Starchildren Options

[Kane]

Two stories at once is a lot for me, so these updates may not be as frequent. I also did not plan on this but a certain young woman in my head refused to be quiet.

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Prologue (May 7th, 2330)
Ebbside, Neon City, Volii Alpha


Andromeda awoke with a start. Somebody was pounding frantically on the door to her sleep crate and had ruined a perfectly deep slumber after a long day of work and even longer night of partying to celebrate her birthday. There was no way in hell it was daylight already which meant she probably left her slate at Euphorika. Again.

The bleary-eyed young woman fumbled in the dark for her glasses while the pounding on her door continued. If whomever it was out there kept it up much longer, she felt like her head would start pounding, too. Having finally fished her glasses off of the cold floor Andromeda slid them on and then clicked her bedside lamp to life. Most of her clothes were strewn about the floor of her metal box, which also explained why she was now so cold.

Two minutes or so later, she was half-dressed, and her nearly decrepit Solstice was clutched tightly in her left hand. Please don’t fizzle out on me now old girl, she thought. Looking down at the worn laser pistol in her hand, she sighed and silently chided herself for never spending any credits on a decent gun. The little pistol had been thrown out for good reason, yet Andromeda had fished out of the garbage anyway and fixed it up in the most half-assed way possible. Each time she squeezed the trigger was just another gamble on whether or not the damned thing would even fire.

This time she prayed to gods she didn’t give a [censored] about that it wouldn’t let her down. And then she finally opened the door.

Andre burst into her sleep crate and slammed the door shut behind him.

“It’s about goddamn time you answered! What the hell took you so long, Dro?”

Andromeda blinked in surprise at the urgency in his voice. She’d known Andre for over six months now, and the man was usually as cool as a cucumber. Even when he drunkenly tried to flirt with her. Andre had taken a courier job for HopeTech on Valo and was reassigned here to Neon City, much to his initial dismay, but they had grown close in the time since. The man was of average height with dark skin and kind brown eyes that sometimes hid behind a mop of unkempt blue hair.

“Slow down, Andre,” she said. “What’s the big deal?”

“No time to slow down. The ‘big deal’ is that your [censored], Dro. Absolutely [censored].”

“Wha -”

“Gather up what you care about the most and stuff it in your bag. Security thugs are closing in already �" I set up a prox alert for when they get within twenty meters.” Andre saw her bag sitting on the floor near the door, grabbed it, and handed it to Andromeda. “Pack! Now!”

“Andre, I am not going to move another goddamn muscle until you tell me what the [censored] is going on!”

“[censored]. Fine. Start packing and I’ll explain while you go.” He waited until a few things had been shoved unceremoniously in her bag before continuing: “Those Ryujin files you hacked yesterday for your anonymous buyer? They were tagged for Bayu’s personal records. Dunno how he tracked you down so quick but if you wanna live to see your twenty-sixth birthday then we need to get you the hell out of this city.”

Her blood froze. Benjamin Bayu. The Administrator of Neon City and possibly the most corrupt man in the settled systems. His fingers crept into every business venture on the planet and the security force was at his beck and call. No one did business in Neon without giving him a cut, and his ruthlessness against would-be competitors was legendary. Everyone who lived in Neon lived comfortably by skirting his brutality.

If she was on his radar at long last, then she had definitely taken the wrong job, pile of credits notwithstanding. Being a Cyber Runner in Neon always ran the risk that Andromeda would one day cross paths with that monster, but she had always been careful about her choice of contracts in the hope of avoiding Bayu. Her luck had finally run out and yet she still was uncertain about leaving the only home she ever knew.

“I can’t just up and leave!” stammered Andromeda, freezing midway through emptying the contents of her wall safe. “My whole life is here! It’s all I’ve ever known!”

“Doesn’t matter. Bayu will have you killed just to make an example - “ Andre ceased talking abruptly at the sound of rapid beeping emanating from his slate. His face took on an unhealthy pallor and he nervously ran his hand through his hair. “Time to go. They got there sooner than I expected.” Andre pulled another slate out of his jacket pocket and gave it to Andromeda. “Here, take this and give it to Doc Manning at the clinic. He’ll give you a short makeover to fool security at the spaceport.”

