You know, having a day off seems nice to most people. Just take your time, be as unproductive as you want to be, enjoy whatever it is you are doing. At least that is what I heard from the people I had met in the HUB. The ones with jobs and careers. They kept telling me that they are working so hard and that would do all kinds of things for an extra day off or two.

The funny thing is I could never really relate to that. Sure, as a student I liked goofing off and never took school work too seriously. But after that… becoming a cop was something I wanted to do. And in my opinion, when you do that right, it’s never just a job. It is something you become, not something you do. So when I was a cop, this was a 24/7 thing for me. I did extra shifts, went everywhere in uniform and my mind was always occupied with how I can be better, how I can have more impact, how I can make people’s lives a little better and a little safer.

When I stopped being a cop, I took to my passion. I was always a gamer and even during my time as a cop I spent time playing and relaxing. After all, you need your downtime to be 120% in your uptime. But the fact that I was passionate about what I was doing, that I was doing exactly what I loved every day… it didn’t leave me with a desire to take extra days off. When I did, these were planned things. I mean not like planned planned. I didn’t schedule a day off 3 months in advance. But in general I was okay with the little relaxation time I had.

Don’t confuse that with being a go-getter though. Or judgemental of people that don’t do their hardest. The thing is, I enjoyed who I was and so this never felt like much effort to me. If I am honest, I can’t be arsed to effort. Not really anyway. But if something deeply interests me and gets me, well, there is no stopping. Down the rabbithole I go. And that is what happened.

Yesterday and today though? They had been forced upon me. Two days of enforced inactivity. Okay, low activity. But you know what I found out? Sitting in a space station in a system dedicated to mining and forced labor is not something you want to do on your days off. There was a decided lack of going ons. And you can only visit the various merchants and services so often. I am sure there were some I had not yet seen and I was also sure there were more that I did not want to see but over all? I felt done with this station and the down time I had to have by sticking around here.

That being said, I am certain you are unsurprised when I say Nirazera’s call to meet her in her office came as a relief. And right now we were on our way to her. I had met Ralgau in what passes on this station as the promenade deck on Upper 1.

We chatted briefly while we were walking there, you know, catching up. Not that there was much to catch up on after a whole day of nothing to do but I told him that a friend of mine had reached out and that she was on her way and might bring the solution to the getting into the ship problem with her. He just nodded and snorted in the typical Ralgau manner.

We turned into the corridor to her office when I registered that something felt off. I can’t even put my finger on what it was but something didn’t feel right. And as I said before, my gut doesn’t lie. Maybe it was my message exchange with Nic that reminded me but I was thinking about Sherlock Holmes who had said that ‘Intuition is input that has yet to be processed by your brain Dr. Watson’. Well, there was no Watson with me but a Ralgau and when he saw me draw my gun, he immediately turned around, dropped to one knee and brought his own plasma pistol up to cover our backs. I myself had dropped to a kneeling stance as well but was aiming down the corridor. And then I waited. And nothing happened. Since I had been to the right of Ralgau, he was pressed against the left corridor wall and I was on the right.

I took in the scene in front of me. What had set off my gut? The corridor was empty. Nothing out of place. No blood. I sniffed the air. Nothing weird there either. And then I saw it. Where the surveillance camera next to the door frame was set in, I saw a black circle. Like it had been hit with a plasma blast. And the lights on the lock which should either be red or green were completely off. Unless Nirazera had given up her office, these should not be out. Considering that she asked us to come by said office meant that something was off.

“Something is up with Nira’s office. Camera scorched and door lights are off.” I filled Ralgau in on what I had just figured out.

“Nothing on the back.”

“Front is clear too.”

The problem with this corridor was that it was empty except for the doors. Which meant there was no cover whatsoever but it also meant few spaces to hide.

“Check the other door lights.” Ralgau told me.

“All red or green.” I replied after scanning them quickly.

“Doesn’t mean anything. Someone could be sitting inside waiting to jump out if they are after us. If Nirazera’s the target they might have gotten what they came for already.”

“True. Nothing to do but doing it.” I repeated the phrase my old Sergeant had drilled into me. “Move up to and past Nirazera’s office door and keep cover in your direction.”

He waited three seconds and responded with: “Moving!” when the silent count was up. Man, I wished my old Strike Force team would have been this prepared.

Ralgau moved quickly and surprisingly silent for a being of his size. How had I not noticed that before? Oh yeah, first it was loud environments and then it was the vacuum of space. Fair enough.

He stopped to see if there was a gap in the door that I had missed but since there wasn’t he moved to the far side of it. Not that I had paid much attention to his movements. My eyes were trained on the opposite end of the corridor still. But know you… corner of your eyes stuff.

I waited until I heard him say: “Covering.” through my helmet coms and then I moved.

It was a shitty situation to move and breach with only two people. Even a third one would have been helpful but there was nothing we could do about it. The question was: Did I move to his side of the corridor and took position next to the door allowing me to lean forward and shoot into the room but lose firing line down the corridor or did I stay in my side of the corridor and have a free fire line but less to no cover.

The decision was made for me when Ralgau took his stabilizing hand off the weapon and pointed to the other side of the door.

In retrospect it was funny how we moved silently and communicated with hand signs. I mean we had helmet coms that couldn’t be overheard. I mean I could have sung an aria in my helmet if I would have lowered my faceplate and I would have been silent. But I guess training takes over in the heat of battle. And that’s a good thing.

