Return to Fantasma

Delithita

Dark, dusty. Amazing that even without oxygen, dust still accumulated. The lights out. Only the floods on the suit's helmet gave off any light. The dark halls coated in a fine layer of Mercurian dust.

Tears in her eyes, she walked down one particular hall. Glancing at the wall it read "Ops" and pointed in her direction of travel. Sniffing hard she raised her candlegun and continued. The only sign of her passage was the footprints left in the dust. Coming around a corner she saw something that caused her to gasp.

On the wall, was a handprint, a human handprint. No foot-prints to match it though. Shaking her head she looked again. Gone. Shaking a bit she walked on.

"Del?" The sound came from all over. Screaming she spun and fired. Nothing. It was Xenogears on the radio. Taking a breath she calmed a bit.

"Yes? Xeno?"

"I should have power back online in a short bit. Had to clean up a few scattered infantry 'brids. But I'm good to go."

"Yeah, copy that, I'm clean so far. Hurry up though, I want Fantasma back online before Maria and Rosa get back from Io."

Reaching her destination she sighed. The room was perfectly intact. The displays lining the walls were dark and covered in dust. The consoles were in similar state. As she entered she remembered the livelihood the room contained. This is where Maria and Del had come to when the cave had become over-run. The room was assembled from their salvage runs. Then she remembered their retreat from their haven. As the Cybrids assaulted the colony they were forced to fall back. Firing all the way as infantry units came in. The airlocks had been penetrated and left full open. So vacuum had started to pull out some of the residents. The Ghosts habitually in their combat suits, held back the infantry, and fought the vacuum that tried to pull them into their enemy, while the residents fled for the low-orbit escape transports. Delithita, Icey, and Maria's husband all fighting in desperate attempt to save just a few more people, Xeno being comatose from the earlier HERC-based fighting.

"Del, how does that defense grid look?" Xeno again.

"Thoroughly trashed. I estimate a good week of hard work before we can have the autos online."

"Damn, alright. Which means we have to manually defend at all times."

Smiling I just HAD to say something...

"It's not that bad once you get used to it really. Me, Maria, and Icey had to do it before we got enough scrap to build our first turret."

"Well la-di-dah, I don't like missing my sleep. But anyway, you should have power any second."

Almost on cue the master power light came on the main console. Walking over she wiped off the console, clearing the dust, and revealing a dimly lit keyboard. Wiping of the screen just above it, she sat down in the available chair. Pressing the power button the keyboard lit up. And a small command prompt appeared on-screen. Pulling a cartridge from her pack, she plugged it into the waiting receptacle. Immediately the colony started coming back to life. The Ops room door shut and cycled to a lock. Oxygen pumped in and the lights came up. The screens came to life and started reporting the status of the colony. Hull breaches, severed wiring and, when the internal sensors came online, the presence of everything. Cybrid or human. A few areas were dark due to power outages, but for the most part, the colony was still largely functional. Just like it used to be. Before the attack.

Smiling, more tears streamed down her face. Nearly screaming into her comm she looked up as if seeing past the tons of rock into space. "Base Camp, this is Fantasma Colony. We are back online and ready to rock. Colony is secure, repeat the colony is secure. We can start re-building as soon as people make it in."

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