„So what you are telling me“, Nico said, once again properly sitting in a chair instead of hovering above it, „is that the EMP happened inside of Bloom?“

Micah and Ricky both nodded. Micah spoke first: „Bloom is deep inside the heliosphere and doesn’t need deep space shielding. But its hull is still metal. An EMP bomb exploding near it, on the outside, would wreck havoc of all kinds, but the reactor control units, they’re shielded. The only way the frequency modulators can get fried is if there was a strong current induced into the wires themselves.“

„We’ve run the calculations twice.“, Ricky added, „An EMP bomb exploding outside Bloom would have to be nuclear and powerful enough that we’d still be seeing the auroras from it. You know, because in space a nuke doesn’t make a fireball or shockwave, it’s all radiation.“

Nico leaned back in his chair, eyes unfocused. „Makes no sense.“, he said softly, more to himself than to the other two. „What for? And ignoring that, why take that risk? It’s not like you can use the confusion to run away. Without power, the hangar doors won’t open.“

„Unless“, Micah began, twice before Nico turned his attention back to him, „Well, I thought about that smuggler depot we found. Pretty much right before this happened. That’s a hefty coincidence. And those guys were not above shooting me.“

Nicodemus let him finish while he slowly folded his hands, fingers intertwined. „There were a few oddities in that room that Baer and me noticed. Fetch him and go check it out. We posted two guards there as well, ...“ - he was interrupted by the door flying open and hitting the wall where for a long time he had wanted to put a stopper but had never gotten around to it. In the doorframe, a sweaty, exhausted and slightly pale young woman with a guard jacket stood for a second, then stepped into the room, breathing heavily. „Valarie“, Micah exclaimed.

„Nico!“, Valarie said between breaths, „We have… dead… both…“ she put her hands to her hips and bent over slightly, trying to catch her breath so she could speak normally. Then, still gasping, she came up again and pulled out her factual side: „We have three bodies in the back sections. Two guards and nearby one shop owner. Might be more victims. I came as fast as I could.“, she pressed out between still heavy breathing.

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„Accidents?“, Nico asked, already knowing the answer from Valarie’s manner but wanting to be sure.

„Weapon wounds. All three.“, the young guards woman shattered his hopes.

Nico’s eyes twitched, darting left and right as he processed this new and shocking information. He turned to Micah and Ricky: „You’re right.“, he plainly said, „Too much to not be related. Tell Baer to take however many guards he can find. Valarie“, he turned around, „you need to show Baer where exactly they are, ok?“ - Nico had noticed that Valarie was not feeling well and was probably overwhelmed by what she had seen. „You don’t need to get close, but we’ll lose valuable time if Baer needs to search around. Can you do that?“

Valarie straightened up: „Yes“, she simply said.

Moments later, she led Baer and the three other guards they could find near the control center back into the bowels of Binary Bloom, which suddenly felt colder and less safe to her than before.

Nico was left behind alone, since the two engineers had also gone to continue their repair works. Many of the station’s secondary systems were still damaged or broken.

„Damn it all.“, he said to himself, „What’s going on all of a sudden?“

Then he went over to the control console and pressed a few buttons, locking the hangar bay doors in place. He made a quick entry into his log book: „Multiple murders on the station, lockdown initiated.“. There were not that many entries in the book, as Nicodemus wrote down only the important things and not the everyday events or decisions. The last entry was three days old by now, it was a short note about the marines occupying the hangar.

He looked around the control room. Half of the displays still showed nothing or only symbols of systems out of order. He was alone right now, despite the room having three desks. Normally there would be two people here, with the third place filled only when things got exceptionally busy. But at the moment, everyone he could spare was fixing things or cleaning up debris.

He went over to the second station and sat down. The communications units were patched to this place, though they could be opened from the other two desks if necessary. He needed to let the Erulas battleship know why he put the outpost on lockdown so they didn’t misunderstand and thought they need to come and save their marines.

„Not that the bastards couldn’t hold the docking bay against half of Bloom if they had to.“, he mumbled to himself. Those who didn’t know better would be surprised by how few people on Binary Bloom actually had weapons.