Ayan was just hitching back into her combat engineer's tool backpack when the main doors leading further into the station creaked and groaned. The raiders had failed to cut through the thick armoured doors, but they'd managed to leave behind a great deal of damage.
"Someone's trying to come through from the other side," one of the squad members with them commented.
"Your grasp of the obvious is astounding," Alaka replied as he started to charge his beam cannon. "Take cover."
Ayan and the squad scrambled to get behind the heavier crates, taking cover in pairs. She finished securing the last clip of her backpack and took her rifle from Victor. "Thank you."
"Sticking with white?" he asked, gesturing at the colour of her armour.
She looked at the mixed coloured crates and the pocked metal floor. There were whole swathes where the floor's coating had been blasted away, leaving the metal bare. "It's better than black for camouflage right now. Besides, it was always my favourite colour."
"I thought white was a non-colour."
"Nope, white is a colour, black isn't a colour."
"I thought black was the presence of all colours."
"No, you're thinking of painting. If you combine all your paints except for white you sometimes end up with black. In the real world white is the brightest colour, black is the absence of light."
"Well, that changes everything," Victor smirked.
"Now you're having a laugh at my expense."
"Just putting your education to work."
The deck shuddered as the doors spread open a crack. With an ear splitting scrape and grind the motors managed to draw the meter thick, dense metal doors apart. They were three meters tall, made for transporting major components deeper into the station.
"Ayan? Is Ayan from the Triton here?" asked a panicky looking bald woman at the front of fifteen mismatched station staff members. They looked around the cargo area warily, some with their hands raised, others in awe at the damage the area had sustained.
Ayan drew back the faceplate of her armour, leaving the hood up and stepped into the open. "I'm here."
"I'm Larissa, we spoke on the comm. We're seeking asylum on the Triton. You have to hurry, alarms will be going off now that this door is open and Amanda will know someone's trying to escape."
"You're prisoners?"
"We're workers, but after what's happened they'll never let us leave."
"Yeah, we're prisoners! Can we go now?" added Bradley. "That's what you are if you get paid but never get to leave," he spat at Larissa so harshly she flinched. "Bloody wazzock."
"We were just leaving," Ayan smiled. It had been a long time since she'd met anyone with such a thick Britannia accent. It was good to hear even though the speaker's dialect was rough. "All right, cover these people. We return to the Cold Reaver at a run," Ayan ordered Alaka.
Ayan scanned the fifteen newcomers and was surprised to find them unarmed. A few of them had medical kits and bundles of personal items very hastily packed together but other than that they had nothing. They were ready to run, however, and kept up with the group of militia handily.
"I hate to ask, but who's your sponsor? I've never seen the kind of armour you're wearing," Bradly asked as he fell into step beside her. He clutched a large medical kit to his chest with both arms.
" Triton is an independent ship. We manufacture our own equipment."
"Are you originally from Earth? We noticed it was built in the Sol system."
"No, I can't go into the details just now, but we're not from Earth."
"See? Like I was saying. Pirates," Larissa said to Bradley, who gave her a wide eyed stare. She turned to Ayan with a thin smile; "Not that I look down on it, mind you. Pirates are fine if they're just stopping for supplies or to spend time at the pub."
"Right now we're just looking for a place to make repairs so we can move on and find an ally. Privateering is more our calling."
"Against anyone in particular?"
"The Order of Eden," Ayan answered without an instant's hesitation. "A number of us were on Pandem when they took it."
"What happened to Pandem?" asked one of the newcomers behind her.
Ayan's heart began to sink, but she steeled herself against the terrible memories of what happened to the place. "I'm sorry. The virus that made your automated systems go mad here struck there, then the Order of Eden and Regent Galactic stepped in to finish the job."
"Oh my God, I knew people on Pandem, took my last vacation there. I've never seen a place like it," he said sadly. "What is it like now?"
"It's better that you remember it as it was."
"Oh. Any chance anyone from Verona survived? That's where I stayed."
Alaka dropped back to run along side the fellow, his long, loping steps and great size was intimidating even when he withdrew the plates covering his head to reveal a furred, pointed nose and mournful dark eyes. "I'm sorry. The resort islands were struck first. Few people survived Pandem, my family and I were fortunate."
"So you fight with the Triton against the people who destroyed your home."
"Yes, that is the promise."
"Ayan, look," Victor directed her to look through the hallway window.
The Triton was positioning itself in front of the station, drifting at speed to cover their escape. The torpedo tubes all along the edges of the hull came to life, the sleek projectiles turning as soon as they were launched towards some obscured foe. "That's a lot of firepower, they must be in some serious trouble."
"A Caran Enterprises fleet has arrived, they're staking a claim on the station since our highest ranking officer is only a Forewoman, not even a real controller."
"You couldn't have told us this a few minutes ago?" Victor replied at Bradley.
"I'm sorry, I was-" he was interrupted as a flash of light flared through the wide porthole.
"They just landed a focused nuclear strike against the Triton’s shields. Thank God it struck the opposite side," Ayan said as many of her companions stared in shock. "Run, the sooner we get to the Cold Reaver, the sooner we can try to blast our way out of here. We don't have much of a choice."
"I'm getting a message from the Reaver now," Alaka said as they started running. "They say that someone is cutting through the hangar door from the outside. The metal is white hot and they've almost breached."
"All right, tell them to stay tethered to something in case it opens to vacuum, and get the people we have in stasis bags ready to travel. No one takes more than their kit with them."
Alaka relayed the message as quickly as he could. "Chief Vega wants to confirm; we're abandoning the Cold Reaver?"
"I'm afraid so."