"Tred!" she called, floating into the room. It was situated deep in the station, where the spin gravity had no effect.

A clamp wrench floated by. She grabbed it out of the air. At least now she had something she could hit someone with.

"Tred?" she called again, floating on. She tried to stick near the wall so had something to push off in case of trouble.

Her system caught movement in a corner. Hefting the wrench, she floated towards it.

"Tred? Is that you?"

"AHHH!" the man screamed, flying out at her. His face was red with adrenaline, but his eyes widened as he saw it was her.

He was brandishing a sensor wand like a baton, halfway through a swing. He pulled his swing, but she leaned back, realizing it would never reach her.

"Engineer, stop it!" she snapped.

"Oh god, Lieutenant, I'm sorry! I thought it was the other Moth-Owl," he said.

"Other Moth-Owl? You saw someone else, too?"

"Yeah! I think it was a male, but . . ." he trailed off. "My system wouldn't give me any information, and I just don't really look at people's faces . . ." he muttered. "But he had a bigger crest - that means it's a male, right?"

"Usually," she replied. "What color were they?"

"Green, like you. Maybe a little darker?"

She wanted to snap that it sounded like he was asking her again, but she pushed that down, and kept her eyes scanning for threats.

"I also saw someone else. A human, on the bridge. He ran, but I couldn't catch him, then he just . . ."

"Disappeared! That's what the Moth-Owl in here did. He was angry, his crest was almost straight-up, and he threw a plasma injector at me. It must have been an old one, but it's bizarre because we recycle used ones and the list of information says that the injectors haven't been replaced for a year, so why would it be-"

"Okay," she said, calmly. A straight-up crest was panic, not anger - but lashing out was usually a normal response of a panicked Dessei. "We should head back to the bridge and lock it down. These people clearly did not expect anyone else to come here, and we have a duty to keep sensitive tech out of their hands."

"Do you think they're pirates?" Tred asked, goggling at her.

"Possibly. But come on," she grabbed his arm and started to pull him.

"Wait, what about the fusion generator? It's a very dangerous device in the wrong hands!"

She glanced at it. "It's offline right now, yes? We need to go to the bridge and cancel your scan so we can get a message to Lt. Commander Caraval."

"We can't cancel it yet," Tred replied. "It needs to go for a full six hours."

"What? Why can't you cancel it?" she asked.

"The plasma injectors are covered in nano-probes. If we try to reactivate it right now it'll melt them all - not just destroying them but creating impurities in the plasma stream. Do you know how unstable that would make the fusion reaction?"

She actually had no idea, but context alone made it clear. "Can we clear them out sooner?"

"They're not smart probes. They go in, do their job, then crawl out. We could . . . flush the injectors, but that still takes two hours with a full engineering complement." He wiped his brow nervously.

"Damn it," she muttered. She didn't know that his scan would disable the reactor for that long . . . he'd even asked for her input, and she'd made the call.

"It's really not a good idea to leave this unattended," he said. "The security systems are disabled for the scan. It's why we never do more than one system scan at a time on the Craton. Here, though, they only have one fusion reactor . . ."

"This place is not defensible to us, and the bridge is more key," she said. "We'll seal all doors and bulkheads behind us as we go - that should secure the room sufficiently for a few hours."

Nodding, Tred came with her.

Pirra wished she had a sidearm, but there was no weapons locker on the station - it had been cleared out when the crew had been evacuated.

At each set of doors they came to, she tampered with the system to prevent the recording of their actions. It should keep the intruders from tracking them as they moved through the station.

The gravity was beginning to return as they headed up the third spoke towards the rotation area.

"Lt. Pirra, do you think-" Tred asked, before cutting off.

*******

She woke up on the floor.

They'd gone to sleep again, in the middle of walking.

Damn it! Was this some sort of weapon? Trying to disable them?

But no one was around. They had no guns pointed to their heads, they weren't in chains.

"System," she asked blearily. "How long were we asleep?"

"Minus 71,711 hours," her system told her.

She blinked. "Come again?"

