December 7th, 2017 00:25 GMT

Everyone was waiting for Trutheim to arrive.

"Why did you pull that trigger, Blackwood?" Reel hissed.

Usually, Robert Reel was a kind of laid back guy, but recently, basically ever since the mini-meteors struck, he became more serious. The team's continued survival was his responsibility as their captain after all.

"They took our drone without provocation. Retaliation is the way to go in hostage situations." Blackwood replied.

"Jeez Blackwood, not every problem is solved using violence." Taku shook his head.

"Question is, what are we gonna do now?" Alina mumbled.

"Wait for our TO(Tech Officer) to bring the footage. In the mean time.. BLACKWOOD!"

".."

"BLACKWOOD!"

"Yes, Sir!"

"Never do that again, you understand? Orders are to be followed, or there is no point to order at all." Robert reprimanded his SO.

"Understood." Blackwood responded, albeit obvious he did not regret his actions one bit.

Good enough for now, Robert thought. But i need to keep him in check more actively from now on. Trigger nervous soldiers are not easy to deal with. He sighed internally.

"I am putting the edited evidence on screen two." Katarina said as she entered with a tablet in hand. The living hall walls were all screens, except the one where the kitchen and tables were installed. Screen two was to the opposite of the seating area, perfect to watch a movie while eating. Or see horrifying evidence about alien space stations eating tiny human-made drones.

They watched one of the drones get sucked towards the yet invisible opening it would soon disappear in. Everyone was still on edge but they had to look for clues, they all knew that.

While the video was running, Trutheim explained some of the sensor data she got right before the drone went offline.

"That thing is not dead at all. Behind those glowing red lines strong EM-fields flared up like christmas trees. So far that is nothing out of the ordinary, as our devices also produce EM-fields. But the last few milliseconds recorded are just so fucking not normal, it reaches a whole new level of wtf.

The field-strength surpassed that of our A-AMF reactors at maximum output by at least six orders of magnitude. Even if i can somehow imagine technology which utilizes that kind of high-energy fields, the next part almost made me cry. Gravitation changed! That station can fucking change local gravity! That is not just future tech, that is physically impossible! .. I don't even know how to begin explaining that one .. Anyways, that's how they pulled our drone in i presume."

She was out of breath at the end of her little speech, but a fire the others had never seen before burned in her eyes. The sometimes most annoying, sometimes most useful trait of humanity had taken over her soul. Curiosity. She wanted to understand. She NEEDED to understand. A glimpse in her face was enough to spread that exact feeling among the crew members like a wildfire. Even Blackwood's mind shifted a little bit towards friendlier thoughts.

They finished watching the footage in silence, everyone lost in his( or her) own thoughts.

"So.." Miller started, but somehow forgot to continue speaking.

"Captain, you got any ideas?" Alina asked.

"We maintain orbit for now and continue watching from afar. To be honest, i need more time to think of a halfway decent plan, or any plan at all for that matter. Two shifts again. Baguette, Blackwood, Miller, go to sleep. Tscherenkow, Trutheim stay with me. You too, Taku. Help me figure this out."

While walking to their rooms, Baguette started talking to Blackwood. "Sir, do you think this will end in a fight? We all saw our weaponry is damn useless." He sounded a bit worried.

"Don't worry, Renault. I may be the kind of guy that loves to solve conflict with firepower, but i am not retarded. Actually, Trutheim made me kinda curious. I mean, there could be ultra-weapon-tech on that station, right? Blowing it out of the skies could be a shameful waste. Not that it looks like we could blow it up even if we wanted to.."

So they went to bed, the rush of the last hours fading into the sweet embrace of sleep. Filled with nightmares though.