There was a knock on the door.
"Come," growled the Director.
"Director. Omicron Lyrae is silent," reported one of the Department's female operatives.
"Silent."
"Yes, Director."
"Silent?"
"Silent."
"OK. I'll ask properly. Explain. Now."
The woman shifted her weight to her other foot, nervous. People who ticked the Director off didn't generally last long in the office. She cleared her throat.
"No signal has been detected from the system, its stations, ships or planet. No message drones, no traffic. Silent."
It was inconceivable. Omicron Lyrae was one of the Argons' major military centres. It supplied three quarters of the Navy's corvette fleet!
The Director was silent himself for a full mizura.
"Dismissed."
The operative barely concealed a sigh of relief, and hurried from the dark office.
The Director leaned his elbows on his large desk, and placed his face in his hands.
It was just too fast.
"Commander, communication from Alkad. Audio."
"Put it through, Dexter."
"Hey, Trent."
"Alkad. What can I do for you?"
"Well, nothing, right now. A nice whiskey waiting for me when I get back would be nice though..." The mercenary giggled.
"So why are you calling?"
"Oh, just telling you that the teams have swept every compartment apart from the main lobby. Door's locked. So we're gonna crack it, then we'll all come home. Oh, we also found a survivor, some woman. Says she's the manageress of the place. Offered quite a handsome reward, too. Wants to speak to you later. She's on one of the shuttles."
"Thank you."
The link closed.
"Alkad, that door's of the 'pressure' variety. How are we going to crack it, even with your shiny tube of death? Without ricochet, if you don't mind."
"Well, the boss-lady wouldn't be too impressed if we broke her station now, would she? Just gimme a sec," Alkad replied, grinning. He got an ancient communication relay out of a webbing pocket, at least 70 jazuras old, and flipped it open. He held it to his ear, waiting.
"Hey, Mr. D. How goes it? Oh, hope it looks up for you soon. No, no problems. Well, there's a door that won't respond to the standard overrides, and it's about a metre thick. Got any more of your ubercodes there? Fantasmic, thanks."
His team exchanged glances, while Alkad went over to a keypad and punched in a series of numbers. The door hissed as the hydraulic braces receeded.
Cova had gone through every monitor in the station, and saw head nor hide of Parker. He was then aware of a presence hovering over his shoulder, and breath on his neck.
"Looking for someone?" Parker asked, apparently curious.
Cova whirled, and had his gun levelled at Parker's forehead in an instant.
"You're the sixth person to point a gun at me today. Well, seven, if you include the time you shot me in the bar."
Parker simply batted Cova's gun hand, and the pistol skittered away. He grabbed his wrist, and pushed on his chest, sending him flying over the information kiosk. Cova landed with a grunt as the impact jarred his ribs.
One of the doors opened, and thunder filled the room and reverberated through Cova, stunning him, as Alkad fired his autocannon at Parker again. The gun clicked empty, and he let the gun swing, barrel steaming, at his side. The kiosk was all but obliterated, and Parker stood unharmed in the middle of the smoking remains.
"Nice to see you again, One With The Enormous Projectile Weapon."
"Name's Alkad. How'd you do?"
His team raised their laser carbines towards Parker, safeties off and power cells humming. Mutterings of 'How come he's still there?' and 'There's no way Al could have missed... not with that many shots!' bubbled in the background.
Parker leapt at Alkad, one knee forward and arms spread wide.
Alkad had already started swinging his autocannon, holding it by the barrel, before the rest of the team could shift their aim. "Get the rest of the teams down here!" Alkad gave a maniacal laugh as the butt of the cannon connected, flinging Parker aside. He landed deftly, and pounced again.
"They're coming fast as they can, but it'll be a couple of mizuras!"
"Fire soon as you get a shot!"
"What if we hit him?"
"You're supposed to!"
"No, I mean Alkad!"
"Just shoot!"
"He's too fast!"
"Over there!"
"He's here!"
Parker kicked out at the nearest mercenary, catching him in the throat and snapping his neck. Laser beams criss-crossed through the air around him, and he jumped away again.
"That bastard!"
"Get him!"
Trained and exercised as the mercenaries were, their shots continually missed, despite all the helpful shouting they were giving to each other. Sparks flew from damaged terminals, power lines and light panels. One wall panel had melted and run down a wall, burning through the polymer covering on the tiles below. Alkad swung his cannon every time Parker came close enough. By this time, Cova had recovered, and added his comparatively meagre firepower to the broiling mass of photons.
A stray laser bolt struck one of the panoramic windows facing into the docking hall. It cracked, a spiderweb growing ever larger.
"Oh, feth," Cova muttered. Unlike the mercenaries, he did not possess a suit that could be pressurised quickly. They all slammed their visors down and sealed the locks as soon as they saw the damage. Cova had left his suit next to the kiosk. It was probably scattered across the lobby now. Thank you, Alkad, Cova thought.
"Commander, there's a heavy firefight in the lobby of the station. Photonic emmissions off the charts," reported the Ops officer.
"Do we know who they're shooting at? That is, if it's Alkad."
"It is, we're reading his IFF in there. I guess they found whatever got the people there spooked."
"Sir!" called Clarke, the sensors man.
"Yes?"
"Atmospheric leak, in the docking hall! One unshielded human, plus several of the mercenaries. Cova's the unshielded one, I think."
"Oh, marvelous. Do we have any shuttles left to pick them up?"
"No, sir. They're all docked with the station."
"Keep watching. Tell me if anything changes."
"The rest of the mercenaries have arrived, sir."
"It's about bloody time!" roared Alkad through his helmet mike, grinning.
"Just earning our keep."
The fresh mercenaries opened fire, guns oddly silent in the vacuum. Parker, seemingly untroubled by the lack of atmosphere, leapt through the broken window into the docking hall. He soared across to the far side of the bay, then pushed off from the bulkhead for his ship. Beams of blue light followed him around the cavernous room, as well as the tracers from Alkad's freshly loaded cannon. He reached his ship, opened the airlock and hit the emergency startup for the shield generators just inside the compartment.
Cova was having an altogether more difficult time. As soon as the window had given way, he had exhaled as far as he could, to keep his chest from exploding. He wasted no time diving through the window towards his vessel, trying to reach it before his blood boiled and he died a horrific death.