Lunar Conspiracy

Light in the Dark

The cascading earthquakes accompanied by rolling thunder roughly five minutes later made Tava think the sabotage mission had been a success.  She hoped that meant that Kartk had been accurate in his time estimate and they would all be back abord Athena and taking off soon.  Until then, Kit was talking at her.

"All I'm saying is that it would be really great to have a little help. Even if it were just someone to fetch tools and lend a little extra muscle. I don't think you fully appreciate how many hours of work I put into Athena's engines in a day. I need some time to myself sometimes."

Tava sighed and glanced over Kit, still tapping away at the console. "I got it Kit, you want some help. We can look to hire some next time we're planet-side but for now just open the door."

Kit's ears flicked back and his tails twitched. "Door's been open for the past ten minutes. And since Jornea and Kartk didn't come through them in the first five, I've been trying to get into the security feeds to find them. A tech might be a good idea too. A hacker comes in handy on occasion."

Tava stepped a little closer and leaned over the chair Kit was standing in. "Mind if I..."

Kit snorted as he hopped down to the floor, paws up in mock surrender. "Fine. Just know you're wasting your time. It's gonna take someone with some computer know how to get-" The computer chirped happily and a live feed of the security cameras came up. Kit's ears flattened. "You wanna re-balance Athena's acceleration core while you're at it?"

Tava snorted at the snide remark, recognizing it as an attempt to soothe a damaged pride. "It's a human military system." She pointed at herself. "Human military." Kit just snorted. Tava quickly flipped through the security cameras along the route Kartk and Jornea should have come down to get to the rendezvous point. She stopped when she got to a feed of a group of soldiers peering through a hole in a damaged wall. The whole hall looked like there had been a fire fight.

She made a note of that section and pulled up a blueprint of the building. It took a little thought, but Tava finally found that section of wall and where it led. She frowned at the very long drop where the edge of the building abutted cave system. "Looks like they found a different way out. Which means we should probably get back to Athena instead of sitting around here waiting to be caught. I just hope Jornea's swimming lessons were effective."

~ ~ ~

Kartk panted as he followed Jornea on her wild run.  The pilot was certainly fast enough to lose the squadron coming after them, unfortunately, she was flying around corners blind and setting off patters of gunfire as she found more soldiers.

"Please tell me you know where you're going, Jornea!"

"Away from the guys with guns!"  The answer called back at him was only partially comforting.  It indicated that they stood a very good chance of...  Kartk snarled as they turned at a T intersection and were met with a locked door.  He started to dodge the other way and skidded to a halt, stomach dropping at the dead end with only one door clearly labeled 'Storage'.

"You cornered us."  Jornea ignored the statement, her hands searching for a panel to pry off the wall.  Kartk could only shake his head as he took cover around the corner and dropped his rifle off his shoulder.  "That's a blast door!  It doesn't move in an emergency!"

Jornea growled and slammed her fist against the door.  "That's stupid!"  She shoved herself back against the wall next to him as suppressing fire clattered across the corner covering them and the wall across from them.

Kartk poked his rifle back around the corner and fired blind, giving himself a chance to take a glance.  He grit his teeth, fingers tightening around the rifle.  Over a dozen soldiers and more on the way.  He had long ago come to terms with the knowledge he would die in a fight.  He had just been hoping he could squeeze a few more years out of life before he ended up full of bullet holes.