With Lisa secured in his vacuum suit the two breached the door to the hallway of the hotel by cutting a small opening in the door with the same welding stick Mark had used to seal them in, moments passed before the atmosphere inside the room was sucked out into the cold void of outer space
'Alright…'
Making a hand signal to Lisa Mark reignited the welding stick and cut open the locking mechanism of the door that had locked up when the emergency systems of the station had kicked in
Now being without air or atmosphere, Mark didn't really feel inconvenienced, in fact he felt reinvigorated like a fish back in water he simply lifted off the ground and grabbed Lisa by her forearm, Lisa quickly grabbed his forearm back before she nodded once
'Time to move then…'
Having already been taught the particular emergency non-verbal communications of the Fiorica house which consisted of a complex series of hand and finger signals
'...I think it was like this?'
-
As Lisa held onto Mark's forearm as he flew them out into the hotel hallway, her mind drifted slightly as she gazed at her rescuer turned assaulter turned rescuer turned caretaker turned would be killer turned… What exactly?
'...I wonder what Mark really thinks about me'
Snapping out of her daze as Mark squeezed her wrist twice before he repeated his recent hand signal
'Let's see… Do I want to bring some more hotel food? No, not really'
Responding to Mark's hand signals with her own signals, Mark nodded before he looked ahead again. Once again, Lisa marveled at Mark's learning ability, only with 30 minutes of her showing the hand symbols and speaking the correspondent word he had matched if not outmatched her own mastery
'... I wonder if why he decided to bring me along'
Even though her worn down mental state had been somewhat mended by his promise to both bring her along but also help end her old man, Lisa still didn't really understand either Mark nor his reasonings
'All I know is that he's not human… And that he eases my fears by simply touching me…'
Although one would equate human to the species of homo sapience, this wasn't quite the case in the strange yet oddly familiar galaxy Mark found himself in, due to an intergalactic court the term 'human' have lost its original meaning and currently refer to 38 genetically different humanoid species, some alien in origin and others were the result of genetic evolution or tampering
'...Well, I am not exactly one to talk either
Lisa's body shock once more, she had long since grown disgusted with her own body from its design specifications down to its intended 'use'
'There's also that strange martial art he uses… It reminds me of Imperial pugilism, but it's a bit different'
If Mark had thought about it for a few moments longer he would not have chosen to use boxing in the guild hand-to-hand test, boxing, in the end, was a martial style developed and used on Earth, and unsurprisingly it was hard to 'float like a butterfly and sting like a bee' in the zero gravity environment of outer space (Even if one used magnetic boots to stick to something)
'Maybe he will tell me if I ask nicely… I should also tell him about it before he discovered it by himself, Oh?'
Snapping out of her thoughts as Mark squeezed her wrist, she looked around
'We're out in the hallway… That looks like a way out but..? Oh, right'
Interpreting Mark's hand signals correctly, she removed his pistol from the belt of the vacuum suit she was wearing before she handed it to him along with two magazines. Mark gave her a wink before he moved her to the side of the hallway, and she grabbed onto a railing, then they let go and Mark flew out through the opening ahead of her
As he disappeared, she immediately felt her stomach sink as the fear and sorrow he had suppressed came rushing back. As Lisa began hyperventilating and tears covered her eyes, she muttered to herself
"Please… Please don't hate me like I hate myself, Mark…"
-
Flying along the damage caused by the initial attack on the station, Mark passed 2 layers of mostly identical looking hallways before he stopped, ahead of him in the next hallway he found an artificial satellite, made up of a mangled corpse this 'satellite' was orbited by numerous frozen droplets of blood
'Physical projectiles, rather large caliber too… A turret?'
