03:15 Backup Control Room

John and Lieutenant Garcia made it to the control room. The door was locked, which made sense since the main control room was still operational. Garcia made mention of this fact several times to John. He continued to ignore the obvious as he was trying to gain access into the room. Garcia’s constant complaining reminded him of Andern and Jessica. He smiled at the familiarity he was feeling.

“Look, I get it, we can help the main control room by getting the computer core back up and running.” John was fiddling with the door controls.

“We need to go there and tell them to restart the computers.”

John pulled the panel off the wall and was hooking some wired up to the door’s servo controller. “Tell me, how long would it take to get there presuming no bulkheads are sealed and none of the elevator’s work?”

“Thirty to forty minutes.”

“That’s time we don’t have. Step back.” John plugged the wire into an open power line causing the servo to engage. “Hot damn. Go in, let’s get it restarted.”

The two men walked inside the room. It was on reserve power, but the lights were still giving enough room for the men to find their ways through the room. Garcia pointed John to the computer control terminal.

“I don’t suppose you’ve ever restarted a station computer before?”

“No, in fact I haven’t. Did reboot a frigate before though.” John walked over to the console. “Provide me whiskey and I’ll regale you a tail of that particular shit show I found myself smack dab in the middle of.”

Garcia was at a secondary terminal that had to approve the central core’s restart. Garcia waffled at the last second which generated a small argument between the two men. Eventually John convinced Garcia to shut up and help him. This did finally result in the computer restarting. As it was coming back online it was properly shielded from the frigate’s electronic attacks being made on it. Communications were still being jammed but hardlines between terminals were working.

“Garcia, what the hell are you doing. And why the hell is a cadet with you?” Station Commander Lee asked.

“Well, he was bored and was with me watching the ship dock. Except it’s not a freighter, it’s a frigate sir, older one of ours.”

“Excuse me commander. Garcia where the hell is that.” John was pointing at a screen.

“Not far from here. Down the stairs a level and over one section.”

“Motherfuckers. I know what they are stealing.” John grabbed his gun and looked back. “Commander, I strongly suggest you send marines to the docking ring where this ship is. We’re going to make a pit stop first before heading there to take back what they are stealing from me, and I suppose the Navy too.”

John ran out of the room. Garcia saluted to his commanding officer and ran behind him. Lee ordered the marines be mobilized and move out. A junior officer told the commander that it’d be twenty minutes before they get there. The shuttered bulkheads throughout the station remained in place. They couldn’t remotely unlock them yet as the system core was still cycling through its reboot.

3:30 Industrial Storage Wing, Hallway 23B

John was in the lead and crept forward toward the corner in the hallway. John stopped just short as did Garcia. He peaked out briefly and noticed that there was a maglift with several things on it. His new suit was on it. John could feel his anger well up within him, these assholes were taking something that wasn’t theirs and would be taking something that John had spent a substantial amount of work on.

“I see six hostiles. Follow my lead.” John said.

Garcia nodded and got ready to follow John into the skirmish. John flicked the safety off on his gun and turned the corner. The gun was leveled and aimed at the enemies. He pressed the trigger, and a three round burst struck the closest man. Garcia fired on the men on the right side.

John dashed forwarded and caught a man off guard and shot him point blank with a pistol. He quickly switched targets and fired on another man that ran back from down a hallway. At least for now the suit and other items on the maglift were back in friendly hands.

“Clear.” John said.

“Clear. What hell is going on?”

“Use that terminal and check in with your commander.” John shoved some items off the maglift. “Toss me restraints, I’ll get these idiots restrained.”

Garcia tossed John the restraints he had. Three of the men were dead, but the other three were still alive. John triaged their wounds to stop or greatly slow the bleeding. He engaged the restraints on them as the last action.

John walked over to the panel and opened a line with the control room. “We need medics down here; three hostiles are alive. Need them around to interrogate them.”

“Roger, sending medical teams.”

John turned around and walked back to the maglift. He smiled when he got his hands back on his armor. John grabbed the reliquary and pulled it off the lift. It landed on the floor with a loud thud. He unlocked it but it displayed a low power warning. He grabbed the power cable and looked in the wall for a power coupling.

“Friendlies are in route. Eight minutes out.” An officer in the command center said.

“Copy that, John?”

“Yeah, nice. Any enemies near us?”

“Still working on getting internal sensors fully operational. We don’t expect it back up for another twenty minutes.”

John shook his head. He found the coupling and plugged it in. The reliquary hummed as it began charging itself. He reached out with his mind and confirmed there were no enemies nearby. He unlocked the reliquary, but the void sheath was nowhere to be found.

John stood up and looked around for another box that contained it. He rummaged through everything. Eventually he found it in a grey box that was on the floor already. Jackpot, the void sheath was found. John kicked off his boots and began undressing.

