/ Chapter 6 / 

The docks were connected to an arrival and departure lobby where one could rest, shop, and consult displays with sensor data and updates. The room also had a view from an optical telescope projecting onto a 4 by 3 meter screen. It currently just sat showing a static view of an antenna with a blinking light, and a bit of the small moon's surface.

At the centre of the lobby there was a hoop of seats encircling an art deco statue in matted onyx. It appeared to represent a stout man holding up a pick axe, about to swing, or perhaps summon lightning. At the base of the statue there was a line written in gold: "Strike the earth! In memoriam – 8612 souls."

There were only a dozen or so people idling in the area since it was reserved for dock customers. Everyone she saw was worryingly handsome. The men looked like the type of archetype hero one might see on the cover of an ancient 1950's magazine. The women were elegant and poised. Teu had of course seen people in the magazines found on board the wing ship, but had assumed those were just models. Well, Beutraze and Naxxel had been quite okay looking too she supposed. Seeing all this Teu felt that FW722's natural appearance was perhaps comparably... inelegant, or non-conformative? A bit loutish? However, Beutraze's smart outfit helped to disguise it a bit.

Teu of course immediately also noticed that the people around her in fact all wore pants or skirts. The fashion on display appeared to Teu as being an amalgamation of styles – it was Edwardian fashion, but with more provocative 1960s cuts, and elements of 18th century military dress uniform with buttons and ribbons on the chest. One guy even wore a golden chest plate with a radiant sun in emboss. 

She wondered briefly how much one of the fancy dresses would set her back and was lost gawking until there was a disturbance. Something was happening up on the big screen.

She saw a trio of wedge shaped ships with hazard stripes launching at high intercept speeds on a mission, and an announcement over the lobby speakers clarified about as much. Those were probably the scouts the big guy had mentioned. The pirate ship must have overshot by now since it wouldn't be breaking, though the scouts might catch it still. The muffled conversations in the lobby died out as quickly as the scouts moved out of view. 

Around the circumference of the lobby nestled a few service alcoves, namely "Information services", "Refuel services", "Repair services", "Rearmament services" and "Snacks".

She headed directly for Snacks. It was a small kiosk selling mostly meal bars.

–– "What can I do ya for?", a handsome young looking man asked, putting a pulp book to the side.

The clerk was probably one of the youngest looking persons she had seen so far. Maybe this was his first job? He studied her curiously as she browsed the eclectic assortment of products on display. 

–– "Looking for something a little special huh? Got people askin' but we don't carry that here.", he said, paused, then leaned in and added in a whisper, " Gotta go to uncle SlimPim's if ya want that."

–– "Actually, I'm looking for the... uh, tasteless stuff?"

–– "Eew! What ya want that stuff for? It's for WeeCees. Got inhibitors and stuff."

–– "Inhibitors?"

–– "So they don't... you know!", he said shyly motioning by putting two fingers together, then he continued," And it keeps them happy working too I hear. Some poor peeps eat it when they want to focus, but we got much better stuff for that, if you got the coin."

Oh. So that was it. She began to suspect that Worker Constructs were pretty close to other humans here, but were... kept in line. No wonder they had just worked all day at the factory without a thought of something else. Thinking about it, ever since they had started eating the meal bars on the ship... she had felt some... urges, and hadn't the other workers been acting a bit out of their ordinary too?

She selected a few meal bars completely at random, more out of courtesy so it didn't seem like she was loitering. Plus, a kiosk probably wasn't a good place to resupply in bulk.

–– "A Grundleberry person huh? Acquired taste I suppose. That be three-fiddy each for the regulars and a fiver for the premium."

She paid with the gold and got an unfamiliar and very dinged up coin back in change.

–– "Hah, new imperial mint! Nice! Halfie back.", he enthused and eyed the coins, carefully putting them in a special side purse.

Next she slowly headed for the information desk. Beutraze's black skirt was a bit tight around her knees – something which bothered her immensely as an assassin prone to sudden bursts of motion.

The female clerk was a pretty thing with a round friendly face. Teu declined picking up "The visitor's guide to Nez'ol" as she wouldn't be staying. She did find a more up to date travel guide for the sector though – this one only five years out of date. The perhaps more interesting find was the "Compact Imperial Encyclopaedia".