Mark flew back into the previous hallway and ripped a metal panel of the wall which he slowly probed the bloody hallway with, after he stuck the panel out half a arms length it was stuck by a series of impacts that sent it flying out of his grip
'...The left side it is then… Maybe I should find another way? No… Lisa won't last, and with what the little one said about the intrusive medical examinations I best hold on to her for a while longer…'
Having made up his mind, Mark flew back into the hallow maintenance crawl space between two hallways and squeezed himself along the narrow space towards where the turret was placed
'Given the structure of the hallways and the time it took to acquire the panel as a target, it's likely a defensive turret placed at a secured door or entrance… Yep, no more crawlspace…'
Reaching an abrupt end of the crawlspace, Mark tore of the paneling at the end and found an armored bulkhead under it
'Knew it… Now, if I am lucky…'
Continuing to remove paneling, Mark eventually found what he was looking for, the cheapest solution to adding a security door to an already existing structure, a cut in the reinforced bulkhead where a series of wires ran through inside a reinforced housing
'If only I had a long rifle or at the very least a personal defense weapon of some sort, then I could just shoot this fucking turret…'
Mark's pistol was good, with the custom porting and pressure tubing along the entire top part of the slide it was made to be operated in low g environments and ported barrel currently fitted with a compensator he could replace with a suppressor, this along with the double stacked extended magazine it was a very effective deterrent to any would be back ally robber
However it would do next to nothing against this kind of reinforced security measures
'Not without some custom ammunition at the very least… Or a magnetic accelerating compensator… But those need even more expensive custom ammunition and are typically only made for longer rifles… Oh, got it'
Finally making his way through the reinforced cable housing, Mark found the power cords and severed them before he grabbed the entire cable bundle with both hands and braced against the reinforced bulkheads with his knees before he gave it a mighty tug, then another before the cables snapped
'Hopefully that damaged if not outright destroyed the servos on the turret… Now it's just a matter of finding out if it has an internal battery…'
Returning to the other hallway he had originally pulled a piece of bait paneling off Mark pulled another panel and waved into the turret hallway where it to his surprise wasn't shot
'Here goes nothing…'
Peeking out into the hallway Mark saw the turret about a few meters away from the opening right before the next bulkhead, it looked like the tug he had made had damaged several servos on it, besides that it also didn't seem like it had any sort of internal battery as it appeared powered down
'Better make sure though…'
Mark flew out into the hallway and rushed the turret, when he reached it he smashed its sensor pod in with a few punches to make sure it was disabled, then he continued scouting out the hallway and found an exit made from battle damage out into outer space
'Alright…'
Flying back to where he had left Lisa and found her passed out, tears covered her face. After briefly making sure she was still breathing, Mark let out a sigh before he grabbed her by the arm and dragged her along as they flew out of the station, a few minutes passed before the Sparrow that was circling the section spotted them and flew over
'Home sweet home…'
Looking at the giant maw of armored bulkheads that opened up, Mark flew into the cockpit dragging Lisa with him
[Welcome back Mark]
"Yeah, I'm home thanks for coming to pick me up… Now then, shall we go secure some supplies?"
[Alright, but first please secure miss Lisa in the medical pod in the leftmost personal quarter]
"Sure"
Mark dragged Lisa along and into the small personal room, inside a long rectangular box that had been bolted to the floor, first impression made it look like a metallic sarcophagus with a see-through glass lid. After the two of them entered, the door behind them sealed close
"So I just place her in this?"
[Yes, however please wait with removing her vacuum suit until the room have been fully pressurized]
"Alright…"
Mark flew over to the medical pod and pressed a few buttons on the interface to open it up, then he loosened the 6 belts inside the medical pod
[Pressurization completed, please secure her in the pod]
"Sure"
Mark quickly stripped the unconscious Lisa out of the vacuum suit and secured her in the medical pod after dressing her in a medical gown, once the glass lid closed a sensor pod on a 3d printer like mount scanned Lisa from head to toe before a few mechanical arms secured some other sensors and an intravenous drip to her, Finally a plastic mask was secured over her mouth and nose before the medical pod displayed her condition
'Mild bruising and advanced malnutrition… Total recovery time, 12 hours? What?'
"Little one, is that normal?"
[One moment…]
After the little one spoke, the sensor pod deployed and scanned Lisa over again, this time a lot more thoroughly
[The subject has been biologically enhanced, particularly her digestive system, but everything else has been changed or reinforced in some way… It is like how you called nobles, blue bloods. In the long forgotten past that term was an attempt to separate nobles and royalty from the common people, however nowadays, it holds another weight as the only slightly natural part of the typical nobles, let alone royals birth is the 2 genetic donors that make up their parents]
"That's fucking cool… But also more than a little weird, well cool still wins out"
[That's a more tame reaction than I expected]
"Well, to be completely frank, it would be weird if one freak was grossed out by another, right?"
[Noted]
"Aw come on, don't be too jealous, I like you a lot too, little one, you're like a machine spirit fairy hybrid and that's badass in my book too"
[Thank you, however, I was not being jealous]