PreatorX
New member
This is a short story I've been working on for close to five months. I've been having lots and lots of trouble with it. I know where the story is going, what's going to happen, but I just hit a wall while writing it.
A little background: this is my attempt at a science fiction story. I've tried to lean towards it being as "hard" as I can because it seems to me that hard science fiction is far more difficult to write than soft. I've made extensive use of nautical terms to help ground it in reality, and as an assumption that spaceships in the future would be an extension of marine vessals now.
Without further adieu, I present:
The Plunder of Phi VI Alpha
Antonius Hargelle had heard stories of when humanity was confined to the Earth, unable and unwilling to fly through space. He could barely believe those stories, he just couldn't imagine not standing on the deck of a star ship as she plowed through space, propelled by super hot plasma. Antonius--or "Antony" as everyone called him--had been in space ever since he was a child, he father had owned a ship that he used to ferry colonists to the furthest reaches of space. Sometimes the journey to the furthest outposts and colonies took almost a year, so Antony took the trip with his father; as a consequence, he had spent most of his childhood--more accurately most of his life--in space.
Currently, Antony and his team where returning from the planet Phi VI Alpha, an unbelievably harsh world that orbited a gas giant, and thus had two day and night cycles. It had taken them nearly a year to arrive from Earth, but then the ship he had hired certianly didn't have the fastest star drive. It was still hard for Antony to believe what they had discovered on Phi VI Alpha. He had already nearly completed the study for the archaeological journals.
There was a sharp knock at the door, Antony already knew it was Mr. Tenn. Everything about the man was sharp, he had sharp facial features, spiky hair, he even spoke sharply, like each sentance was a barb used to slice other's words from the air. Of course Antony would never say anything of the sort to Mr. Tenn; after all, it did no good to anger the financeer of your archaeological expedition to the edge of known space.
"Come in," Antony called. The dogs of the hatch squeaked open and in stepped a very thin man. Even his mustach came to a point!
"We're six months away from Earth Dr. Hargelle," Mr. Tenn began. "We can start sending transmitions now. They'll reach Earth four months ahead of us. I know you've been wanting to transmit that report you've been working on." He idly smoothed his mustach with his long thin fingers.
"I'll be ready to transmitt my 'study' in about two weeks," Antony purposly emphasised the term "study." To Mr. Tenn, everything could be shoved into the field of business and profit. It's what made him a good financeer and a bad financeer at the same time. "But, I've already told you that I'm donating all of the artifacts to the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, I'm not going to sell to the highest bidder. So, my study will not be a hook to attract potential buyers." It had been one of the major chores during the trip back to try to convince Mr. Tenn that the whole purpose of the expedition was not for profit, but for the purpose of human understanding. Finding possible alien artifacts on another planet was a very exciting prospect.
"If I may be so bold Dr. Hargelle, how are we to make a profit from this little trip," Mr Tenn steepled his long fingers and gazed at Antony with his needle-like eyes. The stance seemed to give the illusion that Mr. Tenn was schemeing and plotting. Antony was not so sure it was an illusion.
Antony leaned back in his chair and studied Mr. Tenn's expectant face. The man really did expect to make a profit! "Look, Mr Tenn, you've been a very generous benefactor. I really appreciate you bankrolling this expedition, but I told you from the very beginning that I was not willing to sell any of the artifacts," Antony briefly looked at the necklace he had been examining-It was what he expected was an elaborate burial necklace-it was covered in twelve diffrent types of gems. It had been the final piece they had found, but there had been others that were even more ornamented with precious stones. "Everything will be donated to the museum, I already called the director and told him they were on the way." Mr. Tenn looked forlornly at the artifact on the desk and reached out as if to grab it and never let go. Antony moved it out of the way and went on: "I have already promised you a portion of the money I will make from lectures and speaking engagements. I think that's more than generous."
