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  Silence.

  The gunfire had rattled on for several minutes alongside shouting and horrid screaming. Several strangled cries for help were cut off by sickening crunching. The rattling of guns was replaced by clattering as the voices screaming dwindled. One. By. One. The deafening silence that followed was what Oliver was shivering through currently.

  He had ducked into the clinic the moment the fighting had started, huddling in the blindspot of the opening just in case the violence came this way. The guards would take care of whatever had invaded, but the silence said otherwise. What his ears were witness to couldn’t be erased. Even covering his ears couldn’t block out everything, not the screams and not the shouting and definitely not the crunching.

  Oliver braced himself against the wall, slowly standing. His knees were shaking, a reaction he forced himself to laugh at as he approached the door, one step at a time. He poked his head out carefully, keeping low as he scanned the area. It didn’t seem as if anyone was out there. He eased into the hallway, trying to muffle the sound of his own footsteps as much as possible as he crept toward the eerily quiet bend.

What the hell? Terrorists? Or something else? You’d be hard pressed to find a criminal this far out in space… No good. I have to keep moving.

  He kept himself in the shadow of the wall, peering around the corner. Almost immediately, Oliver lurched back, slapping a hand over his mouth as he stepped away. One slow intake of breath at a time, he regained some semblance of calm. The technician braced himself, taking slow steps around the corner again.

  What used to be the hallway connecting the Engineering Bay to the research labs was now splattered in red splotches. Bullet holes lined the walls, drawing patterns. Discarded guns, some even in pieces with parts ripped out, and empty rounds littered the floor. Beside them were chunks of meat and flesh as if they were chewed and spat out.

  Oliver stepped over a piece of bloodied rubble, the stench of metal hitting the roof of his mouth every time he breathed. There was no one here, neither the attackers nor the guards. Oliver blanched, stumbling away from one of the bloody piles of flesh outside the Engineering Bay. Unless those were the guards?

  He slapped himself. He had to find Emerson. She wasn’t in the clinic, so where else would she be? Where else would she be familiar with? He lifted his head, staring at the entrance to the Bay. Bloodstains led inside, another chunk of something he didn’t really want to think about sitting at the end.

  The engineer stepped into the dim entrance, unsure if he was walking through his own workplace anymore. He poked  his head into the Command room, first room on the left. Nothing. He withdrew and tried scouring the maintenance room, the equipment room, the techie lab, the pilots’ hangout, the engineering lab, both female and male locker rooms: nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, and nothing. Oliver now stood at the last room of the Engineering Bay: the hangar. Praying that no news was good news, he stepped in, keeping in the blind side of the door.

  It was a mess. Well, Oliver conceded that it was usually a mess, but today was more of a mess. The recyclable debris from the hallway that had been tossed here for later use was now scattered outside of its vaguely organized mound. The drones, usually lined orderly on the far wall, were skewed, and there was even one on the opposite wall on its side.

  Oliver stepped further out into the dim lighting. He had last been here an hour ago, when he had received the order to go crawling for semiconductors. Now here he was again, and the entire Station had been overturned. Where was everyone? What was happening?

“Hello?” he called in a loud whisper, keeping his head down as he stepped closer to what remained of the mound of recyclables. “Is anyone here?”

  He waited a few moments. There was nothing yet again. Maybe they all evacuated already. Oliver nodded to himself, supporting himself on a nearby locker. The tension in his limbs had all but left him. He leaned on the locker with another sigh.

  The locker was lighter than he expected, and it toppled away from him, taking him along with it as it tumbled sideways into the pile of recyclables. He smashed into the aluminium box, adding another loud crash to the cacophony already echoing throughout the hangar. The locker’s door popped open and spilled its contents out across the floor.

“Ugh, shit,” he cursed as he rubbed the side of his head.

  And then the sight that followed made him freeze. Emerson was splayed out on the ground. Half of her was still within the locker he was laying on, and she was rubbing her head as she freed the rest of herself.

“Who?” she asked, her eyes widening as she spotted him staring right back at her.

“Emerson?”

“Oh, Hensley, you’re here,” she said, supporting herself on two arms now.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Her legs were freed, and now she struggled to stand.

“W-Why were you in the locker?”

  She stood a bit unsteadily. Emerson patted the dust off her knees, blowing tendrils of hair out of her face.

“Someone shoved me in there during the chaos. I heard gunshots. What happened?”

