Charles MacCreedy's Story

POOM! As his pod popped open, Charles gasped for air, clutching his throat in a futile attempt to open his airways. His body hadn't had time to drain itself before his pod opened, and the life sustaining fluid that filled his lungs and kept oxygen flowing through his blood was purging itself. He coughed up what felt like a gallon of the fluid, standing shakily to his feet, spitting out the rest, and wiping his mouth. He looked around at the carnage that surrounded him. Every pod was burst open, most bodies hung limp and lifeless, but a few lay reclined in their pods, lending an eerie calm to the whole scene.

"Holy shit... What the fuck happened here?" He stood, dumbfounded, for a few moments until he shook himself out of it. He decided the best thing to do would be to report to the bridge and see if anyone was still alive on this tub. However, he also decided that, should anything still be alive in here, especially something with malicious intent, he should get some weapons, and get his armor on. He touched the panels next to his pod and reached inside, pulling out the dark purple jumpsuit that served as his uniform while he was on duty. He zipped up and buckled his empty toolbelt around his waist. He kept most of his tools in his locker in the armory, so he tied off his boots and headed off in that direction.

After a short jog he reached the armory, it was hard to miss. It had the ESF logo emblazoned in big, bold letters right in the middle of the door. He punched in the passcode, and bent down to let the retinal scanner do its job.

"ACCESS GRANTED.", it chimed, and the door slid silently open.

The armory seemed to be in perfect order, but there were small indicators here and there that showed that there had been activity, and recent activity at that. Small warning alarms started firing in his head, but he ignored them. It was no use thinking about what might be. The only thing that mattered was the fact that he was completely defenseless. He walked along the lockers until he came to his own, down at the end of the line. He placed his palm on the bio scanner to unlock his locker, and flung it open. He took out his plasma cutter and placed it in its holster at his hip. He then started assembling his engineering suit. He pulled on the cuirass and there was a small hiss as the mag-locks clamped into place. It was bulky, but it fit like a glove, conforming itself to his body's shape and size. The rest of the armor unfurled itself from the cuirass, until he was fully decked out in his armor. The armor wasn't skin tight or all encompassing, but it was comfortable and afforded him excellent protection from small arms fire. There were vambraces, shoulder pauldrons, gauntlets, greaves, and sabatons. Finally, he depressed a small button on the collar of his cuirass and his helmet unfolded itself from the collar, enclosing his head. The whole thing had a relatively angular, geometric shape to it, and it was bulky, with lots of padding and plating to protect against accidents when he was working with larger, more dangerous repairs.

He was in complete darkness for a few seconds while his HUD booted up. The cameras whirred to life and he looked around, flicking through the different vision modes available to him: First IR, then night vision, then he brought up his glare shield, and finally his circuit finder. They all seemed to be in working order, so he booted his vitals next. His suit's integrity was uncompromised, which was good, and his own biometrics were in working order, except for his core temperature, which was dangerously low. He had been lucky to get into the warmth of the armory when he did. Next he booted up his datascape. A grid was superimposed over his vision while his suit absorbed the relevant data from the surrounding area. A few floating icons popped up as he looked through the environmental data, air pressure was 1.5 Earth atmospheres, and the temperature was low, nearly freezing. There were no toxins in the air, and there were no lifesigns in the immediate area. His calendar was off though, because if what it was telling him was correct, he had been in cryo for nearly five hundred years, which couldn't possibly have been right, his pod opened every few months for his shift in the maintainence rotation.

Charles looked around the armory, and there were weapons aplenty. He decided he should take as much as he could, because judging from his current situation, he probably wouldn't be coming back. He grabbed plenty of extra power cells for his plasma cutter. He then pulled a Lucius pattern shotgun off one of the walls, hooked a few magazines onto his belt for easy access, and filled a few pouches with extra shells for whenever he needed to refill his magazines. He went to the other wall and unlatched a Tycho pattern assault rifle. Pride of the ESF, it was a selective fire assault rifle, designed to fire charged bolts of superheated gas. It used the same principles as his plasma cutter except it was fully automatic, as opposed to single fire. The other marked difference was in the shape of the bolts, while his plasma cutter fired a line of directed plasma, a Tycho fired elliptical spheres of plasma at a devastating rate. The Tycho used two things in its operation, small, long-lasting power cells, and large gas cannisters. The power cells were good for a few thousand shots, but the gas cannisters were only good for about two hundred, and that was on its weakest power setting, if you wanted a real kick, they were good for about fifty. He grabbed about five power cells, and started filling his pouches and pockets with as many gas cannisters as he could. There was already a power cell in the weapon, so he slapped a gas clip into the recess, and it clicked into place. He slung the Lucius over his shoulder, brandished the Tycho, and set off out of the armory.

He had just reached the armory door when he heard something running in the vents above him. He immediately checked his lifesign sensor... There was nothing there... If he wasn't on edge before, he certainly was now.

He stalked through the cryo bay, scanning left and right with his rifle, clearly wired tight. A few pipes burst to his left and he wasted half a mag shooting at nothing. He stopped for a second, catching his breath, "Fuck me! I need to calm the fuck down... I need to get to the bridge... Alright, computer! Plot a course for the bridge. I want the fastest, most direct route available." A few seconds later, a blue, glowing line appeared in front of him and he raced off in the direction that it indicated. He continued on that route for awhile until he came to a grav lift. He turned on the lamps on his helmet and read the plate next to the grav-lift door. It read "Grav-Lift A", and it was the main grav-lift on the ship. It would take him directly to the bridge, but it seemed to be inoperable. The control panel under the "Grav-Lift A" plate was damaged, so he removed the panel and started fiddling with the wires. He pulled up a schematic for the control panel and began sodering the broken wires together to restore its power. After a few minutes, he had it all put back together. He replaced the panel into the wall and it lit up just like it was supposed to. He pressed the up button and the doors on the lift opened. The lights were on, and Charles scanned the lift to make sure that it was clear. He pressed the "Bridge" button on the inside control panel and a little microphone popped out.

A little voice came on over the speakers, "Voiceprint Identification Required."

Charles smacked a gauntleted palm against the side of his helmet. He clicked the button on his collar, and his helmet folded itself away. He leaned in and spoke into the mic, "Voiceprint Identifier, Humanity's Might. Confirm."

The voice came back on, "Voiceprint identifier confirmed, welcome back Engineer MacCreedy."

