Max Hayes: Liwanu

“Max, Max, Max,” Liwanu said shaking his head as he stepped out of his ship, “what have you gotten yourself into this time.”
“We found this base,” I explained as I opened up a continuous radio link to Liwanu. “There were some reeches.”
“Yes, I couldn’t help noticing when I was flying in.” He pointed outside, where great quantities of reeches were probably still drifting throughout the ravine in the asteroid.
“You’re late,” I said to Liwanu as he walked across the hangar floor towards me. By now it dad been almost a day.
“You’re happy to see me?”
“Eh, yes.” I found it hard to be angry at him.
“What do we got here?”
“Smugglers base, by the looks of it. We found it by chance. It ended up being overrun by reeches. They were smuggling them and they got loose somehow. Most occupants were dead before we arrived. The few which did survive were killed by me when we depressurized the station.”
“There wasn’t another way in?”
“No, there was. We only blew the door when I was about to be overrun.”
Liwanu looked across the death reeches lying on the hangar floor and the big pile of them at the end of the hallway just behind the hangar door.
“But you guys are alright?” Liwanu asked.
“Yes, we are,” I said. “We’ve got the station partly repressurized.”
It had taken us a while to find a way to recreate some kind of controllable airlock deeper into the station. The people we killed by asphyxiation had been locked up in a number smaller rooms behind the first big storage room. The fact they had been locked in there had kept them save from the reeches. Unfortunately these rooms weren’t airtight. The crew compartment was still pressurized however and we had gone to great lengths to keep it so, only to discover it had already been overrun by the reeches, which had already killed everybody in it.
“Did you know about this place?” I asked Liwanu.
He looked at me for a second.
“No. Why do you ask?”
“You choose this as the rendezvous point. So we figured this base might belong to you or some people you know.”
“No. I picked the system because it was remote and the asteroid because it was a good landmark. About our agreement…” Liwanu started to ask.
“We have your goods; they’re still in our ship. There are some lifting vehicles in the station. We’ll pick one up to transfer everything to your ship.”

“Kevin, Liwanu is here. We’re going to the second storage room to pick up on of those cargo lifters.”
“Roger that. Want me to come along?” Kevin asked.
“No we’ll be alright. I think we got most of them, besides Liwanu’s here.” I said before turning to Liwanu.
“Do you have a weapon?”
“I got a knife.”
“Great, just follow me.”
The second storage room had been depressurized for several hours. We walked towards the hangar exit, which we had left open.

“Where’s Kevin?” Liwanu asked.
“He’s on the other ship,” I pointed towards the UAP ship, “checking if it’s in good shape.”
“Watch the reeches,” I said as I climbed over the pile of them right behind the door.
“What happened to them?”
“They got stuck under the door while the station was depressurizing. What took you so long Liwanu?”
“I got held up.”
“By what?”
“I had things to take care off. You know how it goes.”
“Right.”
“I’m here now.” Liwanu said casual.
“If you hadn’t been late, we wouldn’t have found this place.”
“In that case I should get a share in the loot. Shouldn’t I?”
“No, that’s where you’re wrong, but you know I’m not selfish, so don’t worry.”
We passed by the intersection.
“That’s the crew compartment, it’s pressurized, but we can’t get in from this end.” I explained pointing towards the door on the right. We turned left towards the first storage room.
“How many people got killed?”
“It’s hard to tell. I would guess at least nine based on what we found and then there were the seven people who were locked up.”
“I thought you meant they had locked themselves in.”
“Again, it’s hard to tell, but it looked like they were locked in there before the reeches got loose. I’ll show you in a minute.”
We stepped into the first storage room.
“This is the loot. Maybe you can take a look when we’re done loading the methryx. See if there’s anything valuable.”
“If there is, it’s bound to be illegal, and you are going to need someone to sell it.”
“And that’s where you come in.”
“I like the sound of that. Everything here must be at least valuable enough for people to consider smuggling it,” Liwanu said as he scanned the goods left and right in the aisle we were walking through.
“We don’t know for sure if there smugglers, maybe they’re pirates. Were pirates.”
“The same goes for them. It might take a couple of trips to empty this place.
We passed the mountain of glass lying at the end of the aisle.
“Holy shit,” Liwanu said.
“This is where the reech eggs were stored.”
“How many reeches were there?”
“A couple of hundred. We weren’t counting. I didn’t know there were so many and I accidentally woke them up. When I did they came running and we had to blow up the hangar.”
We neared the hallway at the other side of the storage room. It ran for another twenty meters into the station, straight towards the second storage room. There where several doors on either side of it. The door on the other end of it was now closed.
“These doors were both open when we got here, so when the station depressurized all these rooms where vented to,”
I opened the door of one of the first rooms and stepped aside so Liwanu could see. A body of a girl was lying inside. Liwanu looked away. I closed the room.

