Jenel eyed Eileen’s unconscious form, as outside something heavy slammed repeatedly into the door (probably Relly, leave it to that girl to figure out a way to besiege a door without a body.) For now, though they were more concerned with the freaky glowing thing Eileen’s implants were doing, it was somewhat worrying when she knew Eileen had made the active choice to avoid glowing features on her gear, so should have no components modded in a way that was capable of such a thing. (As a rule, none of them chose components likely to paint a big ass target on them, and being the big glowy cyborg in a group was like wearing a giant neon sign saying “I’m big and flashy, shoot me first.” Fancy glowy crap was the sign of a rookie or a commander with the brains of a pickled herring, sensible people don’t knowingly paint a target on themselves.)

“We have to get out of here,” she said, “but that door isn’t giving out at all, what the hell did they even make it out of?”

“I can help there” Nara chimed in, reaching into her jacket to pull out what looked like a novelty water gun, it took Jenel a moment for the oh crap to sink in, NARA HAD A SINGULARITY PISTOL.

“How the hell did you even get that thing?” Jenel asked aghast, last she knew those things had been deemed too dangerous in most systems.

“Found it, fixed it,” Nara replied smugly, as Jenel struggled to process the fact this wasn’t only the most unstable firearm in existence, it was RECONDITIONED. Those things were only built to fire a single shot for a reason. They weren’t the type of thing that sensible people risked once, let alone twice, and if the limiter failed to time out properly then odds were good that the damn thing would take the entire planet out at the least.

“You want to fire that thing in a confined space? Nara honey, don’t even think about it, tweak it some more and keep it as a last resort, and I mean an absolute last resort.”

Looking at Nara right then you would think that Christmas had just been cancelled, “awwww” she pouted, “so how do you propose we get out of here miss smartie pants, that door isn’t giving no matter what we do.”

Jenel pondered for a moment before finally figuring out another solution, preferably one that would keep Nara occupied in order to avoid further temptation to fire that damn toy of hers, because a bored Nara is probably almost as dangerous as the singularity pistol. She pondered for a moment before grinning. “How much explosive do you have? We can’t get the door open I guess we make a new one. The walls don’t seem as strong.”

That definitely made Nara’s eyes light up, an excuse to use excess explosive was one of her favourite things ever. Like right above toast-tarts, and they never let her buy those, (which given the extortionate price-tag and readily available knock-offs was probably fair really, but she liked the prettier boxes, and the official flavours went better with her energy drink. Sometimes it’s good for the mind to be a little impractical, debt or otherwise, and it wasn’t like Jenel was completely innocent on this front either, with all those seeds she bought and all.)

“OK then, first thing’s first” Nara added, we need to get a message through to Relly to extract the pod first, there’s a survivor, and I don’t mind blowing up a wall, hell that bit sounds good, but I want the kid outta range just in case first, debris is a thing, and I think we all want the kid to make it if we can save them. But how do we get a message to Relly about this?”

“Oh dear goddess, we’re resorting to me to do the planning? We really are screwed, we could try using morse, she’s bound to have it in her archive, and I learned it last summer.”

“You decided to learn a code no fleet has used for years for fun?” Nara asked, eyeing her like she’d grown a second head, “You did that voluntarily? On your own time?”

“WHAT? I was bored, Like really, really bored, and not all of us see explosions as the greatest entertainment alright?”

“OK then, how do we hit with enough force for the sound to get through? That stupid door is thicker than a collection agent’s skull.”

“Oh, that bit’s easy,” Jenel replied, un-slinging her own gun, single fire for dits, burst fire for dah’s.”

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On the opposite end of the door Relly slammed into the door again, even the lifter was having a hard time with the force she was hitting with, yet the door held. Suddenly from the opposite side, there was a loud noise, gunfire hitting the door. Were they under attack over there? It took a little while for her to figure out there was a pattern to the sounds, you didn’t make patterns with your fire if you were fighting for your life, you sprayed and prayed, and if smarter aimed for single or tight grouped shots, and you sure as hell didn’t aim them all at a door, things that were trying to kill you took a higher priority, even if you’re cut off. It took a while for her to realise that the pattern felt vaguely familiar, it took even longer for her to scan through the archives looking for a match, morse code? Why Morse of all things? Wait a second, they mentioned a survivor and a pod number, and it was a child? Civilian life was a pretty high priority for her, especially when she heard that Nara was willing to use explosives. She quickly dashed back and started the procedure to evacuate the pod, careful it didn’t go into awakening mode yet, that was the last thing they needed.

**********************************************************************************

Finally, everything was ready, they quickly took cover as far from the door as possible, ducking behind a counter in the furthest lab, then Nara threw the switch, and everything went white.