"Yeah yeah, you'll get lucky on them slots instead."
Five men and two women chuckled at the corporal's ill luck, once the remaining players flipped up their cards. The dealer efficiently gathered up the chips without emotion, though he cracked a smile when the man on the end tossed back a small black disk.
"Well, that's my bonus added to Reed's daughter's college fund... Or was it his third son this time around?" The corporal stretched his bull neck, and got up to take a piss. "Lemme know if anyone wants refills." Though the planet never sleeps, the small casino is as empty as any of them ever saw it. Some of that likely has to do with the peeling and tarnished decor - decidedly not the tourist hotspots everyone sees on the OS&C brochures. But it's cheap, and out of the way - a perfect spot for lounging around.
The corporal, Dozer to his friends, habitually checked the compad for any updates. He continued to hold it with one hand as he relieved himself with the other, before making his way back to the main room and the droid behind the bar. The thing only powered up when Dozer is a few feet away, as if the owners of the establishment wanted to save every last penny on the power draw. The gloomy atmosphere of recycled emergency lighting underscored the point.
Dozer briefly considered trying to sneak in another synthanol order, before settling for another round of shitty coffee. The LT lets a lot of things slide, but he would be livid if any of the crew turned up blitzed during an actual emergency. But Dozer longingly stares at the display of cans and bottles behind the droid, and mentally counts down another day. Being on rotation pays the bills and then some, but the urge to take a hit grows with every day of the two-week period. Dozer thought again of Murazi on the Colwyn, the lucky fuck probably full to the gills with Liberty ale, and hip-deep in...
The compad in the corporal's pocket emitted an annoying and strikingly loud two-tone sound. After a brief stunned silence, the LT is the first on his feet, already checking his gear. "That better be a bullshit alert, Dozer..."
Dozer brought up the offending compad to his face, and the coffee cup he was holding in his other hand slipped to the floor. "Priority One on the Tavern!" He shouts, hardly believing his eyes. "The stupid IMG fucks are staging a coup!"
The LT didn't miss a beat as he jabbed his communicator, "Lacey, prep for launch. Wake the chief, NOW!" He shot his team a glare, and began pacing by the entrance, "You lot have 40 seconds!"
As the seven men and women formed up in acceptable order and filed out at a run, the droid placed a tray on the counter and called, "Sirs, your order is fulfilled. Please collect your beverages."
Olhauzer checked the interface for what felt like the 20th time that morning. He really didn't want to be doing this, but orders from upstairs were basically the law this far out. He knew that if he tried to weasel out, submit another doctored report, or simply disappear, they'd send someone in-person next time around. And Olhauzer knew his dignity wouldn't survive that meeting.
He looked into the crummy full-length mirror, and adjusted his formal overalls one last time. Just as everything else on the station, the mirror seemed to be worn down with the weight of second-hand use. He looked himself in the eyes, and was shocked to see that the place seemed to be having the same effect on him, too. Surely he didn't have THAT much grey in his close-cropped beard? Where did that middle-aged up-and-comer disappear to?
He checked the interface again. The message did not change. It was time to go.
__
As he walked towards the main offloading dock with an 8-man cordon, Olhauzer started to realize that it was all too late. Because he couldn't bring himself to do the right thing when he took over, everything would go to shit, no matter what he did. He eyed one of the emergency access tunnels, and imagined the airlock at its terminus. He could still send CTS to round up the agitators, and... But that was a sure way to make it all burn now. Half a year ago, maybe.
The smell of rotting garbage and piss increased to the point of nausea, as the overrun recyclers failed to keep up in the main hall. The paint on one of the massive bulkhead walls was peeling again, revealing the ugly industrial alloy underneath, and Olhauzer couldn't tear his eyes away from it. Was that the same place as when he arrived? He would probably never know.