When I lowered myself into a kneeling stance again, we had already dropped our pistols to the floor so we weren’t accidentally aiming them at each other. Ralgau pulled the faceplate of his suit down and I followed his example. Nothing like getting shot in the face to take the fun out of things. Ralgau put his fingers into the surface relief of the door.

New Skill unlocked: Tactical Movement

Use this ability to move in combat.

Higher skill levels allow for better awareness of your surroundings.

Current Skill Level: 1 / 100

“I’ll open slowly. Go low and see if you can get a look.”

I affirmed and he put his strength score to use. The door slid and a gap of maybe five centimeters was created. He held it there. I dropped to the floor and inched my head around the side until I was able to make out what was going on.

Nirazera was behind her desk facing our direction but because she sat there slumped and half dazed, she didn’t see us. Behind and a bit to the left of her stood a guy. Yes, I say guy even though I don’t know the gender. Let me be clear here. I am not consciously sexist. I might be unconsciously sexist at times. The thing is: A member of any gender can be an asshole, a criminal or a good person. However, from my time in law enforcement I can tell you that most violent crimes are committed by male identifying individuals.

That being said, I was raised in the Pacific Northwest of the 2080s. The term gender non-conforming applied to half the people in the PNW Metro. Which made it hard. The funny thing was that we still used preliminary terms to describe what we saw at crime scenes. Yes, sometimes that caused problems because of wrong preconceptions making cases harder to solve. But most often easy communication during violent situations saved lives. So it stuck.

I was applying the same idea here. I could not determine the gender form the facial features because I saw too little of them and what I saw was very androgynous. No indication of breast protrusions which indicated male even though I know nothing of the wider universe and have no clue if that is universally true. No other outward signs of gender visible. In the process of committing violence. So yeah, I went with ‘the guy’.

After this fun tangent I once again focused on what I saw. The guy was standing over Nirazera, one hand in her hair, the other on her desk, slightly leaned forward quietly talking into her ear. No vac suit visible on him. Two guys with their backs to the door, fully suited, helmets down. Their posture indicated muscle or body guards. One of them was a little over two meters tall and had four arms. The “upper” two of them held a plasma rifle while the other two were resting on his hips. He stood relaxed and the weapon wasn’t aimed at anybody. The other one was a Fell. And fuck me if I didn’t know that vac suit. What in the bloody void was going on?

I ducked back into cover.

“Two guys back to the door, armed, weapons in hands, fully suited, look like normal suits. One standing over Nirazera behind her desk. No suit visible, no weapons in hand. Oh, and one of the guys with their backs to us is fucking Brelic.” The last came out as a curse.

“One of the guys is fucking Brelic?”

I heard the question mark over his head via our com connection. Right, they didn’t curse this way here.

“Just an expression. One of them is Brelic.”

“No fucking going on?” This time I heard the smirk. Motherf...

“Ralgau, for fucks sake, focus. One of them is Brelic. I don’t know why he is here but if I had to guess, he sold us out to the Red Moon.”

“Don’t know. Guess we have to find out. Are you ready?”

I nodded. “Yes, breach on three. I go straight and left, you go right.”

“Let’s go.”

“One… two… three!”

Ralgau yanked the door open. I leaned into the room while bringing my pistol up. The thugs had yet to react. Good thing that the sliding doors of the station were silent. I double tapped Brelic. Center back between his shoulder blades and right shoulder. Then I rolled into the room and out of the way.

Ralgau leaned around the door frame. But since he had not seen the positioning before it took him a second. The same second it took Four-Arms to turn in my direction and point his weapon.

I had just gotten on my feet, okay, knee and foot again, when I heard the sonic snap of the plasma rifle and felt the burning projectile barely miss me. Close enough to heat up my shitty vac suit. I brought my pistol up just as Ralgau nailed the guy in the side. Soft spot just under the ribs. Which was enough to throw off his aim for the next shot and miss me again. By now I also had my pistol trained on him and I squeezed the trigger. Hit. Center torso. I saw his body jerk and then jerk again when Ralgau hit his lower arm and then the side of the neck.

Fuck, plasma weapons were brutal. The jerking of the body didn’t come from the impacts themselves. Or at least not much of it was from the impact. But the superheated gases of the shot. From what I understood was that the gases were so hot, that they led to the spontaneous evaporation of the materials it came into contact with. Since most substances expand when they evaporate the impacts cause something like a small explosion. But since everything immediately became gas, there was no blood splatter or anything. But it left behind a piece of meat that had the edge cauterized and everything behind that ‘scab’ was boiled to well done. Anyway, Four-Arms collapsed and his weapon clattered to the floor.

I turned back to Thug-boss and he had managed to step back from the desk and was covered head to toe in a silvery vac suit. Shit, one of the expensive models that I found out about yesterday. Both Ralgau and me aimed our pistols at him and fired.

We hit. The problem was that nothing happened. The plasma “splashed” against his suit and seemed to evaporate.

Small Arms skill increased.

Current Skill Level: 6 / 100

Instead of standing there and taking more shots Boss-guy stepped behind Nirazera’s chair. He didn’t pull her up as cover but she was still in the line of fire and I could not risk another shot. Not that I thought it would do much good.

“Armored but unarmed. Keep left, flank him.” Ralgau’s voice came over my com.

I moved forward while my Sorren friend did the same. He edged around one side of the desk while I took the other, effectively trapping Boss-guy between us, the chair and the wall.

“It’s over. Hands up slowly and no other movements.” I commanded over local.

And low and behold. The guy actually did what I told him to.

Until he didn’t. An arc of electricity shot out from his right hand and before I had time to do anything I felt the shock. My muscles locked up and everything went black.