Randolph Lalonde - Fragments

Ashley looked at Larry as though seeing him for the first time. His condescending tone was insulting, yes, but she couldn’t help but be almost certain in her suspicions. He was lying to her. Anything he had told her, his promises, they could all be as substantial as smoke.

“Well, all the emergency systems are doing what they’re supposed to,” he said with a nod.

She had never been more nervous in her life as he watched him shut down the conference room table. He didn’t even look like he noticed her staring at him. “What’s so important about us?” she asked quietly. Zoe buried her nose in her hair and squeezed her neck. The toddler could tell something was going on.

“Ashley, I told you, there’s no time,” Larry said irritably as he turned towards her.

Just as she’d seen in numerous gun slingers movies, she jerked her gun from its holster and tried to pull the trigger.

“What the hell are you doing?” Larry shouted, rushing her over the table.

Ashley pressed her thumb against the safety and pulled the trigger again. Larry was caught right at the front of the disabling tangle of surging material. The rear half of the conference room was nothing but stretched strands of the stuff, and Larry hung unconscious in the middle.

Zoe looked at the mess, at first astonished, then, to Ashley’s surprise, she giggled.

“Fine, don’t tell me,” Ashley said, cringing at the sound of her own voice. The tears she held back rolled over her cheeks as she reactivated the safety and shoved the weapon back into its holster. Guilt at what she had done was strangely absent as she wiped her face and composed herself. She picked up the last duffel bag and strode to the door. It opened automatically at her approach. A pair of liberated slaves looked over her shoulder wide eyed and she said; “Don’t ask,” in a far more dire tone than intended.

Without hesitation she dropped her duffel bag, turned on her heel and hit the close and lock icons on the door panel. “Bye,” said Zoe in a sweet sing song squeak as the conference room doors closed.

Oz had won the crew an hour for the crew to gather their things and clear out of the Triton. He passed the word using Crewcast and then cleared out the few things he had in his quarters. He checked Jake’s quarters, his ready room, picking up a few things there and packed as many important looking articles from Ayan’s smaller quarters then made his way out of the command section. All their possessions amounted to two duffel bags and a medium backpack, all of which rested at his feet with travel tags he barely remembered spraying on with his command and control unit. He’d done it so many times during his Freeground Military career that it was reflex.

The main hangar was filled with crew members getting ready to leave. Most of them helped load survival gear, personal items and anything else they could manage to cram into a storage unit. Some of the crates were short enough to sit on, while the largest were three meters tall. Transports had started latching on to the rear airlocks, and at first the pilots were surprised to see more crates and bags than people. After seeing the irritated, lost and weary faces of their passengers, they abandoned any efforts at informing them that personnel were their priority. “This is a rescue mission,” one was overheard saying.

“This is an eviction,” shouted an incensed crew member. That drew attention, and few of the dozens of Triton crew who turned their heads cared about who said it. They regarded the pilot, who quickly realized that he could be in real trouble if he said or did the wrong thing. Wisely, he quietly returned to the airlock, and took refuge in his cockpit. After all, most of the remaining Triton crew were armed and fresh from a fight they universally felt should have won them the ship. All of it happened as Oz supervised from the sidelines. He, like most of the crew, was in shock. They had narrowly won the day, but an entirely different set of circumstances from a completely different entity were forcing them to surrender. As he checked to see if Ayan or Jacob were in communications range again, he asked himself what he’d do if he were in command of a law abiding fleet and ran across a crew running a stolen ship. He wouldn’t dare say the answer aloud, but it nested in his consciousness like an infected sore. The law says this ship should have been turned in as soon as it ran into any large law enforcement or military organization. If it came into the Freeground Docks, it would have been cleared of crew and reported to Sol Defence. If they didn’t pick it up after three years, it would either get absorbed by the military, decommissioned, or stripped of arms and put up for auction. He shook his head and watched as one of the airlocks closed and the transport detached, filled with cargo and crew. He was told they’d be holding position near the Triton while everyone finished loading. Then where will we go?

The constant, slight changes in air pressure resulted in a stirring that felt like a swirling wind. It felt strange across the stubble forming on the top of Oz’s head. The smell of ozone, a sure sign of a heavy fire fight, was carried through the air. Surprisingly, most of the other evidence of the violence that had taken place in the main hangar had been removed. The three ruined fighters, damaged equipment and dead crewmen had all been cleared away. The scorch marks on the deck and bulkheads were superficial. Most of them could be wiped away thanks to the resistant surfaces.

Assistant Deck Chief Paula directed the maelstrom with the assistance of the remaining deck crew. Oz tried to picture everything on its way out onto transports on the ground. He could see that the short Deck Chief had a method. She was setting all the packed crates into a certain order, and made sure a couple of her people would stay with each transport to carry her instructions out when they arrived. It was his officer training that kept him from getting involved with the minutia, but it was difficult not to when the alternative was supervision, which sometimes allowed for enough time to think about the long range implications of what was going on.

The arrival of Frost and the gunnery crew on the main hangar was a welcome surprise. They came down over the aft side of the ship carrying bulk containers. Oz watched as they came up one of the secondary elevators leading to the servicing hangar. There were over thirty loading suits left, and Frost wore the taller, armed encounter suit. The machine was pitted and scarred by projectile and heat weaponry, the cost of Frost unrelentingly leading the charge on the Enforcer. It carried heavy cargo containers in both arms, and limped, just like Frost did thanks to his prosthetic leg.

His people had done their part in collecting everything they could carry. Oz’s scanning systems informed him that Frost alone carried over four and a half tons of cargo, the rest carried half as much or more each in cargo and ammunition cases. A crowd of lesser armoured crew from the upper decks elevated into the main hangar next, they carried even more equipment between them, and all of it was from engineering stores. Parts, smaller fabrication machines, portable power units, and other semi-portable systems were carried off to the side in haste.

“Feels wrong looting our own ship, lad,” Frost said to him over a private channel.

“I know. I’ll do everything I can so we’re loading all this back up before you can climb out of that suit.”

“Aye.”

“How are things going on the upper decks?”

“Commander Everin’s gang are almost finished getting all the footlockers registered to living crew together, they should be down the shaft in a minute. Then they’re heading back up to clear weapons lockers and survival gear out of storage. He plans on working until the last minute. There’s not going to be much to look at when he’s finished. He should be down here soon. Said his people don’t need much help on the ransack.”