The Thargoid Advantage Part 1
16 Sep 2022Creamy Goodness III
Two hundred meters. One hundred meters. Fifty, and touchdown.
“EOM Thirty is locked, please bring us down. You can begin boarding as soon as the doors open” said Captain Purberry. He closed the coms and glanced sideways at the instructor, doing his best to look professional.
The pad engaged and the Anaconda started sinking below the dock leaving the fire, debris, and emergency klaxons behind. Creamy marked the lading section of the evaluation; it was a little fast, but within tolerance for a Pilot's Federation pass. Saying nothing, Creamy watched Purberry run system checks and prep for emergency lift off. That earned another mark on the evaluation. The deck officer had finished pre, and opened the doors; boarding had begun.
“Ok, lets’ see how the refugees are doing, shall we?” asked Purberry rhetorically as he switched the monitors to the internal cameras.
Station security were funnelling passengers onto the evacuation ship, they were doing a great job of keeping the people calm and orderly. The cabin crew, expertly trained in emergency evacuation, reassured and seated the people quickly, doing their best to keep the corridors clear for medical teams. Purberry and Creamy watched the screes jump from camera to camera and waited for the cabin crew to press all the ‘Cabin Ready’ indicators and the deck officer to ok take-off.
When the board was green, Purberry did his final checks and up-cycled the generator, then requested clearance to launch. That earned him a cross on the evaluation.
“Welcome on board EOM Thirty ladies and gentlemen, I am Captain Purberry and I am pleased to inform you this ship is perfectly equipped to safely transport you all to sanctuary. This flight to the evacuation vessel, Hospitality, will last approximately five minutes. Please inform your attendants of any medical requirements you or your dependants may have, and remain seated until we have landed, and the cabin crew begin disembarking procedures. Thank you for your cooperation”
It was late, but Purberrys’ announcement voice was very good. He cleaned up his normally lazy Federal drool, making his delivery reassuring and confident; pulse, he told the people everything they needed to hear at this time.
“Top draw Captain Purberry, you may ascend the pad and depart when ready” encouraged Creamy. He liked this man and felt bad for having to mark him down for something as trivial as not reassuring the evacuees before cycling up the generator, and then waiting on the pad after being given clearance. However, rules were rules and Creamy could lose his examiners’ licence if he didn’t adherer to them. Thus far, Purberry had not earned enough faults to fail his heavy class evacuation-ship licence, but now he had to deal with leaving a Thargoid ravaged station.
__________________________________________
Trace saw Ral cut his seat belt so he did the same. The cabin had two security guards inside, and there were a few more wandering around the rest of the ship. Whoever the operators of this evac-company were, they had fucked up the plan. Not many evacuation ships had this much cabin crew, let alone medical staff and security. Still it looked like the hijacking was going ahead anyway. Trace couldn’t blame the boss, the ship had over one hundred subdued people on board and they had partially been sold already. The team had brought tranqu canisters, and extra Ear Grubs too, so the crew would just increase the amount of people they could sell. Who knew that a Thargoid attack could give an enterprising faction such an advantage.
A stewardess had rushed to Ral to encourage him to sit, so Ral shot her with a stun charge. Wasting no time, Trace stood, swung around and shot both the guards; neither of them went down until Ral added his electrocution cartages to Traces’. A few more shots too care of the rest of the cabin crew with hardly a ripple from the passengers. God-damn the stuff the doc had mixed was good, gassing the refuges while they piled into the docks was a solid gold idea. Trace wondered if they would need the fuck-ugly Ear Grubs at all.
“Don’t mess around dude” hissed Ral “Get on with hacking the coms” he ordered while he was disarming the fallen guards.
“Right yeah” answered Trace looking for a port that would take the E-Breach.
If the rest of the cabins had been subdued this quickly, and the guards in the corridors went down without too much of a struggle, all they had to do was get into the cockpit, and they were home dry.
__________________________________________
EOM Thirty left the debris-filled station without so much as a light bump to the shields. Creamy happily marked his pad with another check mark. The training captain did have to make space for a few Apex shuttles to zoom out of the slot, but the companies Anaconda could wait in this station for a long time before it got too hot.
“Should be smooth sailing from here on” remarked Purberry fishing for a clue as to how his test was going.
Creamy wanted to give him a thumbs up, but he had to remain impartial; something Creamy was not known for.
“Just a short hop and a landing to go that man, then I can let you know” said Creamy failing not to give Purberry a conspiratorial wink.
A light ‘Bing-bong’ made both men look around at the cockpit door. This wasn’t a long flight so the crew should have no reason to come to the cockpit. Looking to the display, Purberry and Creamy could see two of the security team outside the door waiting for them to answer the intercom. Creamy was about to flick the switch when he remembered he was only here to observe; Purberry had to deal with this.
“Captain Purberry here, is there a problem guys?” he asked hoping to god it was nothing serious. This was his second test; he’d failed the first one thanks to a damn civilian pilot in an Orca pushing its way through the slot. He didn’t want to fail again because of someone else’s fuck-up.
“Someone released mini drones. They could breach the cockpit. We’re here to protect you” said one of the guards through his helmets breather.
There was no Captain or sir from the guards, and not a salute in sight. Purberry tensed a little. “I see” answered Purberry “What a day huh?” he said and waited.
Creamy looked from the monitor to Purberry a couple of times befor he said “Well I’ll open the door then shall I?” as he reached for the button.
Purberry caught his hand and silenced the intercom “That’s the security phrase. They are supposed to answer it, this could be a hijacking.” He opened the intercom again. “What a day huh?” he repeated.
Creamy blinked in confusion. Of course, the company had dealt with a lot of situations, and thanks to the new security firm that supplied the on-board guards and escort wings, they had developed a few extra steps that Creamy kept forgetting about. The security phrase was one of them. He couldn’t even remember what the person on the other side of the door was supposed to answer with. If Creamy was the one taking the test, he would have just failed.. . Oh, and let armed imposters into the cockpit.
“Yeah, it never ends. Let us in and we’ll check no drones have got this far” said the guard on the other side of the door.
“Shit, that’s not right. We’re in trouble” said Purberry turning off the intercom.
He opened the little locker beside him and poked a keypad on a sizable metal box. It unlocked and Creamy could see a weapon in Purberrys’ hand almost too big to be called a pistol.
“Get your weapon Captain Goodness” said Purberry nodding at the locker beside Creamy “We got to defend ourselves.”
Glancing at the locker beside him, Creamy straightened his uniform. He wasn’t a guns kind of guy, and didn’t know if he should take over now; this was still Purberrys’ evaluation after all. The men on the other side of the door had figured out they were not going to be let in, and one of them had started cutting. The other guy looked straight into the camera and raised his pistol. The screen went blank.