“They were locked in here?”
“It seems so. We found seven of them, most of them in separate rooms.”
We passed by another door, which was still open. Another woman lay in the room behind it.
“They were all women, pretty young, attractive too.” I said while Liwanu stepped inside. He kneeled down beside the woman, before he closed his eyes and took a couple of deep breaths.
“The doors we’re probably locked from the outside, though it wouldn’t have mattered if they weren’t,” I said casual as Liwanu looked back up at me.
I left Liwanu in the room and walked back to the door at the start of the hallway and used the panel on the wall to close it. The door started to slowly close downwards. Liwanu stepped back into the hallway.
“This is the only place on the station we can use as an airlock.” I explained.
“I see,” he said softly. “How are you Max?”
“I’m fine. Let’s go,” I said smiling as I walked towards the other end of the hallway. “Better turn on your boots magnets.”
“I don’t have those.” Liwanu said as he lifted his hands up apologising.
I thought about this for a second.
“Just wait in the storage room then, I’ll get the vehicle.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, hurry up.”
Liwanu hurried back and ducked underneath the door which by now was three quarters down. After it closed completely I activated my magnetic boots and opened the door to the second storage room. This door had been open as well when we got here. The moment the door started to open air started rushing in and I halted the door immediately to allow the hallway to pressurize.
“I’m now pressurizing the hallway. This is going to take a while.”
“Okay Max,” Liwanu said. There was some unease in his voice.
“Are you alright?”
“I am, thank you.”
“There are some horizon power cells here,” Liwanu said. “Did you see those?”
“No, not yet. Are they any good?”
“Yes they are, they’re legal though.”
“Maybe they were stolen,” I suggested.
“I could sell them for three thousand each.”
“We’ll talk about your percentage later,” I joked.
I waited another minute or so before I allowed the door to open completely. This storage room, if it was a storage room, was completely empty except for the two vehicles and a lot smaller then the first. It was badly lit by some blue emergency lights. It would probably be smart to drive both vehicles into the hallway now; to save time later in case we needed both. On the opposite side of the room a narrow cave ran into the asteroid itself. Two thick tubes, half a meter in diameter each, ran along the ground of it. The cave probably led to the powerstation and the environmental control systems, deeper in the asteroid.

“Max,” Liwanu voice suddenly sounded across the radio, “you’re bothered by the fact you killed those girls aren’t you.”

Liwanu was an emotional guy. He was probably shook up by it himself. He certainly looked like he was when I showed him the bodies. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that.
“I’m not, but thank you for caring,” I said. It was ridiculous to suggest I would be bothered by something like this.
“That’s why you wanted me to show them,” Liwanu continued, “to show me what you did.” “Oh please, Liwanu. You’re projecting, and you’re right; I shouldn’t have taken you here. I’m sorry.”
“No need. I’ve seen dead people before. I can handle it. I’m talking about you.”
“I’ve seen dead people before as well,” I quickly replied.
“But also for who’s dead you are partly responsible.”
“Partly?” I asked jokingly. I had killed a not so small amount of people on a regular base.
“You shouldn’t blame yourself. You had to right?”
“I understand the point you’re trying to make,” I said, “but you don’t need to worry about me.”
“Have it your way,” Liwanu said a little angry.
I heard a click, which meant our conversation was now over. I hopped into the seat of the first vehicle and drove it into the hallway. The vehicles were almost identical. They both featured a fork and grabber-arms to move cargo around. As I stepped into the second vehicle I noticed the door in the corner which the vehicle itself had obscured when we first passed through this room. It was a man sized door. After parking the second vehicle I walked back to it. It seemed to be an airtight design, but there were a number of bullet holes in it. The bullets had penetrated completely and were fired from the outside. I grabbed my rifle from my back and opened the door. I experienced a slight fright as my helmet light illuminated a man standing upright in the middle of the room. For a fraction he remained completely motionless until he suddenly turned his head towards me.
“Who are you,” I said.
He remained completely silent, but didn’t break his gaze towards me. There was something odd. I planned to bring my rifle to bear on him, but the moment I raised it he uttered a short and extremely firm order.
“Put down the rifle!”
I kept my rifle halfway up and took a step back. He kept his gaze fixed on me.
“We’ve come to rescue you,” I said. We might in reality execute him on the deck if he happened to be part of the crew and wouldn’t be able to give some reasonable explanation why there were a number of women locked up on the station.
Again he didn’t reply. He just stood there with a very serious look on his face. It was odd. He was odd. He had kept his gaze fixed at me all this time, but it didn’t feel at all like a contest of will or like he was in shock or crazy.
I decided to take another step back. I lowered my rifle, and took another step. Suddenly he broke his gaze, turned his head quickly left and right as if he was checking the room around him, before he faced centre again an kept staring in the distance.

