The Station
James Candwell steered his jet pack towards the source of the problem for the space station, power had gone off in the defence room, and it was believed the wires had been damaged by some jagged rock. James switched on his inertia dampeners and grinded to a halt right in front of undefended part of the hallway wiring. Annoying how the smallest weakness can cause the biggest of problems.
'This is James, I'm at the site of the believed disturbance there are some cut wires here... but it looks like they were cut by wire clippers, these wires are covered too thick to be just be cut by a small jagged rock and anything bigger would have been shot by the turrets.' James reported.
'Well then fix the cut, photograph it and report back to be debriefed.' captain Scott ordered.
'Yes sir.'
The plastic had clearly been cut, along with the copper but no rock could have done this as it was too clean a cut. 'Stupid whatever-it-was' James muttered.
Once he sorted out the cut, returned power to the room and was debriefed, he met up with his team at the canteen.
'Hey guys!' he greeted, with just a couple of grunts to meet his return.
'Gee, warm welcome.'
It was Marco who asked the obvious question,'where were you?'
'Something cut the wires to defense station 4, so I was called out to fix it.' James answered casually.
'But those wires should be too thick to be cut by any stray piece of rubble!' Alan nearly yelled.
Some other workers looked up from their soup and looked down with disinterest, like everyone there.
'Don't yell, you'll need the energy for later, we got assigned to construction duty on the second medical bay.' Marco said with a tone of annoyance in his voice.
'But how did this happen?' Alan whispered loudly enough to be heard from nearby tables.
'Well you know the defense systems shoot anything travelling at a certain speed or is larger than a certain size that doesn't have robco beacon identification so no rock could have cut it.' James started. 'We're listening.' Alan encouraged.
'So only something or someone that is already in the safety zone could have cut it.' James said as he flashed the photo of the cut.
'You're saying that someone in the facility may have cut the wire?'
'Exactly.'
'Wow.'
'But its just a superstition.'
Group finished their lunches and made their way to the changing rooms and changed to the simplistic space suits, and left through the airlock.
About 2 hours later they were just about to head to their lunch break when Marco noticed a cluster of spaceships headed for their station.
'Uh... guys why do you think those ships are headed for a mining station like this?'
James saw what Marco was talking about, it was one large one football field long spaceship and about 4 smaller house sized ships, all armed to the teeth with unmanned gattling guns and rocket launchers.
'Why would an armed escort be headed for us? We're just a small, weakly defended mining station with little contact. It just doesn't make sense... oh god.'James realized.
'What? What is it?' Alan asked
'They're space pirates!' Marco finished.
'What?! But they're just myths!'Alan defied, but James replied 'Well denying it won't help, come on we need to confirm this with captain Scott.'
They were cut off by the danger sirens announce 'All personnel evacuate outer undefended areas and report to inner blast shelters.'
'Well then our question is answered, we need to move now!' Alan said.
They quickly got inside and made their way to the central passages, the sirens wailing in their ears and the sound of gunfire rattling they managed to drop to the shelters located in the centre of the asteroid.
The moment the door opened a terrible shake cut through the station, 'They must have breached the walls! We don't have much time!' James said with shaking fear.
The man on the inside of the door said with a tone of pride, 'Well they won't get through this door! Its 17 inches of stainless steel that can only be opened by a select few of the staff!'
'Well duh. We're the engineers who made it.' Alan spoke angrily.
'Gahh! We're wasting time, time get inside!' James said while pushing them inside.
His efforts weren't doing it fast enough as footsteps rang through the steel halls above them, making the workers inside start to panic.
The trio got inside just the door shut and light from jet packs lit up the passage.
As the door shut, yells rung from the other side that "they" had found a shelter.
Gunfire and ricochets pounded the door, but it held strong as the day they made it, that was until a set of footsteps became clearly heard and the sound of the iris scanner beeped.
Everyone in the room was starting to truly feel fear as a green light lit up and a voice said 'access granted.'
James pulled the pair to the side and whispered 'get to cover!'
Some other people overheard him and started to cover, but they were too late as the last door was opening and they stood in shock. James shuffled from under a bed to see, but was shocked and disgusted to see a man wearing a CSAT fighter pilot's suit pull off his mask to reveal he was captain Scott.
He walked in accompanied by four men in space paratrooper suits armed with bullpup assault rifles and wrist-mounted tazers.
Only then did James notice the Warden, the highest ranking man in the station was standing beside the bed, with his face contorted red with rage.
'Damn you, captain S. Miller what is the meaning of this?!' He bellowed.
'With respect sir, these savages, no offense guys, offered me a much better pay and an opportunity to fight against corrupt corporations like robco.'
'Damn you, you won't get away with this!' The Warden snarled, but captain Scott simply held his gun up to the Warden's face said 'Goodbye, Maxwell.' And shot him.
'Commander Scott, what will we do now?' one of the pirates asked, and without remorse, Scott replied, 'Kill them.'
The trio winced as gunfire pounded at their ears and the screams of the dying started.
'There's a vent here, we can still escape!' Alan whispered, and he had already undone the screws and shifted to make his way into the vent.
'Good work let's get out of here.
After that they escaped to the outer levels and made their way through pirate-infested halls, Marco suggested a plan.
They had access to cameras and figured they could bait the pirates to the hangar then hit the airlock, sending them all to the hellish black.
'Good idea, but then the airlock switch is at the door which means that someone has to open it and get thrown out too, so, the question is, who's gonna do it?' Marco asked.
'Guys I'll do it' James replied immediately.
'But you don't have a mask, you'll die!' Alan protested.
James sent him a glare strong enough to replace the anti-asteroid defense systems.
'Fine' Alan submitted.
'Well then men, its been an honour working with you.' James said.
The speakers announced the hangar opening all through the station, so the moment the jet unhinged from the maglocks, footsteps where heard all through the place.
Momentarily the room was full, and Scott followed in last, taking his all-too-sweet time to realize that James wasn't in the ship, but beside the manual control panel for the release to the airlock.
'Bandits! Evacuate, fall back to the halls!' Scott frantically ordered as the slow-witted bandits realized what James was about to do.
'Goodbye, Captain Scott!' James yelled, spitting out his name like it was poison.
James jammed his fist against the conveniently large, big red button, and the seven inch steel doors opened up, revealing the vacuum of space as the air of the room immediately rushed out and pulled all of inhabitants into space, James being the first.
Alan frantically pulled the lever to close the door, as he had seen the whole ordeal from the control room, overlooking the hangar.
A tear ran down the side of his face as the doors shut, sealing his friend's already doomed fate, choking in the nothingness as his corpse would hurl through the vacuum.
'He did it for us, and for all the innocent people that Scott would have killed, he did the right thing'
Marco said by radio doing his best to keep Alan together.
'I know, I know' Alan choked his voice barely audible.
The pair stayed on the rock for a week, before the lack of communications eventually forced robco to send an investigation team, the team found the pair in the canteen, with the walls still lined with blood. They were brought back and told their story, and were awarded for their bravery, their names etched in history as the engineers who brought attention to the dangers of the asteroid belt.
But James' body was never found, along with the body of former Captain Scott Edwards.