The doors slid closed and the lift whirred to life. Charles returned his helmet over his head, and backed himself to one of the corners of the lift.

The grav-lift rambled on past a few floors when it suddenly stopped. The lights blinked out, and the air became completely still. Charles heard something above him, coming down the elevator shaft. He needed to get this metal death-trap moving, and fast! He flicked his lamps on, and spotted the problem right away. The motors on the bottom of the lift were malfunctioning. He told his computer to scan the motors for the source of the malfunction, and they found a few burnt out wires that needed to be resoderred. He got down on his hands and knees and removed the floor panelling. He heard a heavy THUMP on the top of the lift and then heard something start scratching at the top panels of the lift, "Shit! Come on! Hurry up!" He found the right wires and immediately began soderring them together. Whatever was above him had started breaking through the ceiling panels and was trying to rip them away, "Come on! You stupid! Fucking! Wires!" It was inside the lift now, and it was right behind him when he finished with the final wires. He could feel it behind him now, and he didn't need the lights to know exactly where it was. He drew his plasma cutter and yelled at the top of his lungs as he turned to face whatever hellish creature was behind him. Suddenly the lights were on, and when he turned, there was nothing behind him. He scrambled to his feet, holding his plasma cutter in front of him, aiming at empty space. He was dumbfounded, as he looked at the ceiling of the lift, where the creature had ripped its way through, there was not even a scratch left to show that anything had even happened. Charles holstered his plasma cutter as the lift whirred back to life. He slumped down in the corner of the lift. He hit his collar to fold his helmet back. He was sweating profusely. He removed one of his gauntlets and wiped the sweat off of his forehead as he rested his head on the lift wall and closed his eyes, "What the fuck is happening to me..." He rested his eyes but did not fall asleep, trying to calm himself down as he rode the lift up through the hundreds of floors on his way to the bridge.

Ellis felt like drifting away to sleep at that moment. All the tension she had built up in her head after all that has happened thus far seemed to suddenly disappear when she rested her head on the wall. The looked up at the white fluorescent lights covering the ceiling, and her focus drifted. The lighting system here was made to show what time it was on Teresa, according to the sun's position in comparison to the home planet she once lived on. "I wonder what's happening back home now...?", she idly thought to herself. Pushing her tired body off of the wall, she raised her arms into the air in a stretch, and heard a sort of cracking noise as she did so. "...Have I really been asleep that long?", she painfully thought. Naturally athletic, it wasn't often she'd be able to make cracking noises with her stretches. Even her knuckles refused to make a sound when she pushed her fingers into her palms like some of the people in her high school used to do. The idea that her body was getting lazy on her disgusted her, which woke her up some. Ellis decided to try interacting with the computers again, and sat in another chair.

As she sat down, two floating white screens appeared on the left and right of the screen she sat before. Both displayed a welcoming message, then split off into separate tasks. The screen on her left opened a menu, and began listing a series of logical things to do with the computer she was sitting in front of along with other trivial stats and facts about what was going on around her. The screen floating at her left, however, began streaming thousands of lines full of different codes and action sequences related to whatever Ellis did with the computer. She smiled, knowing that her Breaching system was now at it's fullest working proficiency. It got to work almost immediately, entering billions of different codes with each passing second in attempt to crack the code to the computer. About 16 seconds passed before the left screen flashed green, reading her the passcode. "NEWTERESA... Can't say I'm surprised...", she said to herself, and then swiftly turned around to look at the room around her. The Datascape rendered in front of her, pasting triangular labels above the other computers in the room and circles above every object in the room which was irrelevant to what she was doing. A faded square floated where inactive parts of the Datascape existed, and would activate if she triggered some sort of mechanism. There were many of these squares. Snapping her fingers with a grin, all the triangular symbols she saw strobed green, and instantly all the computers in the room unlocked for her. "I just love that...", she said, basking in the old pleasure of being in control of everything she saw. It was something she was used to, and somehow was something she had never grown tired of. Ellis turned back around to face the computer screen.

Her chip lit up a HUD in her vision, but at the moment it was minimal. All she could see was her Breaching reticule for interacting with the Datascape, a chip and brain activity meter for measuring how much effort she was putting into the task at hand, and a respiratory monitor to warn her of when she needed to use her respirator. Seeing it lit yellow, she took the respirator from her side and pulled the elastic strap over the back of her head so the plastic mouth and nose covering was against her face. Looking at the screen in front of her, she seemed to be in front of the ship's navigational and maintenance logs. Since all data of this sort was sent to a main storage processor of some sort, all she had to do was send a digital worm to track where that processor was so she could read it's contents from where she sat. The ship didn't seem to have a firewall of any sort, which was a bit odd. Maybe the programmers didn't predict someone was going to hijack the ship? Ellis shrugged off the thought and sent her Breaching slaves to work. In her left eye, she saw a yellow line run below the computer she sat and and expand toward the center of the ship. This was a representation of how much she had Breached through, and it seemed to be going rather quickly. After a minute, she saw a large yellow cube light up a few floors below. A flashing green line began to run back the path the yellow line had taken, faster than before. Information was being run back up to her, and she felt her mind dim a bit as the streaming safeguards automatically came on. If it weren't for those, the upload of information to her mind would probably paralyze her body and cause her to die of... Well, there were many possible ways of dying when your body didn't respond to anything your brain said. She guessed a while ago that she would die of lack of blood flow first, and if not that, suffocation. She felt the uplink with the ship's information bay, and her facial expression darkened into a blank stare into empty space.

With her chip giving her the ability to read as fast as the computers around her could process, she saw many things in the ship's archives. At first it was all gibberish about who had eaten what on what day and a few reports on the ship's overall status. Setting in extra filters to find what she wanted, her chip began to sort through and search for information. She began to find very... Strange results. The first thing she found was a report on the ship's location, describing how the ship had stopped in a galaxy completely different from the one the colonists were supposed to land in, and the ship hasn't moved since. The second thing she saw was the in-depth statistics and information on some sort of "bio-bomb" the ship was carrying. Her eyes widened. There was a bomb on the ship? "No way...", she muttered to herself, and lashed her head around to stare into the floor. She focused, and an information worm quickly traveled throughout the ship, sending out Datascape pings as it slid through the wiring of the Arlington. As it traveled, she saw what looked like two open doors facing downward on the bottom of the ship, and what surely was the metal security clamps for holding a large bomb. It had been launched a long time ago, however, and that area of the ship still seemed to be powered down for some reason. Reading the stats on the bomb in a previous check up, she gasped in horror. Ellis turned back around to face her Datascape consols, confused and horrified, and rested her back against the chair's backrest as more information about the ship's activities flooded her mind. The Arlington wasn't just sent to colonize a planet. It was also sent to destroy it's inhabitants.

