17 Chapter 17 :

Low Orbit, Maradisaè I, Moon, 3rd of March 2119.

UNS Adjudicator, Medical Ward.

Time, 18:27

Captain Alex Wells

Wells lay in his medical bed patiently, while a doctor who spoke a language he mostly didn't understand checked his blood samples.

"Alors, comment te sent tu?" asked the medic.

"For the tenth time I don't know what you're saying, could you please get me a translator!"

"S'il te plaît, calme toi. Je vais aller voire si je peut te trouver un communicateur." his voice was soothing, and he left shortly afterwards.

Wells lay there, bored. But merely thirty seconds later, his day got a whole lot more interesting. He heard people speaking in the distance. Then shouts. He heard his own doctor curse as he ran past.

"Merde. Les gars on a un problème!"

He didn't know much french, but he knew "merde" meant "crap".

Whatever was going on, he didn't know, but one thing was for sure. He was glad his doctor had gone. The useless idiot.

Around the corner of his curtain came two guards, a man and a woman.

"Captain!" said the male in a familiar voice.

"Bentham?!!" asked the captain incredulously, "How d'you get out of your ward?"

"Long story, I'll tell you later. You need to help me find the others. We're getting out of here."

"Okay," exclaimed Wells, leaping up. His eyes passed onto the female guard, "And you are... Ara?"

She looked at him, beaming, "Na."

He followed Magnler as he led him through the ward. Already with him was Xeing and Regala. They found Parker not long after.

They found FTL's room after a greater time. He was right at the back of the ward. Wells pushed open his curtain to find him lounging on his bed, a coloured drink in one hand. FTL sprayed liquid everywhere in surprise.

"Pfffft!!!" he coughed, choking a little, "What in the name of..." he didn't get time to finish.

Manler interrupted him, "Come on, let's go. The entire ship's gonna be alert to our presence."

"Alright, alright. Calm down. Blimey..."

"Hurry Josh!" yelled Anne.

"Look, just go on ahead. I'll be right with you..."

"What?!! No! Come on, we've got to go!" exclaimed Anne, panic creeping into her voice.

"Okay, okay..." he got out of bed, they noticed he was wearing rather tight briefs, "Just gotta..." he pulled on his trousers.

Wells impatiently tapped his foot.

"Right!" he beamed, "Good to go."

"Good. Follow me." ordered Magnler.

They began moving towards one of the back exits of the ward. During the journey, Wells came up alongside Ara and Magnler.

"Congratulations on escaping. I know where the crew is held! Thankfully they understood my need to know where they were so they told me. They are in the right wing of the brig..."

"Captain." interrupted Magnler, "We're not going to get the crew."

"Wait, what? Why not? It's my job to keep them safe, I can't leave them now!"

"Captain. The only way they will be safe is if we leave them here. They will be looked after here. There may be repercussions but the UNSF won't harm them. If we take them, there will be casualties."

The captain bit his lip, "I don't like this Magnler. If not the crew, why the officers?"

"Because we need to stop this war. We have to go to the Alfan and tell them to send envoys, negociate a cease fire."

Beside him, Ara nodded.

"E solare, i alshi aaenë sé öslocï ï ia tanya. Alfanowi aenowï xaemr adia aensol. E ëa i soli sai n'diacla..."

"That's right." confirmed Magnler.

Wells glanced at his ear, as he though, he had a translator inserted into it. He must have understood what Ara had said.

"What did she say?" he asked.

"That we have to hurry."

"There was more ot it than that." he said indignantly.

"That's the gist of it. Come on, it's just around the corner."

As they turned around the bend, they came face to face with exactly the people they didn't want to see.

Six people stood there, talking to one of the nurses.

Admiral Thaile, Commander Knight, Detective Inspector Davidson, Interrogator Hayle and two guards in their underwear.

The Admiral went wide eyed with shock as he layed eyes on them.

"Ahhh!!!" yelled FTL. He panic hit the Admiral in the face, decking him.

