First Draft:
Charlie held back her frustration.
Even Torres couldn’t get any information on the layout of Aries. Sokoloff
and Zach were busy preparing the ships emergency docking system, a panel that
opened up on the side of Valhalla to allow an emergency walkway between
the two airlocks. In the meantime she had Torres looking through the database
to try to find any word about Aries and who deleted the information that
would help them.
“Sorry Captain,” the Irish man spoke, pushing the screen away from
himself. “Whoever did it has the best clearance and removal systems. Sorry.”
“Don’t worry, you just get ready.” The man nodded and moved towards the
door of the bridge. Charlie turned to her pilots and nodded, eyes fixed on the
ship before them, “Let’s dock and find out what the hell is going on.”
“Aye Captain,” both pilots muttered.
Charlie let nothing but her
breathing invade her hearing. The lurching of the ship let her know that it had
docked with Aries. Once the green light by the door let her know that
the air had been pumped full of oxygen she let other sounds invade her senses.
“McCallister! With me, Garrison and Torres, Rhodes and Nelson, Eliot and Hunter
bring up the rear! On me!”
She let the air fill the airlock for a little longer before she opened
the door, letting McCallister stamp through first, rifle raised. She followed
him, swinging her gun to the left of the airlock. Light footsteps behind told
her Garrison and Torres were close behind. She and McCallister made it to Aries’
airlock and paused, waiting for Hunter and Eliot to close the airlock to their
own ship. McCallister opened the door and Charlie swept through it first, going
to the right whilst he crossed to the left. They swept through a few feet
before stopping at the interior door that led to the innards of the ship. A
small window in the door told Charlie that there wasn’t anybody nearby.
The sound of the airlock closing let her know to carry on. “Everybody,
cameras and microphones on.” People shuffled as they followed orders and soon,
Charlie was opening the door that led to the main interior of Aries. The
hallway that they were immediately placed in was large enough for two people
side by side. It split off into three different paths, forward, left and right.
“McCallister and I will take forward, Hunter and Eliot left, Garrison and
Torres with the Doctors right. We’ll try to reconvene at the centre of the
ship. Go.”
Everybody pushed off and Charlie took her path first, McCallister
following on the other side of the wall. The light from their torches lit the
walls and floor, checking every possible space for rooms, doorways and
alternate routes. They’d already come across two crossroads and had cleared
both before keeping to their straight path directly to the centre of the ship. As
they went they checked the rooms, finding offices and storage rooms. Everything
about the simple design and small routes has military ship written all over
them.
It wasn’t long before they’d reached the mess hall that led straight to
the bridge on the other side. Hunter and Eliot appeared behind them after a few
minutes as she and McCallister checked the room for traps. The other four
appeared, footsteps loud and careless in the empty ship.
“Nothing,” Garrison said as he entered. “Nobody, no blood, nothing. Just
a few blown fuses and busted wiring. Where’s the people that sent for help?”
“Oxygen low my ass!” Hunter shouted as she paced the room.
“Torres, Eliot, could somebody have faked the levels to an outside
scan?”
Both men looked at each other for a few seconds before offering her a
shrug. Torres spoke. “It’s possible. But the actual temperature in a ship this
old would need to be decreased for a lengthy amount of time.”
Garrison nodded. “You can feel the chill in the air still. But
somebody’s turned the temperature back up when we docked.”
“So where is everybody?” Rhodes asked, voicing the question that had
been on everybody’s mind.
Charlie addressed her pilots, “Zach, Sokoloff. Run a heat signature scan
of the ship. I want body heat signatures now.” Through their radios came
silence, not the usual ‘Aye Captain’ that either of them would have said.
“Zach! Sokoloff! Do you hear me?” Nothing.
Then Aries shuddered violently, jerking everybody off their feet
and onto their knees. “Fuck!” McCallister muttered before he pulled himself
back up.
