Escape From Deadwood
Jacy, Adrian and Mack (and Hala and Chovian) apparently make it back to the spaceport unscathed, although tensions are running understandably high and guns are drawn. Mack makes it to another shuttle and eventually arrives back unscathed at the Destiny, Hala and Chovian somehow make it off-planet as well, but Adrian and Jacy board the shuttle they arrived on where the pilot and co-pilot are waiting (tense and nervous as all hell). Jacy's boots thunder up the ramp, and she's swinging into the jump seat, craning forwards to see the fighting far above. "Get this bird into the air now," she snaps, buckling herself in one-handedly. "Calhoun, comms, please, sir. Squirt a sitrep through to the Destiny." At this stage the Temperance is already in orbit, a speck far above, and the screaming over comms has begun. Jacy's face is pale. "Those fighters don't have the fuel to make it out of the system." <English>
Adrian moves onto the shuttle last, weapon drawn as he backpedals onto the craft and slams a hand on the panel to close the door. He moves quickly to the comm station on the small shuttle, and links in, his smartcomm automatically connecting up. "Working on it.. she's a good ways away, though. Can't guarantee reception." He works what little magic he thinks he can, fiddling the signal modulations before getting a connection. "Sweet.. Atropos, Atropos, Pitbull Actual. Come in." A moment later, he grins. "Got 'em.." He turns back to the panel. "Atropos, Pitbull Actual. Hostile contact, Deadwood. Heavy unfriendly activity on surface and suspect same in orbit. Unknown hostile forces attempting cat-C comms disruption, Drunken Master status unknown, presumed engaged. How copy, over?" <English>
There's a crackling that comes over the comm eventually. "Hello? Hello...this is Euterpe, Euterpe...do you copy? This is Squadron M, we're no far past Haven, doubling back has the planet been attacked, over?" Lt Rosale's accented voice comes over the comms. <English>
As the shuttle rises into the air, engines screaming, Jacy finishes buckling herself in hastily. Her face is pale as she slips on a headset, fingers dancing over the controls to bring up the various military channels, listening with tight lips. "They'll be out of fuel soon. Tell them they can't set down on Deadwood or on the Temperance," she snaps to Adrian, her voice holding an edge. To the pilot, she manages a calmer tone. "I'm picking up beacons from lifepods. Get up there and start intercepting them. We're bringing them in." What's the capacity of a shuttle? Assuming you cram people in like peas in a pod? <English>
Adrian blinks. "A whole damn squadron up at once..?" He flicks his comm over to the band Rosale's on. "Euterpe, Pitbull Actual, planetside on Deadwood. We have no eyes in the sky, and the locals are getting a bit restive. Deadwood is a hotzone. You touch down here, you're not getting up again. Drunken Master's status is unknown, but we're getting a lot of chaotic traffic from them, and we're seeing lifepod beacons in orbit. Provide cover for as long as possible, then start drifting. Backup should be inbound soon." <English>
"Euterpe here, me and my girls, we tried to slow them down but they have some psychic knowledge of how to use every damn system on the sucker and we didn't want to drift too far. We've got the lifepods but we're going to have to hurry sir. We'll have Reavers inbound in no time with all this activity, and they are coming for the floating ducks first. Over." Comm Crackles. <English>
Jacy comes to a decision. "Listen up, you two. And you, sir. We're going to start picking up survivors. Grapple the lifepods. We'll need to don EVA suits, we'll be sucking vacuum bringing them onboard. Then we'll dump the lifepods, sending them back to the Temperance." Her voice is cold as ice. "Any Reaver ship targetting SOS broadcasts will follow them back to the Temperance, not to us." Seems like Jacy is assuming command; Calhoun might techincally outrank her but this is a Navy shuttle, not a Marine gunship. "Sir? Tell Rosale to rendezvous with us at coordinates... Zulu Zulu Niner Plural Zulu Alpha. BEFORE they run out of fuel. We'll pick them up. I'm not leaving them drifting." <English>
Adrian looks to Jacy. He nods. "Roger that. Go find the EV suits, I'll link the comms and pass the word. Here's hoping they got that vac-fire thing fixed.." He's gone pale as he picks up the comm again. "Euterpe, Pitbull Actual. We're gonna start picking survivors off those lifepods and kicking them back. New base coordinates ZZ9-ZA, say again: ZZ9-ZA. Adjust fuel projections accordingly, and meet us there for pickup and extraction from your birds. Check your suit seals, as well. Stay alive up there, try not to draw attention to yourselves. We're all alone out here." <English>
"I'm sorry sir, you want us to leave our birds drifting?! Euterpe here, I mean...sir. I mean. I'm sorry sir, can you repeat that sir...we'd rather stay out here and guard your sixes until help seems to be coming, but I'll send half my girls, ya'll don't have the room sir." Com Crackles. "Shit, Over!" <English>
The little shuttle's ion thrusters kick in as it departs atmo, the shuddering of the main chemical engines easing off. And there, floating in the black, are specks...lifepods, and corpses, too. Jacy's voice is taut, "Pull rank, sir. Get them onboard! This isn't the time or place for gorram heroics!" Then she's tapping the pilot on the shoulder, pointing, her voice quiet once more. "Lifepod, three thousand meters, beacon activated. Pick it up." Her eyes are everywhere - on the radar, on the little viewports, on the shuttle's status. "Rodriguez, suit up now. Then you, Torver. And you too, sir."