“Andre, I...” Andromeda was at a loss for words. The sudden shock of what was happening and the thought of fleeing her life �" Neon, Andre, the friends and people she’d grown up around �" was too much. Hot tears fell down her pale cheeks and splashed on the floor of her crate. She raised a hand to brush them away, and then shoulder her bag. “This isn’t over,” she finally said with a firmer resolve than what she felt inside. “Bayu isn’t chasing me out of my [censored] home forever. I’ll come back for all of you, I promise.” Andromeda stood on her tiptoes and planted a kiss on Andre’s cheek. “I promise.”

“We’ll do what we can to clear your name. You need to go. Now. They’ll be here any second. I can keep them occupied for a few minutes but they’ll tell me to get lost before long. Go!”

Andromeda pulled her hood up to hide her vibrant fuchsia hair and fled into the night without another word. The garbled chatter of Neon Security radios echoed up from the alleyway to her right, so she moved silently away from them and ducked into a dark alcove that was still within view of her crate. It was hard to much of anything, but she recognized the dim form of Andre now standing back outside of her door and soon heard him pounding on it once again.

“Yo! Open up, Jen!” Andre’s voice rang out. “Open up!”

Flashlights illuminated and three security goons stood at the ready, their guns trained on her friend. Andre’s hands flew skyward while the nearest guard began to pat him down.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” demanded another guard.

“Damn, take it easy, bud,” said Andre. “My friend lives here and she’s gonna be late for her shift at Generdyne again. Just trying to get her ass on the move!”

“Jen, huh? Yeah, sure pal.” The guard shoved him aside and addressed one of his partners. “What do you got, Reg?”

“Andre Mitarn, known associate of one Andromeda Renault. Courier for HopeTech.”

“Did ya hear that you lying piece of [censored]?” laughed the first guard. “Jen my ass. Where’s the girl?”

“If I knew where Jen was I wouldn’t be here, officer.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever, punk. Reg, you know the drill �" get him out of here.”

Andre lowered his hands to leave while Andromeda released a breath she didn’t realize she had been holding. Her friend turned to walk away but Andre only made it a few paces before two sharp cracks rang out through Ebbside. He fell to the ground in a pool of blood while Andromeda watched in silent horror. She shoved her hand in her mouth in a desperate bid to stop herself from crying out.

“Dump that sack of [censored] over the side. The chasmbass will get rid of the evidence for us.”

Two of the security goons forced open the door to her sleep crate and disappeared inside while the third dragged off Andre’s lifeless body and heaved it over the railing and into the churning waters far below. Andromeda slipped away unseen and headed silently for the Neon Core, wiping away the tears as she went. The nearest door to Bayu Plaza wasn’t far, and within five minutes she had stepped through it and darkened her glasses against the garish light that gave Neon City its name.

Every type of store and service imaginable spanned the length of the Core, brilliant neon signs and lights shining down upon everyone who walked the expansive length from Ryujin Tower to the Trade Tower. Even late at night (or early in the morning, as it was now), the walkways were teeming with citizens, tourists, guards, scumbags, and dregs.

Andromeda’s destination was Reliant Medical and thankfully it was only a short distance away. Doc Manning seemed to never sleep and with her life crumbling around her, Andromeda was grateful to see him sitting at his counter.

“Ah, there you are, Dro! Andre warned me you were coming �" c’mon around back and we’ll get you fixed up.” He paused at the signs of grief that had stricken her normally carefree face. “What’s happened? Wait… where is Andre?”

It took everything Andromeda had to not scream in frustration and anger. She settled for kicking helplessly at the front of his counter which only resulted in a stab of pan shooting through her foot. “They [censored] killed him, Joe! Bayu’s security goons iced him without a second thought and threw him over the rails of Ebbside!”

“Bastards,” sighed the Doc. “I keep hoping this city will change some day but I don’t think I’ll ever live to see it. Despite younguns like you fighting back, Bayu’s grip never seems to relent. All the more reason to get you out of here, I guess.” Doc Manning waved her towards the back again and dismounted from his stool. “Go on, I just have to lock up real quick.”

