Convergence (An Enclave Story)

[Wolfs Ghost]

Derelict Trading Hub
Lower Decks

A flickering light began to appear on the side of Catherine’s HUD, the gravity of the station was beginning to slowly climb. Of course it was, she thought as she had just begun climbing up the ladder of the maintenance well. She tilted her down to see how far back her fellow Marines were, the last one just grabbing the rungs of the ladder when he, himself, called out that the gravity was beginning to rapidly climb, and then suddenly it stopped climbing at 2g.

Catherine tightened her grip against the ladder rungs and took in a deep and annoyed breath. She trained under similar gravity wells back on Nevers, and her home planet was a bit higher in gravity than old Earth (at least from what the scientific records stated.) "Just another day on the training course," She called out to the marines below her. The pressure was bearable, but without an exo-skeleton to assist it made the climb slow and cumbersome. "Remind me… next time… we do something… like this we bring some… Callac exoskeletons with us." She muttered into the comms to her men on the climb up. The other squads radioed in that they too were experiencing a gravity increase. It didn’t seem to affect them all too much, as they didn’t have any literal ladders to climb up, only a few stairwells here and there. Charlie squad remained at the hangar providing security for the extraction point, so they themselves were completely fine.

It took Catherine and her team of three about fifteen minutes to climb up the length of the ladder to the floor they were expecting to exit on, getting them a lot closer to the command center. Due to her planet of birth, she was relatively less tired upon climbing out of the maintenance shaft. She took her time helping her fellow marines up as well. Two of whom immediately went to a nearby wall and rested against it, their visors fogged up by the heavy breathing. "Alright… you two set up a defensive perimeter. The two of us will continue forward as planned. When you’re both ready to move, you’ll regroup with us."

"Non, Commandant. I’m good, just needed to catch my breath. Hahah, that was a helluva climb."
"Oui. I’m good to carry on as well, ma’am."

"Very well… weapons ready, according to the schematics, that Capitaine Belot has so graciously forwarded to us, we’re only a few more clicks away from the command center. Should be about five or so more minutes until we’re there. So anything can happen between now and then. Oui?"