I applied the medgun on Auto. It was best to let it do its thing in this case. I wasn’t going to play doctor right now. This man could be in serious condition and the medgun not be giving me the whole story. I placed the medgun against the port on Jobbe’s wrist. It went off with a bit of a small vibration in my hand. I, otherwise, noticed nothing. Space has no sound, there is no medium for it to travel in. You could scream all you wanted and no one would hear you. Not to mention, the whole vacuum thing. Kinda makes screaming difficult.
The Mole entered communications range and I called out immediately over an open channel, “MEDIC! I need medical! Man down! I repeat! Man down!” The ship appeared to be fine, from what I could tell. I was suddenly very relieved. This could have ended very, very differently; if Rixton were a different kind of man. If some of my Organization had been in charge, for example. They would’ve just left us. Granted, they’d be dead if I survived, but they’d still do it.
As though it were on standby, a tiny blue dot in the distance began to move. Then, I blinked. That was all the time it took for the Anvil Pisces C8R Rescue, and its bright-ass floodlights, to be all I could see. Even though it was barely big enough to hold us, the medical bed would at least be a welcome place for Jobbes.
The pilot expertly maneuvered the aft hatch in front of us. Never was I happier to see the cluttered inside of a ship. His face was obscured behind the tinted glass of his Zeus Exploration Suit. He began to move, his hand being offered out. His voice breaking the relative silence of my helmet, “Haynes here. I’ve got them. Jobbes is injured. The Good Captain has him quite safely secured.” His helmet canted toward me, “Good work Cap’n. Let’s get you both back with Captain Rixton.”
I braced my right foot onto the asteroid below me, with Jobbes firmly in my arms, and I pushed off. It wasn’t a long trip into the back of the medical ship, but it left my heart racing. This had definitively cured my boredom for the day. The left foot of my Novikov suit made contact with the deck plating inside the ship. Suddenly, gravity! I felt the weight of the full grown man in my arms. I struggled for a moment before laying him gently down upon the Tier 3 Medical Bed. Now to pass on the news of our unwelcome visitors to Rixton. I’d hoped he’d noticed already.
The trip, and anxiety filled zero gravity transfer, back to the Mole were uneventful. Didn’t stop my heart from doing a few flips when we disembarked from the Pisces. The ladder up to the habitation area was the hardest part. My muscles felt like dead weight with every step. Finally, the door opened, to reveal people coming and going. It wasn’t quite over yet, though.
I looked back in my memory, going over the ships in the distance. I was trying to remember anything I could see that stood out. They had been super far off. I was hoping that we were underway, and that Rixton had detected them. I was about to find out.
My helmet came off with a hiss and a click. I laid it down upon the breakroom table, and then followed it with my rear to a seat. I took a few deep breaths, grabbed my trusty ParaMed gun, and scanned myself again. Notta. I’d barely even been scratched. The back of my helmet said otherwise. It was scraped to hell and back. I loaded some Roxaphen into the MedGun and gave myself a dose. It worked to keep my muscles from locking up. I’d hit the Tier 1 Medical Bed back at the station. If we made it back.
Rixton barged into the breakroom from the bridge. His eyes wildly searched the room. They finally settled on me. Stress washed over his face, “You made it back. How’s Jobbes?” He looked every bit the worried Captain that he was right now. His brown eyes strained with stress, and the worry lines in his aged face were now plainly visible.
I raised my hand to pause him, taking a slow deep breath to steady myself, before responding, “He’s fine. Just a mild concussion. Should be back on his feet after a visit to Kel-to. Though, honestly, I think the Pisces will do the job.” I’d gotten through the sentence as the dizziness subsided. The pain was at least muted.
The tension that washed out of his face, likely could have been large enough to have its own hailing frequency. He nodded and took a deep breath of his own before responding, “I gotta say, Reznik. That was a sight to behold. You didn’t even hesitate. Jobbes is likely going to be very grateful. I’m ashamed. That’s the second accident in two weeks. If you hadn’t been there? I shudder to think what could’ve happened. Especially if the rumors I’ve heard about regens are true.”
I paused as I was about to respond. Regens? Something wrong at the biolabs? That was a new one. I almost forgot about the incoming visitors with that comment. However, the sight of Jobbes’ face in my mind quickly brought it back, “Captain Rixton, as much as I would love to have you blow entire sectors worth of Grazer shit up my ass, we’ve got incoming.”
He tilted his head as though confused, “Isiah, run a scan.” His voice seemed to be pointed toward the nearby wall. The speaker there had apparently been on the entire time. Probably waiting for my response. Good thing I hadn’t decided to say anything bad.
An older man’s voice crackled forth from the device, “Three contacts. Their shields are up. Flying Slicer colors! What the hell are they doing out here?!” The entire ship had a stillness wash over it. Slicers were the bane of Pyro. What were they doing here, indeed was the question. Likely, nothing good. The terms “Good” and “Slicer” were generally like most forms of double dosing in painkillers. Contraindicated. You didn’t use them together.
I stood, expecting my battered joints to protest. When they didn’t, thank you Roxaphen, I took off bolting for the door to the bridge. Rixton had apparently had the same thought as me. Well… Of a sort. Rixton may have been a shady businessman, but he was no pirate.
I dodged past the ladder to the Main Laser Turret, hitting the doors at a dead run. They opened just in time for me to turn sideways, skirting barely through the crack. I slammed my ass, Novikov and all, into the Co-Pilot seat. I brought the Remote Turret online and began moving power from the mining lasers to shields. We might need them more, right now.
Rixton blinked at my expediency; having years of military training had made me effective, at the very least. I had missed it to some degree. “Weapons online, Remote Turret facing 040. Bringing around to 078, awaiting orders,” my voice barked out with confidence.
He nodded, “If they get too close, let them taste the Attritions.” His voice was dripping with malice. He stared out into space, watching the little twinkling dots in the distance get closer. If it wasn’t so dangerous, it would almost be beautiful. The three ships moving in practiced unison. They had been a team for a while. Had to. That kind of precision doesn’t come from haphazard teams, thrown together at a moment’s notice.
I looked down at the scanners, reading the information starting to come up on the ships. They were closing in, after all, the scanners could get a clearer image. The closer they got, the more we could see. After what seemed like an eternity, finally, the ship types and armaments were displayed, “Pilot, Scan: Mark One, Buccaneer, Shields are up, Weapons seem to be hot. Scanners say ‘Distortion Repeaters’. Not sure on the type, scans are inconclusive from the remote turret. Recommend to come about 163 Mark 109 and use the full suite.”
The old man at the Pilot’s Station froze. His eyes locked in panic, pupils wide, staring at the radar. Shit. I sprung from my seat, without thinking, and knocked him from his station. We had mere minutes. No time for panic. I grabbed the controls. It wasn’t my Corsair, in ways it was even more responsive. This was apparent when I barely touched the controls and she lurched. “Oh, FUCK! Oh, I’m gonna love this thing, I can already tell,” I yelled out as I slammed the throttle forward. The Mole responded immediately. The old man had been downright gentle! This thing was fast!
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