Mr. Tenn looked at Antony, he seemed to want to stab him with his eyes. Antony was sure they were sharp as a dagger, and could get the job done. "I understand Dr. Hargelle. I must return to my quarters, I have a bit of accounting to do." With that Mr. Tenn turned on his heal and stalked into the passageway. He didn't even dog down the hatch on his way out. If the ship's master had caught him he would have givin Mr. Tenn an earful on keeping the hatches closed and the ship's atmosphere safe.
The wardroom was empty except for Susan Meyers, a thin pretty brunette with glasses. Susan was Antony's assistant and his team's archaeobotanist; which was a fancy way to say she studied the remains of plants. Antony had always thought that studying the agriculture of an alien specias would make a great postgraduate thesis. He was somewhat jealous he never had the opportunity while he was in grad school.
"How are things Dr. Hargelle?" Susan asked, looking up from the meal she was eating.
Antony sighed just a little. "Susan, how many times do I have to tell you to call me Antony?" Even though he still insisted she use his first name, he had nearly given up. She wouldn't start calling him anything but "Dr. Hargelle" after two and a half years.
"Mr. Tenn was just here, he said you'd finished your study on the artifacts we found on Phi VI Alpha," she said while completely ignoring his plea for less formality.
Antony sighed again. He was determined that he wouldn't ever bring a financeer along to a dig site ever again, even if it meant that he got less funding as a consequence. "Well, I'm nearly finished. I'll need two more weeks to edit and clean it up. I'm also finishing the study of a few artifacts that we had left for the trip home."
Susan chewed a mouthfull of broccoli before putting her fork down. They were near the end of their fresh food supply and the crew and achaeological team were making the best of it. "What was the date of those latest artifacts? Are you assuming they are alien in origin?"
After a quick trip to the gally and a few bites of freeze dried chicken and fresh broccoli, Antony sat back in his chair chewing thoughtfully. "Well, to answer your first question, the latest artifacts were dated at 15,000 years ago."
"Hmm, the upper palaeolithic," she said almost to herself. "So that means there's no doubt that these are alien artifacts?"
"No doubt in my mind," he replied smiling. "I think that's what makes this such a great find. Think of it susan! We're the first archaeologists to discover petrified proof of an alien spieces! I'm using petrified as a figure of speech of course," he was leaning forward, broccoli forgotten on his fork, clearly excited.
"I got the petrified joke," she replied. "Very clever," she smiled at him and popped a piece of chicken into her mouth. "But, Dr. Hargelle-"
He quickly interrupted her. "Antony," and was silent again.
She blushed a little under his stare and went on. "What about the school of thought that claimes humanity was quite advanced 40,000 years ago and that we may have developed space travel at that time?"
Antony gave a ruefull chuckle and shook his head a little. "I hope you don't subscribe to such nonsence Susan. In my professional opinion, that's nothing but pseudoarchaeology," he emphasised the "pseudo" part of the word. "My study on Phi VI Alpha will not include any such speculation."
Susan looked abashed. "Don't worry Dr. Hargelle-" she ignored the look he gave her "-I don't put such stock in those theories myself." She stood up and grabbed her empty plate. "I think I'll get some excersize before I hit the rack." She opened the hatch to the wardroom and stepped through. Susan was one of the unfortunate team members who had to share quarters with three other women. But it wasn't so bad because they all had watch at diffrent times, so Susan was afforded a few hours of privacy every day.
"I can't wait till we get back to Earth and she turns in her thesis," Antony thought as the hatch squeaked shut. "I'm going to call her Dr. Meyers till she's sick of it!"
The ship seemed to buck and twist. Antony could feel the shock as a huge booming sound roared through the ship. He fell out of his rack and quickly got up. He was awake faster than he had ever been in his entire life. Quickly he reviewed the procedure for decompression, there could have been an explosion, the ship could be leaking all of it's precious air into space. Maybe Mr. Tenn would apreciate why the ship's master insisted they seal every hatch after going through.
When Antony stepped onto the bridge it seemed to be in a state of controled chaos. "Antony!" called the ship's master, Dav O'Donnel. The crew just knew the master as "Skipper" though he had invited Antony to call him Dav on many occasions.
