“Nice of you to join us Mr. Aacen.”

  Jophixa was glaring at me from where she stood near the Atmospheric Containment Barrier, one foot tapping impatiently. She was kitted out like she was ready for war. The EVA suit she was wearing was no simple pressure suit, but all out armor, which turned her usual short and curvy figure into something putting me more in mind of a dwarf from terran mythology than the goblin her species resembled. The black and red armor was bedecked with various lighting accents, and attachment points that held ammo as well as knives and…was that an axe? Across her back was a comically large but stubby weapon. It was almost as tall as she was, and about half as wide.

  If I hadn’t had previous experience with the tiny, green, goblin-like woman and what truly pissed off looked like for her, I might have thought I was in for one hell of a scolding. But especially since she had not donned her helmet yet, I could see her ears, and they were standing just slightly higher than the typical neutral position.

  A giobhioni’s ears were like an emotional geiger counter, if you knew what to watch for, you could read a lot about their emotional state from them. They were incredibly expressive, and were such in a completely subconscious way. In this instance, they told me she was more amused than angry, taking the opportunity to give me a hard time. Which was a relief, because the first time I’d encountered an angry Jophixa, I’d come away with a concussion.

  “Apologies Commander,” I replied, walking over to her and Tindron, “Getting the new gear calibrated took a bit longer than anticipated. The coilgun isn’t going to be as accurate as I’d like, but it’ll work for close range at least. Everything else is looking good.”

  I glanced over at Tindron and raised an eyebrow. This was my first time ever seeing him outfitted for possible combat. His lean, tall figure clad in a reinforced EVA suit, armored panels protecting his torso and other vital points, he had his sturdy, stylized helmet - which always reminded me a bit of the old japanese Oni styled helmets - clipped to the bottom of a harness that held power caps, coilgun ammo, and…were those magneto-grenades? Slung across his back was the kind of rifle I’d seen Boudya use a few times, a dual function deal that was both coilgun and phased particle gun.

  I grinned at him. “I’d say you look loaded for bear, Tindron, but it looks more like you’re loaded for Tyrannosaurus.”

  “I’m not taking any chances with this little adventure.” He told me seriously, “If I shoot at it, I want it to stay down.”

  “Always a wise policy going into unknown territory.” Jophixa said with a sharp nod. “Probably the best chance to make sure all three of us return from this.” She glanced out the shuttle bay to see us edging ever closer to the space station. “Ms. Aacen, has there been any comms response from the station?”

  “Not as yet Commander, it seems whatever automation is keeping the place active is…” she cut off mid sentence, and we saw a large door open up where we had determined a landing bay should be in the overall design. “Commander, we’ve received an automated response instructing us to proceed to the indicated landing bay. Scanners say it is large enough to fit the Elegance inside. Be’Tsar Toftri is recommending we come about and reverse into the bay for sake of contingency.”

  “Agreed. Proceed.”

  Out the shuttle bay door we could see the station spin out of sight until all we could see was stars, and the distant disk of HD48948c off in the distance. Then, slowly, we saw the yawning maw of the station’s landing bay slip around us until we were completely inside. With the same expert deftness I’d grown to expect from Toftri, the Elegance of Light delicately set down onto the station’s deck and came to a stop. The singing vibration of the ship’s engines cut out, leaving a startling quiet after so long under its melody.

  “Magnetic locks are secure, Commander,” Jesse reported over the intercom, “Engines have been reduced to standby, and automated landing defenses engaged, as ordered. Good luck out there.”

  “Acknowledged Ms. Aacen.” Jophixa replied, taking up her domed helmet and securing it over her head. “Stacy will be monitoring us through our various suit telemetries, especially Mr. Aacen’s. She’ll keep you informed of the situation, and if any trouble arises.”

  “As instructed, I will also be monitoring for any signals being emitted by the station, and keeping an eye on data from the ships scanners for other ships entering the system. I will update everybody as new information comes in.”

  “Alright, unless one of you gentlemen has forgotten something?” she looked at Tindron and I, raising an eyebrow as we both donned our own helmets and secured them in place. We both gave her a snappy negative response and stepped up to the A.C.B. “Then let’s get on the move, this is one hell of a large station, let’s cover as much ground as we can before we have guests.”

  With that, she stepped out past the barrier and only the ramp that was extending its way down to the landing bay deck.

  The interior corridors of the station were huge, with ceilings at least 6 meters high. At first I assumed that this was simply a case of us being near landing bays, and the corridors were sized for cargo haulers to move around large shipments, but when we first came to a bulkhead door and struggled to find a control panel to open it, we were stumped. Until, that is, I chanced to look up, and spotted a large glowing panel some 4 meters up.

  “Uh, Commander?” I said, catching her attention as she had been starting to contemplate if we should try cutting through the door, or use explosives. “I think I found the control panel.”

  She turned to look at me, and followed my arm to where I was pointing. “Tokran’s tits!” she cussed, “That’s going to make things difficult. I don’t suppose Stacy can operate the panel remotely, can she?”

  “Sorry Commander, I haven’t managed to obtain a handshake with the station’s systems yet. Its communication protocol is a bit strange, and it’s taking longer than expected to adapt to it. You might need to operate the first few yourselves.”

