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Unforeseen Crisis Unforeseen Crisis
By Vessol
Part 1:Before Crisis
It was like any other day for Vessol Goldstar, repair a broken siphon, fix a fuse, and change a computer core, all boring work. It was 0800 hours SET(Standard Earth Time) and most of the crew was dining in the small mess hall. Vessol poked hardly at his scrambled eggs and then hastily devoured them, a small cough interrupted this ritual and he looked up. Standing on the other side of the table was his annoying, yet intelligent co-worker James Vortez, while he was brilliant, Vessol secretly kept to himself his true thoughts of James. “May I join you?” smirked James, “I would say no, but you would still sit down anyways” Vessol muttered under his breath. James still smirking took a seat opposite Vessol “So did you hear about the new E-17 shield system that we are get next week?” inquired James, “Yea I got the report, its supposed to keep out Class 4 sized objects out of the stations orbit right?” “Correct” James chimed in “Glad you are finally paying attention to crap around here.”
Vessol silently continued his breakfast undisturbed he liked it that way, ever since he was a teenager he liked being alone to think by himself. The time soon came for breakfast to end and to get onto his duties. Vessol slowly stood up and walked to the door. Suddenly Alex Riggs ran through the door right into Vessol “HEY WATCH WHERE YOUR GOING” yelled Alex spraying Vessol in the face. Wiping the spit off his face and rubbing his head Vessol got up, he always hated that man; ever since he was promoted to Head of Research he had gotten a head to big for himself. Vessol shrugged and went to his small office. ‘So siphon repair in the Toxin Lab, great I can see Zach’ thought Vessol. As Vessol walked into the toxin lab there was a small clatter and a wild eccentric looking man with hair all messed up looked up out of a mess of electronic gadgets Vessol could not even begin to recognize. ‘Heylo Vessol! Good to see you again mate! How are yea!?” greeted Zach Licton happily. Vessol always had been friends with Zach, ever since Middle School had they been best friends. “Great” responded Vessol “Just came to fix that siphon problem you reported”. “Yea it’s been a bastard, so another question related to your job, when am I getting those walls repaired on the plasma storage?”. Vessol was currently fixing the easy problem and looked up “Dunno once we get the parts we should be able to get those walls patched up, I wouldn’t worry about it too much, not like something is going to break in their and blow them up” and Vessol went back to work.
It was a week later since the discussion with Zach, and Vessol was busy as ever installing the new shield system. “Make sure to connect the internal chip with the wire of the external” said James in Vessol’s headset. “Yea I know” Vessol breathed in the metallic air of his O2 tank, god he hated going into space like this in a space suit, he always had a fear of loosing his cord and flying into space, even thou he had a jetpack he was still scared. Him and James the station technicians and a crew of 5 from Command were installing the last part of the shield system. It took a couple of hard working hours, but they finished it. As soon as they said goodbye to the installing crew, Vessol headed right for bed. As he entered his small room he looked around and was comfortable, here out of all places he could keep his things, here out of all places he could relax, here out of all places he was safe…

Part 2: During Crisis

Day 1
Vessol was suddenly awoken by a loud voice of Aaron Terrance, the stations captain, over the load speakers “All rank 3 and above crew members please report to the Bridge ASAP, that is all”. ‘What could this be about?’ Vessol thought to himself ‘Usually the stations load speakers were used in very important cases and in an emergency, something must be happening.” Then Vessol remembered that he was not a rank 3 staff member, he was only a lowly Station Technician after all. As Vessol slowly zipped up his jumpsuit and put on his shoes he thought up an idea ‘There has to be a way to spy in that conversation’. After all it was not his shift so he would have an excuse for wandering the station. Vessol smiled and left his room with a final glance of his favorite place ever.
