"I'm just saying, Jack could have totally fit on that door with Rose."
Lena snorted. "So that it would flip over and they'd both freeze to death? Even if there was enough space I find it hard to believe they could have balanced both of them on top of it."
"Well, they could have tried!" Peter insisted.
Lena shrugged – they've been at it ever since they finished watching Titanic on the way to meeting this client. "It's also a movie. There needs to be drama, and tragedy, and whatnot."
"Yeah, yeah." Peter grumbled. "But, say, if it was me, would you have let me freeze to death on that cold water?"
Lena stopped in her tracks which made Peter stop as well. She regarded him for a moment before shrugging. "Well, I guess we'll never know." And she resumed walking.
Rounding another corner, Peter and Lena exited the corridor they had been walking through and entered a larger area that resembled a hotel lobby. They were currently on the space station orbiting around a small planet on the outskirts of the Nova Empire, set to meet with a client to deliver the package they had 'acquired' a couple of days before. Unlike most of their usual meeting places, this space station was incredibly high-end, serving as some kind of business-and-pleasure place for rich people. Really rich people.
They probably couldn't afford any of this, but they weren't here to expend money – they were here to get paid. And maybe they could even get free drinks out of their meeting.
"Wow." Lena breathed, staring in amazement at the fancy architecture. "How much money went into all this? The people here must be filthy rich."
"The same kind of people that would pay a shitton of units just to have a fancy cooking ingredient delivered." Peter said, talking about their package – some kind of rare alien squid that was ridiculously hard to acquire. The things they did to get it… well, at least they got a funny story out of it. Mostly.
"Think we can get away with hanging around here for a while before anyone notices we're not, well, rich?"
"Well, we're already in, we can try. I kinda feel a little awkward without my jacket, though…"
Lena snorted. "Yeah, no way they'd let you walk in wearing that."
Peter frowned. "Why, what's wrong with it?"
Raising an eyebrow, Lena gave him a pointed look. "You mean your Ravager jacket?"
Peter wrinkled his nose. "Yeah, yeah, fine. People might havestared." He said. "It's funny how nobody came to confiscate our weapons, though." Pausing, Peter looked around for a moment before speaking again. "Where is everyone?"
Eyebrows drawing together, Lena also took a moment to look around. She frowned when she realized that the weird feeling that had been bothering her for the past few minutes was due to the fact that there wasn't a single person around.
"That's… odd." She said.
They hadn't seen a single soul on the way over, but she'd attributed that to the fact that they had entered through the 'back entrance' of the station (they may have the required entry authorizations, but not for the front door). Now in the lobby, though, not seeing a single person around was definitely weirding her out.
"Maybe they're out having rich people naps." She joked to alleviate the tension forming in her body that something was definitely amiss.
"Maybe." Peter said. "Let's go take a look around."
Motioning Lena to follow him, Peter walked across a large archway leading to some kind of reception area. Much to their relief, there was a lone figure of a woman standing behind the desk.
"Hey!" Peter called out, making the woman look up at him. He jogged towards the reception desk with Lena close behind.
"Hello, how can I help you?" She spoke in a polite tone.
"Hey. Good to see someone around, huh?" Peter said. The woman showed no reaction. "So, uh, where is everyone?"
The woman blinked once before fixing him with a blank stare. "There are only you two in this Lobby."
"Yeah… I can see that."
"You are not in our guest database. Please present your Visitor's Pass or we'll be forced to take punitive action."
"Whoa, okay! Calm down, we have a pass." Peter said. He glanced at Lena and she stepped forward.
"We're here to meet Mr. Chaio." She said as she handed over their Passes.
The woman scanned the Passes eerily quiet for a moment before her head snapped back up, an overly cheery smile plastered on her face that startled them both. "Ah, yes. Mr. Chaio has put your names on the visitors list. He requests you to wait for him inside the Alpha Lounge, he should be with you shortly." She motioned to a nearby entrance, another archway leading to a different area.
"Great! Thank you." Peter said. "We'll be waiting!" Shooting her a fake smile, Peter turned around and tugged Lena with him.
Once they were out of earshot, Lena spoke. "Is it just me or did that seem a little… weird?"
"Not just you." He said.
Passing the archway, they entered a fancy-looking bar that, like the lobby before it, was just as devoid of people.