  We all grumbled at that. The wall was sheer, and while there were some places that looked like they’d serve as hand holds, they were not close enough together to scale our way up there. Without being able to deactivate the artificial gravity, there was only one real way I could see us getting up there.

  Sighing, I looked around to see if there were any sources of material I could use for another option, but no such luck. “Stacy, confirm my calculations please. The extra weight of the defence platform is still within the safety limits of my magnetic tether grapple.”

  A slight pause. “For the tensile strength itself, it’s well within limits, but for the winch mechanism, your mass is just over the specified limit. I would recommend you hand it off to the Commander, even with her armor, she will not overload the drive.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Unless the Commander has her own system that will do the job?”

  I saw Jophixa shake her head. “I have a tether, but not a winch system that will hold up against the gravity in here. It’s meant for EVA’s, not planetary ops.”

  “No offense boss, but might want to change that loadout in the future.” I said, and began uncoupling the tether system from my harness. “You never know when you’re gonna need to fight a gravity well while running around a derelict ship - or station.”

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  “Noted Mr. Aacen.”

  It took me a couple of minutes to get the tether free from my own harness, and get it secured to hers. When it was done, I handed her the grapple launcher and raised an eyebrow in a silent question. She simply took it from me, “You just cover my ass while I’m up there.”

  “Yes Ma’am.” I saluted, carefully keeping a wisecrack to myself, and unslung my coilgun and moved opposite from where Tindron was already keeping a watchful eye behind us.

  Minutes passed, and I heard swearing from above us. Glancing up, I spotted Jophixa now dangling from the wall at the level of the panel. “Problem Commander?”

  “The panel isn’t responding to my touch!”

  “Damn. It’s not responding at all? Or displaying a message you can’t read and not activating the door release?”

  “Absolutely no response to my touching the panel at all. As if I’m not even here.” she growled.

  “You don’t happen to have a mylar emergency blanket in your kit, do you?” I asked after a moment to consider the situation.

  “A what?”

  “Very thin sheet of reflective metallic material on a polymer substrate. Terrans often use it in our emergency kits as they are very light weight and will reflect heat and keep a person warm in emergency conditions.” I explained. “Stacy, do giobhioni have an equivalent?”

  “Yes Thomas,” she replied, then to Jophixa she said “the refexa sheet commander.”

  “Ah! Yes, I have one with me.”

  “This might not work, but my other thought might actually damage the panel, so it's better to try this first.” I explained. “Get out the -refexa sheet, is that right?- and wrap it around yourself as best you can without tearing it.”

  I could see her glancing down at me, possibly wondering where I was going with this, but then she did as I instructed. Pretty soon she was wrapped up in the mylar sheet looking like a distorted disco ball. “Okay, now what?”

  “Okay, now you need to jump away from the wall in a way so that you let yourself smack against the part of the panel you think will activate the door.”

  There was a moment of silence, then, “You want me to throw myself at the door panel as if I’m a giant finger?”

  “More like a giant stylus, but yes. Without me getting up there and hacking into the cabling behind the panel, it's either this, or dry firing a coilgun at it hoping the increased magnetic field will trigger it. And the magnetic pulse could damage some circuitry, I have no idea since I haven’t had a chance to see any of their tech yet.” I explained. “Probably best not to risk frying the circuits if we have another choice, unless you say otherwise commander.”

  I heard more giobhioni curses then saw her push away from the wall with a good strong thrust of her legs, angle over the control panel, ball up on herself and swing back. As she did, I had the sudden thought, I hope she doesn’t hit with enough force that her armor shatters the panel, then I winced as I heard the crash of her impact against it.

  Nothing happened. “What now?” she called down.

  “Give it a couple more tries just to be sure, make sure the refexa sheet is in contact with the tether to ensure it’s grounded.”

  “If I find out you’re having fun with me Thomas, I’m leaving your ass here!”

  I blinked at her using my given name after all the formality so far on this mission, but shook my head and focused on watching her as she once again kicked away from the panel, curled into a ball, and bashed bodily into the panel. I held my breath…

  The giant door slid open with a quiet whoosh, and I let out an explosive exhale.

  Just as I was about to call out to Jophixa that we might want to hurry, not knowing how long the door would stay open, I heard the firm thud of her boots hitting the deck. “Alright you two, hop to! I’m not doing that again because you dawdled!”

  An hour later, we - or should I say Jophixa - had been forced to repeat the door panel operation twice more, and we still hadn’t reached anywhere on the station that gave us any kind of computer access, or even any kind of station map. Whoever the residents of this station were, they didn’t appear to want to make it easy for visitors to find their way around. I found myself thinking about the paradox of how easy it was for us to get landing clearance, but then be left struggling once inside the station.

  We had just come up to a large T intersection and were trying to decide which direction to proceed in, when Stacy suddenly alerted us, “Commander! I’m picking up signs of movement to your right! From the sensor readings, it's big!”

  Reflexively and without a word, we all stepped back around the corner of the intersection for the limited cover it would provide, “Nobody fires until we know what it is.” Jophixa ordered, “For all we know it's a damned janitor.”