Soon Vessol was at the door to the bridge, it was left wide open so Vessol decided to slowly walk in and try to catch something that was being talked about. “So what you are saying is that because that shuttle was hit we are in lockdown for 4 days!?” muttered a crew member that Vessol did not recognize then Captain Terrance spoke firmly and grabbed everyone’s attention “Yeah, what do you expect Command to do, they did lose 5 men on that shuttle, they just have to take precautions”. Vessol gulped deeply and now understood, the shuttle carrying the engineers from command must have been hit or something. “So we are in lockdown for FOUR days!” asked Alex, the captain quickly replied, “Yes, anymore questions?” “Is the supply shuttle coming at least?” asked whom Vessol recognized as the head cook. “Unfortunately no, this was completely unforeseen.” Zach a corner alone swore loudly and started to walk out, Vessol quickly jumped out of the way and greeted Zach outside the door warmly. Vessol could understand why Zach was mad if anything even damaged the plasma in that unprotected room they were all dead.

Day 2
Vessol and James were busier then they had been in months. The orders from the captain were to reinforce all outer walls incase of debris from the shuttle. “If any debris from the shuttle even gets close to the station the shields should destroy it” James told Vessol, ‘Vessol wondered that himself, there had been a lot of secrecy going on lately, he didn’t like being kept out in the blue not knowing what was going on.’ “That’s the last of it,” said Vessol as him and James finished up their work on northern airlock area and headed back inside the station.
Right when Vessol and James walked into the bridge red lights started going off and fire alarms sprung on. “WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON” screamed Vessol over the load blurting of the fire alarms. No one answered him, but there was a lot of talking going on in the bridge. Vessol walked in and took a seat wondering what was going on. Over the loudness of all the mixed sounds Vessol heard a lot of mix statements from the bridge staff, whom none he knew, and the Head of Personal, “I WANT REPORT ON DAMAGE TO SECTOR 4,5,1” yelled the HoP to one of the men at the computers. “Roger sir, there is a large whole in the side of the engine sir, according to sensors sir they are depressurizing at 5 square meters per second.” Responded the crewman. “Sir, escape pods in bays 2,3, and 4 are being launched” chimed in another crewman. “Must be the engineers, can’t blame them, can you get any life signs from the pods or the engine?” asked the HoP. “Yes sir” responded the crewman as he went back to work “There is one lifeform in the engine, but it is loosing heat, presumably dead, all forms of life in pods have stable heat rates.” The crewman looked up at the HoP and nodded and went to the engine control button.
‘ENGINE EJECTING IN T-MINUS 60 SECONDS!’ blared the mechanical voice in the loudspeakers. The HoP sighed and looked over and noticed Vessol and James for the first time. “Ah glad to see our station techs are here, as you can see we got a prob-“ and a crewman at another console “SIR WE GOT A PROBLEM WITH THE AIR TUNNEL, IT ISN’T DETRACTING RIGHT, WE NEED SOMEONE TO MANUALY DO IT” interrupting the HoP as he went back to work on algorithms and equations to repair the error. ‘ENGINE EJECTING IN T-MINUS 30 SECONDS!’ blared the familiar mechanical voice. The HoP looking worried turned to James and asked, “That’s your job, even if it be your last, go repair that damn air tunnel or we are all fucked up the ass.” ‘ENGINE HAS BEEN EJECTED!’ said the metallic voice as the station shook violently then was silent.
“I can’t believe they are making us do this after what happened to engineering, we are on backup power until we get a replacement engine.” Said James as he was away at work on a circuit. “This is dangerous as hell, they better give me a damn big funeral if I die out here, I am talking about the finest wines and everything, and having the pope send me off and crap.” Said James again, Vessol couldn’t stand it, and he could tell James was anxious and scared, so was himself; James just always did this whenever they were doing a big job, and it was annoying. “There I think we got it,” informed Vessol and as he went to his headset to transmit his message to the bridge a sudden voice came tumbling into his helmet, “GOLDSTAR, VORTEZ, GET BACK IN HERE ASAP”.
As Vessol and James started heading back they looked ahead and saw a flash. “Wait a sec, that couldn’t be…” said Vessol “HOLY SHIT THAT’S THE SHIELD BREAKING!” screamed James as he tried as hard as he could to get to the airlock.