"What's up Skipper?" Antony called back. "What's going on?"
"Not sure Antony. We'd just shut down the star drive, we've got to let it cool for at least ten hours in a twenty-four hour period-"
"I understand all that," Antony interuppted. He'd been around his father's Trans Dimensional Steller Drive--or, "star drive" for short--long enough to know how these older models worked.
"Sorry Antony, sometimes I forget you're an experianced mariner. The rest of your team--and Mr. Tenn--don't know the first thing about star ships." The skipper quickly shouted a few commands to the crew and asked for a pressure reading on all compartments.
"Well? What the hell is going on?" Antony asked somewhat impatiently.
"Oh, right," it was understandable that the skipper would lose his concentration, they were in an emergency situation after all. "We'd just slowed below light speed, and there was a huge crash. It seemed that maybe something hit the hull, but so far we've found no damage." Just then, a crewmember announced that there had been no decompression in any of the compartments. The crew on the bridge seemed visibly relieved, though not completely off their guard.
"Well, we have about ten hours to check what went wrong, and if it's nothing we can get underway," it seemed to Antony that as long as they had their engine and air supply, they were in good shape.
"Yep, we better find out what that was. This ship's so old, I wouldn't be suprised it if was the engine falling out," the skipper spoke in all honesty. Mr. Tenn did like cutting corners where he could. A two year trip in an old ship had been acceptable if it meant saving a few thousand dollars. "Begin a visual inspection of the space surrounding us! That explosion or whatever the hell it was came from outside the ship!" the skipper shouted and the crew jumped.
"Skipper? There seems to be a problem with the visual sensors on the port side aft," a young crewmember reported. He looked to be the astro navigation officer.
"Are those sensors broken? Unaligned mirror? Cracked lens? Are the computer imaging systems working?" the skipper asked in rapid fire. "Visual sensors" was just a fancy way of saying "cameras."
"Yes sir. There's nothing wrong with the sensors, they're just black," the navigator seemed confused with his instument's lack of functionality.
The skipper had to only think for a moment before he lept to the communications system. His voice was piped through the ship as he announced. "Now hear this, now hear this: this vessal is being borded by a hostile party, all crew arm and prepare to defend! I say again: this vessal is being borded, arm and prepare to defend!"
"Holy black hole!" Antony exclaimed. "Of course! Port side aft! The main airlock!"
"We have some time to prepare, the outter hull is nano-carbon. We should have an hour if we're lucky," already the crew was leaping away from their stations and to the nearest weapon's locker.
"I've never seen a forced boarding before, and I've been in space most of my life," Antony said thoughtfully. "What do you think they want?"
"Could be anything," he turned to a crewmember who had a raidio headset on his head. "Jarvis, hail our attackers, lets see what they want."
Jarvis turned back to his consol, adjusted the controls then spoke into a mic. "This is Exploratory Vessel 33-A61 to hostile vessle, please state the nature of your actions, over," he waited a few moments then began again. "I say again: this is Exploratory Vessel tree, tree, dash, alfa, six, one to hostile vessel. State the nature of your actions. Please acknowledge, over."
The speakers of the communication system crackled to life: "This is Captain Beedin Kov of Tutankhamen's Vengeance. We are boarding your vessel and we intend to steal your cargo. Do not resist or you will get hurt. Over and out."
The remaining crew on the bridge sat in stunned silence until Antony spoke up. "I've spent most of my time in space, and I've never heard of something like this happening before."
Jarvis sighed and noted forlornly "I suppose that makes them pirates or something, doesn't it?"
A feeling of dread slowly desended onto the crew, the skipper slouched a little further before he stood up and began barking orders. It was no time to slouch in dread when they needed to defend the ship.
A loud boom shuddered through the ship and the four security guards stationed at the brow-or the passageway that leads to the main airlock-felt the shudders through their feet. Then, comming from the other side of the airlock hatch there was a hissing sound. The guards dared not move, but they checked their weapons one last time.