“Dude, the hell you doing?” Garcia looked shocked.

“You’ll see soon.” John finished putting the void sheath on.

He walked over to the terminal in the wall and tried to connect to his room. It continued to ring and ring. John walked back to the reliquary and activated it. Armor plates were being connected. Alice accepted a voice only call midway through its operation.

“What the hell, it’s fucking late.” Alice was not happy at being woken up.

“Good, they didn’t get to the sleeping quarters.”

“John, honey what are you talking about?”

“Go back to sleep dear. I’ll be there soon.”

“Ok, good night.” Alice was half asleep as she shut the connection off.

Alice turned the call off. John figured she’d be pissed with him in the morning. Though if that was because he ran off into danger or if he woke her up was yet to be determined. John smirked and figured it was a healthy combination of both. The reliquary attached the last armor plate and the fusion drives spooled up as more power was being demanded from them.

John grabbed his helmet and put it on. “Garcia, help me go through these boxes, looking for a zero g harness.”

Garcia turned, saw the power armor and almost tripped and fell backwards. “Fucking hell. Blue box on the maglift.”

John went over to the box and opened it. “You see the triangles back there? Hook it in place please.”

Garcia complied and hooked the device into the power armor. He looked down and grabbed the remaining item from the box and connected it to the base of the harness. He heard a lock, then it fired the jets as a test. The jets were then retracted into the harness which shrunk back behind his shoulders to protect it from any fire.

“Thanks. Looks like backup is about here.”

The marines rounded the corner and were heading down the hallway. John leaned down and commanded the reliquary to shut down. The marines were about to say something when John looked at Garcia.

“Do me a favor, get all this shit back to the armory. Me and the boys have work to do.” John turned to the maglift and opened a red box and pulled out the prototype battle rifle, a pistol and a pair of oversized drum magazines. “You lot with me, we’re heading to Docking Arm 2, Bay 36D.”

The marines looked at one another with the sergeant shrugging and going along with things. John turned and ran down the hallway. The marines followed suit a few steps behind John. It was a twenty-minute hike up and down floors. Complete control of the station hadn’t been gained yet.

04:15 Docking Arm 2, Bay 36D

“Command suggests all enemies are off the station. Ship is being paralyzed for now.” A marine said.

“Orders are to wait here.”

“Cool. Y’all stay here. I’m going on the ship.” John stepped passed them and opened the airlock.

“Cadet, need I remind you about orders?” The sergeant looked at John.

“Those orders apply to you, I’m outside of the standard chain of command here.” John closed the door.

The atmosphere was then sucked out of the airlock. When that finished the external door opened. John ran out of the airlock, the moment he crossed the threshold into the void the effects of artificial gravity ceased. His momentum propelled him through the umbilical towards the enemy ship. He was now exposed to the void. It was always an odd sensation to be in the harshest environment mankind knew of.

When John reached the exterior airlock of the hostile ship, he held on to a support railing and opened the door. After it had slowly opened John entered it. He closed it behind him. The command to open the interior door wasn’t working, which was to be expected though. He opened an access panel and was trying to override the lock to the airlock.

“Cadet, need I remind you that you are, in fact, in the chain of command?” Commander Lee said.

“Commander. Congratulations on getting the coms up and running. Strictly speaking no, we’re not. While you accepted housing the cadets, we weren’t actually transferred to your command.”

“It’s a clever…” There was a pause when the commander was interrupted by someone in the background. “It seems there’s been a request for you to enter the vessel.”

“Wonderful. Well, back to work I go.” John cut the coms but shared a tracking frequency so they could see where he was.

John had been successful in adding atmosphere to the room, but he wasn’t having any luck getting the door open. Just then the door opened suddenly and unexpectedly for John. Two men were standing there with guns pointed at him. They got the drop on John and began opening fire first. The kinetic shielding flared up as rounds were impacted the shield then fragmented from their momentum suddenly stopping.

John dashed forward and punched the closest man in the head. He followed that by rotating around and slamming the other man in the chest with a closed fist using his left arm. The first man crumpled to the ground dead, the second had his sternum crushed. The man coughed blood out of his mouth as he fell to his knees. John finished the deal by kicking the man in the face. He fell forward into a growing pool of his own blood.

John ran down the hallway, he was vaguely familiar with this class of ship. His goal was to get to the main computer core terminal. He encountered only two men on the way there. They were easily dispatched with the new battle rifle he was sporting. He continued his run down the hallway.

John stopped and jogged back to an odd-looking room. He scanned and recorded its contents. It looked like a hastily prepared chapel. John mused on the importance of it. There weren’t many records related to religion within the Mercantilist Union. What triggered John was the small statue of a man he was lightly acquainted with. Then a hologram appeared.

