Max Hayes: Getting R

I woke up and found myself in the co-pilot seat our ship. I rubbed my eyes and looked outside. A red star was visible in the left corner of our cockpit window.
“Had a good sleep?” Kevin asked amused.
“Are we there yet?”
“Almost,” Kevin said calm
We were approaching an asteroid field near the planet known as Carst. The red star was HD 548325 or Carst’s Big Red.
“Ah, my neck,” I said as I moved my head left and right, through the cramp.
“Didn’t want to wake you up,” Kevin explained.
“I’ll live.”
Looking out of the cockpit, I could see stars in the distance started to disappear behind an object we were approaching fast. Carst was a black gas planet. Once upon a time moon of its exploded or something and left a huge asteroid field in orbit. From the exhaust coming from the nose of the ship I could see we were already braking hard. I checked the clock; we would be on time.
Carst slowly grew to fill half the window until our speed became trivial in relation to it.
“We’re here,” Kevin said.
Looking outside, I could, at times, see an asteroid in the distance as we flew through the field. I couldn’t tell the distance but this was one of the densest asteroid fields I had ever seen. At some point Kevin even made a small course correction to do a close fly by of an asteroid near our path. We slowed down and passed it at a couple of kilometres on it sun side. It had the grey surface like so many asteroids had and wasn’t that big, but I always found it an impressive sight to see these huge objects floating in the nothingness of space.
“A little bit of sightseeing,” Kevin said while he accelerated the ship again after the asteroid passed out of view.
“Yeah.”
I checked the scanner, which didn’t show anything yet, besides countless asteroids of course.
“We’re eight minutes out from the meeting point,” Kevin explained.
“I’ll give them a call.”
After setting the radio to the right frequency and its lowest output I turned it on.
“Bulldog this is Chesty, come in.”
I tried again a minute later.
“Bulldog this is Chesty, come in Bulldog.”
“Maybe they’re running late,” Kevin suggested.
“It wouldn’t be the first time.”
Liwanu had a habit of showing up late at appointments, or not at all. We were actually half an hour early at this point and only because we waited six hours off the system.

When we arrived at the agreed location, an especially large asteroid, I turned up the output from the radio a little and checked the frequency once more.
“Bulldog this is Chesty, come in.”
Still no response.
“And now, we wait.” Kevin said with a sigh.
“Come on man, what does it matter?”
Meeting up in the middle of nowhere, in space that is, was hard to time. The flight here had taken us over two days and we were six hours early, but we had had a swift departure and an uninterrupted flight. If they had left a little late and had some slowdowns on the way we could be waiting here a couple more hours.

“I just don’t want to wait here a day and then have to fly back for nothing.”
“I’m sure he’ll be here soon.”
“Right.”
“I’ll watch the ship for a while. You can take a brake.”
“Thanks, I really need to go to the toilet. Leave the engines on standby,” Kevin said as he walked out of the cockpit. “Oh, I’m gonna make something to eat, can I bring you anything?”
“No I’m good. Maybe I can land the ship on the asteroid,” I suggested.
Kevin stopped and turned around, “Do not land on an asteroid. If we have time I’ll show you how to do it later.”
“Aye aye, captain,” I said with a smile. I wondered what the big problem was.
After my third yawn I turned on some music and took a bottle of cola from a small storage next to the chair.

After half an hour Kevin returned to the cockpit carrying a book.
“Anything new?” Kevin asked.
“No.”
“Want to land on an asteroid?”
“Yeah sure, if it’s not to dangerous.”
“It isn’t. You can power up the engines, but let me strap in,” Kevin said. After he strapped himself in, Kevin opened his book and started reading.
I turned down the music and powered up the engines.
“Ready?” Kevin asked while glancing over his book.
“Ready.”
“Slowly manoeuvred us towards the asteroid as if we were approaching a station,” Kevin instructed coolly.
I turned the ship towards the asteroid and applied a little thrust.
About a kilometre away from the asteroid I started to bring the ship to a halt, but Kevin interrupted.
“Don’t stop, just keep going,”
“Okay.”
This asteroid was a several kilometres in diameter. As I neared its surface, the few craters which had seemed like small dents from afar turned out to be big enough to land our ship in. Some smaller craters became visible but overall the surface was smooth. At the point the ground, right in front of the ship was, according to the instrument, thirty meters away, I again brought the ship back to a halt and looked at Kevin.
“Well,” he said as he put his book down, “first off, there is no gravity on an asteroid, zero.”
“Understood.” I knew this of course.
“There’s a little of course, but you get the idea.”
“So you can just fly up to it?”
“Right, if it’s not turning of course. Now, before you land on it, you should check if the surface is solid enough. See, because of the low gravity, dust can sometimes be very loosely packed on these things. You can sink a ship in it if you let it touchdown.”
“Won’t the thrusters throw up the sand.”
“Well they would, but you don’t always use them close by, because there is no gravity. The rule is: inspect the surface before you land, just like you always do.”
“And, how can I see if it’s solid.”
“Well, it’s not always easy to see. Activate your downward thrusters briefly just before you land and see what happens, if you’re not sure. If you do sink, you can usually easily fly out of it, but this one is solid.”