The people gathering for the occasion gave him unfriendly looks. Olhauzer tried to keep his head high, and meet the eyes of anyone who looked his way. But after the third "old-timer" spat to the side and grimaced, he decided not to further antagonize the crews. He noted that tell-tale blue-grey with yellow pips uniforms were few and far between in the crowd, and most were clustered towards to main exit towards to living spaces. It made sense, in a way. His people knew what was coming, and they wouldn't be affected, at least not directly. He arrived at the large shipping crate that would serve as his platform. One of the support staff, whatever her name was, had just finished setting up the gear, and immediately slunk away, eyes downcast. As Olhauser climbed the access hatch, the angry buzzing of the crowd mounted into a dull roar, like one of the supertransport engines on idle.
"I have just received a directive from Pittsburgh," Olhauzer began, his voice cracking on the last word. The crowd's noise fell to a low murmur, as the amplified voice cut through the din. "A directive that will work towards improving the quality of life on this here station!" He looked around before continuing.
"This begins with a number of administrative reforms, that all here will have a chance to contribute to. The profit and prosperity of this operation depends as much on the freighter captain as it does on the head of operations. And I aim to ensure that..." The volume was rising. He was losing them already, as he knew he would with this disaster of a speech. Olhauzer decided on one last throw of the dice.
"DECK THERE!" He shouted in his best approximation of his old chief engineer. That got some of their attention. "What I have here is a prepared document from home office, that I am to read out." He raised his compad for all to see. Then he tossed it behind him. THAT got their attention.
"Look here folks. I know things are going to shit. But all I'm trying to do is ensure that it doesn't get any worse."
"Then get the fuck outta here!" Someone from the crowd shouted, followed by a general laugh.
"Look, it's either me or some fucking hard-ass from Philadelphia! Do you know what went down there? Or Erie??" Olhauzer looked around pleadingly, noting that even some of his security were giving him the stink eye. "You know me already, for what it's worth. Why do you want to take that chance?"
The mood of the crowd balanced on an edge of a bad atmo pullout. Olhazuer noticed a man gesturing to his neighbor, another nodding thoughtfully, and many others looking back at him as if at a very large roach.
"I'm your last chance before the shareholders decide to have you ERASED from the ledger and start from scratch!!" He shouted, his rising anxiety giving his voice a squeaky undertone.
And then the ship dipped back in, and things went to shit.
Natalie Vaughn had just locked down Freight 12 when the compad lit up.
Not the usual half-dead message from dispatch, but something bright red, flashing “PRIORITY ONE – STATION-WIDE ALERT.” Her stomach sank before her brain caught up.
A second later, she heard Olhauzer’s voice, amplified and cracking like it always did under pressure. She ducked out from behind the loader rig and into the open bay, just in time to catch him shouting about Erie and Philadelphia.
Shit.
That wasn’t a speech anymore. That was panic dressed up in a uniform.
Before the crowd even started shifting, Natalie keyed into her backup frequency — the one the dockside foremen used when things went sideways and the suits couldn’t fix it with a memo.
“Vaughn, support tech. I’m on Freight 3. Routing to central—do you need bodies on security?”
“Affirmative,” came the reply — clipped, stressed, and barely audible over the crowd noise. “Get to the upper concourse. Crowd’s getting jumpy. Olhauzer’s losing them.”
She didn’t wait for another confirmation. She clipped the sidearm onto her belt — company-issued, still sealed from disuse — and grabbed the shock baton from the emergency locker. On impulse, she also yanked the old riot shield from the wall mount. The polymer was scratched to hell, but it still locked into her forearm brace like it was meant to.
She’d never used it on people before. The hope was she wouldn’t have to.
By the time she reached the concourse, the noise was building into a low-grade riot.
People were pissed. People were scared. That’s when stupid things started happening. She spotted Olhauzer up on the crate, arms raised, trying to hold back the tide with nothing but a bad speech and worse odds.
Then someone hurled a wrench.
It hit him across the shoulder with a wet thunk, spinning him half-around. He staggered, grabbed the crate’s edge, and somehow kept talking through gritted teeth. His voice cracked, off-tempo and wild.