She couldn't move. She couldn't think. She couldn't understand. Detecting her confusion and lack of focus, the EVA-X disconnected itself from the ship's information database and waited her say something. Ellis gulped, and sat back up in her chair. Looking at her two consoles, she saw the one on the left had stopped feeding information, and the one on the right awaited a command. She turned to look at the room around her. Ellis felt numb both from emotional distress and from being so deep in the ship's aged database. The looked to the main screen, and saw the faint blue outline of a planet to the starboard side. The Datascape screens moved around so they would still be in front of her, and she scrolled up through the left screen to make sure she read everything right. They were dead. They were all. Dead. Every last one of them. Dead. The silence in the room weighed down on her shoulders as the minutes passed her by. "ARE YOU ALRIGHT, ELLIS?" Her chip read out in bold text right in front of her. In a lash of anger and vengeance, Ellis whipped out her Watch-Tower Sword, and with a madman's scream, slashed the text from in front of her as well as slicing straight through part of the railing leading up to the captain's seat. The rail fell into two in front of her, and clanged to the ground. Ellis fell to her knees with them in tears and cried her eyes out. Why had this happened? Why did the Teresa government want to do such a thing? While Ellis was on her knees, her chip had detected where she had looked and re-programmed the ship's main screen to look out of a starboard camera.

And there floated the sapphire atmosphere of Eopi, reflecting the blinding light of the local star.

Wiping the tears from her face, she calmed herself and stood. There wasn't any room to cry now, nor was there any reason. She managed to persuade herself into believing that it was meaningless to grieve for them, the Eopians, due to the fact that they were all 500 years gone. She had to focus on saving herself and everyone else who remained on the ship. She looked down to the sword in her right hand. The Watch-Tower Sword was her weapon of choice when combatting in close quarters, due to it's ability to absorb the kinetic energy from any impact the blade caught, transferring the impact into ultrasonic vibrations which would slice through most medium armors like a hot knife through butter. She hadn't used the weapon much, but the few times she did, it had saved her every time. The one thing it lacked, however, was a program for blocking fast moving objects like bullets and the like. She had tried creating a program for completing such a task, but has had no luck so far. It wasn't one of her top priorities back on Teresa, so she didn't work on it much. She was about to slide her sword away when she heard a yell from the main lift. "Come on! You stupid! Fucking! Wires!", someone yelled, then seemed to calm down after a few seconds. He must've only been a few floors below, and could probably hear her through the thin glass barriers. Ellis kneeled behind a raised floor of the bridge to protect herself and held her sword ready. She was on the opposite side of the room and couldn't do much with only a melee weapon, so it was a gamble. She hadn't heard the voice before from the security consoles, so she knew that this person was a potential hostile. Her chip knew what was happening, and switched her view of the Datascape into a more tactical one for Free Running. From the lift, he would only have a limited shooting angle since it opened into a hallway. Should whoever's in the lift start shooting, she could either take cover where she was or dive out to the right where the man wouldn't be able to shoot due to the hallway's one-person walkway, then move up from behind the consoles to meet him face to face with her sword. She didn't want to make any enemies, however. Ellis yelled just loud enough for whoever was in the lift to hear her. "Who goes there! Speak your name!", she yelled in question, a slight bit of anger still in her voice from just a few moments earlier.

Messer grabbed his wrist and jerked him around and put him in a simple arresting position. He had been in this exact position many times before. It was usually an enforcer of some sort on the other end. Sometimes, however, it was a girl named Jasmine who was fine with a smile and no last names. Though he couldn't focus on that at this moment, there was a large burly man with a dominating hold on him standing right behind him. "Oh, so you like it rough, eh Officer? I can dig it." Laiden said as sleazily as he could. He knew he was just making the man uncomfortable at the moment, and he was enjoying it. It's the little things that keep you going in a crisis. Messer then shoved him away. Laiden turned around and crossed his arms.

"You sound like you've already resigned yourself to death Mr. Jones. That's sad, but it might come in handy. You say its been 500 years since the launch; I don't know if I believe you or not. To honest Mr. Jones, I'm not sure if you are even in your right mind. I do know that there is someone in the bridge that opened all those locks, whether its this girl you say you saw or not. That means my next destination is the bridge, however as an Enforcer of the ESF, it is my duty to protect all registered colonists aboard the Arlington. So, if you want to come with me, I cannot refuse. I don't know you or your morals Mr. Jones, but so far your words have left me concerned for your safety. I sincerely hope you do not take any self-destructive actions, and if you do, please be considerate enough to let me continue fighting for my life."

Laiden closed his eyes and his eyebrows began to twitch. Who the hell did this guy think he was? He surely was assuming a shit load about him and throwing his assumptions in his face. Laiden thought he wasn't much of a people person, but this guy took the cake. Laiden usually made a point to not give three shits about what anybody said, but this guy was pushing his buttons. As if he would be as cowardly and weak to end his own life just because a painful death was certain. If he said one more goddamn condescending, superior sounding thing, he was going to shove his blade up his ass and out through his spine. He decided to not respond to him and just follow him over to the grav lift.

He swore he heard blaster fire in the distance and he stopped. Messer had heard it to, they both exchanged glances. It sounded again, coming from the main grav lift. They looked at it, then back at each other. Messer moved his gun into a defensive position and Laiden unhooked Right from it's holster. They slowly made their way to either side of the grav lift door. Laiden nodded at Messer and he hit the call button. Just as he did it, a voice sounded off to the side.“My sister and I are looking to get to the main Bridge, Officer. Can you help us?” Messer immediately flipped around and raised their guns toward the source of the voice. Messer spun around on one knee and raised his rifle to his shoulder.