Adrian swears off the mic. "Euterpe, take a breath, and check your protocol. When your birds run out of fuel, they're gonna be drifting anyway. They can be replaced. You can't. Provide cover until you hit bingo fuel for the new homeplate location, then get to it, set your scuttling charges, and go EV. We'll pick you up. And we'll find the room for everyone. One more word of argument and I'll bust you so far down the chain you'll be three years dead before you even get to TOUCH another fighter." <English>
Adrian looks over to Jacy. "Gimme a suit and I'll put the thing on, but for right now, best I can do is close my eyes and breathe out to keep my lungs from exploding." <English>
The little shuttle's ion thrusters kick in as it departs atmo, the shuddering of the main chemical engines easing off. And there, floating in the black, are specks...lifepods, and corpses, too. Jacy's voice is taut, "Pull rank, sir. Get them onboard! This isn't the time or place for gorram heroics!" Then she's tapping the pilot on the shoulder, pointing, her voice quiet once more. "Lifepod, three thousand meters, beacon activated. Pick it up." Her eyes are everywhere - on the radar, on the little viewports, on the shuttle's status. "Rodriguez, suit up now. Then you, Torver. And you too, sir."
"Yes sir, sorry sir, they killed the commander sir." That's the only response on the comms. "And my sister...is on that ship, sir. I...okay sir. I'll give the order sir. Euterpe out." <English>
Adrian's fist clenches, but his voice remains relatively stable and calm. "Confirm: Drunken Master Actual is KIA?"
Jacy scrambles into a suit, following the two pilots, and finally Adrian. Then, as Jacy is zipping Adrian in, the copilot's skilled hands are on the controls of the grapple and the magnetic head thunks into the side of the lifepod, the cable is drawn in, the pod bumping into the hull. "Prepare to vent ship," Jacy says, as calmly as she can. "On my mark. Three. Two. One. Mark." And then there's a screaming hissing of air exiting the shuttle, surfaces turning to ice in a moment as the pressure disappears through the proverbial floor, and even as the hatch is opening Jacy's gloved hands are hauling the pod in, banging it roughly into the bulkhead as the hatch hisses closed behind them. Her voice is sharp, "Keep the ship vented. We don't have enough oxygen to repressurize after every recovery." In her mind are the possibilities that, as Euterpe said, there won't be room for everyone. <English>
Adrian resets his thigh rig on the outside of his suit, and links his comms up to the suit radio. He draws out his Punisher PDW, and clips it to the outside of his EVAC suit. "They've got their vac kits on, right? Or at least they should? No way we can take them out if not." <English>
Heather Jacy's voice is grim. "If we can't fit them all in in pods, we're going to have to take them out of the pods, Calhoun. I am NOT leaving anyone behind." A glance at the display showing the fighter group way out towards Haven, bright specks of humanity burning through the endless black. But she'll have to make choices. Who to recover. Who to leave behind. One pod onboard. Then another. Then another. A Long Range Shuttle has a ton of cargo space, approximately the size of the back of a pickup truck. Maybe fifteen pods. More, if only the pods could be jettisoned, but Pitbull is right. "Can we tow the fighters?" Jacy's tone is sharp. <English>
Adrian shrugs. "Depends on how many grapples we've got, and if they have any. If so, we could daisy-chain them, but I REALLY don't recommend that." He checks the occupant of each pod, and, of the few pods drawn aboard so far, none of the occupants have vac-suits on, and none can be fitted on quickly enough. "Assuming the pilots have good vac-suits, we might be able to feed them O2 through the umbilicals outside, but I don't like them being exposed out there." <English>
The squadron has split really as they come into view, one ship flanks another ship, like having a wing man so to speak in a formation so that if and when they begin their evac, there will always be someone in a fighter behind them while two circle behind until each fighter has or will be evacced...Rosales bringing up the rear. But until they are given the go ahead, they are staying in that formation and flanking life pods. <English>
