The first thing he noticed was how difficult it was to breathe. With frantic yet shallow breaths his head darted about the array control room searching. He grabbed the floating Emergency Breathing Apparatus and slapped it over his mouth taking a deep breathe. He gagged.
He threw away the broken EBA in frustration and began struggling against the straps of his chair. With a click they released and he pushed himself out of his seat and over to a side panel of the station. Tearing it open revealed a first aid kit, two mag-pistols and, thank God, two Oxygen-reclaiming Helmets. Head growing light and vision fading he seized hold of the helmet and threw it over his head sealing it to his polymer armor plated jumpsuit. There was a slight hiss as the air pressurized in the helmet and filled with air.
He took deep breath after deep breath pulling together his faculties. Darrion.
Turning around he went to help his friend grabbing this EBA under his seat and placing it on his face. There was no reaction. He checked the hose, it was intact. Why wasn’t…? That’s when he saw the two foot metal beam coming out of the wall into his friend’s chest.
There was nothing he could do. He closed Darrion’s eyes and whispered for him to rest in peace before turning toward the door.
He tapped the open button but it didn’t budge. Power was cut. In the null-g he positioned himself on the door hands on the emergency lever and, careful not to throw himself, hauled on the door pushing it open.
In a gust of the last bit of atmosphere in the array control room blasting through he was thrown with the door into the main bridge flipping in the null-g slamming into a broken of console. Holding on to the broken metal he looked around the bridge. Arrayed in a large circle with the captains dais at the epicenter consoles surrounding in lowered trenches and doors to the corridors and weapons array control rooms along the wall. At least that’s what it was supposed to be. Consoles, seats, ceiling and flooring beams all jutted about like teeth in a monsters maw the walls that divided the bridge from the rest of the station all but gone open space and the station made one as it had been torn apart. Bodies floated in the null-g some reaching for EBA’s some trying to get helmets on. But all were dead.
Careful not to tear the cloth of his suit he pushed himself through the debris towards the com’s station trying to ignore the puffed up asphyxiated bodies of his fellow soldiers. He had always hated wearing a Spacewalk suit when on duty, he felt it slowed him down. But now with a broken station around him he was more grateful for the precaution than he had ever been.
He made it to the comm station and unstrapped the officer pushing her out of the way. "Sorry Lieutenant Min." he pulled himself down into the seat and opened the manual control panel. The signal was weak but they were in Castorian space, someone would hear him. "Mayday, mayday. This is Sergeant Viannadi serial CP-T19-1356 broadcasting from station WB13-S4-C copy." he waited for a reply. "Mayday this is Sergeant Viannadi from station WB13-S4-C does anyone read me?" still there was no response. He slammed the cover to the console down and put his hand on the back of his head trying to keep his breathing down.
Viannadi pushed himself toward the far wall of the bridge using the straps that ringed around the walls he pulled himself toward the exit. He needed to get off the station.
Grabbing hold of the manual release lever he planted his feet through a pair of straps and hefted up on the metal barely hearing the hiss of the lock through the low atmosphere and his helmet. Pushing open the door he moved to go through along with the last of the air from the bridge. He froze where he stood.
Before him suspended in at least thirty meters of open space was a field of debris and bodies where there should have been a narrow corridor. He looked up and down and all he saw was space between where he stood and corridor on the far side of the chasm. The station was split in two the bridge, life support and Viannadi on one side the hangar and garrison on the other. If Viannadi wanted to live, and he very much did, he needed to get to the other side.
"Well," he said, "this’ll be something to tell the grandkids." Careful not to push himself off in a random direction Viannadi closed the door to the bridge and positioned himself over its center holding onto the release lever for stability. At his waist he carried a Mag-pistol as regulations required. A pistol that used magnets to launch small metal beads through the air at high velocities, a rail-gun hand gun if you will, and held nearly five hundred rounds of ammo. The benefits of doing away with gun powder and bullet casings.
