“Good evening, deck officers of Station 14.”
A willowy symbiot with the letters EVA printed on its chestplate strolled onto the bridge observation deck, a small room that hung cantilever from a formidable concrete wall in the bridge chamber. Suspended ten meters above the platform, large glass paned walls allowed complete visibility of the bridge below. The symbiot chirped again, “This is your evening alert: please note that it is ten minutes until shift conclusion and all bridge platforms must be shut down for changing of the guard. Please alert all active travelers that passage through the jump portals will cease for twenty minutes.”
A tall officer rose from her hub at the center of the room and addressed the symbiot, her midnight blue uniform indicating that she was the shift leader. “Thank you, Eva. Please report to the Hub that Station Fourteen has no travelers en route and has sealed off entry to the platform. Arrivals will be permitted until shutdown commences.” She then turned to her four colleagues in the room. “Since there is no further passenger travel for the duration of our shift, I’ll be leaving early to debrief the next shift leader. Brae is managing passenger arrivals. Chen, prepare to cut the beta loop. Geet and Salar, continue to monitor bridge operations and execute the shutdown.” She then turned swiftly and followed the symbiot out of the room. The heavy concrete door slid shut behind them, followed by four sighs of relief.
“Geet, you working tomorrow?” one officer with Salar embroidered on the lapel of her gray uniform said as she stretched her arms over her head.
“Nah,” Geet answered next to her, but her yellow, reptilian eyes did not look away from her monitor. “Hinry wanted my shift.”
“Oh no, you gave it to him?” Salar whined, clutching her scaly temples with a clawed hand. “Now I’m stuck with that goblabber for eight whole hours.”
“Watch it, that’s my brother,” the technician at the back of the chamber labeled Chen warned as she packed up her station. She tossed an oily rag at the offender Salar, who caught it just before it smacked her tired face.
“Oh hang it all, Chen,” Salar threw the rag to the ground, “then tell him to close his mouth every now and again, otherwise it’ll dry out like the Ruen canyons.”
“I like the chatter,” the fourth officer chimed in, one might deduce at this point to be our Brae. “It can get so quiet in here with the head officer, it drives me mad.”
A detached Geet inserted a small tile into a slot in the wide console below her monitor and spoke, “Seal off bridge platform entry.” Even through the glass panels that stood between them and the bridge chamber, her voice boomed over the chamber intercom. In obedience, the entrance gates to the bridge slid shut.
Her gaze returned to the live stream of data on her monitor while behind her, the other deck officers chattered on as they prepared to end their shift.
Salar gasped. “Brae, how did you open the service door? That keypad’s been shot for months!”
Brae, who was standing in the doorway, looked at the open door he held open with his forearm, shrugged, and passed through. It clicked shut behind him.
“Oh I fixed that last week,” Chen answered, placing each tool lying on her workstation back in its outlined spot on the wall.
“Last week?" Salar fumed. "Why didn’t you complete the repair ticket I requested? The least you could have done is sent us all a memo! I’ve been going the long way through the passenger lobby all this time when I could have just taken the stairs to the maintenance level!”
At this outburst the technician arched one eyebrow and gave Salar a sardonic glare. “You were here when I fixed it, I thought that was notice enough - though I can understand if you were distracted. I seem to remember you were excited by Hinry's live streaming of the capitol nug-nuk racing that day.”
Immediately, the officer clammed up and sniffed, pulling at a phantom thread in her cuff. “I don’t know what you mean. You must be confusing me with someone who had my shift that day - ask Geet.”
Geet did not acknowledge this acknowledgement and remained oddly engrossed in the activity on her monitor. “Geet!” the officer repeated. “GEET! You listening?”
A startled Geet did finally turn around at the sudden sound of Chen stomping on the grated floor to shake her from her trance.
“I’m sorry,” she answered uneasily, “I - the feed did something weird, it looked like there was an anomaly.”
Salar moved to look at the readout on her own monitor. “The data looks fine to me - everything is consistent.”
“No, it’s the camera feed. I saw something move for a second but I guess it could have been a shadow.”
Chen crossed her arms and replied, “When is anything ever just a shadow.”
Salar visibly stifled a retort and responded to Geet. “That deck camera is older than my own mum. If the portal data doesn’t back it up, then it’s almost certainly nothing.”
Another scoff from Chen. “Meaning, there’s certainly something.”
Eyes ablaze, Salar turned to the technician. “Chen, if you don’t-”
With a bang, Brae burst through the service door, breathless from having run up the stairs. He uttered something unintelligible and with full force swung his hand to mash the alarm panel on the wall. Suddenly a loud wail filled the deck and the bridge chamber.
“Brae, what the-”
He reached up and grabbed the mic from the panel, took a deep breath and yelled, “All active deck officers to bridges. Unauthorized travel logged at Station 14, be on alert for potential threat of bridge sequencing.”
Immediately a second set of thick metal doors slid shut over the concrete ones, sealing off their exit from the deck. His companions regarded him with eyes wide like saucers. Salar spoke first, “Brae, that was the emergency seal. Explain yourself.”
Despite the wailing alarm, Brae quickly but calmly pulled his pistol from its holster. “I saw something move from ring four to ring six. I’m going to check it out,” he answered, then disappeared through the service door again.
The other three immediately rushed towards the door. “Haven't had a sequencer in ages,” Chen gushed excitedly, “all bridges are heavily monitored now - do you think they overtook a whole station?”
Salar snorted. “Better not hope for that outcome, sequencers are usually dangerous thrill seekers. Pray it’s a bird that flew into a portal instead.”
Geet nodded. "Especially considering the ring data was uninterrupted."
They filed out the door, pulling their pistols as they pounded down the narrow stairway that led to the bottom of the chamber, where they could see Brae passing through the security gates to access the bridge platform.
Pistols ready, the three searched the base of the platform.
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