“So how do we land?”
Well because there is no gravity, so the artificial horizon will not work, so you’ll have to set it yourself manually to the surface of the asteroid if you want to use it.”
“Can’t you do it without?”
“Well you could, but with a big ship you might not be able to see the ground from the cockpit when you’re level. Also on a small asteroid you might not be able to see it at all.”
After setting a horizon along the surface in the ships computer, I pulled up the ship until it was level.
“Now just try to land the ship softly,” Kevin said.
After extending the landing gear, I let the ship slowly descend towards the surface and carefully touched it down. My first asteroid landing; this was much easier than a planet.
“Nice, now you have to generate just a little downward thrust to keep the ship pressed against the asteroid.”
“How much?”
“The minimal increment is enough for this ship. The funny thing is this thrust actually pushes the asteroid a little, so if it’s small and you stay long enough you actually change its orbit.”
“That sounds pretty scary.”
“That’s why it’s forbidden to land on asteroids in some places.”
“Aha.” Accidentally crashing an asteroid on a planet was probably a bad thing.
“Anyway, keeping the ship on the surface is the important thing to remember when landing on an asteroid. Otherwise the ship might start to float off on an unguarded moment.”
“Like when you’re outside.”
“For example. Also if it’s floating the ship might turn and crash some other part into the surface.”
“I got it. What do we do now?”
“We can stay here for a while.” Kevin said.

Which we did for several hours. I took some pictures of the landscape. The grey surface around the ship was very bright.

“Liwanu were are you?” Kevin asked out loud, the moment I stepped back into the cockpit.
“I tried the radio again half an hour ago,” I responded. “If they are anywhere in this field they would have picked it up.”
“You can take off and fly around a little if you like,” Kevin said as he left the cockpit.
I took off and slowly flew across the asteroid for a while first. After having flown around the asteroid several times, I flew off and started flying through the field, both for flying practice and to explore it a little. It was a nice diversion, I had flown many times before but the asteroids made it more fun. There wasn’t a huge chance of hitting them, but they provided a nice point of reference to do some acrobatic manoeuvres. Around stations flight is heavily regulated and in the emptiness of space just flying around quickly becomes dull.

At some point I had stopped the acrobatics and was simply flying from asteroid to asteroid. I had only just turned on the active scanner, just to check if Liwanu might be around somewhere, when an alarm went of in the cockpit. The scanner had picked up the signature of a partly metallic object, likely man made. It was located on an asteroid deeper in the field. I turned on the intercom.

“Kevin, I got something on the scanner.”
Moments later Kevin arrived in the cockpit.
“What have we got?”
“Don’t know. Scanner picked up a signature. It doesn’t look like a ship.”
“Could be some debris on the asteroid.”
Kevin strapped himself in. We were moving in the approximate direction of the object but it still was far away. Kevin was clearly thinking hard as he inspected the signature on the monitor. The system we were in was a remote one, so you had to be careful. In addition at least some people knew we would be here and what cargo we had with us. I was curious though and so was Kevin.
“Check it out?” Kevin asked after having inspected the image for a couple of minutes.
“Fine with me.” At least we would have something to do.
We maintained our course. After only a couple of minutes and one quarters of the distance, we lost the signature.
“Could be obscured by the asteroid.” Kevin said. He changed course to a more direct path towards the asteroid. The signature reappeared as we neared it. It was highly likely man made, according to the scanner. From the monitor it seemed like the object was located in a crevasse of the asteroid. If anything, this made me more excited. The idea it might be intentionally hidden in there spelled danger, but it also made me allot more curious.
There was no way we were going to leave now.
“I’m taking her in for a closer look,” Kevin said.
The asteroid came into visual range and as we approached further a huge crack in it became visible. The asteroid was several hundreds of meters in size. Two kilometres from the asteroid Kevin brought the ship to a halt.
“Any idea what it is?” I asked Kevin, who was also inspecting the image on the monitor.
“It’s something alright,” he said, “it could be anything.”
“Get closer?” I asked, while pondering myself whether this was the smart thing to do.
“I might put a mine in there, just for the curious people like ourselves.”
“I see.”
Kevin moved the ship more in front of the opening of the crack in the asteroid while keeping our current distance. It was dark inside but on the monitor a much bigger part of the object became visible. The monochrome picture on the monitor now showed a number of sharp lines running parallel to each other, with alternating dark and brighter surfaces in between them. On one side of the image some other lines were visible, perpendicular to the alternating bright and dark surfaces, which seemed to mark an edge of this side of the object. The object was still obscured but the dimensions displayed in the monitor suggested it was at least twelve meters in size.
“This could be interesting,”
“Doesn’t look like a ship; it wouldn’t be my first guess at least,” Kevin said, “if it is, it’s powered down.”
“What would be your first guess?”
“Container.”

