Nova Llar- Training Days Read online

  Turning back to face the room Clara was shocked to see Charles surrounded by a group all brandishing pipes or hard objects. He had done a good job of clearing the room, but Clara could see some significant damage to his arms and legs. Even these bodies could only take so much punishment. She rushed over and surprised one of the people facing away from her. Grabbing the pipe from the woman's hand, Clara shoved her into the people to their right. As they fell to the ground Clara moved in on the people to the left. Forcing them back towards the door to the room. Charles didn't seem to be doing much at this point. Now that the group was cleared around him Clara could see a metal object handing out of the side of his abdomen. It may have been another pipe or some sort of knife, she couldn't tell. Whatever it was it looked to be affecting his mobility and he was struggling to defend himself. Thinking quickly Clara grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the group. Positioning herself between him and them. The group's demeanour had changed. They looked to be more confident now that they had seen they could do damage. Clara knew she couldn't stop them and defend Charles successfully. Swinging the pipe she had claimed earlier she made contact with one of their assailants. He recoiled in pain with a broken arm. The rest of the group pulled back at the development. Then she had an idea.

  Spinning around to face away from the door she pulled her arm back holding the pipe. With all the force the LF unit could deliver. She threw the pipe at the outer wall. These stations are designed to survive impacts. From the outside. A relatively small object, travelling at high velocity from the inside was not something they were designed to withstand. The pipe punched a 30-centimetre hold in the hull and kept on going. The red flashing lights changed to blue. The air immediately started rushing out of the hole. As Clara turned back to the attackers, their expressions had turned to complete terror. All of them trying to run and get out of the room. The two that were closest to the breach were pulled towards it and squeezed out like putty. The human body is not designed to be compressed like that. It was not a pretty sight. All by one of the others made it through the door before it closed. The remaining member slowly collapsed to the floor as the air left the room. After only 32 seconds the only living things in the command centre were Clara and Charles.

  Chapter 32

  Progressing swiftly along the outer skin of the Station, Colonel Jones, his team and the remaining Station AIs we quickly approaching the orbital. When they received the message from Clara, they were on the edge of the dampening field on the edge of Module 3. The sausage link shape of the station meant they were in the dip leading to the connector between the modules. Fortunately, their soles were magnetized and could stick to the outer skin without issue, this combined with the lack of gravity allowed them to move easily across the surface without worrying too much about their orientation. The message had been short, “Field extended. Move now.” It was difficult to tell if there was an urgency to the message or simply efficiency, Gareth hoped for the latter as they approached the end of module 4. On the other side of the dip for the module link was their destination. Moving down towards the module connector they temporarily lost side of the orbital. If things had gone wrong in the command centre it was entirely possible the orbital could be released from the station to prevent their escape, being out of sight of it, even for a short while was unsettling. As Gareth concentrated on getting to their destination, they started up the sloping side of module 5. Gareth was relieved the orbital was still docked as he crested the top edge of the module.

  Pushing on they managed to reach the external door very quickly and Gareth input his code to open it. Since the orbital was not fully integrated with the station's systems it wouldn't show the airlock activation, meaning they could come and go as they pleased from this point. The airlock could only fit 3 of them in at a time so the Colonel remained outside until the last group. Once onboard the craft he instructed the station AIs to take seats and strap in, they could be leaving in a hurry. Rushing through the cabin to the cockpit he patched into the communications array of the orbital itself. This would be strong enough to cut through the dampening field and the link to the station should allow internal communications to get to them. “Professor we are onboard. Please proceed to the docking point to join us aboard the orbital.” There was no reply. “Clara this is Colonel Jones. Please confirm receipt of the last message.” Still no reply. Thinking quickly, he pulled up the sensor display and tried to lock onto any LF units not currently on the orbital itself. There were no active units aboard the station, although there were plenty of components and materials that could have been the remains of one. “Damn it.” he shouted, banging his fist on the metal panelling next to the control consoles. Looking down he realised he hadn't controlled his hit and the panel was buckles and warped in the shape of his fist. As the Gareth continued to look down at the damage someone walked into the cockpit behind him. “Any update from Clara?” Joseph said. Gareth had lost people before, but they had been soldiers. Every one of them had signed up knowing what was in store. These people, this crew were not soldiers. They were scientists and civilians who had wanted to travel to another world and build a new home for humanity. Joseph was clearly concerned at the lack of response. “Has something gone wrong Colonel? I volunteer to go and get Clara and Charles to bring them back here.” Joseph said, standing to attention. Gareth just looked around at him and seeing the look of determination on his face he knew he had to get it together and take charge or someone was going to do something stupid. “Stand down Mr Taylor. There is nothing to rescue.” Joseph faltered, looking Gareth in the eye. “I’ve run a full scan of the interior of the station and there are no active LF signatures aboard now.” There was a long pause before Joseph replied. “What about outside the station?”