“Kevin, Liwanu, I got something over here.”
“What?” Kevin asked only slightly worried.
“I think it’s a robot,” I said.
“What kind of robot? Do you need help?” Liwanu asked.
“A humanoid one.”
“Take it with you,” Kevin suggested.
Behind him I had just noticed the body of a person, lying in an extremely weird position.
“I don’t think so.”
“What’s wrong?” Kevin asked.
“I think he might have killed someone.”
It just kept standing there.
“Robot report!” I commanded it.
These things were pretty rare so I had no idea what I was doing. Here in the west there would be few people who could afford one.
“Robot identify!” I tried ones more.
“Move along.” I instructed me casually.
This wasn’t going anywhere.
“Screw you,” I said.
After lowering my rifle a little further I carefully leaned forward. I had to take a step closer to reach the button to close the door. He started looking at me again.
“We’ll be back.” I said after as the door slowly closed between us.

Liwanu was waiting for me when I opened the door to the first storage room.
“What did you find?” Liwanu asked.
“A robot. It was standing in a room. There was a body on the ground and someone has fired some high powered rifle into the room.”
“Another girl?”
“It was a woman alright, but she could have been part of the crew.”
“You never know,” Liwanu said with a hint of sarcasm.
The way he said it made me realize he was going on about my supposed emotional problems, and me saying this woman might not be an innocent woman, was me trying to rationalize it all away. It wouldn’t matter what I would say right now.
“She looked a lot older and she had some tools on her belt.”
“Does it matter?” Liwanu asked knowing.
I so hated this.
“I guess not.”
“You guess not,” he repeated. “Look Max I’m only trying to help.”
“You take the second vehicle.”
I hopped in the first vehicle myself and drove it all the way to the hangar.

“Kevin, how’s our new ship coming along?” I asked over the radio.
“Excellent; all systems functional, some failed internal diagnostics, nothing important.”
“Could you unlock the Falcon, so we can transfer Liwanu’s goods?”
“It’s unlocked,” Kevin said a second later.
“Thanks.”

There was some guilty pleasure to be had when I ploughed the vehicle through the pile of reeches.

Just before I climbed into the Falcon airlock Liwanu rolled in with the second vehicle.
“Liwanu, just wait here until I bring the ramp down.”
“Okay.” He sounded cranky, but this wasn’t my problem.
I closed the hatch a pressurized the airlock. Me being terse was a signal to him, I was sensitive about all this and trying to avoid it. After getting out of the airlock I walked into the cargo deck, closed the cargo deck door behind me and started the procedure to open the ramp. As the cargo deck depressurized Kevin came in over the radio, “Max, I just now noticed the hole in the door isn’t big enough for the ship.”

