All That Glitters Ch. 17

The men started shooting at the larger electrical and hydraulic motors in the bay. Several people standing near the machines were caught in the backlash. Some were injured, but others went down and did not move. Heather didn't know if they were unconscious or dead.

The strangers looked at her and her two teammates. They brought their arms up and fired on the machine they had been working on. One of her teammates was in direct line of fire to the machine and was cut in half by the plasma bolt. The machine exploded and Heather felt fire along her stomach. She fell, bleeding heavily from her injuries.

Five Marines came into the bay and started shooting at the pirates. They caught them by surprise and killed or incapacitated six of the ten almost immediately. The pirates turned and fired back, but the Marines Combat EVA gear was much better than the older models the pirates used.

They Marines were able to get off another exchange of fire on the pirates, taking out the last of them. Miners in EVA suits came into the bay and immediately went to assist the injured. Two of the Marines remained in the bay, while the remainder went to assist their fellow Marines in the bay next door. The battle there was far less one sided and Marines were being injured in the exchange.

Maintenance Bay Fourteen, Liramor-23

Hailey Brent and her fellow worker Samantha Gamine were working on some non-essential equipment when they were informed by bay control that intruders were in the next bay and causing damage and injuring staff. All staff were advised to go to shelters immediately.

Samantha started to move but Hailey stopped her.

"The airlock is right beside that of Bay Thirteen," Hailey told her. "We might be running right into them."

"What should we do?" Samantha asked.

"We can jump into that container," Hailey advised.

"That's a vacuum container," Samantha told her. "If we go in there, we will be starved for air."

Vacuum containers were designed to be set at a given pressure regardless of the outside atmosphere. Things like, fruits, meats, and other perishable items, had to be kept at specific pressure or spoil rather spectacularly.

There were several air bottles in a crate nearby. Hailey checked them and found them full. The quickly dumped the bottles into the container. The empty container did not look very comfortable.

The two looked around and found some blankets and other odd items to help make their container more comfortable. The crawled into it and closed it form inside, just in time, as the intruders entered the bay.

The assailants closed the airlock and moved to the main bay door. Using the override, they forced the bay doors open. Things not locked down drifted out into space, including a vacuum container with two people on board.

Hospital, Liramor-23

Heyya was working to save a patient that had been brought into her med bay. The woman had multiple injuries across her abdomen, including burns from an explosion. Heyya worked quickly to stop the bleeding and get Biofilm over the exposed injuries, enough to give her more time to work on the patient.

Remarkably, the woman was still conscious. "I'm Dr. Heyya. I have stopped the immediate bleeding, though I will have to do surgery shortly to get to the internal bleeding you have.

"Do you know your name?" she asked her patient.

"Heather, Heather Shelling," she confirmed.

"Do you know what day it is, Heather?"

"It's Wednesday, it's the beginning of my rotation. That always starts on a Wednesday," she replied.

"Do you remember what happened," Heyya asked her patient.

"Someone came into our area and started shooting. They were shooting the electrical and hydraulic boxes. They just exploded. I was right beside one. They didn't care, they just shot the damn boxes. People were injured and killed by those beasts. Then, the Marines came," Heather informed her with tears in her eyes.

"OK, I'm going to have to prep you for surgery. The bio-scanners are showing multiple pieces of metal inside of your body and at least three places of internal bleeding. If we do not stop those, you could go into severe shock and die.

"You are my first priority, so you get to go first into surgery. OK?" she told her, trying to be reassuring.

Heather nodded, her skin greying even as they spoke. Not a good sign to Dr. Heyya.

Just then, there was a commotion outside the door. The door smashed open and two men in combat EVA suits came into the med bay.

"You the doctor?" one asked.

"I'm Dr. Heyya," she replied. "This is my medical team," she indicated the others in the room. And these two are my patience. They need immediate care, or they will both die."

"Well, missy, I really don't care. But you have just volunteered yourself and your team to come along with me," the talker said. "You can cooperate and live or refuse and die. It's that simple," he said with a sneer.

Heyya could sense the evil in the man's heart. He really didn't care if people lived or died. He was here to collect valuable 'property', medically trained personnel. Anything else didn't matter to him.

