=::= Day 87 - Sarah's PoV =::=

It didn't take me long to find where the first aid kit was supposed to be. Unfortunately there was nothing there, not even an empty box. So I quietly moved back to the corner where Cam was sitting on the floor, then crouched down next to her and shook my head.

"Sorry," I whispered.

The catgirl shrugged then winced, "It's ok Sarah. I didn't figure there'd be anything here. Might have been once, but that kind of stuff wouldn't stick around long."

"Anyways I already said it's not bad," she added. "Probably just a scratch."

I nodded slowly, and quietly hoped she was right. She hadn't let me look at the injury yet, and fortunately it didn't seem to be bleeding that much. I knew Amanda would be all over her as soon as she and Rebecca got here and took care of the bigger problem.

We'd been trapped in the machinery room for about ten minutes, and Jenna was still standing by the final power regulator controls sending code out by modulating the power feed. Both she and Cam were convinced our AI would notice the fluctuations and decode the message, but every passing minute left me doubting.

After watching for another half minute or so I asked, "How are you doing Jenna? How's that hand, anything I can do to help?"

It turned out both of them were injured in that initial exchange of gunfire. In fact it seemed like they'd both been hit by the same bullet. Jenna was holding Cammie when she got hit, and either part of the bullet or part of her hand ended up grazing the catgirl's side. At least I hoped it was just a graze.

Since then I'd noticed Jenna had stopped using her left hand after that. Her left arm was currently hanging free by her side, while she operated the power regulator control with her right hand. I was positive if she hadn't been injured she'd have her sidearm in one hand while she sent the message with the other.

"I'm sure I'll be fine," Jenna responded as she continued sending her message. "I have every confidence Sarah that you'll be able to repair the damage once we're all safely back on board the Demeter. Until then it's only about forty-percent functional."

The android added, "I'm not in any pain, so please don't worry about that. Either of you."

That was good to hear, and I could tell Cam was glad for it as well. Then I changed topics back to the bigger concern, "What if we just cut the town's power? That should alert everyone that there's something going on here, right?"

"Our captain and the mayor both know we're working on the power supply," Jenna responded softly. "They may not react right away, believing a short outage is part of our maintenance efforts."

Cammie added just as quietly, "If we cut power that'll take Jenny offline, and I don't want to do that to her. Plus if she's offline she can't pass on our message."

I pointed out, "We have no way of knowing if she's even noticed what you're doing. How long are we going to wait?"

"My sister will get the message," Jenna replied confidently. "I'm sure the delay is due to Rebecca and Amanda plotting the best strategy before they make their move."

Even as she spoke she was still operating the regulator control, sending more information out over the power feed. I was fairly certain she was transmitting more than just a simple distress signal, with all the time we'd been waiting she probably sent detailed information about our attackers along with our current status.

The catgirl agreed with her girlfriend. She added, "We're half a kilometre from the ship, and we took the grav-sled. So the captain and Amanda will have to come on foot."

"Yeah but -" I started to respond, when a very loud bang left my ears ringing.

At the same time it seemed like all the dust in the place was thrown up into the air, making it hard to see. It wasn't any fun to breathe either, and I found myself coughing while my ears continued to ring. I was only vaguely aware of Cammie sitting next to me with her hands ontop of her feline ears and a look of pain on her face.

Then Jenna dropped from where she was standing by the equipment to crouch in front of both Cammie and I. It took a moment for me to realize the android had positioned herself in between us and the door while drawing her gun.

The next thing I became aware of was a string of muffled noises from the front room. After a second or two I realized it was gunfire, but luckily nobody was shooting at us. And it was only a few more seconds before the sounds finally stopped.

Jenna had her pistol raised and aimed as the door swung open, but she lowered it immediately when Rebecca took a quick peak through the doorway. My tall strong redheaded girlfriend spotted the three of us, and her expression shifted from intense focus to relief, then worry.

"Who's hurt?" she asked as she stepped into the room with a carbine in her hands. Her voice sounded muffled and distant as she added, "Amanda's got her medical kit with her."

Jenna warned her, "Be careful! This equipment is dangerous, don't touch anything!"

"Cammie's wounded," the android added. "And Sarah's probably still a little foggy from the stun grenade."

I grimaced, "That's what that was? I can barely hear! It must have been hell for Cam, she needs help."

Rebecca and Jenna were already moving. They carefully helped the catgirl up, and escorted her out of the machine room while the boss told me "Wait here Sarah, I'll be back for you in a minute."

"I'm fine," I insisted as I got to my feet. After one wobbly step I sat back down and decided, "Maybe I'll wait here."