“I feel some demolition coming up.”
“Right,” Kevin said.
“I’ll try to get the station power back on later.”
“Roger that. I’m done here for now. I’ll join you in a minute.”
After jumping of the lowering ramp I walked over to Liwanu, who was waiting next to the vehicles.
“Liwanu, it’s open,” I pointed to the back of our ship, “they’re the big red boxes. Do you think you can drive them out yourself?”
“Yeah sure.”
“Great, me and Kevin are going to see if we can get the power to this station back on.”
“When we’re back we should all take a break, have a drink and maybe talk some business about the rest of the goods on the station. What do you say?”
“Okay, sounds good. How long are you going to take?” Liwanu asked.
“Not too long. We’ll keep you posted”
“Maybe I should go with you. You can have Kevin transfer the goods. We haven’t seen each other in a while.”
This was getting exasperating.
“I won’t ‘have’ Kevin transfer the goods. They are yours. You transfer them, and for what it’s worth Liwanu: I’m not I any way troubled by some decisions I made. I do realize it might have not been completely optimal in hindsight. I know it’s terrible, and I know I shouldn’t feel bad about it, so I skipped that whole part from the get go.”
“I don’t believe you,” Liwanu said after being silent for a few seconds, “you’re not that cold.”
“I’m not cold. I just love myself so much I wouldn’t torture myself with guilt, but believe what you want.”
“What about the robot?” Liwanu asked taken aback.
“We’ll be fine.”
Kevin came walking up to us.
“What’s the plan?” He asked when he reached us.
“We’re going see what’s wrong with the power. When we’re back, Liwanu will probably be done transferring his goods and we’ll have a break.”
“Sounds good,” Kevin said.
Since we had all been talking over the radio Kevin had of course already overheard everything we said, but it was a nice act nonetheless.
“Don’t steal anything Liwanu,” Kevin said before he followed me out of the hangar.
“Where’s the trust, Kevin?” Liwanu asked amused.
I opened a private channel to Kevin while switching my current channel to PTT.
“What was that all about?” Kevin asked after he seemed to be done configuring his own radio.
“Nothing really. Just Liwanu suddenly growing himself a conscience.”
“Doesn’t sound Like Liwanu.”
“He seemed pretty shook up about those girls.”
“Well, me too. They we’re trafficking them, and this wasn’t a one time thing either. I found a datadisk with loads of photos of girls, all very explicit.”
“I do believe they were being trafficked alright, but you probably have a datadisk with photos of scantily clad women lying around somewhere.”

“If I would, I certainly wouldn’t categorize them in a database, numbered and complete with a price list and everything.”
“So true.” I said, “Sorry. Liwanu has been getting on my nerves.”
“Wow, normally he only gets on mine.”
“He’s an okay guy.”
“I don’t know.”
“What is it with you and him?”
“I don’t know. He’s a smooth talker, I just don’t trust him.”
“Maybe you should be more trusting,” I suggested.
“How do I put this;” Kevin said, “You are telling me, I should be more trusting of other people.”
“Good point.”
“Where’s this robot.”
“In a room on the back of the other storage room.”

We had moved to the hallway in between both storage rooms. Kevin closed the door behind us.
“You said it killed somebody.”
“Yes, or at least it looked like it,” I explained. “Should I snap some photos of these girls, by the way,” I pointed to one of the rooms in the hallway, “so they can be compared with the list.”
“I’m sure they are on it.”
“We might decide to send of this list to the authorities later. It’s probably good to have some additional evidence,” I explained.
“I didn’t think about this yet, but we should definitely send it to someone.” “I don’t have a camera.”
“I do,” I said aloof.
While Kevin pressurized the hallway, I went through all the rooms and took some short films from all the women with my helmet cam.
“Do any of them have any ID on them?” Kevin asked, “Just thinking.”
I imagined they would take anything of the women when they shipped them, but it made sense to check in case they hadn’t.
“You’re right. I’ll check,” I said.
I looked down to the girl, in the room I was now, and opened a pocket on the side of her jeans. It was empty. Just as I went over to the next pocket I noticed this was making me feel uneasy.
“I actually don’t feel like going through their pockets right now.”
“You don’t have to, we’ll do it later,” Kevin said calm.
I felt the air rushing into the hallway. By the time I had gone through the last few rooms, the hallway was pressurized and Kevin opened the door to the second storage room.
“He’s in there,” I said as I ducked under the door when it was finally chest high. I pointed towards the door on the opposite side of the room.
“How did we miss that?” Kevin asked.
“There were vehicles parked in front, but yes, we’re getting sloppy.”
We walked over to the door.
“He’s standing in the middle of the room,” I explained to Kevin. “He gave me a warning when I brought my weapon up.”
“What did he say?”
“To put my weapon down. I hadn’t realised he was a robot at first and he was acting odd, didn’t want to talk, so I thought I threaten him a bit.”
“Right. Lets have a look.”

