15 – Escape and Consequence
(Biological Weapons Lab – Emergency Shelter – Year 3, Day 67,1353)
They had entered the second room in the Emergency Shelter. And what they had found inside, had shocked Chloe. The room they were in was a large chamber filled with table and chairs. Beyond that where several doors that appeared to be lead to bedrooms. But that was not had shocked her. There were several corpses in the room. And they had energy weapons in their hands, with nasty wounds on their bodies. It was pretty clear that they had turned on one another. Moving carefully, Young made his way to the bedrooms. There were more bodies inside.
=/\=What happened ?=/\= Chloe asked.
=/\=They ran out of food.=/\= Varro said.
There was a small kitchen in one corner of the room. And beyond that was a door, which Varro had opened to reveal what had been the supply locker. There were two more corpses in there and no food or water, just empty shelves.
=/\=After that, they turned on one another.=/\= Varro said.
=/\=Let’s go.=/\= Young said.
They left the room and made their way to the third door in the lobby. Rush opened the door to reveal with generator room. There were four generators, with all four being dead because they were out of fuel. This left them with the last door. Varro opened the door and they found the bathroom of the complex.
=/\=Where’s the research ?=/\= Chloe asked.
=/\=We’re missing something.=/\= Rush said. =/\=They wouldn’t leave it behind.=/\=
Rush went back into the generator room. When he got the back wall, he noticed a mark on the floor. Looking around, he noticed a big red button that was not wired into the generators. He pushed the button and waited. After a couple of seconds, the back walls slid aside. Beyond was another flight of stairs.
=/\=Cliché, anyone ?=/\= Varro said.
Rush led the way down the stairs. It ended in a square room. There was another generator, which was fully fueled. Rush engaged it and the lights came on. This revealed a room full of boxes on shelves. Chloe opened one of them to reveal a row of folders. She took one out and opened it. There was Hal’Iry text inside, accompanied with illustrations. The pictures made it clear that this were medical texts.
=/\=This is it.=/\= Chloe said. =/\=But getting all of this back to the ship is not going to be easy.=/\=
There were dozens of boxes on both sides. Beyond the boxes were several freezers with samples. These appeared to have a generator of their own. And they were still working. Fortunately, there was a cooler box among medical equipment that TJ had send along. Next to the freezers was an empty shelf. Varro put the cooler box on that shelf and they got to work on selecting samples from the freezers.
(H4A-701 – Settlement – Year 3, Day 67, 1442)
While the others were inside the lab, Eli and company were waiting at the barrier. To pass the time, they had been taking a closer look at the ruins. It turned out that the collapse of the town was not entirely natural. They had found several ruptured gas pipes, which had destroyed a couple of the buildings. And there had clearly been several large fires. There was also a large crater that had once been a metal building. They could see this from the chunks of metal that were embedded in the walls of the surrounding buildings.
“What do you think ?” James said. “An armory ?”
“Definitely,” Greer said.
They had found enough pieces of debris to figure that out. Eli and Volker were nearby, going through what was left of what appeared to have been the town’s pub. It had taken a beating from the explosion of the metal building and there had also been an explosion of some kind in the kitchen.
“It was clearly caused by the gas line,” Volker said.
“The blast took out half of the kitchen,” Eli began. “I wonder what came first, the explosion out there or the mess in here.”
“No way to tell.”
Eli looked around the kitchen and noticed something. There was a freezer in the corner, which was blackened on the outside. But it was still in one piece. He opened it and looked inside. This revealed what was left of a Hal’Iry soldier. Or at least, what Eli presumed was a soldier based on what he was wearing. Then he noticed that the soldier was still carrying his weapon. Among the medical supplies TJ had send them, had been a box of medical gloves. Eli had taken a pair of them along, which he now put on. Then he collected the soldier’s weapon.
“What do you have ?” Volker asked.
“An energy weapon,” Eli said. “And a battery. You know, I had this friend called Zach and his dad was an undertaker. And he told me how they had to take out people’s pacemakers before cremating them, because otherwise the batteries would explode.”
“Bring it along.”
Eli pocked the weapon and they headed out. They met up with James and Greer and went back to the edge of the settlement. Eli showed weapon to James and she told him about the metal building. The question that remained was, how had the soldier ended up in the freezer ? From what Eli had seen, he had not been injured. Nor had he been exposed to any of the biological weapons.
Before they could discuss it further, there was an electric buzz from the building. Then the cannon on the top of the lab fired. The projectile hit one of the poles, which snapped in half and crashed to the ground. Then the weapon fired again and took out another pole. With two poles down, there was now a hole in the barrier.
Colonel Young had given them orders to go through the barrier first. He wanted to keep the two teams separate to prevent contamination. With James in the lead and Greer covering the rear, the team headed out. Eli just hoped that the others would be following soon.
(Biological Weapons Lab – Control Room – Year 3, Day 67,1437)
The selection hadn’t been easy, but Rush and Chloe were pretty confident that they had grabbed the most important samples and research from the hidden room. Colonel Young wanted to send another team back to collect more, but they needed to make sure it was safe to do so first. After the collection, they had headed for the control room. Inside, they had found two more dead Hal’Iry. And like the emergency shelter, the place was without power because its generators – there were two of them – had apparently run out of fuel.
But there was a control board, which was tied into all the generators. Varro had managed to divert the power from the hidden room to the weapon on the roof, without killing power to the freezers. He had also managed to get one of the control room generators going again. It turned out that the generators were not really out of fuel. Instead, the pump that moved the fuel to the generators had stalled. A quick reset of the pump had gotten the generator up to thirty percent fuel. Which was enough to keep the controls of the weapon going for three days.
That the good news. The bad news was that it would take several minutes to charge the weapon. Finally, the control console beeped and indicated that the weapon was ready. Varro was behind the controls, while Young stood next to him.
=/\=How many shots do we have ?=/\= Young asked.
=/\=Three. So I’d better make this count.=/\= Varro aimed the weapon and fired it twice. =/\=Got it, there’s a breach in the barrier.=/\= The targeting sensors also showed four dots, which Young figured were Eli and company. They were moving towards the Stargate. =/\=Looks like the others made it out.=/\=
=/\=Let’s go.=/\=
They headed out of the basement and towards the front door. But they were only halfway there, when the an alarm shrieked. There was an electrical fizzle as power was somehow rerouted and the doors magnetic lock activated. Before any of them could react, there was another fizzle and a display come to life above the door. Varro’s realized it was a countdown and cursed.
(Chaser – Gate Room – Year 3, Day 67, 1450)
Eli and his group had made it back through the Gate and were now in the Infirmary being decontaminated. They were also going to get a full work-up. TJ knew that they hadn’t been inside laboratory, but she was not taking any chances. She had tried to contact Colonel Young, but there had not been any reply. In fact, the frequency sounded like it was being jammed. Before she could try again, the wormhole blinked. TJ activated her radio.
“Chaser to Young,” She said. “Come in.”
The only reply she got, was static. Then the wormhole blinked again. Suddenly, a shockwave came through the wormhole. The Stargate disengaged, while the people in the Gate Room were thrown around like dolls. TJ’s head slammed into the floor, before the world faded into black.
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