True to her word my girlfriend was back a few moments later to help guide me out. Getting past the lethal machinery wasn't so bad, then we had to navigate the aftermath of the gunfight in the next room. That wasn't pretty, but at least it wasn't dangerous. A few seconds later I was back outside, and Rebecca steered me over to the grav-sled and sat me down in the passenger seat.

She handed me a bottle of water and said, "You should be ok in a few more minutes. Amanda might want to take a look at you, after she's finished with Cam."

I looked around and spotted Cammie laying on the ground nearby, with Amanda kneeling next to her on one side and a very worried looking Jenna kneeling beside her on the other side. The android was holding one of Cam's hands, while my cute foxgirl girlfriend looked after the catgirl's injuries.

"How's she doing cutie?" I asked my smaller girlfriend as she worked.

Amanda responded without looking up, "She'll be fine."

"You'll be sore for a few days though," she told her patient. "And you'll probably be left with a faint scar. But otherwise you were very lucky."

I was glad to hear that. After a gulp of water I turned my attention back to my other girlfriend and said, "Thanks for getting us out of there. I guess Jenny got the message?"

"She sure did," Rebecca nodded. "Sorry we kept you waiting. It took us a minute to figure out a strategy, then we grabbed some firepower and headed over as quick as we could."

By the time our foxy medic was finished with Cammie my ears had finally stopped ringing, and my head had fully cleared from the shock of the stun grenade. I watched as Amanda and Jenna helped Cam up and into a seat in the second row of the sled, although the catgirl protested that she didn't need any help with that.

Once the Cam was comfortable my adorable foxgirl girlfriend moved to my side and gave me a quick check with her little med scanner. As she was doing that I spotted a couple other people approaching on foot behind her. I realized Jenny must have contacted Mayor Wheeler about the situation, and she sent Jace and Finn to come and join the rest of us.

Rebecca greeted the men and quickly filled them in on what happened. Then she accompanied them into the building, so they could take a look at the attackers and maybe figure out what they were doing here. The three of them were only inside for a couple minutes, before they all emerged together.

I had another gulp of water then asked the guys, "Any idea who they were?"

"All four of them folks showed up here as refugees," Finn replied with a scowl. "Two of 'em have been here a while, since before the war started. The other two got here about six days ago."

Rebecca looked at Jenna and asked, "Any chance you can get us access to that terminal? We need to know who these people really are. And more importantly, who they're working for and what they were doing here."

The android shook her head. She sounded a little awkward as she admitted, "I don't have those skills, I'm sorry. If we can bring the portable terminal back to the ship I'm sure my sister could bypass any security on it."

"We should get back anyways," Amanda pointed out. "Or at least get far enough away from the interference that we can let Jenny know we're all safe. She's probably worried sick."

The boss grimaced, "Good point."

"Sarah how are you feeling?" she asked me. "Do you think you can disconnect that terminal and the gear it's attached to, so Jenny can have a look at it?"

I nodded as I climbed back out of the sled, "Yeah I should be able to manage that."

"Be careful!" Jenna insisted. "Check for traps, they might have rigged something up incase they were caught."

"Good thinking," Rebecca agreed.

The two of us went in together, but the boss had me stay back while she took a good careful look at everything. Fortunately it seemed safe, she couldn't find any sign of danger so she gave me the all-clear to get to work. The gear itself was all standard, it only took me a few seconds to disconnect the cables so both the portable terminal and the comm unit could be moved. Then the two of us returned to the grav-sled, where I put the equipment into the back along with my and Cam's toolkits.

By that point we were just about ready to go, but the boss hesitated. "I'm not sure we should leave the power station unguarded, incase there's more of these people around."

"I've got it," Finn stated. "A few of my boys should be on their way here. I'll stay and keep an eye on things till then."

Jace volunteered, "I'll keep you company."

With that settled Rebecca slipped in behind the controls of the sled, while I got back into the passenger seat. Cam and Jenna were still sitting together in the second row, and my cute foxy girlfriend climbed into the back with the gear.

A few seconds after we were airborne our android crewmate spoke up, "I've just informed my sister of our situation, and she's passing on the relevant information to Mayor Wheeler."

"Thank you Jenna," the boss stated as she guided us towards the Demeter.

Soon enough we were touching down inside the main hold, and our holographic AI was there waiting to greet us. Or rather, she was waiting to see her girlfriend. I couldn't help smiling at the way Jenny and Jenna both fussed over the embarrassed catgirl. Then Jenny noticed her sister's injury and we all got to watch the AI fussing over both Jenna and Cammie for a few moments.