  As Clara held onto Charles’ body, she couldn’t help but marvel at the sight before her. Looking out into space with nothing separating you from the void was a truly immense experience, although it was one, she would have liked to have taken voluntarily. After she had ruptured the hull and the atmosphere had been vented the door to the command centre had sealed itself to prevent the whole module from losing pressure. This meant they were trapped in the room with no way out, save for the relatively small hole she had made in the hull. Most of the lighter objects in the room had been pulled out in the first few seconds. Most of the items that remained were bolted to the floor so using any of those to widen the hole was probably out of the question. Charles still wasn’t moving well and the pipe, as she discovered once the room was devoid of life, was jammed in very tight and removing it could cause more damage. Deciding to search the rest of the room for something she could use to expand the hole Clara left Charles and proceeded to go through some of the cabinets around the edge of the room.

  She found a few personal belongings, but nothing substantial enough to widen the hole. Then as luck would have it, she found a bag of tools, most likely left by a maintenance technician, and inside were some items she could use to rip up one of the chairs. As they were all heavy looking and made of metal Clara assumed, they would provide enough force to widen the hole. As she surveyed the room, she was instantly drawn to the commander’s chair. Not only was it slightly larger but she would get a certain satisfaction out of knowing his chair was floating around the earth somewhere when this was over. She quickly set to work removing the floor fixings and hoped it wasn’t too heavy for her to lift. In short order, she had released it from the floor and was lifting it upwards with considerable effort. She started to worry she had bitten off more than she could chew when suddenly something gave, and the chair flew up into the air hitting the ceiling 5 meters up. As Clara ducked out of the way she noticed a thick set of cables hanging out of the floor where the chair once was. She hadn’t thought to remove the electronic connections. Admonishing herself as she collected the chair, she turned and moved over to the hold in the hull. Jamming the backrest section of the chair into it as hard as she could, Clara began to twist and push the base to try and widen the h
ole. It was working as the hole had increased in size by just under a centimetre, “This is going to take forever.” Clara complained to herself. Stepping away from the situation for a second, she considered her options. She could continue to make little bits of progress or she could find a way to open the hole quickly. Leaving the chair hanging in the hole she again started searching the room. After a few minutes, she found a fire extinguisher in the safety cupboard and figured she might be able to use it to hit the chair rather than pushing and twisting it. As she walked back over towards the hole in the wall, she had another idea. Fire extinguishers were pressurised containers and the explosive force of one in a vacuum should be able to open the hole, the trick is in getting it to explode. Clara jammed the extinguisher into the hole against the chair and scanned it for weaknesses she could exploit. Identifying a small point of weakness, she moved away and found something strong and light enough to be thrown with significant force as to rupture the casing. A broken chair arm that had been sheered off looked to be her best bet.

  Pulling Charles back behind one of the larger consoles, Clara stood and took aim with the chair arm. Pulling it back she hoped she would be fast enough to get out of the way of the shrapnel that would come off the fire extinguisher. Throwing the arm with all the force she could muster she dropped down behind the console with Charles. Seconds later there was a vibration through the floor that indicated something had happened, however exactly what was not clear. Clara looked around the edge of the console and found herself staring out at a blue backdrop, with clouds and specs of green suspended in it. The outside of the remaining hole was covered in the CO2 emitted in the explosion, hiding any jagged edges in what could easily have been a blanket of snow. The hole itself was just over a meter and a half wide at its widest point and 70 centimetres at the narrowest. Easily big enough for them to fit through. Without waiting around, Clara lifted Charles and made for the hole. Pushing him out first it was an odd sensation to see him float away in a straight line and not falling. Pushing out after him she grabbed him, holding his body to her chest. Finally, she activated the emergency booster reserves in her back, bringing them to a stop, and activated her homing beacon. It was a long shot the orbital would think to look for them out here. Besides the dampening field may be affecting its sensors rendering their signal invisible. All she could do was wait and hope.

  Chapter 33

  “Outside the station?” the Colonel repeated, not quite understanding at first. “Yes.” Joseph replied. “If they realised they couldn’t get back to the orbital they may have just tried to get out of the station. Let’s try a scan of the space around all the airlocks they could have made it to by now.” As Joseph lean in over the Colonel and started inputting the parameters, Gareth suddenly snapped back into the room. Allowing Joseph to complete the recalibration and activate the scan, he sat there and observed the results coming in. With each scan returning no results his hope was fading fast. Once the scan completed with no results Gareth knew it had been foolish to hope. The odds of them surviving to even the nearest airlock were slim and Gareth just had to accept he had already lost two members of his team. He was so wrapped up in his own thoughts, it wasn’t until Joseph shook his shoulder, pointing at the scan outputs that he was back in the cockpit. There on the screen, just over 400 meters from the outer skin of the station were two LF units, one with very weak readings. “There.” Joseph said. “They must have gotten off and pushed away. One of them looks to be in trouble, we need to get there now.” Acting purely instinctively Gareth ran his hands over the controls to bring the vessel online. Confirming everything was ready to go he sent the command to disengage the docking clamps, however, they stayed firmly in place. “The station has locked the docking clamps.” He exclaimed to Joseph. “Get back there and tell everyone to hold on. I’m going to try pulling us away, it may rip the orbital apart though.” Joseph just patted him on the shoulder and left the cockpit. Gareth grabbed the controls firmly, counting down from 10 in his head to give Joseph enough time to relay the message. When he got to zero, he increased the effect of the gravity engines to their maximum output whilst pulling away from the station. He also fired all of the emergency thrusters on the underside of the vessel to try and pull them away. As the orbital started groaning and shrieking under the strain Gareth started to wonder if it would have been a better idea to go outside and try to manually disconnect the clamps. Just before he went to power down and do just that the vessel Jarred up and to the right with an almighty shredding sound coming from somewhere beneath him. Looking at the ship readouts it showed a 6% drop in mass on the left side of the vessel but a 2% increase on the right. There wasn’t time to wonder about this however as Gareth swing the ship around and pointed it towards the locations of his crew. Advancing cautiously, he saw them out of the cockpit. One had a flashing red light on its shoulder, drawing his attention. The other looked like it had taken a beating and may even be non-functional. Flipping the ship, he opened the outer airlock door and using the sensors enveloped Clara and Charles. One he had confirmation they were safely inside he closed the door, pointed the ship towards the earth and started the journey down.