“You’re awfully calm about this,” Oliver muttered, standing to help her steady herself.

“Can’t do anything if you’re constantly panicking,” Emerson said with a nod of thanks.

“I heard gunshots too, but whatever they were shooting at isn’t here anymore.”

  And so were the shooters. Oliver cringed at the memory. Better leave that out for now. He turned to her and asked the main question.

“You know where everyone else has gone?”

  Emerson shook her head, pointing towards the exit.

“There was an evacuation warning, wasn’t there? Shouldn’t everyone have already gone?”

“Then how’d you end up in the locker?”

“I was handing over the inventory list to your chief when the tremors started. I think someone came in yelling about something, and the tech boys started panicking and everything started shaking, and in the chaos I got shoved into there. I heard the announcements and I heard shouting, but it quieted after a bit. Then there was gunfire. It’s been silent after that until you let me out.”

  She turned to him, an expectant look in her eyes.

“You know what’s going on?”

  He shook his head, leading the way out of the hangar.

“No idea. Soup and I were downstairs getting supplies when this mess happened. I haven’t seen anyone until you. Uhm, unless you count that.”

  Oliver paused in his step, his lips grimacing as he pointed at the bloody pile that blocked the way to the exit of the Bay. Even with only dim lighting, the bloodstains were obvious streaks on the ground and walls. Emerson pursed her lips, running up to the meaty pile of something Oliver didn’t want to think about.

“This is...,” she muttered, tracing her fingers around the edges and poking it.

“Uh, should you be doing that?” Oliver blanched.

  She stood, wiping her fingers on her lab coat. The doctor ignored him, rushing out into the main hallway. She stopped there, staring in stunned silence.

“What do you think?” Oliver asked with a gulp.

“I don’t know,” she whispered, her face paling. “We’d have to cross check it, but I think you already guessed what this is. I don’t really want to think of the implications of what this means.”

“Let’s go,” Oliver decided. “I promised to meet up with Soup at the elevator.”

  Emerson nodded, leading the way back toward the clinic. The walk back was just as silent as the floor below, if not moreso. Oliver didn’t open his mouth, and neither did Emerson initiate anything. The only sound was their footsteps.

  They passed the hole where he and Soup climbed up from. Slightly past that was the elevator down to the first floor. The light around here was the brightest, a denser white than the dim yellow illuminating the rest of the station at the moment. Oliver checked the control panel off to the side, flicking several switches. The lights flickering above them shone green.

“It’s working.”

“That’s good.”

  The doctor surveyed the area, staring back the way they came. She turned back to him.

“I thought you said Kuznetsov was supposed to meet us here.”

  Oliver frowned, rubbing the back of his head.

“He was supposed to. It shouldn’t have taken this long.”

“Could he have gone ahead?”

“If he got Toast, that’s definitely a possibility,” Oliver said with a nod.

  He hit the button to summon the elevator.

“Should we really be using the elevator in an emergency situation?” Emerson asked.

“Will you be able to trek down three floors with your legs?” Oliver asked in return.

  She grimaced, staring at the emergency stairs behind them in thought.

“Eventually?”

“We’ll be fine. The elevator runs on a separate system, so it won’t fail even if the power goes out again.”

“If you say so.”

  The elevator arrived with a ding. The doors opened, and Oliver braced with the expectation the inside would be straight out of a horror movie with blood trails and all. But no, the inside was stark clean, as it should’ve been. He guided Emerson in first before following, pressing the button for the first floor. The doors closed on the scene of the debris filled third floor.

  Emerson leaned against the wall, her gaze staring at the steel walls in thought. Her arms were crossed as she shifted her weight to balance herself. A small lurch signaling the elevator’s descent tore Oliver’s gaze away as he turned to stare at the panel. Seconds passed in silence. The light shifted from a glowing three to a two.

“Thank you, by the way,” Emerson said in a small voice.

“For what?”

“Coming to look for me.”

“Of course, had to make sure.”

“How’d you know?”

  Oliver continued staring at the two. It’d been stuck there for a long time, hadn’t it?

“I didn’t. I would’ve checked either way.”

  Emerson gave a small chuckle. He could imagine her shaking her head, and the gentle swishes of something sliding against the wall behind him confirmed the image.

“Regardless, thank you. I was starting to panic in the dark.”

  And for the second time that day, the lights flickered out as if summoned by her words, and they sunk into darkness.

***