There was the sound of metal straining and Charlie eyed the ships
ceiling with worry. Then silence. The eerie silence made the hairs on the back
of her neck stand up. It was too quiet, even by ship standards. Many a times
Charlie had walked through the Valhalla and heard very little. But there was
always a humming from the engine. Humming from the systems as they filtered the
air. And even sometimes people still up, unable to sleep.
But this? The only sounds to be heard were her crews stunted breathing.
Nobody wanted to make too much sound. Nobody wanted to advertise that they were
here. Nobody wanted the attention. Not a body. Not a drop of blood. A smear.
Nothing. Nobody. But she could feel eyes on her. Watching her every step.
Whatever it was, whoever it was, nobody wanted their attention. Just in case.
"The fuck do you think happened?" Garrison. Ever the vocalist.
Their radios buzzed and the ship juddered again, forcing them off their
balance. Zach, still aboard the Valhalla was rushing through his words.
"Sir, they jumped me. Dragged me out of the airlock and onto the
Aries."
Charlie's eyes went wide at the prospect. She moved through the mess
hall to find the nearest view port and watched as their ship, her ship,
started to push away from them. "Mother fuckers!" Hunter, her voice
loud and angry, kicked at one of the wooden chairs and sent it flying.
Second Draft:
McCallister swung
his head to the Captain. She nodded, opened the door and stepped across the
small extended hallway first. McCallister followed with Rhodes falling behind
him. At the other end he shared a look with O’Donnell. The Captain turned back
down the corridor. “Torres! Get this door open!”
The smaller man
appeared and squeezed himself between the group of soldiers and the control panel.
It took a total of forty nine seconds for him to pop the panel off and mess
with the wires inside. The door opened and Torres was nodded to get back in
line. Bands of red light filtered through and reflected themselves across the
entire halls. Emergency lighting. The First Officer and Captain shared a look
before she advanced first. The light on the end of her gun disappeared down the
stairs to the right whilst he took the ones up to the top level.
The hallway was
big enough to fit two people side by side and this was the formation he took
with Nelson by his side. Eliot brought up the rear whilst Hunter remained at
the open airlock door, just in case. They passed a series of storage rooms and
a quick check showed that they were locked. Standard policy. And they moved on.
Small white clouds puffed themselves in front of him as he walked. It was cold.
Very cold. He could feel the muscles in his fingers working against the biting
chill.
There came another
hallway that stretched the width of the ship. He stopped on the other side of
the opening and nodded to Nelson and Eliot to take a look. McCallister stood, the
light fixed to his gun and his eyes trained on the path they’d just come and
moved back to the path they were to keep going on. Being cautious kept them on
their toes and alive. The Captain’s words were strummed into their minds to be
second nature. Cautious.
Two swinging beams
of white traced haphazard paths along the walls and McCallister turned to see
the two soldiers return. “Nothing,” Eliot said. “Just quarters.”
He nodded. “Move
forward.” In their two by one formation they got another ten feet before an
opening to the right had them stopping. McCallister swung his gun around the
corner first, let his light glide over the surfaces that made up the mess.
Swaths of red bathed the room in an eerie gesture. After a momentary glance of
satisfaction he stepped across the threshold. He listened to Nelson follow his
steps, after which Eliot stepped into the room.
Nothing. There was
no blood. No body. No sign of any trouble but the pulsing red lights and the
biting chill. “Zach, Soko,” McCallister spoke. “Where are the heat signals
coming from?”
“One on the
lower level,” Zach said. “Got another few yards to your left. I’m
guessing that’s the bridge.”
“Copy
that,” he said. He turned his gun to the opening on the left hand wall. “Nelson
with me, Eliot search the mess.”
“McCallister be
aware we’ve found one survivor in Medical.” The Captain said. “Eliot I
want you with Torres in engineering. Hunter keep an eye out. I’m on my way to
the bridge.”
A series of
“Yes Captain,” filtered through the radios and McCallister remained on his path
down the straight corridor that landed in the bridge. It was similar in style
to that of Valhalla’s only it didn’t have the three seats in the middle
of the room for the Captain, First and Second Officer. There was a short
stretch of controls with just the one seat in the middle. The ship had been
designed and built before two pilots became a recommended idea within ships. Slumped
underneath this seat lay a figure. A head of black hair and a standard UNCTU
uniform adorned the man’s frame.