It was the most obvious possibility. Smugglers sometimes stashed their goods on an asteroid or some moon for a while. We had come across such a stash before.
“Well only one way to find out.”
“I don’t know,” Kevin said a bit worried.
“We’ll recon first. I’m going to get down there in my space suit.” “Alright?”
Kevin looked doubtful for a moment.
“Alright. I can do it,” Kevin said, “You stay here and watch the ship.”
“Yes, let’s get the best pilot in a spacesuit while the person with the most experience with spacewalks stays in the ship…as a pilot.” I said while unhooking my seatbelt.
“Point taken,” Kevin said composed.
“I’m going to get my suit,” I said as I walked out of the cockpit.
I opened a built in closet just behind the cockpit. It held a device on which you could hang your spacesuit in a way you could jump into it fast. I stripped down and pushed a button on the side of closet. This caused a number of bars, going into the leg and arms parts, to stretch those to a preset dimension allowing me to slide in more easily. After stepping in the suit from the back, a button, you could just reach with your hand, released and retracted the bars out of the suit, leaving me standing with the suit on. I grabbed a small wire on the back of the suit connected to a heavy zipper and pulled it up. An audible click told me the zipper was completely closed and locked. After grabbing it from the top shelf in front of me and turning it on, I put on my helmet. It’s always a lot of fiddling to get it attached to the right flaps in the collar to make it airtight. To make use of this device for its intended purpose, you should of course have the helmet already attached to the suit or at least be quickly attachable. After closing the last attachment point, a small blue HUD in the lower part of my visor indicated the helmet was properly attached. I pressurized the helmet. Oxygen supply and power looked good.
“Radio check.”
“Loud and clear Max.”
I put on the vest standing on the side of the closet. It contained oxygen, a power supply and a rebreather unit, but so did my helmet. In addition it also contained and an ISP unit, which I would need to fly over there. I attached the cables of the vest to the back of my helmet and opened a smaller closet next to the first one. After putting a gun in the holster on my belt and loading up some small explosives, I was set. I might of course need a welding tool at some later point.
“I’m ready Kevin.”
“Roger.”
I walked over to the airlock on the side of the ship
“I’m stepping into the airlock.”
“Roger. Good luck and be careful.”
“I’ll be fine.”

Using the ISP, I bridged the two kilometres to the asteroid. Looking back I couldn’t see the ship anymore. My own breathing and a slight hum of the helmet were the only sounds I could hear. Space could be scary this way.