"Go with him, Heyya," Heather told her. "You must live to help others."

"If I leave these two will die. I cannot leave," she told the two pirates.

"I told you, I don't care." The pirate raised his right arm. Heyya could sense what he was about to do the moment before he did it.

The med bay was set up for several contingencies, include ripping open damaged EVA suits. There were heavy prybars and other objects necessary to help in accomplishing this. Heyya grabbed a bar and brought it up hard against the underside of his right arm.

Even with the servo motors in place, the force of her blow moved the arm a little. Not a lot, but enough so that the plasma blast did not hit Heather full in the head. The plasma bolt flashed above her face, adding more burns to her body, and rendering her unconscious.

Heyya sensed the man's anger and knew an instant before it happened when he moved his left arm to strike her in the back of the head with the full force of the servo motors, it was a move designed to knock her out or kill her.

Heyya ducked under the move and jammed the pointed end of the pry bar into the intruder's hip joint, locking it in place. Turned ninety degrees by the force of his thrust, he was now locked in an awkward position, with his legs pointed one way and his body the other. The bulky arms limited movements did not let him reach back to remove the prybar.

"Shit!" he shouted over the suit's intercom. "Kill that bitch!" he ordered the other.

Heyya was out of place to do anything about the other man, he lifted his arm, pointing it at her. He could sense the thrill he had in him as he was about to make a kill. She looked into the eyes of her killer and saw the hatred for life that existed there. He locked eyes with her and smiled.

"Say good-bye, bitch," he snarled.

Heyya closed her eyes and heard the sound of a plasma gun discharge. She felt nothing...slowly she opened her eyes. The intruder's helmet was half blown away. The suit was locked into place, keeping it upright, the body of the man who had been prepared to kill her now locked into it.

She looked to her right and saw a Marine in a Combat EVA suit in the door.

"You OK, miss?" he began.

"Heyya, Dr. Heyya," she told him. "We need to start working on these two people, or they will die," she pleaded with him.

He nodded to her. "You do that, doctor. Your patients are the only ones left. They killed the others before taking your medical people with them," he explained.

"I'm sorry we didn't get here sooner. We might have prevented some or all of the killing. There will be others that will need your help. The intruders are still on the platform. The two of us will stay here and prevent any further attempt at taking the medical staff," he told her.

The Marine moved over and hauled the battery pack out of the back of the man that Heyya had jammed in place. He was effectively helpless, and in a twisted position that made it impossible for him to get out of his EVA suit without help.

"You did this?" the Marine asked, pointing to the pry bar stuck in the hip joint.

"I had to stop him killing my patient," she told him with a shrug.

He raised the sun visor in his helmet, showing her his face. He gave her a quick nod and a smile.

"Good job, Marine," he said, extending to her the highest compliment he could. He and his partner pulled the intruders from her surgery.

Heyya got her staff of eight moving to help her with Heather, she would have to work extra hard, but she told herself that this brave woman would live, no matter what.

C-Level Science Observation Stations, Liramor-23

Intruders were moving quickly to get to the gun and tube decks on A and B-Level. They shot anything that got in their way and continued to move to their destination. One group was using the lifts, but the Control Center commandeered the lift and sent it back to the maintenance bay level right into the hands of a group of Marines. The pirates were captured as soon as they stepped from the lift.

The other group was using the power of their EVA suits to run up the ladders (navy term for stairs) to their destination. They came out at C-Level, the science observation level. Only there were no scientists on that level.

To get to the A and B-Level without using the lifts, the intruders had to traverse C-Level to another set of ladders. Two Marines had placed themselves behind protective barriers to block access to the intruders.

The Marines were now in front of six intruders. As soon as they came through the hatch, the Marines opened fire, with the intent of killing the first through and backing up the rest into the ladder.

Their combined fire dropped the first two enemy combatants thru the hatch. The remaining four slipped back into the ladder and debated what to do. As long as the guns and tubes were active, their ships could not come close to the station.

