Leo and the team had been sleeping in a pile for the majority of the ride to the cargo ship. The spacecraft they were given was about the size of a storage closet and had seats that the team had no desire to sit in. Initially they simply talked and listened to music on their phones before huddling up against the walls together and falling asleep in a pile. When Leo woke up he took a look back to see Setton's hulking figure leaned shoulder to shoulder with Jet against the wall. Tina and Charnita were both cuddled up in a ball, resting their heads on Setton's legs. Leo had been resting his back against the shoulder of Jet as he fell asleep.
Leo stood up from his position and walked to the flight deck of the ship, seeing very close a large spaceship floating in the otherwise endless black. He sat in the pilot seat and began flipping switches to guide their pod towards the designated entranced that was programmed. Juno spoke in his mind,
"How did you sleep? You all are like children at a sleepover with the songs you sang and games you played earlier."
Leo turned around in his seat and looked back to the still resting crew and smiled, thinking that they really did feel like teenagers after school all hanging out. He could hear Tina snoring, See Jet drooling and Charnita toss and turn every other moment to get comfortable. The level of comfort this team had with one another stemmed far past that of battle, Leo thought. They were more than family, clinging to one another in the void of space, banding together and feeling safe despite being surrounded by any and every trouble fathomable. That feeling was inexplicably comforting to Leo,
"I slept great. I feel so at home with these guys. Being with them is like a safe place. A haven."
From there, a few gentle alarms began going off in the spacecraft to notify the crew of an approaching object, being the cargo ship they were approaching. That alarm seemed to stir Jet out of his rest, who grunted before wiping his mouth and shaking the sleep out of his system, Leo spoke,
"Up and at em sir. We're coming in hot finally."
Jet replied as he began shaking the rest of the crew awake,
"Don't ever call me sir again man. That's weird."
Leo chuckled as he watched the large cargo ship approach, casting a dark shadow and dwarfing their already miniscule spacecraft. There were a few lights pulsating around the mass of dark grey metal, window panels showing normal lighting still functional. Good to know that they would not be in complete darkness on a ship in the middle of nowhere. When the entirety of the Lionessa woke, the ship approached the airlock to enter the ship and after idling in front of it for a few moments, remote access was verified and the garage opened up to the team, which entered and landed as the doors closed and the room repressurized.
Leo rose from the seat and saw Setton press the button to open the side door to allow the team to deplane. Everyone primed their weapons and activated their visors before exiting the ship and stepping foot onto the silvery-white metal flooring of the large garage room they landed in.
There was not a person to be seen in the room, which was bright as could be as the light fixations on the ceiling worked completely fine. Crates were stacked around the area and Leo could see another two aircraft parked in the garage along with them. The room itself was probably the size of two standard gymnasiums, with a high ceiling and an empty feeling. The only sound that could be heard was a gentle purring of ventilation that seeped from the vents. Wires and panels were placed all around the room and nothing seemed out of the ordinary just yet to Leo. Tina spoke,
"That looks like the ship of the other team they sent out here. How come their's is so much bigger?"
Charnita chimed in,
"They sent more people on the first team. Like around twenty personnel. That's another reason it's so weird that no one answered when the call went out."
Leo agreed, adjusting his grip on the metal weapon in his arms as he silently asked for Sage to analyze the ship and get a status report for the team, which she went to work on. Jet then called out,
"Alright let's take a look at their ship's first for their comm systems, see if we can dig anything up."
Jet and Charnita entered the aircraft while Leo followed along with Setton and Tina in securing the perimeter of the room. Leo walked about the large garage area and studied the cargo in tote on the ship. Most of it was latched down to the floorboards and spread out thinly across the room. More than likely these were just extra units placed in the airlock area and not that actual payload location.
Leo walked over to one of the cargo containers and read the wording on the sides of the off white colored crates. Serial numbers followed by location he had no recollection of. Likely cities of Earth documenting their contributions to the colony and the like. He continued to wander when he came to a large double door, with darkness on the other side of the window panes. Next to the door was a red lever that read 'EMERGENCY AIRLOCK OVERRIDE'. As Leo browsed, Jet's voice came over his comm system,
"Team, the crew of this ship sent out several distress signals and messages. Or more like they attempted, but nothing went through. We only received the initial distress from the Raphael's main communication system."
Tina's voice came next and Leo began meandering towards the crew who were starting to approach.
"What messages did they try to send?"
Leo was stopped in his tracks by the voice of a distressed man coming over his headset and stating,
"Mayday, mayday, this is Tyrant zero four two, the Raphael is compromised, everyone-"
The man's voice faltered and he dropped the formalities to state in a terrified voice,
"Please help us, anyone, please. I don't know what's happening, everyone is dead. There's something-"
The transmission became garbled before Charnita's voice spoke,
"What the hell? It's a recording not a transmission, why is it garbled?"
Leo could hear through the microphone the woman giving the machine a good smack to no avail. From then the two exited the ship and the group huddled together to speak. Jet started,
"Let's switch over to the Raphael's main communications line and see if we can contact anyone left."
Leo followed the instructions and switched to the line and heard Jet's voice,
"Crew of Raphael, this is the Lionessa, we have boarded. Is there anyone here?"
Silence. Jet tried this again across a few channels of the ship until he came back to the main one and spoke again to the team,
"Well. I think it's safe to say that there is no one left alive on this spacecraft."
The weight of his statement slowly sank in, causing the sweat running down Leo's back to send a shiver up his spine as the gravity of their situation weighed down on his shoulders. Something the man on the recording said threw him off and prompted him to ask,
"That soldier said some, thing. Like he had no idea what he was dealing with. What could that be?"
