‘I think we got a signal’ Hoog reported. ‘Ask Ciklops if they can read it.’

Dane replied: ‘Ciklops reports that it’s a distress call. They were under attack by voidcapers.’

‘Then why didn’t we receive it?’ Tick asked.

Dane sighed. ‘Because they were too late. These voidcapers knew what they were doing. They attacked the antennas even before taking out the station’s defences. By the time they broadcasted the signal, the antenna was already destroyed. Let’s get to the second tower and see if we can get some useful information from that one. Get down from that tower, Hoog & Tick. Voss and I remain on guard. Jabs, scout the way ahead. Look for danger.’

It took Hoog some time to pack up their stuff and get down from the tower. The damage on the tower meant they had to move carefully to avoid any holes or tears in their suits.

‘Alright men, let's move out. Jabs, you spotted anything useful?’

‘I took the recon drone out for a spin. It registered something interesting. There’s a perimeter defence auto-turret that’s still activated. I don’t like the look of it. It looks primitive. Probably a model without a recognition sensor. Just as likely to shoot us as it is to shoot our enemies.’

‘Good catch, Jabs. We’ll cross on the bottom side of the bridge then and avoid that turret.’ Dane replied.

‘Negative, sir.’ Jabs interjected. ‘It’s placed on a rail. If we try to pass it on the other side of the station, the vibrations might set it off anyhow.’

‘Damn it, any way to take it out?’

‘No, sir. We don’t have the firepower needed to take such a drone out in one shot, and that’s all you get with a drone of this type.’

Hoog chimed into the conversation. ‘How about we move to the bottom side of the station and then jump to the other side?’

‘Any objections to that suggestion, Jabs?’ Dane asked.

‘No, sir. As long as we stay outside of a seventy meter radius from that thing, we should be good. It’s a short range model.’

‘Good, then we jump. Let’s move down, lads. Voss, you jump first. Hoog and tick, you guys go second. Then Jabs. I’ll take the rear guard position and go last.’

Voss magnified the view on his helmet’s display to scan for a good landing site. He saw one where three pipes ran across the hull of the ship, with metal rails surrounding them. He then holstered his revolver, grabbed the hooks that were attached to his suit, and moved to a proper place to jump from. Dane and Jabs better keep their eyes open and their guns pointed, because he’d be a sitting duck once he jumped.

He found a small ramp and looked up. This would have to do. He grabbed a ledge, used it to stabilize himself and jumped. Nice and smooth, just like how that harlot of a lieutenant had taught him. He felt a pang of anger running through him when he thought of her. An emotion and a distraction that he couldn’t use right now. He’d be landing soon enough. Fortunately his jump was well aimed and without any spin. A tad too fast perhaps, but he’d manage. Besides, his helmet flashed to indicate he was down to seven bars, and the less time spent open and exposed, the better.

He hooked himself onto a rail as soon as he made contact with the station. He secured himself and spun himself around, onto his feet, in one gracious movement. With one leg wrapped around the guard rail, he was ready to catch Hoog and Tick. He looked up and saw that they were already on their way together and nearing fast. Voss caught Tick by his arm and pulled both of them in. Once they had been stabilized, he unwrapped his leg and clicked himself loose from the rail. It would be up to Hoog and Tick to catch the others.

He hand-signalled to Hoog to catch Jabs and then pulled his revolver. He turned around and made way for the nearest vantage point that had a moderate degree of cover.

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By the time he arrived there, Jabs had already landed and Dane was halfway through his jump. Jabs was guarding the other side of their landing zone. Dane was flying in fast with his rifle still in hand. He executed his landing so perfectly that Voss interpreted it as yet more evidence that Dane had a military background. paradrop units perhaps? Maybe even void marines?

How a man like Dane could ever end up in their squad was beyond him. Right now that didn’t matter though. What mattered was that they had executed a difficult manoeuvre in tough conditions, and that they had done so in under two minutes. They had cleared the turret and could now move on to the second communications tower.

The coast seemed clear so they moved in to secure the site of the tower. Hoog and Tick wasted no time and went up in what remained of the tower. Tick spoke over the intercom. ‘There’s no way we can get this one up and running, Dane, but I might be able to plug into the cache and play out previously sent messages.’

‘You’ve got five minutes, Tick. We need to keep up the pace.’

‘Roger that, Dane.’

Voss chimed into the conversation. ‘I don’t like this at all, men. Everything is going too smoothly. It’s all too easy. It can’t be that this is all there’s to our final exam? Any updates from red squad? How are they faring?’

Dane answered: ‘Nothing. They report a lot of signs of previous engagements. Found a couple of dead bodies frozen stuck to the space station, but no immediate threats. They finished clearing out A and B wings of the station and are now moving through the central axle. Apparently they’re going through some sort of command post now that’s been shot to bits on the inside. They’ll head into C wing when they reach the end of the central axle, we’ll head to D wing once we’re done here.’