As soon as James opened the door he doubled back and helped Vessol in then suddenly a meteor the size of a football smashed into his chest and threw him into the far wall. Vessol was horrified; he had no idea what just happened. James looked down at the blood trickling out of the massive wound and then slumped down, dead.
Vessol couldn’t accept it, ‘James can’t be dead, he was always there to annoy me and piss me off, he can’t be dead.’ Muttered Vessol as he closed the door and walked away trying to forget it all. He slowly walked into the Bridge and all was chaos, with the crewmembers getting on space suits and setting defense grids. Alex Riggs ran over to Vessol “WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN WE HAVE TO ALL EVAC TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STATION, where is James…” Vessol just shook his head and collapsed. Alex ordered a medical assistant Vessol recognized as Miranda Bluegear to help him to the medical bay, which was the safe district. Vessol’s vision blurred in and out he heard screams over the intercom, the station shook violently and people were running around everywhere. Suddenly Alex Riggs voice and many others from the bridge were screaming, there was a massive impact, and then silence…

Day 3
Vessol awoke with a startle; he looked around, not having any idea where he was. There were bodies around him, whom seemed to be dead or hurt badly. Vessol started to panic; he looked around for someone, anyone, whom was alive and breathing. Dr.Bonzai, the station’s head doctor was working on a security officer whom seemed to have had his leg cut off. The man screamed bloody murder as Bonzai injected him with a heavy dose of morphine. He patted the man on the shoulder and looked up and noticed Vessol. “Glad to see your finally up and about, we could need some help with someone of your profession” smiled Bonzai as he walked towards Vessol. “Wh-What happened?” inquired Vessol as Bonzai stepped over the body of a still crewmember. “Well as far as we know, there was a massive meteor shower that hit the station and destroyed a lot of it and killed a lot of people.” Bonzai frowned and looked around “These are some of the corpses we have recovered and the injured are kept here too, the captain and a couple others are looking for more corpses and anything else that may be of use.” Vessol shook his head not believing what he was hearing. He jumped to his feet and immediately the world started flying around him. “Easy there son, you took quite a smash to the head, luckily Miranda got you safely here before the bridge was hit. Bonzai helped Vessol back onto the folding bed and started to walk away to help another patient. “Wa-Wait, the bridge, was destroyed? What about all the crew in there and how are we going to survive without that room?” Bonzai turned towards Vessol and thought for a second “Well yes we do know that the HoP and the HoR are dead” he pointed towards the body of the HoP and Alex Riggs, Vessol felt sick “And about what we are going to do…I don’t know son, I don’t know…”
Vessol slept for many uneasy hours, his dreams were full of faceless corpses and burning rooms. When suddenly a face out of all of the corpses looked at Vessol and started screaming as its face turned into James’s and then turned into Alex’s and then into other crew members Vessol did not recognize, but knew they were dead. He tried to wake up, but couldn’t, the nightmare would consume him, he wished for death, nothing more as what his co-workers and brothers got.
Zach woke Vessol up suddenly by shaking him. Vessol grabbed onto Zach’s neck and tore him onto the ground throwing his head into the floor and yelling “TAKE ME NOW, KILL ME” he kept on yelling that until he slowly collapsed onto the floor and started breathing heavily. “Easy mate, its just me, bad dream?” asked Zach as he slowly got up rubbing his head from the impact on the floor. Vessol looked at Zach and apologized “Yeah, just a dream…” sighed Vessol as he also got to his feet. “Well glad your up,” said a familiar voice Vessol recognized as the stations captain Aaron Terrance. Vessol turned towards Aaron and saluted him crisply. “Don’t worry about manners right now Goldstar, we got other things to worry about” smirked Aaron as he tore off his Captains insigne “None of us are higher, or below each other, we are all survivors now, and that’s our only goal, to survive.”
Vessol and the rest of the crew that was in fit shape to work were working as hard as ever. Their goal was to make a livable habitat out of the ruins of the station. For many hours they tired away at their duties.
