Previously [1]. [16]

[17]

“Derek, let him in!” Doc bellowed at the sight of Mark pushed into the door by a wind gust of an enormous strength. “Derek!”

The latter hesitated a couple of seconds, but finally pushed the button opening the door to Vulture05. Mark fell onto the metal floor, the door swooshed closed, and a round of bullets hit it rhythmically. Then another one, and another one. The shower of bullets penetrating Vulture05 was more than the old vessel could take, and it had taken a lot in its prolonged lifetime.

“Get us outta here!” Doc yelled.

Derek kept his silence. The lights on the bridge pulsed red, the crew was absent, because Derek was about to pick them up for work. He frantically operated around the bridge to make old Vulture05 come to life.

“Lightbreakers! Flew from the storm clouds. We won’t escape. They’ll brake in,” Mark explained running into the bridge. His words were confirmed by heavy thumping on the door that the Lightbreaker soldiers rammed.

“They want something, otherwise they would’ve blown us up,” said Mark.

Derek pulled out his gun.

“There’s no point, we’re screwed!” Doc Benton wheezed, as the door gave with a crack, and many firm footsteps marched toward them through the steel corridor.

“Kneel! Kneel behind me now!” Mark’s authoritative tone would have no objections. He kneeled as well, his wide frame shielding the two men behind him. Then they came. Blinking red lights ripped images of half-men, half-machines, heavily armed, their eyes covered in black biomechanical cams. Silent monsters in armor suits marched on, their boots clinking on the metal floor. They spotted Mark. A couple of seconds there was nothing but deadly, blinking-red silence. The Lightbreakers scanned Mark thoroughly. Just like during their previous encounter, they left the former Lightbreaker intact. Obviously, the biomechanics still functioning in his brain, produced a signal others perceived, a sign of another Lightbreaker, which they were programmed no to kill. They marched away. Mark stood unmoved. Gunshots broke the silence.

Derek jumped up to run after them; Mark grabbed him by the arm. His strength surpassed Derek’s by far.

“We can’t save them,” Mark grunted through his teeth. More gunshots, and screams.

“Anouk,” Derek’s hoarse voice gurgled with tears he tried to suppress. They heard the Lightbreakers leaving the ship. Mark made them wait until it was safe to move.

Derek ran through the corridors, the gun in his hand, making sure there was nobody lurking from the blinking-red darkness. Mark alongside him, Doc following the two.

“Sophie…” Derek blurted at the sight of his wife lying near the engine in a puddle of blood. She had obviously been hiding inside the engine, in hope they wouldn’t perceive her thermal image there.

“She’s alive,” said Doc, checking her vitals, “do you still have med bots here?”

“A couple of obsolete ones, and our operation rooms hadn’t been used for years,” Mark explained, because Derek was stunned by the sight of Sophie.

“Save her, I’ll give anything, I’ll do anything…” he murmured.

“I’ll remember that,” Doc replied.

Mark got the med bots, and a stretcher. They transported Sophie to the Vulture’s old operation room 1. Since the death of the Vulture’s resident doctor, the operation rooms had been collecting dust, yet they were still usable. The old med bots clinked and screeched but did their job despite of the rust. Doc Benton disinfected his hands hurriedly, and got to work, assisted by the bots, in the bright light provided by the emergency generators of the operation rooms.

Mark, and Derek searched the ship.

“They took her. Why would they take Anouk?!” Mark pondered, running back to the operation room, alongside Derek. The latter kept his silence, his face so grim it almost appeared grey.