In the command centre of Pioneer Station, Captain Quan Dubois cursed his luck. Really, he wasn’t cut out for this. Organising shift rotas, approving research requisitions for the fab plant, occasionally busting the balls of some deck hands who’d overdone it on the beer and trashed the mess hall – all those he could cope with.
But they’d been dragged out of of hiber-sleep weeks too early, and everything had gone to hell in a handcart. He’d awoken with his motley collection of seven other sleep companions in Hiber-A, the only sleep compartment on the command deck and next to his personal stateroom (that’s Captain’s privilege for you). Their assigned Janebot, Scarlett, was conspicuous by her absence, and it took a while for Dr Abioye to do the post-sleep check-ups. It was Kimiko, the demure exo-geologist, who realised that they’d come out of hiber-sleep far ahead of schedule, which had started a furious round of arguing, shouting and assigning of blame (mostly on him – another Captain’s privilege) until he’d managed to settle everyone down.
He decided to do the obvious thing and make for the command centre to find out what was really going on. He opened the hatchway and started to walk the twenty yards around the main corridor to command. Dr Sushkov and Eriksson came with him, the others dispersed to their respective stations, or simply back to their bunks or staterooms (depending on rank) for a shower and change of clothes. His group went clockwise towards command, the others headed off to the nearest elevator.
Their early arousal from hiber-sleep had indicated that something was wrong. The blood-curdling scream as the anti-clockwise group passed out of sight around the curve of the corridor confirmed that things had really gone south. Shouts, curses and sounds of a scuffle came round the arc of the passageway. Mixed in with that were some strange, feral growls and snarls, like those of animals.
“He’s gone, leave him” ordered a loud male voice. “Go, get out here, head for command”. Kimiko and Dr Abioye charged back into sight, the former with trickle of blood seeping from her hairline. They were followed by Forman White, who turned and fired a stub pistol – heaven knows where he had got that from – at something unseen. Last came Slater Christian, the ex-marine. He was grappling with what looked at first glance to be one of the station maintenance staff, but the woman looked wrong – for a start she was the wrong shade of green, and her movements were uncoordinated, jerky and slow. Christian gave her a massive roundhouse punch to the side of the head, bits flew off her skull and she went down as if her strings had been cut.
Quan just stood there, stupified, until the former leatherneck shouted straight in his ear “Sir, time to go, Sir!”. He bundled the horrified crew members into the command centre, shut the hatch and hit the lock override so it could only be opened from inside. White and Eriksson did the same for the two other exits, and everyone drew breath.
Wait – Quan only counted seven. Where was ‘Sleepy’ Simons, the affable stores clerk and self-appointed custodian of the unofficial station tavern?
“Those things got Sleepy” said Kimiko. “He hit his head on a stanchion and they dragged him off”.
“Sir” said Christian. “Permission to speak ?”. Once a marine, always a marine – there was no need to be that formal, even under normal circumstances. Still in shock, all Quan could manage to do was wave a vague assenting hand. “Your stateroom is connected directly to command and I believe you have a weapons locker in there ?”
Yes it was, thought Dubois (Captain’s privileges again), and yes it did.
“As a first reaction to this situation, I could access your stateroom and draw weapons for all of us. We might need to be armed to react to the threat.”
“Um, yes, yes we could do that.”
“I’ll carry out your orders then sir ?”
“Er, yes, Slater, of course”. Christian was doing his best to make it look like the idea was the Captain’s, not his, but no-one was fooled for a second.
Dubois felt himself folding under the pressure. The closest he’d some to managing conflict in his career was calming down a fractious supply requisition meeting. Guns, blood, strange creatures were not in his wheelhouse. But he was still the Captain of Pioneer station – everyone was looking to him, and he could see what they were thinking. So he was determined to rise to the occasion, not out of some sense of duty or loyalty to his crew members, but simply because he cared a lot about what people thought of him, and he was damned if they were going to think he was a coward, even if inside that’s exactly how he felt.
“Right” he said, rising from the chair that he’d found himself slumped in. “Slater, go get the guns – take Forman with you. When you have them, run us all through some basic drills – not everyone has used a blaster rifle before”. Myself included, he thought. “Freja, Leanna, try to contact anyone else on the station, use internal comms and the tannoy as well. We can’t be the only ones awake. Dr Abioye, see to Kimiko, looks like she has a nasty cut there”.
This at least gave everyone something to do, and less time to dwell on what had happened to Sleepy. He sat down again to review the CCTV and see how those thing had got onto the command deck, and where the rest of the crew were. Flicking through screens, he found nothing moving on the main corridor outside the command centre. He wasn’t able to view inside staterooms – no CCTV in there (damn privacy laws) but the other communal spaces on this deck were clear too. He selected cameras on the main accommodation and mess deck, guessing that other survivors might head there looking for food.
After switching between a couple of cameras, he finally found what he was looking for. The pictures weren’t great, but there were people moving in the dim mess hall. Hang on, they weren’t any crew he recognised; figures in armour carrying military weapons were striding between the tables and chiller units. He tried changing camera for a better look, and after a couple of false starts he stumbled upon the reverse view. And there was someone he did recognise – that was Helen Shackleton, the maintenance chief, carrying some sort of weapon, facing another woman in uniform. The cameras carried no sound so he had no idea what they were taking about, but the conversation looked animated. Then both the figures on the screen were suddenly startled by something out of view and turned to face the left of the monitor. Helen raised whatever she was carrying and a great gout of flame shot out of it.
What the hell was going on aboard his station ?
So the crew of Pioneer Station have started to fight back ! This set of eight figures would make ideal figures for a Stargrave crew or similar, and you could combine them with the Scavengers for an even more diverse group. As with all the other Pioneer range figures, they’re 3D printed in resin at either 32mm or 28mm.
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