When the two saw it was just two girls, they both lowered their weapons. Messer breathed a sigh of relief and raised his blast shield to address them. Laiden's blank expression had yet to change and remained completely neutral. "You should be more cautious when approaching armed men, ma'am. We are heading to the bridge as we speak, but their could be something dangerous in this lift. So please stand back." Laiden simply rolled his eyes. Was this guy a walking regulation book or what? Though before he went back to the lift, he did a bit of a double take at the girl in front of the shorter one. He looked her up and down, then looked back at the lift.

They were re-positioned on either side of the lift door, weapons at the ready. The numbers got closer and closer to their floor. Messer put his blast shield back down and gave his Luscious a good cock. The lift finally reached their floor. The lift dinged and the doors slid open. They both swung into the lift and aimed at the being inside. inside was a man in some odd armor in the feeble position. He looked freaked out. They then both noticed the ESF logo on his uniform. "False alarm. It's just some ESF guy." Laiden said in his neutral tone. He re-holstered his guns, then bent down in front of him adn stared at him. The dude didn't seem to know where he is. "Hey..." The guy didn't seem to hear him. Laiden then smacked him across the face. "Hey, who the fuck are you?"

"False alarm. It's just some ESF guy."

Messer stepped into the lift behind Jones. He instantly recognized the gear of an Engineer Corpsman, which adorned the body of a man in obvious distress.

"Hey..."

Albrecht felt his breath catch in his throat as he recognized the face of the man. Then, Jones smacked the man clean in the face.

"Hey, who the fuck are you?"

Messer grabbed Jones by the shoulder and pulled him away from the Engineer gruffly. He examined the Corpsman, and found that he was fully conscious and awake, but suffering from severe shock. Messer lifted the visor on his helmet and turned the man's head with his hand until he was making eye-contact with him.

"Engineer MacCreedy, this is ESF Enforcer Albrecht Messer." He stated firmly.

He was amazed that out of all the people who were dead, Charles was one of the survivors. Engineer MacCreedy was one of the few people Messer had bothered associating with aboard the Arlington since launch. They had been assigned to the same MSPG (Maintenance and Security Patrol Group), and had become just about as close to friends as two people who only spoke to each other every few months could. Right now though, it looked like Charles had been to Hell and back.

"I need you get a grip Charles. What happened to you?"

Messer glanced back at the two young women standing at the entrance to the lift. Things were developing much faster than he had expected. He had no idea who these two were, and whether or not they would be helpful or trouble. He did know one thing though, he would feel a lot better with the Corpsman by his side in this rapidly growing group.

Charles' eyes popped open when he heard a distinctly female voice yell out to the lift. He was about to stand when the lift stopped, and the doors slid open, revealing a lanky, white haired man with a bionic eye. He wasn't really put off by the eye, but he was put off when he was smacked across the face.

"Hey, what the f-"

At that moment he was grabbed by an ESF officer, Albrecht Messer, his squad leader. "Hey! Take it easy Mess! I'm fine! I was just resting. You would've known that if you guys had given me a chance to speak!" He held his hand to his face, nursing the welt that was already forming where the white haired man had smacked him.

"Anyways, you seem to have acrrued quite the entourage sir.", he stood up shakily, using the wall of the lift to brace himself, "Right, so what's the plan sir? I was headed up to the bridge. I figured if anyone is left on this tub, the bridge would be the best place to search from." He slung his weapons across his shoulders and brought his hand up to his collar, pressing the button to bring his helmet back over his head and across his face, [color=#BF0000]"So if you guys want to tag along hop on into the lift. If not, you're kinda blocking the doors." He meant it as a joke of course, but immediately after they left his mouth, he knew that his words had come off as much more disrespectful than he had even come close to intending.

"So if you guys want to tag along hop on into the lift. If not, you're kinda blocking the doors."

Messer couldn't help but smile at the remark, but he could tell something was seriously wrong with Charles. He wasn't the kind to suddenly take a nap inside of a grav-lift, especially after seeing what he must have seen upon awakening from cryo-sleep. Whatever it was though, it would have to wait until Messer could get this handful of ragtags to a secure location. Then again, how would he know what was secure and what wasn't?

"Try to stay awake then MacCreedy, until told otherwise you and me are still on-duty. If you fall asleep on patrol, you'll have a court-martial on your hands."

Messer stood up and turned to face the three colonists. He summed them up quickly. Jones would be an asset as long as a sense of urgency or stress could be kept up within the group, but the moment things calmed down he could be trouble. He knew next to nothing about the two women. The older one appeared to have herself under-control and calm, he could tell she had some sort of training for being calm under serious circumstances. It wasn't military training though, perhaps medical? That would could be extremely helpful, he made a mental note to inquire about it to her directly. On the other hand, the younger female looked like she could have a meltdown at any moment. Her fingers and hands twitched violently, and she had a confused and scared look in her eyes.

He tried his best to give her a reassuring smile, she seemed to be the only person left alive aboard the Arlington with a completely normal reaction to whatever catastrophe had befallen the ship. The two females seemed related somehow, with similar bone structure and facial construction. They held themselves in a similar manner and stood close to each other as well, which meant they obviously knew each other.

"You two." He said, gesturing towards the two women. "You're welcome to accompany us. However, we have no way of knowing who or what has taken up residence in the Bridge. Normally, I would have recommended that you waited here with Mr. Jones while Engineer MacCreedy and I cleared the Bridge. However, normally the Bridge would not have to be cleared....

Messer stepped to the side of the lift and gestured towards the back wall of the cylindrical room.

"So, would you please back us up from the rear?" He requested.

As a show of good faith, he drew his compact service pistol and handed it grip first towards the woman with still hands.

"Just don't shoot me in the back."

Jayn had stayed close behind Nora as they approached the two men by the lift. Normally she would have argued, but the walk to the lift had left her with very few nerves that weren’t ready to just kick the nearest wall and tell everything in the ship coming back online to do so quietly.

“My sister and I are looking to get to the main Bridge, Officer. Can you help us?” Taking a glance from behind Nora, she couldn’t help but wonder if these two really could help them. It was a relief to find at least one security officer, but the two looked like they had just gotten finished with a not to buddy-buddy conversation. But before she could think much more about them, the two men had spun around and raised their weapons at the sisters. Automatically, Jayn reached for Nora and grabbed the back of her shirt in a death grip; feet shifting to drop low with her other hand on the handle of her knife. The chip locked her eyes onto the firearms, hearing enhancing for the slightest sound of the initial trigger click, eyes waiting for the slightest twitch of the hand; all ready to yank her sister down with her. Thankfully after realizing they were no threat, the strangers relaxed; allowing her to blink and come out of the tense position she had been subconsciously ordered to take. "You should be more cautious when approaching armed men, ma'am. We are heading to the bridge as we speak, but there could be something dangerous in this lift. So please stand back." Well, thank heavens these men aren’t trigger happy. Now if whatever’s in the lift was the same.

