SWRC: OC-49 (Part 1)(Book 2.675)

Chapter 10 Trapped.

"Signal the Empire, Hack."
"What?! Are you insane?!" yelped Hack.

"They'd be a way to encrypt it so that it can't be traced to us, no?" asked Tye, to which Hack nodded. "Tell them that there's a prisoner pick on Vergesso Asteroid colony 2-4-1-10. We have other business to attend to."

"R-Right," stuttered Hack, getting to work. Tye however had turned away and made a call to the rest of the team,

"Attention everyone. We're moving out. Make sure the prisoners are secure and ready for Imperial pick up. Something's gone wrong at Base, so we're heading home."

"You have 10 minutes."

He didn't understand what had awoken him. He had been in a dreamless slumber that had been neither good nor bad. Something told him that much time had passed from when he'd fallen unconscious to when he'd awoken.

It's was dark all around him. It almost felt constricting and suffocating as he tried to ascertain where he was. The trembling and panicking of the body beside him snapped him into proper reality.
"Hey, hey," he called out softly to the wreck of a man beside him. "What's wrong?"
"Hawk," called another man. He looked up and somehow knew his name was 'Trapper'. "Hawk. Hawkeye! Wake up! Calm down!"
"Trap, what's wrong?" he asked over the noise of the gibbering wreck beside him.

"It's a small, dark, enclosed space."

He just looked down at the man in his arms as Trapper added, "He's afraid."
"What a great time to find claustrophobe," muttered the man as he tried to console the panicking man beside him, silently praying that this journey would end sooner rather than later...

"Something's wrong," said Tye simply as they cautiously approached the ship.
"Where is everyone?"

True to his words, Tye could see no one, not even those who should have been on sentry duty anywhere near the ship. Comms were also still dead and no one could get a response from the silent ghostlike ship.

"We're on it Tye," said Alda, as he, Cestor and Castor went to enter the ship and run a sweep of it. Foreboding entered Tye as they went forward.

"Wait—"

Tye was cut off by the thunderous sound of explosives detonating as almost everyone on the entire team was blown off their feet.

Tye had put his arms up to cover his face on instinct, even though he had his helmet on, the second the explosives had started detonating and he was thrown clear from the now flaming ship. Tye had landed hard on his back and just lay there groaning for a moment before realising that his helmet was no longer on his head and it felt hotter than it should have.

Sitting up carefully with a pounding in his head, Tye took in his surroundings again but he couldn't think clearly for a moment.

Until he only counted 29 other members of his company, of whom none were C.T...

"C.T!" whispered Tye, launching himself up off the ground and whirling around frantically trying to find him.

"C.T!" screamed Tye at the flaming wreckage of their stolen ship from when they'd fled the first time.

"C.T! ANSWER ME!"

Nothing came back to his ears as Tye began to fear the worst and collapsed heavily onto his knees, becoming limp.

"No," Tye whispered as tears flowed freely onto his face and he made no movement to wipe them away.

"C.T!"