"Negative 71,711 hours," her system told her.

"Uhhh . . . Tred, you hear this?"

The man was rubbing his face. "Did we fall asleep again?"

"Or something. Our system says we slept negative seventy-thousand hours."

"That . . . I don't think that's right," Tred replied.

She stared at him a moment. ". . . Let's get moving," she finally said. "You keep trying to find out how long we were asleep."

Tred mumbled to himself as they moved. It was not far to the bridge, and they arrived without incident.

"Lock down the doors," she told Tred. She went to the system.

"Has anyone been in here?" she asked.

"Not for over two hours," the system told her.

That was far longer than she figured they'd been, they must have been asleep over an hour.

Tred was approaching the last door to lock it down when it opened.

It was the same man she'd seen the first time, and he was panicked already.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"Lock it!" he screamed, shoving past Tred into the room. A bullet hit the doorway where his head had just been.

Tred sealed the door. "I've got it!" he said.

Pirra didn't reply as she tackled the man. "Who are you?" she demanded, slamming him onto his back.

The man thrashed wildly under her, his eyes crazed with terror. "Let me go!" he screamed. "He'll get through any moment!"

Pirra's eyes looked up to the door, her system scanning it. The door was being overriden - the man on the other side had the command codes for the station.

She spat out a curse.

"Tred, out the other door, meet where we woke up!" she barked, jumping up. Tred went out the door, and she stopped to hold it for the terrified man. She had no idea what his story was, but she wasn't about to let him die.

The other door opened just as the man ran out. She saw the shooter; he had a pistol in one hand, his aim going across the room.

They locked eyes, and she saw something in them that wasn't right. It was not something she could describe in words, but she had seen it in someone else's eyes, and recently.

The Hev on the trader ship, weeks ago, that had been altered by a Leviathan.

She knew she should slam the door, run as far and as fast as she could, but instead she found herself unable to tear her gaze from the man.

And he just stared back, sizing her up calmly. His weapon was not aimed at her.

His expression changed sharply, suddenly. No longer the terrifying calm of a mind broken and reformed into something inhuman, it changed to comprehension. He saw her, and for some reason-

It scared him.

Like a startled animal, he ran.

She didn't wait to see if he fully left, slamming the door and finally making her escape.

Adrenaline letdown threatened to make her unsteady on her feet, but she fought the urge to go into shock.

The man had been ready to kill the other stranger, but when he saw her he got freaked out and retreated. She was unarmed, save for a wrench. Hardly a match for his handgun.

Why did he fear her?

Ducking into a service room, her map of the layout showed a path she could take that would avoid the main hall.

The mission had just gone to shit, and she had to sort out priorities. There were at least two individuals on the station who shouldn't be here, and she felt certain - though she could not have justified it on a report - that something was much more amiss than that.

The failure of this mission was potentially a catastrophe, and that made her objectives clear. Firstly, she had to make sure that Iago and the rest of the Response Team could still use the station's zerogate to get out of this cursed system. She had to secure the station. But she also had a duty to protect the people under her command - she needed to get Tred into safety.

Carefully, she messaged him.

"Are you safe?" she asked.

"Yes," he replied. "But I'm also terrified. Lieutenant, I've never taken a course on how to deal with pirates!"

Pirra was amused, despite the fact that she knew Tred meant it. "Have you had any combat training?"

"Yes, but . . . I didn't pass," he admitted. "My aim gets too shaky when I'm under stress . . ."

"We will avoid a confrontation if possible. What we need to do is get communications back on so we can contact Lt. Commander Caraval."

"But I told you we can't-"

"Think of a way!" she ordered sharply. "I need you to do what you're good at and solve this problem, Engineer."

There was a hesitation on the other end before the man replied. "Yes, ma'am."

"Now, we can't head back to the bridge, so once we meet up, we're going to make our way to the-"

An insistent beep in her HUD caught her attention.

"Uh, Lieutenant, does that say that an airlock's been activated?" Tred asked.

". . . it does."

