The New Holland Incident

For once in her life Vas wished she had worn a closed back jumpsuit instead of one of her special open ones. The uncomfortable rubbing of the fabric on her tendrils would have been a worth while trade off for being able to keep at least some of her body heat. She was shivering more profusely now. The fear of death by pirate was quickly being outweighed by the need to get somewhere, anywhere with heat. Finally she decided that if she had to die, at least she wanted to do it somewhere warm and not huddled in a locker from dehydration and hypothermia.

Slowly Vas pushed the small lever in the inside of the locker (specifically designed so someone could not get locked in by accident or on purpose) and the door swung quietly open. The pale white light of the storage room began filtering into the locker. Vas moved her hand to block the light from blinding her as her body instinctively dropped tinted lens in front of her eyes. Quickly and quietly she moved out of the locker, allowing her eyes time to adjust to the new light level. Upon stepping into the room Vas instantly began to feel better.

Her tail was still wrapped around her thigh and she was still shivering, but she could feel the small warmth of the room begin to move through her. She took a second to soak it in before taking a cautious look around, trying to determine where exactly she was. The room was a dull industrial white. Lockers, cupboards and crates were scattered throughout the walls of the room. Some leaking contents that were obviously not properly secured before the crew had gotten underway. She had no idea who's job that was supposed to be, she was just a pilot. The more she looked around the room the more she started to piece together. The final clue came to her when she turned around to see the locker she had just been hiding in. Vas felt a mix between angry embarrassment and a gut turning desire to laugh. There, plain for her to see, were the words 'MEDICAL EQUIPMENT LOCKER 04-01'.

'Well' the Lohi mused, not sure what the appropriate emotions she should be having 'At least that explains why it was so fucking cold'. The lockers in front of her were meant to store medical items, temperature sensitive medical items. The one she had been in was set to just above freezing. To top it all off the reason she was feeling so dehydrated was because the lockers were designed to wick away humidity and moisture from the items inside so as to keep them as dry and preserved as possible.

Her mixed emotions and thoughts were soon swept aside when a high pitched, digitized voice began shouting something in the adjacent corridor. The shouting was followed up by a shrieking scream that was quickly ended by the same concussive whistling she had heard coming from the cockpit. Her brain was very keen on reminding her that she was still in grave danger. Vas scurried up to the interior bulkhead of the storage room, making herself as flat as possible. She hadn't realized it until just then that the door to the storage room was still wide open. As quietly as possible the Lohi girl inched her way closer to the door's wall panel.

Vas was just about to command the door to shut when she noticed that the panel had a terminal extension next to it. Well of course it would, it was a storage room after all, and sometimes you needed to see the rooms inventory if you were doing counts. A thought then occurred to her. Cautiously she took a peek through the open door. Attempting to make sure there was no Breten Hvas in the immediate area. When Vas was convinced she was clear, she popped open the panel and withdrew the terminal. It was the kind that could be taken out if need be. Simply disengage it, set it to wireless and away you go. She considered taking it for a moment and then decided against it.

The terminal itself was too big for her to carry around reliably and the pockets in her flight suit were a too small fit as well. Regardless Vas attempted to access the ships systems. To her relief they were still mostly working. She entered her personal code and the terminal chimed to welcome her. The Lohi woman nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound and quickly muted it. Hoping no one had heard, she quickly began to delve into the system. Her code gave her basic access to some of the ships systems. It wasn't like she could vent the atmosphere or dump the core, but that wasn't what she was after. Vas brought up a quick ship system map. Warning codes began to stream across the screen. She dismissed them and hurried to the overview to find the damage control report. The hull didn't seem like it was being cut into anymore, which in her mind was a bit of a mixed blessing.

