Exodus

"This is your captain speaking, it is 7:00 in the morning, the ships temp is an average 65 degrees, and it seems that no one had thought to get up and get to work, so if no one is working, I guess I can press the big red button that will space all of your ass's, you got ten minutes."

As Abe put down the intercom besides his bed and turned to go back to sleep, he smiled, for he was a righteous bastard.

Five minutes latter he pulled himself out of bed and got dressed to go get his coffee.

He then made his way to the command center of the ship, passing some crew who had been up long before him.

He greeted everyone he met with a good morning and made his way to the helm.

Kaiden slowly worked his way out of the pile of empty bottles kept at the foot of his bed. They had been there for about a week now, as Kaiden had taken to raiding the bar at the end of his shift. Staggering over to the cabinet, Kaiden groggily grabbed a small container, which he opened, then swalled three of the pills inside.

Now that his pounding headache was gone, Kaiden pulled on some clothes, holstered his sidearm, and grabbed an unopened bottle of whiskey. He had a Frigate to fly, after all.

Wolf woke up he had fallen asleep at his terminal.

“Not again” mumbled wolf as he stood up and stretched his legs and got himself a cup of coffee and sat back down.

And went back to watching the security cameras again before his officer found out he had fallen asleep on duty again.

"Get out of here! We have a ship right over there. It's the last one.....don't worry we'll all be fine. Just get the hell outta here!"

"I am not leaving! Everyone is going to die! I have to say goodbye to my girlfriend....we are engaged."

"Go!"
............................................................

"This is your captain speaking, it is 7:00 in the morning, the ships temp is an average 65 degrees, and it seems that no one had thought to get up and get to work, so if no one is working, I guess I can press the big red button that will space all of your ass's, you got ten minutes."

As Phill awoke, he realized he was drenched in sweat. He had been having the same nightmare for some time. "Another day....god damn."

Phill got out of bed and headed for the ships helm for the captains orders.

An old song played from William's alarm clock.

"There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium, and hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium, and nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium, and iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium...."

William started singing along.

"..Europium, zirconium, lutetium, vanadium, and lanthanum and osmium and astatine and radium, and gold and protactinium and indium and gallium, and iodine and thorium and thulium and thallium...."

William stopped singing looked around. His room was pretty bare. None of the posters on his walls had clothes on. How odd. He could have sworn they did before.

"Fucking Tom Lehrer.", William said, putting on some pants and a lab coat. "Computer, who messed with the holographic displays in my room?"

The captains shrill voice echoed around the ship.

"Sleep? Who needs sleep?"

Will paced the deserted fighter bay, twitching as he went.

"I hope we run into some fucking pigs today. I'm wired as hell right now."

Will clutched the empty auto-injector in his right hand. A few minutes ago it held a few drops of the highly addictive drug, Leek. Leek was an incredibly stimulating illegal substance that can be found in black markets around the galaxy. Leek is named for it's primary side effect, the complete breakdown of your cells in a particular area of the body, making you leak bodily fluids.

Will cracked his neck and hid the auto-injector in the back of his flight suit.

"Fuck yeah! Time to head up on deck."

Will's brain raced as he swiftly climbed the stairs to the helm. His protective flight suit covered the growing red spot on his lower back.

The automatic reinforced nano doors opened as he strode into the room. Looking around, Will saw the usual faces. Everyone begins to look the same when you've been on a ship for awhile.

...Or maybe it was the drugs.

While waiting for the computer to process his request, William left his office and walked around the science lab. The front half of the lab was called 'Medbay', but everyone on the ship called it the 'Threshold' for some reason.

"Professor!", someone shouted as he walked towards the medbay area.

Some girl was here. William couldn't remember her name.

"It's me, Diane. I'm the bartender."

'Who?', William thought.

"I knew that, Diane. What can I help you with?"

"I found drugs in my bar. The illegal kind of drugs that only someone with access to the black market, or you, can order.", Diane said.

"Diane, I think that people have been stealing from me for quite some time now.", William said. "It is legal to use them for test on monkeys and monkey-like creatures."

"Monkey-like? People are monkey like. I'll report you for this."

"I'm crazy. You telling people likewise won't make a difference.", he said. After this, William pulled out a syringe gun and shot a random intern that happened to be walking by. They looked dazed for a second, then passed out.