"Alright boys, get ready for some fighting," the security chief said. "The skipper says they intend to use force, so we'll show them they better not. But, try not to get killed. They don't pay any of us enough for that." There was a nervous chuckle from the other men as they began to check their weapons once more.
Abruptly the hissing sound stopped, the security chief craned his neck, trying to get a better look at the airlock. Slowly the hatch swung open. Someone on the other side lobbed a small metal cylinder through after it was open far enough to accomidate such things. The security men tensed up as they stared ast the cylinder.
"What is it?" one of the guards muttered, his eyes shifting and his hands flexing and unflexing around the grip of his gun.
The chief turned to the guard and whispered "Shh, Narkoff, don't give away our positions." He turned back to the cylinder and studied it intently for a second. It then came to him what he was looking at. He turned to Narkoff, "it looks like-" he was cut off as a new hissing sound emerged from the cylinder. While the hissing at the airlock had been a metallicsound, this one was more deadly and organic, like a snake. A white vapour began to flow from the cylinder, accompanying the hissing quite perfectly. "-tear gas!" the chief finished and looked around franticaly. The weren't equipped for tear gas, he wasn't even sure his men could deal with it.
"The hatch! It's opening all the way!" the security man shouted. The chief wasn't sure how he could tell with all the white smoke and stinging eyes.
Loud bangs filled the passageway as the security guards opened fire. Pings could be heard as bullets riccoched off of bulkheads and equippment. After every guard had finished off the clip in his gun, they ducked for cover and waited to see the status of the invaders.
Narkoff looked toward the airlock hatch from where he was crouching and let out a curse. "There's no way we'll win this boys," he said as he dropped his pistol and backed away. "I'm gonna run!" he then took off down the passageway as fast as he could go.
"Men, reload!" the chief barked and snapped a new clip into his gun.
The sound of reloading was interrupted by a voice issuing from the clearing mist of the tear gas. "Drop your weapons and put your hands above your heads, you will not be harmed."
The chief slowly eased his head around the corner, his hands clutched the railing that ran around the machinary he was hiding behind. "Oh, hell..." he said as he was greeted by the sight of large metal shields and the barrels of P90 submachine railguns poking out between them.
A little background: this is my attempt at a science fiction story. I've tried to lean towards it being as "hard" as I can because it seems to me that hard science fiction is far more difficult to write than soft. I've made extensive use of nautical terms to help ground it in reality, and as an assumption that spaceships in the future would be an extension of marine vessals now.
Without further adieu, I present:
The Plunder of Phi VI Alpha
Antonius Hargelle had heard stories of when humanity was confined to the Earth, unable and unwilling to fly through space. He could barely believe those stories, he just couldn't imagine not standing on the deck of a star ship as she plowed through space, propelled by super hot plasma. Antonius--or "Antony" as everyone called him--had been in space ever since he was a child, he father had owned a ship that he used to ferry colonists to the furthest reaches of space. Sometimes the journey to the furthest outposts and colonies took almost a year, so Antony took the trip with his father; as a consequence, he had spent most of his childhood--more accurately most of his life--in space.
Currently, Antony and his team where returning from the planet Phi VI Alpha, an unbelievably harsh world that orbited a gas giant, and thus had two day and night cycles. It had taken them nearly a year to arrive from Earth, but then the ship he had hired certianly didn't have the fastest star drive. It was still hard for Antony to believe what they had discovered on Phi VI Alpha. He had already nearly completed the study for the archaeological journals.
There was a sharp knock at the door, Antony already knew it was Mr. Tenn. Everything about the man was sharp, he had sharp facial features, spiky hair, he even spoke sharply, like each sentance was a barb used to slice other's words from the air. Of course Antony would never say anything of the sort to Mr. Tenn; after all, it did no good to anger the financeer of your archaeological expedition to the edge of known space.
"Come in," Antony called. The dogs of the hatch squeaked open and in stepped a very thin man. Even his mustach came to a point!
"We're six months away from Earth Dr. Hargelle," Mr. Tenn began. "We can start sending transmitions now. They'll reach Earth four months ahead of us. I know you've been wanting to transmit that report you've been working on." He idly smoothed his mustach with his long thin fingers.
