Once in a lifetime, 1-3

Once in a lifetime

Prologue: Mechanic

Admiral Dean walked in to his office, it was a pretty large room, for an office that is, there was some plain white paint on the walls and roof with a nice brown carpet covering the floor and a nice window behind my steel desk.
In the window you could see another building, mostly grey with some large white lines to indicate where the different offices where, most of them also had a window identical to mine, but between the buildings there was a little garden to look at.

Dean pulled out his little chair, it was a standard office chair but it was very comfortable and sturdy.
He then sat down and opened up his green laptop and pressed the power button, typed in the password ‘’Leanehound’’.

Leane was his wife and he loved dogs, he always had one.
The laptop started and automatically opened his folder of messages from work, there was only one.Assault on the outer Colleral space dock
-General Meadow

Colleral was the name of an aggressive species that had initiated a war with the human, the message read:

We need another mechanic to fix the mechs in time for the assault, I have to supervise the progress so you have to find a mechanic and send him here ASAP.

He doesn’t have to be anything special; we just need someone who can follow orders.Dean proceeded to look at available crew in the Nebula, the human space explorers.
Several buttons appeared:
Captains:
Medical officers:
Medical crew:
Mechanic officers:
Mechanic crew:

That was the one he needed, before bothering to look at the rest, thirty available crew showed up, four recommended, he read the recommended first.

Mange Orique:

Performance: A very experienced mechanic who has been on sixteen short missions and two long missions, mostly a hard worker but can get very frightened when things are really at stake.

Age: 42

Derok Goldheim

Performance: A very high tempered mechanic who doesn’t go on long missions because others don’t like being around him for long, otherwise a very good mechanic who is rarely afraid, twenty-five short missions.

Age: 37

Linda Forsée

Performance: A self-confident mechanic who also studied science for a period of time, a fast worker but has a hard time following orders but still gets the job done most of the time, very good at improvising.
Nine short mission and one long mission.

Age: 27

Venus Dimm

Perfomance: A stunning mechanic with high expectations, still very young and not in full understanding of everything, he can do a good job inside his knowledge and he follows orders, two short missions.

Age: 24

Dean considered all of them.
Orique could be a good choice but this mission was in a dangerous zone, if the enemies were to attack he could be a lot less usefull.
Goldheim was a no, this was only a short mission so they shouldn’t need someone who could disturb the others, were at a tight schedule already.
Forsée was a good choice but in the end he went with Dimm, this could be a good chance to see his potential and he was good at following orders, which could really be needed in this tight schedule they had.

Chapter one: Cold before the storm

-WAKE UP VENUS! A female voice said.
-Wha? Venus replied as he slowly regained consciousness.
-Venus it’s nine already! The voice said.
-Mira, the academy lessons doesn’t start until evening today, Venus said.

‘’I know, but I saw you had a new assignment.’’
‘’Didn’t I tell you to stop looking at my laptop?’’
‘’It was an accident, I promise.’’
‘’whatever, let me check it.’’

Venus quickly goes out of the bed and stands in his and Miras Bedroom, it was mostly white on the walls and the roof, but the bed was black and so was most of the furniture, Mira thought it was ‘’artistic’’.
He walked into a restroom right beside the bedroom.

It was a standard white restroom with a shower, toilet and a washbasin, nothing special; he put on his clothing in a flash and hurried out into his office, a standard little home office with a desk, laptop and a lamp.

He hurried over to the desk and pulled out the small black office chair and sat down.

His laptop was already on, considering Mira knew what was on it, it wasn’t a big surprise.
The work folder opened as always and he saw the new message:

Outer Nebula station requires assistance
-Admiral Dean

You are needed in the Outer Nebula station, information is classified.
A small transport ship will pick you up at the academy, twelve hundred o clock.
Don’t be late.

This was amazing, missions were more fun than just studying at the academy, he was very excited for the mission.

-I will leave around eleven, Mira, Venus said.
-What are you supposed to do, nothing dangerous, right? Mira asked.

-It’s classified, but you know Nebula has security as their high- Venus replied when Mira interrupted and said: -est priority and bla bla bla, you said that a few hundred times.