“Approaching the asteroid,” I said.
“Roger, Got you on scanner.”
“Good, moving to the ravine.”
I hovered myself over the opening in the asteroid, which was a hundred meters wide at this point, and peered into the gorge. The inside of it was obscured from the sun and completely dark. I turned on my helmet and suit lights and started scanning the inside of the gorge. The gorge was a little narrower and wider here and there, but kept about the same width throughout. As the light illuminated the walls of the gorge, I could see the inside had the same black grey rock as the outside of the asteroid. At some point the beam of my helmet light illuminated a metallic object on the side of the gorge.
“I see it.”
“What is it?”
“Can’t see from here, I’m moving in closer.”
“Roger.”
I flew into the gorge, with the suit light on my shoulders illuminating the walls around me. First it I thought it was indeed a container, a pretty big one, attached to one side of the gorge, but as I neared, I could see it was actually built in to the rock.
It looked like a hangar door.
“It looks like a door,” I said energetically.
The thing was about sixty meter wide and thirty meters in height. It closed of a box shaped structure protruding through the side of the gorge. Some beams ran from the edges of the door back into the rock, probably for support.
“Looks like someone made a dock here.”
“How big is it?” Kevin asked.
“Can’t see. It’s built into the asteroid, but the Falcon could fly into it sideways.”
“Damn,” Kevin said, “that’s quite the hideout.”
It was. It was also well hidden here. I probably wouldn’t have picked it up on scanner if I wasn’t so close or had been flying at a different angle to the asteroid. Someone had made allot of effort in constructing it.
“I wonder if anybody’s home.”
There was no way to tell if someone was in there of course. If there were they would likely not be very welcoming to strangers. I was thinking smugglers, pirates maybe. If it was a smuggler stash it would be unoccupied for most of the time.
“Don’t see any defences, by the way.”
“Want me to come in?” Kevin asked.
“No, hold there for a while.”
“Roger. Maybe Liwanu will come flying out of there in half an hour,” Kevin said partly joking.
“Could be.”
“Best be careful Max.”
I tried to use my arms to stop me as I reached an edge of the box protruding through the rock, but I underestimated my own speed a little causing me to tumble across the edge, across the front of the door. I had to brake and stabilize myself with the ISP.
“What’s happening down there!?” Kevin said.
“Nothing, I’m fine.”
There were no markings on the door. I moved myself further away from it and noticed a small round hatch to the left of it, or to the right of it of course, I couldn’t tell at this point. I moved up close.

“There’s a hatch here.” “Next to it there’s a panel. Wait a minute.” There was a handle on the panel. I pulled it out which allowed me to open the panel. “There’s a control panel here and what seems like connection for a big power cable.”
“Probably to supply power to the station,” Kevin suggested plain.
A red light blinked on the control panel, which was otherwise unresponsive.
“Sorry Max,” Kevin said laughing.
“No, I like this theory of yours, captain,” I said amused. “The panel is dead by the way, whatever it’s for.”
I instead started turning the wheel on the outside of the hatch. It slowly moved outwards until air started escaping out of wide holes around its edges. I continued to turn the wheel after the flow of air died off. After it could turn no further, I turned the big lever next to it, which allowed me to open the hatch. It gave entry to a small tube, large enough for normal sized person in a spacesuit to crawl through. This airlock was made to allow entry from the outside without anybody being inside, a good sign.
“Kevin, I’ve opened an airlock here.”
“Okay Max, any sign of activity.”
“No, no activity.”
“Standby, I’m moving in the ship.”
“Standing by.”
I used the time to place a small explosive on the hinge of the hatch.
“I’m moving into the asteroid,” Kevin said, “I see some lights up ahead.”
“That’s me.”
Only the cockpit lights were visible as Kevin manoeuvred the ship through the gorge.
“Almost there, I see you. Turning on the ship’s lights.” Suddenly the walls around us burned in the bright white light. The ship slowed down while making a ninety degree turn, positioning itself with the nose directly toward the hangar door.
“Priming weapons,” Kevin said. A double hatch opened on the top side of the ship just behind the cockpit and small turret folded out of it.
A colourful paintjob made our C144 look like the civilian variant.
“Okay I’m moving into the airlock.” I pulled myself into the small tube.
“Can you close it?” Kevin asked after I had entered it completely.
It was an excellent question, because the tube was to narrow for me to turn around and close the hatch. After moving back outside a little, I grabbed the wheel on the inside of the hatch and moved back inside. Pulling in my knees one by one, gave me just enough space to close the hatch behind me. After locking it, I started to move forward through the tube until I reached the next hatch. I placed another explosive on the hinge of this one.
“I’m ready,” I said before turning the wheel.
“Ready here.”
“Opening the airlock.”
Air started flowing in after a few full turnes of the wheel. Before turning any further I placed the detonator of the explosive on the outside hatch in my hand, just in case.

I slowly pushed the hatch open. It revealed a small, well lit, three by three room. I could feel the grav-plating pulling my arms up as I opened the hatch completely. After turning upside down, I crawled out and slowly stood up straight. I took a while before my balance returned.