“Sorry.” She whispered to Nora, realizing just how tight she had yanked the back of her sister’s tank; “At least I didn’t tackle you.” Still whispering so the others wouldn’t over hear, Jayn shakily smoothed the wrinkles out of the back of Nora’s shirt while glancing at the other men. The officer seemed to be well armed and armored, as well as taking the situation calmly and effectively; though it was an entirely different calm compared to Nora. As for the white haired man, she couldn’t help but glance over him for more weapons; how did a civilian manage to get on here with a gun, then yet two! The best she could manage was her knife… Wait a second… did he just… did this guy just give her sister a once over!

Hand freezing in the process of straightening the shirt they soon found themselves relocated at her sides, twitching with the want to grab her knife. Instead Jayn settled for glaring at the man as he turned towards the lift, cocking his gun; the sound causing her to grab the blade’s handle. She would just have to worry about keeping him away from her sister later… or her sister away from him, come to think of it.

As the lift opened to reveal a single occupant, it was a relief to discover he was another ESF Enforcer to join their little gathering of survivors. “Hey sis, he doesn’t look too good, does he?” The newest stranger looked like he was coming back to alright, and said he was alright; but his face still looked as if he had a rather strained experience. Then again whose didn’t after waking up to this hell?

"You two. You're welcome to accompany us. However, we have no way of knowing who or what has taken up residence in the Bridge. Normally, I would have recommended that you waited here with Mr. Jones while Engineer MacCreedy and I cleared the Bridge. However, normally the Bridge would not have to be cleared....So, would you please back us up from the rear?" The first officer requested, before handing his pistol towards Nora. “Just don't shoot me in the back."

“Just don’t piss her off.” Jayn dead-panned with a complete seriousness. There was no doubt Nora had terrible bedside manners, but she also had no issues with landing a person in her own infirmary if pushed. “We have to go to the bridge regardless of anything. Our baby brother’s missing.” Voice still tightening at the thought of what had occurred in their parents’ cryo room, Jayn shook her head as if to shake the memory. There were people here who could help them, and this man was showing that he was willing to trust them as well. “Guess you should at least know who your backup is,” she said with a small smile, “I’m Jayn, and this is my sister Nora. She’s a medic.” No sense in saying what she was, unless they wanted her to play a lullaby and pray it put someone asleep, Nora’s was much more beneficial to them than she herself was; and these men needed to know who to go to for assistance.

Walking over towards the lift, the possible threat of the bridge allowed her chip to register the need for her to calm down; hands finally stilling as she nodded towards the other men shyly and stepped onto the lift and pulled out her knife from its place at her side. “Nora?” she left the question hanging, not really sure if she was asking her sister if she was ready, did she think it was a good idea to go, should they be trusting these men, or maybe all of the above. Either way only one thing stood out that bothered her about everyone in the group. How the hell did she end with only a knife with everyone else armed and ready?! Oh well, at least she was pretty confident in her chip keeping her as helpful as it could. Not to mention the terror of Nora with a trigger.

"You should be more cautious when approaching armed men ma'am." The rest of the chivalrous sounding security officer's rambling was lost on her besides the part that they were indeed heading towards the bridge. She rolled her eyes in unity with the white haired civilian as the officer scooted her and her sister away from the lift. Honestly what other way did he expect her to approach him? Slide a message in a bottle to him across the floor to warn him before she made her appearance? Still, she obeyed and took a few steps back, even a couple more for Jayn's sake. The current death hold she had on her clothes hadn't gone unnoticed and Nora wanted to try and avoid having her younger sibling stress rip the only clothing she had available off of her body. "Sorry" Her sister whispered to her. "At least I didn't tackle you." Nora couldn't help the slight smirk that tugged at her mouth but quickly disappeared. "It's alright. Just remember to breathe deeply. I doubt you falling off the edge and shooting everything that moves will cause these men to want to help us."

The security officer and the civilian positioned themselves in front of the lift, ready for whatever might be inside. While Nora's calm disposition didn't change, she did place one arm out to partially block her sister from any danger that might leap from within. It quickly turned out to be a false alarm and the only thing that was inside was a deeply distressed man. His heart and blood pressure were elevated, a normal, but distressing response to what was currently happening. The white haired man took no time in grabbing the distressed man and slapping him across the face. While that wasn't the best approach, Nora found it entertaining and yet again she let a smirk flash over her face. "Hey sis, he doesn't look too good, does he?" She flicked her eyes back towards her sister for a moment, then back towards the group of men before answering. "No, he'll be fine though. I see no reason to expend my energy and resources to intervene simply because he can't get it together." The security officer then stepped forward, pulled the white haired man away and began speaking to the distressed gentleman with some form of familiarity; they must know each other. "Engineer MacCreedy, this is ESF Enforcer Albrecht Messer." Well, at least she knew two of the three men's names now.

Nora stayed back from the group with her sister, watching as Messer and MacCreedy traded a few more words before finally the officer addressed them. "You two." Nora raised a brow towards him to show she was listening. "You're welcome to accompany us. However, we have no way of knowing who or what has taken up residence in the Bridge. Normally, I would have recommended that you waited here with Mr. Jones while Engineer MacCreedy and I cleared the Bridge. However, normally the Bridge would not have to be cleared..." Jones. That was the white haired man's name. The officer then stepped forward and pressed a gun into Nora's hands. She looked down at it with no particular surprise; she'd shot before, she wasn't the best, but she knew enough. "Just don't shoot me in the back." Nora's eyes darted up to his at that comment, perhaps it was meant as a jest towards bad aim or perhaps it was meant as mistrust, either way she didn't appreciate it. "Just don't piss her off." Nora's eyes flicked back to her sister and she chuckled. "I won't shoot you in the back Officer Messer. That would only create more work for myself." Her sister made the introductions which Nora was grateful for; she wasn't fond of social interactions. In fact, Jayn took it farther than that and surprised her by walking away and stepping onto the lift. "Nora?" Nora sighed a heavy breath, noting that she could see it from the cold and once again silently cursed the fact that she had only worn a fucking sleeveless shirt into the pod. She adjusted the pack on her back, shifted the gun in her hands and stepped forward, taking a place in the back of the lift near Jayn and silently enjoying the body warmth. It was too close for comfort with men she didn't know, especially too close to her sister but if they arrived on the Bridge and found themselves to be apparently outnumbered by enemies or unable to access the computers....This was for Aiden and if worse came to worse then they would be fine because they weren't dependent on these men, you could never be dependent on others in times of crisis. Always rely on yourself first.

