| abstract | - “Hey there, kiddies, this is your commander speaking. Tonight’s special will be Mynock stew—special in the sense that it may actually have nutritious value and sauce not made from spare fuel. And to whoever wiped out the ‘embley’ in ‘assembly area’, ha ha ha, we’re all marvelling at your maturity. Until the next time I can get this thing to work, this is Bownam, over and out.” The intercoms chimed out as Zymon followed Danikeen down a gently sloping rock corridor, with signs marked habitation levels pointing down it. Loud Nautolan reggae was blearing out of a music player Danikeen was holding, who was nodding vigorously along with it. Zymon could have sworn that music was banned—but hey, it was obvious even this early that hardly anyone would care here. “Welcome to hab-level.” Announced Danikeen as they entered a corridor lined with numbered metal doors. It reminded Zymon more of a prison, with the pipes lining the rock ceiling dripping and faint pounding sounds coming from somewhere below him. “Lemme introduce you to a few other guys...” They strode down the corridor and came across a door larger than the others, marked ‘ARCHAEO ROOM’. Ignoring the ‘do not disturb’ sign beside it, Danikeen pressed a button on the wall that prompted the door to slide open. “Doctor Gaius Ceden, Department of Military Archaeology. Quite a mouthful huh?” announced Danikeen as he gestured inside. Walking inside, Zymon found himself in a rock-lined room mostly taken up a single round table, covered in scalpels, brushes, and boxes full of archaeologist’s tools. Seated at the table was an unassuming short-haired man in glasses, dressed in plainclothes, inspecting what appeared to be a thin stone tablet. “Uh, hi there.” Said Ceden, waving at Zymon. “You would be...?” “He’s Zymon Anvar. Newbie here. Thought I might as well introduce him to the other civvie on this station.” Said Danikeen before Zymon could open his mouth. “For your information, I’m still technically in the employ of the...” began Ceden firmly. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just show the kid what you’re up to?” Ceden sighed. “Very well. You see, not that long ago, some of the digging teams here uncovered a cadre of what appeared to be Rakatan artifacts—it’s more than likely they had some presence in this system a while back. And, as you know, command wants every been of greenskin tech they can find, so they sent me to this dump to try and make sense of this crap.” “So...what have you found?” asked Zymon softly. “Not much. Hieroglyphs, which, as far as I can tell, are your usual ‘galactic domination is our birthright’ crap. Was an information retrieval specialist back in the old resistance on Havez, you see, and I had to file through streams of such junk on ops. Along with that...” He manipulated a disc-like object on the table before him, and a rotating 3D image of a chunky armored suit appeared suspended above it. “Holoslate image. We’ve no idea how it works, and besides, I haven’t got the tools here to try and find out. That’s an Eradiae—class warsuit, by the way—one of their more early and primitive types of suits, but still packed with chainrails and cyclic ionizers. Looks pretty, but doesn’t do much else, as far as I can tell.” “Cool.” Murmured Zymon. “Yeah, well, think how I must feel. Here I am, stuck in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by asteroid bums who can barely operate a toilet, and I’m supposed to report back ‘significant findings’; to Havez, when all I’ve got is...” “Okay, okay, let’s leave the doctor to his work. Come on, your quarters are just round the next corner.” Following him out of the room, Zymon followed Danikeen further down the corridor, stumbling occasionally on loose floor plating. Archaeologists, barmy SpecOps guys, therapists—quite a collection in this dump at least, he thought absently. He then stopped as he found another large door, this one ajar. Peering inside, he found another small group of guys seated around the table with large glasses. Before he carried on, he suddenly became aware of several details. The portrait of Jasef Yuiln on the wall, supreme leader of the Srav Federation, clean and intact, unlike the one of Invado in the Longue. The crimson flag hanging beside it. The clean and pressed posters on the wall, depicting factories and orbital shipyards in angular, stylized artwork. The deep-set eyes now looking in his direction. Those uniforms. “Uh...what the hell are a group of Sravvies doing in here?” he asked hoarsely. “Them?” said Danikeen casually, backtracking to him. “Oh, they’re officially prisoners here, but they hate other