It meant that all the intruders were already on board. The engines were reading errors but the core reactor was still online. Gravity was good. Atmosphere was being taxed but holding. A couple parts of the ship seemed to be in vacuum, but nothing essential. Sensors, radar and tracking lasers were down. Communications relay was... gone? Vas reread over that last part. The screen didn't lie even the second time. The part of the hull that housed the communications relay was just gone. Probably blown away by the Breten Hvas to stop them from getting a signal out. 'Damnit' Vas thought, letting out an annoyed breath. 'There goes that plan'. She scanned over the rest of the list, hoping she could find something she could use. Something did eventually catch her attention. The majority of the ships internal and external camera were still operational. A small victory Vas thought.

She queued up the camera for the section of the ship she was in. She wasn't sure if it was just an unconscious reaction or curiosity but she brought up the camera for inside the storage room where she currently was. As the image appeared on the screen, Vas discovered she was looking at her back from across the room. She took a second to study the image, more out of curiosity than anything reasonable. Her gray flight suit clashed gently with the pale lemon-lime and light pink complexion of her skin. She tensed her back tendrils and relaxed them, causing them to momentarily become semi erect. The delay on the screen was about a second, probably a little less. Pretty much instantaneous for anyone who cared. Vas turned herself to look at the camera, noticing the small black circle on the wall behind her. Seemingly satisfied with her impromptu test, she cycled the camera to the corridor immediately outside of the room.

It was empty with the exception of a figure slumped in a corner. A slowly expanding pool of red what she assumed was blood flowed around it. That must have been who she had heard screaming. Vas zoomed the camera in to try and get a better look. It looked reptilian to her, the large, flat snout just covering a few sharp looking dull white-yellow teeth. It had what looked like a mane of gray and green feathers accented by a colorful, albeit bloodstained, gown it wore. Vas wasn't able to make out if it was a male or a female by the angle the body drooped, but what she could see was it's well maintained, four fingered claw like hands gripping what looked like a spanner. Something got caught in Vas's throat. She swallowed trying to clear it. That person, she wasn't sure what species it was, had tried to fight and had instead been gunned down like a wild animal. Fear struck Vas once again. She really was going to die unless she found a way off this ship.

Pulling her eyes away from the slumped figure, the Lohi woman began to cycle through the rest of the ship. Some seemed to be damaged and not functional. Others showed some sights that Vas wished she had not seen. Stumbling upon one particularly disturbing sight. A young looking Kai'ani male was being savagely beaten by his Siven captor. A few meters away another Kai'ani, a female this time, was being held by two other armored Siven. Obviously being forced to watch as the other was beaten. By the way the woman appeared to be crying out and pulling on her restrainers the male must have meant something to her. A mate perhaps? The Kai'ani were a fairly monogamous species, so that must have been it. Vas continued to watch, horrified that she was doing so. The next phase of the beating almost made her puke.

The Breten Hvas pirate had finished with his general beating and was now slicing off the male Kai'ani's clothing with an extended forearm blade. It positioned the withering male face down on the deck and motioned over two other pirates who then held his arms and legs in place. Without wasting a second the Siven took aim and plunged his blade directly up the males back. The amount of green fluid that gushed out when the pirate withdrew his blade was sickening. The attacking Siven stabbed the Kai'ani again and again and again. Slicing at the poor male with his blade. At first the young male thrashed, trying to get out of the grip, but that energy quickly faded as he lost more and more blood. The female was thrashing against her restrainers, finally giving up after seeing her mate only now slightly struggling on the ground.

The attacking pirate stabbed the male for the last time and withdrew his blade, now glistening green. He walked over the the slumped over and sobbing female and pointed his forearm blade at her. Vas expected it to kill her as well, but instead it simply wiped the blood off on the female and retracted the blade. The pirate motioned to the others and they began dragging the female away. As if to add insult to injury the lead pirate walked over to the bleeding male, gave him a kick in the ribs, drew his weapon and fired three rounds into the Kai'ani's head. Vas was mortified. She felt a strong urge to vomit but suppressed it. Instead she panned the camera to follow the Breten Hvas. The group of five seemed to be dragging the female to one of the cargo holds. 03 - AFT if she was reading the camera right. She switched the camera to inside as they walked through the threshold. The female Kai'ani was dragged over and thrown into a group of what looked like prisoners.