The back room had a small biological modification chair that the doc had somehow procured from one of the Enhance! stores that were peppered throughout the local galaxy. It must have cost a small fortune, but she once again found herself thanking gods she didn’t care about for its existence in the back of the clinic. Doc Manning followed her in a few seconds later and instructed her to take a seat in the chair.

“Okay, so Andre...” Joe trailed off and made a gesture that Andromeda had never seen before. His hand moved across his face in the shape of a ‘T’.

“What was that for?” she asked him.

“The cross? It’s from an old-Earth religion that most have forgotten about. I’ll explain some other time. Anyway… so Andre most have been tipped off pretty early and with a good bit of info. Bayu has your name, financial history, work records, and physiological profile; but not your DNA records. We lucked out there. A few cosmetic changes will get you past the spaceport sniffers.”

“Joe, I can’t pay for any of this,” said Andromeda. “All my accounts are probably seized and I have less than two-hundred credits in my bag.”

“You don’t owe me anything, Dro. You’ve already done so much for the hard working people of this city that your friends are lining up behind me to get you safely out of this place.”

Andromeda sniffled and dabbed at her eyes with a tissue from the box Doc Manning held up to her. She knew it would be a long time until she saw those friends again, and the thought of that hurt more than anything else. Then she laid back in the chair and closed her eyes while the doctor powered up the alteration arms. She knew it would take thirty seconds to a minute for the machine to fully boot, so Andromeda pressed her friend on what would happen next.

“I have another slate from Andre,” he said. “It will transfer enough credits to get you on an outbound freighter, and provide a new identity. But the tricky part will be getting you to the port with perfect timing. We need to have you at the gates just as the ship’s thrusters begin to burn, so that the guards will hopefully rush you through without looking to closely at your records.”

There was lot that could go wrong with that. However, she trusted her friends implicitly and so she closed her eyes again and let the doctor go to work. The procedure was relatively painless, but she did flinch from the occasional needle or sharp prod. Some calibrations to the machine were in order when she returned. If I can return, she thought. Benjamin Bayu had a long memory, and she doubted he would forget about her anytime soon.

Ten minutes elapsed before Doc Manning leaned back on his stool and powered down the alteration arms. He grabbed a mirror from a side table and handed it to Andromeda. The same brown eyes stared back at her, but Joe had completely changed her hairstyle and its color: the long ponytail she had entered the clinic with was gone, and only a small knot was tied up in the back. Instead of fuchsia, her locks were now dyed an incredible opalescent prism of stunning colors, and the strands on the right side of her face fell down past her cheeks while being tucked back tightly on the left side.

She noticed the bare skin of her neck and left cheek and inhaled sharply. “Did you get rid of my tattoos?! Those were really personal to me, Doc!”
“Relax, I just covered them up with some foundation. Keep your hood up a the spaceport or the rain will wash it away and give up the goose. They’ll stick out like a sore thumb. Oh, and leave your piercings here. Those are easily replaceable.”

Andromeda frowned but did as advised. She popped the studs out of her ears and nose, removed the loop from her septum, and slid the barbell out from her nose bridge. Doc Manning collected them all in a small steel pan and then dropped them into a medical waste bin. Andromeda slid out of the modification chair and gave him a hug.

“Thanks for everything, Doc. I’ll be back to repay you some day.”

“I already told you your credit is good, Dro. Just promise me you’ll be careful out there.”

“I’ll try. But you should know better than most that the trouble usually finds me first.”

“That I do!” laughed Doc Manning. “Damn, almost forgot �" lose the glasses, too. I have some lenses for you instead.”

She removed her glasses and chucked them in the bin with her piercings. The good doctor handed her a set of icy blue colored contact lenses and after a couple minutes of struggling, she managed to pop them in to obscure her natural eye color. Another hug for the Doc Manning. Then he tapped a slate to hers and ushered Andromeda out the back door of Reliant Medical. Syndal, her best friend from university and one-time lover waited somberly in the trash ridden alley running behind the shops.

“Time to go, doll,” said her diminutive cohort. “Ship leaves in six minutes.” Syndal was tiny even compared to the slight 1.6 meters Andromeda rose to. The top of her head just barely made it to Andromeda’s nose. She put a hand on the back of Andromeda’s head and pulled her down to a reasonable level, kissing her very briefly on the lips. “For luck,” she explained to Andromeda’s quizzical stare. “Don’t think we’re ever getting back together or anything.”

