‘We’re under attack!’ he thought. Up to this point, he still had hope there was some sort of accident. He charged a round into his rifle’s chamber. ‘I needed charge packs,’ he thought, taking cover behind a bulkhead. He aimed at the attacker firing a plasma rifle and fired. The man spun and went down screaming. Slugs and plasma bolts ricocheted wildly off the walls as they returned fire. When the firing stopped, he darted across the corridor, spraying the end of the corridor with slugs, but the men weren’t there. He carefully maneuvered to their former location.
He found a few spent magazines and several charge packs. Eagerly, he tried the charge packs, and the two best brought the plasma rifle up to 30%, enough for a few dozen shots. He noticed black goo soaking into the worn carpet. Hydraulic body armor used a similar fluid for slug and fragment protection. Shots rang out further down the hall. The attackers were moving to the docking arm, the same direction he was heading. It was also the same direction that Sarah was heading. Thinking fast, he climbed the nearest ladder up three levels to deck 14.
His breath tore raggedly in his lungs. He wasn’t in the best shape of his life, but climbing three decks worth of ladders shouldn’t have left him this winded. The air was thinner in this section. He searched four emergency lockers before finding a functional respirator. He fastened it around his face, hearing the low hiss of air. His breathing eased at once. Level 14 was a basic residence level, divided into small cells, not unlike hotel rooms. Graffiti graced the walls, and only every third illumination panel worked. It was eerily deserted. ‘Poor people always have better survival instincts,’ he mused. The dingy carpet tiles muffled his footfalls as he jogged, scanning for direction signs.
At an intersection, the signage indicated C section, cells 1 to 15 were off to the right. He turned down the corridor just in time to see Sarah exiting her cell. Her pack was stuffed to the brim, emergency respirator strapped to her face.
“Sarah!” he called out.
Sarah spun reflexively, startled “Takk fyrir!”
Relief flooded through him as he quickly visually inspected her for injuries. The alarms changed tone. A series of low thumps sounded through the bulkheads. Lifeboats were being launched. Only the upper levels where the more affluent station dwellers lived had access to lifeboats. The station crew and everyone else had to head to the docking arm and pray there were enough ships berthed to take them.
“Lifeboats? Holy frek! What’s happening?” she asked.
“It’s an attack,” he said, pulling her down the passageway. “Shooters. They’ve headed toward the docking arm.”
She pulled him up short. “Shooters? Like with guns?”
He held his rifle up, “Guns. Probably pirates or a raiding party.” They continued toward their destination.
“Why would anyone attack us? We’re a transfer station, we have almost nothing,” she protested.
“We’ll discuss that later when we’re safely on my ship redlining the engines on our way out of the system. Let’s go!” he said, pulling her down the hall. He took point, making sure intersections were clear as they passed. The corridors were now ominously devoid of people. They stopped at a service level leading down to lower decks where the docking arm mated to the station’s superstructure.
“I’ll go first. The shooters were headed this way,” he said, hopping onto the ladder. Riordan reached the bottom and scanned the smoky darkness with his thermal sight. Illumination on this level was out.
“Clear!” He called up to Sarah.
They repeated this several more times until they reached deck 4, the same level as the docking arm.
“In case we get separated,” he said, holding out a key-card, “Plug this into the Navcomp. It’s encoded to start the engines and prep the ship for flight. Once you hit the big red button on the pilot’s console, it’ll take you to the nearest inhabited system. It’s all automated. Tar knows how to pilot; he’ll take care of the rest. Where is he?” He’d noticed she’d been checking her outdated holocon constantly.
She tucked the card into the pocket of her jacket. “I messaged him to meet us at your ship, he’s probably already there,” she said, avoiding eye contact.
Nodding, he headed out. Sarah followed, her face pensive. Gravity fluctuated several times before they reached the promenade. Sarah was never more thankful for mag boots being mandatory on stations. The number of people they met increased. The promenade was a designated safe area. Anyone unable to access the escape boats on the higher levels would head here. The promenade had only four entrances, each secured with large internal airlocks. This allowed it to be isolated from the rest of the station in case of an emergency such as a fire or a hull breach.
A large crowd of people was excitedly milling about outside the airlock leading to the promenade. Most were dressed in night clothes and had various injuries. Shouts of alarm went up at the sight of their weapons. The crowd surged away from them. Sarah scanned the crowd for Keve’s face in vain. ‘Where was he?’ she thought anxiously.
Thinking fast, Riordan started shouting. “Calm down, station security! Make way!” he shouldered his way into the crowd. “Form lines, one over there,” he pointed to the left, “and one over here,” he pointed to the right. “Move it, let’s go!”
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
The pair pushed their way to the airlock control panels.
“Why aren’t you cycling the airlock? Every second counts!” he asked a man in a flight suit with serious burns along his left arm, staffing the console.
“Oh frek, security! Thank God! Guys with guns, that’s why!” he replied shakily.
Riordan pressed his face to the port on the outer airlock door. “I don’t see anyone now,” all he saw were bodies lying on the floor and people huddling behind what cover they could find.
“They went down the docking arm,” the man said.
“How long ago?” Riordan asked. “Hey, how long ago?”
