Voi-284

Voi-284
PROLOG

Corporal William Dupoy was moving down the hallway of the Confederation destroyer Sombri. The Alarms were blaring all around him as the ship AI was giving messages through the ships PA system. “Warning, hostile boarding parties have breached mess hall D, security forces required. Warning, weapons discharged in sections 3-7, security forces required.
Warning, atmospheric pressure loss on deck 12, sealing bulkheads....” Around this time Dupoy tuned out the PA system, he was moving quickly heading for one of the armories. The last two he had visited had been cleaned out by either the security forces or possibly the Insurrectionists that had boarded the Sombri.
The Insurrection had been started about 3 years back when 14 planets decided they didn’t like the regulations the the government had on treating their people and began to secede. The war had been going on ever since do to the 14 planets knowing that they wouldn’t stand a chance against the ships that the Confederation had. They began to practice hit and run tactics on imported trade routs and colonies, making it hard for the Confederation to get much needed supplies to it’s ships and outposts, and that was why the Sombri was in this sector, ship have been reporting attacks by insurrectionist ships as they passed through this area. The Sombri’s crew never expected an Insurrectionist ship to drop out of hyperspace right off the her port side and fire point-blank into her.
And that’s where everything went wrong, the crew was caught off guard and were still recovering so they didn’t have time to defend against the boarding craft sent from the Insurrectionist ship. by the time anyone realized what was going on the sounds of gun fire filled the air. Dupoy had been awoken by the alarms from the red alert that the captain sounded. He had been a bit sluggish at first do to being woken from only 2 hours sleep, but he was a marine, and it had only taken a few seconds for him to wake up the rest of the way and head for the nearest weapons locker, which was empty. And so started his little of adventure of moving through the ship trying to avoid boarding parties and find a weapon.
Just as he had been going through the last few minutes, he came up to the third armory, which to his great relief still had the key pad intact. He punched in the code and was rewarded an MD3F Assault Rifle and an R4 10mm Service Pistol. He holstered the pistol and grabbed the rifle along with some ammo then began to move up the hall towards the closest fire fight. just before he reached the fight he heard a ping.
“Attention all hands, this is Captain Finnly, we are abandoning the ship, all hands report to escape pods. I say again we are abandoning the Sombri, get to an escape pod. Dupoy had been looking at where the PA system speaker was in the wall, he had been paying too much attention to the announcement. A round flying past his head was the fist warning he got that one of the boarding parties had entered the hall. He dropped and rolled as the second and third rounds ripped though the air where his head had just been. He came up and fired a shot burst, injuring one of them and making them retreat back around the corner. Dupoy started to walk slowly backwards up the hall but the party didn’t show it’s self again.
On his way to the nearest set of escape pods he got in three more small fire fights, but he soon made it to his objective just as the ship AI made an announcement that made him more faster. “Attention, Explosive ordinances detected in engineering, four minutes until TOTAL EVACUATION.” Dupoy knew that “total evacuation” meant that that was when the timer on the bomb hits zero, and if it was big enough, then the reactor would destabilize and the whole ship would go.
He quickened his pace and soon arrived at the escape pods. An Ensign and a few crew men were helping get people into the pods. A crewman saw Dupoy and came over grabbing him by the arm. “You made it just in time, we only have a few pods left.” The crewman hurriedly lead him to a ladder. “down you go.” he said gesturing to the ladder then walked off as a few more people arrived. Dupoy slung his rifle and then started to descend into the dimly lit confines of the pod. there were about seven other people besides himself, just his luck they were all Navy. Dupoy went to the front of the pod and found the only seat available and stowed his rifle in the holder by the seat, then sat and pulled the bar from above his head and locked it in place. he looked around the pod and saw a lot of scared faces. Some were mumbling to themselves, praying most likely, there were always some like that when you had to abandon ship in hostile space, the pods were not built for maneuvering. so it was unlikely they could avoid being destroyed if shot at.
“Glad we got us a marine with us.” the crewmen siting next to Dupoy stated.” If we land in a bad spot at least we have someone who could fight better than a hand full of Navy officers with side arms.” He said and laughed.
“Yeah, nothing personal but when outside a ship you guys don’t do to well.” Dupoy said, He could tell that the crewman was scared out of his mind and trying to distract himself.
“Yup, we sure are, couldn’t fight our way out of a paper bag, no sir.” the crewman said. Dupoy listened only to try and keep the man calm, all they needed was one of them to panic in the small space of the pod and it would be bad.
“Ok, strap in everyone, launching in 3....2....” The pilot of the pod said. Dupoy felt everything shift to the back of the pod as it accelerated to break away from the ship. Dupoy started to feel weightless as they cleared the ships artificial gravity and hit the zero-g of space. “ok, we’re clear of the ship, going for minimum saf--” the pilot was cut off as a bright flash filled the back view port as the Sombri exploded, destroying the pods that launched after Dupoy’s. “BRACE FOR SHOCKWAVE!” As soon as those words were out of the pilots mouth, the entire pod pitched violently. Dupoy could see the pilot fighting to keep control of the pod as some of the passengers started screaming. Some were cursing and some preying, most were just screaming in fear. The crewman that had been talking to Dupoy was silent as he held his harness so hard his knuckles turned white, his eyes were squeezed shut and he seemed to be frozen stiff with fear. Dupoy heard a PING. He turned and had time to see one of the equipment cases stored above the seat coming straight at him, then everything went black.