“You don’t want who they’ll send next—! You know me, dammit! I’m—I'm still here!”
He wasn’t going to be for long.
Natalie shoved her way through the growing crush. Before she could clear the last steps, a young security guard pivoted and jammed her back with a forceful two-hand push, eyes wide and breathing hard.
“Back the hell up!” the guard barked, then blinked in recognition. “Wait—shit, sorry—Vaughn?”
Natalie caught her balance, adjusted the shield, and nodded once. “Yeah. I’m DSE. I’ve got clearance and I know this deck better than anyone. Who’s coordinating movement?”
The girl pointed, flustered, toward a grizzled man barking orders into a headset. Natalie moved fast, relaying positions, checking exits. She knew which corridors had airlock redundancy, which lifts jammed under pressure. She ran logistics — not combat — but logistics was how you won fights without shooting.
“If this crowd surges,” she warned, “they’ll bottleneck at corridor 4-A. Vent routes there are compromised. You’ll have a crush casualty scenario inside two minutes.”
The man stared at her, then nodded sharply. “Good. You’re with us. Triage and comms.”
Some in the crowd were already breaking, scattering toward the side halls. But others leaned forward like they smelled blood. It was only going to get worse.
Natalie took her place behind a makeshift barricade. The shield was heavier than she remembered, but it gave her something to brace against — and something between her and the storm.
She didn’t sign up to play riot cop. But she knew what happened when you left security short-handed during a panic. She’d seen it on Erie. She’d survived it.
And if today went the same way, she'd damn well make sure someone else did too.
Dozer checked the straps on his riot armor for the twentieth time. Bottom left belt, bottom right, left shoulder, right shoulder - can't forget the holster, pat the pocket for the ammo, shake head to check helmet fit. He and the rest of the team, minus the LT, looked at each other, stewing in the ready room.
"I've got a code yellow from the dockmaster." Lacey's voice came over the ship-wide comm. She sounded anxious, but controlled it well.
"That's it, we're going in! Dock 3, auto-program, breach if you have to." The LT sounded relieved that the shit has now officially hit the fan. The overhead comms cut out, followed by a clatter of steps as the LT, Stilson, rushed down to the ready room.
"We go in hard, and we go in fast. We stay together and secure the major objectives, just like we drilled. Dockmaster first, then the fuel plant, then the shipyard." Stilson performed his own gear check as he spoke in measured tones, looking at no one in particular. "Bern, you stay at the docks. Riyah, the plant. Dozer, shipyard." The LT turned to look directly at him.
"You'll take point, Dozer, you're the best with the heavy gear. I will be with you all throughout. Lacey will secure the ship and monitor the docks." He looked them over as they stumbled during the last minute maneuvering. "Rules of engagement: if they point a weapon, shoot. If they get within ten meters, shoot. Watch the uniforms - station sec should be deployed, so don't scrag our own people. I will warn folks to disperse and drop their gear. Now, let's earn our pay."
The ship shuddered with the release of heavy ordnance, and the was a brief flash in the airlock porthole.
"Fuckers tried to close the door on us," Lacey conversationally informed them over the squad channel. "Maneuvering to mate with airlock. Hold on for a jolt."
Dozer moved towards the very airlock and grabbed at the drag handle. The jolt smashed him bodily into the airlock, but besides a mild pain in his nose, nothing serious got damaged.
"You're clear." Lacey called over the comm.
"Go, go, go." Stilson's voice came through both the comm and behind Dozer, as eight other bodies stacked up behind him.
He pushed the cycle button, confirming the emergency clause that would hopefully cycle the opposite lock at the same time, saving them precious minutes. He tried to control his breathing as he waited, his scattergun at the low ready. He really needed to piss.
The station's glare was briefly blinding after the muted combat stations lighting of the gunship. Dozer rushed out of the killing field and immediately felt something slam into his chest armor. Time seemed to slow.