The clerk then tried to push some novels on her. One was about a mining outpost which ended up stocked with libido raising meal bars due to an administrative error. It seemed like improbable smut for women and others so inclined. Teu instead got one about cute talking farm animals rebelling against their oppressors, and another about an imperial assassin. Maybe that one could shed some light on imperial politics and their organisation, plus, she'd want to read it anyways. Finally she picked up a stack of cheap pulp magazines with mixed content. She paid 555 total and even got a bag.

When she spotted a fancy gift box with locally produced hard candy teasingly laid out in a spectral array she was set back another 60.

Then she added on a little figurine of a strange local animal for a "fiver".

Finished, she headed back to the ship right away. The girls were all quite excited by the goods and immediately tore into the bag, so the presents seemed appreciated. She hid the book about the assassin out of sight though.

–o–

Back out in the lobby, her funds had dwindled by the thousands after a visit to the refuelling and rearmament service kiosks. They refuelled the Wing Courier for her, but the ammunition crates she took care of herself, just dropping them off inside the ship. Now she was left with only some thousands of credits for shopping. Hopefully she'd get that reward...

Beyond the lobby and into the station proper she found a small bustling society. There were streets and two-storey buildings. Parts of the high roof had been turned into a sort of artificial sky. In a sense it was a real sky – the sun was simply redirected onto a huge diffuse strip of blue-white film.

She saw hundreds more of the handsome people, but no children, or old folk for that matter. Some of the people were a bit peculiar though. Three men were walking like a ladder, the bottom one on his hands while another similarly stood handstand on the feet. As if this wasn't already impressive, there was a third guy on top. What kind of strength and balance was needed to pull that off?

Then there was a cat girl. A furry one that is. Probably not actually a mutated cat, but rather some similar looking alien. She had black fur, a snout, and big ears. She was very tall and elegant, wearing a dress in shimmering black velvet. A rifle was slung over her shoulder, somewhat disturbing the picture. No one seemed to care.

Unlike the cat girl, most people wore hats. Top hats, plumed hats, robin hood hats, helmets... everything under the sun. Teu hadn't brought Beutraze's hat or glasses and probably would've stood out if in a less culturally eclectic setting than a space station. It also seemed like two thirds of the people around were women. 

She half expected to see a brothel or two, but saw nothing even remotely like it when scanning around. Instead she caught a glimpse of what might have been a tall and pale long eared elf, but the figure just disappeared around a corner.

Then she finally saw a group of children. But why were they all so fat? They were the first fat humans she had seen in this universe. Do humans here perhaps start out fat and then-

When the children turned around she got a shock. Wow, they all had big beards.

Then she realized that they might be dwarves. If there were goblins and elves there might also be dwarves, right? They had to be dwarves.

As for the various establishments and shops, something seemed to be missing. There were no food joints. She did see plenty of vending machines with meal bars, and a few stores where they were sold over the counter. So she stopped by one and bought some rations in bulk, picking what might be this universe's version of chocolate, vanilla and strawberry. The store didn't carry "WeeCee bars" because "Who would want those?".   
She got a little curious and also got some of the speciality bars. Even got a libido bar as a test – what could go wrong? She was much more excited to find one with a female body builder on the wrapper though. She got a whole 12-pack of those and an odd look from the clerk. But she was curious at what her body could do if pushed. Hopefully she would be compatible and not a different species of sorts. 

She ended up carrying a rather full bag. Maybe she would need that strength. Thinking about it, she hadn't felt any muscle soreness from her workout yet.

Next up she visited a shop brusquely called "Women's Stuff". The owner was actually a dwarf and Teu couldn't tell its gender. The strange shop didn't sell any clothes, but Teu managed to find some skin care and hair care products. She also got an advanced makeup kit and a wig she might be able to use for disguises. Oddly enough they carried no period products – they did sell "Fertility bars" though... and the reverse. If people here lived for a long time... maybe they needed a way to control the populations. Was this why she hadn't seen any kids? Or perhaps they just kept kids elsewhere?

–– "I hear there are almost half a million planetside.", she said, attempting conversation with the dwarf and maybe steer it onto the topic of demographics.

–– "Arr, that there is...that there is...", the Dwarf started, and then went on a 15 minute long harangue on undersea mining.

Long story short, there had been 30000 dwarves on Nez'on and now there were only 20000 because of a mining accident. The dwarf regaled her with excessively immersive accounts of how the tunnels flooded, and where, and which dwarf was there, and who they were related to. Teu eventually escaped the conversation when another customer arrived.