I stepped back and Kevin positioned himself next to the door. He briefly looked at me and I nodded back before he opened it. As the door slowly slid open I could see the robot was still standing on the exact same spot.
The robot glanced at me before he fixed his eyes on Kevin who was standing closer.
“Hello,” Kevin said.
“You’re definitely an expert at this,” I said after the robot remained silent. “Be careful, or you might end up like her.” I pointed to the body on the ground.
“Got it. He could already be programmed to only follow orders from specific people.”
“Someone fired a high powered rifle through this door, so maybe the former crew also had some problems with it.”
“You can leave out maybe.”
“Right. Maybe it’s malfunctioning. I mean besides the fact it killed somebody.”
“It looks like it did,” Kevin said. “Did you kill this person,” he asked.
Although it again didn’t respond and instead kept on staring at Kevin, I was pretty sure it had killed the woman. One of her arms looked broken or disjointed and so did her neck. Her whole pose looked like she was already completely dead before she was just tossed on the ground.
“You see why I didn’t want to bring it along.”
“I do,” Kevin said while apparently thinking hard.
“I have no idea,” he finally said, “unless we find some kind of command code or something, which might not even be on this base, and supplied the robot isn’t broken.”
“It must have moved to this room at some point so it must have taken orders from someone,” I said.
But I immediately realized there were a number of other options instead. I started to walk sideways to slice up the room without getting to close to the door. On one side of the room lay a large box sideways on the ground with the lid lying next to it on the ground.
“Maybe the key code is printed on the packaging.”
“Well, you’re free to go in there and take a look,” Kevin said.
“I will. You hold here.”
Kevin took a few steps back from the door.
“Ready?” I asked.
“Ready.”
I started walking towards the door. As soon as I reached the entrance the robot started looking at me. I stopped. It looked really threatening, but I realized this was probably the purpose, to make me think or feel I was being closely watched. It could probably see me just as well if it didn’t fix its gaze upon me. It all made sense; when I raised my rifle earlier it had first given me a warning. Why wouldn’t it do so again if I came to close? I thought about this for a while.
“What’s up?” Kevin asked.
“I’m good.”
I slowly kneeled down and placed my rifle on the floor before me. This would lower my threat level. Or so I figured.
After taking my gun from my holster as well and placing it beside my rifle, I stood up again. I took a small step forward bringing me at the entrance. I moved a little to the side so Kevin would have a clear shot before stepping into the room. It still had it’s eyes fixed at me but nothing happened. I started moving sideways towards the box increasing the distance again between me and him. When I was almost there, it stopped looking at me, but kept his head turned at some intermediate point.

“I’m at the box,” I reported.
“Roger.”
“What am I looking for?”
“It’d like to point out this was your idea, but you’re looking for anything with something written on it or a remote. It could be anything, if it’s there in the first place. I have no idea.”
The sides of the box I could see were featureless. I kneeled and looked inside, turned on my helmet lights because the room was just really dark.
“It comes prepackaged with a rifle,” I said looking at an assault rifle which was strapped to the side of the box, together with some loose magazines.
“Convenient.”
Glancing over to the robot I saw it was still looking in the same direction. On the bottom of the box there were a number of big but empty straps. They probably prevented him from bouncing around during transit, but there was nothing else inside of it. I walked over to the front of the box, hoping it had the words ‘activation code’ printed on the outside with a number underneath. I had to step unto a corner of the lid with one foot to maximize my distance to the robot. I placed my foot down a little more alert, like you would normally do intuitively when you step onto an object which could slide across the floor, and as I did so I noticed something softer than expected underneath my shoe. I bend down and picked up a small black book, tucked in the corner of the lid. ‘Operational manual XACU-8’ it said on the front cover.
“Got it,” I yelled.
“Nice.”
The back cover was empty except for a big sticker with, at the top, a short set containing three groups of five numbers separated by dashes. It was followed by a much longer set with ten groups of five. I opened the book and paged through the first few pages until I reached the contents page. The entry for chapter four was named ‘command activation and authorization’ and was some ten pages in length. I quickly paged through the rest of the book without reading. The print was relatively small and the number on the last page was two hundred three. I closed the book and carefully moved past the robot and out of the room.
As I walked up to Kevin I held the manual up to show it.
“There’s a code on the back,” I said as I passed it to Kevin.
“Excellent.”
Kevin took some time to page through the book.
“Read chapter two to nine completely before activating” Kevin quoted. “I guess we should.”
“You do that. I’ll go check on the power,” I suggested.
“I’ll go with you, we shouldn’t get sloppy. I can’t read here anyway,” Kevin said.
“Right.” I turned around to pick up my weapons.
Kevin slid the manual in his pocket and together we headed into the cave at the back of the storage room.

