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Out of Space and Time
A tale of Horror and Suspense in the Battletech Universe
by Jason M. Knight (Deathshadow) |
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The other dropship appeared to be a Mule class vessel, a distant sister of our own craft. While the Pale Horse was a relic, having been barely maintained at functional levels, this vessel looked to have been recently updated to a much more modern configuration. Unlike our craft which went to extremes to hide it’s turrets and appeared to be a commercial vessel, this other ship made no such pretenses and was obviously a ship of war. All of the ships turrets appeared to be laden with clan weapons, giving the craft almost double to triple our firepower and range, of course explaining Comstar’s interest in keeping that craft. If her contents were Clan Omni-mechs or even just clan supplies, it was a bigger prize than even a functional jumpship. It was also apparent she had been modified to be a fighter carrier, with four large pressure doors circling her mid-section. A marvel of engineering these doors would likely have allowed the craft to perform fighter recovery even when grounded on a planet, something our dilapidated old Mule could only dream of.
Once we were within a thousand clicks, I was sent out in my fighter to make a few up close passes. My sensors indicated power was out on the jumpship except for emergency life support near the bridge, while the nearly intact dropship still seemed to be supplying power to some decks. From outside the only indication of life was a momentary glimpse of what appeared to be someone aboard the ‘Merchant’s’ bridge, but I was unable to make out anything on successive passes. I did find the crafts name emblazoned on one of her jumpsail masts: ‘Dark Victory’
As the shuttle was sent across, I held position to provide cover. While none of the craft appeared to be active, those big guns could easily power up at any moment, turning our entire force into Swiss cheese. Scanning through the radio frequencies I was able to listen in on the shuttle crew as they put down on the hull outside the ships docking bay. One of the bay doors was bent outward, leaving the bay depressurized. Within moments an EVA crew had opened the doors allowing the shuttle and my fighter to land aboard the craft.
Setting down aboard the Dark Victory proved something of an obstacle course. The bay was flooded with bodies, most of them grouped about near the trio of shuttles at the far end of the bay. Most likely these were the survivors of the jump, who were attempting to escape on the shuttles when the outer door blew. That any bodies were left inside indicated that there were probably an even greater number of corpses drifting away from the craft, blown out by the escaping air. Unable to seal the bay properly, we were forced to use the emergency airlock to enter the ship.
While most of us kept our spacesuits on, a handful of technicians were forced to disrobe in order to work on the docking collar. The hallways around the port collar were abandoned, and those of us not skilled in dropship maintenance fanned out to set up a perimeter should some form of resistance show up. I very quickly found myself paired with one of the two ROM agents, with whom nobody else wanted to work. Upon telling her how I though I saw movement on the ships bridge, she suggested we go and look. |
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