U.P.M.C. Ferrum [Inactive]

Alaric watched as more people ran onto the deck, followed by one of the leaders of the engineering team if he wasn't very much mistaken.


"Nice to see some more survivors in here," Alaric nodded, getting up slowly and walking towards the lead engineer. "Is there anyone else left down there?"
 
"Three were found on deck 5 and another on Deck 7. I didn't see anymore, my focus was to fix as much of the life support system as much as I could. Before leaving each floor I yelled that anyone who heard me should head for Deck 9, but these 4 were all I could find. I'm gonna get a proper Engineering space suit and check some of the vac'ed area's myself to find people and fix anything that would be worth fixing. Many rooms with air will have stale air by now if they weren't careful about how much they breathe if they didn't also have some plants in the room. Things aren't looking good for anyone left in the lower levels."
 
"I'll come with you," Alaric nodded, checking the air gauge in his suit. "I don't know much about engineering, but at the very least I can help with some heavy lifting. It's not as if we need security just standing around at a time like this anyway."
 
"OK, good. You'll be good for opening the shut doors. And debris. One sec while I get a map of successfully shutoff rooms, give us an idea of where to start. I think Deck 5 might be S.O.L., most of it was destroyed. Lets start at Deck 6, and work up. ... I'm reading 3 rooms with a good chance of survivors and 2 with slim chances of survival on Deck 6. Let's run." Warik screamed over that unending alarm, now his second most hated noise of all.
 
"Hit the rooms with less chance of survival first," Alaric suggested, keeping pace beside Warik. "If there is anyone there, we need to find them quickly."
 
"To true. Hey, has that alarm gotten really irritating to you? It's driving me nuts. I figure everyone has heard it or understands that we are in an emergency by now, and thought about turning it off. What's your opinion? Wait, never mind, we're here, come this way, lowest chance room is down this hall about 50 feet and then to our left"
 
"Eh, I've gotten used to alarms," Alaric shrugged, stopping in front of a door that Warik had indicated and peering through the viewport. "I can;t see anyone in there, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Can you get it open?"
 
"Yeah, magnetic lock will turn off in a sec. I think this is a personal room, check the closet and restroom, I'll check anywhere else. Need to hurry, that other room only has a few minutes before it's too late for other survivors."
 
Nodding, Alaric ran towards the restroom, shouldering open the bent door and finding a corpse behind it.


"God damn it," Alaric cursed. "Call it off Warik, got a dead one here and no one else in the bathroom or closet."
 
"Alright, gonna grab some of this bottled water before we go, I've been running all day. Next room is back where we came from down the hall to the right, 30 feet forward to another hallway on the left, then a door on the right 20 feet in. Computer is reading that the mag lock is shut off, so you are going to need to open it yourself, I'll catch up in a bit, room layout is similar to this, but smaller."
 
"Got it," Alaric nodded, before running towards the door, skidding to a halt just in front of it. He gave it an experimental tug to see if he could dislodge the lock, before relenting that it wouldn't work. "If anyone can hear this, stand back," he shouted through the door, before drawing his rifle from his back and switching to the underslung shotgun. Pressing the barrel up against the lock, he fired a single shell, before delivering a solid kick to the door, finally opening it.


"D-d-down...here," a voice coughed weakly, and Alaric turned to see a woman on the floor.


"Come on, we need to get out of here," Alaric picked her up gently, before running from the room.
 
Catching up to Alaric, Warik noted the women he was carrying. "Good, found her before she ran out of air, don't let her go unconscious before getting her to Deck 9. I can get the other three rooms here and then we can meet up at Deck 7. Get some other people, we have 15 rooms there, most of them like these next three I'm getting. I'll send you a message on the monitor with the locations of the rooms on Decks 7 and 8 after I get these next three rooms. Now go to Deck 9 and make sure she gets some attention."
 
"Will do," Alaric nodded, heading towards deck 9. As he got there, he gently lay the woman down beside a medic, making sure that he knew she was there, before striding to the middle of the room and raising his voice.


"Alright listen up people! This situation is bad, but that doesn't mean we all lose our heads, we're members of the U.P.M.C, show some decorum. Now, there are still people trapped around the ship, so anyone not either fixing the ship or fixing the wounded are coming with me to deck 7 now. No exceptions, understand?"
 
