The Duchess stepped out of the shuttle, onto the warded landing platform. She stepped through the iris, waiting impatiently for the outer airlock door to fully seal and vent before she proceeded forward. Through the several layers of scan now implemented, but finally she reached the other side, and made her way to the command deck.
"Welcome, Duchess!" Justine said, waving from her chair.
"Thanks!"
"Affirmative, sir," Laurence said, murmuring into his comm on a private channel. Then he looked up. "This ship is quite impressive, does she have a name?"
Emilly looked at Justine. They both blinked.
"This is Tannhauser Gate station, Laurence," Justine finally said. "We're in orbit around a wormhole."
"Ah. Must be the dry air in the oxygen tanks making my head go funny."
Emilly blinked again, noting Laurence's rebreather firmly in place, even on the recirculated oxygen of the station. "Possible," she finally said. "Though the Rift can cause some odd effects on its own. That does worry me."
Laurence looked at her. "What kind of effects?"
"From the Rift? Time shifts, things moving places, quantum flares from the event horizon." She smiled at him. The usual, she said silently.
"Briggs!" called out Justine, watching him walk onto the command deck. "Damn, I am so glad to see YOU."
They made their way to seats, watching the large screen.
Justine--Commander Johndory, Emilly corrected herself, smiling, that was a rank worthy of remembering--looked over the team as they all wandered in. Lieutenant Laurence Scout, Chief John Briggs, Tom Swift, and the Duchess all made their way to seats. Ready to attempt retrieval of the cargo lost in the crash of TOTS.
"STAN," Justine said, turning to the screen,"send all available data on the crash site to the briefing room screen."
She waited for them to load before continuing. "These are the pics of the crash site. We still don't know exactly what the classified cargo was. The Duke did not choose to divulge that. But we should know it when we see it. Apparently we aren't the only people trying to retrieve it, which is why we're in a hurry. As the Duchess said, there's something hostile guarding the crash site. We're going to go down in Chief Briggs' Varyag gunship. It's rated for space, air and water, and there's room for all of us, and the cargo. The Chief is gonna pilot us, I'll be in the co-pilot jumpseat. When we get there we'll approach the site with caution, get a feel for the resistance and come up with a plan for getting through it. Okay?"
She was met with nods all around. "Okay, let's do this."
"Welcome, Duchess!" Justine said, waving from her chair.
Justine touched a button on the panel in front of her chair. "This image was captured as we fled the wreck of the TOTS freighter." She looked up. "Welcome, Tom Swift! Please, introduce yourselves while I take care of some things." She turned her attention to the panel again.
Laurence lowered Sebastian off his shoulder, leaving him in the station. "Mind things until we get back."
"Mrowr."
Emilly smiled at the small cat sitting, seemingly at attention, on the command deck.
"What are the projectiles?" asked Laurence. "Plasma? Some sort of energy-based, or materialistic?"
Briggs considered. "That the hostiles are using? That is still unclear. We need to do some recon, but keep enough distance that we don't take fire."
Justine nodded. "Great! Let's head up to level 01 and hit the armory before we get into the shuttle."
As they made their way to the lift, Laurance asked, "Isn't that going to be a problem? Oxygen we have very little of."
"Well, it is under seventy meters of water," said Justine. "So everyone is going to need rebreathers."
"Everyone but the Duchess," Emilly said. Laurence's expression was hard to make out through the thick goggles and the leather mask he wore, but she thought he looked puzzled. She shrugged. "I have that under control."
Zack met them when they were getting off on deck 01.
"You guys better be careful--I won't be able to intervene until at least Sunday evening," Zack said.
"Yikes," Justine murmured. "Good point, Zack. Not good attempting this without our medic on hand."
They made their way to the armory. Justine rummaged through the cupboards of the armory and loaded herself up with everything she found. "Hmm," she said, bending down. "What's this?"
Emilly picked up a gun dubiously. She wasn't big on shooting anything. At least, not with guns. It came with an eye-covering screen, and she clicked it on, pointing the gun at the target and focusing in. She endded up focusing too hard, and her point of view shot through the station, where there was a green-black...Something...hovering in the dark.
No, I'm not going to think about that right now.
She put the gun down and sighed, trying to find something she could use. Briggs frowned at her. She shrugged.
"I'm not the gun person. I'm generally the run away screaming person."
(Continued in part CLIII.)
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