CRYPT 12

C 1 2 | E P I S O D E 10

Eric watched Bishop flinch when the green fluid from the inoculation pistol shot into his shoulder with a snap of the pistol's trigger. He held on to the spot where he had just gotten injected and tried not to show any form of pain, especially since the other crew mates were present.

"I'm quite surprised you're not crying," Ramon teased Bishop who pulled his shirt over his head.

"A lady's got to learn to toughen up at some point," Jo said with a chuckle.

"Don't make it sound like I'm a sissy," Bishop replied, sitting upright on the bed.

"You are a sissy," Kindra's words came out sounding more affirmative. Bishop looked at her for a moment, her face still had several scars on it and asides that, she looked pretty much fine.

"Netrac," Eric started, "we all take doses of that from time to time out here. It's the only way we survive harsh radiations."

"You had me drink mine, why do they get injected?" Kindra asked.

"You were healing remarkably fast, unlike them." Eric answered. "Those shots have been altered with ­nano-surgeons to help with internal lacerations which would need an enhancer for speedy healing."

"I sure do need my arm back like yesterday," Jo flexed her arm cautiously in an attempt to feel how much progress she had with healing her broken arm.

"Were you able to recover any of our things from the Ark?" Bishop asked, facing Eric. "Without the gears, we're useless out here."

"Our team had been able to salvage them in bits," Eric said as he led the way out of the room they had been in. "Pretty small ship it seems like from the look of things."

"That's correct," Jo answered. "Small, fast and supposedly tough. I still can't explain what happened."

S'posedly tough eh? Ramon thought to himself. Whoever had designed the Astro Ark and assigned it to the team for this task sure did have some explaining to do when Ramon returned back to Phase II – if­ he made it back. Maybe Bishop was right after all when he said this was TriTech's version of mass murder. Perhaps a Soeul 979 V2.0? Whatever, man.

Kindra was pleased when the elevator's door glided open, stifling halfway across. Eric pushed it through and Kindra was the first one out of the tight elevator's room. Unlike the last time Eric had been there, the room had been rearranged to be more spacious and also give the hall an all new feel.

"Rogue?" Eric called out while the others were struck in awe of the columns of beat up mechanical parts.

"Aye! One moment," her response echoed across the open space.

"We had packed light, hadn't planned to stay out past a week" Jo said to Eric as she ran a finger over the smashed transparent glass which had once been an indterface for running scans for the AA-519. "The primary task was to get the Porter to Section 19 of the Ruins, have him decrypt whatever synergist pods were out there and jet back home."

"Did someone mention synergist pods?" Rogue appeared from behind an engine wiping off greased palms. Her vest had been smeared with black oil which also adorned parts of her face.

"Meet Rogue, she helps with making all things scrap look beautiful again," Eric introduced the older lady to the crew.

"I'd always thought it was about time Section 19 got exploited," Rogue said, "and then y'all come along."

"Come and take a look for yourself," Eric said and then led the way further into the storage station.

"What have you been able to salvage so far?" Kindra dropped the few parts she'd been going through and walked up to where Rogue stood beside her work bench.