She left the store nearly a thousand poorer. The wig was the most expensive and supposedly made out of some exotic animal. It was purple – which would stand out and perhaps cause a useful misidentification. The makeup kit had some kind of gel for altering facial features.

There wondered briefly if these things had been made somewhere out there in space... The Factory Platform FW722 had worked on was numbered 8790 after all.

Another bag in hand, she left for a third store, this one just called "Woco" as if she was already supposed to recognize the nondescript name. It was one of those expansive stores with a checkout and cashier, and a few wandering personnel. 

They really did sell a bit of everything and she was bummed to find herself almost out of money when she got to the guns section. They just sat there in glass cabinets, not too far from boots, survival gear and underpants.

She already had Beutraze's gun but stood drooling looking at a sort of tommygun for a good 20 minutes. It was 3250:- though. If she got it she wouldn't have anything left for clothes, so she bought a pair of knives for 155:- each instead. She was good with knives.

While this wasn't a clothes store, the lady necessities aisle sold some simple pants, skirts, shirts, tops, and panties. She really needed a proper pair of panties, even if the 722 part of her was entirely unconcerned.

There were only a few types of them available and they seemed quite expensive. The one on display looked entirely ordinary, like a midi or tanga with a 30-40 degree leg cut, a three fingers high side strap, and a nearly straight top cut. Just one pair would set her back 349:-. It seemed to be made from the same simple elastic white fabric they used in the factory, but the sign explicitly labelled them as "hand made" Type A premium panties. Quite possibly a product made by worker constructs such as herself didn't qualify as being hand made, nor premium. 

At any rate, she couldn't afford them for the whole group – and seriously doubted the others would even appreciate them – so she only picked up a boxed pair for herself in white. For 100:- extra one could get one in a pastel colour, but those shelves were empty.

Next up in price was the "Maestro", with only a single pair kept in a locked glass cabinet. The hand painted illustration on the box depicted a pin up model in slightly puffy and frilly victorian bloomers with a bit of leg. Cute as they looked, they were a staggering 1760:-. What were they made of? Spider silk?

The majority of the shelf space however was occupied by boxes with the Type U panties. FW722 was of course very familiar with these, except for the price – the Type U were only 15:- for one or 150:- for a box of twelve. It made her wonder what kind of profit margin the factory platform operated with, or if it perhaps was heavily subsidised.

There were no sizes given for any of the models, but Teu supposed it made sense given the kind of samey-sized people she had seen so far, ignoring a few outliers. And the dwarves... what were those wearing? Or were there no female dwarves?

At any rate, this was just some store chain, so there were likely speciality shops and tailors for those who needed it.

The tops did come in a few different "cups" and she picked up four modest sport bras. She added on a 12-pack of triangular bikini tops that seemed to match the Type U panties in both design, material, packaging and price. There was probably a sister factory platform out there making those. The girls could pick whichever top they liked, if any that was.

Luckily the store had some shoes, pants, plaid skirts and shirts on 60% sale, because after picking up four sets of those she was completely broke. Leaving checkout, she needed two big paper bags to carry it all. They of course had a print of the WoCo logo, and she couldn't shake the feeling that she looked a bit cheap carrying the bags.

Upon leaving the store she immediately hid the knives on her person.

While wandering around she saw a dedicated weapons store, but managed to resist going inside as she was already overloaded with bags, and also heartbreakingly broke. Instead she started back to the dock.

Her assassin senses had been trying to alert her for a while now, making her aware of two followers in the crowd. She stopped in a less trafficked area and sighed.

–– "What can I do for you?", she said out loud in an impatient tone.

Two good looking women in modest white dresses walked up. They both had their hair tied back into buns and wore no hats, looking slick and professional.

–– "Mam, we're with local sec."

–– "Under the big guy?"

–– "Huh? ...Oh! – No mam!", one of them smirked, " We're directly under the planetary governor. Hold on..."

They looked around, then both raised their left foot and pulled what seemed like ID strips out of their heels. Teu dutifully eyed the two IDs. They were laminated 2 by 4 centimetre cards with a portrait, text and a hard-to-copy seal with a spectral glint.

Hidden in the heels huh? Bit of a stupid place to keep them, Teu thought. But maybe that's where Beutraze also keeps hers. At any rate, she wasn't about to try for it now. What if it wasn't there? That would be awkward. Besides, it wouldn't have her face on it. Perhaps she could blur the face with some machine grease, do a quick flash? Or do a convincing makeup job?