And still the lifepods are loaded aboard, the pilot isn't even bothering to close the hatch between pickups. Through her visor, Heather Jacy can see the figure of one of Rosales' pilots holding station on the port quarter. And that distraction is all Heather Jacy needs, for as she reaches to grab a handhold on the next drifting pod, she slips. With no artificial gravity she starts to tumble...and grabs, panicking, for the hydraulic door strut. It's still slick with oil that hasn't yet outgassed into space, and for a moment, a terrifying moment, her fingers slip before purchase is made. She breathes an obscenity (that probably makes it onto comms and most probably to Adrian's disgust), steadies herself, and makes a second and successful grab onto the drifting pod. That one is shoved in...and that's fourteen pods, and there isn't room for another. "Pitbull, Dannyboy, any sign of a pickup?" Her voice crackles over the shuttle frequency; she isn't transmitting that to Euterpe's girls. <English>
Adrian shakes his head. "Nothing that I've seen so far. Destiny should be en route. Full burn, she should be two or three hours out. We go dark and drift til she gets here, we should be all right. Hostiles'll see us as a few pods gathered together, unless they LIDAR us, but I doubt they'll be that paranoid.." <English>
"Alright. Let Euterpe know the plan. And make sure she sticks to it," Jacy says curtly. The hatch hisses closed, and condensation suddenly forms on every surface as the struggling life support system tries to backfill the shuttle with precious (and moist) air. Water on every surface. And delicate electronic circuits in racks all around. There's a sudden dry electrical CRACK and smell of smoke from an engineering panel, and a row of warning lights illuminate by the pilot. "Isolating circuits four alpha, four bravo, four charlie," he replies in a steady voice. <English>
Adrian swears quietly but violently (he cut his comm, apparently), as the thin CRACK of something shorting filters through the air. "I thought these damn things were vacrated?!" <English>
If it's not one thing it's another. As Rodriguez and Torver flip through procedures, at least radar is still operative. A bright speck appears off the starboard bow, a little high. No transponder. "You getting this contact?" comes a voice in everyone's earpiece, one of the pilots. Her voice is sharp with tension. No transponder, and a moment later the sensors flash red. Radiation leak from the incoming ship. "Range one hundred and forty thousand meters," Jacy mutters. "Alright, you heard the commander! Everyone go dark!" Rodriguez's fingers flip open the protective cage over the master switch, he hesitates a moment, and then the ship plunges into darkness. Around them the fighters, too, quench the cockpit glows like a bunch of fireflies. <English>
Adrian manages one last com call, before cutting his radio. "Not even station-keeping. Play dead. Minimum movement inside your craft. Going dark. Watch for an 'ok' from our formation lights." <English>
The seconds drag into minutes. There's no more distance data on the incoming craft. The fighters are drifting, one of them swinging towards the shuttle, enother nosing into one of its comrades. Minutes stretch into half an hour...and then the incoming craft is a sunlit spec as it crosses the terminator, visible for a moment before the ships are plunged into darkness on the night side of the planet. Star fields drift lazily overhead as the shuttle starts to tumble slowly. Jacy, her visor up, stares at Calhoun with wide eyes as there's a terrible grating crunch, one of the fighters impacting the side of the shuttle, the scream of metal against metal as the fighter's wingtip grates down the side of the shuttle before drifting away. <English>
Adrian shows the discipline of a ghillied-up sniper as he takes a knee right after his call. The screaming scrape doesn't even register to him as he keeps his eyes focused on the starfield (presumably; he still has his visor down, rendering him as faceless as the day he took on the role of 'Arbiter,' and no doubt just as unnervingly mechanical). <English>
The Reaver ship is getting closer, resolving now. At one time it may have been an A.S.R.E.V., but now it's a mockery of its former role, welded plates and spikes impaling the dessicated, bleached and mummified corpses of the unfortunate upon them, graffiti and obscene symbols covering every spare surface. For a blessed moment it looks as though it is going to pass by, but then thrusters fire and it swings to keep station with the drifting ragtag fleet. That's when Jacy lets out a muttered curse. Her face is pale. "Someone shoot the go-tsao-de Reaver ship..." she whispers. The ship holds station, no more than a hundred meters distant... <English>