Dozer's brain registered a crowd further in the main concourse, a handful of people running away towards his left, and - there, two figures facing him, one with something in his hand - that was a slug-thrower for sure, the other hefting something his way.. Dozer's body automatically performed the necessary motions, and he breathed out as the recoil slammed into his shoulder. He kept moving, counting the second before he could fire again, but both men were down, and no one else was within contact distance.
"errr, eeep iiingg!" Dozer realized there was a roaring in his ears, and the world suddenly snapped into place.
"Keep going, move it!" Stilson shouted at him over the comm, and Dozer obeyed. He scanned the crowd again, some of whom was starting to peel off in a rush, while others turned their way with uncertain postures. He did not see obvious weapons, but he couldn't be sure at that distance. He kept jogging towards the other end of the bay.
"Disperse at once! Go back to your quarters!" Stilson's amplified voice boomed out. "We will not hesitate to open fire!"
"Lacey, we got two down near the airlock, check them after you're secure." The LT's voice over the comm was casual, but Dozer easily detected the strain beneath it. They already engaged enemies, and what might have been a drunken misunderstanding was developing into a clusterfuck of uncertain proportions.
They reached the dockmaster offices, and the front bulkhead door obligingly began sliding open as it detected their presence. The reception was deserted, but Dozer thought he could hear shouting deeper inside.
"We need the master console. Left hallway, then the last door on your right." Stilson was looking at his arm for confirmation.
Another door slid open, and Dozer saw three people at the end of the hallway, focused on the door. One of them was leaning over the panel and holding something. The other two were standing back, but when they spotted their group, they began shifting their bodies in the tell-tale motion of someone assuming a firing position.
"Drop your weapons! Hands in the air, NOW!" The LT's amplified voice was particularly deafening in the confined hallway. Dozer raised his weapon to fire.
At the last moment, both figures tossed something to their right, which bounced off the wall and clattered onto the floor. One of the objects exploded in a flash, and Dozer felt rather than heard the zip of a bullet traveling past him. He dimly realized that the fools did not engage the safety before throwing away the guns, and one must have gone off. His hands twitched, but he forced them back down to a low ready grip, and advanced.
"Away from the door! Lay on the ground, hands on your head. Do it now!" Dozer thought that the LT just saved three lives, but he was still ready to fire as he advanced. But the figures in the mis-matched overalls seemed suitably awed by their group. The one at the door dropped her device, and kneeled before plopping down onto the floor with the others. They secured the silent prisoners as Dozer transmitted the emergency access codes, which began cycling the reinforced airlock of the master control room.
The LT was still busy trying to get some intel from the prisoners, so Dozer called out into the opening room. "We're from Colwyn. We're coming in to secure the area. Don't shoot!" He felt the reassuring hand on his shoulder as he advanced through the now open airlock. He saw an older man at one of the main consoles, and another uniform pop out from behind a long table.
"Thank the stars!" The younger man called out, coming around with his hands half-raised. "Those IMG fucks almost made it in."
"Are you secure?" Dozer wanted to move on to the next objective asap.
"We're fine here, no one else got - " "They got to the hauler in 2!" The older man interrupted, still not taking his eyes from the screens. His fingers tapped out more commands, and the schematic changed, the tactical screen meaning little to Dozer. "Plant is secure, but the yard is unknown. There's also a crowd in the main concourse here, and in the maintenance bays, here." The LT came up behind Dozer and nodded along to the report.
"The shipyard can wait. We need to disperse that crowd. I'm leaving you one of mine to secure these." He indicated behind him, as Bern frog-marched the woman into a waiting conference chair, and yanked her arms behind it.
"Fuck! They've got Olhauzer, and they're heading towards Maintenance." The older man pointed to a screen corner with some grainy camera footage.
"All right, let's get back to it! Dozer, take point, and double-time it to the main concourse!"
Dozer looked longingly on the bathroom suite down the hall, and hefted his weapon.
