This is a chapter of the online novel Stardiver four In the story so far: the spaceship has come under attack by a fleet of pirates who style themselves as revolutionaries. The ship has been boarded and the battle rages. Ashley is a child who was a passenger on the ship. She is lost and confused by the events and is desperate to find her father one of the defenders of the ship.
Chapter 13
Battle For Airlock Three
"Daddy!" Ashley cried as she ran aimless and lost on the huge ship. She was desperate to find someplace familiar, but the darkness made everything confusing, and the emergency lights in her suit were dim. The air thickened with choking smoke. She ran through hallways that ended at locked doors, she would turn back and run to climb stairs leading to empty dark levels. The noise was frightening; there were booms and bangs, and a sound something like rain.
"Daddy," She cried, Wiping tears from her eyes. "What is happening? Where are you?"
"Out of the way young lady!" The angry male voice was above her before she saw the men.
A dozen armored soldiers come out of the dark running past her. "Move over, you." The leader yelled. She never before saw soldiers like these with heavy gray armor.
"What is happening?" Her voice sounded thin in the darkness.
"Get back to where you belong. We are under attack."
"What? Who is attacking? Where should I go?"
The squad of space rangers disappeared into the dark hallway. Ashley slumped down on the floor to cry. The floor was vibrating strangely, then bounced; everything shifted one way and she was tossed against the wall.
More men in armor were running past, "Out of the way. Go up and in, it will be safer." One called back.
"Right," Ashley said to herself. "Up and in is safer than near the skin of the ship." She tried to run back the way she came but more men were coming and pushed her along with them.
"Let me go! I gotta get out of here."
She struggled against a flow of armored bodies taking her someplace she was sure she did not want to go to- a place where people needed weapons and armor.
Ashley was pushed down the hallway until it opened up to a wider corridor with large freight doors along one side. Men in armor were frantically busy building walls out of metal crates, cargo, and large metal boxes. Some began to squat behind them with guns pointing at the center door. Men with silver shields stood blocking the hallway. The air was charged with electric stress. She could tell that, something was going to happen soon and it was going to be bad.
A red light flashed above the center door filling the room with eerie shadows, every man tensed.
"Oh no! Oh no! I gotta get out of here." But terror held her in place like a menacing force.
The explosion hit like a wall throwing her back. Men yelled. Booms and pops pounded Ashley's ears awhile flashes of lighting stabbed at her shut eyes. She tried to get up but was pushed down. "Stay there you." A rough voice commanded. She put her hands over her ears. The noise was so loud she could not hear her own screams. The walls of cargo boxes were being pushed back by the attacker's firepower.
Another red light flashed over the door on the left, followed by an explosion. Ashley crawled behind one of the metal crates and tried to become as small as possible among the arms and legs of armored warriors.
A third red light reflected on walls, but this time, the door slid up inside the wall. Men in black armor flooded through filling the air with more blasting and yelling. The defenders around Ashley crouched lower behind their shaking barricade. They no longer looked but held their weapons over the tops and fired blindly into the solid black mass of pirates wildly. Flashes came from the sides of the barricade and the defenders began to slump to the floor. Two heavy bodies fell on top of Ashley.
She could hear the battle move up the corridor without seeing the horror of it.
Outnumbered ten to one the few remaining defenders of airlock three fell or moved further away until they were aginst the back wall crouching behind crates and drums, doomed.
With ringing ears Ashley heard voices. "Anyone alive behind the barricade will be taken as prisoner and treated with respect."
"Just kill them all." Another said, "Who will know? Beside it is war. We could just say they died in battle."
The wounded man began to move off of her. "Miss," he whispered. "Get in the box." He pulled a corner away. The box had many small cartons inside that tumbled out making room for her.
"Hey, you. We are not dead yet." He yelled. "Think about it. If you kill wounded soldiers you will go to the gallows for sure when this is all over, but keep the conventions of war and you will live."
"OK. Put down your guns," The first voice called. "We follow the conventions of war."
From inside the dark box, Ashley could hear thumping and scraping as the wounded soldiers were taken away. Huddling in the dark box she was a weeping ball of fear.
(c) Adron
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