04:30 CPN Dominus, Alter Room

“Even I don’t have a god complex.” John picked up the statue and crushed it in his hand. “You are one delusional asshole.”

Dr. Norman laughed. “And yet you’re a step closer to god than most.”

“I’m no god and I don’t appreciate you trying to steal my shit. You had better hope we never meet.”

“You should be above such petty threats. When you and I meet you will be joining me in my grand plans.”

“My threats are far from petty. What makes you think you have anything to offer me? There is literally nothing you have that I want. Your grand plan is a fucking delusional. Worse yet, you don’t see yourself as nothing more than some fucked up cult leader.”

“What do I have to offer you?” Dr. Norman looked disappointingly at John. “A spot in the future of mankind. One of the fathers of the new man? Everything is available to us. I’m nothing like a cult leader, my ideas will enable our ascension.”

“Do you even listen to what you say? That’s the same damn thing every bloody cult leader has ever said in the history of mankind.”

“John, you just don’t see the vision I can. We can be so much more than we are now.”

“Is that really all you have? I’m not part of your cult, nor do I subscribe to your belief that you have all the answers.” John turned around and was walking out of the room.

“You will join me one day.” Dr. Norman smiled as he outstretched his arms. “The empire we will create will be so glorious. If only you could see what I have in mind for us all.”

“It’ll be a cold day in hell when that happens.” John took tossed a grenade into the room as walked down the hall.

A short couple of minutes later he was trying to force his way into the computer room. The access codes he used to get the airlock open were useless here. Shorting the servo didn’t work either. Being angry he resorted to brute force. Three punches later the door was deformed and being opened slowly, despite the servos squealing against the force being imposed upon them.

“Cadet, they are attempted to override our locking controls. Estimate eight minutes until they do that.”

“Roger. I’ve got five minutes to play with their core.”

John forced the door open and headed inside. He pulled a device from a pouch and connected it to the terminal. The armor’s onboard VI was searching through the core far more quickly than John could. It was copying and transmitting data as it found anything interesting. All of this data was being sent to a secure server located on Titan.

John began running some basic searches himself to learn more about the ship as the timer on his HUD was ticking down. John was getting angry that he wasn’t going to get all the information he wanted. That countdown timer wasn’t helping things.

John switched his focus to reviewing recent data that was transferred over to the ship. Flavio was right, a bevy of contract data was transferred over to the station around the time John noticed the men walking back toward their ship with his suit. He hurriedly copied the information and discretely sent the contracts to Flavio.

The ship was never near the Mercantilist Union space, but it appeared the Alliance were the ones responsible for the theft of this vessel. John figured the Union paid a hefty ransom to borrow or buy the ship. But there was something else going on, the armor itself was valuable but not so much so to justify a full operation like this.

John noted his thought in his suits log to review or share with Navy and Intelligence during the debrief. He also noted to apologize to the commander for being slightly insubordinate. John winced at his actions, he still needed to learn how to play the political game better. And possible give a bit more deference to superior officers, that part probably more than any others he needed to do, even if John had the best answer.

When the timer hit zero John stopped what he was doing and ran out of the room and headed back to the airlock. He reached out with his mind and found his path was clear. Two minutes later he was closing the inner airlock door behind him, the atmosphere was being sucked out of the room.

“Locking arms are being retracted now. Need to be out of there yesterday cadet.”

“Fuck me.” John said as the outer door slowly opened. “Turning on a transponder.”

He engaged the harness, the protective doors opened, and the small jets extended above and behind his shoulders. The outer airlock door finally opened; John was in action instantly. He ran out of the room, the moment he hit the void the jets were in action helping to propel him down the umbilical. But he was only about a quarter the way down the umbilical when it all started to go wrong.

As the last locking arm retracted, the frigate’s engines were ramped up to full power. She was beginning to pull away. The umbilical hadn’t been retracted and was being pulled and stretched in the direction the frigate was heading. It was only a matter of time until the umbilical exceeded its tolerances and snapped. John was desperately looking at a place to hop out of the umbilical, but unfortunately a semi-transparent fibrous mesh surrounded him. There was no way out. Then it happened.

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck.”

The umbilical snapped. John instantly retracted the harness jets to prevent any damage to them. He crunched himself into the fetal position, or at least as much as the armor would let him and protected his helmet with his arms. An instant later an overly stressed cable snapped like a whip and slammed into John. The kinetic barrier flashed and was burned out, barely any momentum was arrested as it struck John. He was knocked out by the impact. The direction and speed he was traveling were radically changed when John tore through the mesh that had been surrounding him. He was flung away from the station and was now drifting into the void.