Suicide Mission
"Focus, people." Jeremy Niles barked out. "Who the Captain of the Anastasia is should not be what we need to discuss right now. Either you focus on the situation at hand or you will be sent back inside the Anastasia. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Commander." Aiko Hara responded in a tight clipped voice.
"Alright people. Let's move out. It's a 20 minute flight to get to the Krystabella. Don't try to rush it by using up more of your Gear's energy. A few minutes difference to get there a bit faster is not going to make any difference at this point."
As the Gear Squad moved into the external chamber, the entryway behind them closed and the external hatch opened. Without hesitation, the six Gear Scout Squad from Anastasia moved out of the starship, into the depths of space.
Once they broke free of the Anastasia, weightlessness returned and the deep dark void closed in around them.
Alekai checked his monitors and weapons as Jesse chatted into his ear about random things as she adjusted the ambient temperature and bumped up their life supports so they were more comfortable.
"It's easier to keep us comfortable if I throw my carapace shield around us." She rambled at him in her usual happy chirping voice. "Even though we don't necessarily have to shield ourselves from any imminent attacks, it still makes me feel better for both of us to be within the turtle carapace."
"Hmm. Do what you think is best, Jesse." Alekai muttered as he readjusted the minutia of the system around him.
He sent up a grateful prayer of thankfulness to the Universe that Jesse was taking care of the core and navigating them in formation alongside the Anastasia Gear Squad so he didn't have to figure out how to do all that.
"I have visual feed of the Gear Squad Helena which I will share with you." Jeremy's voice broke through their speakers.
Instantly, a feed of the visual from the starship Helena flooded their virtual monitor. There was little to see at the moment since both Gear Squads from Helene and Anastasia had barely been deployed from the mother ship. It would take at least fifteen to twenty minutes for both teams to reach the Krystabella's main hatch.
"Our job is to enter the Krystabella to scout out the situation. There has been no sign of communication coming from the Krystabella so we have no idea what we are going to find."
"Commander, was there any sign of distress from the Krystabella?" Cody from Team Hwang called out.
"Negative, Cody." Jeremy shook his head. "One moment, all communication lines were open and normal and the next moment, everything went dark."
"Any life signs?" Lan from Team Forbes asked.
"Negative. But that does not mean that there are no people still alive on Krystabella. It could just mean signals have been jammed due to the power outage and we have not been able to receive anything."
Alekai tuned out the chatter between the Commander and his five Gear Teams. He was about to size down the video feed so that it would not take up so much of his visual bandwidth when he saw a movement from inside the Krystabella.
He narrowed his gaze and increased the magnification, zooming in on the opening of the opened hatch. Something was definitely coming out of the hatch.
It was a manned Gear.
"Commander Niles. A Gear is coming out of the Krystabella." He interrupted one of the Team members as they were discussing something of little import.
"Well hot damn. We may be able to figure out what's going on without having to send in an entire Gear Squad." Jeremy commented as all eyes fixed on the screen with rapt attention.
"Gear Squad Helene, rendezvous with the Gear from Krystabella." A voice from one of the command modules called out. It was the Captain of the Helene.
They watched as the five Gears from Helene broke formation and sped up towards the Krystabella and the one lone Gear who was struggling valiantly to reach them.
"Stand by, Anastasia Gear Squad." Jeremy sounded out. "We have sound feed."
Within seconds, an audio feed began sounding into the speakers.
"…I repeat. There are no survivors. All life systems have been obliterated. There is no heat. No air. No life supports."
"Krystabella Gear Squad. What is your designation." A voice came through which Alekai recognized as Tom Duncan's.
"I am Second Lieutenant Percy Lewis, Shielder for Team Rio. My teammate, Striker Jesus Rio is still on the Krystabella and has most likely perished. I was the only one inside the Gear doing routine maintenance when life supports shut down.""
"Lieutenant Lewis, are there any other survivors onboard the Krystabella?"
"I—I'm not certain, Sir. I tried contacting everyone, anyone, but nobody responded to any of the hailing frequencies." Percy Lewis' voice broke as he struggled to control himself.
"Do you have any idea what happened, Lieutenant?" Tom asked.
"Negative, Captain. The moment all the lights went out, my Gear locked me into place and turned on life supports. Otherwise, I would have died along with everyone else in Engineering." He stopped at this point, unable to continue.
"Lieutenant Lewis. Take a deep breath, son. Finish your report soldier." Tom Duncan prodded the Gear Shielder with a firm but gentle voice.
"Sir, yes Sir. I headed out to the engineering deck to take a look around. It was pitch dark. My Gear turned on external lights and—and I could see people everywhere but no one was left alive." He began breaking down and crying. "They had all died for lack of life supports."
"At ease, Lieutenant. Gear Squad Helene is coming to you. One of them will escort you back to the Helene."
"Yes sir."
It did not take long before the five Gear Squad Helene reached the lone Gear moving towards them from Krystabella.
One Team Gear detached and escorted the single Gear member back to the starship Helene while the other four continued onward to the Krystabella.
Even with Lieutenant Lewis' report that everyone onboard had perished, they still had to do their grim duty of confirming this, along with trying to figure out what had happened onboard.
"Why have they only sent a dozen Gears into the Krystabella?" Tae of Team Hwang asked. "Wouldn't it be better if they sent more of us in as support?"
"And leave the three remaining ships with very little defense? Especially since we are staring at two hostile motherships out there on the horizon?" Jeremy Niles retorted.
"Sending twelve Scout Gears into a dead ship is gutsy enough. That leaves less than a hundred Gear to defend three starships."
Tae Hwang sighed. "What we really need are armed warships out here to defend the cruise lines and the intergalactic starships like the Anastasia. They shouldn't just rely on a handful of Scout Gear Squads like us to defend an entire starship the size of Anastasia."
Jeremy shook his head. "We aren't supposed to be the main line of defense. We were only supposed to be external watch dogs, but then the cruise ships started cutting costs and pretty soon, the entire Elite Squad got sent to the unemployment lines."
"I don't understand. Why did they cut the Elite Squad and keep the Scout squad?" Jesse asked.
"Because Elite pay is much higher, plus their Gear is the heavy-duty stuff with serious firepower. We just have the lighter scout Gear with minimal weaponry." Diana of Team Forbes responded.
"So here we are, doing double duty as both watch dogs and guard dogs with little increase in weaponry and a cut to our numbers." Her teammate, Lan added.
"Our numbers got cut?" Jesse breathed.
"Yep." Tae Hwang shook his head in disbelief. "We went from 200 Elite Squad and 100 Scout Squad teams per starship, down to a little over a hundred Scout Squad Teams each ship."
Jesse gasped. "From 300 to 100, that's…"
"That's suicide." Alekai muttered under his breath. The embedded microphone picked up his barely audible words and bumped it up before transmission to the rest of the Gear Squad Anastasia.