We Leave As Cripples
There was always that jerking moment when one realizes he or she was no longer standing on a bluespace transportation pad and is in fact, now perched upon a chair, an uncomfortable distance from the ground with no real sense of balance. This certainly is not an unfamiliar feeling to the man you see before you now, standing on a brown recliner. He couldn't particularly recall not winding up standing on a chair one way or the other, whether it be a gray office chair in the warden's office, the black leather seat of the head of security's office, the uncomfortable steel frame of the blue shield's office, or in this unfortunate case, the somewhat regal captain's office. The man surveys the room, re-familiarizing himself with the fanciful yet remarkably barren environment.
He is tall, a little over six foot, and fairly broad. One wouldn't call him barrel chested, but he wasn't far from it. The trace lines of his musculature remain visibly pronounced through the elaborate blue jumpsuit which covers him from ankle to neck. His face is angular and sharp with high cheek bones, fair skin, an orange goatee with matching carrot top mohawk, cropped low and wide. On his chest is a bright reflective gold ID card with a small mugshot of him, as well as his rank, "Captain", and name, "Sven Olson". The air about him smells harshly, if not faintly, of whiskey and strong cigars, one of which he produces and lights before even stepping off the chair. A moment later, after chewing slightly on the end, seeming to get it comfortable in his mouth, he dons a pair of sunglasses and begins to move.
With routine familiarity he steps off of the wobbling chair and turns to the locker behind him, yanking out an armored, pressurized full body suit. Its neither the comfortably fitting flack-jacket of the warden's position, nor the tight and form fitting bullet resistant vest of the blueshield. It got in the way of raising his arms above his shoulders and his knees above his waist, in the case of the latter not because of the plates limiting his range of motion, but rather it pinched at his unmentionables. It was, however, air tight and space worthy. The suit was specifically made for captains of space stations, and suited for the job quite nicely, despite the poor comfort. Its aesthetic certainly wasn't displeasing, with blue plating over a black padded skin suit, green shading indicating slots for air tanks and sensitive electronics. Scooping up the coinciding helmet from the nearby shelf, Sven slams the locker shut and taps the lock scanner with his ID, the bulbous green light blinking out and the adjacent red diode springing alight.
"Leave it to NanoTrasen to send one man to handle an entire station," he grumbles around the cigar as he steps into the lower segment of the suit, pulling it up like pants, wiggling his already booted feet into another pair of boots. After a moment he reaches behind him, fingers locking around the back plate before heaving it up into place. His other hand pulled the chest piece down, over his head, the clam shell hinge at the shoulder locks into place. Finally, he zips himself up at the waste, totally ensconced in the suit.
Today he had the entire place to himself, but he couldn't help but feel that the alone time was a waste without some food, booze, and friends. In a way he understood that NanoTrasen, the corporate owners of the NSS Exodus, as well as countless other stations and ships around the galaxy, needed such a vessel babysat for them between shifts. The last shift had to have been called off as an Emergency Response Team made hasty repairs to its failing superstructure. Something about structural stress due to the singularity generator. Now it was once again in good standing, but without an organized crew. Little else was to be done but to send someone who knew just enough of everything and let him handle it. Naturally, the task was shuffled down the brass totem pole to Sven's sorry tired shoulders.
As he steps out of his office and into the main hallway the tinks, pops, and clicks that indicated the fluorescent light's gradual loss of power can be heard, accompanied by the hiss and howl of the vents and air filters which dot the steel tile floor. Cool air drifts upwards, bordering on what is comfortable. The appearance halls are in stark contrast to the office. White and gray shaded with little personality aside from the occasional color marking, seeming to sketch out the borders of departments. Windows give panoramic views between these borders, at first dazzling the eyes with a flurry of details before growing mundane and lifeless, no one to file the paperwork here, or to mix the chemicals there.
Lackadaisically, the man shuffles to what must be the engineering deck. Before the airlock are tiles laid out in bright construction yellow. The airlock itself is colored accordingly and is thoroughly scratched and nicked from what must be years of neglect. It opens slowly, almost getting stuck in place before sliding open and allowing the orange goateed man access. All around the room there is odd machinery of all sorts, with a scattering of tools, welding helmets, stacks of sheet metal, unrefined glass, space suits and all sorts of mechanical genius made mundane by the workshop atmosphere. Great white metal towers, four times the width of any man, stand in one corner up against a wall, thrumming with the sound of electrical power, their lights blinking red, green and yellow like some sort of mad stop sign. After a primary scan of the room Sven immediately set about wiring what looks like something ripped off of the Hadron Collider that stands soldering down connections between the pre-assembled circuitry, feeding it the power it craved.
After ensuring each wire was secured and connected to the proper connections the maintenance patches were locked closed Sven start taking out orange plastic jugs from a rack and begins sliding into unrecognizable contraptions. Pulling on the handles on top of the machines extends sheets of glass tubing, filled with some mysterious purple tinted gas. The gas catches the light oddly, flickering in particles here and there like a sheet of sequins. He repeats the operation on six machines before setting down his cigar on a table, still burning, and sealing on his helmet. For a while he steps out of sight, into an airlock before becoming visible again on the other side, out in a vast semi-enclosed dock of sorts which is visible through a central viewing platform. As he paces around the outside he switches on odd cannon like machines which send light streaking across to a collection of metal pillar in the center, which in turn emits the light to other pillars in a rectangular grid. When the grid stabilizes he disappears through the airlock once again, striding back into the room, taking off the helmet and picking up the still lit cigar before pressing two buttons on a panel.
The machine that appeared to be ripped from CERN springs to life, spitting out what must be some form of radiation. The light shifts in a path like heat rising from a road, the effect through the glass windows in the center of the enclosure before striking a series of metal rings, which visibly begin to vibrate. After a few moments the rings contract together, impossibly tight and appear to simmer and seethe before collapsing into non-existence. In its place what is best descried as a "hole" forms. A place of thorough and absolute nothing. The appearance is nauseatingly unnatural, and any reasonable person would look back inside the station, where the red haired man presses one more button and seals the windows, striding away, out of the engineering deck.
"Well, at least the generator works," the carrot topped man mutters, cigar puffing in the corner of his mouth. The lights now hum quietly, and the tinkle of glass remains unheard. Vents roar to life for a few moments, the air becoming less dusty and the whole hallway grow more lively, warming swiftly. Lights on doors and airlocks shine more brightly, growing more refined. Further down the hall there is the faint mechanical clatter of some out of sight machine springing to life. For the first time since arriving, the man smiles and stops at one of the panoramic windows.
"Heh, if things were to go shit now, I could probably still could blame it on Pun Pun," he gestures through a pane of glass into a mostly deserted bar room, "Poor guy, no vacation time for months." Perched on the bar itself is a small monkey in an impeccable suit, playing with a rag. At the mention of its name it sets down the cloth and remarkably, walks on two feet over to the other side of glass, leaving a trail of watery footprints on the wood paneled floor. Baring its teeth and hopping, it pokes the glass with an outstretched finger, doing its best to imitate an average captain. With a laugh Sven turns and begins walking again, the world, or at least the station, seeming just a bit brighter.