FSE

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I had no immediate sense of what was happening to me with I regained conciseness.

What I did know was that a hypodermic needle filled with an adrenaline-like substance was shot into my body, which caused me to snap awake with a sharp breath. I felt my breath catch in my throat a second later than I coughed, and tasted cold air.

_Cold air _my mind snapped on now, and I put my hands to my face. I felt the skin under my fingers and the hair on my head, and panicked for a second. But only for a second. I didn't feel my eyes bursting from my sockets, or hear the vacuum of space flooding my ship, and my small panic attack began to subside.

The zero gravity was engaged, I saw a tool float across my field of vision, and now I took a breath. I moved through the air, looking around the front of my ship. The window wasn't cracked or broken, I'd be dead if it was even scratched, and around me various tools and things floated through the air.

"Uhhh..." I let out a groan and saw I hadn't damaged my voice in any way. I moved my arms up and down, looked left, right, up and then down. I swallowed, blinked, then rubbed my face. I shook my head with another groan, then turned in the air. I felt the cold air swirl around me, and grabbing the back of the pilots seat I reached out and hit a button the main control board.

"Nir," I said.

I waited maybe a second before a calm male voice came from a panel and said,

"Yes master?"

"Give me a status report," I said. Reaching over to thumb a button I heard a dull whine, then the zero gravity shut off. Things clanged to the floor and I stumbled as my feet hit the ground, but after a moment I found my balance.

"Of course master," the voice was back. Nir, the Navigational and Information Robot that was the AI aboard my ship, was quiet for a moment, then came back with, "The right primary engine is offline, as well as the first and second left sublight engines."

"Dammit," I gripped the back of the pilots chair, but then took a breath and said, "How long will it take to repair them?"

Silence was my immediate answer, but with a series of clicks, Nir's voice came back.

"Estimated time of completion is two hours and forty seven minutes," said the male voice, "Would you like me to start the repairs now?"

"Please," I replied. I dropped into the pilots chair and began to flip a series of switches, dumbing down the power usage of the engines. I tapped a wide screen in the middle of the main control board, and pulled up a set of images that showed my ship. A Rayshun-class medium sized infiltrator ship, the _Red Horizon _was big enough to be captained by three crewman at the most and two at the least, built with two primary engines and four sublight engines, and could hold up to forty pounds of given cargo. The ship was built with the captains area to the right side, had two stabilizing wings on either side, and was built to move quickly and quietly across large areas and long distances.

I looked over the images of my ship, but now my only thought was, _I'm not getting back to Nurin-Vegya Six anytime soon like this. _I scowled at the images before making them vanish, then said to Nir, "Complete status report," as I got up from my seat.

"Primary weapons are online," said Nir.

I began to pick up things that were laying on the floor as the robot continued,

"Secondary weapons are online. No hull breeches or ship damage is detected, but a leek from fuel pump four in the left bay has been detected. Would you like me to repair the leek now?"

"I'll do it myself," I said aloud. I reached down to pick up a handgun, then dropped the clip into my palm. Fully loaded. I returned the clip home and carried the gun in my hand as I looked around the captains area. All the control boards were lit up, there weren't any flashing lights, and there wasn't any damage done to my ship, save for the engines and the fuel pump leek. _So what the hell happened? _I asked myself.

A sliding door came open in front of me, and through it I walked past a few rooms. To my right was the repair bay for any small machines or larger tools that were onboard my ship, and to the left side were my quarters. Nir was programmed with an AI navigational chip, and could fly the ship without me, provided he had a set of coordinates to arrive at. Past my quarters was a small armory where I kept my breath mask, a helmet and body suit that let me breath while in space, and a few weapons. I paused at the armory door and looked myself up and down. Grey utility pants tucked into black boots, a grey shirt and a black utility vest that buttoned up to my neck, and gloves. I took a moment to riffle through the vests pockets, finding a few coins that served as the universal currency, and in a bottom pocket I found my PDS. I pulled it out and checked it, but found I was to far out of range to get a signal. Then on the heels of seeing my system I thought,

_Carver is probably writing my decommission report right now, _and I stuffed my PDS hastily back into my pocket as I turned and dashed back into the captains chair.

My fingers danced over the long-range communications panel that was set to the left of the navigation map, and I ran through the various planets until I found the Arel System, and then found Nurin-Vegya. I all but slammed the contact screen down, then waited in almost dead silence as the communicator began to beep, looking for the signal I had sent. I still had the handgun with me, I had been using my right hand, and now I set it on a nearby control board, flexing my fingers as I let go of it.