Rebecca eventually broke things up before anyone slipped into a sugar coma from all the sweetness on display. Jenny and Cam took the captured terminal and comm unit to see what secrets they could extract from that, while I led Jenna into the ship's workshop to try and repair the damage to her hand.

Fortunately we still had some parts left over from the original upgrade project, and even more compatible bits and pieces from her last upgrade. She sat quietly on a stool with her arm resting on the workbench while I got started.

It took me about forty-five minutes in total, mostly because the parts in her hand were very small and delicate. By the time I was all done it was fully operational again, but there were some minor cosmetic issues I couldn't do anything about.

"Looks like you're going to be left with a scar as well," I told her as we finished up. "I don't know if that's romantic or not? Matching scars, for you and your girlfriend?"

Jenna rolled her eyes as she flexed her hand, "If we ever get back to Rolandan-2 I can order more replacement skin if it becomes an issue. And if Cam wishes, she can make use of Jenny's Re/Gen capsule to erase her scar, along with any other trace of the injury."

"Yeah I know," I smiled. That faded though as I added, "You don't sound that optimistic we'll ever get off this rock. You don't think we'll be stuck here indefinitely, do you?"

She shook her head, "I don't know that we'll be here forever, but I don't think it will be safe for us to travel anywhere within this sector for a long time. Between the government at the Fuminja Cluster and Dr. Kelsonian's family on Ecclestone's World, I think this sector will be a dangerous place for some time yet."

"That doesn't leave us a lot of options," I sighed. "Unless we leave the sector entirely. And we talked about that a while back, it didn't seem like a good idea back then. Then again, we weren't in as much trouble then as we are now."

Neither Jenna or I had anything else to say on that topic, so we finished up in the workshop then headed up to the main deck to see how the others were doing. And in fact it turned out that Jenny and Cam had finished their examination of the captured gear, now the boss was just waiting for the local officials to arrive before sharing the results.

That took another twenty minutes or so, before Mayor Wheeler and Jace arrived. Rebecca escorted them both up from the lower deck, and the two of them joined the rest of us sitting at the table in the ship's mess.

As soon as our guests were seated the mayor grumped, "I already told you Becky, I'm none too happy about having to come over here for these little briefings of yours. I don't like giving folks the impression that their mayor is answering to you. Or that we're holding some sort of secret meetings that the people ain't privy to."

"I understand that Ella," Rebecca replied. "Like I said last time, we're only doing this when the topic is sensitive enough to warrant it."

The older woman sniffed then replied, "Fine. What is it this time, what's so sensitive we gotta talk about it here instead of back in my own damn office?"

"The four people who attacked Cam, Jenna, and Sarah today were all soldiers loyal to President Taggart," Jenny stated. "According to Mr. Finn all four of them came here disguised as refugees. The first two have been here since before the start of hostilities, the second two arrived only six days ago."

The captain asked, "Are there others? Or just those four?"

"I'm afraid I don't know," the AI replied. "The information in the terminal was very limited, but it's possible there are others already present in the community and awaiting some sort of signal."

She continued with a sigh, "It seems that President Taggart or his people have finally figured out that they have a significant and ongoing breach in their data security. There was no mention of them taking action against Ganvis anywhere I have access to, which leads me to believe they've been moving at least some of their most-sensitive mission planning to another means of communication to which I am not yet privy."

"What exactly was their goal here?" Rebecca asked. "Did you find out what they were doing with the settlement's power?"

Jenny sighed again, "They were meant to secure the power distribution building, then use it as a base of operations due to its relative isolation despite being so close to the community. The power fluctuations I detected last night were probably due to them being soldiers rather than engineers, they were not very careful when connecting their own equipment to the local grid."

"As for their actual mission," the AI hesitated and gave our captain a worried look. Then she announced, "The MV Demeter may be the last functional starship on Deveron-8. Due to the destruction of his get-away craft eight days ago, President Taggart wishes to secure the Demeter for himself. The combatants we encountered today were supposed to disrupt the local power grid at midnight tonight, as a prelude to an attack. With the loss of the advance team however, it's possible the president's plans will have changed."

Rebecca took a deep breath, then let out a long sigh. "So if we tip off Arun he might order the Demeter's destruction, to keep her out of Taggart's hands. But if we keep quiet, we'll be facing off against some sort of strike force all on our own. And you can bet they won't be taking any chances, if Taggart believes the Demeter is his only escape."

"And whatever we do," she added with a frown, "Odds are there's going to be collateral damage here at Ganvis."

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