Randolph Lalonde - Triton – 01

“Are there any other rescue ships enroute?” Stephanie asked.

“The TRF Peter is the closest. They're two days away at top speed.”

Stephanie brought up a more detailed schematic of gunnery deck A, it was the largest space available close to the outer hull, stretching most of the length and width of the ship. There were four main mooring points consisting of large, round docking doors with heavy support clamps. There were also several emergency airlocks that could accommodate smaller ships. The open space was over four hundred meters by six hundred meters, and would normally be crewed by a minimum of two hundred gunners, mechanics and loaders. As it was, it was completely empty. The turrets were secured well above the deck, the moorings were locked down and the airlocks were all sealed. Policing the area if too many passengers were brought onboard at a time would be a monumental task. “Okay, we'll take on a group with one team while the other team secures a section of berthing. Once that group is situated we can take on another,” She said with finality. “I won't open an airlock until we're ready, so don't tractor in more ships while we have one docked.”

Frost nodded, looking over the tractor system controls. The beam system used artificial gravity and magnetic fields to move other ships into position for docking. The aft dorsal beam system was the second largest, made for hauling large objects or dragging the Triton into position for docking with much larger stations that were made to work with the technology. “Aye, I'll hold for your word, Ma'am.”

“All right, select your teams and get up there. Tell me if there are any surprises,” Captain Valance ordered while checking on main engineering systems.

Stephanie used the Command and Control Arm Unit he had loaned her to select a team of nine for herself and another two teams of five for doing sweeps through the berths and clearing them for passengers, sent everyone their orders, then signed off the system and detached the device from her arm.

“That one's yours,” Captain Valance told her with a smile. “Congratulations, First Officer.”

“Thank you sir,” She said, clamping it back on. It adjusted to her much smaller arm automatically. “I'll tell you as soon as we're ready for the first load.”

The nearest express car to the upper gunnery deck was made to haul large machinery up, down and across the ship. It reminded her of the large ore laden freight cars that used to muck up the shafts in the main complexes of the hastily built colony buildings she went to school in as a child. The large car in the Triton was much cleaner, however, despite the dents and deep scratches from heavy equipment that had been moved long before they had come aboard. Stephanie had stopped in at her quarters to pick up her assault rifle and extra impact armour just in case there was real trouble. There shouldn't be, but you never knew what you were getting when you were on a rescue.

The rest of her team stood in the fifteen by ten meter bulk express car as the interior of the ship whipped by. The windows and transparent sections of the express tunnel afforded them a view of the empty, darkened sections of the ship, and she was secretly in awe at how large it was, how little of it was active and explored. The darkened hallways and large intersections that were visible only long enough for a glimpse made the ship seem dead, hollow, abandoned. As the car started slowing down it occurred to her that her brief tour only took her up and across fourteen decks out of twenty one.

There hadn't been any time to open the interior sections, while half of them were sleeping the other half were trying to learn from the existing crew how to operate the systems and where the most critical points aboard were. Sadly, the existing crew were barely trained, and though everyone behind her had experience with crowd control on their records, Stephanie didn't know a single one of them. Ramirez and Price had taken the Samson boarding and maintenance teams to help with handling the arrivals of the smaller escape shuttles in the lower hangars. The fact that she was First Officer had been trumped by the reality that she had been asleep when all of this started.

She could have pulled members of their teams into her own, but she didn't want to leave them short handed. “Ramirez, Price,” she addressed through the subdermal communicator in her jaw.

“Good morning Steph,” Ramirez answered.

“Yes Stephanie?” Price acknowledged.

“How is the retrieval going down there?”

“We're at eighty percent capacity. In about two hours we won't have room for any more vessels,” Price replied.

“Okay, as people finish up down there, send them to gunnery deck A. I'll need as many eyes and hands as I can get. I'll be taking people on a couple hundred at a time or more.”

“Aye, I'll send Douglas and Julie up now. They just finished securing one of the last shuttles,” Ramirez responded. “How many are we taking on?”

“The berth Captain marked for this can take up to fifteen hundred. We're filling up.”

“My goodness. We've taken in a few short of seven hundred,” Price commented. “It felt like a million.”

“Are they all logged on the manifest?”

“We have checked them all in, though it was difficult.”

“Good, we want to make sure we track everyone as best as we can. Be safe down there,” Stephanie said.

“You too, I'll join you with my team once we're finished here. Price can pick up security detail with his team.”

“I will, if that fits your plan,” Price asked as much as confirmed.

“That'll be fine, just make sure everyone gets situated safely and try to catch any disagreements early,” Stephanie reinforced.

The express freight car came to a gentle stop and the front doors opened. Stephanie walked out onto the gunnery deck and the lights started coming on overhead. As the space was illuminated her jaw dropped. The deck was marked where hatches leading down into the ship could be opened, where ammunition materializers ejected cartridges for loading into one of the many quad gunnery turrets built into the ceiling and where many other exits, machines and storage compartments, recycling processors could be accessed. Everything was stored either in the high ceiling overhead or in the deck until it was needed. There was a slightly curved open space stretching hundreds of meters.

They had come out right in the middle of the gunnery deck and all of them looked around at the massive open space. The rail cannon turrets, dozens and dozens of them on G Deck A, hung down from the thickly armoured hull, leaving two and a half meters underneath for someone to walk under. Massive cartridge slots waited for loading crews to fill them with ammunition, the small, armoured doors between them led to the gunner's seat inside, all of the posts were empty except for a few that had been automated.

To her left she could see someone had forgotten to put away a loader's suit. It looked like heavy infantry armour with hard plating and an exoskeletal frame, but she knew there were modifications so someone could climb in and start picking up ammunition cartridges that weighed upward of a ton each, loading them like they were toys. The extra armour plating was there just in case there was an explosion, other accident or a boarding incursion.

During combat the whole deck was decompressed, everyone wore vacsuits. It made recovering gunners from damaged turrets easier, and allowed everyone else to keep working if the hull was breached. Gunners always had a high mortality rate, but ships with sections of their hulls dedicated to rail cannons were always far more deadly, firing hundreds, sometimes thousands of projectiles per second in many different directions at once.