I saw a screen appear in the air above the long-range communications panel, then saw an image flicker into life. I saw a table. Sitting around it were a few humans and a few aliens, and most had confused or concerned looks on their faces. But they all looked in my direction as someone pointed to the screen, then I saw Carver's face. The older man, his face just beginning to wrinkle with age, turned and saw me, and I leaned back in my seat.

"Tebin, what in the hell happened to you!" Carver's barking voice made me sit up, and I ran my hands through my short hair.

"Carver, geezes to be honest I don't fucking know!" I held up my hands to the air. "One minute I was setting a course to jump from Corris, and the next second I'm waking up in zero gravity, shit floating through the air with no idea what the hell just happened to me!"

"Well it sounds like you've been ambushed," Carver said. He stood with his hands behind his back and his just-greying hair pushed away from his forehead. "Have you made sure your objective is secure, Black Echo Nine?"

"Fuck," I bit my teeth. Tapping a button near the long range comm I pulled the comm up, then held it in my hand. The screen shrank some but hovered above the comm as I moved from the captains chair and back to the cargo area of my ship. "It didn't cross my mind to be honest," I told Carver's image, "I was immediately concerned with why I was unconscious for however long it was."

"We long your transmitting signal just an hour ago," Carver said, "So it hasn't been that long."

"Who could have gotten wind of the operation in an hour?" I asked hastily. I was down the hall, past my quarters and the armory, and to a door to the left that opened when I came to it. I stepped into a small room that wasn't wide, then turned and went down a short set of stairs. Lights were on down the stairs and I came into the cargo hold of my ship. To the right were a series of three doors, all with a circular. red light in the middle. I almost ran for the middle door. On the left side, where the cargo bay door was opened and closed, two large circular engines were built into the ships left and right side of the cargo door, with three smaller sublight engines built on the outside of the primary engines.

Now I rammed a hand into the pocket of my utility pants and came up with a small card which I pressed to a panel on the door. A small chime sounded as the red light turned green, and the door split apart in the middle to allow me in.

I was in the room and moving to the right as soon as the door was down. In the room were six locker-like doors that each had a red light, and I put my fingers to a keypad that was set to the right side of the right door. I had the code entered and the doors slid away, but as they vanished and I looked into the storage unit, I felt a pang of worry run through me.

There was a shelf on the locker, the locker itself was in the cargo area of my ship to keep it safe, but the shelf in the locker was empty. I looked at it, seeing the empty shelf, then swore aloud.

"Where is it Black Echo?" I heard Carver's voice, but didn't immediately reply. I also didn't look at him as my mind began to franticly put together the pieces of what could have happened before I blacked out. "Tebin," I heard Carver's voice again. Now as I looked at him, he said,

"Where's the rune?"

"Dammit," I swore at the locker and let the doors snap shut as I stepped away. I took a moment to stop, took a breath, then let it out as I said,

"It looks like someone got the jump on us."

"People don't get the jump on us!" Carver's voice made me grip the comm in my hand, but I stayed quiet. "Do you know what the hell this means?"

"I know what it means!" I snarled at Carver now. The old man stopped with his mouth open, looking at me, and I continued with, "I know _exactly _what the _fuck _this means because if I didn't, you wouldn't have sent me on this mission! I know what the _fuck _I'm doing and I know what the _fuck _to do!"

I stopped, still gripping the comm in my hand. Carver looked at me, his mouth closed and his lips a thin line now. Behind him I could see the other humans and aliens, all dressed in military dress clothes, all looking at Carver and I. I met Carver's eyes, and he straightened his dress jacket, then said,

"Then if you know what your doing, you better get a plan together," he said with a quiet voice. He paused only a moment, then said, "I want you back here within two days Black Echo Nine. And if your not back then, don't come back at all," he paused one more time, then said, "Are we clear?"

"Crystal," I spit the word out.

Carver took one more look at me before he tapped a button and he and other aliens and humans all vanished. I let out a breath as the images flickered away, then held the comm to my side. I didn't want to resort to shouting at my commanding officer while other members of the Galactic Defense Federation were present, but in the heat of the moment I tented to let my mouth get away from me. It had gotten me in trouble before, put on military suspension even, but so far I hadn't been discharged. _Not yet _said my mind.

I gripped the comm in my hand again before turning to leave the cargo area, then went back up the stairs to the main deck. The second deck was just used for transporting valuable cargo and mission-specific items, and if I needed to take an item from my ship, the locker could be detached from the wall and moved from the cargo area to the landing ramp, then moved off my ship.

Up the stairs I went to the repair room where I picked up a roll of thin clear sheet-like material. Nuva wrap, a Martian designed substance, had the resistance of metal with the flexibility and appearance of clear cloth. I took the roll of wrap with me from the repair room and went back down the hall, going back down to the cargo hold where the engines were found.

*** TO BE CONTINUED***