He drew the Mag-pistol and aimed at the debris. Carefully he shot at the different pieces that were suspended in his pathway using the force of the metal beads traveling almost five hundred miles per hour to nudge them out of the way. It was a slow process but Viannadi figured survival was worth the time it took.
Finally he had his pathway to the far side free of debris, a clean shot. He holstered his side arm and, planting his feet on the door hands holding onto the bar tensed for the jump. He looked up at his target adjusting himself ever so slightly and, fear and anxiety gripping his stomach, pushed off. When Viannadi had been a boy at the Castorian Government Orphanage he had been in awe with the thought of flying through space. He assumed that, with the great speeds one could obtain in the friction-less vacuum, it would be an exhilarating experience. He was wrong, it was boring.
It wasn’t like how vintage superheroes whooshed through the air feeling the currents form around them as they darted forward. It was more like standing still as everything moved around you, not unlike an elevator. Of course the first few times were exhilarating and terrifying with the fast approaching far walls and uncontrollable movement but that excitement was short lived and the act became even duller than walking. That is of course assuming your life isn’t on the line, you’re the soul survivor of a space station battle and you’re on the edge of your star system.
As Viannadi made the journey slow and steady through the debris he looked out over the expanse of space at his home system. Castor was a unque system with six stars of three sizes in four different binary relationships. First you had the Great Twins, Romulus and Remus, at the center, both twice the size of Sol. They orbited each other as if locked in a tango but each also had a partner, small orange stars Riazuddin and Fayyazuddin orbited Romulus and Remus respectfully. And on the outer edge sharing an orbit around the four central stars were Jacob and Esau and nearly a thousand planets moons and asteroids existed between the stars only a handful having begun the Terra-formation process. It was a breathtaking sight, one that Viannadi had come to love each time he arrived at one of the twenty four WB stations. Today though it filled him with dread.
Before the fleet had arrived at the station the Admiral had called for reinforcements from the Castor fleet to hold off the invaders. Reinforcements had come but it seemed it had been futile. A vast field of debris the several dozen battle ships of the Castorian Space Corps lay is scattered pieces drifting into one another. The entire fleet, gone.
He saw a spark in the distance, turning his gaze he used the magnifier on the helmet to zoom in on the spark. Castor Prime, largest and first planet colonized, was under fire the several hundred vessels of the Terran Union lay in orbit large black shells falling toward the planet below. He saw fire spread on the planet surface in great orange circles spreading far and wide. Another spark registered in the edge of his vision. Orbiting Remus it was Tyndareus it’s face not unlike that of Prime.
An proximity alarm went off in his helmet. He turned toward the far wall adjusting his body to land on the station. It hurt slamming into the station, but he was alive. Not that he thought it mattered anymore.
He knew that Prime and Tyndareus weren’t the only planets under fire from the Union, all Castor was being targeted. Soon his people would be dead, their dream of freedom from the oppression of the Corporate Synod gone. The other Colonies would soon follow the same fate as Castor or would fall in line with the Union. They had lost, Castor was strongest of the Colonies and now it was gone, the Colonies had failed and Viannadi’s people were victims of genocide.
He pulled himself into the corridor looping and arm through the straps and rested his head on the wall.. A thousand thoughts and a thousand emotions flashed through him chief among them hate and sorrow. His people were dying, all of them. The children, the elderly, the orphans, the soldiers, the farmers, the Terra-formers, the miners, the immigrants. All of them. And here he was on a Wakusei Boei station, built for the defense of the system, completely useless. He had sworn an oath to protect his home, to fight her enemies, to never surrender. What was the use of that if there was nothing he could do to keep that oath?
In a fit of rage he slammed his fist into the wall pounding again and again ignoring the pain. His hand was broken, he had no doubt, but he didn’t care. Looking at the wall he saw a dent and scrapes from the polymer of his armor on the grey metal. "I make a new oath." he said mind clearing. He turned toward Castor prime in its remnants and placed his hand to his chest. "To the souls of the dead and to the guilty of this horror. I will hunt down those responsible and avenge the deaths of my people. This I swear."