“Fair enough,” said Andromeda. “Are we taking the main elevator down?”

“Have to. It’s all you have time for. “Let’s go, and try to keep up. Security is swarming the Core for you.”

Andromeda nodded and followed along in Syndal’s speedy wake. It was easy to unobtrusively hang a few steps back and still keep tabs on the impressive length of platinum hair falling past her friend’s hips. It swayed to and fro in the constant gentle breeze flowing through Neon City. The draft was one of many effects of living on massive platform built high above the roiling seas of a water world. A world that Andromeda had never left. Or had ever planned to leave. Those idle thoughts helped keep her features neutral when they stepped back onto the main thoroughfare and snaked their way towards the spaceport elevator.

Neon Security had fallen for the gambit. None of them paid her any mind, despite having her former appearance projected on the inside of their helmet visors. Syndal led her right past squad after squad of the corrupt officers until they reached their destination.

“You’re on your own from here,” said Syndal. “Take the lift down to the port and make a show of rushing, but don’t outright sprint. Play the part of the late departee who is trying to make their flight. The guards down there are a different detachment than the Core goons and generally skew towards being less of an asshole than the ones chasing you up here.”

“Okay, I’ll try. Never was much of an actor but I can do this. I have to do this.”

Syndal slapped her on the ass. “Quit stalling. You’ve got less than two minutes.”

“Right. Bye, Syn. And thank you.”

The elevator doors opened and Andromeda rode the lift down to the docking port. Two guards flanked the it at the bottom but the alterations Doc Manning made to her appearance seemed to have fooled their scanners. She showed them her slate and they told her to get moving else she miss the freighter. Settling for a speedy trot, Andromeda sighed gratefully and flitted down the long catwalk spanning over the ocean below, squeezing her hood tightly to her face. The warm, wind-driven rain splattered against her while she half ran to the ship waiting for its final passenger.

It was an ancient Deimos model that took up most of the landing pad. Bright lights illuminated faded letters above the ramp: The Gryphon. A crew member ushered Andromeda inside with little patience and directed her to a jump seat in the main cabin. Unsure of how the seat worked, her fingers trembled while she tried to strap herself in.

“First time in space, dearie?” A middle-aged woman next to her smiled gently at Andromeda.

“Yeah. I’m scared shitless if I’m being honest.”

“There’s nothing to it.” The kind woman reached over and showed her which buckles went where, and pointed out the safety pouch under the cushion. “Mouth guards in there if you’re worried about biting your tongue off. Once we take off, just keep your mouth closed and you won’t need them.”

Andromeda thanked her, and the woman went back to humming an off-tune key. Voices rang out over the loudspeaker and warning signs began to light up all around them. The entire ship rattled and shook, and the message on the flight console on the wall across from her changed from ‘docked’ to ‘achieving thrust’. Seconds later the engines roared into life and the sudden g’s from massive acceleration pressed Andromeda back into her seat. Unable to move so much as a finger, she closed her eyes and whimpered slightly as the ship gained altitude.

And then the pressure was gone. She opened her eyes and the porthole in the ceiling above revealed the deep black of space, dotted with innumerable points of light blinking back at her from incomprehensible distances. For the second time in as many minutes, her breath had been taken away for very different reasons.

She had done it. She had escaped Neon City and the closing grasp of Benjaim Bayu.

The tears came again anyway. Her life as she knew it was over and she had no idea where things went from here. She didn’t even know where this ship was bound. She was alone among the stars. And then the engines powered down while the grav drive engaged, folded space around the ship, and leapt from the Volii System in a blazing show of cosmic light and energy, carrying Andromeda far way from danger with a dumbfounded expression on her face..

This post has been edited by Kane: Jun 20 2025, 12:59 PM

[Kane]

She'd have liked some more time to relax, but there is no shortage of things to do at The Lodge! And the bumps will mellow over time. Andromeda is still a bit on edge from her experiences.


More lessons to come, too.

