by it too often in the last few minutes.
The armament on a Wyvern was all ranged weaponry. The one area where it was weak was in close-quarters combat. Her Retaliator was a much better close-quarters fighting machine than its opponent. Maybe Liliane could use this to her advantage.
As the Bazooka fired at her, Liliane thrusted towards the Wyvern and ducked into a tight arc underneath it. As the Retaliator passed under the Wyvern, Liliane activated her exo-armors plasma lance. Command systems in her hand controls switched over to Hand-to-Hand mode as superheated gases bottled by a magnetic field burst into life in the hand of the Retaliator. Liliane swung her arm over her head and her Retaliator followed the motions of its pilot, the plasma lance blazing upwards, the edge trailing slightly making the blade point seem jagged.
The lance bit into the leg of the Wyvern, raking along the edge and leaving an opening of sparks. The cut was not as deep as Liliane would have liked. The pilot was maneuvering to defend his exo and deflected most of the strike.
Liliane spun the Retaliator around to face her opponent. "Missile Lock on Target!" she screamed at the computer. "Fox One! Fox One!" Two LMJ-4 light missiles launched at the pilots verbal command and streaked towards the Wyvern.
It took a bit of effort but eventually Galen and Jack were able to tear off the cover to the inner airlock door control panel. Once the outer door was closed and sealed, they had tried to use the controls to cycle the airlock but nothing had happened. In fact they could get no response at all from the controls.
A brief wisp of smoke floated out of the new opening. Something inside was burning until the atmosphere escaped when they pried the panel open. Galen peered inside. Insulation had blackened and melted revealing bare wire. Control relays had fused with the grounds and sparks could be seen jumping across the contact points. The Maintenance Chief knew in an instant what had happened. When they short circuited the outer door controls, the resulting feedback had melted the other controls. With the door controls fused as they were, the inner door would remain locked.
"The inner door controls are fused." He said to his team. Jack was unable to reply but he punched the door in frustration. Jena looked up with greater concern, Bea cradled in her lap. Andersen looked around the airlock in a daze, still slightly stunned from the blow to his head.
To one side of the door was an opening that was the similar to one on the outer door. It was where the hand crank could be inserted. They might have been able to use the hand crank were it still in one piece. As it was now, what was left of the crank was junk.
Galen was not one to give in however. He did not believe in a hopeless situation. There was always a solution. The time required to implement it was the dangerous factor. He turned back to the burned out wiring. It looked as though the airlock cycling controls were fine, the feedback damaging circuits before them. Blown fuses showed that the protection controls had done their job. It may still be possible to open the doors.
Quickly tracing control relays, Galen put together a mental picture of the controlling circuits. Shorting out the outer doors had blown out the status transmission relays. The inner door still thought that the outer doors were open because that was the last message that it had received, faulty though it was. If they could somehow send the all clear to cycle command then maybe the inner doors could be coaxed open.
What he needed was something that was able to transmit the signal.
The Wyvern twisted and weaved as it sought to avoid the missiles, but her pilot was not quick enough. One missile detonated against the Bazooka, blowing a large hole into the barrel. The other missile struck true the arm holding the bazooka, tearing off a large portion near the shoulder. The Wyvern pilot had twisted the torso of the exo just enough to sacrifice the arm and bazooka. Even Liliane could see this.
Plasma Lance at the ready, Liliane urged the Retaliator forward once more. If she was quick enough she might be able to catch the Wyvern off guard, maybe with its sensors blinded by the explosions. She lunged at the Wyverns torso as the CEGA exo was turning towards her. It was a dangerous move, getting in close to an opponent, but Liliane was counting on her exo-armors superior close in weaponry to provide an edge.
The Wyvern spun out of the way, the blade of superheated gases narrowly missing. Liliane pressed her advantage. For the moment she was the one in control of the fight. She maneuvered her exo to remain very close to the Wyvern. Several times it fired the small lasers mounted in its head at her but she was able to easily dodge the streaks.
The two opponents continued their close dance. Liliane would strike out with every combination that she knew. She would swing to one side of the head and then, swinging the blade back over her exos own head, strike to the opposite side. She would slash high and then bring the blade in an arc downwards. She would lunge low and then slice upwards. Each time the Wyvern was just barely able to get out of the way. Each time the Wyvern would try and bring the mass driver rifle that it held in its hand to bear on the Retaliator but Liliane was setting up another strike.
Liliane recovered her stance from a low slice and drew the blade into an overhead arc towards the head of the Wyvern. The Wyvern didn’t move to evade. Instead the exo-armor blocked the blow with the remains of its bazooka. The Plasma Lance sputtered as the magnetic bottle encountered a resistance that it couldn’t overcome and was punctured near the tip. Charged gas spilled out from the puncture and rained over the two opponents, like sunlight reflecting off of the surface of a shiny sword. Her weapon was trapped.
Liliane released the hilt of the Plasma Lance, causing it to deactivate, and went to activate her second one when she realized what the Wyvern was doing. Her eyes grew wide as she saw the barrel of the mass driver poke out through the fading shower of sparks from the blade. She inhaled sharply as she saw the finger of the Wyvern pull against the trigger. She threw the Retaliators controls to the side hard, attempting to evade, but she was not fast enough.
The Wyverns mass driver silently chattered and raked its fire over her Retaliators torso.
"Stand back!" Galen called over the commlink as he readied himself. In his hands he held the ends of a small length of wire that had been pulled out from the comm. unit on Jacks pressure suit. He glanced back over his shoulder to make sure that his people were ready. Jena stood by Bea and Andersen. Jack stood to one side of the door, his hands gripping the seams in the middle and ready to pry it open.
