This is Not a Drill

[Barrier]

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.