The cave ran straight for thirty meters before making a turn for the right. You had to walk over the two tubes running along the bottom, which might suggest this wasn’t a place were you went regularly. Kevin took the point because I still hadn’t picked up some night vision goggles. Although a bright lamp, hanging at the turn in the cave, shed enough light to see where we were going. After his first two steps he suddenly jolted up in the air and smashed against the ceiling.

“Fuck!”
Kevin reached down to his belt were he opened a small panel. After pushing a button he pushed himself from the sealing towards the tubes on the floor landing with his feet close together, trying to balance himself. I started laughing.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Kevin said pretending to be annoyed but laughing as well. “Turn on your grav boots.”
I instead took a small run and made a dive into the cave floating past Kevin who was still trying to get his bearings. I had to push myself from the side of the cave at some point because my dive hadn’t been completely straight, but the moment I did so I started slowly turning and I couldn’t do anything about it until I my new trajectory brought me closer to the floor. While at the same time slowing myself down, I pushed of more carefully this time, setting me on a nice and gentle float to the turn in the tunnel. Almost there I turned on the magnetic setting on boots. After stopping myself with both my arms on the wall at the end, I put my feet down on the tubes and waited for Kevin, who was slowly trudging towards me across the tubes.
“This is fun,” I said as he almost reached me.
“Well yeah, I don’t like do it like you do. I don’t mind at all, but …”
“You’re taking it too seriously,” I interrupted him.
We turned the corner and started walking together to the end of the tunnel. Once we almost reached what had first appeared a dead end, the tunnel went downwards and so did the two tubes we were walking over. The lack of gravity meant, it wouldn’t matter in which direction the tunnel ran, but it was a little confusing.
“There must be a reason why they didn’t build the powerstation next to the rest of the complex,” I said out loud.
“Or whatever it is we’re walking to,” Kevin said.
We both stopped. This could be some kind of fallback position.
“Let’s get in touch with Liwanu,” I said, “I want my NV’s.”
“We need to close the hallway on our side for him to be able to get here without depressurizing the station again,” Kevin said.
It all started to make sense to me. Well not really, but I could imagine the power was out on the station, because someone switched it off on the other end. They could have pulled back and tried slowly do what we I had done fast, and they could still be alive down there.
I opened the radio channel to Liwanu, “Liwanu, could you get down here and give us a hand.”
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing yet, but we might be running into something and I would like to have my night vision goggles just in case.”
“I’ll be right there. Hold on. We’re can I find your night vision goggles?”
“On our ship, second closet on the left behind the cockpit. There are some weapons in there as well. Bring one for yourself.”
“I don’t know about this Max. What’s going on?”
“We think there might still be some people down here. It’s just for safety. You can just drop of the night vision in the hallway and head back to the ships. It’s a bit of hassle if we have to go back out for it again ourselves.”

“No, I’m coming to you. Anything else?”
I looked over to Kevin, he shook his head.
“Just the goggles.”
“Got it.”
“Thanks.”
Any structure deeper in the asteroid might have its power and lights still on, but I felt more comfortable in having my night vision with me.
“If you head back to let Liwanu in,” Kevin said after I ended the transmission with Liwanu, I’ll scout out ahead to see where this leads,”
“Let’s wait until we’re with the three of us. We don’t know what’s there.”
“We shouldn’t push Liwanu too much to get involved in this. If he would have found this base, I bet he wouldn’t take the risk to check it out. I’m sure the same goes for this” Kevin nodded his head to the dark tunnel which lay ahead.
“Right, I’ll pick up the night vision and send him back to the hangar.”
Kevin was right. Liwanu would only be going along because I asked for his help. He would never do this kind of stuff on his own.
“Be careful, okay?”
“I will.” Kevin said smiling as he looked me straight in the eyes.
I looked back for a while.