Galen hoped that he was right about the tolerance of the insulation in his pressure suit. While the amount of electricity running through this circuit was not enough to kill a person, it was sufficient enough to cause very serious burns. As he did not have any insulated gloves on him, he could only hope that there was enough protection built into the gloves of his suit.
Calmly he placed one end of the wire firmly against an exposed contact. What was going to happen once he touched the other end of the wire to another contact was that a brief surge of power would flow and trick the inner door control computer into thinking that it was receiving the brief ‘okay’ transmission from the Outer door. With any luck the status indicator by the inner door would change from red to green, thus allowing them to use what was left of the inner door controls to cycle the airlock.
He blinked several times to fight off the dryness in his eyes, and took a deep breath. Slowly he touched the other end of the wire to another contact. He only had a scant half second of contact before sparks flew out at him like angry bees. The end of the wire jumped about, the ends becoming chipped and burnt. A sudden explosion of light turned his visor black, as it sought to protect his eyes from the brightness.
As his visor cleared up, Galen looked over to the status lights. He couldn’t help but feel just a little anxious. There was a good chance that he had just fried the circuits of the airlock with his little stunt. If that happened then there was no hope for Beatriz.
After what seemed like an eternity of waiting, the status lights flickered green. Immediately Galen started to punch away at the control pad to cycle the airlock.
Lilliane’s cockpit was flashing red and she knew that she was in trouble. The close-quarters burst from the Wyvern had sent her damage monitors into overdrive. She was having trouble reading some of them through a thick smoke that had started to fill the cockpit sphere. One of the monitors that lined the walls of the cockpit sphere that had just blown out was burning something, not to mention that it also threw small shards of glass about the place. Her Heads-Up-Display flashed a number of times as one of the many computers that helped to run the exo-armor tried to recover from the mass driver burst.
She punched at the environmental controls to try and blow away the smoke that was obscuring her vision, a very bad problem to have in the middle of combat. Luckily she was wearing her flight pressure suit so she did not have to worry about choking.
Little by little Liliane began to take stock of the damage that was inflicted. There was massive damage to her Retaliators torso. Her controls were reacting sluggishly and a quick look at the thruster array status told her that she had lost over half of her effective maneuvering systems. She had no missiles left, the last one had a red indicator through it meaning that it was not usable for some reason. The ammo in her rail gun was low, enough for three more shots. To make matters worse, portions of the outside view were not visible due to monitors being blown out.
As the smoke cleared a little more and the cockpit sphere monitors cleaned up the static lines that were now plaguing them, the Wyvern loomed large in her view. It was well aware of the damage that it had caused as it quickly changed the magazine for its mass driver. Liliane could almost see a smile of satisfaction come across the head unit of the CEGA exo-armor.
Liliane switched her offensive controls over to the rail gun. She jinked to the left as she brought the targeting recticle onto the Wyvern. She fired off a couple of shots, very loose and sloppy, but the Wyvern was already reacting to her sudden movement.
The Wyvern sung the mass driver towards where she had moved to. She thrusted as wildly as she could manage, twisting and turning her Retaliator in a practiced defensive zigzag. The Retaliator performed poorly and Liliane watched as the Wyvern, which should have been moving about her displays very quickly, merely swung back and forth. Her maneuver controls were worse off than she thought.
Liliane was practically looking down the barrel of the mass driver expecting to see the small, bright flashes that would be the prelude to another burst. When it came the burst of light was brighter than she had expected.
"Master Sergeant Pax requesting medical assistance at airlock 56B." Galen called into the comm unit on the inside of the airlock. "We have serious wounded."
A reply came but Galen was already moving back to where they had laid Bea down. Jena had pulled off the woman’s helmet, while Jack finished laying Andersen against the wall. "Let’s get this suit off." Galen said to Jena and they both started to pull off the clasps and seals. They were careful enough to pull off as much of Beatriz’s pressure suit but were careful not to disturb her wound. It was not easy and they could see a great deal of blood from that wound.
Just as they finished, a Medical team arrived and took over. Galen tried to assist but the medics pushed him away. Reluctantly he stepped back to where Jena was already standing. She was just staring at Beatriz, her arms crossed over her chest. Galen put a reassuring hand on her shoulder as the medical team hovered over Bea and Andersen.
The worst was behind them.
The Wyvern was violently thrown to one side by the bright light. Liliane watched as the pilot regained her composure and dodged a second shot, although it was not the same confident dodging that she had seen the Wyvern do before. The first shot had tore open a large chunk of the torso of the exo and she could see sparks dancing around inside the newly opened wound. The third shot was enough to cause the Wyvern to boost away as fast as it could thrust.
Liliane turned to see what was the source of the weapons fire that had saved her hide. The JSS Nike, one of the Athena-class escorts, was fast approaching from the side. She had never been so glad to see a destroyer as she was now. The ECM field was still up so she gave the Nike a thumbs up from her Retaliator.
A quick glance to her sensor displays showed that the mysterious exo-armors were all bugging out. Her Wyvern opponent, finding herself faced with an undamaged and angry Nike, zigzagged its way back to the safety of the asteroid belt. The two other Brimstone exos had a head start, being chased away from their bombing runs on the Vigil by the Adonis. The Nike and the Adonis took up the chase. Both destroyers were better equipped to handle the exos now than Liliane was.
At least the worst of it was over.
Editors Note: This is a Jovian Chronicles serial piece by Grizzly Bryan Lee. You can read the previous part, Blowup/Blowout, or the next part here, Hot and Heavy.
| Jovian APAworks | Volume 1, Number 6 | May, 2001 |
Jovian Chronicles is © 2001, Dream Pod 9, Inc. All rights reserved. Jovian APAworks is not affiliated with Dream Pod 9 in any way. Submitted material remains the property of the creator.