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Six – On the Hunt
Cydonia, Mars, Sol System

The Frontier landed gracefully at the Port of Cydonia, the only major settlement on the surface of Mars. Inside the cockpit of the ship, Andromeda moodily mashed at the buttons responsible for powering down the various systems and securing the computer cores. The trip from Jemison had been short and mostly silent, save for the single time Sarah tried to compliment her new recruit’s flawless execution of the grav drive and received a withering glare in return. But, despite their recent clash, Constellation’s leader knew they were on an important mission and she wasn’t about to get underway without a cohesive team.

“Look, Andromeda -”

“Save it. Let’s just do what we came here to do and then get the hell out of this place.”

“We aren’t doing a damn thing until we work this out. I will not continue this mission unless I know I can count on you, and if you have a problem with that, then you can leave the ship and stay here on Mars. Constellation will move on without your help.”

Andromeda chewed at the inside of her mouth while staring out the cockpit window at the dusty red landscape beyond. Staying here sounded a bit like hell, so she swallowed her pride and swiveled her chair to face Sarah.

“Thank you,” continued Sarah. “And I meant it early when I said I was sorry. I truly did not mean to imply that you’re uneducated. It’s obvious to anyone with half a brain that you’re a very intelligent woman. I just get caught up in idealism sometimes, and believe me when I say you aren’t the first member of our little team to take one of my ramblings the wrong way. You’ll have to ask Andreja about that sometime.”

“Andreja?”

“She’s our other newest recruit. Out following a lead of her own at the moment.”

“Right.”

“Yes, well, as I said; I am sorry I offended you. It was not my intention. Now how about we get cracking on what we came here for. Are you ready to take the lead?”

“Fine,” sighed Andromeda. “But you owe me a drink the next time we find a bar.”

“What a coincidence! A bar is the first place we’ll be checking here at Cydonia. Before we do that, however, you and I are going to have another round of practice.” Andromeda started protesting immediately, having spent most of the morning doing just that, but Sarah cut her off. “Not with the ship, you are picking up on that remarkably. No, this time I need to see how well you can shoot that overcompensating revolver you purchased.”

They spent the next few minutes helping each other into their spacesuits, and then headed out into the thin atmosphere of Mars. There was very little activity on the huge landing pad, so Sarah led them off to the far side and asked Andromeda to shoot at a nearby rock. The weight of the Razorback felt amazing in her hands – much more imposing than the little Eon tucked away in the ship. Andromeda raised it up, peered down the sights, and squeezed the trigger.

Sarah had been anticipating what happened next, and she plucked the revolver out of the air after the recoil forced it to leap free of Andromeda’s inexperienced grasp. Neither one of them saw where the round impacted, but that was irrelevant anyway.

“See what I mean about overcompensating?”

“Hey, I never pretended to know what I was doing,” shrugged Andromeda.

“Could have fooled me. Here, take the gun again and I’ll show you how to properly hold it.”

These lessons were much shorter, and that suited Andromeda just fine. After learning how to grip the revolver correctly and brace herself for the recoil, she emptied the chambers with varying degrees of accuracy.

“You’ll need to keep practicing, but that’ll do for now. Well done, Dro. Let’s head inside now and see if we can’t find our captain belly up at a bar.”

Cydonia offered more than The Den, that first dismal startstation Andromeda neary found herself stranded on, but not by much. The first thing greeting them after passing through the robust airlock was a sign hanging from the ceiling that read ‘Hours Without Incident: 2’. That did little to convince Andromeda that Cydonia was a place she ought to be at. Thankfully, the bar in question Sarah mentioned sat not much further in. The Broken Spear – charming name, thought Andromeda – was a dump compared to anything in Neon, and the music choice left much to be desired.

Sarah didn’t seem in the mood to mingle, and marched straight up to the bartender to buy her co-pilot the promised drink before granting Andromeda the floor.

“Gee, thanks,” said Andromeda sipping from a beer can. She turned to the bartender, Jack, and asked him about Moara.

“Haven’t seen him in weeks” said Jack. “If you manage to track him down, tell him he still owes me for his last tab.”