Vessol was assigned with the atmosphere tech, whom he had never met before, named AJ Blade. Their job was to go into the ruins of what used to be the atmosphere lab and recover any useable siphons. It was hard work looking around the mess. “Hey look I found a leg” said AJ as he lifted a leg out of a pile of metal “Must be that one security officers legs” replied Vessol, whom did not enjoy AJ’s depressing sense of humor. “Found one” said Vessol as he slowly pulled a siphon of a pile of more metal. “Easy does it” replied AJ as he was searching through another pile. Vessol looked over at AJ and noticed he was pulling a little to hard on one particular long piece of metal. “Careful, don’t want to loosen anything up too much” AJ took one more long tug and finally pulled it out, flying back in the process. AJ stood up and lifted his arms in triumph. “AJ LOOK OUT” yelled Vessol, but it was too late.
The recent moving of the pipe loosened two wires that had been secured. As they evened out AJ looked at it and saw blood on the wires, he then looked down at himself gurgled blood for a second and then fell apart into 3 different pieces. Vessol looked away and vomited. Another man whom he had knew had just died, how much more would this happen. Vessol grabbed the siphon and dragged it slowly out of the Atmo Lab. With one last look at the head of AJ, which was stuck in a look of bewilderment, he closed the door.
Vessol stumbled slowly to the Medical Bay. “Hey Vessol, glad to see you found something, where’s AJ…” greeted Bit Cloud, the other Atmosphere Tech. Vessol looked into Bit’s face and shook his head. “What, where is he” said Bit in a panicked voice as he ran off to look for his friend.
Vessol slunk into the medical bay and slumped into a chair. He looked down onto the floor, trying not to think. “Vessol? Is everything ok?” asked Miranda who came over to make sure he was not hurt. “Goldstar where is AJ?” inquired Aaron whom came over with Miranda. Vessol gulped back the vomit this time and replied, “He is dead, there was an accident in the atmosphere lab, and he died.” Muttered Vessol and he gulped and stood up. “What do you need next done captain?” But the captain was not listening; he was staring at the door.
There at the door was Bit Cloud holding the bloody head of AJ, whom still had the look of shock on his once alive face. “Its ok AJ, you will be fine man, don’t worry the doctor will look at you and fix you right up” said Bit maniacally to the head as he looked up and with a wild look in his eyes he started yelling “YOU, YOU HURT HIM, I KNOW YOU DID, I WILL KILL YOU.” He put the head of AJ carefully down and then started charging at Vessol.
Vessol had no idea what hit him; he was still stunned by what he just saw. Bit was trying to kill him and get at every inch of his body. Aaron, whom just got over the surprise, pulled out his taser and shot at Bit. Bit was stopped for a second, but he then continued on his search for Vessol’s blood and guts.
Vessol finally responding to the attack elbowed Bit in the face and knocked him back. He then stood up and faced Bit. “You, YOU hurt him, YOU will pay” cackled Bit maniacally. He was about to rush towards Vessol when suddenly a scalpel protruded out of the middle of his neck. He quivered for a second, and with blood pouring out of his mouth fell down face first. And behind him was Dr.Bonzai looking down on his now bloody hands.
But there was no time for thinking when suddenly a man came busting into the room. “Captain sir, another wave of meteors are coming towards the station!” Yelled the crewman as he then noticed AJ’s head and Bit’s dead body. “You heard the man” spoke the captain hastily “We have to evacuate to the emergency room NOW.” He then ran towards the door to help inform the others.
Bonzai continued to look at his hands until Miranda grabbed him and pulled him towards the door. “Come on Vessol, we have to go now” she said as she went out the door. Vessol looked one last time at the room, the smell of blood entered his nostrils and he left. He helped the injured one-legged security officer, whom he learned name was Tom Achilles, to the emergency room.
