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Elisto unbuckled himself and moved toward the front; where he stared through the window. "Take us in slowly, I have a few stolen NMX codes here that might be able to get us in undetected.. but once onboard they may very well pick up on the ruse," he turned back toward the soldiers in the cabin. "In the event this does work and upon landing none of them are the wiser, then I don't want anyone to make any threatening moves that could tip them off; the longer we can remain in stealth and keep these bastards ignorant the more likely we can save lives, grab intel, and blow this place."
The T7 continued on trajectory moving closer. There was no sign of that the Shipyard was actively scanning. A moment later a sizable chunk of debris about half the size of the T7 drifted into their path. One Silic's control console collision warning flashed ominously.
Silic gently pulled on the controls in front of him, gingerly maneuvering the large shuttle around the chunk of unrecognizable metal.
"Oh yes, because an entire squad of PA exiting a shuttle with a large cylindrical package between them is totally incognito." Silic replied, peering out of his viewport.
Once past the debris the airlock that had been selected was before them but there was a problem. The docking mechanism for the station side of the airlock had visible signs of structural damage. The shuttle could attach, but the reliability of the lock would be questionable. If shipyard were to change attitude, the shuttle might become disconnected.
"This does not look good," Anne commented with a frown. "We might have to space-walk back on the shuttle. This dock is in terrible shape." She said to the rest of the team. She took a deep breath then and sealed her helmet.
Silic sniffed loudly in thought inside his helmet. The shuttle braked up to the airlock as he pondered what to do next. Meanwhile, Silic's unseen face was busy frowning as his brain tried to work out a solution.
"I should have brought my toolkit. Always a use for space duct-tape." he said irritatedly.
Parking the shuttle would have the same effect as if it broke off if the station maneuvered. Reinforcing the airlock would be an option, but with no tools or materials even Silic's engineering prowess struggled with that. Docking regardless and winging it was one option, how likely was the station likely to move anyway?
Elisto stared at the shipyard and frowned, he pulled up a schematic of the shipyard and peered at it, wasn't much given that the state of the shipyard was obviously different compared to the blueprints. "Hmmm," the operative rubbed his chin before tapping Silic on the shoulder and pointing ahead of them. "There should be another airlock roughly one hundred meters ahead," he said and glanced back at the schematics, the next airlock would be on the otherside - he hoped that they wouldn't have to go that far.
Silic looked back over at the black panel and shrugged his shoulders. Partly in reply, partly in horror at being touched by the likes of such. Taking the ship forward he followed the hull carefully at low speed, trying to keep themselves as inconspicuous as possible.
As the T7 Shuttle moved along the shipyard hull two things were clearly visible; the surface was pock marked with weapon scores and none of the view ports had any light shining through them. They were just dark surfaces on the structure. While the surface as scarred it did not appear that any of them had penetrated the hull.
As the shuttle approached the next airlock it was the only source of illumination. It also appeared to be free of damage. The illumination from the airlock revealed a frozen corpse drifted just past the airlock. It was wearing an SSS uniform, its face forever locked in the pain of decompression and freezing.
As the shuttle sat motionless. The airlock sensing a craft, automatically extended and attached to the shuttle. Several armatures clamping onto the craft to hold it secure.
Anne stood up and put on her helmet. She looked at Elisto and Silic and gave them a nod. "It is time," she said with a sigh. As she walked into back compartment of the shuttle, she felt her legs getting a bit wobbly. After all they were about to go into enemy station. A station that was likely to get bombed too. It was scary. Still the helashio thought off the SSS prisoners that might be inside and any other prisoner and she gathered courage. They needed help.