IUSD21

==Chapter 21 - I used to Dream==
Kowloon System
Lyran Commonwealth
August, 3091
[Perspective of Patrick Ngo...4 hours in...]
The pinnaces have slowed them down some.
I've been under three gravities for four hours, this is really straining the acceleration bladders in my suit overgarment, and it's exhausting.
We're able to match velocity now, which means cutting thrust.  It's like having a mountain pulled off my chest.
The spacewalk across to the Mila takes a few minutes, I'm boots-to-hull.
The bow of the cutter is gone, there's jagged wreckage sticking through the capture-net holding it to the crowd of pinnaces reverse-thrusting to slow her down. which also gives it a sickening 'down is the front of the ship' sensation, like I'm scaling my way down a skyscraper.
I reach the Dorsal airlock, the manual access panel opens with difficulty. I end up having to use a crowbar to force the 'rescue' panel open.
We use rungs and lines in the corridors. These are mostly empty, which feels weird seeing a cutter's interior without the tons of supplies and consumables crowding every open space. Brings it home how long they were out there.
What they were doing out there.
The team from one of the rescue pinnaces is already coming across from the ventral lock. we exchange waves as I climb my way down toward the CIC deck.  
Loose items are going to fall forward. God I hope she's strapped in.
The hatch to CIC is jammed half-open by an impact. The trail of that impact leads straight through a hole six hundred milometers in diameter from the outside, and the hole continues at a slight angle through the other side.
It's one of many. Hands help me with the crowbar, as we pry the hatch open against steadily increasing gravity. Pulling toward us becomes prying upward, lifting the heavy door out of the way.
I end up using a descent line to enter the CIC of the cutter. Damned, glad I did, because there's no floor down there. Just the containment bag, which is growing a pile of debris as things blown loose in the battle fall forward and out.
The first suit...partial suit, I find isn't her.  The nameplate on the helmet says the wrong name, and they're in the wrong position-the secondary gunnery position, there's not much left of whoever it was.
There's a frozen body strapped to the Captain's station, fragments had sheared through her.  Samantha Daimh was definitely dead.
I tried to remember what she looked like but, I only met her once.
I move around, hanging from the deck on magnetics while my body is telling me I'm upside down.
At the nav station, I find someone whose suit monitors show 'alive'.
I reach up to check.
The suit name tag read on their suit, Roshak.
It's Amanda.  I synch my suit's monitor software to hers. 
She's unconscious.
"CORPSMAN!!" I know it's unnecessary to shout, but dammit...
She's alive at least for now.  Some signs of oxygen starvation and minor dehydration on the monitors.  I link my suit's systems to hers through the external connectors, and buddy-breathe with the body in the suit until the rest of the rescue team can get to us.
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After Action Report: KCGS Mila Weintraub recovery, Kowloon system, September 1, 3091...
12 survivors recovered
8 engineering department
2 gunnery
1 Marine
1 Officer candidate midshipman/Navigation department (Bridge crew)
Casualties were uniformly in a catatonic state showing reduced respiration and neural activity, along with mild dehydration and oxygen deficiency.
Casualties recovered from the wreck also showed atypical physical condition for being missing for several years.
Short form: They do not appear to have normal signs of aging.
Current Status:
Survivors/casualties have been evacuated to Spider Moon Naval Medical Center for observation and treatment.
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