Most of the survivors made it, those who didn’t; they never heard from or saw again. Vessol looked around at his new current home. The room was cramped there was gear in a corner and food and water in the other corner. He looked around at his fellow survivors. Aaron Terrance the captain was there, along with the one-legged security officer. Zach seemed to have made it too, who was with 2 of his research assistants Vessol did not know. Vessol looked at the other side of the room, where Bonzai and Miranda were setting up medical equipment. Vessol then looked into the shadows and saw Max Power, the medical researcher, whom was smiling grimly with his sharpened teeth shining in the light. So this was the survivors of Space Station 13, what would they do until they are rescued, Vessol thought to himself as he sat down and slowly faded away to a sleeping state. ‘Would they survive?’ was the last thought he thought before he fell into a deep sleep.

Day 4
Vessol had the same dream that he had last time when he was sleeping. There was still the crowd of faceless people, but now more faces were visible, he could see Bit and then AJ, and others he knew to be dead from the recent disaster. And then all the people stopped what they were doing and turned to Vessol. He couldn’t breath, everything was ice, and the air in his lungs froze. And then they all started walking towards him, they moaned and screamed demanding blood, Vessol couldn’t move his feet, they were rooted to the ground. He could only think of the horrible death that was coming.
And then it ended, the faces blurred out of reality and he opened his eyes. He did not understand what he saw; there was only a faint glow and the shapes of various bodies scattered in this small room, they seemed to be alive and breathing. Then he remembered everything; it hit him like a wall of falling bricks. He got up and staggered to the nearest wall and rested his head on the cold steel.
“You’re the first one up,” sneered a voice in one of the corners. Vessol turned to the voice and saw Max Power standing there in the corner; his eyes seemed to glow in a calculating cruel look. “Erm, yeah, you didn’t sleep? Answered Vessol trying not to show his immense dislike of this man. Max just smirked and nodded “Right you are, the captain needed someone to do the watch, I don’t tend to sleep much, so I volunteered, anyways I assume you remember what happened, correct?”
Vessol only nodded and then turned towards the others in the room whom were beginning to stir. The first one up was Zach whom rubbing his eyes told Vessol “Why don’t you keep your conversations to when everyone isn’t sleeping”. Everyone seemed to be waking up, the captain sat up and propped himself on the wall and jokingly said “Got my coffee brewing yet Goldstar?” and he chuckled to himself and started to crease his uniform. Tom also started getting up, then suddenly he saw he was missing his left leg, he sat there for a second with disbelief then started screaming “OH MY GOD, MY LEG, MY LEG, IT WASN’T A DREAM AFTER ALL, OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD!” Everyone suddenly got up and tried to calm him down, after several intense moments of cursing and screaming, Bonzai had finally injected him with a large dose of morphine.
“That should ease the pain for a long while” Bonzai smiled grimly and got up. “No need for a shower to wake you up after that” said one of the research assistants to the other as a joke. “So how about some breakfast?” Zach asked Miranda who was closest to the food. She got up and started foraging around. “Well boys, we got hash browns” she threw a bag of freeze-dried potatoes to everyone. “Some coffee” she gave everyone a bottle of water and a packet of ‘coffee’ “And how about some eggs?” she said as the pulled a package of powdered eggs out. “Careful Miranda, we don’t want to exhaust our food supplies, we might be here for a long time.” Miranda nodded and started silently crying, Bonzai tried to comfort her, but she just shrugged him off “I’m fine, just hard to remember everything that happened, I just need to find a way to cook these damn eggs”
It took awhile, but Miranda finally found a heating battery powered plate in one of the survival kits. After added some powder to some water, the eggs were done in no time. Vessol slowly ate his eggs and while picking at them remembered this is what he did so many times in the past, this was his ritual. He silently thought to himself and realized something. ‘No matter what happens, who dies, life still goes on.’ And that gave him hope inside of his now hopeless body. It seemed like everyone had a little hope inside him or her when they were eating. Humans are the only known race to be given this gift. We above all other creatures can see into the future and hope for the best to come out of it, we don’t walk blindly through time, we have hope that we will have a better tomorrow. They continued like this for what was about an hour until they were all finished eating.
