The Tornado Sojourns – Chapter 07 – Breached

 

The breakthrough occurred just to the rear of the Phoenix’s starboard cargo bay so the Skeet brothers left the cockpit and made their way hurriedly to intercept them so they were unaware another raider had been splashed by the Tornado’s Plasma Cannon.

However had they seen it happen it would not have altered their course of action, because they had to tackle the intruders head on, and if they couldn’t fight them off then they would have to leave in a life pod.

They met the Raiders in the forward hold and killed three of them in the first exchange, and then another five in the resulting skirmish, but then Zerrad took a Pulsar blast to the abdomen, so Lyris threw a gas grenade into the hold which caused panic among the intruders and Lyris took his opportunity in the resulting confusion and dragged his stricken brother out through the door and closed and sealed it behind him.

He had propped Zerrad up against the bulkhead while he sealed the door shut but at the precise moment he finished he passed out and slithered down the wall.

“Come on Zer, we need to get into a pod before they blast through”   

Getting no response from his brother he began dragging him, and this wasn’t easy as he was a big muscular man and as he was unconscious he was a dead weight and they were 50 feet from the nearest pod, and that was not ideal as it was on the starboard side, nearest the planet.

However it was “Hobsons Choice” as he probably didn’t have enough time to get to his preferred option.

Lyris was sweating and grunting as he dragged his brother two agonizing feet at a time, not knowing if the cargo bay door was going to blow any second. 

“Damn Zerrad you’re heavy” he exclaimed as he neared the first life pod, and although the raiders still hadn’t breached the cargo door he was exhausted, so he hit the button and the pod door opened.

After five minutes of pushing and pulling he finally managed to get Zerrad into the pod, which was just in the nick of time as there was a loud explosion and what had once been the cargo door was now scrap metal and shrapnel filled the corridor showering Lyris with debris, one sizable piece striking his temple and throwing him into the pod, dazed and exhausted he managed to summon the strength to close the door and hit the launch button before he passed out.

 

When the life pod was spat out into space the Skeets were blissfully unaware of just how close they were to Zandros or how quickly they were likely to burn up entering the atmosphere.

Fortunately help was at hand, with Merri at the helm of the Tornado and Malena deploying the magnetic grapple and she had a vested interest in rescuing the Skeets because although she had written off any kind of relationship between herself and Zerrad as being untenable she now found that the likelihood of his impending death had left her empty inside and for the first time she was struck by the realization that Zerrad Skeet was more than a friend.

As the life pod tumbled at speed towards certain death Malena’s head was awash with emotions that she didn’t know she possessed as she began the decompression and with every passing second she wished she could speed up the process and then after what seemed an eternity the flashing light changed colour.

“Lowering ramp and deploying grapple array” Malena said    

 

The array was stowed in a compartment in the roof of the cargo hold and deploying it involved lowering it down from its storage space and anchoring it to the floor.

“Any time you’re ready Mal” she said “Don’t miss, we might not get a second chance, we’re running out of space, fast”

“No pressure then” Malena said

 

Lyris was out for the count as the pod continued to tumble but Zerrad was drifting in and out of consciousness but both men were unaware that Malena was poised to fire.

Fortunately she had an uncanny ability to calculate quite complex mathematical formulae in her head so in the time it took her to inhale a breath she had worked out the trajectory, angle, speed and probability so on the exhale she squeezed the trigger and there was a muffled boom and the harpoon was spat out of Tornado’s nose towards the tumbling life pod.

As soon as Merri saw the grapple leave the ship she had to ensure she didn’t deviate from her course to ensure she didn’t influence the grapples trajectory.

For Malena it was agony as she could no longer influence the outcome and just hoped that she had got it right.

 

For the Skeets there was no jeopardy, at least in as much as they were unaware of it, although in reality they were desperately in it.

For Malena the wait was agony, all she could do was to watch the image on the monitor coming from the grapple camera, and pray.

Closer and closer it got and the pod got larger and larger

“Come to mama” she said and then the grapple struck but because the escape pod was tumbling out of control the grapple plate struck the pod a glancing blow and bounced off.

“NO!” Malena shouted but then the tumbling that had caused the grapple to miss bought it back in the path of the floundering grapple and it locked on, and the grapple striking the hull marked the moment that Zerrad finally lost his fight with consciousness.

“Contact” Malena shouted and engaged the winch and Merri began to slow their forward momentum but she had to decelerate slowly so as not to put additional strain on the grapple cable and undo Malena’s good works.

 

It was a slow process and Malena wished she could make haste but she had to resist the temptation and bide her time, but thankfully the moment came when the life pod finally passed the threshold and into the cargo hold  

“It’s in” Malena shouted “deploying clamps”

“Ok quick as you can” Merri said and engaged the engines

“As soon as the door is closed I’ll set a course for Alwi”

“Captain, captain” Pulsat interrupted excitedly “Freighter moves”

“The engines are engaged?”

“Yes captain” he replied “I can splash?”

“No not yet” she retorted “How is it going Malena?”

“Closing the door now, and ….. Pressurizing” she said

 

When the light went green she opened the airlock door and rushed inside as Merri steered the Tornado towards Alwi while keeping the Phoenix in sight.

When Malena reached the pod she quickly found the emergency release lever and opened the hatch and took a deep breath before looking in.

“I’m going in” she remarked and she feared the worse as she put her head in through the hatch but her fears weren’t realized as the Skeet’s were inside, unconscious but alive.

“They’re alive” she shouted “They’re alive”

“Excellent news” Merri said and adjusted the Tornados position to put the Phoenix square astern of her.

“Pulsat!”

“I can splash now?” he responded

“You can splash now” she instructed “and when you’ve blown them to atoms go and assist Malena”

 

So Pulsat manned the Plasma Cannon, he and Vanzyl had been on the receiving end of a Scav Raider attack and he had never had the opportunity before to exact revenge, until that day when he raked the Phoenix from stem to stern, before he and Vanzyl made their way to the cargo hold and helped to extricate the stricken Skeet brothers from the life pod and move them into the sickbay.

The older brother Lyris had a minor head injury while Zerrad had a Pulsar wound to the abdomen so leaving only a debris field in their wake Merri made all speed back to Alwi.

 

Lyris regained consciousness quite soon after being carried to sickbay and his wound proved to be superficial and there was no concussion, Zerrad on the other hand was in a much worse way, and would need better medical attention than they could administer, so as the Tornado made maximum speed back to Alwi Merri radioed ahead to Bagg and Shiyne to have a doctor meet them on landing while Malena sat a Zerrad’s bedside holding his hand.