The concourse had become a furnace. Heat from packed bodies, shouting voices, and the humming voltage of pure panic pressed in on all sides. Natalie crouched behind the barricade with three others, shield up, sweat stinging her eyes.
She recognized none of the people surging toward them now — not the tech crews, not the regulars from loading bays or recyclers. This was the rest of the station: the squeezed-out, the exhausted, the forgotten. And they were boiling over.
A second wrench clanged off the wall beside her.
“They’re scattering west!” shouted one of the deckhands, barely audible over the wall of noise. “Corridor 4-A is gonna jam!”
“No!”Natalie barked, jabbing a finger toward a side shaft. "Divert them through maintenance six! It’s bypassed on the standard pathing — they’ll flow instead of jam. Do it now, or we’ll have crush trauma in under a minute!”
The deckhand blinked, then bolted. Her earpiece chirped. Stilson’s voice crackled in, rough and loud:
“Vaughn. Dozer’s just hit the concourse. Visual confirmation — Olhauzer’s being dragged toward maintenance sector two. We think they’re gunning for lockout access.”
Natalie grimaced. Sector two... that’s the junction node. If they got Olhauzer into the maintenance core and locked it down, they could reroute half the damn station’s access. And the docks would go dark with it.
Another buzz in her earpiece.
“We can’t chase both. Either we secure the shipyard now or stop them from taking Olhauzer. You’re closest, Vaughn. You call it. But I need you in motion inside thirty seconds.”
Natalie looked toward the riot’s thinning edge. The smarter ones had already peeled off down side corridors — not running, but moving with purpose. This isn’t chaos anymore, she realized. They’re organizing.
She keyed into the local comm net and caught Dozer’s signal — a brief flare of motion near the stairs. Three pulses from her wrist light brought a return flash. She had him.
Then, Stilson's voice again — this time personal, secure channel.
“Vaughn, I want you with Dozer. We go for Olhauzer. I’ll lead the push to secure the yard. If he gets turned or spaced, we lose any shot at system access without calling down the board. And you know what that means.”
She did. DSE would cut the station from orbit if they had to. And she knew what that meant too.
“Copy that, LT,” Natalie replied.Then she flicked over to the open squad band.
“All units near freight concourse, redirect to my beacon. Stilson’s moving for the shipyard — we’re going for Olhauzer.”
She turned to her battered team behind the barricade — bruised, tired, wide-eyed but listening.
“You all know me. You’ve worked with me. We do this smart, no heroics. We flank the corridor through the east breaker alcove and we intercept before they reach the junction. If they get that far, we lose the station.”
One of them — Davison, rail-thin and breathing hard — shook his head.“What if they’re armed?”
“Then we’re not alone,” Natalie said, voice sharpening.“Dozer’s squad is with us — full kit, heavy ordnance. They’ll do the clearing. We just need to hold the flank and block the lockout route.”
She glanced toward the flashing maintenance signage and keyed in the route overlay. Dozer’s team was already moving, his helmet nodding once in acknowledgment. They’d meet at the mid-tier vent bulkhead, sweep through in tandem, and hit the junction from both sides.
It’s a long shot, she thought.
But nothing compared to her past
Lacey saw a standard window pop-up on her screen from across the bay as she hurriedly secured the engineering console.
She cursed under her breath, “What kind of moron would be wanting to dock now…”
As she jogged to the console, the background changed to the intership comm request, and her frown turned into a grin as she saw the DSE logo in the running header.
“Bangor, this is Pine-1. I picked up the call, and came right in. What’s your status?”
Lacey skidded to a stop and slammed the right key.
“Farid, this is Lacey. We’re in active engagement – Stilson took everyone else on-station. It’s some kind of riot, maybe a take-over. Suggest you play goalie.” She tapped more keys to continue the ship’s lockdown.