"Okay, this is getting weird." Lena said, mostly to herself.
They slowly made their way to the counter, eyes roaming around trying to find any sign of life – of anything. There wasn't even a bartender around, and it didn't look like it was closed – all the lights were still on. Lena peered over the counter in search for, well, anything, as Peter inspected the area some more.
"Hey." Peter spoke and Lena shifted her attention back to him. "Look."
Picking up a nearby drink that had been abandoned on top of the counter, Peter brought it up to Lena and then motioned to the other half-finished drinks that were scattered around the bar.
"Looks like someone left before finishing their drinks." He said. "Or everyone."
The feeling of unease was growing stronger by the second.
"There's definitely something really wrong here." Lena said and, as if on cue, the lights of the bar went out.
They were encompassed in darkness for a few seconds before red emergency lights were suddenly activated, covering the surroundings in an eerie red glow. Once they could see each other, Lena and Peter shared a look before bolting out of the bar and back into the lobby.
Strangely enough, the lobby was still fully illuminated, but one glance past the other entrances revealed that other areas were in darkness as well.
"What the hell is going on here?" Peter muttered.
Running back to the reception area, they stopped in front of the receptionist again and Lena briefly took notice how the woman didn't look the least bit fazed – and then Peter started speaking, interrupting her train of thought.
"Hey! What's going on here?!" Peter half-shouted at the woman, but that still wasn't enough to draw any kind of reaction from her other than a blank stare.
"Please remain calm." Was all she said.
A sound from behind caught her attention and Lena turned around, only to see one of the farthest sections of the extensive lobby fall into darkness.
She tugged at his arm. "Peter."
Peter took a look behind them and then turned back to the woman with an urgent look. "What's happening here? Why are the lights going out?" He pressed.
"You are not authorized to view this information." She said.
The section just behind them blacked out. "I don't care, tell me what's going on!"
"You are not authorized to view this information." She repeated.
Peter threw his hands up in frustration. "Just tell us something!"
The woman opened her mouth to speak and at that exact moment, the lights around them went out.
Once the emergency lights settled in and they could see, however faintly, again, they noticed how the woman had seemingly frozen on the spot and was slightly tilted forwards.
"Hey." Peter said, waving his hand in front of her face. "Hey!"
The woman didn't move, didn't blink, didn't do anything. Lena stepped forward and gave her a hard poke on the forehead.
"Ow!" Lena muttered, clutching her finger after it met with far more resistance than she'd expected.
Peter exhaled. "Don't tell me she's a goddamn android."
"I think she might be a goddamn android."
"Great. So there really isn't anyone here after all."
Lena shook her head. "Something tells me we should be getting the hell out of here."
"That's probably a good idea."
Nodding to each other, Peter and Lena hurried back to where they came from but still being careful as they made their way down the now darkened lobby. Their echoing footsteps were the only sound following them, but that didn't help dispersing the feeling of uneasiness that had settled over them. Somehow, the walk down the corridor leading back to the service hangar seemed much longer now that they couldn't wait to step inside the safety of the Milano again. Eventually though, the hangar door came into view and Lena sighed in relief.
That relief was short lived.
"Why won't it open?" Peter muttered as he tried for the tenth time to open the door but to no avail. The display beside it was stuck on an Emergency Mode screen and wouldn't let them do anything else with it. "It won't respond."
Wrinkling her nose, Lena pushed Peter away from the door and stepped in front of it, reaching inside her bag for her data pad. "Let me see that."
Bringing out her pad and a multi-use connecting cable, Lena handed them over to Peter so he could hold them while she prodded the door's computer terminal in search of a connector entrance. She found it after pulling a small panel out of the wall, and she immediately connected her own computer to it and went to work.
While Lena was busy trying to hack into the door's system, Peter kept a watchful eye on any movement coming from the end of the corridor. He felt his paranoia was pretty justified – they were stuck on a ship that was devoid of all life for reasons unknown, and for all he knew something could come at any moment from the other end of the corridor and they would be trapped between it and the door. His hand twitched nervously from where it laid on top of one of his blasters – which, he now realized, was no wonder no one had showed up to confiscate them from him before they made their way to the lobby – because there wasn't a single living soul around.
"Dammit." Lena's curse drew his attention back to her.
"What?" He urged.