‘’Just saying that I’m returning in one piece, maybe two if you get lucky.’’
‘’Then you would have to be a little richer.’’
‘’Well, people studying don’t usually get much money for it, remember how much they gave you when you went to school?’’

‘’No?’’
‘’You see? They usually don’t get paid very much.’’

Mira appeared in the doorway and said: ‘’Hope you have a good trip, I’ll miss you’’
Venus stood up and said: ’’I’ll miss you too Mira, I don’t think it’s a very long assignment though, they save them for people who actually finished the academy’’
‘’You’re close Venus, you know that, anyways, I have work to bye!’’
‘’Bye!’’

Mira left the doorway and Venus heard the door open and close a little later, he should probably get ready to leave too.
Two hours later Venus was on the transport ship.
-Can you tell me my assignment pilot? Venus yelled.

-Negative, I haven’t heard what it is, the pilot replied.

A few hours later the ship arrived and Venus stepped of and the ship took off again instantly, must be a tight schedule.

Venus was greeted by the chief mechanic.

-Welcome, you must be Dimm, was it? The mechanic said.

-Yes I’m Dimm, chief mechanic, Venus replied quickly.

-Call me Arale, I need you to follow me.

Venus followed Arale through the space station, it was mostly grey walls but there was lots of crewmembers aboard so it didn’t feel alone, eventually there was also a door in the wall, it was still a large corridor at least 3 meters tall, which was probably an indication of the station being large.

After some time they saw a large door in the side with a sign saying ‘’Mech bay’’ above it, Arale went over and pulled the door open and as Arale and Venus walked through Venus saw the amazing room.

It was at least 20 meters tall, lots of people walked around and appeared to be building mechs, the huge metallic vehicles were all along the walls, there were also second floors on the sides of the room with another layer of mechs.

-I need you to go upstairs on the left and help Kim and Nina fixing the 3’rd mech from the right, they will brief you in what to do, Arale said.

-Right after that a woman ran over to Arale and said: ‘’Sir, were running out of time, they’re almost here!’’

Chapter 2: Eye of the storm

-Who is almost here!? Venus yelled; ‘’Why wasn’t I briefed!?’’
-VENUS! Arale yelled in return; ‘’How close are they Alice?’’
‘’They should be here in 20 minutes, sir’’
-SHUT UP! Venus yelled; ‘’I have a fiancée at home and a bright future ahead of me, again why wasn’t I briefed!?’’
-VENUS WE DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS! Arale yelled; ‘’How many mechs will be done before they arrive?’’
-You might be superior officer but I won’t accept this! Venus yelled; ‘’Why wasn’t I warned about this!?’’
-For Christs sake, Arale said and after a little pause he continued; ‘’It’s the Colleral, they weren’t supposed to come and you weren’t supposed to be here when we started the attack’’
-Why wa- Venus said when Arale stopped him and said; ‘’It doesn’t matter now, we can’t do anything.’’
-Okay Alice, how many mechs? Arale asked.
‘’We should have ar-‘’ Alice said when all of sudden a huge explosion came from the big gate to space at the end of the bay and flooded almost the entire bay.
Venus quickly ran against the door, Alice and Arale following close after him, when he reached the door he realized that they could not lose the Outer Nebula Station, that could cost them a great tactical location and lots of resources, way too many.

-Arale, evacuate, you’re the ranking officer, they need you more than they need me! Venus said as he noticed small pods, probably filled with Colleral soldiers flying right into the bay.
When Venus most officers would have said something like ‘’I should go down with the ship, not you’’ or ‘’I command you to go, I’ll stay’’ but Arale wasn’t stubborn or naïve, he just left with Alice, who Venus noticed had a huge bruise on her chin.

Venus realized that his chance of survival was very low but the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, he saw a large wrench close by and decided it was the best kind of weapon around here, if he couldn’t reach a working mech.

He saw a mech, unfortunately it was on the second floor, he quickly ran over and grabbed the wrench then proceeded to quickly looked around, he noticed that the smoke the explosion had left covered a lot of the area but because the station could automatically block out breaches with force fields but I had to thing quickly, the force fields didn’t have unlimited energy.