“You seriously have no idea where he’d have gone?” Andromeda wasn’t buying it. Neither was her newfound empathic abilities that were practically screaming that this man knew more than he let on. A sense of worry pervaded his mind. She decided to try a different tact that never failed her in the past. “Look, Jack,” she simpered. Andromeda leaned in over the bar top and twirled a loose lock of hair and widened her eyes in concern. “He’s out there somewhere, all alone. What if he’s in trouble? Space is dangerous and full of miscreants. Do you really want to let a regular – a friend – get himself killed when you could have done something about it?”

Jack set the mug that he was cleaning down and let out a long sigh. “Fine, you got me. He mentioned something about the Lady of Love. That’s all I got.”

“Venus?” asked Sarah. “That’s one planet in a massive system. You must know something more!”

“I got what I got,” grumbled Jack.

“Fine. On our way, Dro.”

Andromeda choked down the rest of her lager and then followed Sarah out of the bar and back to the Frontier. Once in the pilot’s chair, Andromeda pulled up the star charts again and pinpointed their next destination. According to the navigational information, Venus and Mars were approximately one Astronomical Unit apart. That was a long flight without the grav drive.

“So, I guess we kick back for a while?”

“Indeed,” confirmed Sarah. “Our ship is fast, but not exceedingly so. I’ll get our flight path programmed – why don’t you head to the galley and heat up something for us to eat. I don’t expect us to reach Venus until early morning.”

* * *
Sol System

Sarah’s estimation proved correct, and she roused Andromeda at just after two-thirty ante merīdiem. Anticipating a grouchy co-pilot, she also had a thermos full of freshly-brewed coffee waiting in the cockpit. Andromeda took a cautious sip of the piping hot drink and the nodded vaguely at the view beyond.

“What’d you find?”

“There’s a UC Satellite floating out there and I was able to get the ship in close enough to ping it while you slept. Picked up a comms log from Moara: he was heading for the old Nova Galactic staryard in orbit around Luna.”

“My turn at the helm, I take it?”

“Yep. I’m exhausted,” said Sarah. She sighed loudly and rubbed at her eyes to prove her point. “I already punched in the coordinates, just wake me up when we get there.”

“Aye-aye, cap’n.”

Andromeda offered a mock salute and giggled when Sarah shook her head while slouching away. There was little to do in transit, so she pulled out her slate and filtered through the few files stored in the memory cache. Her slate back on Neon teemed with books, music, and movies; but all of that was left behind, and the security guards likely kept it as evidence. Or threw it in the garbage. It would take a long time to recover all of that content.

Then one of the computer consoles in front of her bleeped and she started to wonder if there was anything fun in the Frontier’s memory banks. Her fingers tapped at the data links on her slate and connected it to the main core of the ship only to find disappointment: a collection of jazz music and two dozen books on various scientific theories.

“Well, that’s boring as [censored]. I wonder…”

Undeterred, she pulled up the starmap again and honed in on their location. Zooming out a little further, Andromeda noticed several faint, blinking lights orbiting the celestial bodies they were closest to. She flipped on the voice control and began making inquiries.

“Computer, identify those readings.”

The planet and moon names disappeared from the screen and were replaced with strings of alpha-numeric identification numbers. Andromeda selected one of them and it turned out to be another comms satellite, which is exactly what she hoped for.

“Perfect. Let’s see how tight UC firewalls are.”

As it turned out; they weren’t very tight when it came to the countless devices littering the Settled Systems. Andromeda sliced through the security protocols in under two minutes, and began transferring files and information to the ship’s core until a much broader variety of entertainment lay at her fingertips. Apparently, the satellites sucked up everything in sight that wasn’t encrypted, and stored it for access by UC patrols.

The next few hours were much more enjoyable than she initially anticipated. Sarah, however, did not appreciate the latest synthmetal songs out of New Homestead blaring from the cockpit.

* * *
Nova Galactic Staryard, Luna, Sol System

“Easy does it… slowly… slowly… aaaaaand there! Perfectly done! Dro, you have picked up on this like a master!”

Andromeda blushed profusely while waiting for her heart rate to settle. Docking with another object in space was way more intimidating than landing at a spaceport, but she’d done it anyway. With Sarah close at hand, that is. But the elation quickly faded when she Sarah pull out her own customized Solstice and give it a once over.