"I'll be ready to transmitt my 'study' in about two weeks," Antony purposly emphasised the term "study." To Mr. Tenn, everything could be shoved into the field of business and profit. It's what made him a good financeer and a bad financeer at the same time. "But, I've already told you that I'm donating all of the artifacts to the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, I'm not going to sell to the highest bidder. So, my study will not be a hook to attract potential buyers." It had been one of the major chores during the trip back to try to convince Mr. Tenn that the whole purpose of the expedition was not for profit, but for the purpose of human understanding. Finding possible alien artifacts on another planet was a very exciting prospect.
"If I may be so bold Dr. Hargelle, how are we to make a profit from this little trip," Mr Tenn steepled his long fingers and gazed at Antony with his needle-like eyes. The stance seemed to give the illusion that Mr. Tenn was schemeing and plotting. Antony was not so sure it was an illusion.
Antony leaned back in his chair and studied Mr. Tenn's expectant face. The man really did expect to make a profit! "Look, Mr Tenn, you've been a very generous benefactor. I really appreciate you bankrolling this expedition, but I told you from the very beginning that I was not willing to sell any of the artifacts," Antony briefly looked at the necklace he had been examining-It was what he expected was an elaborate burial necklace-it was covered in twelve diffrent types of gems. It had been the final piece they had found, but there had been others that were even more ornamented with precious stones. "Everything will be donated to the museum, I already called the director and told him they were on the way." Mr. Tenn looked forlornly at the artifact on the desk and reached out as if to grab it and never let go. Antony moved it out of the way and went on: "I have already promised you a portion of the money I will make from lectures and speaking engagements. I think that's more than generous."
Mr. Tenn looked at Antony, he seemed to want to stab him with his eyes. Antony was sure they were sharp as a dagger, and could get the job done. "I understand Dr. Hargelle. I must return to my quarters, I have a bit of accounting to do." With that Mr. Tenn turned on his heal and stalked into the passageway. He didn't even dog down the hatch on his way out. If the ship's master had caught him he would have givin Mr. Tenn an earful on keeping the hatches closed and the ship's atmosphere safe.
The wardroom was empty except for Susan Meyers, a thin pretty brunette with glasses. Susan was Antony's assistant and his team's archaeobotanist; which was a fancy way to say she studied the remains of plants. Antony had always thought that studying the agriculture of an alien specias would make a great postgraduate thesis. He was somewhat jealous he never had the opportunity while he was in grad school.
"How are things Dr. Hargelle?" Susan asked, looking up from the meal she was eating.
Antony sighed just a little. "Susan, how many times do I have to tell you to call me Antony?" Even though he still insisted she use his first name, he had nearly given up. She wouldn't start calling him anything but "Dr. Hargelle" after two and a half years.
"Mr. Tenn was just here, he said you'd finished your study on the artifacts we found on Phi VI Alpha," she said while completely ignoring his plea for less formality.
Antony sighed again. He was determined that he wouldn't ever bring a financeer along to a dig site ever again, even if it meant that he got less funding as a consequence. "Well, I'm nearly finished. I'll need two more weeks to edit and clean it up. I'm also finishing the study of a few artifacts that we had left for the trip home."
Susan chewed a mouthfull of broccoli before putting her fork down. They were near the end of their fresh food supply and the crew and achaeological team were making the best of it. "What was the date of those latest artifacts? Are you assuming they are alien in origin?"
After a quick trip to the gally and a few bites of freeze dried chicken and fresh broccoli, Antony sat back in his chair chewing thoughtfully. "Well, to answer your first question, the latest artifacts were dated at 15,000 years ago."
"Hmm, the upper palaeolithic," she said almost to herself. "So that means there's no doubt that these are alien artifacts?"
"No doubt in my mind," he replied smiling. "I think that's what makes this such a great find. Think of it susan! We're the first archaeologists to discover petrified proof of an alien spieces! I'm using petrified as a figure of speech of course," he was leaning forward, broccoli forgotten on his fork, clearly excited.
