Severence
23 Aug 2016Hersilia
Before entering Daedalus, Hersilia donned the flight suit she hated so much. It was itchy and clingy. It also didn't help her claustrophobia when it restricted itself around the wearers body for a perfect fit. She had to wear it though. A hydrogen fuel leak was a dangerous thing. The cargo-bay needed to be flushed before entry. That meant having to go on to life support for a few of minutes. Not too bad, if you knew what you were doing. Hersilia didn't know what she was doing. She had never flushed the cargo-bay before, and the prospect of only having fifteen minutes of air in the cabin was a scary thought. She tried to relax, leaning back into her commanders chair. Her hands moved effortlessly across the holo-boards in front of her."Life support online" the ship told her as she pressed the corresponding button. She breathed out slowly through her nose. This was it. First time for everything. The switch was flicked.
"Cargo-bay depressurizing." She felt the ship rumble under her. Now she had to burn off the excess hydrogen gas, this was the risky part. She brought up a new holo-board. Delicately tapped a few commands into the console.
"Cargo-bay pressurizing, Excess hydrogen purge in progress." her ship chimed. She sat back and waited. The ship shuddered violently which caused her to grip the flight controls tightly. If there was a malfunction of any sort, which was more than likely considering the state that her ship was in, it could cause a deadly explosion. Seconds felt like minutes. She waited.
"Excess hydrogen purge completed." A sigh of relief.
The entry ramp of the Cobra MKIII hit the station floor with a loud thud. She quickly marched down the stairway which was still lowering as she descended. As she moved out onto the station floor she turned around to look up at the rear of her ship, inspecting the damage. The hull was pock-marked with multi-cannon shot and streaked from laser burns. The right hand thruster had been heavily damaged. Around the thruster the bulkheads were twisted and torn, blackened heavily from the impact of the projectile. The seeker missile?
"Bastard!" she spat through gritted teeth. She had to use two heat sinks on the way to Daedalus and used the last one by the time she had requested docking permission. Arriving inside the station at a toasty 86 degrees. She waited for the ship to cool down before any repairs could be made.
Three hours had passed, this was taking too long. The repair teams had patched most of the hull damage and fixed the fuel leak. The engine was another story. The impact from the missile had destroyed important components for the thrusters. New ones were being put in but the repair team that was assigned to the task seemed to be having trouble integrating the new systems.
"Sir, the mass drives wont lock in!" a young man shouted over the landing bay to his superior, greying and wrinkled, but standing tall and proud. She'd had enough. She marched over to the back of her ship, anger mounting at the incompetence of the repair crew.
"Give me that!" she snapped and snatched a simplistic spanner from a crew member. Peering into the open hatch she opened up a small holo-control panel. Finger tips flew over the keys, she'd fixed her ship before and knew exactly what to do. A couple of lights flashed, together with a satisfying clunk. She smiled to herself and rested her left arm on the edge of the hatch, fiddling with the spanner.
"See? It's not difficult, come here." she gestured to the young man that had called out to his superior. He walked over sheepishly, hoping she wouldn't get angry with him.
"Look.." she pointed to the control panel which she opened up previously. The young crew member leaned against her ship for a better look.
"Just tap here, here a-" her thoughts were cut short. The automatic hatch for the engine bay had closed, the stupid crewman must have lent on the control panel. Her mind went blank, a searing white hot pain jolted through her. Her vision became a blur, the sounds of the station rattled around in her mind. Shouting. Urgency. A rising high pitched noise joined the cacophony, it was near ear splitting. It roused her slightly, bringing her round a bit. The noise grew louder and louder until she finally realized it was coming from her. She was screaming. Pain brought her attention to just below her left elbow. The arm had been severed. A clean cut. Blood smeared the side of the engine bay hatch and was dripping down spattering onto the floor. She stared in horror at the absence of an arm. What was left of her flight suit was drenched in hot sticky blood. In ran in thick lines to the floor causing a large viscous pool underneath her.
"Stay still Cmdr, medics are on there way" the words were faint, only just piercing through the din of the station around her. She had to look up to see where the words were coming from. She had fallen. IT was the young crewman.
"Y..y.." she tried to speak.
"You bastard!" she was screaming it in her mind. Angry eyes glaring up at the fool.. her vision distorted again. She was losing too much blood, darkness closed in, obscuring everything. She passed out.
"For fuck's sake we need a medic here!!" The young crew member was holding Hersilia, trying to put pressure on the wound, he was covered head to toe in blood. He'd never work in this system again, that's for sure.