Adrian growls. "Do. Not. Fucking. Move." Adrian's voice, cold as a glacier and just as hard, emits from his suit, barely a whisper in volume, but the suit itself is barely moving at all, and then only as its wearer breathes. <English>
And that's when a harpoon whips out from the Reaver A.S.R.E.V., the dull steel slamming through a fighter's wing and impaling it, jagged barbs sealing the ship's fate. As the winch starts to retract at speed, jerking the fighter violently out of the loose formation, the pilot's head whips round, desperately trying to see what has captured her. The rapidly departing fighter slams into another of the Fighter group, smashing off the nose and sending it spinning crazily around its axis. <English>
Adrian clicks on his suit comms. "Euturpe 3, point your nose at the Reaver and brass him up. You've got seconds." He wants the wounded fighter to point at the attacking Reaver and fire her guns, hopefully tearing the reaver's ship to shreds; the light armor of the ASREV isn't designed to stand up to military-grade spacecraft weapons, and Adrian is counting on the Reaver additions to not help enough against the standard-issue HEAP rounds. <English>
The impaled fighter either hears the plan or acts independently, for there's a sudden burn of thrusters and then jagged lines of tracer rounds leap out to meet the Reaver ship. It must have been carrying a full fuel load, for the resultant explosion rips through space, rocking the shuttle, tearing apart the constellation of fighters, sending them spinning. Shrapnel peppers the hull, and there's a sudden popping in everyone's ears, condensation forming again as the pressure drops. One of the holes is obvious, and Rodriguez leaps up with a sealing can, injecting the expanding foam into the void to try to stem the leak. Through the viewport is debris...the Reaver ship, torn apart, flaring blossoms of fire...and the doomed fighter, its back broken, the pilot in her suit flailing her arms as she tumbles, little jets of venting air spinning her suit from where shrapnel has perforated it. <English>
Adrian winces. "Euturpe squadron, sound off." The voice that issues from the suit is still icy cold. <English>
"Euterpe Leader." "Euterpe Four." "Euterpe Six." There are gaps, as the dozen or so survivors sound off. And as they sound off, Heather Jacy suddenly springs into action. "Depressurizing now!" She slams the visor down on her EVA suit and punches out the plastic cover of the hatch emergency release, then in the same reverse motion pulls the red handle sharply inwards. There's another hiss as the hatch spills open...and then Jacy is launching herself through the aperture, directly towards the dying pilot. It's in sickeningly slow motion, closing towards the flailing woman. Her voice crackles in everyone's earpieces: "I got you. I got you." <English>
"You're doing what?!" Adrian stares in disbelief as Jacy barrels out toward the pilot. "Son of a.." He grabs a handheld grapnel gun, and, after locking his elbow around a grab rail, takes careful aim at Jacy. "C'mon, c'mon, c'mooon..." He carefully squeezes the trigger, the monofilament wire trailing behind the magnetically-enhanced grappling hook, whose tips are blunted so as not to damage an EVA suit. "Jacy, line incoming!" His warning comes seconds before the grapnel line THWACKS into Jacy's leg with enough force to bruise the bone, the grappling arms snapping around to lock it onto the woman. Adrian hooks the grapnel gun into the ceiling of the shuttle, and links the spool onto the winch to pull Jacy back inside.
"Tell the pilot to hang on. And breathe OUT! Empty her lungs, we'll refill them back in here." He cuts his comm "That's assuming we can close the damn hatch again.." <English>
The impact of the grapnel sets Jacy spinning. She may be a tactical genius, but this spacewalk is currently only her second ever, after the mandatory 15-minute tethered training session at the Boros Military Academy's orbiting station, and she's overcorrecting like crazy, tumbling as badly as the poor pilot beyond her. And then they crash into each other, the shock of the impact rippling back down the line, and Jacy has her arms wrapped in a bearhug around the pilot's shredded torso. "Pull!" her voice yelps on comms. Torver is by the door, frantically working the mechanism back to automatic, and Rodriguez is floating in the background with an O2 bottle in his hands. "Carla, hang in there!" comes Euterpe Leader's voice.