“I’m out of the airlock, no activity yet.”
“Roger.”
A small window in the door on the opposite side of the room looked out into a narrow tunnel. It seemed to be cut out into the rock of the asteroid itself. There were no lights but I could see some grav-plating placed on the floor.
“There’s a long tunnel here.” I said as I placed the detonator back into a pocket of my belt.
I closed the hatch behind me before opening the door. This would allow Kevin to follow me if need be, and as long as I would leave all the other doors open behind me, I would still be able to cause some serious health problems for anybody not wearing a complete spacesuit by the press of two buttons. Thinking about this, I realized the door towards the tunnel opened towards the outside so any big rush of air might close it. Luckily the design of the door allowed me to apply the heavy mechanical lock when it was open, which would prevent it from closing.
The beam of helmet light scanned through the length of the tunnel, which was rougly a hundred meters in length. At the end a dim light fell into it from the left. I took out my gun and started to slowly move into the tunnel. Along both sides of the floor a number of cables ran through the length of it.
“Moving into the structure.”
“Roger, be careful.”
“Will do.”
As I neared the end of the tunnel and the left turn I turned of my suit lights. They weren’t really helping my stealthy entry, but I hadn’t brought any night vision goggles. It was more of an old habit which had me at least bring my gun; I just brought the charges to blow up any attachments to the asteroid to the small smuggler container like we first expected to find.
“You still there Max?” Kevin asked a little tense.
“Still here, no activity.”
As I carefully turned the corner I looked into a much broader hallway, several meters high and wide, running parallel to the tunnel. It was clearly cut out in the rock as well but there were steel supports along the walls and ceiling. Underneath the ceiling supports hang dim yellow lights.
I checked both sides from the tunnel entrance, it was clear. To the right it ran on for forty meters before it ended at an intersection. To the left, which led into the direction of the gorge, it was blocked off by a big heavy door, about twenty meters from the tunnel entrance I was standing in.
“Kevin, I think I’m standing just behind the dock.”
A crude control panel with three big buttons next to the door showed a green light, probably indicating the dock was pressurized.
“I’m going to open it, standby.”
“Roger.”
I pressed the top button. The door started moving. I quickly moved backwards to the tunnel entrance and held position there while the door very slowly opened upwards under the sound of soft metallic clanks. Although extremely badly lit, this was definitely the dock. Just a few soft blue emergency lights around what must be the hangar door on the other end shone into the large room.

“I’m looking into the dock. It’s dark, if anybody’s home they’re not working here.” This was good. I turned on my helmet lights and started moving towards the dock again. As more of the dock became visible, I saw the dark shape of a huge object standing in the dock.
“Kevin,” I said a bit nervous, “there is a big ship here.”
“Okay,” Kevin said calm.
It almost spanned the entire length of the dock and filled over two thirds of the height. I shone my helmet light across the hull, it was painted in a desert sand color. The main fuselage stood only half a meter from the ground supported by relatively small pivots as landing gear. Overall the ship was made up of rectangular shapes. It was clearly build for spaceflight primarily, and solid and even landing zones. I started walking along the ship towards the hangar door and the front of the ship. The pilot had landed it with the nose towards the hangar door.
“Max?” Kevin asked.
“Still here. The place looks abandoned.”
“Somebody parked the ship there,” Kevin responded.
“I know Kevin.”
The cockpit of the ship was dark. I looked back into the hallway it, still no visuals, or any sounds for that matter.
“Trying to find the door controls.” They were probably in the back of the dock. I turned around and moved to the back again and started walking around the back of the ship. The ship had a V shape, with incrementally wider sections towards the back of the ship.
Behind the ship on the back wall of the dock, I spotted a window. It was located near the corner opposite to where the hallway entered the dock.
“Think I found the control room. See if I can let you in.”
“Sounds great.”
I walked back towards the hallway and pressed the bottom button on a similar panel on this side of the door, which did nothing, and then the middle one, which caused the door to start closing slowly. Just as I started walking towards the control room, I spotted something lying in front of the window. The rest of the floor was completely empty so it immediately caught my attention. It looked like a number of short spikes sticking upward.
As I moved closer I could see the spikes were arranged into two rows. These rows of spikes, I saw as I moved even closer, curved back along the ground towards each other and linked to a central spine, which was in fact was, a part of, an actual spine. The ground in the area around it was colored in a black red stain.
“Kevin, we might have a problem,” I said. Meanwhile I started scanning the entire dock. This was clearly a bad sign.
“What is it?”
I kneeled down to look under the ship. There was nothing there.
“I just found part of a crewmember lying on the floor.”
“Dead?”
“Yes.” At this moment the beam of my helmet light moved across something while I was scanning the ceiling. I turned my head to get back on it again. Something was hanging from a beam in the ceiling, just above the ship. A moment later I had it in the centre of the light cone. My mind seemed to immediately recognise it, but it took second or two to actually sink in. It was a reech. I immediately turned away my gaze and turned of my suit lights, but it was too late. In the feint blue glow from the lights around the hangar door I could see it started to move. It’s two long limbs attached to the back of the body released the beam and hung down into hangar, while it four shorter ones started to vigorously grapple around the beam slowly turning its small body towards me. When it had made a quarter turn, its front limbs hanging on one side of the beam and the middle ones on the other, it started the scream which had given it its name. It was high pitched and loud, and quite terrifying. My gun shocked in my hands as I fired several shots at the creature. It fell down on top of the ship and out of my sight.