"I can't open it." She said, frustration seeping from her words.
"You can't hack it?"
"No, I can't open it. It's like there's not enough power to open the door." She explained.
Peter tightened his jaw. "That's not good." He said. "Isn't there a manual switch, or something?"
"I don't know, do you see one?"
A closer inspection of the door showed that there wasn't one.
"Great." Peter exhaled. "We need a new plan."
Lena nodded. "Which is…?"
"…I don't know."
Lena threw her hands up in frustration.
"Well, you come up with a plan then!"
Shaking her head in exasperation, Lena stared at Peter for a moment before speaking. "Fine then!"
There was a beat as Peter looked at her expectantly. "…So?"
"So…" Lena trailed off as ideas began popping up in her mind. "So… We turn the power back on."
"What if there is no power to turn back on?"
"Then… we find a way to reroute the remaining power to unlock the door – I mean, the emergency lights are on, right? There's some kind of power. We need to get—"
"—to a control central." Peter finished as he caught on to her plan. "That's usually the last place standing with power, it's where everything gets controlled from. Maybe we can do it from there."
Lena nodded.
"I just have no idea where that is."
Lena blinked, then turned back to her data pad. There was not enough power for the door systems to run, but she could still access the system's core files– one of which included a map of the station that she downloaded into her data pad.
"Okay." Peter said once she showed him the map. "That's good. Really good. It doesn't happen to say why there's no power in the station, does it?"
"No."
"I figured as much." He sighed. "Let's go then, the sooner we get out of here the better."
The walk to the control central was tense, but uneventful. The entire station was immersed in darkness, being only illuminated by the red emergency lights that made everything look a hundred times creepier than they actually were, and every time they rounded a corner they kept expecting something to pop out at them. Nothing did though, nothing at all – there really wasn't a single living creature in the entire station.
"Left here." Lena guided, following the map she had open in her data pad. They rounded another corridor, coming across a set of stairs which they descended carefully. Pointing to another direction, Lena decided to break the silence if only to help keep her growing panic at bay. "What do you think happened here?" She asked.
Peter glanced at her. "I don't know."
"Maybe they decided to close it down." She said even though she knew it wasn't the case. "Maybe they ran out of food and everyone got pissed and left." She rambled. " Maybe it was something like that and not—some Alien type of thing happened and everyone got killed by Xenomorphs."
"By what?"
"It's—Ever seen the movie Alien?"
"No?"
"What do you mean no—" She cut herself off. "…Actually, that's probably a good thing, all things considered. Never mind then. Take a right."
They fell back into silence, Lena's occasional instructions being the only other sound aside from their footsteps.
Eventually they stopped in front of the control central's door.
"Let's hope this one can be opened." Peter said before he pressed the 'Open' button on the door.
The door opened with a swoosh, and much to their delight the room was fully lit up. That wasn't the only thing that caught their attention, however.
"Who are you?"
There was a lone figure inside the room, a man with dark blue skin standing near a computer terminal. Lena's first thought was another robot, but given the tone of his question as well as that he seemed to be clutching his side and leaning heavily on one leg, it seemed that wasn't the case.
Peter drew a blaster and pointed at the man, and Lena did the same with her own pistol – for all they knew he was the one responsible for whatever it was that happened with this station.
"Who are you?" Peter called back.
The man stared at them with a grim expression. Moving away from the terminal and turning to face them fully, he lifted his head high and spoke. "I am Captain Layle Crux, this station's High Commander. And who the hell—" Layle suddenly doubled over with a pained groan midsentence, tightly clutching at his side. Lena could briefly see a dark blue liquid staining his hands, one that she could only assume was his blood.
"You alright there, Captain?" Peter asked, but didn't lower his blaster.
Layle groaned some more before recovering. "Just a flesh wound." Standing back up, he eyed them warily. "Who are you people? Everyone was supposed to have evacuated. Identify yourselves."
"We just got here." Lena said.
"We were supposed to have a, ah, business meeting with one of the guests." Peter spoke.
Layle's brows drew together. "Didn't you receive the transmission telling all ships to stay clear?"
"No." Peter said, then turned to Lena slightly. "Did we?"
"No." She answered.
"No, we did not." Peter said more firmly. "Why stay clear?"