She didn't get up. She just laid on the floor as the group rushed over her. Vas took a quick look at the faces. All female. They were separating the sexes. If she had to assume they were doing the same for the males as well. Well they ones they weren't brutally beating and murdering. Vas quickly switched the camera to 02 -- AFT, and just as she thought there was a group of males. She scanned all over the ship, looking for more groups. She found no others. In her scans she had counted around 30 Breten Hvas on the ship. Some were still combing the ship, others were raiding the supplies. Very few seemed to be standing guard over their prisoners. Only three per group. Something she could exploit maybe? She checked the cameras in the bays a couple more times, looking for any else that might be useful. The shuttle bay seemed to be decompressed, probably on purpose. Other than that nothing else seemed to jump out at her.

She was trying not to look at the faces of the prisoners. It wasn't because she didn't care. It was more because she didn't really want to accidentally discover who had made it and who had not. The desire to search for Matha was strong, but she couldn't afford the distraction right then. She was still trying to come up with something, anything that resembled a plan. On a whim she decided to check the external cameras. A good portion of them showed nothing. Either blackness of a destroyed camera or the star filled void all around them. She was able to find a couple of cameras that showed the Breten Hvas ships and their boarding craft. There appeared to be five boarding shuttles attached to the hull and three ships floating beside them. One medium looking frigate and two smaller escorts. Vas felt a small hiccup of a cry pass her lips. Even if she could get into the shuttle bay and take a shuttle, those ships would blast her out of the sky before she even got out of touching range of the transport.

So that was it. She was going to die. The only hope she had now was to maybe hide from the Breten Hvas and hope they don't scuttle the transport when they leave. The despair of the situation weighed down on her as she stood dumbly staring at the screen showing the three Breten Hvas ships. 'Maybe being a slave won't be so bad', she thought. 'Maybe all I'll have to do is clean some warlords fortress, or maybe I'll just end up just being a comfort girl'. No matter how much she tried to convince herself the despair would not leave her. She almost didn't notice the two slightly brighter stars now showing up on the monitor, but eventually they did catch her eye. The Lohi hadn't noticed them before because one of the Hvas ships had been in the way, it's bulky and angular design obscuring a good portion of the cameras outward view. She thought it odd that those two happened to be so bright. And not just bright, but slightly oval shaped too.

A moment of curiosity caught her and she proceeded to zoom the camera to it's maximum possible setting. They weren't stars, Vas could tell that much. They were too oval and had too much blue in them to be a star. The pixaltion of the screen was too intense at the high zoom to tell with any certainty what she was looking at.. So what then? Vas racked her brain and tried began to think. That particular camera was on the left side of the ship. And they hadn't maneuvered much when they set their orientation to match the gas giant they were headed to, so that camera was looking in system... The British. It's the British. It had to be. They must have gotten out the distress call before the Hvas were able to blow the communication relay! Those ovals are drive plumes from British ships! They're coming to save us! A tear attempted to escape Vas's eye only to be nearly immediately absorbed by her skin, her dehydration still obviously an issue. The British are coming!

Vas had never seen a British before, or even one of their ships so she wasn't sure if it would be enough to defeat the Hvas. But just the idea that help was on the way was enough to coax a smile from her. The first one in a long time. If anything they might just give enough of a distraction for her to figure a way off the ship. Vas had never been very good at coming up with plans on her own. That was kind of the reason why she was a transport pilot. She was always told where to go and how to get there. Her knowledge and training carried her the rest of the way. If she wanted to get out of this she would have to come up with something though. She checked the corridor right outside her storage room one more time and then hit the door control to close it, something she really should have done a while ago.