After I headed back through the tunnel to the storage room, I entered the hallway again and again closed the door before stepping out underneath it. Airlocks were great, but they would get annoying if you went through them often enough.
“Max?” It was Liwanu. “It’s going to take some time before I’m there.”
“In know, I know. Take your time. Just drop off the goggles in the hallway and head back to the hangar. I closed the door on this side so you can open it on your end.”
“Okay,” Liwanu said hesitant.
There was a small pause before Liwanu continued.
“I’m heading to you in a minute.”
“Copy.”
I walked over to the robot in the room at the back for no particular reason. It was still standing there and was still looking pretty threatening. I wondered what the woman lying on the floor had done in order to get herself killed and whether it was a smart idea, for us, to be trying to activate this thing.
“Max, this is Kevin, I got a door it’s sealed, airtight, no windows.”
“There we go.”
“I guess so. I’m heading back to you,” Kevin said over the radio.
“Copy.”
“If there is anyone here they must by now know something is up,”
“I know.”
At the very least the whole station must have heard us blowing open the hangar. There was little else they could do even if they had spacesuits. It might have been smart for them to try and secure the station the moment it depressurized knowing there was a small timeframe between the reeches dying and any intruder gaining a foothold. I could hear the door on the other side of the hallway being opened by Liwanu, it would take him a few minutes to go through the whole sequence. A moment later Kevin returned to the cargo room.

“The door is located a few hundred meters from the place we split up.”
“Anything particular?”
“Nothing, as far as I could see; I didn’t want to get too close.”
“It’s a bottleneck,” I said. It would be a serious concern if we wanted to get past it.
“What are our options?” Kevin asked partly rhetorical.
“Venting the station again and blowing the door, killing everything else on the station, which will then of course end up being a hundred innocent humans. Or we don’t and make an entry ourselves, to get shot down by a dozen smugglers or eaten by reaches.
“I understand,” Kevin said. “We could call the authorities, let them handle it,”
“How long would they take?”
“If we could call them now, which we can’t, it would take a couple of days.”
“Right.”
I looked back at the robot.
“We could send in this guy to check it out. Assuming we can get it to follow orders.”
“Worth the try I guess.” Kevin said.
“Give me the codes.”
“Just a moment.”
Kevin started slowly paging through the manual.

“Emergency quick start guide,” Kevin read from the manual; “you’ll have to start of with ‘command code entry’,…”
“Command code entry,” I said out loud.
Kevin passed me the manual and I read out loud the code on the back of it.
There was a long between me finishing and it responding.
“This command code is correct.”
“Great, step back.” I ordered.
It took a single step back.
“Walk back to the wall.”
After it had done so, I stepped into the room.
I grabbed the rifle from the box and held in into the air
“Can you use this rifle,” I asked.
“Yes.”
On a whim I decided to throw the rifle at him. He made a perfect catch. He then immediately removed and inspected the magazine already in it, before putting it back in and cocking the weapon. This was going great.
“Pick up some more ammo.” I said while pointing at the box.
It walked over to me and the box, kneeling down beside me and filling the bigger pockets on the legs of the blue overall he was wearing with magazines from the box. He stood back up and looked briefly to me. He must have realized he was standing in my comfort zone, because he quickly took a step back and adopted a similar waiting stance he had been in before. It did seem to be in a bit more relaxed, less threatening, pose. It could also be my perception of course.
“He’s following orders, but probably not from you, right?” I asked Kevin.
“Correct,” Kevin said while looking down into the manual again. “I’m sure we can change that.” “To quickly allow other personnel to take command of the unit, indicate the personnel in question to the unit and order the unit to take orders from the individual until further notice.”
I turned to the robot. “This is Kevin, take orders from him until further notice.”

“Understood,” it said direct.
“There you go.”
“Thank you.”
A second later the door to the hallway opened just enough for air to start gushing out through a small slid.
Kevin started reading through the rest of the manual while we waited for Liwanu. After going over the different scenarios in my head, I didn’t feel like venting the station pre-emptively. If we believed this was necessary because the risk would otherwise be too great for us, it would be better for everyone involved to call the authorities right away. Sending in the robot seemed to be the straightforward and only other option available. We would still have most of our options open even if it got destroyed the moment it stepped through the door in a worst case scenario, and in a best case people deserving of help wouldn’t have to die waiting for it, because we were too scared to bust in ourselves.