She just kept a blank face as the two returned their IDs to their original hiding places.

–– "We keep an eye on ship arrivals and saw your entry.", one of them said, with the other adding, "Its in our private database listed as one of the Security Bjuro's special wingers."

Teu kept her blank face while pondering the implications. Beutraze was perhaps a hotshot in this "Security Bjuro". And now Teu was stuck with a hot ship it seemed. Ship serial numbers probably couldn't be faked, otherwise the pirate ship would likely have done so with theirs.

–– "We heard you took care of one of our local pests, and we have another one which needs rubbing out. We really could use a helping hand with getting the main Bjuro's cooperation in this matter."

Teu narrowed her eyes dangerously.

–– "I'm hunting a rogue agent and don't have time for other games."

–– "...but, you've been shopping.", one of them interjected in confusion, looking at Teu who stood holding clusters of large and overloaded shopping bags in each hand.

Uh-oh. Teu's mind whirled, then she thought of something.

–– "That's because I'm tailing my target. Covertly. I don't need a tail of my own. I'm very good at what I do, and you, are not."

–– "Oh. Sorry. Sorry.", they said sheepishly and made two little nod bows, then one of them added in a loud voice, "What a shame – we won't bother you with our book club subscription service then. Have a nice day!"

Teu gave that considerate response a mental thumbs up. As an assassin she appreciated a little finesse. The two agents were very attractive and she inexplicably wondered what kind of panties they wore. Surely not the Type U? 

As her eyes flicked down she suddenly saw them both standing lightly bowed wearing only their panties, sort of, the upper body was blurred out. They wore the Type U. Firefly had been right about the landing strips, too.

Whoa. She quickly spun around and left, massaging her temples, suddenly remembering the dream about her useless cheat. Well, at least she hadn't been miserably killed yet so there was always that.

She was a bit exhausted, not physically, she just felt like she had been doing too much mental processing today. She must have spent a good 6 hours shopping, and it was really about time to return to wrap things up here.


She returned to the lobby just in time to see the big sheriff guy and a bunch of armed guards emerging from a dock egress. The people in the lobby cheered and the guy waved in acceptance. Dragged along by the guards were two men and a woman in chains, all looking dishevelled, covered by soot and small burns. These people received a couple of boos.

The big guy secretly shot Teu an approving grin, suggesting that her reward was perhaps in the bag.


Back in the dock holding her Wing Courier she found the orange porter from before standing waiting impatiently.

–– "Lonkar sends his regards. We... understood you might be leaving soon so we expedited the payout. Salvage goes to the interceptor crew and station though. Taxes have been deducted.", he summarised, then offered her a literal fantasy-style leather bag full of clinking precious metals.

So Lonkar was the big sheriff guy's name? Teu just nodded and took the money. She wouldn't bother arguing about getting a cut of the salvage rights even though a ship was probably worth a lot. The porter immediately walked off at his uncanny pace.

She stowed the heavy purse and shopping bags in the ship, and stood thinking for a while. Beutraze's corpse had perhaps already been discovered, so she was getting a bit nervous about remaining here and perhaps get the actual Security Bjuro on her half-covered ass. Should she jump to a system with a shipyard and swap out the ride? Or could that be tracked? Maybe she could engage in a bit of piracy and steal a ship? In space no one can hear you steal...

But she realised she had one more errand now that she had money, so she ran to empty the gun shop! She got four stubby tommygun-like rifles, a sniper rifle, some lady guns, ammunition, grenades, and a light armoured vest. This set her back some 28000 in total, leaving her with ten for the next stop.

Unfortunately she couldn't just leave since she was supposed to be tailing someone, so she returned to the lobby where she could see arrivals and departures. Then she waited for two hours, spending the time with a free magazine from the information services kiosk. It had a long article about recent mercenary fashion trends which wasn't actually too boring. It almost made her rush back to the shop to buy a little cool survival bracelet packing a bunch of useful instruments.

Eventually she spotted a businessman who looked like he was readying for departure, and she tried to look interested. When his rather fancy looking ship could be seen leaving on the main projection screen she promptly returned to her Wing Courier. If the local security guys were actually watching then maybe she had just put the poor guy on a list...