I started sprinting for the ladder to the small second floor as the smoke seemed to provide cover but it also covered the Colleral, when I had almost reached the ladder I tripped over something and fell, quickly standing up because of the situation required it, he then quickly turned around and saw what tripped him.
It was a Colleral, it was also about to stand up, it was much taller than Venus, around 2.1 meters tall he assumed, slightly red skin and the some bones sticking out around the neck.

It was also covered in what looked like combat armor, grey with the Colleral sign on the kneepads and a helm covering the entire head with a small visor around the eyes, Colleral could breathe the same air as humans could but it slightly weakened them so they preferred the suits.

Before the humanoid could completely stand up Venus proceeded to hit it in the visor as hard as he could with the wrench, it broke and it was very shocked, the glass from the visor should make it even more troubling for it though.

The mech was more important than completely killing it so Venus quickly jumped on the ladder and started climbing it as quickly as he could but then he noticed that he had taken some small damage from the fall, making it troubling to climb but he still did it pretty fast.
As soon as he reached the top he jumped for the mech, it was tall and he would have a hard time climbing it, usually you had time and no aliens shooting at you…
The wounds would also be troubling but nothing he couldn’t handle.

As he started to climb the mech he noticed that he was completely detected, bullets flew all around him, lucky that the Colleral still used some pretty low-tech weapons as he reached the top of the mech he still hadn’t been hit which was very fortunate, he jumped into the seat and pressed the initiate button, a visor sled down in front of him, he heard the friendly robotic-male voice saying: ‘’All systems active, taking fire’’

None of those weapons could penetrate but if their  ship fired at him he could be in trouble, if they had a ship of course, only the small shuttles had been confirmed.

He powered the weapons, they were big and had highly explosive rounds, it would easily be able to defeat the enemies in the room, and he didn’t know how many were outside though.
He pulled the trigger and the gatling gun like barrels started spinning, shortly after the bullets flew out and in a matter of seconds he had laid waste to the entire room, there didn’t seem to be any more living Colleral so he proceeded to activate the thrusters.

He quickly came over to the breach and the force field could easily be flown through, he was out in space in a matter of seconds.

He could see lots of stars and a huge purple nebula close by, that is how the station got its name, but he quickly noticed some pretty well camouflaged ships, shortly after he saw how large they were and that he had almost no chance to defeat them, even smaller one to escape.

While thinking about whether to engage or try to escape he didn’t notice that one ship had already detected him and was preparing weapons, Venus saw the missile  just as it was about to hit him, but he couldn’t evade it.

After the missile impacted Venus noticed that he was still alive and conscious but barely, as his vision darkened he heard the friendly male voice from the mechs computer was talking.

-Weapon systems down, navigational systems down, medical support failing, power failing, the computer said before there was too little power, it was automatically redirected to medical support.

A few moments later his vision darkened completely.

Chapter 3: Permanent

Surprisingly, Venus opened his eyes again, everything was a little blurry but he thought he was in a spaceship with lots of other people; he started to hear lots of different voices.

All of sudden something grabbed his neck and turned his head, he looked at what he thought was some ones face.
-Dimm! A familiar voice said; ‘’It’s me, Arale!’’

-How? Venus tried to say and he thought it was understandable.
‘’Our escape shuttle was captured, I don’t know what they did to Alice but I think she is alive.’’

‘’What is this?’’
‘’You probably haven’t noticed yet but your hands are chained to the seat, I think this is some kind of prison transport, but I haven’t seen any guards, only this empty room with locked doors and a few windows.’’

Venus vision began to clear up, he also felt the chains on his hands, and there were also some on his feet.
 

-How many others are here? Venus asked.
‘’By my count 40, but I can’t see behind me.’’
‘’Any escape plans?’’
‘’No, we can’t do anything.’’

All of sudden a high pitched voice left of Venus yelled: ‘’Hey everyone! They’re closing in on a planet, I think were arriving!’’
Venus looked over against the voice and noticed it was a pretty small man sitting close by a window, he was bald and wearing a green shirt, Venus couldn’t make out his pants though.

Venus started hearing low chatter around him; it was probably about the planet.

After some time the starship shook a little and then stopped, they had arrived.

A purely robotic voice quickly said: ‘’This is where you will be living permanently.’’
All of sudden the chains opened and everyone stood up and started walking against the left wall, including Venus, when he was walking he felt something stinging in the neck, but not when he stood still, he assumed it was something that controlled some of his brain functions.