Vas began searching through the room. There had to be something here that could help her. She found an over the shoulder medical bag and put it on. It carried some basic first aid supplies along with some extra storage for random things. Not really much, but enough. She found a hypodermic injector along with a small assortment of different vial cartridges. She read them over and frowned. They were all in medical lingo. She did however recognize one. It was a sleep aid that she had taken a few times, although in liquid instead of edible form. It had always managed to make her drowsy with just the small edible, so a full injection of the liquid should be enough to knock someone out. She hoped. Additional searching produced a cauterizing scalpel, some extra clotting bandages and a small laser/flashlight.

The scalpel was pretty self explanatory as a weapon. It was small but she might be able to do something with it. The flashlight was the kind of medical ones that they shone in your eye to check them. It had adjustable brightness and a small infrared laser that provided the same effect in some species. The flashlight would be a good tool to have just in case the power went out, and if need be she might be able to blind someone with the laser. That was kind of pushing it though. It wasn't much but it was really all she could find. If she hadn't been able to access the camera network she might have been tempted to head back to the cockpit. She knew there was a small security safe there with a gun and some armor. She didn't have the access codes but she might have been able to figure something out. However since she did have access to the camera network, she'd been able to see the group of three Siven pirates in the cockpit area, messing with the computers and stripping the consoles for parts.

Vas instead decided her best bet was to try for the shuttle bay. She could get an EVA suit from a nearby storage room, find a way to cycle the blast doors open, and get to one of the cargo shuttles. Once the British showed up she might be able to launch and make a break for it. At least the system was inhabited so she could make a burn for the British colony and not be completely stranded. Vas took a deep breath and slowly let it out. It's wasn't much of a plan, and so much could go wrong. But it was the best she could come up with. She checked the corridors around her storage room one more time and then disengaged the terminal from the wall. She set it to wireless and stuffed it in her medical bag. The terminal only fit half way in. She sighed. Better than nothing she supposed. She prepped her laughable armaments, scalpel in one hand and flashlight in the other, and hit the door release. It opened without a sound.

"Well, here goes." Vas said to no one, and stepped into the hallway.

February 2nd, 2172 -- 1140 Hours Local Time

Commonwealth Patrol Ship HMS Battleaxe

Commonwealth Controlled Space, New Holland System

They had been burning for a good 40 minutes now. Captain Llewellyn had considered ordering a short FTL jump to get them towards the transport faster, but they were so relatively close that any travel time in warp would put them at least three million kilometers farther away than they needed to be. So as it was, they were stuck to conventional drives, which Llewellyn decided wasn't all bad. The Captain felt relieved that they had caught a break when the Battleaxe received a transmission from Captain Dinesh Hilton of the HMS Churchill. They had picked up the alien transports distress call as well and were pushing the safety limits of their ships engines to meet up with them. Llewellyn had nearly forgot that the Churchill was still in system.

Captain Hilton and his crew had been the ones to deliver the new software updates to the Battleaxe. The MoD didn't trust courier drones to relay such important strategic software and always sent manned crews. It had just been their luck that the Churchill was also rotating out the colony's Royal Marine detachment and had yet to completely depart. It was still two against three, but that was still better odds than three to one. The cherry on top was that the HMS Churchill was a gen four frigate, Trafalgar class, commissioned only five years ago. It was lighter, faster and more maneuverable than the Battleaxe while still being armed with the latest weapon advances that the Commonwealth nations had developed. The Battleaxe still had it beat in shear mass of armor and heavy artillery however.

His ships dual dorsal mounted hypervelocity drivers could throw a pair of tungsten slugs with enough velocity to punch a hole through some of the toughest armor humanity had to offer. Llewellyn hoped it would be enough. They still didn't know what kind of armor the attacking ships fielded or even what kind of weapons they would be up against. Their profile recognition program hadn't been able to determine who or what they were. And with no transponders to query they were essentially going in blind. They had to use the ships telescopes, both electronic and physical, to track the attacking ships until they were in range to get solid ladar (laser radar) and ranging information that they could then pass on to the targeting software. A range that Commander Haynes confirmed was quickly approaching.