Once she had taken the Wing Courier out of dock she loosely followed the business man's trajectory out system until he jumped, which only took 36 minutes. His ship must've had a more expensive jump computer than hers, since she'd need over 80.

While waiting she had already begun to browse the system catalog for her real target. She could have done that while waiting in the lobby but didn't think of it. 

It didn't take long to find a system with a decent shipyard which was also roughly in the same direction of that high goblin derelict. While it was a 12 lightyear jump to the shipyard she eventually decided to go for it. To actually complete the journey to the derelict coordinates though she'd need to go over 150 lightyears. 

She had three options for shortening the travel time for that trip. The first option would be to refit the Wing Courier with fuel tanks, which meant fewer trips system inward for refuelling. The second option would be to install a fuel skimmer, which meant free fuel from gas giants and shorter trips system inward – but only if lucky with planetary alignments. The third option would be to go via systems with refuelling stations. Since ships often entered system outward, that would normally be a lot of area to cover with refuelling stations vulnerable to pirate attacks. However, since brown and red dwarfs are fairly common and also valid jump targets, those kind of systems were often used for setting up refuelling stations. Lower star gravity meant a closer system entry, and less area to cover with stations. Unfortunately it also often meant that fuel had to be imported since smaller stars rarely form large gas planets. There have apparently been experiments with skimming hydrogen off "cooler" brown dwarfs, but the Wing Courier manual didn't elaborate much on the topic.

She set up the jump and tried to take note of the countdown timer this time.

Done with that, she undressed and just put on her old olive green factory top with the patched bullet hole, but went for something new for the bottom. The normal looking white panty she had bought was quite comfortable and well worth the steep price. 

The girls had made a home in Beutraze's cabin so she got the other one all to herself. She had been a bit of a loner as Teurana Zlayne, whilst the others were used to hanging out in their quarters on the factory platform. Beutraze's cabin was much larger though. The ship had plenty of soft things which could serve as mattress material, but she was surprised and dismayed to find that they had also used the clothes she bought as beddings. She'd have to address that.

Right now they were eating hard candies and rather chaotically flipping through the best parts of the pulp magazines. Braids was browsing the smut magazine with intense focus, not noticing Teu looking over her shoulder. Upon closer inspection the magazine only contained a collection of artistic nudes to go along with pretentious texts by third rate philosophers, probably an attempt to lend the publication some gravitas – and the reader a self-created intellectual air. She'd be surprised if anyone read the texts. Braids surely didn't.
                   
Teu coughed to draw everyone's attention.

–– "Hey, check out these comfortable panties. See how well they fit?", Teu opined, hands on hips.

Her bush was now only very subtly visible as a dark triangular patch against the white, as opposed to being barbarically split in twain. 

–– "You are being so weird lately.", Firefly started in a displeased tone.

–– "That thick fabric doesn't look quite right.", Braids continued, looking kind of disappointed.

Then they both stood there wrinkling their noses with an identical judgey expression. 601 wasn't paying attention at all, being busy with a comic.

–– "Anyways,", Teu ignored them, "you can put pants over it like this."

She demonstrated her "putting pants on" move.

–– "Now follow up with boots or shoes. Can't put those on before the pants, ha ha.", she fake laughed.

–– "Shirt goes over top, and you're ready to rock and roll. Hit the club. Or go buy your own meal bars. Now why don't you all try it?

Teu spun around, showing her figure and clothes, then froze with an expectant expression. Holding it.

–– "Ehh?", Firefly let out after a while .

–– "Pants are like, just a worse version of panties.", Braids observed quietly.

–– "Nu-uh, pants are more like worse version of thigh-highs.", Firefly argued seriously, slapping hers.

601, who sat facing the other way and hadn't even turned to look seemed to focus at a point in the distance. Then she spoke as if sharing a revelation.

–– "...if you cut the pants you could make both panties and thigh-highs." 

–– "Um, no you can't – the fabric is all wrong.", Braids blocked.

601 frowned for a while, then admitted defeat with a shrug, returning her attention to the magazine and plucking hard candies out of the box, also without looking. With that closure, all had returned to their activities, chatting and pointing at pictures.

–– "Just pu- pu- put the fucking pants on!", Teu yelled, then immediately regretted it.

The cabin got silent. They were totally going to start crying.

–– "Fine. Don't. Do whatever you want.", she threw her hands up.