“Understood. Both tubes are loaded and - ” There was a screech of a target lock on the channel. She heard Farid’s controlled breathing and a faint rattle as he performed what had to be an evasive maneuver. Suddenly, a metallic pinging sound could be heard, but the connection held.
“One away. Two away. Bastards have one of the platforms. Good tracking on target.” Farid’s voice entered the eerily casual mode of a pilot under immense stress. “Continuing evasive.”
Lacey could hardly believe what she was hearing. If the IMG saboteurs got into the defense grid, they could hold the station hostage, not to mention swatting the Bangor out of the sky.
“Good hits on target. It’s destroyed! Reloading tubes.” Farid sounded like he was reading a particularly boring cargo manifest, even though he was likely seconds from death.
Suddenly, the target lock alerts vanished from the feed.
“All platforms disabled. They’re not responding to pings!” Farid sounded mildly shocked.
“Admin must have caught it.” Lacey sighed with relief. “Stay in grid D-28 in case they don’t stay off.”
“Can’t do that ma’am. I’ve got Bay-2 doors opening.” Both of them knew that no one on their side would so flagrantly disregard the lockdown code.
“Morristown, this is Pine-1 of the DSE Security Branch. Remain in the docking bay, or you will be fired upon.” Lacey heard the same words on her private and emergency channels.
“Lacey, am I authorized to fire?” While sudden death didn’t faze the man, the thought of breaking regs was a different matter. “I can see them pushing off!”
Lacey knew there was no time to get Stilson involved, but she tried anyway. It would look good in the after-action report, if they all survived. She gave it a few more seconds before acceding to the inevitable.
“Pine-1, you’ve got clearance to fire. Do not let that ship get out of the bay.”
“Morristown, you’ve got two torpedoes pointed right at you! This is your last chance, damn it – cut your engines now!” Farid’s voice rose in pitch as he prayed for the IMG idiots to live another day.
There was no response on the emergency channels. Lacey briefly wondered if they simply couldn’t respond.
“One away.” Farid sounded like he was announcing an execution, which in a way, he was. “Torp running normally. Impact. Target disabled.” He was going by the book to remove himself from the reality of the situation.
Lacey felt a small jolt on the word “impact”. The freighter must have banged into the bay after losing propulsion.
“Good work, F-.. Pine-1. Keep station.”
She stood to run to the main airlock and secure the ship, when a dull roar shook the floor so hard she stumbled. From the console she just left, she heard Farid’s horrified voice say, “The freighter just went up. I must’ve hit their reactor… Bay-2 doors are completely destroyed.” He seemed to pull himself together. “Resuming patrol. No inbound targets.”
___
Dozer advanced at a measured trot towards the thinning crowd on the main concourse. The man and woman behind him staggered themselves out to either side, though he implcitly knew from scanning the crowd that they wouldn’t find more resistance here. With local security containing the situation, the fight would move elsewhere, and soon. As if to underscore his mental point, the station shook from what was likely a detonation in a dorsal quadrant, and most of the people screamed in fear as they scrambled deeper towards the living sectors.
Lacey’s voice came on the squad channel, “Pine-1 just glassed an outbound freighter. Bay-2 is now in full vacuo!”
“Bern, tell the techs to seal Two, do it now! Lacey, join Dozer as soon as Bangor is secure. Dozer, advance towards the juncture and link up with the local team. I’ll sweep towards Two and the yards. You’ll go for Olhauzer.” Stilson breathed heavily as his team double-timed it towards the next bay.
Dozer continued jogging towards the uniforms at the main passageway juncture. One of them was indicating with her arms towards the living areas. Dozer had a moment of hesitation – weren’t they supposed to secure Olhazuer, not the living quarters? But then he remembered the plans from the last patrol drill, which must have been months ago. They ran into some kind of illicit distillery in a maintenance tunnel, and Dozer let the hapless techs go after pocketing a generous sample of the output. That must be where the local team thought they’d be taking Olhazuer.