There was a pause, as likely no one had an answer and the uneasiness in the air made itself more prevalent before Setton signed,
"The Homunculi?"
Tina nodded and stuttered mildly before stating,
"They could be talking about synthetics too. Maybe Orphan got a hold of the ship or like Setton said, the Homunculi possibly."
Leo remained quiet, wanting to believe the words, but Tina was uneasy, the unknown looming around the corner was enough to suffocate the conversation. Jet spoke up,
"Whatever he was talking about, we'll just have to be on our toes to deal with. Lantz told us that there are several points throughout the ship that we need to check on and ensure are online in order to get the ship's A.I functional again. I say we check the bridge first to see if there is a simple fix or indicators to something before we go with the initial plan of splitting up and going about the duties."
Leo nodded in unison with the rest of the team before Jet placed both hands back on his rifle and led the charge through the closed doors at the head of the garage. The door unlocked and silently opened, revealing a pitch black hallway. When Jet took a step inside, the hall it up from motion activated lights more than likely. Leo could not decide whether or not he wanted the lights to stay off or not when they revealed the scene. Tina spoke,
"Oh my god."
There were several corpses along the ground, scarlet splattered across the wall like some sick art project. Six bodies in total, all Roakon military were at the scene of the crime. There was an obvious struggle, as bullets and shells lay in the pools of blood that lined the long hallway. Leo stepped forward as Jet and the others began to examine the corpses. He looked down the hallway, the light fixations lit up about three panels forward and backwards from where they stood, leaving the rest of the path in front of them unknown still. Leo stared into the red reticle of his rifle into the dark, wary and silent until Charnita spoke,
"This is unreal."
There was a moment of silence that beckoned Leo's own curiosity to make him turn to look at the bodies they were examining. They flipped the body onto its stomach to examine it and what Leo saw baffled him. The man's body was split in the center, leaving a gaping hole revealing his bloodied and inactive insides to the cold air of the spacecraft. The split was from the back of his neck down to his pelvic region, then Charnita spoke again,
"His spine. His entire spinal column is gone."
Tina chimed in,
"All of them are missing."
Jet rose from the ground and spoke as well,
"Not to mention some of them are missing a lot of blood. And I'm not talking about the blood on the floor or the walls. There would be a lot more if it wasn't missing."
Leo thought to Juno, asking if she had anything to pitch in on the analysis. To which she responded,
"I do not have anything to input in this manner. It's more than odd Leo, it's unexplainable to me."
That response did nothing to calm Leo's nerves, Juno knew almost everything there was to know about anything. If she did not in the moment, she could find out. For her to say she had no clue and not even to be able to research it did not bode well. Setton then walked past Leo ahead and waved his left hand forward, ushering the rest to move forward. They were all compliant without another word, Leo bringing up the rear to follow them silently deeper into the dead , droning air of the mysterious ship.
After traversing through the ship for what felt like an eternity, Leo finally stepped into the bridge with the rest of his team, once again being greeted with the corpses of the ship's crew sprawled on the ground, in their seats and over the flight controls, blood everywhere. Setton and Tina went to examine the technological functions of the ship while Leo and the other two went to clear and ensure the room was secure.
His eyes momentarily wandered out to the star-riddled canvas of space before coming back to the bridge, Tina finally speaking,
"So every function of the ship is online and functioning normally except for the A.I power core, the navigation instruments and primary propulsion power. All in section charlie of the ship. We need to check them out, get them online and get this ship back running."
Setton was clicking away at the pads in front of him, walking back and forth quickly, opening panels and rewiring circuits. Leo and the rest of the team watched in silence before Jet spoke,
"Set? What's up man?"
The man remained silent, naturally, before finishing up a few more wiring circuits and turning to the crew, holding up the number three, shaking his head, then holding up a two, followed by signing,
"Navigation fixed."
Tina shook her head and spoke,
"You're a genius Set."
The man nodded his head in agreement as the team honed in to his location to listen to Jet speak again,
"Alright. As freaky as missing spines and blood is, we need to focus and get the other two functions back online. We split up. Tina, Leo and Set go check on the propulsion while Charnita and I go check out the A.I power core. Stay on comms and check in every ten minutes. Time should be hacked already, do not miss a check in more than once. Finish the mission and meet back here as soon as possible. Do not split up more than we already are and stay on your toes at all times. All good?"
At that moment, the lights shut off and made Leo whip around the room, heart pounding at the event. After a small lull of silence, the lights turned back on and nothing seemed out of the ordinary, the rest of the Lionessa aimed down their sights and looking around as well before calming down enough to give one another ooks of concern before nodding to split off so they could get off the ship as soon as possible. Jet and Charnita left the room, Leo following Tina and Setton out an opposite door towards the propulsion power room.
As much as the man hated to admit it, he had grown numb to the amounts of blood and corpses they came across in their trek across the foreign ship. That feeling did nothing to deter the encroaching feeling of eyes watching as every panel they stepped across lit the path ahead and enshrouded the past in an ominous darkness. Leo adjusting his grip on the metal of his rifle constantly was merely one of the coping mechanisms he utilized to abade the feeling.
Setton checked his watch and waved to Tina who promptly spoke up,
"Tina checking in. All accounted for on this side. How are you two doing?"
There was a silence that was too long for comfort, despite only being a few moments before Jet responded,
"Hear you loud and clear. We are both still here. Only thing to report are the doors. Be careful, we noticed that some of the door stat close behind us refused to open back up. Nothing too much to worry about, we can make it back once all systems are online, but don't get separated with the random occurrences."
Tina responded as the crew rounded another corner and continued stepping along,
"Gotcha. Stay safe, catch you in ten."