Once they had cleaned up everything the captain stood at the door and asked for everyone’s attention. “As you all know, we are in a state of emergency, we need to get out there and find some form of communication to get a shuttle here to save us.” Everyone nodded and waited for him to continue. After a moment he pointed towards a ten space suits “As you can see, this room was made and stocked for this reason in mind, with these we will be able to go into the ruins of what used to be our space station and reclaim it for a short time, we also have plenty of oxygen tanks, our first task is to get to the now destroyed bridge and try to establish some form of communication, suit up” Everyone nodded and started suiting up.
Everyone, besides Dr.Bonzai and Miranda, was suited up. Bonzai and Miranda were staying behind with Tom to help him and to keep a safe spot open, just incase. They then all proceeded to leave. There were six of them, so they made two groups of 3, Vessol was with Max Power and one of Zachs assistants, whose name was Jordan. Vessol’s group was to go to the shuttle bay and make it stable so the emergency shuttle could dock with the ruins of the station.
As Vessol and his group set off, they waved one last farewell to the other group that comprised of Aaron, Zach, and his other assistant; they were headed to the ruins of the bridge to find some form of communication.
They had to traverse the ruins of the old station, which was quite disastrous. It was a maze, they were often confused and had to start over again. The rooms along the way were not even recognizable besides small little things that identified them. In one room, the brig, they found the remains of another security officer; he was badly burned and died a very horrible death, after pulling him fully free, they laid him down and said a quick prayer before they went on there way again.
After many long decades of minutes they finally got to there planned destination, the shuttle bay of the station, or what it used to be. “Well looks like we have a long job ahead of us,” said Vessol grimly into the headphone to his comrades. He gave his partners orders and set about doing his own work. It was tough work; especially in the limiting space suit he now wore. They spent about twenty minutes on the repairs when the voice of Aaron entered his helmet “We got to the bridge, we are proceeding to search for something…anything that could get us some help, how is everything down there?” “I didn’t think that when I joined the ISRP (International Space Research Program) that I would be forced to do a lowly technicians job,” said Max Power in a slightly aristocratic voice. “Shut up Mr. Powers, I was asking Vessol,” “Everything is fine sir,” said Vessol annoyed by the interruption by Max and by his snotty behavior.
After more minutes of hard labor they decided to take a break. While they could not really do anything besides sit down on piles of debris, it was a break from heavy work none-the-less. Vessol desired water, and tried pressing the ‘hydrate’ button, which was present on all ISS-Spacesuits. He was greatly disappointed to find out this one had none. He inquired Jordan about this and he told him that the ISS has been too cheap to update the emergency space suits; these ones were more than 10 years old. Vessol, disgusted, wanted to tear off his badge on his jumpsuit, but unfortunately could not reach it obviously.
Vessol suddenly heard a massive explosion and jumped up and looked around to find where the source of it came from. He suddenly heard heavy muffled breathing and frantic unrecognizable voices and then finally a more clear voice, Zach’s voice, it was grim yet assertive, the kind used to telling grim news fast “We had an accident on the bridge, it seemed a computer was damaged and on release of a piece of debris from it, exploded. Carlson is dead I think, the captain is alive, but hurt badly, I need help up here.” Vessol could not believe that another person had died, he responded quickly and told Jordan to quickly get up there, Jordan nodded and was off.
Vessol slowly went back to work, but he looked up to find Max Power standing at ease looking at him, or so he thought through the faceplate. He had what looked like a grim smile on his face and then suddenly opened a private communication to Vessol “Glad it isn’t you who died, eh? All men think that when someone dies, its human nature, no matter how much we try to hide it, we are selfish in the end.” Vessol told him to ‘Fuck off you necrophiliac” and closed the communication. After giving Vessol a rude gesture, Max went back to work too. They finally cleared a sizable amount of debris and had repaired many windows in the shuttle bay when Zach’s voice came into his helmet again. “Well I finally got some communication to work, albeit primitive, we got a shuttle coming to us ASAP, estimated time is in ten minutes, get to the shuttle bay Bonzai, Miranda, and Tom. I hope you got the place tidied for company Vessol, because we are finally getting some, Zach Licton out.” Vessol acknowledged it and went to do some final touches.
