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Mr.Mike. · 03-09-2018, 11:32 AM,

Part 4

Alaska system, 823 A.S. 3 months after repair. Zone-42.

Hampshire could be taken to any other place, but somehow put on patrol near the hole in the system in honor of which ship was named. Now next to him there was a defense of 10 fighters: 5 from the wing "Sunrise" and 5 more from the "Sunset" wing. 10 Guardians circled around the hole, cruiser was standing right at the entrance to the minefield, called "Zone-42". Cruiser had a simple task: not to allow enemy ships to leave the minefield or break into the battle, if necessary. It seemed to delusions to Michael that cruiser was twice already at risk. What if the story is repeated? This is not unlikely. Nevertheless, the order is an order. If cruiser supposed to patrol this area, then need to finish the patrol and return to the juneau shipyard.

"What on radars?"
"Clear."
"Sunrise" wing - report on the patrol. Do you have it clean?
"Nothing."

Michael sat on the captain's chair and peered at the Alaska star. He was still tormented by the question of who exactly killed infected people. He checked video recordings, every camera, but nothing not found, except that someone erased the moment of killing an infected person. It turned out something like this: the engineer of the water purification compartment left his post because of the end of the duty, and a second later the corpse of the infected person lies between the two generators. Interrogated even the engineer who left the post. He said that he did not see anything and closed the door in the compartment, and then went to the cabins of the crew. Killer was either too dumb, or too cunning. On the one hand, why hide the hero who saved the entire crew of the ship? On the other hand, what if this hero himself became a villain?

Hampshire's duty went for about two hours. The crew was completely ready for all the surprises as well as the ships that protected the cruiser. Perhaps this story would have a different ending, if not for the event that occurred in the next five minutes.

"Contact." - Michael turned on the chair in the direction of the entrance to the minefield. 5 fighters of the wing "Sunset" went to the 5 fighters of the wing "Sunrise", which were already at the hole. - "Hampshire, close the entrance. We have here 5 unidentified fighters. We will inform on the situation".
"Accepted, perform", - answered Michael and ordered to Barney: "Close the entrance, the guns for battle. Shields on the port side".
"Aha", - answered Barney and sent a cruiser. Five minutes later, Hampshire fixed in space, ready to fire.
"This "Sunset" wing - we are in place. Already 14 unidentified targets! 8 bombers, 6 fighters. We start to establish communication means for negotiations!"
"6 more ships! 3 bombers and 3 fighters. The total number of targets is 20. I repeat, the total number of targets is 20."
"20 unknown targets?"
"Yes, Hampshire. 20 targets! Where did they come from?!"
"The requests for negotiations are not answered. Fuck, they shooting!"
"Evasion, evasion!" - A large number of flashes sparkled in space. Mines, rockets, lasers - that just did not create light. The radars of the cruiser saw how many green points (allied ships) and a lot of red points (enemy ships) were moving at an incredible speed. The cruiser only waited for the team to break into the battle and help.
"Hampshire, fast here!"
"We going", - answered Michael and ordered Barney to go straight to the battle. Cruiser burst into the thick of the battle. - "Fire at will!"

Cruiser burst into battle. About five shots were enough to break the engine of the enemy bomber, which by inertia flew into the minefield. It is not difficult to guess what happened next. The next shot fell on the enemy fighter. His shields were almost immediately destroyed, and one of the shells through and through struck the cabin. The control system went out of order, and he repeated the fate of the bomber. Despite such good results of Hampshire at the beginning of the battle, his escorts had already lost 3 fighters. The bombers immediately went on the attack on Hampshire. History still began to repeat itself. The cruiser began to leave the minefield as quickly as possible in order to have room for maneuvering. Based on the past battle, the crew of the ship was able to draw conclusions, so by the time the cruiser came out from minefield, only 2 torpedoes hit him, with a very large interval in time.