With a curse, the captain limped over to another terminal and tapped something on the screen. Peter and Lena shared a glance before Peter lowered his gun, deeming the man not an immediate threat but still remaining wary of him.
The captain cursed again as Lena and Peter approached him. "Dammit. The power shortage caused the message to stop transmitting. It's getting worse."
"What's getting worse?" Peter urged. "What's going on here?"
"You two need to leave."
"We would if we could, but we can't get to our ship." Lena snapped. "There's no power to open the hangar door."
Layle let out a sharp exhale as he turned back to the screen. "It's getting worse." He spoke mostly to himself.
Peter stepped closer to the blue skinned man. "So, since we're trapped here and all, might telling us what the hell happened?"
Raising his eyes back up the captain shifted his attention between Lena and Peter, studying them closely. After a few moments of consideration he sighed in defeat and turned, leaning against the computer terminal.
"A few days ago the power generator started acting up." He started. "I sent down our team of engineers to check it out and they reported that it was a minor heating issue and that they had fixed it. A few days passed and suddenly there was a major failure of the reactor that cut down the station's power in half –turns out our engineering team was a lot more negligent than I had ever expected them to be."
"So you had everyone evacuated? Because of the power shortage?" Lena asked.
Layle dragged himself away from the terminal with a groan and moved to the main computer. "The power shortage was the least of our concerns. That minor heating issue they reported? Was actually a major heating issue, and all the power the reactor was supposed to be producing and sending out is being kept trapped inside."
"What does that mean?" Peter asked, although he knew it definitely didn't sound good at all.
"It means that eventually it'll overheat – to the point that the reactor won't be able to withstand and it'll go—"
"Boom." Peter finished.
"Yes. Boom." Layle deadpanned.
"Alright, that's bad. So, if you could just open the hangar doors, we'll be on our way—"
"Why did you stay?" Lena interrupted. Peter shot her a funny look.
Layle turned to fix Lena a hard stare. "Because… this station is my responsibility. Whatever end it might meet, it's my job to see it through."
"So you're the captain of the Titanic, going down with the ship."
Tilting his head in confusion, Layle turned back to the computer. "This is not a ship, and I don't know what this Titanic is – but I don't plan on going down with it either." He said, and then added. "If I can help it."
Pointing to the wound on his side, Peter spoke. "You don't look so well. What happened there?"
Layle shook his head. "I tried to shut it off. The reactor, I mean. But to do so, I had to shut off its containment field, and then…" He motioned with his hands. "I got blasted back by a stray energy bolt. Hard."
"So no shutting off."
"No."
Lena spoke up again. "What are our options, then? I mean, what do we do now?"
"You," Layle started, "are going to leave. I'll open the door and you'll be on your way – You said you had a ship?" At Lena and Peter's nodding, he continued. "While I'll activate the reactor's emergency protocol."
"What does it do?"
He shook his head. "Doesn't matter. What does matter—dammit – is that I'm going to need to manually reroute power to the door locks." Layle sighed again before pushing himself away from the computer. "You two, stay here. I'm going down to the Power Station."
Lena blinked. "Don't you want some help?" She called before he could leave, and Peter shot her a 'what are you doing' look.
The captain brushed it off with a wave of his hand. "If I need anything I'll talk with you through the inter comms – they're still working. Stay here and don't touch anything." And he left.
Once they were alone in the room, Peter leaned against a nearby table and crossed his arms over his chest. "You know, this is not what I hoped to do today."
Hopping onto the table next to him, Lena spoke. "When do things ever go according to plan?"
They sat there for a few minutes before they became too jittery to remain still. Lena turned her attention to one of the central's computers while Peter started walking back and forth around the room, the constant sound of his footsteps almost a calming presence as she used the computer to analyze all the issues she could find with the station.
Power failure was the most common one, with a few others sprinkled here and there. Then there was the one major overheating issue with the reactor, and a handful of unidentified ones that seemed to originate from that as well.
Lena eventually noticed that the footsteps had come to a halt, the central falling into silence. She looked up, finding Peter staring at the large window to the outside with a frown on his face.
"Peter?" Lena spoke, coming to stand next to him.
Peter blinked, glancing down at her before he returned to stare at the window. "You know how Crux said the reactor is overheating and eventually it'll explode?" He said, not taking his eyes off the window.
"Yeah?" Lena responded.