  Even in an emergency, you are limited by physics. The size and shape of the orbitals dictate the maximum safe speed to enter the earth's atmosphere. Gareth was gripping the controls so tight he could feel the indentation he was making. Willing the vessel to go faster as it descended straight towards the U.E.S.C Atlantic base, the readouts on the wall still said 16 minutes until touchdown and he still didn’t know who was injured or how bad it was. As the orbital descended through the atmosphere Gareth had to make constant corrections to the controls to keep it on course. Whatever damage had been done to the outside of the vessel was causing the autopilot to struggle in the atmosphere. Looking out of the front viewscreen Gareth could see the base growing larger. His visual display had marked out the best landing spot for getting the damaged LF units to the repair bays quickly. At 60 meters the craft indicated the landing mechanism on the left and side of the ship wasn’t there, Gareth didn’t care and continued to set the ship down. The right strut contacted the ground and the ship listed to the left, the sound of metal creaking and scratching against the floor rang through the ship like the bells of a great cathedral. Once they were finally settled Gareth jumped out of the seat and ran back to assess the situation.

  In the cargo section, most of the LF units from the station remained, however some along with his crew had already disembarked with the damaged units to head to the repair facility. He followed quickly hoping whichever or Clara or Charles had been damaged would be alright. Emerging from the side of the vessel we ran to the repair facility just a few hundred meters away. Ahead of him, he could see his crew just entering the building. “They must have jumped just before he landed.” Gareth thought to himself as he ran towards the multi-storey glass building. Upon approaching the building, he slowed his gate as much as he could bring himself to do. This facility was well manned and moving at speed he could easily injure someone else, the last thing he wanted right now. The main entrance led into the large foyer with chairs, large pot plants and soft lighting to bring about an air of calm. The main reception desk lay in the centre of the room and directly behind it was the corridor that led to the repair facilities. Skirting around the desk Gareth made for the main suite dedicated to his mission. This was the most likely place they would take those that had been injured. Stopping at the door he composed himself and strode purposefully into the room towards the technician’s station. “I need a full rundown of the units that were just brought in here. Assessments of the damage, the occupants and estimated time for completed repairs.” Gareth barked at the man on the desk. The man behind the desk quickly scanned him with his eyes, picking up the rank and insignia on his right arm he brought up a screen and started scrolling through it. “Yes, Colonel. We have received 7 damaged units. 2 simply had some cosmetic damage. 4 had suffered previous damage that had been inadequately repaired and
1 was has suffered a significant amount of damage to its power cores and was barely functional when brought in. One of the lightly damaged units looks to have been occupied by Professor Clara Forest. All other units were manned by AI’s as far as we can tell, the main processor for the heavily damaged AI was to faint to register.” Gareth just stood there staring at the man behind the counter. The unknown unit would be Charles. At 23 he was by far the youngest member of the expedition team and in truth was only here because of Professor Forest. Gareth had known something like this may happen, but it didn’t make it easy to deal with. “I also requested an estimated time of repair.” He managed to say after some time. “Most of the units will be repaired within the hour. The heavily damaged one is being assessed. The damaged it suffered may have been too severe to repair, the engineers will do what they can.” Just then Gareth’s crew walked out of one of the doors off to the side of the room. Upon seeing Gareth, they hurried over to him to update him on what they knew. “Charles is in with the engineers now Colonel.” Joseph began. “They are trying to stabilise his power systems and restore the functionality in his main processor. If they can get it back up to 16%, they can transfer his consciousness out and into his body.” Meihui continued. “If there is anything left.” Mitaire mumbled quietly. The impact was swift and Mitaire had crashed into the wall before anyone really registered it. Clara had delivered the blow with extreme force and the shattered wall stood as a testament to the fact. “DON’T YOU SAY THAT.” She shouted at Mitaire. “HE DID EVERYTHING HE COULD TO HELP US. HE SAVED ALL OF US.” She shouted that anger clear on her face. Just as quickly, it softened and was replaced by sorrow “He saved me.” Clara practically whispered, her voice laboured by the emotion of it all. She dropped to her knees on the floor with her head in her hands. If these bodies could cry Gareth knew she would be. Taking one knee next to her he placed his hand on her shoulder.