Maintenance
04 Aug 2021Prochaska
Jintosh sounded the alarm. Sharon had behaved strangely the last few days. She seemed to be controlled by someone or something else, spoke about a maintenance protocol. What Jin made of it was, that it must have had to do with the wounds she had received when Kendra had hit her. Sharon sneaked away, taking off in her Asp, towards the carrier GPLC Resurrection, parked in the Gender system. That was when Jin reached out to her friends to come and help. They also boarded the Resurrection, that is, Hans, Gravlex and Zoe. The carrier was programmed to jump out to the vicinity of some Guardian ruins. From there, she jumped to IC 2391 Sector FG-X b1-9 and headed out to a Guardian beacon, the others in pursuit. She activated the beacon, then headed on to IC 2391 Sector CA-A d43. Here, Zoe lost some time, mapping the huge system. When she was finished, the others were gone. Contacting Gravlex via radio, he told her to head for the Guardian structure on planet 12 A. When she arrived there, the situation was chaotic. The ships were landed around the structure, one or two SRVs were destroyed on the ground. She saw Sharon and Hans running around on foot. She did not know what to do. She followed the radio messages, and, very slowly, the situation became clearer to her: „We have to stop her“ - „She needs an SRV, don't let her get one“ „ “She will run out of O2 eventually“, she heard. Wondering and upset, she answered back „That is the plan?“ „There is nothing better we can do“, came the reply. Sharon was running around, she seemed desperate. She had a gun in her hand. When Zoes SRV was hit by some rounds, she needed some time to realize that those had been fired by Sharon. Suddenly, Sharon started to run to the other end of the site. Gravlex voice sounded in alarm over the radio, she was heading for an abandoned SRV there. Gravlex accelerated in the direction, and Zoe followed up. Gravlex overtook Sharon, reahed the SRV and started firing. Zoe also reached a firing position some distance away from the SRV and activated her dual repeater turret, firing away. Sharon attcked Gravlex SRV with her laser gun; but then the SRV exploded, and the blast caught Sharon. She was blown to the ground, and died on the spot. When Gravlex radioed the news, it stoked Zoe's throat. She hadn't seen it happen, as Sharon was hidden from her view behind a bump in the terrain. Everyone was at a loss, "how could this happen?" the appalled voice of Hans sounded over the radio. Jintosh was in despair. The perplexity continued for some time until someone remembered that the carrier would soon leave the system. Then all returned aboard their ships and started the return flight.Zoe was still feeling sick the day after. She sat in the Icarus, struggling with images of the exploding SRV flashing up in her mind.
Yes, Sharon had reacted aggressively against her group, firing at people. Zoe was not solely responsible for the end, she consoled herself; nor had she ever aimed anywhere near Sharon herself, or even expected her to be harmed. But those thoughts didn't really help. The shock still sat deep within her.
It could have been that the elimination of Sharon would have become necessary at some point anyway. But now she was all doubt; would Sharon ever really have become as dangerous as to make an elimination necessary? Couldn't an alternative solution have been found? Damn it, I'm not a fucking contract killer, but just a space flight engineer! she thought.
In her mind, she could no longer stand to be alone. She entered a course to Cemiess into the on-board computer and charged up the FSD.