Albrecht Messer did his best to control his breathing as the lift ascended. Engineer MacCreedy stood ready next to him, Mr. Jones was behind them, and cramped into the back wall were the sisters. The small space was incredibly alive with emotions. He could almost taste the anticipation in the air. No one spoke. He could feel sweat beginning to bead on his forehead, his palms were becoming wet inside his gloves. There was something about the atmosphere in that cramped lift, it reminded him of the way he had felt during his very first mission. Somehow, he felt like a fresh fish again, anxious and fidgety. If it was simply the emotions of the people around him affecting him, or after-effects from cryosleep, he couldn't be sure. But the thought of what could be waiting for them in the Bridge shook him to his core.

He steeled his mind against such thoughts; he was an Enforcer for god's sake, he would hold the line and die with his Lucius roaring if it came to that. Memories of the countless, faceless drugged gang-bangers and would-be terrorists whose lives he had cut short fluttered through his mind. They said that you remembered the face of every man you killed in combat. Maybe that was just a soldier thing, because he couldn't recall any faces. All he could recall was the feeling of pure, righteous and lawful satisfaction he felt after their deaths. He smiled under his ballistics mask. It didn't matter if the Devil himself was reclining in the captains' chair when those doors opened, he would take at least one 8 gauge blast before he stand up from his throne.

"No one is to fire unless I give the order, or if you feel yourself to be personally threatened." He stated as the lift abruptly halted.

The soft arrival tone dinged, Messer and MacCreedy glanced at each other, then raise their weapons. The doors slid open, but what stood behind them was not the Devil. Instead, a blatantly pink haired girl who looked young enough to still be taking Pre-Calculus stood nonchalantly in front of the lift. A beautiful Japanese form blade grasped in her delicate hand. Honestly, how these people managed to get all these unregistered weapons onto the Arlington baffled him. In any other situation, it would have been comical; a teenaged girl with a sword facing down two armored Enforcers carrying a plasma rifle and a shotgun, a hedonistic tramp with a hand-held cannon, a twitchy girl with a knife and a clinically calm woman with a handgun. But at the moment, it wasn't funny at all.

For a moment, no one moved a muscle. Then, Messer realized that if they didn't get off the lift soon, the doors would close again automatically. Any respect this girl might have for two armored ESF Enforcers would go down the drain if they just stood there and let the doors close without saying anything at all. So he took a step forward into the Bridge, keeping the barrel of his shotgun trained on the girl. It was an unnatural thing to do, but he wasn't about to get killed because he felt bad about possibly scaring a teenager.

"So you're our little lock-smith? Who are you Colonist?"

In any other situation, Messer would have demanded that she drop her weapon and spill her guts to him or be slapped with all sorts of reprimands. Tampering with Expeditionary equipment, unauthorized weapons possession, unauthorized Bridge entry, unauthorized weapon IN the Bridge (a real doozey), there was enough there to put her in the Brig for the rest of the expedition. In fact, there was enough going against her to warrant a summary execution right on the spot. However, given what was going on, Albrecht really couldn't blame her. What he had said was enough.

Ellis's grip tightened on her blade as the grav lift's doors slid open. She could tell how tense she was merely by the feeling of her grip on the blade. It was too rigid, almost shaking as the colonists stepped out of the lift. Unsurprisingly, it appeared that the ESF Officer was leading the group of survivors at the moment. She breathed out, letting her grip falter just enough to allow her to gain full control over the blade, and focused on each colonist one at a time. Her chip got straight to work at the subconscious command, activating her Epsilon-4 program and scanning everything in front of Ellis to determine possible actions for her to take with the situation at hand. She didn't want to take too much time on scanning the group, knowing that her chip was still recovering, so she set the Epsilon-4 program to quick scan. The ESF Officer, Messer, was the only one in the group without any chip implants, making him hard for the EVA-X to scan. It was easily able to recognize the flakgun in his hands, however, and gauged a hit radius. The Officer had been smart and decided to already have it pointed straight in at Ellis, and she knew full well that her Watch-Tower Sword couldn't block the blast from a flak shell. Focusing behind the Officer, she saw two sisters at the back of the lift; one with an obviously glitched chip and a jumpy reaction program, the other seemed all too calm with a handgun. Near the middle stood Laiden, holding an oversized Condor cannon that could probably blow a hole through a block of steel, and next to him was an Engineer wearing a full body suit and holding a plasma rifle. Upon seeing the Engineer, she made a slight frown and tilted her head in confusion. Why did he seem so familiar for some reason?

"So you're our little lock-smith? Who are you, Colonist?", Messer said. Ellis blinked twice, turning her Epsilon-4 program off and quickly skimming the results over on the Datascape. They were all survivors, and were not of any obvious threat. Checking her respiratory status and seeing it still in the green, she took a deep breath and lowered her sword a bit more. "Do I really look like I could nab you from all the way over here, Officer? Lower your gun, please..." She said, referring to the fact that she was strictly close range with only her on-hand blade. "My name's Ellis Allven, one of the... Survivors... Of this voyage.", her voice faltered toward the end, finding the title "colonist" to not be an appropriate ranking anymore. She spun her blade around quickly and slid it back into it's casing, and looked toward the main screen. When Ellis turned, her second blade was now visible from the angle she was standing at. Looking at Eopi once more, she felt the burning rage inside of her try to rise up once more. She restrained herself with a slight shiver. "I was able to get a good idea on what happened... But before you ask... You'll want to look at what's outside.", she said. Ellis walked over to another computer and opened a file containing a summary of what happened. Her chip notified Ellis that she was starting to get hungry, but she ignored the warning and moved on.