"I got the petrified joke," she replied. "Very clever," she smiled at him and popped a piece of chicken into her mouth. "But, Dr. Hargelle-"
He quickly interrupted her. "Antony," and was silent again.
She blushed a little under his stare and went on. "What about the school of thought that claimes humanity was quite advanced 40,000 years ago and that we may have developed space travel at that time?"
Antony gave a ruefull chuckle and shook his head a little. "I hope you don't subscribe to such nonsence Susan. In my professional opinion, that's nothing but pseudoarchaeology," he emphasised the "pseudo" part of the word. "My study on Phi VI Alpha will not include any such speculation."
Susan looked abashed. "Don't worry Dr. Hargelle-" she ignored the look he gave her "-I don't put such stock in those theories myself." She stood up and grabbed her empty plate. "I think I'll get some excersize before I hit the rack." She opened the hatch to the wardroom and stepped through. Susan was one of the unfortunate team members who had to share quarters with three other women. But it wasn't so bad because they all had watch at diffrent times, so Susan was afforded a few hours of privacy every day.
"I can't wait till we get back to Earth and she turns in her thesis," Antony thought as the hatch squeaked shut. "I'm going to call her Dr. Meyers till she's sick of it!"
The ship seemed to buck and twist. Antony could feel the shock as a huge booming sound roared through the ship. He fell out of his rack and quickly got up. He was awake faster than he had ever been in his entire life. Quickly he reviewed the procedure for decompression, there could have been an explosion, the ship could be leaking all of it's precious air into space. Maybe Mr. Tenn would apreciate why the ship's master insisted they seal every hatch after going through.
When Antony stepped onto the bridge it seemed to be in a state of controled chaos. "Antony!" called the ship's master, Dav O'Donnel. The crew just knew the master as "Skipper" though he had invited Antony to call him Dav on many occasions.
"What's up Skipper?" Antony called back. "What's going on?"
"Not sure Antony. We'd just shut down the star drive, we've got to let it cool for at least ten hours in a twenty-four hour period-"
"I understand all that," Antony interuppted. He'd been around his father's Trans Dimensional Steller Drive--or, "star drive" for short--long enough to know how these older models worked.
"Sorry Antony, sometimes I forget you're an experianced mariner. The rest of your team--and Mr. Tenn--don't know the first thing about star ships." The skipper quickly shouted a few commands to the crew and asked for a pressure reading on all compartments.
"Well? What the hell is going on?" Antony asked somewhat impatiently.
"Oh, right," it was understandable that the skipper would lose his concentration, they were in an emergency situation after all. "We'd just slowed below light speed, and there was a huge crash. It seemed that maybe something hit the hull, but so far we've found no damage." Just then, a crewmember announced that there had been no decompression in any of the compartments. The crew on the bridge seemed visibly relieved, though not completely off their guard.
"Well, we have about ten hours to check what went wrong, and if it's nothing we can get underway," it seemed to Antony that as long as they had their engine and air supply, they were in good shape.
"Yep, we better find out what that was. This ship's so old, I wouldn't be suprised it if was the engine falling out," the skipper spoke in all honesty. Mr. Tenn did like cutting corners where he could. A two year trip in an old ship had been acceptable if it meant saving a few thousand dollars. "Begin a visual inspection of the space surrounding us! That explosion or whatever the hell it was came from outside the ship!" the skipper shouted and the crew jumped.
"Skipper? There seems to be a problem with the visual sensors on the port side aft," a young crewmember reported. He looked to be the astro navigation officer.
"Are those sensors broken? Unaligned mirror? Cracked lens? Are the computer imaging systems working?" the skipper asked in rapid fire. "Visual sensors" was just a fancy way of saying "cameras."
"Yes sir. There's nothing wrong with the sensors, they're just black," the navigator seemed confused with his instument's lack of functionality.