The section sergeant pulled out a large grenade, set the fuse and rolled it toward the Marines hiding behind cover. They saw the device roll towards them and simply stepped behind the next set of barriers and waited.

The explosion was powerful, but the Marines were protected. They aimed at the hatch and as the pirates moved to enter C-Level, they shot the next two.

The section sergeant swore and pulled another grenade. This one was set to explode on impact. He stepped into the hatch and prepared to throw, but never got the chance. Two plasma beams hit him full in the chest. His armour was strong and likely saved his life, however, he dropped the grenade. It exploded on impacting the floor and blew a hole in the outer hull. The sergeant and his last section member were swiftly sucked out into space, the damaged suits unable to bring them back to the platform. Their suit integrity damaged by the explosion; their air bled away slowly as they floated helplessly outside the platform.

Hospital, Liramor-23

More and more patients were being delivered to the hospital. Heyya's team was the only one left, the other doctors and nurses having been taken away as captives.

Her senior nurse was setting up a triage bank that would allow them to make a call on who would get immediate service and who would be deferred, including making a decision on who was likely to die and thus was set aside for those who they could help. With only one doctor and eight nurses, they were severely limited in what they could provide.

Heyya had managed to save Heather Shelling's life, she was now in the ICU, but her nurses were here in the surgery, no one was caring for those in the ICU. For the moment, the automated systems were all that were keeping them alive.

There was a commotion at the door, and Marines were bringing in the medical staff that had been taken away earlier by the pirates. Several of them were injured. One of the nurses was still alive, but the back of her head was missing. Heyya's senior nurse looked at Heyya and shook her head. Heyya understood. It was unlikely that she would survive, and they needed to put priority on those who would. She would be moved into a private room where she could die in peace.

More people were coming in and the triage system was now up and running at full speed. Those that could be helped by the other doctors and nurses were, those who were in the most difficulty, were brought to Heyya's med bay, now staffed with an additional two surgeons.

Among the injured were Union Marines, many of whom were very seriously injured. Most of the injuries were burns where plasma bolts had burned through EVA armour. The biggest part was getting the injured out of the EVA suits that had been damaged around the wounds. Heyya's emergency ward was well suited for this task and she and her staff were able to rip people out of damaged suits to help them. Twenty-one Marines were brought to Heyya's ward over the space of the day, nineteen were saved.

But the Marines were not the only ones in EVA suits that suffered injuries. Miners too had been severely injured by plasma burns fired by intruders. Their injuries were more severe as their EVA suits were not armoured for plasma fire. Heyya hoped that this would not keep up. The hospital could not deal with many more injured.

Central Ops, Liramor-23

Dostier was getting more and more reports about intruders all over the platform. The Marines were doing an effective job of hunting them down, but it was taking them time. Her greatest fear was that they would knock out the platform's weapons. Two attempts had already been made to do just that.

Major Thom was using the internal sensor systems to locate the intruders via their plasma fire and redirect his Marines to them. It had been a tough fight so far, but the good guys were prevailing.

The estimated enemy numbers on the platform had started out at over 200, but hat had been whittled down to less than fifty. He still couldn't be positive of how many there were as he could only spot them when they engaged their weapons and then lock in on them with the platform's holo-cameras. Hunting them with just the cameras on such a large platform was problematical, though they did get lucky a few times.

Dostier ordered an FTL comms probe explaining the situation and asking for help to both Sector Forty-Two and Sector Forty-Three command locations. Hopefully, they would get some support before the platform fell to these killers.

One thing that worried Dostier the most was, where were the cargo ships? The last time the pirates attacked, they had cargo ships with them. Now, there were only warships. She was certain that the cargo ships would be along soon, but the question was, how soon?

She voiced her thought to Capt. Davis, who agreed that it was a problem, but deal with the current problems first.

"Unknown FTL event in the inbound lane!" SOps called out.

"Shit!" Dostier screamed. "We don't need them to arrive now."

"Transponder indicates it's The Wanderer!" the Ops O called out; relief evident in his voice.

"Liramor-23, this is The Wanderer, Capt. Noor commanding. We would like to conduct some weapons tests in the system. Over."

Dostier looked at Davis and almost laughed.