"This is "Nightmare" wing, we enter into battle with the enemy!" - The wing of the fighters and bombers broke through the ranks of opponents. Now there are 27 ships against 17! The voice in the radio was familiar - Alex. - "Hampshire, keep your distance, we'll deal with them."
Reinforcements, sir!
Excellent! "Nightmare" wing, we will keep the distance. If it is required, then we are ready to join the battle.
"Sir, I have some kind of devilry on the panels!" - Said Anna. - "With shields something... But no, it's all right."
"Exactly all good?"
"Yes sir!"
"Alright", - said Michael. - ""Nightmare" wing, they are sent to us, we are ready to meet them. We will squeeze on both sides and destroy most of the bombers. Our shields will stand."
"You don`t have them. Leave the battle, do not put yourself at risk!" - Michael froze for a second, and then looked at Anna. He went to her panel with shields, but it said something else: the cruiser was in perfect order, the shields were in working order. A little uncertainly, but strongly squeezing the walkie-talkie in his hands, Michael asked: "At us on devices all is good. Can you confirm?"
"Do you send confirmation of the whole wing?"
"Now contact Jason!" - Asked Michael to Marcus. - "Anna, what do we have in the cameras? Can you find the one who turned off the shields?"
"What the?.."
"Stross, why the hell do not the shields work for us?"
"In what sense: "do not work"? All good. We'll check the generators now, I'll report."
"Jason, the answer right now is needed, not a minute or two!"
"What idiot disabled shields? Michael, this was done by hand! The generators are off! I already sent the outfit! More precisely, I'm going with him!"
"Sir, cameras don`t working!" - Reported Anna.
"Fucking, quickly get things right!" - Ordered Michael. - "Let`s move to Juneau shipyard! Wing "Nightmare", provide us with support!"
"Let's get out of the fight, Hampshire! We'll figure it out ourselves!"

Next hour for Hampshire was probably one of the most difficult. Constant evasion of torpedoes and gunshots. Whatever it was, with each battered enemy ship, the battle only became more complicated. Enemy grew smarter and stronger with each downed member of his wing. However, somewhere in 10 klicks from the Juneau shipyard last enemy fighter was destroyed. Hampshire came out almost whole from the battle: Jason managed to activate shields when cruiser ran to the shipyard, but before that enemy ships had damage cruiser a couple of times. The crew was intact. But the story was almost repeated: the bombers tried to hit the torpedoes a couple of times, and then go to the ram to be inside the cruiser. However, not a single torpedo not hit cruiser, and each such "daredevil" almost immediately was waiting for death.

And again that room. And again, Alex and John are interrogating Michael and Barney about what happened. They were not interested in the next invasion of the infected in Alaska. They were more interested in why the cruiser turned off its shields.

"So you do not know who turned off the shields?"
"No."
"Who knows? By rule, the cruiser had to be checked before departure. Explain to me how all the video cameras of the cruiser were shut down and turned off until our engineers intervened?"
"What do I have to do with this? They were all in working order before the fight. It was during the time when we spent a whole hour risking the ship and its crew, the cameras did not work."
"What are you saying? Records say the opposite: we have videos only from yesterday! But today the cameras did not record anything."
"What the fuck do you mean? That I intentionally turned off the cameras, and then cut down my shield to threaten the crew and the whole ship, including my life? Yes you are here, quite fucking?"
"Blackburn, nobody accuses you of anything. For now. We have suspicions that the one who turned off the shields can be infected. And there are suspicions that this man got infected from that very pilot of the bomber that crashed into your cruiser 3 months ago. Do you understand what I'm getting at?"
"It can not be! None of our crew would deliberately attempt to destroy their own cruiser, which for most has already become a home!"
"Blackburn, do I get you the statistics of the lost ships and tell all about their crew? I can tell you how my friend, who had the best crew that I saw, was missing. And then we found it. Guess who he is?" - After these words Michael thought. But in fact it is true: if the ships with a rather successful crew have disappeared so much, then what if Hampshire is under such a threat for as long as 3 months? Then another question: why not simply infect the entire crew and not withdraw the cruiser, like all other ships that were infected? What does he or she expect?

Michael again plunged into meditation, which he subjected himself 3 months ago, when he was looking for an infected person. To check all for signs of infection? This is quite difficult to identify, and the infected person will not substitute himself for a knife. And here is the idea...

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