Behind the Scenes

[Reeves]

Fortress Ramsey; Ontario System; Liberty Free Republic

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Outer Hab, Cycle 0334, District 10 Canteen

It started with a thud and a tray of soy-cutlet protein slapping the floor like a dropped side of meat.
Aslan Herera—volunteer pilot, and member of the Xeno Alliance—lay sprawled beside the foot-length orange stripe marking the queue lane. By the time he stood up, whoever shoved him had already vanished into the midday surge of uniforms and flight suits.

Nobody said a word. Fort Ramsey had become like that—crowded, humming with purpose, and tight on manners. Too many new faces, too many stripes sewn by politics instead of strict hierarchy.

—

Office 9, Subdeck B-4 — Two Hours Later

“Replay it again.”

The barked command came from Sergeant Jhevari Zhen, her towering profile framed by dull, plasma-scored bulkhead lighting. She and Rifleman Trask watched the canteen’s static-cam feed for the fourth time.

“There. Frame 3417. That blur.”

Trask squinted. “You can’t ID a blur, Sarge.”

Zhen grunted. “Then we talk to the meat who can. Scrawny one that's behind him in the queue - I know him.”

—

"Interview" One: Ensign Darnel Hoss, Age 22

They found him in the rec room, bent over a terminal.

“You were three spots behind Herera,” Zhen barked, tossing him against a metal locker hard enough to dislodge a hanging jumpsuit.

“I—I didn’t see!” Hoss stammered. “Just noise and people.”

Trask pressed a stun baton lightly against the inside of his thigh and the boy screamed.

“Try again, Ensign.”

“Okay! Okay! I don't know his name but I see him around Lu all the time! The supervisor in the XAF workshops!”

That narrowed it to maybe twenty. Still, a crack.

—

"Interview" Two: Technician Lu Mardens, XAF Workshop Supervisor

She was less cooperative.

“I mind my business,” she said, sucking on a chem-stick, eyes defiant. “If Herera got bumped, maybe he needed to toughen up.”

Zhen shoved her against a wall and whispered low in her ear.

“Looking to practice instead of just preach, Lu?”

Trask tapped in an override that the Commander had been generous enough to provide, and her comm slate lit up—her recent request for leave had been cancelled pending “cooperation.”

“Really?!” she spat. “Guy with half-tat on his neck. Called himself ‘Dex’. Been bragging last week about being ‘done with waiting’.”

—

Deck 1 Barracks, Compartment 111-A

Dex Torlan. Logistics support. Half-tat of a synthetic dragon trailing from his ear to his collar. Didn’t even try to lie when they found him.

“That bug-humper was holding up the line,” he sneered, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “Ain’t like he died.”

Zhen stared at him in silence for three long beats.

“You shoved a member of the Alliance,” she said finally. “That’s a message.”

Dex spat. “Yeah. Message was move your ass.”

Zhen looked at Trask. Trask nodded once.

No more words.

They dragged him to Corridor C-7. No cams. No foot traffic. Just the smell of rust.

Zhen broke his nose first. Trask followed with a punch to the gut that lifted Dex off the floor. The man screamed for help.

Nobody came.

Zhen spoke as she kneed his ribs.

“They're the ones who watch your backs when the spooks and hunters show. They save your skin so we can seal your bulkheads when the seals finally rupture. Herera’s one of them, and that still means something on this rock.”

When it was done, Dex Torlan had two cracked ribs, a fractured wrist, and a cautionary note duct-taped to his chest:
“RESPECT THE LINE.”