"Comms, get a tactical link to The Wanderer, now!" Dostier commanded.

"Henadi, Liana, the platform is under attack, your weapons drills have just gone live. Good hunting!" Dostier advised.

The Wanderer, Piscium System

The Wanderer winked into being in the inbound lane at Liramor-23 as Capt. Noor began preparations to drill the weapons teams.

"Liramor-23, this is The Wanderer, Capt. Noor commanding. We would like to conduct some weapons tests in the system. Over"

"Henadi, Liana, the platform is under attack, your weapons drills have just gone live. Good hunting!" Noor heard over comms.

"Sir, Comms O, I'm receiving a tactical link from the platform!" the Comms O said.

"Link it to the main monitor, now!" Noor ordered. "Pilot, fifteen kilometers up on the Z azimuth, now!"

"Aye, sir. Sir, we are now fifteen kilometers above the plane," the pilot reported a few moments later.

Noor heard the weapons officer ordering all systems to load and go live. Good initiative, she thought.

Tactical came up on the monitor and it did not look good. The Kindalla and the Kologn were both listed as damaged but tactically operational. There were several Combat Drop Shuttles attached to the platform, which meant the platform had intruders onboard.

The tactical display indicated two destroyed enemy ships and two damaged, another was tactically operational but not manoeuvring. Three other vessels were listed as fully operational.

"Sir, Nav O, the enemy ships are congregating near a listed merger zone," the Nav O reported. "I think the platform is herding them there."

"Desperation move, but they might get lucky," Noor said to the bridge crew.

"Sir, Weapons, all tubes are loaded with war shot and ready on your command," the Weapons O reported.

"Time?" Noor asked.

"One minute, ma'am," the 2 I/C reported. "That's pretty quick seeing as how we have not drilled it before."

Noor nodded. They were an experienced crew. She was going to need that today.

"Sir, The Valour is moving in on the platform," the Tac O reported. "She is firing on the Combat Drop Shuttles. She is knocking out their ride home ma'am. That is not good tactics, sir. It will make the enemy combatants more desperate."

"I think Fiona is seeking revenge," Raymond said from his seat beside the captain. "Can't say as I blame her. There should be three other Union ships, where are they?"

"The Wimple is probably at the alien station," Noor suggested. "The other two, I'm not sure. They could be out looking for things on the edge of the system. They would be out of immediate comms reach.

"OK, we need a plan of action and we need to coordinate things with the others to do that. Comms, can you link to the tactical net and include some suggestions for the others?" Noor asked.

"Aye, sir. Should be able to do that," the Comms O confirmed.

The Pollard

"Sir, FTL event near Liramor-23," the Tac O reported. "That's a pretty big ship, sir!"

"Fuck!" Kittering shouted. "There was only supposed to be two Fairling Class warships in this system! Now we have an escort vessel, a fucking fast-ship with a gun, and what the hell is that thing?"

"Sir, the small ship is attacking our Combat Drop Shuttles," the Tac O reported. "She's taking them out against the hull of the platform!"

"Sir, our combatants have indicated they have captured Maintenance Bay Thirteen," the Comms O reported. "They are opening the door for our Combat Shuttles."

"Get those shuttles moving, now!" Kittering yelled. "I want them on that damn platform two minutes ago!"

"The large ship is moving up over the plane," the Tac O advised the admiral. "Sir, I think that ship is The Wanderer. She's a billionaire playboy's toy vessel!"

"That's why she went up out of the plane," the admiral mused. "She doesn't want to become involved in this little war. The vessel won't be able to jump for several hours, we may have the opportunity to capture it, if we can deal with the platform first!"

Kittering was unaware of the upgrades that had been made to The Wanderer and the resulting increase in its capabilities. He was in for a rude awakening.

The Wanderer

"Sir, the enemy vessels are launching Combat Shuttles," her Tac O advised. "I see twenty four vessels being launched and the number is climbing."

"We cannot engage the shuttles," Noor told the bridge crew. "We are going to have to go after the larger vessels. With any luck, they think this ship is a private vessel. If so, we have a surprise for them.