Fragments of the Reclaimer

Immaterial

They touched down inside Ivanoff Station's landing bay. Jack stood off to the side, waiting to greet them.

After stepping off, Aria rushed to hug him. They embraced for a long time. Glancing back, she saw the others standing around and staring intently. "Ah..." One by one she introduced them. "Cat, Kryten, Dave Lister and... Arnold Rimmer."

"This is the guy you found?" Jack wondered. He looked Rimmer up and down. "He's cute."

Rimmer's eyes went round; they were glowing with anxiety. "Cute?!" he thought. Still, he couldn't keep his knees from wobbling.

"Captain Jack Harkness."

He extended a hand to shake Rimmer's. The hologram immediately became flustered as soon as their hands met.

Rimmer tried to avoid Jack's gaze as best as he could. It was hard to do. "Sir, baby hedgehogs with top hats on are cute. I'm just... below average."

"Nonsense! Besides, I have no problems with a 'below average' guy like you getting below me." he said with a wink.

Heat crept through the hologram's cheeks.

"Oi!" Aria barked.

"I was only saying hello."

"Yeah, and I know what happens when you do that. He's mine, back off." As she walked past Jack she whisked Rimmer away.

He outstretched his arms. "Alright, alright."

She rolled her eyes. She then got on radio and tried getting a hold of Tilson once more. "Tilson, are you there?"

Rimmer yanked his arm from her grip, and stood by Lister.

"Yes, I'm here."

"Oh, thank heavens!" Kryten exclaimed. "When your transmission cut out we—"

Aria quickly interrupted, "Listen to me. You have to issue the order to evacuate the station."

"We've been trying! The Covenant— They've already taken over the hangar bay!"

"Send over your coordinates. We'll see what we can do about clearing an evac route on our way to you."

They ran to the end of the landing bay, where there were several ammunition crates. While the others were armed with bazookioids, Jack and Aria had no weapons. They opened a crate and armed themselves with as many weapons as they could physically carry.

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As they approach the exit, the doors open. A security guard, wielding a sticky bomb, was thrown violently against the wall as projectiles from a Covenant firearm killed him. The bomb dropped out of his hand and onto the ground. It began to beep as two small aliens came within the vicinity of it; the bomb exploded, killing the aliens.

They didn't stop to watch it happen. Instead, they continued down the hallway and around some corners, arriving at another doorway. It opened to the hangar, where multiple ships dropped off Covenant forces.

An alert went off over the PA system: "Emergency quarantine released."

"Should we be concerned about that?" Rimmer asked.

"It's the Covvies," Jack said. "They put in an override on the doors."

"There's too many of them already," Lister shook his head, devoid of any hope. "How do we keep more from getting in?"

"The Harbourmaster controls can bring up a barricade. We just have to locate them."

"The psi-scan shows the controls are at the other end of the hangar bay." Kryten told them.