The Sentinel Fulcrum, 4: Culmination
06 Nov 2021Creamy Goodness III
Last post Off StationThey had a few hours before obit would cast the Anaconda in shadow again. The darkness wasn’t the problem, it was the cold. Staying out in the ice ring under glare of the starlight was cold enough, but their suits wouldn’t be able to keep them from freezing in the shade. The dead ship was sitting awkwardly on a small chunk of frozen rock, and ice had bonded the two together.
At worst, they would have to go back to the Marshmallow and wait for the portable power cells to regenerate their lost energy. The bizarre jump had drained everything on board, including the basic salvage equipment. Once the gear was fully charged, the pair would be able to work weather or not the ship was in the cold darkness. As it was, they had some time and a cell or two with enough charge to get started.
Through the thick ice, aided by the glow that was coming from the hull or the ice its self, Creamy could read the ships name. This was the original Extramarital Affairs, his mining ship that, coupled with a fair few drinks, had started his problems with the people that had ended up kidnapping him. In a way, he had come full circle. Creamy felt that somehow retrieving this old ship would end the run of bad luck he was having.
There was no evidence of anyone, or anything aboard the ship. Every hatch and bulkhead was still sealed. Eagerly, Creamy chipped away at the ice around the top hatch while Meowers kept watch. She was watching the Marshmallow too, monitoring the ships sensors remotely via her wrist computer. After he had applied some heat to the power socket, the hatch accepted the cells powerline and a red light illuminated under the ice.
Eagerly, Creamy chipped away at the keypad cover. Inside, the biometrics reader was operational, but wouldn’t work. Activating the keypad caused a short blurry word to appear on the little screen. Creamy couldn’t read it thanks to the ice damage, but he knew what it said. D’if? Typing ‘Aramis’ caused the light to turn green and powerful hydraulics helped the hatch crack the last of the ice.
Deep within the Anaconda, in a luxurious bedroom, inside what used to be a sandalwood trunk at the foot of a large canopied bed, something else cracked a protective shell that it had formed around its self.
__________________________
The Guardian key in his prostatic arm pulse and the blue glow intensified. Hochstein could almost feel it physically pull him towards the distant Anaconda.
“It’s open Captain. Activate the fighter, I’ll telepresence it myself”
Captain Blake obeyed the doctors’ order. The man had become more intense the moment Meowers’ ship had jumped into the system. She was here now and standing on a rock; his Type 10 could ambush the Marshmallow, and then they could enjoy watching Meowers freeze, or suffocate to death. They could even record it and sell the holo to anyone that she had wronged; that would be a lot of people.
It was still quicker than she deserved for killing so many, but no, the researcher wanted her to board the glowing ship for some convoluted reason. The Doctor was the man that had put this little revenge plan together, and apparently it would give the Alliance a unique weapon to use against the Thargoids as well as killing the woman that had left him, and so many more for dead.
“Yes, there she is Blake” Doctor Hochstein almost whispered “She thinking of going in”
He was keeping the fighter far behind the Marshmallow, drifting so as not to register on the ships sensors. Goodness was the last owner of the Fulcrum, with him dead, it should reset awaiting a new controller, and Hochstein had the activation sigil. He’d built in into the arm he designed for himself.
Meowers had destroyed his ship for no other reason than its’ Commander came up as a target on some banana republics bullion board. The fact that the ship was looking for ways to protect humanity from the Thargoid threat didn’t matter to her. They were Alliance and some independent idiot calling herself governor of a tiny piss-pot system was offering money to kill them.
Well, the Fulcrum needed the blood of the enemy to activate. With no Thargoid blood available, Meowers would do nicely.