Chapter 1
Dupoy was floating in darkness, that’s all there was, nothing but darkness of an abyss that stretched on for eternity, then suddenly a pinprick of light, His body felt heavy and it was hard to move but he started to swim up towards the light, as he got closer his body got lighter and he was becoming aware of a voice calling out to him from somewhere far off but familiar, a distant memory perhaps, as he got closer he started to tire but the voice urged him on. Dupoy started to move faster towards the light and finally he reached it and broke through….

Dupoy’s eyes snapped open with a rush of pain from his head and the taste of copper in his mouth. The crewman that had been sitting by him was still there and was shaking his shoulder. “Come on! Come on don’t be dead, don’t die on me!” he was saying.

“I’m fine, stop it.” Dupoy snapped, do to the pain in his head his voice sounded harsher then he meant it to but it got the effect he wanted as the crewman quickly stopped.

“Thank god! I thought you were dead too.” He said. At that point Dupoy noticed what was around him, the crewman across from dupoy’s neck was at an imposable angle and none of the others moved, Dupoy also noticed that the hatch at the back was open and some of the other people that had been in the pod were gone.

“I think they thought we were dead and left us behind.” The crewman said.

“I think you may be right.” Dupoy tried to unhook the restrain on him but it was jammed. He slipped his combat knife from its sheath and moved it to the locking mechanism.
“What are you doing?” The crewman asked.
“Shush, this is hard enough as it is from this angle…..almost…….got….it..there!” there was a click as the mechanism released, Dupoy then pushed it up over his head with ease. HE then got up and stretched, everything hurt but nothing felt broken. He then crouched down in front of the crew man and went to work on his lock. “What’s your name?”

“Wh-what?” the man asked.
“Name, you have one right?” Dupoy said a bit annoyed.

“Ch-Charlie Montgomery…..the third.” He replied.

Dupoy nodded, “Ok, Charlie, I’m Dupoy, Corporal William Dupoy.”He said.” I go by Dupoy mostly.” He watched as Charlie nodded. After a few minutes there was a click and Dupoy lifted the restraint off of Charlie and he stood, stepping to the side to allow Charlie up. He went over to his seat and retrieved his rifle and then turned to Charlie. “We need to gather up as much supplies as we can and then beat it as fast as we can and try and find the others.” Dupoy said taking charge.

“Wh-why?”Charlie asked still a bit shaken from everything.

“Because, if there are any insurrectionist in the area then an escape pod will be hard to miss and will be the first place they look for us, and I don’t know about you, but I would not want to be here when they show up.” Dupoy said as if he was talking to a child of four. Dupoy went about starting to search for survival kits and ammo and anything else of use he could find, not even bothering to see if Charlie was looking as well.

After 10 minutes they had found three survival kits, 4 med packs and some ammo for the service pistols off of the dead crewmen, Charlie had been avoidant about searching the bodies but Dupoy was a marine, and on the battle field you don’t have time to worry about something like that, if you need ammo and they are dead you take it, they aren’t going to use it anyway.
“Ok looks like that’s everything, we should get moving, I want to put as much distance between us and this pod before night fall.” Dupoy saw Charlie nodded and then headed for the back of the pod and fron there into the wilderness beyond.

Chapter 2

Dupoy and Charlie had just gotten a few miles away from the pod when a low flying drop ship flew over head. “Looks like you were right about getting away from the pod.” Charlie said as he watched the ship pass over, they had heard it coming and gotten to cover so they could see it but it couldn’t see them.
Dupoy nodded and they waited a few more second to make sure it wasn’t coming back before moving on. They had found the footprints of the rest of the survivors and under Dupoy’s direction had destroyed them; it did them no good if the enemy could follow them.
“How far do you think they went?” Charlie asked.
“Not sure, depends on how long we were out for.” Dupoy answered.
Charlie nodded, understanding, they didn’t know when they had landed so it could have been a few minutes to days.

As they kept following the tracks they would sometimes come across other tracks of native animals, some came from small creatures, other came from rather large creatures.

After they had been walking for about an hour Dupoy waved Charlie to stop. “Let’s rest here.”He told him as they went over to a fallen tree, most likely had come down during a storm.

As they sat Dupoy got a feeling that something was watching them from within the trees, something that seemed to be stalking them. He didn’t want to worry Charlie so he kept it to himself.

As they sat and ate and drank for the emergency rations they had with them Dupoy heard a twig snap, this even Charlie heard and he looked around. “Did you hear that?”He said
Before Dupoy could answer an animal burst from the trees across from them. It was about the size of a horse from earth with more cat like features in its body and legs, the head was long and had had pointed teeth visible, like a cross between a wolf’s head and a horse’s.
It let out a loud growl, as it charged them. Dupoy shoved Charlie out of the way while he dove the other way. The animal crashed into the log where they had been sitting.

Dupoy rolled a few meters away then came up to one knee, he heard a yell, and the thing was after Charlie, who was at this point running from it. Dupoy raised his rifle but before he could get a bead on the animal Charlie would change direction so the animal would do the same. After a few more seconds Dupoy finally yelled at Charlie. “RUN STRAIGHT AT ME AND WELL I TELL YOU DIVE TO THE SIDE!” Charlie was quick to comply, though from the look on his face he didn’t like Dupoy’s rifle pointing at him. “Just a little more….little more……NOW!” Charlie dive to the side and the creature was heading straight for Dupoy; He squeezed off a few rounds and watched as the rounds connected with the animal’s skull, right between the eyes.

The animals fell forwards and slide to its own momentum. It came to rest after a few minutes, dead.
Dupoy went over and helped Charlie up.”I think it’s time we get under way before that thinks buddies show up.”He said gesturing to the animals. Charlie nodded, he just wanted to be away from the animal, and the thought of there being more only added to it.