"Bots!", William shouted, and two medical bots dragged the body into the depths of Medbay.

"If you'll excuse me, I have work to do."

Wolf started scanning the screens as he looked at the med bay camera footage.

He saw as Professor William Wipkink knocked out an intern and had the med bots them drag off.

He pushed the button for the intercom and said “erm excuse me Professor William Wipkink can you please refrain from doing that we kinda need that intern I know there like annoying but we kinda need them alive and hole so we don’t get sue by the university’s again!”

He got up and walked over to the combat drone panel and started some up.

“yes sgt what can we do for you today” they asked.

“the normal stuff the prof is trying to play with the interns again go stop him nicely ok try not to kill him”.

“yes sir” they replied and flew off to go do it.

Wolf walked back to he seat and followed were the prof had gone.

“this is gonna be fun” he muttered to himself taking a sip of coffee

"Uh... I need some coffee." Phill groaned.

He began the six minute trip to the lounge area. It wasn't really a lunge due to the fact that it had one worn down leather couch that could sit only two personnel.

About two minutes later he was passing the crazed doctors lab.

"ZzzZZZZZZZ!" "Ah! Stop it! What is this nonsense!?!?!" "ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!"

"Um, guys? Can we try to refrain from tazeing the doctor and just take the body back? I assume this IS another intern, right?"

"Yes sir." They blatantly replied.

I then continued my trip to the lounge.

The bar sat in the far corner of the lounge, containing a table that wrapped around the corner, leaving enough space for Diane to stand. A booze cabinet was displayed behind her, and a button that alerted Security was in the back of it.

For the most part, she slept on the couch most of the day. Once the main working hours were over, she opened the cabinet, fired up the alcohol replicator, and let the crew manage themselves.

There was a problem today, however. The replicator was dumping out 100 proof alcohol all the time. Right now, it was turned off.

Diane tapped her ear, and after a short static she heard the crew mumbling things over the station radio.

"Can I get an engineer to the lounge? The replicator is on the fritz again.", Diane said, slamming a wrench into the thing.

Bergis' eyes opened slowly as he sat up. He'd been awake for some time now, instinct awakened him at 6:00 every morning, but a good amount of rest makes the work day a lot easier.

He lifted himself out of bed, and performed his morning routine. Shower, shave, brush teeth etc.

He then donned his usual garb and headed for the ship's security control room. One person was already there. Bergis wanted to commend the officer on his sense of duty, but then noticed a small amount of drool on one of the terminals.

"Sleeping on the job, were you?" Bergis asked.

"Sleeping on the job, were you?" a voice said from behind.

Wolf turned round it was Bergis.

“well yes kinda sorry bout that though I did stop the prof from killing someone I sent him a warning over the intercom and sent some combat drones to stop him” Quickly replied wolf.

“Want a coffee I made a pot last night before I fell asleep its still fresh? Kinda.” Asked wolf.

"He doesn't need BOTH kidneys...", William was saying, but didn't think anyone was paying attention.

He looked around, and found himself handcuffed to a chair in medbay. The two security drones had come and gone, and William was left alone. More or less.

"Bots!", William barked. "Unhandcuff me!"

The medical bots, not capable of unhandcuffing him, simply sprayed him with a first aid spray. This proved to his benefit, however. The spray lubed up his hand enough to free one hand. His other hand still had a cuff on it, but he was now free to lolligag around the science wing.

"I almost forgot...", William said, handcuffing the free cuff to his already cuffed hand. "Don't want to accidentally cuff myself to a table..."

Abe tried as hard as he could to ignore everyone on the ship shirking there duty's, but could not, until the large cargo ship bearing an IDF of the other sides ship dropped out of its jump right in front of the Exodus

"All hands battle stations, this is not a drill."

"Sir" a young bridge officer spoke up "They are moving to flee, they are also powering up weapons and launching fighters and bombers, probably to buy them time to calculate for another jump."

"Kaiden, warm up the weapons and get me a firing solution, you know, do your job, and skip the shake down, Will prep your fighter and launch the moment you can, DO NOT skip the shake down, Bergis, prep a team for boarding, and get someone on electronic warfare, I want to know who is on there ship, and maybe lock them out of the armory if we can, the less bloodshed the better."