"What do you think it's going to happen then?" He asked, and Lena was about to answer 'explode, of course' when she followed his line of sight.
Outside of the window she could see another space station, fairly close to the one they were in. Unlike this one, however, shiny and glimmering even from the outside, that one looked like it was rusting over and practically falling into pieces, even though it seemed to still have power.
"I think I heard something about this." Peter spoke. "Two stations; made so that there'd be equal opportunity for both the rich and the poor. Turned out exactly the way you'd think – one station being a luxury vacation spot for the extremely well-off, while the other became some kind of grimy, over packed colony for those that had nowhere else to go." He explained. "What do you think it would happen if this station suddenly… blew up?"
"You don't think it'd reach that far, do you?"
"I don't know, it seems pretty close to me. And chances are they either didn't get the evacuation signal, or they just don't have any way to leave."
Oh, this is bad. This is very bad.
The weight of the realization seemed to hit them both hard, as they stayed in stunned silence for a long moment. Lena was the first to snap out of it, suddenly rushing towards the computer without a word, and Peter followed behind.
"What is it?" He asked.
Lena didn't answer at first, too focused on the task at hand, before she finally said, "The reactor's emergency protocol."
"What?"
"I'm trying to find out what it does."
It didn't take long as it wasn't particularly hidden, and Lena let out a sigh of relief when she read the words on screen.
"Activate emergency generator, eject reactor section, activate the… implosion countdown." She read out loud.
"So it's gonna implode the reactor?"
"Seems so. Do you think that would keep the other station safe?"
"It might. It looks like it was designed that way."
Lena let out another sigh of relief – the possible death of who knows how many people is not something she wanted to have hanging over her head, even if it had nothing to do with her.
Lena was about to say something when a voice came out of the computer.
"Alright you two," said the voice, which she assumed belonged to the station's captain, "I'm about to open the bay doors so you two can leave. Don't take too long because I don—"
Something like a crash or an explosion could be heard from the other side right before the comm went silent.
"Crux?" Peter said, and when he got no answer he repeated, this time more urgently, "Crux?!"
"The line was shut off." Lena said, already working on reopening the call. Or trying to – the other side wasn't responding. "I can't connect. Something must have happened."
They shared a glance. They both could see a map on one of the screens displaying the message 'BAY DOORS OPENED', which meant that Crux had done as he'd said. However…
"The doors are open." Lena said. "We could leave…"
"We could…" Peter echoed, and Lena could already tell what he was thinking – because she was thinking the exact same thing.
They could leave, get in the Milano and fly away from this doomed station and hope for the best – they should, actually, if they had any sense of self preservation. They were essentially criminals anyway, what do they care if something happened to the captain of some random space station…
"Crux?" Peter spoke after pressing a button on the computer to reconnect the call. Nothing happened.
He sighed, turning his head to look at Lena. He sent her a look, an hesitant but inquisitive look that told her exactly what he was thinking. She drew in a breath and gave him a small nod, and they both ran out of the control central.
Even if they didn't have a map, they could have found the reactor section by the heat alone – the whole area felt like it was stuck in a heating oven, and the closer they got to the reactor, the worst it was.
They eventually found the Power Station and the problem was suddenly very clear – the room was overseeing the reactor itself, separated only by some kind of glass-like barrier. One of the barrier panels had seemingly shattered, exploding inwards before some kind of metal barrier came down to cover the hole. It was probably what had blown Crux halfway across the room to where he laid unconscious and worse – he had several pieces of glass embedded on his stomach.
"This is bad." Lena said as they rushed to Crux's side. Kneeling down on the heated metal floor made the heat even worse.
Peter nodded as he surveyed the captain's body. "…We should take him to the Milano." He finally said and Lena agreed. They couldn't just leave him where he was, and if what the computer had said was true, the way to the Milano should be open now.
With some difficulty, Peter and Lena hoisted Crux's body up as they shared his weight and proceeded to make their way back to the Milano. The rest of the station was entirely in near darkness now, if it weren't for the red emergency lights still hanging on and illuminating their way, and their rush to their ship was filled with bumps and fumblings with the unconscious man's body.
Much to their relief, they eventually reached the Milano safely. After laying Crux's body on the common area's table, Lena rushed to get their medical supplies while Peter surveyed the other man's wounds, noting that the glass didn't seem to have gotten in too deep. Blood loss was still a very big danger, however, so they immediately got around to patching up his wounds.