Adrian growls, holding the line steady as possible against Jacy's tumbling. "Jacy, stop moving! You're making it worse!" He doesn't dare touch the thin cable; for its incredible strength and low weight, it's still a very fine line of high-tech metal, and even that has a limit. He watches the tumbling duo helplessly; if the line breaks, the recoil from the snap will send Jacy further away still, and worse yet, might shred him and the shuttle crew. <English>
Somehow Jacy remembers the words of Drill Sergeant Murphy on the training station: "Move like you're dancing, ladies! Nice and easy does it!" The line is spooling out. 100 meters left. 50 meters. 25 meters. But Jacy is steadying her tumble with her legs, and even manages to disengage one arm to fire an EVA attitude thruster to brake. 10 meters of line left. Five. Two, One...JERK. The cable comes taught, wrenching Jacy's leg around with the combined weight of her and the pilot on it, and Jacy screams into her comm. But the line has held, and now the recoil is bringing them back... <English>
Adrian tenses visibly, even through his suit, as the line goes taut, and he watches it like a hawk for a full five seconds before he starts to retract the line. "Jacy. Link to her suit. Show me her vitals." <English>
Jacy's already clipped onto the carabiner at the waist, and now she fumbles for the suit's short electrical umbilical. The connection is made, and suddenly static dissolves into vitals on the shuttle's control panels. Carla Lopez, 23, HR 145, BP 99/65 and falling, blood type O negative. Jacy's coming in fast, twisting her head to look over her shoulder, eyes widening at the closing speed of the shuttle. <English>
Adrian swears quietly. "Rigo, aid kit, now." He may not be trained beyond the standard first aid course, but he knows problem vitals when he sees them. He reaches out to Jacy, and the cable slows as it approaches. "Jacy. Slow your approach. Push your body away from the shuttle." Even 5 m/s is dangerous to a soft, squishy human in thin layers of mylar and plastic. <English>
Jacy turns and fires her attitude thrusters, little squirts of cold gas puffing out and making her spin. She's trying to take the impact with the ship on her own back, but only partly succeeds; she catches the frame of the door a brutal impact with her shoulder and sprawls inside, Carla still attached at the belt clip as the two of them tumble together, Carla a dead weight. Torver is snappy with the door closing, it barely misses one outstretched leg, and then precious air is hissing into the room even as Rodriguez passes Adrian the portable oxygen pack and grabs for the floating first aid kit. The pilot is bleeding freely, droplets of blood floating as little globules in the zero-g. <English>
Adrian swears again, and watches the atmo readout on his suit's wrist computer. once it's breathable, he snaps his bayonet from the rig on his thigh andsets to work cutting the stricken pilot free of her useless vac suit, still keeping one eye on her vitals. To treat her wounds, he must first be able to see them. He pointedly ignores Jacy as he focuses on his new task. "Euterpe flight, report fuel status." <English>
"Dry, Pitbull." "Two minutes left." "Dry, sir." It doesn't look good as the survivors broadcast their status. Carla's suit is cut away; she's bleeding from the chest, shoulder and hip, the shoulder by far the most serious, and she's not breathing. Jacy, unclipping herself, lays sprawled for a long moment as she stares at the young woman's profile. Then Rodriguez barks, "Sir, multiple large contacts, bearing...it's the Destiny!" And the Destiny battlegroup it is, proceeding at maximum speed towards Deadwood under the command of Captain Wong. <English>
Adrian sighs. "Bout gorram time..." He fires up the comm. "Atropos, Atropos, Pitbull Actual. Adrift in the debris field. Activating SAR beacon. Request emergency CASEVAC retrieval, Cat-A. Also require personnel retrieval for fighter squadron adrift near my 20. CASREP to follow, wait, out." He casts a quick glance to the display of Carla's vitals, and sets to work to get her breathing again. <English>
With Adrian working on her bleeding, and Jacy, grimacing as she moves, slapping the oxygen mask down on her face, there's a dreadful moment when it seems like Pilot Lopez is not going to make it. Then she coughs, wheezing air into her lungs. Not that she's about to open her eyes and smile anytime soon; her skin is mottled with broken blood vessels, there's blood in both nostrils and around her eyes and ears, and she remains unresponsive. But she's alive. Rodriguez is talking urgently with Destiny's XO, Torver is patching leaks still, and Jacy...is slumped back against the pile of occupied lifepods. Her face is pale as she meets Adrian's gaze. "Let's go home," she mutters hoarsely. <English>
Adrian glares at Jacy for being so damnably reckless. "Nice work.. next time let the vac-rated Marine do the crazy space jump, huh?" He keeps working on Lopez, and he coms over to give a CASREP on the wounded pilot, working to keep her breathing, and to control the bleeding. <English>