Abe then moved to take his seat.

"You got your orders, raise shields."

Drinking on last shot, Kaiden laughed manically. "Aye Aye Sir! Hey, you want them in one pice, or ten?"

Not waiting for an answer, Kaiden hopped into the helmsmans station, and set to work. Kaiden warmed up the main gun, making sure it wouldn't explode when fired. When the Exodus was in range, Kaiden yelled out, "YIPPIE-KAY-AY, MOTHER F*CKER!", and fired. He laughed, then took another swig of booze, when the shot connected with their targets engine.

Not wasting any time, Kaiden reloaded and aimed the cannon, immediately taking out the ships comm systems. Grinning, he turned to the Captain, and said, "She's ripe for the takin', sir."

"Nice shot Kaiden, you got them before they got their aft shields up, will not be easy next time"

Abe then turned to the comm officer.

"Did they get a message out before there comm was taken out."

"Maybe sir, I might have heard some squawking, but it could have been static"

"Lets operate on the safe side, we need to clean up before a CAE patrol shows up."

*Alvarez wakes up to the sound of the Alarm's and get's up and puts on his gear*

*looks around to see his room is the armory and smile's as he has a flashback to his childhood*

*Head's toward the Command Deck and starts to smell the Gas coming from the Med bay*

What's up Kaiden? We gonna board those pigs?

"Yes, Sir. I will prepare a team for boarding, along with someone skilled in Electronics." Bergis restated, ensuring no confusion.

He operated quickly and efficiently, calling up his 8-man Boarding Team, and one of the ship's electricians.

He then strapped on his PSD (Personal Shielding Device) and his STF-treated Kevlar body suit.

Holstering his weapons, he turned around and faced his team, then quickly faced the Captain.

"10-man Boarding team is ready, sir." Bergis stated.

"Make that 11-man crew.", William said, strapping his personal shield unit to his wrist. "Combat medic, ready for duty."

"I don't see how you can be useful.", Bergis replied, cocking his gun.

"Shields protect against conventional weapons.", William retorted. "You can still die from space exposure, fire, and explosions.

William pulled his syringe gun from his back pocket. "The shields were never made to stop small plastic needles. Who uses needles on a battlefield?"

Diane pulled an antique projectile shotgun from under her bar and cocked it. "Nothing like the classics."

She tapped her ear, and the station static sounded for a moment. "How do you know they don't outclass us?", she asked. "We're horribly understaffed for a ship this size."

"Hawkins, sir. Call me Hawkins." Abe the captain wasn't paying attention, he had more pressing matters to attend to. "Or Hawk for short...captain? Ah fuck it."

Hawkins jumped in the grav lift which took him to the fighter bay in only a few seconds. The drugs and adrenaline flowing through his veins made Hawkins tremble as he hopped in his fighter. It was the best feeling in the world.

"Killing time!"

His fighter, a modified B Class Excalibur was engineered especially for Hawkins' augmentations and flying abilities. The engineers on board made sure she was kept in the best shape possible. The crew's lives could depend on it.

Hawkins signaled for the room to be decompressed as he prepped the fighter.

In ten seconds, Hawkins hit the thrusters and the Excalibur rocketed out of the frigate.

Hawkins immediately fired 2 proton torpedoes at the oncoming bomber. Hitting the thrusters to the max, the excalibur raced the torpedoes to their target. A few seconds of his plasma guns took out the bombers anti missile defenses. Hawkins then slowed down to a sharp dive that would kill anyone without augmentations. With the fighters in front of him, Hawkins easily took them out making sure they didn't eject.

Hawkins heart beat dangerously fast.

"They have terrible pilots." Hawkins radioed in back to the frigate. "The space is all clear now, safe to board."

Hawkins was disappointed that he didn't almost die.

Alvarez takes the stair's down to the prep area where the boarding party is meeting*

Room for 1 more sir?

"Make that two more, sir. Lieutenant Phillip Slade reporting for duty. I am ready to board."

“Lets fucking do this thing!!!” Wolf said as he started putting on his helmet and grabbing his shotgun from under his desk he went with Bergis.


“lets take some prisoners and keeps the prof happy?” asked Wolf

Shoots him self up full of Frenzon and yells then says *lets do this*