After some time the wall opened and everyone started walking through into large hallway of glass, through the glass they could see the planets surface and surprisingly for a prison planet it had a little of life, It was like one of the rainforests from earth, just in a much larger scale, the trees were absolutely huge and he could see animals everywhere, here could mostly see insects but he assumed there were some other, larger animals around.

Shortly after they passed the hallway and now all the walls were just grey with lots of doors in the sides and one person went through each door, after some time Venus wished he could go through a door soon, his legs were tired and wanted something to happen.

As people went through the doors Venus noticed how the numbers diminished and soon there was almost no one left, when Arale left there was only four other people left, including Venus, it felt like the doors got further and further away.

Shortly after the others left too and Venus was the only one left, he finally went through a door, he came inside a little room with a small light on the roof, a very uncomfortable looking bed and a small chair next to a table standing next to the wall, there was a hole in the wall right above the table and a little dish standing in front of the hole.
On the dish there was what looked like some food, he couldn’t see what though, and a glass of water, this is very he would be living for the rest of his life.

Venus noticed how hungry he washed and pulled out the chair a little and sat down, there was no knife or fork so he assumed he had to eat with his hands, he took a bit of the weird brown square food and ate, it was very dry and tasted horribly, he tried the water and hoped it wasn’t as dry as the food, it wasn’t it was just plain water.

After eating his neck started hurting a lot, he raised his hands and tried to cover the pain but as soon as his hands got close to his neck he heard static and his hands were struck by what felt like lightning, the pain got worse and worse but in the process it felt like it moved away, after a short time that felt like an eternity he felt a very painful sting and then heard something land, he quickly turned around, fighting the pain.

As he initially looked around nothing was there but when h looked down he saw some kind of small robot with four legs, it must have been the thing controlling him earlier, he tried to smash it with his left foot but it evaded the attack and ran in under the table, Venus jumped down on the floor and looked under the table as he saw nothing but a little hole, it must have been planned.

After that he decided he had nothing else to do but to go to sleep, he stood up from the floor and slowly got into the bed, it was very uncomfortable but he had nothing else to do.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the days events but eventually he fell asleep.

Venus woke up, he didn’t know for how long he had been here but he estimated six days, some of the food came in through the hole every couple of hours and he noticed he could just get rid of the dishes by throwing them back into the hole, but it was too small for him to climb through.

He sat down on the chair and put his hands on his face with his elbows on the table, he couldn’t believe his life had come to this, he had thought about trying to kill himself by throwing himself against the walls or starving himself but he didn’t want to give up hope yet, there were people waiting for him at home and he was planning to see them again.

Something was different today though, he couldn’t point his finger on what it was, what could be different anyways?

Then he heard it, it was a small wooshing sound, he didn’t know where it came from, he checked every inch of his room, he even checked if the odd robotic thing had placed itself on his neck again, but nothing, yet the sound kept getting louder.

Chapter 4: Impact

Soon after another sound appeared, it sounded like an engine, but not like one Venus had ever heard, the engine sound was also becoming louder quickly and he couldn’t guess what was going on, as the sounds become louder and louder he suspected it was because whatever was causing them was getting closer.

Then suddenly the sounds completely stopped but now Venus shortly heard a sound, he couldn’t guess what it was before a huge explosion tore the wall open and knocked him over, he managed to stay conscious and stood up again, when he looked out he saw a lot of the rainforest area he had seen before but a pretty far away he saw a large barren area, in the middle there was something odd, probably a meteorite, but then he heard a weird pulsing sound.

Whit no other options, Venus decided to go check it out, it might be able to help him out somehow, there wasn’t very far down to the ground so Venus just jumped down, as he landed he could feel the dust fly around him, felt so nice to finally be on real earth again.
Looking up he saw the sun of this planet, he had really missed it, he also noticed that it was pretty hot, nothing to be worried about though.

He looked forward and the landscapes beauty caught him, it was like a large rainforest with lots of colors, the trees stood very tall in the air and there were lots of flowers and other plants on the ground, he also noticed lots of small insects, he also noticed an odd smell, he couldn’t make out what it was.

He had to continue, the landscape wasn’t very important, he started walking, he felt heavy, it was probably the planets gravity,