The skipper had to only think for a moment before he lept to the communications system. His voice was piped through the ship as he announced. "Now hear this, now hear this: this vessal is being borded by a hostile party, all crew arm and prepare to defend! I say again: this vessal is being borded, arm and prepare to defend!"
"Holy black hole!" Antony exclaimed. "Of course! Port side aft! The main airlock!"
"We have some time to prepare, the outter hull is nano-carbon. We should have an hour if we're lucky," already the crew was leaping away from their stations and to the nearest weapon's locker.
"I've never seen a forced boarding before, and I've been in space most of my life," Antony said thoughtfully. "What do you think they want?"
"Could be anything," he turned to a crewmember who had a raidio headset on his head. "Jarvis, hail our attackers, lets see what they want."
Jarvis turned back to his consol, adjusted the controls then spoke into a mic. "This is Exploratory Vessel 33-A61 to hostile vessle, please state the nature of your actions, over," he waited a few moments then began again. "I say again: this is Exploratory Vessel tree, tree, dash, alfa, six, one to hostile vessel. State the nature of your actions. Please acknowledge, over."
The speakers of the communication system crackled to life: "This is Captain Beedin Kov of Tutankhamen's Vengeance. We are boarding your vessel and we intend to steal your cargo. Do not resist or you will get hurt. Over and out."
The remaining crew on the bridge sat in stunned silence until Antony spoke up. "I've spent most of my time in space, and I've never heard of something like this happening before."
Jarvis sighed and noted forlornly "I suppose that makes them pirates or something, doesn't it?"
A feeling of dread slowly desended onto the crew, the skipper slouched a little further before he stood up and began barking orders. It was no time to slouch in dread when they needed to defend the ship.
A loud boom shuddered through the ship and the four security guards stationed at the brow-or the passageway that leads to the main airlock-felt the shudders through their feet. Then, comming from the other side of the airlock hatch there was a hissing sound. The guards dared not move, but they checked their weapons one last time.
"Alright boys, get ready for some fighting," the security chief said. "The skipper says they intend to use force, so we'll show them they better not. But, try not to get killed. They don't pay any of us enough for that." There was a nervous chuckle from the other men as they began to check their weapons once more.
Abruptly the hissing sound stopped, the security chief craned his neck, trying to get a better look at the airlock. Slowly the hatch swung open. Someone on the other side lobbed a small metal cylinder through after it was open far enough to accomidate such things. The security men tensed up as they stared ast the cylinder.
"What is it?" one of the guards muttered, his eyes shifting and his hands flexing and unflexing around the grip of his gun.
The chief turned to the guard and whispered "Shh, Narkoff, don't give away our positions." He turned back to the cylinder and studied it intently for a second. It then came to him what he was looking at. He turned to Narkoff, "it looks like-" he was cut off as a new hissing sound emerged from the cylinder. While the hissing at the airlock had been a metallicsound, this one was more deadly and organic, like a snake. A white vapour began to flow from the cylinder, accompanying the hissing quite perfectly. "-tear gas!" the chief finished and looked around franticaly. The weren't equipped for tear gas, he wasn't even sure his men could deal with it.
"The hatch! It's opening all the way!" the security man shouted. The chief wasn't sure how he could tell with all the white smoke and stinging eyes.
Loud bangs filled the passageway as the security guards opened fire. Pings could be heard as bullets riccoched off of bulkheads and equippment. After every guard had finished off the clip in his gun, they ducked for cover and waited to see the status of the invaders.
Narkoff looked toward the airlock hatch from where he was crouching and let out a curse. "There's no way we'll win this boys," he said as he dropped his pistol and backed away. "I'm gonna run!" he then took off down the passageway as fast as he could go.
"Men, reload!" the chief barked and snapped a new clip into his gun.
The sound of reloading was interrupted by a voice issuing from the clearing mist of the tear gas. "Drop your weapons and put your hands above your heads, you will not be harmed."
The chief slowly eased his head around the corner, his hands clutched the railing that ran around the machinary he was hiding behind. "Oh, hell..." he said as he was greeted by the sight of large metal shields and the barrels of P90 submachine railguns poking out between them.
