Butterflies of the Dark Star

18 (REVISED)

I have time to head to the bridge and meet up with Neo. If Admiral Mythrai is there, I can get something to do from him — but on the other side, it is entirely possible he was the one who called the lockdown and for all the trained personnel to converge in one place. Nova rushed through the corridors of metal murk, keeping herself in cover before turning any corners with Neo's infodrive tucked in a pocket. The giant crossdoors of the bridge came into view. Illuminated in the carnage, she avoided the red piles squirting out mist and kept her filtration mask on its highest setting, and she counted her steps and breathing.

In. Out. One. Two.

Capacitor energized, she swiped her card on the terminal. It clanked and the crossdoors tore open with crimson fibre. It jolted and buckled to open further, but she crawled through what it gave her and adjusted herself in the dark before clipping her flashlight to her toolbelt.

Datascrolls shattered against the ground. Vector arrays beeped warning reds. In the center, a massive holomap which listed every part of the facility and detachable modules along with their status. Movements pinged across the entire breadth of the facility, some of them in the ventilation. In the center of the station, the main towers of the anomaly labs, with the smaller medtowers over each of the cardinal sectors, she rounded it to head for the hyperdrive module at the bridge's main console.

"Neo?" she asked. "I'm at the bridge now, are you picking me up?"

It took a few moments for him to respond. "I hear you. I'm almost at the labs, but I'm safe in the central sector. How do things look on your end?"

Nova ignored the mangled shapes slumped in the chairs to focus on swiping her card on the hyperdrive terminal. It registered her user and access, but marked it with a red X of rejection. "I'm trying to get through the access point." One more failed attempt of her keycard, she swung her steel-toed boot into the table. "Fuck. It looks awful over here, Neo. Stars." Nova gulped on her vomit and rested her brow against the terminal to chase away the spinning. "How is everyone over there?"

Just distract me.

"Well..." He shuffled on the other end. "From what I know there's some pretty bad injuries. Whatever caused the breach tears through high-powered armor." He sighed in her ear, so close, but so far away, so she threw her hand against the terminal to vent out her frustration and panic. " —and from what I can hear from you punching that module, you don't have access."

"Yeah. I think I need Admiral Mythrai's key to override this stupid thing..." Nova bit on her lip.

"And possibly the overseer researcher key," Neo hesitated, then murmured. "Yet another thing I forgot to mention, if I wasn't so bad at making lists, I'd make one for how bad I am at forgetting things I should mention beforehand... but then I'd probably forget to add to the list and—"

Fuck, he's rambling.

"You have access, Neo?"

"Hm, I don't, but I think Miss Zynaia does — if anyone could find her." She heard voices on the other end, but he huffed. "You see anything of note? Anything to help us explain what's going on or the perspective of what we're dealing with? We're looking over data now and running some small tests but we don't have enough to work with... I think it's agitating people."

"I'm sorry, but I don't think I can help." Nova rested her brow on her arm and considered her options. "I can tell you there's some odd movement between the center towers and the east sector. Is Admiral Mythrai over there, at least?"

"Yeah, he was helping some of his soldiers into the medbay, but right now I believe he's trying to direct teams to get comms up to contain this breach — speaking of which, you need to get back here. You can talk to him about the backwards warp and how bad of an idea that is, in your words."