“It has a rifle!” Liwanu said the moment he stepped into the room, obviously referring to our new friend.
“Don’t worry, we gave it to him.” I said.
“You said it had killed someone,” Liwanu retorted.
“Yes it did,” I admitted.
“Normally robots shouldn’t kill people,” Liwanu said, “Three laws safe, right?”
I remembered the quote from a commercial.
“That’s just an advertisement thing,” Kevin said without looking up from the manual.
“Also there are some security robots and they do kill,” I said.
“Maybe this one had a malfunction,” Liwanu suggested. “And now you are letting it walk around with a weapon.”
“They probably tried to activate it without the code or something,” I suggested.
“What if it became sentient?” Liwanu asked.
“You’ve been watching too many movies,” Kevin said, still reading.
“This robot,” I said partly to end a fruitless discussion, “is now configured to follow orders from us, and I’m sure it isn’t programmed to start killing authorized personnel. Right Kevin?”
“That’s correct.”
“What about me?” Liwanu asked.
“You just have to wait and see,” I said jokingly.
“Don’t worry,” Kevin said, “it’s not going to kill you. It’s perfectly safe. We just checked.”
“Fine,” Liwanu said.
“This is the deal,” I explained to Liwanu, “on the other end of this tunnel, is another structure. By the looks of it there could be, potentially, someone still alive in there. Because we don’t know who, we’re going to send in the robot first, to check it out. You stay here and wait, just in case we need to depressurize the station, which we’ll only do in an emergency.”
“Got it.” Liwanu said while simultaneously handing me my night vision goggles.
“Thanks. Let’s see what’s out there,” I said. “Ready?”
Kevin turned to the robot and pointed at Liwanu. “This is an ally.”
“Understood,” the robot responded.

“Now we’re ready,” Kevin said.
Liwanu looked at me with an annoyed look on his face. “You do realize there is something seriously wrong with you people.”
“Just wait here.”

I jumped into the tunnel, a little more careful this time, and slowly coasted towards the light at the turn. Kevin had also opted not to use his boots this time and he overtook me about half way in. We both stopped at the end and waited for our robot, which apparently preferred to walk. When it reached us I put on my night vision and, with the three of us, we started walking through the winding tunnel.

“Almost there,” Kevin said.
We were moving around a shallow bend going upwards and to the left, when I spotted the door Kevin had mentioned.
“I see it.”
We all stopped.
“Let me give this guy a headset,” Kevin said while digging one out of his backpack and handing it to the robot.
I signalled it to move forward. “You, try to open that door. If it does, shoot back at anything which shoots at you and tell us what you see. Okay?”
“I do not understand. I do not understand the question.”
“Kevin?” I asked desperate.
“Engage any hostile targets behind that door. Keep us posted,” Kevin ordered it.
“Understood.”
“Go.” Kevin said almost bored.
The thing turned around the corner and started making its way to the door.
“This thing is very expensive,” Kevin whispered to me. Too me it didn’t seem too smart.
We held our position just behind the last bend in the tunnel while the robot walked the distance to the door. Our position put us a long way from the door but this was the only place which would give us some cover if things went wrong.
After the robot made it over it pressed a button on a panel beside. The door opened immediately and with a swiftness we hadn’t seen yet anywhere else on the station.
Through my scope I could see the robot step through. It moved right after making a short glance left and disappeared from view. There was a complete absence of shots.
“Robot, hold position. Report.” I ordered through the radio. We really should give him a name.
“Clear,” It reported.
“Let’s move in.” I said to Kevin.
There was a soft echo moving through the tubes underneath us every step we took. With the magnetic setting on it was impossible to run and I realized this was taking too long.

A few seconds later both Kevin and I flew through the door at full speed into a big brightly lid room. Coming out head first I made a roll to break my fall and ended up on my knees, while Kevin had made a midair turn just before the end of the tunnel which allowed him to land on his feet and slide to a stop to my left. To my right R stood with his weapon shouldered scanning the room.
The tall room was filled with various big machines. It looked like a power core and the environmental control systems.