“About three minutes!”
“They’re gone! They left! Cycle the airlock!” Riordan commanded. “Sarah, clear the door. We’re going to cycle the airlock and secure the promenade so we can all evacuate! Back the frek up! Clear the door!”
The crowd pulled back to form lines. The airlock door hissed closed. The pressure equalized, popping their ears. Riordan crouched near the left side and indicated for Sarah to do the same on the right side. “Did your dad ever teach you to shoot?” he asked.
“A long time ago,” she replied. “Once.”
He slid his slug pistol across the airlock floor to her. “Good enough. Safety is off and you have eight rounds. Make them count.”
The outer door hissed open. Riordan bolted out first, taking cover behind an upturned table. He checked for life signs on the man on the floor but found nothing. He scanned the promenade, but aside from sobbing and low cries of pain, he couldn’t detect a threat.
“Is it safe?” Sarah called from the airlock.
Riordan stood. “It’s clear! Start cycling people in!”
Riordan and Sarah stood guard as people rushed from the first cycling of the airlock. They tended to the wounded and helped others to their feet. Beside him Sarah seemed to be searching the crowd for someone.
“Where’s the real security forces?” she asked.
“Most likely dead if they aren’t here,” he replied. “Let’s get the ship ready to take on passengers.”
As Sarah fought her way through the crowd to the docking arm, Riordan tried to control the chaos. She climbed the turnstiles, the only thing keeping the crowd from swarming into the docking arm. The control booth was on the other side, the operators and guards lying dead on the decking. Two of the dead looked like shooters. She disappeared down the docking arm. Sarah returned a few minutes later.
“The ship is open, and I stuck the card in the Navcomp thing, what now?” Sarah said through the bars of the operator’s booth.
Riordan felt the station listing. The groans of over-stressed metal echoed ominously. He couldn’t be sure, but that loud noise a few seconds ago was either another explosion or a section of the station venting into space.
“We evacuate. Women and children first. Open the cargo gate when I say.” he said, indicating the large gate that separated the two turnstiles.
Riordan stood in front of the gate, having successfully formed the women and children into one line, and men in another. He yelled to Sarah, and she opened the gate. At Riordan’s urging, the women and children rushed forward into the docking arm. A man wearing technician’s fatigues ran at Riordan, trying to get past him. Riordan stepped to the side and felled the man with a strike from the butt-stock of his weapon. The man dropped to the floor in a heap.
“I said women and children first! The next man that tries to get past me gets blasted!” he yelled, shouldering his slug rifle. Riordan noticed the airlock hadn’t cycled again.
“Sarah, why did the airlock stop?” Sarah scanned the control panel in confusion. “I’m showing no atmosphere behind all four airlocks. They’re on safety lock-down,” she replied, a look of horror painting her face. ‘So many people,’ she thought.
A man ran up to Riordan, hands over his head. “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”
It was the man from the airlock. Riordan kept his weapon trained on the man.
“Get back, goddamnit!"
“I’m Kevin Jarvis, captain of the ‘Deuces Wild.’ I need to get to my ship!”
Riordan glanced back along the docking arm corridor at the stream of refugees. There was more than the Swindler could handle by herself.
“Are you willing to take survivors?” he asked.
“Women and children first!” he replied as Riordan let him pass.
“That’s bullshit!” another man shouted, storming toward Riordan.
RATATATATAT! Riordan fired the slug rifle over their heads. The crowd momentarily fell back but surged forward again. Riordan emptied the slug rifle’s magazine as he fell back. He was careful to pull his aim high, but they kept coming. He screamed for Sarah to close the cargo gate and slipped through just in time. The crowd was now a mob, mindless in its collective fury to survive at any cost. As the pair fought their way down the long docking arm, he recognized a face.
“Gloriana! Over here!”
She glanced up, arms around a limping young woman. She passed her off to someone else and re-positioned the large medical bag slung from her shoulder.
“Atticus, what’s going on?” she asked, giving him a quick grateful embrace.
“No time to talk, come with us,” he said, pulling her along.
They pushed their way into the Swindler’s airlock. Gloriana immediately started organizing triage for the injured. The station shuddered, and their ears popped. The emergency hatch at the end of the docking arm closed with an audible clang. Riordan shuddered in horror as the faces on the other side of the porthole contorted in soundless agony before falling away.
“We gotta go!” he yelled, shoving people into the swindler’s airlock. The much smaller crowd was suddenly a crush. Panicked, he tried to close the outer airlock door, but it was blocked by all the people. He anxiously waited for the last of the nearby survivors to stumble into the airlock before sealing the doors. Almost immediately muffled banging could be heard. He stepped back and sealed the inner airlock door.
The mingled scents of acrid smoke and coppery blood hung heavily in the air. His breath heaved in his lungs, and his mouth flooded with saliva. He splattered the deck plates with vomit. He stood up straight, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“What did you do?” a middle-aged woman with sweat-slick hair asked incredulously. She was cradling one of the last-minute children, its eyes blank and catatonic with shock, but alive.
“What I had to,” he said, ejecting the spent magazine from the slug rifle before letting it clatter to the deck.