–– "I'll just go and do my training exercises. Just enjoy... whatever you enjoy.", she added, gesturing to the now near empty box of hard candies.

Frogs at the bottom of a well! She suddenly didn't want to bother with them. She and them were perhaps fundamentally different. Though it could be said that she wasn't even similar to other humans in her own universe. She had been a deadly assassin who mimicked social behaviours. Maybe she shouldn't have brought others along when escaping.

So she left and shut herself in her cabin for some alone time. Things would cool off. Worker constructs were tuned to work well together, but part of that was the sustenance bars and they all had been eating rather heretically recently.

Speaking of, she spotted one of her acquisitions on the table. It had a pale pink foiled paper wrapper with sparkles. The label said it could put you in a good mood, in addition to having other effects. She needed it right now.

Teu nibbled on the libido bar – just a bit to see if it did anything. It looked like most other bars, being divided into a few square tabs. Seeing how it had no immediate effect on her actual libido after 20 minutes she figured it was either a marketing scam or a long term supplement for those in decline from normalcy. It was quite yummy and sweet however, giving her the buzz of an autonomous sensory meridian response. Maybe that was the effect? It tasted of comforting nostalgia and quietude. 

She actually finished the tab and then moved onto eating a whole muscle bar even though it tasted significantly worse. Those bars were quite large because they helped to build mass. She quickly got into her workout clothes, donning one of the new tops shaped like a sports bra, with a straight cut under the sternum. Being careful with her expensive new panties, she instead just put on a Type U.

The muscle bar seemed to be effective because she felt great working out. However, when she got to the weighted wide horse stance the little taut panties gave her quite the strange squeeze. Haah?

–o–

The five discussed the weirdness of 722 for a while, then agreed to at least try on the clothes. They had been having fun on this adventure so far. This was better than work in the factory, even though they missed the routine a little. 722 was right in how they probably couldn't go out and have fun later without the excessive clothes – they had all seen the pictures by now – though they also knew that some people went completely naked.

After a while they began to wonder why 722 was taking so long with her peculiar body training activity. Was she still angry at them? 722 had been shut into her cabin for two hours now. Finally they snuck up and all jumped in, attempting a big surprise in showing off the clothes they had all put on. The clothes were mostly off-white with some decorative coloured lines and subtle frills here and there. Some wore pants, some wore skirts, and some wore both.

722 however laid sprawled half naked on her back and covered in sweat. She had pulled her top over her breasts and had actually sensibly switched back into a low panty, which was bobbing up and down. But why was she kneading on it? Maybe she had an itch? Huh? What was going on? Why tell them to get dressed when she couldn't even be bothered herself? Was she playing games with them?

Suddenly 722 eyes flicked open and she yelped strangely, shot up, shooed them out... and seemed to be in a bad mood again. She was so strange. So very strange.

–o–

Teu was left dazed by the unexpected arrival of a mighty jill off and only managed to break the delirious curse with a cold shower that lasted so long the pre-filter water reservoir warning light came on. She got fully dressed in her new clothes, as if feeling the need to cover up her shame. Just great. She thought the muff-diving incident was bad enough. Where was her credibility now? In the bin. And that's where that libido bar belonged.

She thought about that "improbable" scenario in the smut novel, and promptly went to space the devious instigator in pink before it could cause an even larger incident.

Hold on, hadn't she forgotten something… really important?

The jump!

She ran to the cockpit and checked the countdown timer. It was double zeroes. It must've been sitting there for quite some time. Why hadn't they jumped? She saw that a small bulb was lit on a console and had to look up its function in the manual.

"JF2 – Jump failure indicator light – If a computer failure occurs, the jump will be automatically aborted and the jump calculations will have to be restarted. A computer failure can occur on its own, but is more likely a result of an EMP (electromagnetic pulse) attack. Please note that the preinstalled computer on the Mark 6 Wing Courier is only shielded against EMP class 1 strikes."

That… didn't seem good. There was another little bulb on as well.

"PA1 – Proximity sensor alarm indicator light. The ship is near an object in space, such as an asteroid, space debris, or another ship. This light doesn't come on during normal docking procedures."

Huh?

Suddenly there was a loud CLONK! The ship shook a bit. and within seconds she could hear a screeching sound from the docking door being forced open from the outside. Remembering the armoured vest and weapons she swung out of the seat... just in time to see a gas grenade tumble in.

/ End of Chapter /