Elysium smoothly went into action, the guards following suit, while the others kinda just... froze.

The Commander strode up, around FTL's nonexistant guard and struck him proffessionnaly in the ribs. He then swung his fist into the security officer's gut. Reaching up, he followed his chain by grabbing the back of his neck and kicking his knee into his stomach, winding him.

He turned, on Wells quickly, without pause. Ready to do to him what he'd finished with FTL. Then something metallic entered Wells's field of view. It collided with the Commander's head, sending him sprawling to the ground, unconcious. Wells turned and saw Ara with a heavy wrench. The two other guards had just approached at this point and were faced with Magnler holding a gun. Realising they could not get closer without being plucked full of tungsten, they stopped.

"Back off." warned the engineer.

They did. Reluctantly.

His gun still levelled in their direction, he said, "Go on, I'll be right behind you."

The five others passed by, dragging the wheezing FTL, with restraint from neither the guards nor the Detective. Magnler followed afterwards, gun always pointing at the guards until he passed the door and closed it behind him.

"Run! Run!" he whispered the the officers outside, "This way, follow me."

He led the way throught the bowels of the ship, never running into any kind of resistance. No guards, and the personnel they did cross were technicians and didn't carry sidearms. It seemed the ship was fairly empty other than it's unnarmed crew.

They came up outside the hangar.

"If they know anything," said Magnler, "they will know we want to escape. Although I don't know how fast they can get the message with the comms down..."

"How did you get the comms down?" asked Wells, "And how are we gonna leave? None of us are pilots."

The engineer pulled a datastick out of his pocket, "Coline." he explained, "She locked up John and cut all onboard comms."

Wells nodded, finally understanding what the young man had been doing on the New Horizon before leaving to visit the starfort.

"I can't be confident. You take the gun and go ahead." muttered Magnler.

"Ok." nodded Wells, "Three... two... one... NOW!"

Wells opened the door and burst in, pistol in hand. Magnler followed suit. They found themselves inside a huge hangar, on a metal grate sidewalk twenty meters over the cargo vessel bays below. Fighter bays hung above, their ships gleaming as they were tended by their maintenance crews. Before them, a dozen shocked engineers stood in their way.

"Get out of the way." commanded Wells, keeping the gun visible but nonthreatening. He walked past them with the air of command only a captain could have. They descended the nearest stairwell in this manner, closing on the cargo vessel moored there.

A team of technicians were soldering one of it's stubby wings. The lead engineer spotted them and intercepted.

"I'm sorry sir, you cannot access this transport at the moment." he said.

"Why not?" questionned Wells sternly.

Noting he had a pair of guards, in the form of Magnler and Ara, the engineer answered, "Because my team is servicing it. It had a wing hit during a resupply run during combat. It can still fly but it's pilots said it drifted starboard. It's flight sensors there have been fried. It's safer to leave it in my hands."

"We require this transport, effective immediatly. Hand me the keycode."

"Sir, it's unfit for travel. I suggest you take the nextdoor bay's..."

"Move or you will be moved." interrupted Wells flatly.

The engineer stared him down for a couple of seconds, growing red. He seemed indecisive.

"Fine! It's your neck, not mine."

"You're damn right it is."

Magnler seemed relieved by how his Captain had handled that exchange.

They boarded the craft as the technicians hastily climbed off the wing. They quickly rushed to a safe distance.

Magnler headed strait to the cockpit, followed shortly by Ara. The rest of the officers, including Wells, stayed behind. He saw the young engineer plug his datastick into the vessel's access port. And he recognised his AI's blue light as it spread throughout the transport's systems.

"Ughhh..." he heard the AI say, "This thing really is in bad shape. You sure about this man?"

"Yes. Can you fly it?"

"Damn straight I can fly it! It's the landing that worries me..."

Magnler hesitated, "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it." he decided.

Ara looked at him curiously after that statement. Wells realised she would not have understood the meaning of the phrase, only what it meant litterally.