Halfway through their considerably improvised medical work, Crux's eyes started to flutter.
"Wha—" Crux attempted to start talking, but immediately cut himself off with a painful grunt.
"Don't move." Lena said, approaching his head in what she hoped was a calming gesture. "You got hurt pretty bad back there and we're trying to patch you up."
Crux frowned, taking a look at his surroundings before glancing down at himself. He groaned as he let his head fall back down. "The reactor… I need—"
"You don't need to do anything." Peter spoke. "You opened the doors and we were able to get back on our ship, and now we're taking you with us unless you'd rather be blown up with the station."
"No, it's—" He grunted again. "The Reactor Emergency Protocol—"
"It's meant to implode the Reactor section away from the other station, isn't it? We know." Lena said. "You don't need to worry about that."
"N-no, I do—It… It needs to be manually activated."
Both Lena and Peter paused. They shared a worried look with each other.
"It… what?" Peter slowly asked.
"The Emergency Protocol… cannot be activated remotely. Someone—" Crux winced. "Needs to get in there to activate it."
"Where is 'there'?" Peter pressed.
"The—The Power Station. I was trying to activate it when…"
The thing blew up in his face, Lena guessed. This didn't bode well at all.
"But that's in the Reactor section." Peter continued pressing. "Isn't that the one that's going to be sent off to be imploded far away? I thought you said you weren't going down with the ship."
"There's… an escape pod. I was going to use it…"
"Sounds really, really risky." Lena spoke.
"Yeah." Peter agreed.
Lena opened her mouth to speak when suddenly Crux's hand shot up and took a hold of Peter's shirt.
"I can't—I can't let the blast hit the other station… please, I need to do this." Crux begged, tugging at Peter's shirt as hard as he could in his state.
His hand eventually fell down, without the energy to hold it up. With his eyes screwed shut, Crux started breathing heavily.
Lena shot a worried look at Peter – she knew exactly what Crux wanted to do and she understood what would happen if he didn't, but the man was in no shape to get up, let alone walk all the way to the Power Station and activate what would basically be a time bomb. There were very few options here, and she didn't like any of them.
Peter, on the other hand, didn't meet her gaze – he seemed to be deep in thought, like he was mulling over something important. After a few moments he looked up, a steely determination in his gaze.
"Lena, do you think you can access this Emergency Protocol remotely?" Peter asked.
"He just said—"
Peter interrupted her. "I know, but what he doesn't know is that you're the best hacker around. If there's anyone who can do it, it's you."
Lena unconsciously straightened herself after hearing the compliment, but shook her head. "There's still virtually no power in the entire station. To access it remotely, I need power."
"The bay area has power – maybe you can tap into it using the Milano as an energy source. Try doing it from the cockpit, I'll help from down here." He said and Lena was about to retort when he interrupted her again. "Just—trust me."
Lena wanted to argue, but the look on Peter's face stopped her. It was like he was silently begging her to please, just hurry, so she reluctantly left for the cockpit.
Lena sat down in the co-pilot seat and got the Milano running, bringing a screen up to her face as she started making attempts at a remote connection with the Station's computer. It seemed a backup generator had been activated in the bay area, giving it the bare minimum of energy to function, but the rest of the ship was still entirely blacked out.
"Peter!" She called down. "I'm not getting anything! There's nothing for me to connect to!"
She waited a few seconds, but there was no response.
"Peter?" She called out again. Still no response. "Peter?"
Lena quickly got up from her seat and went back down to the common area. There was no Peter in sight, only Crux still on the table.
"Peter?" She called again. No answer.
Lena moved to Crux's side, who seemed to still be conscious despite his eyes being tightly shut.
"Hey—hey." She said to him. "Where's Peter? Where did he go?"
Crux slowly blinked his eyes open. "He… left."
"Left where?" She urged.
"Said he'd gone to activate the Emergency Protocol…"
"What?!"
Oh, she was going to kill him.
MASSIVE UPDATE INCOMING! Or actually already here!
Alright, so here's the thing. This was meant to be a short thing that ended up becoming a very big thing that took me way to long to complete it, so I'm not only posting the first part, but the second one too! Right after this! Go read it and have fun!