‘Which one is D wing?’ Hoog asked.

‘Dane didn’t reply via the intercom, instead he pointed into the direction of the wing that was least damaged. C and D wing were names they had given to the wings during their pre-mission briefing. By pointing instead of telling them which wing was which, Dane showed he was thinking ahead, opting to share as little as possible via their intercoms. You never knew if you were up against an interceptor-decoder. If your radio waves got caught by one of them, the enemy could listen in on you.

‘I’ve got some kind of transmission, sir.’ Tick spoke. ‘But it’s pretty damaged and distorted.’

‘Play it for us, Tick.’ Dane replied.

‘Alright, here it is.’ A metallic voice sounded through their intercoms. It was hard to hear due to heavy static that at times drowned out the voice completely. ‘He.... Yo....ot .. co... as... Th.... le..ne... t.ut..We ca... o.. the... ck ..ch.. Lo..yre…mo…side....’

Dane sighed. ‘Well that’s not going to help us. I’m sending it through to the Ciklops for restoration and audio clean up, men. In the meanwhile, let’s get moving again. Jabs you go ahead.’

Dane waited for Hoog and Tick to get down from the comms tower and signalled for the men to move towards the end of D-wing. ‘Any sign of danger, Jabs?’

‘Negative, sir.’

It didn’t make any sense to Voss. Where was the danger? Where were the enemies? They had to be here somewhere. The fifth wouldn’t let them steamroll this mission without some twist. It couldn’t be that easy… And yet, so far neither squad had encountered any sign of life, just a few basic traps. Could it be something else then? Perhaps a slaver scenario? Perhaps they were looking in the wrong place? Maybe the trap would be sprung once everyone was inside D-wing. The more he thought about it the more it made sense. They were going through a slavers scenario, a special breed of voidcapers that specialized in abducting skilled personnel and selling them in clandestine slave markets.

Nobody ever officially confirmed the existence of slavers, but the slums were rife with rumors about them. Some even swore they knew of such markets existing in the deep south. A place where gangs bought and sold skilled workers needed for the maintenance of their machines and guns, or where they got their computer specialists to run scams and hacking operations. Voss had never taken the rumors seriously. Tall tales used to scare children into staying out of the worst parts of the slums. Out here in the void though, the idea of slavers didn’t seem so far fetched.

They made quick progress and got to the entry hatch at the far end of D wing. Dane signalled for Hoog to open it, but Voss intervened. He signalled with his hands ‘Me do it, danger.’. He knew this type of airlock by heart. It was an old model that was easy to hack and reprogram the set air pressure. It was the same model that was used to gain access to the plasma-electric engines running Saltpeterburg’s waterworks. There they were a fire precaution. Anything went wrong whilst working on those engines, and they’d suck all the air out of the room to stop fire from spreading. Only on Fosfat they never gave him an airtight suit when he worked on those engines.

Voss took out his plasma cutter and got rid of the steel plate protecting the outer control panel. Just like he thought, the air pressure settings had been tampered with. Standard air pressure had been set to fifty bars. Quite deadly on its own, but even more deadly if you’d try to escape it by opening one of the hatches to escape the pressure. You’d be shot out like a bullet.

He reset the airlock to the standard pressure setting of one point two bars and gave his squad the thumbs up. Dane pointed at Hoog and Voss and gestured for them to go in first. They climbed into the cramped airlock together and closed the outer hatch. As the air pressure rose, sound returned. Hoog’s voice sounded like a warm bath after the cold silence of the void. ‘Don’t forget to turn your helmet’s pressure valves to prevent the station’s air from entering your helmet, Voss. We have to be careful of poison gas.’

They opened the inner hatch of the airlock and entered a cylindrical storage room. Several rows of shelves and cabinets circled around the room. A hole in the centre served as the only way to get through. A perfect set up for a trap or an ambush.

Jabs was second to come through the airlock and he wasted no time. He pulled out a tiny recon drone and sent it forwards to check the room for any potential sources of danger.

Dane and Tick were the last ones to enter through the airlock. Dane spoke as soon as they entered. ‘The sergeant ran the message through the system and had it deciphered, men. “Help! You’ve got to come fast. They learned the truth. We can’t hold them back much longer. They’re moving inside.”.

‘What truth? And who’s moving inside?’ Jabs asked.

‘I guess we’ll learn soon enough. Let’s get moving.’

Voss knew this was the moment to intervene. 'Dane, if I may speak. I think we're looking in the wrong direction. What if the trap isn't on board of this station? What if there are slavers hiding out there in the void that waited for us to enter so that they could then approach the station unnoticed and capture us alive?'

'If that's true then we'll make our stand soon enough, Voss. For now focus on what definitely lies ahead of us, not what might be in our rear.'