“Do you really think we’ll need our guns?” gulped Andromeda. Hazy memories of the last terrifying firefight she’d been in flitted through her mind. She started feeling sick again after thinking about the pirate she had killed that day. “I… I don’t know how useful I’ll be if we get in a fight.”

“That’s why I’m taking the lead this time.” Sarah holstered the laser pistol and grabbed Andromeda’s hands in her own. “I won’t lie and say this will be a walk in the park. The staryard has been abandoned for decades and it sounds like Moara was being dogged by Spacers. They’re even worse than the Crimson Fleet – no hierarchy or structure – just anarchy. We need to stick together and watch each others backs. I’m counting on you to help keep us safe, Andromeda.”

Nothing about this felt okay to Andromeda, but she supposed she should have seen it coming. They donned their spacesuits again and loaded up on med packs, ammo, and other chems that Sarah indicated would help them in the heat of a battle. The ladder up through the docking ring loomed larger than life. Andromeda climbed it shakily until they reached an airlock. The door to the Frontier shut behind them with a hiss, and another swung open before them, greeting the duo with a morbid first sight: a dead body slumped against the wall. Barely dried blood adorned the metal paneling behind the corpse and pooled up on the ground beneath it.

“Oh, [censored]. [censored] [censored] [censored] [censored],” groaned Andromeda. “Sarah, that’s disgusting! I might be sick again. I told you am not cut out for this!”

“Just breathe, dear. Deep breaths.” Sarah knelt to examine the unfortunate soul who greeted them silently. The ragtag common spacesuit he wore apparently told Sarah a lot more about this person than it did to Andromeda. “Spacers it is. Damn. Be ready for anything, and keep that hand cannon at the ready, Dro.”

They pressed on through the entryway, nerves on high alert. Everything in sight was ransacked and it looked like not a single stone remained unturned. Desks and file cabinets were ripped apart, their contents strewn about the floor. Personnel lockers had been pried open and nothing remained inside them but dirty clothes and the occasional keepsake. Sarah opened a door leading further in and the only thing greeting them beyond were flickering lights. They picked their way through a couple more deserted areas until an atrium opened up in front of them.

At the far end, laser bolts and bullets were being traded back and forth between unknown combatants.

“At least they aren’t shooting at me this time,” said Andromeda.

“For now. Only a matter of time until one side comes out on top.”

“Thanks for that, Sarah. Way to kill the vibe.”

“Hush. Move over behind that low wall and I’ll wait behind that pile of rubble directly across from you. Stay alert, and if anyone from the winning side heads our way, do not hesitate to fire at them.”

Andromeda glanced over at the wall she indicated. There was another dead spacer lying at the base of it. “Gross, I don’t want to stand next to that! Can’t you go over there?”

“It’s not up for debate. Do as I say, or go back to the ship. With any luck I’ll make it back alive.”

“Ugh, you are the queen of guilt tripping Sarah Morgan,” groaned Andromeda. “Fine, but if get the plague or something from that bastard, you’re paying my medical bills.”

She dropped to a crouch and scooted across the atrium as quiet as a mouse. The spacesuit wasn’t exactly noiseless, but her slight frame led to an air of stealthiness all the same – so much so that even Sarah seemed surprised by how deft Andromeda was. The boss gave her a thumbs up and whispered praise over their helmet comms while they readied their weapons. Then a small glint from underneath the dead spacer caught Andromeda’s eye, and she couldn’t resist the urge to see what cast it.

Placing a knee against the dead body’s shoulder, she shoved it aside with a grimace that fast became a delighted smile stretching from ear to ear. Holstering her Razorback, Andromeda reached down and picked up something new, and instantly realized she’d been approaching these situations in the wrong manner. She didn’t possess the nerve or ability for close quarters combat, and her solution finally came in the form of a long-barreled rifle complete with a short scope and a suppressor. The paint had some wear and tear but nothing that couldn’t be cleaned up at The Lodge’s weapons workbench, and the ammo readout read a nearly full cartridge at forty-three out of fifty rounds. The safety was already off and Andromeda brought her new ordinance to bear at the same time a spacer dove into the atrium seeking cover from the firefight beyond.