  Tindron and I voiced our acknowledgement, then hunkered down to be ready for whatever was coming towards us. I was personally hoping Jo was right and that it was something non-hostile. Again, it would seem rather odd for the station to clear us to come into a landing bay, only for it to attack us once we were here.

  Minutes passed and we finally heard a low rumbling, followed soon after by a wheeled, boxy thing stopped right at the intersection. Its lower half was fully enclosed, but the upper section was only surrounded by something along the lines of a guard rail, as was the top section. At four meters high and four long, if the thing was armed, it could end up being difficult to take out, and there was very little in the way of cover in the corridor.

  “What’s it doing?” Tindron asked quietly.

  “Whatever it is, I hope it isn’t doing a tactical analysis,” Stacy put in. “Sensors show that thing is pretty solid. I’m not picking up any weapons signatures, but there is a lot of electrical noise behind that casing on its lower half.”

  “Stay alert, but continue to hold fire. Unless we see something that looks like a weapon, we can’t assume it’s…”

  At that moment, a loud clank came from the machine, causing us all to snap our weapons up and ready to fire. A four meter square panel on the side of its lower half had angled free and started lowering itself until it was parallel and even to the deck. Lights along its edges began lighting up in sequence from the nearest edge to the farthest.

  “I think it’s indicating that we should get onto the platform.” Tindron informed us.

  “Yeah, seems that way.” I agreed and looked at Jophixa. “What’s our play here Commander? Do we climb on board?”

  I could see her weighing the options in the situation. If it were me, I knew I’d have been fighting off the personal reasoning of not having to use my whole body to trigger any more doors. I’m sure Jo was much more professionally minded than…

  “Fuck it!” She finally said, “At least I hopefully won’t have to slam myself into any more door panels.”

  Blinking at her, I found myself coughing in the effort to hold back a laugh, and heard a snort come from where Tindron crouched beside me. Jo looked me in the eyes, squinting slightly, “What?”

  “Nothing Commander,” I replied, “just a tickle in my throat.”

  “Right.” Tindron agreed, clearing his throat, “the recycled O2 can dry out the throat a bit.”

  “Uh huh,.” she said, shaking her head, “Sure it is. Well if you two are done coughing up hairballs, let’s see what this thing has in store for us. Be ready for anything.”

  As she turned away and started walking to the lighted platform, I caught Tindron’s eye and exchanged a smile. Jophixa has surprised me on a few occasions in stepping out of the reserved, professional bearing she usually displayed, but this just tickled my funny bone for some reason.

  Hurrying to catch up to her, we stepped onto the platform and checked the side of what had to be some sort of droid, checking to see if there was some sort of control panel. There wasn’t, but we needn’t have worried. Soon after we were all safely standing to the center of the platform, it jerked slightly, and began to rise steadily.

  I found myself crouching again, weapon at the ready, before realizing we were just on an elevator of sorts. “Good thing I don’t have any heart problems. Blackest Void. I’ve salvaged derelict ships rumored to be haunted that didn’t wind the nerves this tight.”

  “Thomas, your heart rate is elevated. Tratsa is expressing some concern, you need to calm yourself or she will need to speak to the Commander about ordering you back to the ship. She also indicates some other anomalous readings in your endocrine system. Are you sure you’re alright?”

  I made sure my comms were on mute when I said “I’m just nervous. I’m not a combat engineer, remember?”

  The lift we were on reached the top of the machine and stopped. The railing we’d been able to see from the ground slid sideways giving us access to what appeared to be a well appointed lounge, complete with comfortable seating, what looked like vending machines, and a….”Is that an auto-bar?” I heard Tindron ask.

  We all stepped onto the low pile carpeted lounge area, startling only a small bit as the lift behind us clanked and began lowering itself back to deck level. “What is the deal with this?” Jophixa was asking, walking over to one of the vending machines and peering at it.

  “If I had to guess Commander, it’s some sort of spaceport shuttle bus.” Tindron hazarded, reaching over and pushed a couple of buttons on the vending machine, prompting Jo to grab his arm.

  “What are you doing? We don’t know if that stuff is safe for us!”

  “Yes Commander, but with your permission, I thought we could take a couple samples back with us to the Elegance for Tratsa to analyse.”

  While they continued to talk about that idea, I walked over and sat down on a lightly padded bench. There were couches and chairs that looked far more comfortable, but I was too keyed up, and didn’t think it’d be a good idea to get too relaxed in this situation anyways. “Tommy-berry, seriously, Tratsa says to try some focused breathing or meditating. You need to calm your heart rate.”

  “Fine, fine, I’ll work on it! Just make sure you’re keeping watch. And don’t let Jophixa catch me not paying attention. I don’t want her reading me the riot act, or being disappointed in me or whatever, okay? Please?”

  “I’ll make sure, Tommy, I promise. Now work on getting that heart-rate down!”

  I felt the machine underneath me jolt and start to move back the way it had come, but tried to pay no attention to it. Instead I sat there and started trying to concentrate on my breathing, slowing it down, Breathe Thomas, breathe. Jesse will never let you live it down if you get through all this and get taken out by a damned coronary.

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