Nelson knelt by
the man’s side and checked for a pulse. “He’s still alive but he’s cold.” A
pause. “He’s suffered a head wound. I’m going to need to get him down to
Medical.”
McCallister nodded
and conducted a quick sweep of the area before he stood next to Nelson. The
Corporal commenced with pulling tools and contraptions out of his bag to
perform a basic examination.
“Hunter’s
camera and radio just went down.” Zach’s word halted all movements in the
room. Lieutenant and Corporal shared a look. Something in the air tingled with
the knowledge that everybody else had frozen in shock. There were two heat
signatures within Aries. Two. Camera’s had a habit of malfunctioning but
radios didn’t.
“Stay here,”
McCallister whispered. He turned and with silent, quick steps rushed through to
the mess.
“There’s
someone here,” and the distinct sound of a pistol clicking could be heard. Seconds
later there was the sound of two thuds, along with a few groans, before
feedback welcomed his ears. He stopped to remove the headpiece and let it hang
around his neck. McCallister continued with more urgency. At the point between
corridor and mess he twisted to the left. O’Donnell stood there, her gun
trained on him. An instant later they turned and moved through the mess.
Silence thrummed
through the ship with enough tension to crack the ship into pieces. And just as
quickly as everything had stopped before it stopped again. There was a thud.
The two shared a curious look. A second a thud sounded and they snapped back
into movement.
The corner that
led down and to the airlock was covered by McCallister as he peered around the
edge. There were three slumped forms on the ground and he nodded his head to
the Captain. She pushed herself to the corner and proceeded. She stepped over
the slumped figures and crouched with her gun pointed towards the airlock. She gave
a flick of her gun and he came to a crouch on the other side of the fallen
bodies. Hunter, Zach and Sokoloff. Dumped like trash. “We left the airlock open
right?”
His eyes fixed
themselves on the airlock door of Valhalla. Hunter was to stand guard at
the open entrance of Aries’ just in case. But Valhalla was to
remain open too. “Yeah.” Aries gave a violent shake that knocked him off
balance. “Fuck,” he muttered before he pulled himself back up.
The sound of metal
straining was loud and the Captain stood and turned her head to the ceiling. Then
silence. She turned her eyes to him and he frowned down at her. A sudden
realisation came over her features and she turned to the airlock door. Then it
hit him. Whoever had gotten onto the bridge of Valhalla was trying to
pull away without disengaging the emergency docking. He followed her to the
door and pulled it shut. Putting the emergency manual lock into place took a
lot of strained effort between the pair of them, from its lack of use, and just
as they managed to get the end of it into the slot the ship jerked them to the
ground. A loud screech of metal scraping against metal let them know the door
was fighting for release into space.
They jumped to
their feet and the strain was harder now that they were fighting the pull of
the vacuum of space too. Muscles burnt from the contradiction of the cold air
and the heat of being used. The screeching and resistance was loud and the ship
rocked once more as the sound of Valhalla’s engines radiating against
the exterior of Aries could be heard. They gave a final push on the door
and collapsed against the walls of the ship with heavy pants. Nothing but their
breathing filled the air.
“What the fuck
was that?” Nelson said.
McCallister shared
a look with O’Donnell and she managed an irritated expression around her
panting. “That was somebody hijacking our ship.”
“What about
Zach, Hunter and Sokoloff?” Rhodes.
“They’re with us,”
the Captain said.
McCallister moved
and checked the pulses on their necks. “All alive. Just unconscious.”
“Unconscious,” the
Captain continued. “Give them a quick check when you get the chance. Eliot,
Torres, getting this ship up and running again is top priority. Garrison come
up to the airlock. We’ll move our people to Medical.”
Bit of a read but you can see that things are obviously changing - Dixon meets the crew much earlier then anticipated and it's a longer scene. Any and all opinions would be appreciated.
Happy Writing.
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