Opening the summary she had created, she brought it onto the datascape and read it from the air in front of her. "As you all know, we launched from Teresa at the year 2132 aboard the colony ship Arlington. The journey was originally supposed to last about 50 years, bringing us to pass Eopi and into another galaxy to settle on planet Rivina. Obviously..." She paused, and motioned to the live feed of Eopi on the main screen. "...That didn't happen. The year, according to the Arlington, is now about 2632. Five hundred years have passed since our launch from Teresa." She let the urgency of the situation set in. "Five hundred years. Which means, for at least four hundred and fifty years, the Arlington, along with it's passengers, have floated here with it's engines dead and the ship itself stuck in the orbit of Eopi. And there's no easy way for me to put this, but... The Arlington's real purpose was to be the carrier of a special bomb used to destroy all the inhabitants of Eopi without damaging the planet itself." Ellis had to pause and step up her FocUs program to keep herself from having another breakdown. "The details of the bomb are... Unclear. But whatever it was made to do... It worked. The ship's system has long ago confirmed the destruction of the Eopian race..." She trailed off, but her words were deathly clear. She scrolled far down the summary, skipping the unimportant parts, then throwing the summary out of her way entirely for anyone else to read should they be interested. "We need to find a way off the Arlington as soon as possible. The ship is falling apart around us with every passing minute, and I'm afraid for the well being of the Arlington's oxygen supply.", she finished, and noticing her respiration status flashing yellow, she brought her respirator up and over her head, and began to breathe through it again. She looked to the group, and waited for a response.

"Try to stay awake then MacCreedy, until told otherwise you and me are still on-duty. If you fall asleep on patrol, you'll have a court-martial on your hands.", Messer said to Charles, who replied with a quick "Yes sir" under his breath. He was still shaken from whatever the heck happened in the lift and almost being shot by his fellow Officer, and steadied his breath as the grav lift loaded its passengers for the ride up. He looked over the group again and let out another self-calming sigh. Aside from the smoker in the group, everyone seemed friendly enough, at least with Messer taking charge. Looking up through the glass roof of the lift, he saw the curved ramp along the roof of the shaft signifying the topmost floor of the ship: the Bridge. Looking back down through the thicker glass floor below, he saw a very, very long drop into darkness. The idea of falling through the floor hadn't exactly frightened him until now, and he was even more frightened on the fact of how old the ship was. Circuits all around have probably been frayed and destroyed by time as the hull of the ship has, and at this point, shit could hit the fan anytime. As the lift approached the Bridge, he readied his Tycho rifle for whatever was ahead, and aimed around Messer as not to hit him should some kind of terrorist start shooting back. Terrorist, he thought to himself, what am I thinking? He shook his head a bit to wake up, and took aim at the lift doors.

"No one is to fire unless I give the order, or if you feel yourself to be personally threatened.", Messer ordered, and Charles remembered to take his finger off the trigger. Pointing his finger forward and pressed against the trigger guard, he nodded in conformation as the lift suddenly halted. Glancing to Messer, who had glanced back to make sure he was ready, they got ready to fire at the unknown within. The doors slid open, and Charles thought he saw Messer in his peripheral vision take a step forward to either assume point or just to keep the lift doors from closing. Focusing back to what was in front of him, Charles almost immediately tilted his gun lower at what he saw was in the room. All that stood in the middle of the room was a teenage girl with hair dyed pink, holding some sort of Japanese sword. He noticed that the girl was slowly looking them over as they entered, standing her ground and unmoving as if she were a statue. She then focused her gaze directly on Charles, and he felt a tingling in his head. It felt very familiar for some reason, the almost unnoticeable feeling of having his mind probed for information. He realized that it must've been his chip being Breached, but it hadn't set off any alarms to him on what was happening. Gazing into the Datascape in front of him and looking at his chip's overall status, his chip firewall showed no signs of being Breached... At least, not by unknown sources.

The girl spoke, locking her eyes with Messer's, tilting her blade a bit to the side. "Do I really look like I could nab you from all the way over here, Officer? Lower your gun, please..." Charles lowered his gun a few seconds after, and looked the girl over again. Pink hair and matching pink eyes wasn't a very common occurrence, and Charles couldn't see any signs of her hair being dyed recently. In fact, hair dye was tested in cryofreeze and was said to turn deadly during the defrosting process, so it was obvious that her natural hair color was in fact pink. As he searched his memories, he remembered someone very close who had pink hair like her's. "My name's Ellis Allven, one of the... Survivors... Of this voyage.", she said, and Charles nearly dropped his gun at the name. It couldn't have been her, the same person who he had spent countless days with in the hospital? Charles now lowered his gun completely, slinging it to his side, and used his chip to help him search his memories. The name Ellis Allven appeared across many pages of his memory dating back to when he was just six years old. Is this really how long I've known this girl for?, he thought to himself as he looked through his past. As he read page after page at speeds far impossible from someone without a chip, he found out that his father and her father knew each other since college, and have worked together ever since. His chip compiled a summary of all that he remembered.

When Ellis was born six months after Charles was born, it was found that she had some sort of rare disease and was to be killed immediately to prevent its spread. Both fathers were able to prevent her from being slaughtered at birth, but they couldn't stop the testing they did on her. As far as his memory knew, all but one of the tests they did on her wouldn't have undesirable long-term effects. The one that did affect her was a test of her mental capacity with and without a chip, and as it turned out, Ellis's father had to spend millions finding a chip that would work fast enough for Ellis to use. Normally, chips were factory built to fit the general IQ and mental processing speeds for most people around the world. Ellis was different, which was easily proven by the many chips she went through and blew out throughout the first two years of her life. It was a miracle that the blow outs didn't kill her, even more so that she didn't suffer mental scarring as a result. When her father finally found a chip that would work for her, scientists were highly skeptical of the choice he made, which was never made public. The disease left Ellis with a nearly collapsed rib cage and a shredded pair of lungs to breathe with, and lived in the ER for over five years until they healed with the help of expert medical workers and students from the nearby Mountainview College. Charles was first introduced to Ellis when he was six, however he'd never seen her awake until half a year later. She was constantly breathing through a respirator, so it was hard for her to talk when he was able to get out of school to spend time with her. At 10, Ellis took her first breath of fresh air while sitting in a wheelchair outside the hospital, and a year later, was able to go to school. Through the will of both fathers, they went to the same school from the sixth grade onward, but Ellis and Charles only ever had PE together for some reason. It was probably because Ellis was so knowledgeable already with the chip she had that she didn't need another five or six classes, but Charles never really found out for sure. All Ellis could do until she was a sophomore was sit in the bleachers or do stretches while the other students either ran circles or played soccer or something. Some students would make fun of her, others would stand by her side no matter what happened. As she reached 11th grade at age 16, she was finally cleared for physical activities, and she went right to work at getting her strength up. Despite the worries and warnings from her doctors, Ellis was able to turn into the athlete her mother always dreamed of her being within the coarse of her 11th grade year.

