Chapter 72: Escape
As the celebrations went on in Camp Alpha way into the morning, back in the ship, several men met up in the Marine's armory. Seargent Raman watched the armory hatch's camera, making sure no one else is around before opening the hatch. He always used a backdoor hack to erase the video images and ID tags of the people entering and leaving the restricted area, to prevent Security from noticing anything wrong.
"All here?" Raman looked at the group inside the armory. Two crew ratings from Maintenance and Operations, two from Engineering, two mechanics from Auxillary and one more from Security. Ivan nodded, "All that want to go are here."
"Good," Raman rubbed his sweaty palms together and said, "The passcode for the arms lockers are here," He passed out the data slates to crew with the Security uniform tabs. "Grab all the ammo, and rifles and load up into the crates."
"Ivan and your friend, you go start up the vehicles, we will meet you at the motor pool," Raman instructed handing Ivan a set of black security armor and a Glock 88 attached to a leg holster. The armory didn't keep any spare Marine armor as those were all transported to Camp Alpha.
"The rest help transport the equipment we need over to the motor pool." Raman continued, handing out sets of black turtle vest armor to his fellow conspirators. They loaded the PDWs and M7A1s with live ammunition and slung the weapons on their backs before placing the loaded crates onto hand loaders, pushing them out of the armory.
The dozens of weapons lockers were emptied out rapidly, dozens of PDWs and a few M7A1s that remained in the armory were stacked into foam crates, while cases of 5mm and 6.5mm were loaded into separated crates. The armory started to look empty as crates and crates of equipment were loaded out and pushed towards the motor pool at the Cargo Bay.
"Move those too, they are combat rations which I nicked from the Marine stores," He pointed to several plastic boxes sitting at the side of the armory. They were soon loaded up along with the rest of the crates. Raman did a quick check around the armory, making sure everything is taken before he exited the armory and locked the hatch. He took out his tablet and hit a few keys in it, releasing a virus he wrote into the system.
Almost immediately, the armory lost all power and the lights went out inside. Even telltale red lights of the emptied electronically locked lockers disappeared. Raman grinned wickedly, well that will give us some time for them to open the lockers only to find them empty.
Too bad they didn't store all the weapons and ammunition in one place, if not I would have taken all, Raman rued, too much time is needed to raid the rest of the arms lockers in the various parts of the ships and no way to get to the city armory.
Raising his Glock 88, he aimed the muzzle of boxy shaped silencer attached to the pistol and squeezed several shots into the security pad of the armory door, destroying the lock sensors, causing a smell of burnt plastic in the hatchway.
Raman swung his backpack onto his back and walked away without looking back and put on a pair of shades while holstering his weapon.
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"Come on, Hio, use more strength!" Spaceman (Machinist) Ryan urged his partner as they gripped the handles of the monkey wrench, trying to loosen the devil cursed bolt from the transmission gear of the half-track they were maintaining. "Ok, on three, one, two, THREE!" The two mechanics huffed and puffed as they exerted their strength against the bolt.
"Goddamn it, how did it get so fucked up with muck, that we can't unbolt it!" Spaceman Apprentice (Machinist) Hio, grumbled as he wriggled his sored fingers. "Hey, that's Ivan and Tony?" Hio, saw the two entering the motor pool pushing some equipment with hand loaders.
"Petty Officer Ivan and Tony boy!" Ryan yelled from where he sat on the cold hard decks of the Cargo Bay. "Need some help here!"
The two men walking towards the other side of the bay froze, turning their heads like robots staring at Ryan and Hio. "What's wrong?"
"Huh? Oh, nothing, what are you guys doing here so late?" It was 0200am shipboard hours, Ivan asked as he walked over to the two Machinists. "Shouldn't you guys be off duty?"
"Damn, I want to, but we got to fix this shit before we can get off," Ryan grumbled, tapping the hull of the half-track with a spanner. "Some help in unscrewing that bolt? We can't find the powered screwdriver, don't know which asshole used it and didn't put it back in its place!"
Hio stared at Ivan, looking at the armor and gear he was wearing, "PO Ivan, did the sirens went off? Are we under attack?" He gestured with his head towards the armor Ivan was wearing.
"Oh," Ivan looked down at his armor, seemingly like noticing it for the first time. "This?" He quick drew his silenced pistol and fired into the two unsuspecting friends, dropping them both onto the decks in their own puddle of blood.
Ivan's heartbeat pounded loudly in his ears, louder than the suppressed shots of his Glock, his head drenched with cold sweat. He swallowed his suddenly dry throat a few times, before holstering his pistol with shaky hands. "S-sorry guys."
"What happened? Did you kill them?" Spaceman Senior Tony came up behind Ivan, causing Ivan to jump in surprise. "Shit."
"Blyad!" Ivan cursed, "Don't come up behind me like that!" He patted his chest a few times, trying to calm his racing heart down. "They saw us, we couldn't let them report anything. Enough, come let's go."
"Shit," Tony spat as he cast a last glance at the two bodies on the deck, he worked with those two before a few times and found them to be great guys. "Shit."
"Take that half-track, I had it listed as down for maintenance, there should be some equipment loaded in the back," Ivan tossed an electronic key to Tony. "Check the back to see if its all there."
Tony unlocked the vehicle and pulled himself up the tailgate of the half-track, doing a quick inventory of the equipment piled in the back. Dozens of foam crates stacked the rear neatly in rows, he opened the nearest crate and saw dozens of pieces of machinery seated in the foam padding.
"There should be 20 crates at the back," Ivan said as he pushed the hand loader with more crates to the back of the half-track.
"Got it," Tony did a quick count and reached for the crates Ivan handed up. Soon other members of the conspiracy arrived with more crates and started helping to load the supplies up. No one said anything about the two cooling bodies on the other side of the bay.
Raman walked in into the Cargo Bay and head towards the motor pool, he noticed the two bodies on the floor next to a half-track and smiled inwardly, now they are too deep in already, they can't run back to the Captain and betray him.
"How's everything?" Raman asked Ivan. "All good?"
"Yea, except for a little problem, but it's taken care of," Ivan sighed, "We just need to hook the trailer up and we are good to go."
"Great," Raman turned an pointed to the security guy, "Aaron right? Go open the bay doors, and lower the ramps." Aaron nodded and ran towards the control booth at the side of the bay doors. After a while, loud sounds of hydraulics echoed in the vast Cargo Bay as the massive doors slid open inch by inch.
"Split up half-half between the vehicles," Raman ordered, "Let's get the hell of out this place!"
They picked up Aaron at the doors and drove down the extended ramps heading towards the west walls. Tony stood by the intercom and reported to the Bridge about the opening of the bay door, using the wind blowing in to muffle his voice, reporting that Hio and Ryan were doing a vehicle test and since they were logged in as working in the motor pool, Bridge did not suspect anything.
The vehicles' headlights cut a swad through the fluttering snow drifting down from the dark skies as they navigated along the wet and slippery snow road, before finally reaching the West Gates of the walls. The security personnel manning the gates were surprised, but Ivan bluffed his way through, saying that the Wind, Tidal and Solar generators were down due to the heavy snow, and they need to shut it down before it gets damaged in a storm.
They were waved through and they really drove towards one of the W, T, S generators. The conspirators quickly detached the power cabling and collected the cables, while the two from Engineering shut down the generator and prepped it for transport. It took them less than an hour to load the portable generator into the trailer.
As they drove off in the snowstorm, the sirens within the walls blared, waking the inhabitants up.
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