“Got some Reeches here.” At this point some more screams started coming from several places in the dock.
“Reeches?”
“Standby.”
I ran back towards hallway door. A small scream emerged from above, several meters in front of me, just above the door. A big one dropped itself to the floor. Its limbs thrashed through the air as it tried to right itself. I started shooting while moving closer at the same time. After seven shots or so it stopped moving altogether.
I reached the control panel and, with my left hand already over it, quickly glanced through the dock, from where the screams were still coming. I saw several more dropping down from the ceiling, some of them falling on the ship. If I opened the door now they might wake up more of their friends. I took my hand away from the control panel and gripped my gun. The reeches silhouetted nicely against the blue lights lining the hangar door on the other side of the dock as they dashed across it towards me. They moved quite fast on their own, I took down a lone one which had landed halfway across the dock and sprinted towards me, but they had the tendency of grouping up and forming their characteristic battle lines. Two of them had come together and were doing exactly that, lined up shoulder to shoulder, with their long hind limbs raised in the air and curling forward in front of them. They would still have a nice speed but you could just out run them, if you had the space. I gunned them down and another one sprinting towards me along the long wall. After shooting one which had just jumped of the top of the ship, I could still hear one screaming from direction of the ship. Kneeling down low I could see it scurrying under it, but it didn’t seem to know were to go. I shot it as well and the dock was quiet again.
“I think I got most of them.”
“Do you need any help?”
“I’m fine. There were just a few of them.”
After turning on my suit lights I scanned the ceiling a last time. I spotted a small paw emerging from behind a beam. This little bugger was a little smarter perhaps, being all quiet and hiding. I ran underneath it and started firing straight up; I stepped back as it fell down before me. They could be really dangerous in big groups or if they caught you by surprise.
“I’m going to open the door.”
“Roger.”
I carefully walked back towards the control room. While looking at the ribcase on the floor, I passed by the window. A loud bang from behind the window gave met the scare of my live. As I turned towards the window I was looking straight at a reech which had just smashed himself against the glass, its pointy long limbs clawing against it. It seemed to be alone in there. The door of the control room slid open, after pushing a button next to it. I walked back, away from the door, waiting for the thing to come out. I took a while but eventually it stepped outside.

I stepped over its carcass into the control room and flicked a light switch, which activated a small dim blue emergency lamp in a corner of the room. The floor was littered with loose bones and blood, with the latter also being spattered on the walls.

A small monitor and key pad were fixed to the wall just beneath the window. I went through the menus in an attempt to open the doors, but the system made it clear there was problem with the power supply to the dock.
“Kevin,” I said a bit exhausted, “the dock is out of power. I can’t open the door.”
“Okay, too bad,” Kevin said, “I can shoot big enough hole in this thing. If I fire from above or below no projectiles would fly directly into the structure. How long is this dock?”
“I don’t know, sixty, seventy meters.”
“And you’re all the way in the back.”
“That’s right, in a sealable control room. I could move further back into the structure if need be.”
“Well as long as this base doesn’t belong to someone we like, of course,” Kevin pondered.
“They would have bigger problems than a broken door. I found a second body, or what’s left of it.”
I realized if we would later want to move deeper into structure, we would depressurize it by opening the hallway door with the hangar door shot open. This would kind of suck for any survivors still back there. The blood on the walls was dry and dark, so it could have been a while since they got killed, making survivors less likely, but then again all you needed to do was close yourself in a room with a good door to be safe from these animals.
“Let me think about this for a minute,” I said over the radio.
I walked into the dock again towards the hallway door and pushed my helmet mikes against it. It didn’t sound like a dozen of reeches were hanging around the other side. After pressing the top button on the panel, the door started to slowly open. I lay down on the floor and looked through the slowly widening gap between it and the floor. The hallway was empty. I moved towards the intersection on the other end of it, where a similar hallway ran perpendicular to this one. Having reached the intersection I could see one side it ran into a blind wall with only small door which seemed to be airtight and locked. This is what I was looking for. In the opposite direction the hallway ran on before making a turn again deeper into the asteroid.
“Kevin, you can get into position to blow the dock, but wait for my signal.”
“Moving into position.”
“Oh and shoot at the right side of the door or you might damage the ship inside. I think you might like it.”
“The right side being?”
“Sorry. The side were the hatch is located.”
“Got it.”