First room: nothing, not even a corpse. Second room: pair of people who were having sex before the Tether broke and were scared shitless. Third room: one corpse, one person hiding in a closet. Warik started taking them up the stairs, and heard many more foot falls than the four people of his small group could produce. Good, rescue teams. Alaric wasn't Head of Security for nothing. Warik sent the other 3 up and waited at the first room of Deck 7, Finishing off the last of that lovely water he got out of that fridge. "Man, I'm gonna need a nap after this, if I can afford to," he said to the air around him.
 
"Warik, you in here?" Alaric asked as he walked into the room, followed by the twenty or so uninjured people he had drafted in to help the search. He instantly saw the man and allowed himself a smile beneath his helmet. "Good, looks like we can get started. One, did you find any more survivors when I was gone, and two, what can we do to help?"
 
"Answers, one: yes I sent up 3 more people, and 2 I'm giving everyone here permission to open mag locked doors. I'm also assigning everyone here a room to go to. If you have a map somewhere in your software for your helmets, on your H.U.D. should be directions to where you need to go. Go there now. Alaric, come with me, (Starts walking down one of the halls at this point) we got another door like the one you found the woman behind, no mag lock but more bolted shut. It's farthest away and least likely to last long. Come on!"
 
"Right behind you," Alaric nodded, racking the cocking handle of the shotgun and cycling in a new shell. "So, you're an engineering type," he began as the pair quickly made their way through the ship. "How could something like this happen? I thought there would be fail-safes...or something."
 
"There are, and that worries me more than anything. Most likely things to fail is the dampeners, the thing we use to slow the rocks down once we start bring them in. Either they broke before we could get it slow enough to bounce off us harmlessly, the rock was speed up to fast to stop, or they weren't working before we pulled the rock toward us. All of these should not happen, we have guide lines to prevent these things from happening. I won't know unless we find the equivalent of a black box for what happened, but that seems unlikely as Decks 1-4 are almost completely gone."
 
"Seems like Rankoon all over again," Alaric muttered. "Still, we're alive for now, and hopefully we've managed to get a distress call out to someone in the company and they'll come and investigate soon. I don't want to suffocate up here, or run into separatists."
 
"Well... Chances are we have actually gone dark due to the fact that the main communication hub is on Deck 1. We've got short distance, but we won't be able to reach ships outside of a few 100 miles without the signal becoming very weak. Maybe after a week of zero communication someone will come to investigate. Ah, we're here, let me get behind some debris before you start shooting in here."
 
Alaric nodded as Warik got behind him, before pressing his rifle to the door once again."If you're in there, get behind something."he cast a glance behind him, checking Warik was safe. "Clear!" he fired, blowing the bolt apart, before kicking the door and opening it a fraction. "Come and give us a hand here," he grunted, beginning to push the door open to the sound of squealing metal.
 
Warik went to help, hoping against hope they might find someone there. Manual locks don't do themselves, but this room was near heavily damaged rooms that were leeching very precious air. Coughing, a good sign, but where? Hopefully not under the door, Alaric, maybe Al?, had told anyone in there to clear the door. Sounded like... Behind the kitchen bar thing, booze in hand. A younger crew mate, no doubt fully believing he might die so may as well be drunk. Couldn't blame him, would have done the same thing, better than being vac'ed. "Over here Alaric," Warik said to the man checking the closet and restrooms, "We got a live, albeit drunk, survivor".
 
Alaric strode into the room behind Warik, catching sight of the survivor, and the copious amounts of booze.


"Well, looks like someone's been having fun at least," he chuckled, wrapping an arm round the mans waist and hauling him up. "Come on, we need to get down to deck 9 and out of this place, I don't fancy a walk in the vacuum today personally." he smirked beneath his helmet, before grabbing a bottle of alcohol from the side. "One for the road. Want one Warik?"
 
"Not now, most certainly later, I've got to join my crew on hull repairs after we get done being the rescue party, then see where else I might be of use. Afterward, I'll take that, get drunk enough to pass out, and then pass out from exhaustion." Warik said in the most cheery voice he could muster after these last couple of hours.
 
"Sounds like a plan," Alaric chuckled. "I would say that the security team would do something helpful in this situation, but that may be slightly hard, all things considered. Guess I can drink enough for all of them as well though. But first things first, lets get the survivors back to safety before the deck decomps and we all find out how good our respirators are."
 
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