There were a lot of potentially bad reasons for someone to be opening an airlock. Disposing of a body, for one. Or just trying to vent the station to the vacuum. A lot of security existed just to prevent such an eventuality, but that didn't mean they could take it lightly.

"Let's get down there," she said.

"But we don't have any weapons!"

"Then you stay there - or better, head on to the primary bridge engineering node. It's a secure compartment on the deck below the bridge, I'll send you my codes, they will get you access. Get in there and button the room up - weld the doors shut if you have to. Just get the generators on!"

"Yes, ma'am," Tred replied. But he didn't sound very certain of himself.

"You can do it, Tred," she told him. "I believe in your skills."

"Thank you, ma'am," Tred replied, but she didn't think he believed her. "Good luck . . ."

She sent him the codes and moved. Tred should be able to find his way to the engineering section near the bridge. It was a cramped space, a paradise for a technically-inclined officer like him. And due to being so vital it was easily securable. If he could use the heavy manual locks then their mysterious gunman wouldn't be able to force his way in . . .

And she wasn't so sure he was even after them. He'd been scared of her - and chasing the other man. She wasn't about to stake her life on it - nor did she want him to succeed - but it might be important.

She made her way as quickly as she could to the airlock. It had only been three minutes, but that was more than enough time for a fast decompression. Hopefully there was still time for her to help if someone needed it . . .

Red emergency lights were all that lit the tunnel. It was visibly curved, and she crept closer to the airlock. There was no cover here, and she just had to hope.

The system showed that the room was not even decompressed yet. Someone had gone in, but that was all.

No, not someone. Three persons.

Three?

That could be all three of their mysterious individuals; shooter, runner, and the other Dessei.

She looked through the window.

Three beings were standing in there - staring out at space.

Two humans and a Dessei, all male, and all wearing the uniforms of SU officers. But she did not recognize the humans.

"Hey, I can let you out!" she called, pounding on the glass.

There was no reaction, and she tried to connect to the system and open the door. They must have been trapped by the gunman, captured, with the threat of decompression hanging over them.

She was careful to watch for any failsafes, the last thing she wanted was to accidentally kill the three . . .

"Decompression program already running," the system told her.

"What? Did I trip something?" she asked, her heart pounding.

"Negative. Program has been running for five minutes."

"Stop program, open internal doors!"

"Program cannot be interrupted," she system informed her.

"No!" she said. "When does it end, how long do we have?"

"Program is open-ended," the system replied.

What? That made no sense, that meant it was waiting for an input from the three in the room . . .

One of them turned, the Dessei. He was a young male, and his eyes locked onto hers.

His crest rose and fell in a greeting. One of the humans turned, and smiled at her then. A friendly smile like you might offer to any person you met on your day.

Then he pressed the button to activate the airlock.

"No!" she screamed, as the hatch to the vacuum opened.

The blast of air took all three men out. Their bodies tumbled, but on their faces were the same calm expressions, and they stayed frozen that way for as long as she could see them.

The system spoke in her ear. "Program complete. Orders?"

Her mind ran through a dozen potential rescue operations; drones, perhaps. But all of them had been launched for their mission already. She had no space suit on, and even if she could, there was no way she could catch the three and bring them back before they died.

The system queried her again.

She could make no response. Her eyes were stuck on the seconds counting up since the doors had opened.

At fifteen seconds they'd be unconscious.

At thirty she knew they were dead.

Slumping down, she played the events over in her mind. The men had vented themselves; willingly, intentionally. They'd seen her, knew help was near.

But they'd killed themselves.

She didn't even know who they were. Pirates? Thieves? Afraid to be taken alive?

The sound of footfalls made her look up.

She'd been yelling, she realized. It had to draw attention. Stepping away from the door, she watched.

The gunman stepped around the corner, looking first the other way, then down at her.

She was already running, but she heard the shot.

A pain burned in her arm, but she didn't stop, just stumbled. She heard him running, heard him screaming.

"You don't belong here!" he said. His voice was so pitched as to seem mad.

And he was running the other way once again.