“In position.” Kevin said a few moments later while I was just approaching the turn.
“Great. I just need to check one thing out.”
I walked up to the corner and looked around staring into a completely dark chamber. A heavy door, like the one closing of the dock, was located in front of it, but it was opened halfway. As silent as possible I walked up to the panel on the outside, in an attempt not to wake up any possible reeches sleeping inside. At this point I was actually thought there might be another power problem which had caused the door to be opened halfway. This concerned me because it would prevent me from closing of this part of the station. It wouldn’t be an unsolvable problem; we could still use the hatch on the outside, if we wanted to get into the station without depressurizing it entirely, but this would somewhat defeat the purpose of blowing open the hangar.

However, all these thoughts were premature. Because as I pushed the middle button to close the door, it became clear the door wasn’t stuck halfway because of a power problem, but because it was broken. Where there had been the sound of soft metallic clanks at the other door, there was a loud thunderous rattle of broken mechanical gears on this one. I was already pushing the other buttons, which did make it stop, but it was too late. Only seconds later I heard the first high pitched scream.
The first reech appeared before opening. I gunned it down as I ran backwards, but more of them quickly appeared. I kept firing until I reached the corner.
“I’ve got reeches, be ready!” I yelled as I turned and started running towards the intersection.
“Okay, I’m ready.”
As I reached the intersection I could hear more behind me. Arriving at the corner I halted and looked back. The moment I started firing there were only five in the hallway, but by the time I had gunned them down, many more were rushing in. At the same time the screaming from the room behind them became louder and louder, as more and more seemed to join in. I started running for the dock, but after ten meters or so I could hear some coming up behind me. I turned around to shoot as the reeches reached the intersection. I kept shooting as I walked backwards; these were all lone ones and they would overtake me if I didn’t take care of them. At some point a line of them rounded the corner. After shooting the last loner in front of it, I turned around and started sprinting for the dock while constantly glancing over my shoulder. On a regular basis a lone one would break free forcing me to turn and shoot, which allowed the others to gain on me.
“How many are there?” Kevin asked interested. He sounded only a little concerned.
“Many.”
As I reached the dock the hallway was practically filled with line after line of reeches, the closest less then twenty meters behind me.
“Max, what’s happening in there?!”
I hit the panel next to the door as I ran into the gloomy dock. I made a turn and continued to run towards the control room. Behind me, I could hear the door slowly closing. I knew it wouldn’t be fast enough to prevent at least dozens of reeches entering the dock. When they did lots of them broke out of formation, swarming the dock.
I kept on running and I reached the back of the ship, which would give me a little more cover. At that point there was a sudden high scream right behind me. I spun around firing panicked shots with one hand into an animal barely visible in the darkness. I fell on my side and the animal bumped into me, but it was dead before doing any damage. This alerted more of the animals and I could see them closing in on me.
I realized I wasn’t going to make it to the control room.
“Kevin fire!” “Now! Now! Now!”
Half a second later the whole dock was illuminated in bright flashes and shook in a deafening barrage. I reached down and engaged the magnetic setting on my boots. I rolled to my back and placed to soles flat on the floor.

A huge of section of the dock tore open. The pull of the air rushing out of the gap was immense. Even with the boots on the ground, I started to slide across the dock floor, although slowly. The reeches weren’t so lucky.

When the flow of air started to subside a little, I had slid almost halfway across the dock. Moments later the Falcon appeared in front of the gap and moved in. The whole dock bathed in the bright lights of the ship. Behind me the hallway door was still closing itself, with reeches continuing to come out of it intermittently.
“Hi Kevin.”
“Max what the fuck.”