"Mmmm... okay. Well hold on to your horses everyone." Coline broadcast that last part through the entire transport. The doors closed, both the outside one and the cockpit door.

Everybody had already buckled up, but he saw both FTL and Regala hold on to the side of their seats. He did the same. Parker seemed noneplussed. But then, she never really did. The comms officer was one tough girl, and quite like Coline when he thought about it.

The vessel shuddered as it took off, leaning heavily to one side before engines kicked it to stabilise it. Wells could no longer see the cockpit, so he didn't know what was going on.

The transport suddenly sped forwards, the G forces inflicted on Wells astonished him, he nearly blacked out. As the blood rushed into the back of his head, he glanced out of the side window. He could see the Adjudicator, lights blaring from the hangar. He hoped the ship's anti-aircraft defences weren't operationnal or this would be a very short trip. Thankfully, they didn't seem to be functionnal and stayed inanimate. The vessel proppelled itself out of the moon's sphere of influence. He assumed Ara was keying in the orbital burn to rendez-vous with the starfort they'd left. As expected, the vessel then executed a burn to get them into a Maradisaëan orbit.

He saw the station approach over the course of three or four hours, then dissapear as the transport spun around to execute it's circularisation burn and come up alongside the station. They made a very slight inclination change, then pointed at the station and burned slightly. An hour later, they were preparing to enter the hangar.

Wells assumed Ara had called ahead thanks to their functionnal comms and that was the reason they hadn't been blown out of the sky.

Their transport slowly slid into the huge docking bay, through the electromagnetic shielding that kept the atmosphere inside. They alighted in one of the smaller bays. A small crew of Darudain were waiting. Not particularly for them, so they stood warily as they landed.

They amassed by the door as the ramp slid down.

They yelled in panick as they beheld Wells on the ramp. The captain recoiled at their sight. He saw one of them draw a pistol on him as he fell back into the transport. He heard a round fracture against the vessel's internals. Regala let out a wordless shout and ducked. The cockpit door opened and out ran Ara. She gracefully danced across the floor, her hair fanning out behind her.

"Dor! Dor!"

"Aghan? Kores ekrund mackagh aof ecks?!!"

"Ë haloa dor, tanyï solë ieleai. Ï solï oslei sé élài."

The Darudain grunted.

"Dagh."

Ara turned back to Wells.

"Ë solë ashué clasohé." she said soothingly.

Bentham then came out of the cabin, stuffing a datastick back into his pocket. Coline.

"What happened?" he asked.

"One of the Darudain out there shot at me, Ara calmed them down though." he glanced at her, "Thanks." he added.

"Iaiastar." she answered.

Wells stood up, then helped Regala to her feet as well. She muttered her thanks, he nodded. Magnler walked up to him and put several metal pieces into his hand. He looked at them, translators. He thanked the engineer and distributed them amongst his officers.

He poked his head out. The Darudain were muttering amongst themselves. One of them looked at him distrustingly.

He swallowed and walked out, leading his officers towards the agglomeration of Darudain. The five hairy figures stood waiting.

He stopped in front of them.

The first one, the one that had tried to shoot him, laughed. "Go on then, we're not stopping you!"

He walked around them, ignoring their insolence. It would only get him in trouble if he argued.

Ara slipped ahead of him, guiding them farther inside the fortress. She took them through many hallways and corridors for about fifteen minutes, until they reached a teleporter unit.

"Meet me at the Alfanowiron." she said.

"Where is that?" asked Wells.

"It's where the council makes their decisions. I will fetch Laecian and get him to summon a meeting. He has some gravitas in that regard."

"That's all very well, but how do we reach it."

"Ah, I'm sorry. I forget that you do not yet know all the locations we find ovious. Take this teleporter to the Idiamasaron, which is this button. Once there, wait for me, I may be a few minutes."

"Understood." he anwered.

He watched as she dissapeared in a flash of blue light. Then he himself stood on the teleporter.

"When we're alone, Magnler, we're gonna have some words." then he teleported. The last thing he saw, was the engineer blanch.