“Dozer, second juncture on the left, aux tunnel four, GO! We got the exits.” The woman, Neera? Noelle? was yelling, as her team formed around her and filed past their own blocking point. Dozer wasn’t great with names, and he sure as hell didn’t know the tunnel’s designation. But it seemed to be the right spot, so he nodded and kept jogging in the indicated direction.
“On me, folks. Lacey, try to keep up. Olhauzer doesn’t have much time.” Dozer checked behind him to see both his shadows forming up, and Lacey sprinting across the empty bay. He patted his pants pocket for the reassuring weight of blasting charges that he relished in using against recalcitrant airlocks, and continued moving.
As he approched the right juncture, he heard screams from the living sections, and what sounded like small-arms fire. He radioed Stilson, already knowing what the man would say.
“I’ve got firing towards the living quarters. We can’t assist if we keep going. I saw children...” Dozer immediately cursed himself for bringing up that particular detail, as it would now remain firmly lodged in his memories, and the after-action report.
“You job is to get to Olhauzer, Dozer. Secure him, then sweep the living areas, not before. That’s a direct order.” Stilson’s tone rebuked Dozer for putting him in that position, but he knew he has to try. There was the after-action, but then there was also basic fucking human decency. Olhazuer’s death would not be mourned by many – maybe by the shareholders who invested in this hunk of plate around them, but the rest of the civvies... But thoughts like that were too dangerous to pursue as a corporate security goon, and Dozer instead visualized how he would blow the maintenance airlock that should be coming around the next corner.
As he rounded the corner, Dozer registered a number of overall retreating across the narrow concourse. They definitely had some gear cradled in their hands, but as they were not pointing it at him, they were not his problem. Nicole? and her team would take care of it.
“Lacey, you’ve got one shot at the panel. After that, I’m going in hard.” Dozer began unspooling the det cord so lovingly packed during one of his many sleepless nights, while cradling his scattergun in the crook of his arm. Lacey brushed past him, and scrunched herself against the panel. Dozer couldn’t help but glance at her ass, realizing at the same time that she was only wearing her flight suit.
“And stay way back when we go in. We still need a ride off this station. Watch our six.”
“I’ve got nothing here. They must’ve fused it after going in.” Lacey pushed her sweat-soaked hair out of her face, and gripped the small blaster as she nodded to Dozer and squeezed past them.
“All right, papa’s coming in…” Dozer muttered as he snapped off the needed length, and massaged it against the left side of the semi-circle. “Stay back ten meters – Lacey, fifteen for you.” He glanced back to make sure they complied, and received the expect frown from their pilot.
“Five, four, three, two, one!”
Dozer flattened himself against the wall, and pressed the detonator. The dull roar of the resulting explosion seemed louder than he was used to, and Dozer realized that he was lying against the other wall of the narrow concourse. He felt a cold stab under his bicep as his suit decided that some good stuff was in order. He levered himself up with one arm, the other never letting go of the scattergun cradled across his chest. He stumbled, and winced at the glare of the lights at the other end of the concourse. Couldn’t the stupid fuckers keep it down during an operation??
Dozer vaguely heard someone calling out his name, as well as some other crap that he couldn’t parse from behind him. The airlock in front of them sagged on its hinges, and then completely fell away into the concourse, with part of it melted from the force of the blast. Before he could think to check everyone’s status, he saw a figure lean out of the hole made by the destruction, and automatically leveled his weapon and pulled the trigger. He never heard the scattergun’s report, but felt it slam into his body, a comforting feeling. There was something urgent that he was forgetting that needed to be done in a situation like this… As the figure sagged against the inside of the maintenance shaft, another replaced it, and Dozer took longer than a second to fire again. He took rounds in a shoulder and a leg, not knowing if his armor held. The painkillers spreading through his body deadened all sensation. He returned fire, and saw red blossom against the wall, as the unfortunate’s head almost separated from his body. Dozer remember what it was that he needed to do – advance! And he made his leaden legs obey him as he stumbled towards the smoking hole in the wall.
