SPONTANEOUS EJECTION
Lester lay nestled in a multi layer onion of bliss. His body lay in bliss in the interior of a cozy escape pod and his mind in deeper bliss deep within the dreamworld he enjoyed by virtue of his cybernetic implants… less drifted… Bliss and stillness… and then MOTION!?
Less blipped out of his dreamworld.The escape pod was moving and rapidly too. At the moment it was winding through the conveyance headed to the nearest exterior facing ejection tube on the flotilla. Less knew that was the process of ejection when the Vulkan’s Pride was moored with the Flotilla.
What was going on?
Less reconnected to the feeds and noticed a flurry of chaotic alarms. The Zell was upon us? Upon the Flotilla? How? They were days away when he was last connected!
Tactical Engineers had a technical term for situations like this: “Bad”
Worse, the Zell had breached the perimeter and were presently tearing through the Flotilla defence detail like ants assailing a clutch of grasshoppers. Worse than worse, Less detected that escape pods were being picked off by Zell snippers… reaching the ejection tube meant certain death!
Standard issue uniform for a Tactical Engineer was no fashion statement
consisting of some sort of unisuit covered by unique overalls and sometimes a
jacket, but these were no mere garments. For every thread covering Lester's
nakedness had been engineered ad nauseum by Tactical Engineers of christmas
past and that meant that Less was well equipped by virtue of showing up for
work. Making Lester's jeopardy less dire to him than what a layman observer
would surmise.
Equipped in Lester's loadout was the ability to survive in space for some hours,
intravenous flow of glucose, proteins and oxygenation, 3 automated medical
bots each the size of a mouse that could crawl anywhere over and in his body
to apply first aid if needed and attachments for customizations: weapons and
gizmos to build things, fix things, defensive measures and minor weapons if he
needed to lay out a little hurt on some enemies.
Choice of weapon was optional and for Lester he favored explosive bomblets: 8 tiny
balls sized 3 centimeters each they sat snug in a hard covered and tightly
attached fanny pack that stored and customized each little bomb. The
bomblets were typically thrown -- like all bombs -- at something he didn't want
to exist anymore, yet they were nothing like dumb bombs. They had the ability
to float for a while, holme in on a target with a limited ability to arc their
trajectory and the shape and type of explosion could be modified for a variety
of deadly effects.
Less decided the escape pod had to go. He reached to the small of his back
and said "barrier destruction. directed cone. sensitive proximity." with that he
ordered up a modified bomblet that would constrict its detonation into a
confined beam of spall in order to tear through a barrier warning the system of
'sensitive proximity' meaning there was something on the non-business end of
the explosion that he didn't want harmed (namely himself)
His bomb kit buzzed and vibrated for a moment as it customized his ammo
then spit out exactly what he ordered into his waiting hand.
Less tossed the bomblet which stuck to the opposite wall of the escape pod. He activated a weak force field on his belt and prepared for impact.
Boom! A 50 centimeter hole appeared across the way.
The escape pod began to tumble and bounce off the sides of the conveyance. Lester remained
Fixed to his resting place by virtue of a cable attachment.
Pieces of the escape pod began to fling off and the inside began to crater.
Lester senses it was time for part 2 of his tactic to escape the escape pod and
he again activated his weak spherical force field rolling the dial to cause it to
rapidly expand then contract. His personal forcefield pushed against the inner walls of the
Pod causing metal fatigue and after a moment and due to the pods compromised situation the entire envelope burst into debris.
Lester curled into a ball and contracted his forcefield as small as possible as bits in pieces of his former hiding place whizzed over and around his invisible sphere of protection.
Well... now he would no longer be injected into space. That part was good. But
Lester himself was still bumbling and tumbling through the conveyance with
shards of pod decking everything around him.... This too could become quite
Fatal.
Now it was time for a new tool of the Tactical Engineer to save our Less. It was
THE tool of every tactical engineer: The Wrench. Named after an ancient
engineering implement for tightening bolts it shared a similar shape but lacked
that vestigial function. The Tactical Engineer's wrench was a mobile device for
commanding and controlling bots.... the workforce and warmechanism of all
Tactical Engineers.
Less unholstered his wrench, held it at arms length and spoke the magic
summoning words "WarBots mobilize!" The three bots in Lester's retinue
sparked online in an instant."Bots! Begin rescue Less. Track location. Plan bypass barrier: 'conveyance tube'execute." In bitspeak Lester commanded all three to track him down and join
him in the tube....
Once with his companions he would have ample strength to overcome this obstacle.
Less' suit equipped with a simple reaction control system enabled him to orient
away from his direction of travel. He shot a grappling hook from his left arm port
and very elastically slowed to a stop after the mechanisms end effector found
Purchase.
Less yanked a series of cables from various hiding spots on his uniform,
attached them to the wall and ratched his body as tightly as he could to the
inner wall of the conveyance as miscellaneous materials sped past him in the
conveyance sometimes missing him by mere centimeters.
"Less! Where the hell are you!?" A familiar voice chimed over the comms.
"Ed Greely" Less said acidically. He stifled his instinct to ignore Ed and instead
pinged his location.
"We're close! Hang on, bud!" a short burst of static then, "Bodgie, think of
something!" Less rolled his eyes.
A few moments later, "We got you in the system.... redirecting you to our
location" Bodgie said proudly. ... via hacking Bodgie presumably had made the
conveyance see Lester as a person instead of escape pod debris and
redirected Less's destination to ... well... wherever they were. Less had planned
to blow up the tube and get his warbots to extract him. Bodgie’s plan was
better. Lester puffed and issued a cancel command negating "barrier breach"
Directive.
"Rodger." Lester confirmed and detached his bindings. His body now under
the control of the knowing conveyance whisking him to rendezvous with Ed, the
cadets and his warbot companions.