In about five minutes the rest of the survivors had made it to the shuttle bay, all in white space suits, they all looked eerie and alien. No one talked besides mutterings from Aaron, who they thought had suffered from internal injuries. They waited for many grueling minutes until finally they heard the unmistakable engines of a space shuttle.
Soon it came into view, it was mostly white and had a large ISS logo on it. While it docked the survivors quickly got ready to board. As soon as the airlock opened and the shuttle depressurized they all rushed to the opening. But they were stopped, eleven marines soon came filing out and grabbed each one of them and pushed them against the wall. After much scuffling and shoving, the marines had full control over each one of the survivors. Vessol was pinned by two marines, one on each arm and leg, he had greatly resisted, wanting only to leave. Their space black armor shined in the light and looked very menacing. They each carried standard semi-automatic M-81 rifles. After they all gave up on ever escaping the grips of the black devils, another marine stepped into the shuttle bay and all the marines, while still resisting the survivors saluted him, an officer. He made quick orders to his men through his headset then looked at Aaron Terrance and must have said something else, because Aaron greatly struggled against his guards. Finally after what seemed like a millennia, the officer spoke into all of their helmets. “Well, what do we have here” he said sarcastically “Well, you seem to be survivors of this god forsaken space station” he indicated to the survivors, after no one said anything he started speaking again “Well, as you know, this station has much valuable data that can not fall in the wrong hands, and now that you are leaving this station, you may decide to change your loyalties and give this valuable information to ‘other’ paying hands. During the communication we received word that among the survivors there were some important researchers still alive, I ask for them to step forward before things get ugly.”
Zach, reluctantly stepped forward and so did Max and Jordan. Zach told Jordan to step back, but the officer suddenly chimed in “No we need a first example.” He made some quick orders to the marines guarding Jordan. Suddenly they took out handcuffs, cuffed Jordan, threw him against the wall and fired their guns. Normally, the space suit would have stopped the bullets, but these were armor bullets and they tore into Jordan’s body, he then slumped down and lay still. Vessol could not see his face, but he knew that it was one of surprise. Zach threw himself against his guards and tried to attack the officer, but the marines that were guarding the now dead Jordan threw themselves against him and successfully restrained him. After much commotion, the marines re-gained control over the situation the officer spoke again “This is what will happen to traitors, if even one of you betrays us and your employer, we will hunt you down and kill you.” He then ordered the marines again. They quickly cuffed each of the survivors and started heading to the shuttle. While, secretly, Vessol slid one of the marines handguns into his hand.
It all happened too fast, there was a sudden bursting then pleas for help over the intercom. A meteor had smashed into the side of the shuttle bay and the pressure had sucked out three marines and Max Power. All was chaos as the marines and survivors alike made their way to the shuttle.
Two other marines were soon sucked out and lost to the vacuum of space. Vessol was suddenly shoved in front of the officer, he screamed to himself, drew up his firearm and fired two shots into the officer’s helmet. The glass shattered and the surprised bloodied face of a middle-aged man was visible only for a brief second before it was sucked out the growing hole in the side of the shuttle bay.
The survivors, unnoticed also shoved two other marines out and into space. They finally all made it into the shuttle. Vessol lifted off his helmet and the cold air hit his sweat-drenched face. He looked around at the other helmet-less survivors. Zach was standing their silently crying. Dr.Bonzai was examining Aaron. Tom just sat there with a dumbstruck look. At last Vessol came to the last survivor, Miranda, who was sitting next to him, she was looking at him too. He had to admit, she was always a beautiful woman, and he deeply had a, once unknown, love for her now, after all of this. He smiled at her as she smiled back. As the shuttle set off from the destroyed station, Vessol sighed and realized that they were safe, for now.