He realized that he had his Datascape feed set to public, and he quickly pulled himself out of his memories and set his feed back to private. By now, the entire group knew that Charles knew Ellis, but at this distance, Ellis wouldn't have known about the flashback he had. At least, I hope not., he thought to himself. As he looked up from his downward gaze, he saw that Ellis was finishing up some sort of explanation of going on, and had thankfully not been blasted to bits by Messer or Laiden. Everyone had already exited the lift, and with a sigh, Charles followed. Looking up at the main screen to see what was outside, he saw Eopi on the starboard side of the ship. Ellis spoke again, and Charles looked to her as she spoke. "We need to find a way off the Arlington as soon as possible. The ship is falling apart around us with every passing minute, and I'm afraid for the well being of the Arlington's oxygen supply.", she said before pulling a compact respirator over her mouth. Charles looked her over, seeing how much she's aged in the past few years, then looked to a blank computer screen to look himself over in the reflection. "Man, the changes we go through...", Charles said to himself as he saw the mask of the Engineering suit gaze back at him, it's expression unreadable to Charles or anyone else.

Giving that speech felt awkward, Ellis had to admit, and at first there was only silence. Silence, save for one of the ESF officers who had murmured to himself. The other officer looked back to the one who muttered, then back to Ellis before speaking again. "I see. It would be in our best interest to get off the Arlington as soon as possible", he said and lowered flak gun, leading the group into the Bridge with an air of leadership. Messer and the two sisters began to look around, however before anyone knew it, Laiden had managed to disappear through one of the staircases leading back down to where they had come from. As Ellis went to check another computer, Messer spoke up again. "So you mean to tell us that the Arlington is some sort of doomsday bomb carrier?", he said. Ellis brought up a schematic of the ship on the computer she had gone to and displayed photos of the opened bomb doors on the underside of the ship, directing Messer to see. She removed her respirator so she could speak. "That is what I just said, is it not?", she replied, backing up so Messer could scroll through information on the screen. One of the two sisters spoke up as Ellis sat in the Captain's chair, pulling up information on the hangar bay. They DID need to get off the Arlington, after all, and they'd need a landing craft to do just that. The Captain's Datascape would supply her with every last detail of each and every ship in the bay.

As status logs came and went, the results began to look dimmer and dimmer. She found out at first that the fuel for the landing crafts was taken directly from the Arlington's fuel supply, and over time, the fuel had been burned away by both idling engines and damaged reserves leaking fuel. There were only a few emergency ships that were currently loaded with fuel, however those ships had also been damaged by time and age to a point where they wouldn't make it to the surface. Collapsed hangar bays and launch tubes were also a problem, leaving only three available escape craft. Ellis brought up the ship's automated repair crew and ordered them to prepare one of the escape craft for takeoff, using parts from other damaged ships to fortify the craft for landfall. After doing this, she downloaded an emergency flight manual to her EVA-X which would run her through takeoff and flight procedures if and when she would fly the landing craft to Eopi with the others.

Speaking of the others, Ellis got up from the chair she sat in and looked around. Messer was talking to the sisters, and the other Officer was watching the main view screen displaying Eopi. She looked over a few other screens, and with another hunger warning from her EVA-X pestering her, she decided that getting something to eat before landfall would be a good idea. "I'm going to get something to eat. A ship's being prepped in Hangar F-4 to get off the ship and will be ready in an hour. I'll see you all there." she said, displaying a map on the Datascape using her chip, then went to the grav lift and made her way to the mess hall. A few minutes later, she was eating a slice of heated french bread she had found frozen in the ship's food banks, enjoying her first meal in five hundred years. And it was delicious. Who knew bread could taste so good? Letting the butter melt in her mouth, she swallowed the rest of her food and took a few more heated slices with her to the grav lift. The grav lift began descending toward the hangar bay as she finished her bread, but halfway down it suddenly stopped, causing Ellis to fall forward a bit as it stopped. Muttering a curse, she looked up to the lift's ceiling and told the EVA-X to breach the lift's gravity stabilizer to fix the problem. "The ship's in even worse state than I thought...", she said to herself before a sharp budge from the lift startled her and forced her forward again. The doors openned to the hangar bay, and Ellis sighed with relief as she exited. "Whew... Thought I'd drop all the way down for a sec-", she said, turning around to see the lift had disappeared after the doors closed, a loud crash moments later forcing her to grip her hands out of fear of what could have happened to her.

Ellis turned from the lift after a minute of standing and walked her way to the ship which was being prepped for liftoff. It was an 8-person Swan class carrier craft normally used for transport of space miner personal, but was augmented for usage in planetary landfall. Opening the back door and climbing in, she saw that the interior was similar to that of a VIP jet back on Teresa. She walked down the middle isle, past the inwardly faced chairs and information screens, and sat in the pilots seat in the cockpit. There was fifteen minutes until liftoff, but she wanted to make sure that everything was alright with the ship before takeoff. The Swan was equipped with a Datascape-only piloting system for the main pilot and a manual system for the co-pilot to be enabled if the Datascape should fail out. The EVA-X began to sort through screens and run engine tests for propulsion and rotation while Ellis ordered the repair drones to fuel and power her ship. As they did this, her chip reported back positive results from the engines, and began to pressurize the fuel for takeoff. The drones connected refueling tubes to the Swan, and she noticed the fuel gauge only go up to 55% before stopping. Irritated with the lack of fuel available, she ordered the drones to put the refueling equipment away and to finalize repair operations. Looking in front of her, she saw the ship HUD begin to format itself and plot the path she would drive the Swan to in order to line up with the launch tube. The shield indicator appeared on the side of the HUD, notifying her that the drones have installed a Targe anti-atmosphere shield which the ship would activate upon landfall operations. The drones put themselves away after another minute, and the launch door blinked red in front of her.

Everything was ready for liftoff. She would only need to wait for the others. Little did she know that Charles would be the only one to make it to the Swan in time.