Sravs as much as they hate us—long story—and they’re cool pilots. Downside is, like with all Sravvies, that they’ve all got sticks up their backsides, until you can get ‘em drunk, that is. Spend most of the time mooching around here brooding and gawking at the ceiling, I guess. Watch this. Hey, comrades!” he exclaimed jovially, stepping inside. He gripped one of the meaner-looking Sravs on the shoulder. “Hey, Fydor, my main man! Everything cool?” “Get off.” Growled the Srav. “Vat’s wrong, komrad? You tink I am beink wery unfriendly, yes?” said Danikeen in an exaggerated, faux Sviat accent. He slapped him hard on the back. “Come on, man, lighten up! This ain’t one of your gulags! Don’t you want a jukebox down here at least, or something? I’m some Comrade Yuiln or Comrade Vergulva ain’t gonna disapprove of that!” “Please leave.” The Srav rumbled again. “Hey man, don’t be like that. Just tryin’ to be friendly.” With that Danikeen stepped out as the Sravs cast venomous glances at him, before they carried on down the corridor. “See what I mean? As rock-hard as ol’ Yuiln himself.” Chuckled Danikeen. “Don’t you keep a closer eye on them?” “What’s the point? They can’t exactly overpower the Marine squads here, and even if they did leave, where would they go? Reaching an inhabitable system from here without a good hyperdrive isn’t easy, and even then, their people would just kick them back at us. Or shoot ‘em, more likely. Besides, we got better things to do than watch Sravvies mope around all day...” As they rounded a corner, they found a grizzled man in shades and a bandana around his head putting things into a locker. “Oh, hey. Zymon, meet Voss Sipio—or Guard Dog. He’s in charge of the Hound ship we got stationed here—you did see that on your way in, right?” “Uh, yeah.” “Howdy, kid.” Growled Voss.”Welcome to AB-334. Reception committee was nice?” “I...guess.” “Don’t get too worried about life or death fighting out here, now. Me, I just have to worry about not getting muscle waste from floating around in the zero G in my tub half the day. Rest of the time, it’s worryin’ about how much more beer your bladder can take.” At that moment, an insectoid Verpine quickly scurried by, twittering apologies, as it carried what looked like a box of tools. “Don’t mind them; just engineering’s pets. The kind they use to do all the jobs nobody sane would do, like cleaning out energy conduits and whatnot. You got any questions before I head off to chill?” “Yeah. I saw an Elthior docked here on the way in...” “That’d be the Patronus—saw action at Cul-Huq, damaged, given a half-assed repatch and stationed here with a skeleton crew. Our last line of defence, basically—like we’ll ever need it.” He yawned and stretched. “Be seeing you around, kid.” Danikeen then motioned for Zymon to come and pointed at a door. “Your quarters are in there. Just don’t expect the Hotel Du Corellia.” Stepping through the door, Zymon found him in a small rock-lined room with a single, simple bed, a bedside table, and a single bulb in the ceiling providing illumination. Tired, he immediately slumped down onto the bed. The hell with everything, he thought; all he wanted was a long liedown.
*
* In the lowest levels of the asteroid, deputy chief engineer Carlos Sadern tapped at a datapad as he inspected one of the auxiliary power generators, with spanner-equipped Verpines keeping the rusting machine from falling apart, scurrying over it and screwing in bolts. Giving the tramcar-sized machine a kick out of spite, he stretched and began heading in the direction of the lift to the higher levels. Most of the maintenance gear down here was cobbled-together junk he supposed had been taken from some scrapyard on Havez. And of course, while he tore his hair out directing dumb Verpines and keeping the damn things from falling apart, everyone else sat around drinking beer. Real swell. The lights flickered as a crash came from nearby. Sadern rolled his eyes and turned around—probably one of the Verps or engineer overseers had dropped a metal plate. To his surprise, the Verpine began to scuttle out of the chamber, chattering in alarm. “Hey! Get back here!” he shouted, striking one of them with an electro-baton as it passed. Then, the light went out. “Look, Heyler, this isn’t funny.” He sighed as he activated his shoulder-mounted flashlight. He then became aware of two red pinpricks in the darkness ahead of him. “Wha...” Something fast moved by him, followed by something impaling him right through the chest. As consciousness slipped from him, Sadern collapsed onto the floor, blankly thinking what in the name of the gods that had been.
|
