“This the room?” Travers asked over the radio.

  “Yes,” the field operator aboard the ship replied.

  Travers grunted and gave a hand motion to his team. They split up and fhe door. “Any idea how many we are dealing with?”

  “Three to five individuals. The cameras in that area aren’t very clear so that’s the best guess we’re getting from Sam.”

  He grunted in annoyance as he poked a hole in a rusting beam nearby with his fihe Strategialysis Module or S.A.M. for short was a wonderful piece of tech. But it could only gee tactical analysis if it had data to do so. Travers removed his gloved finger from the rusty hole. “No pulse rifles. This area’s too unstable. One missed shot could bring the ehing down on top of us.”

  That meant no CQB rifle either. Travers spped the on to the mag restraint on the back of his armor and pulled out his stunner.

  Once everyone was ready, he nodded and his man turhe k on the door as fast as possible and threw it open. There was a chorus of surprised shouts as Travers rushed into the room. The first thiiced was that there were more people than Sam had predicted. Over half a dozen men were waiting in the dipidated room. The hiiced was the ons they were quickly trying to pull from crates.

  He kicked the barrel of the antique firearm the closest individual was trying to aim toward him. The gun flew out of the man’s surprised hand but not before he shot off a series of bullets. The only thing the idiot mao hit was his friends though.

  Travers shoved the stunner into the man’s diaphragm harder than was strictly necessary. The ma down and the others quickly followed.

  He stood over the unscious forms of the seven men and thanked his luck that they seemed unaced to the old ons.

  “on secured!” one of his team alerted him. The man turhe on and read off the designation stamped into the side. “AK-74? Where do you think they even got these antiques?”

  “Who knows,” Travers shook his head. He grabbed the on from his team member and sat it ba the rotten wooden crate. “We’ll o get the engineers out here to disarm them. Who volunteers for babysitting duty?”

  Two of his team weren’t quiough to call ‘not it’. Travers ughed and poio them. “Looks like you two get the honors.”

  The two grumbled uheir breath before stepping out of the room to guard the door. “Let's get these seven men cuffed and dragged back to the atrium.”

  “Six, FL. Looks like this one bled out.”

  Travers looked to where his man ointing and sighed. It was one of the people who took hits from the idiot with the gun. “Bag him up.”

  They quickly and effitly bagged up the dead man and secured the others. Every single one had a warrant on the same p. Likely a small-time gang that had been forced out. Travers tagged them for pickup and led his team back to the atrium. There were more pces to search.

  ***

  It had taken two full weeks for the Hawks to clear and secure the station. They had arrested hty people who had current warrants out for their arrest. No pirates, though, which leasant surprise.

  That did leave a signifit number of worried people down below.

  Alexander focused on the man sitting across the drop ship from him. “You’re sure it’s safe?” he asked for the tenth time. Yulia was in a seat beside him, headphones on and her face shoved into a holo movie.

  “Yes, Mr. Kane,” Jallen, one of the Field Team leaders responded in a slightly aone.

  Alexander had his avatar nod. He was just worried. Not for himself. He retty sure his body could withstand anything the people iation could throw at him, sidering the damage he had previously, but Yulia was just a little kid.

  “And you said you found the leader?”

  The man waggled his hand bad forth. “Drifters don’t tend to have mu the way of leadership, so to speak. But the man who presented himself to us is nominally in charge. We firmed that by speaking to a bunch of other drifters.”

  Alexander didn’t like the way the mahe word drifter. It sounded rather derogatory. He had asked Jallen what a drifter was when the word first came up. Apparently, they were just people who drifted from pce to pce. Most pces didn’t wele them because they refused to follow rules put in pce by the STO. Jallen didn’t actually say that st bit, he just said they were troublemakers who refused to fit into polite society.

  sidering Alexander was trying to upset the establishment, he might get along with these drifters quite well. Time will tell.

  The drop shuttle shook and the pilot spoke up. “We are entering the atmosphere. It’ll get a bit bumpy from here.”

  The seats aboard the shuttle were far too small ao hold Alexander’s bulk. That wasn’t much of an issue for him though. He figured out he could magize his feet and hands to hold himself in pce. He wasn’t sure how this ossible sidering his entire body was noallic, but he wasn’t going to question it.

  He was also gd the Hawks had shuttles. Alexander had overlooked a very signifit issue when he packed everything aboard the Zephyr. Mainly that the ship was te to nd on the surface of a p. Jasper had poihis issue out early irip. After some versations with the Talon’s Captain, they figured out a method to get his cargo down to the surface.

  It required an additional iment of one millios and took the Talon’s engineering crew a week of spacewalks to trahe cargo to drop ships that floated he Zephyr’s open p, but they ma. Now all of his belongings sat off to one side of the nding pad to the manufacturing hub. That didn’t mean he would be saying goodbye to Jasper or his crew just yet though. The Zephyr had a small shuttle that followed them down to the surface. The only thing aboard that shuttle was ‘his’ medical pod.

  Now that he was outside of STO space, Alexander probably wasn’t going to tinue perpetuating that lie. It was just such a pain to be tethered to the item, even if it was only a fake tether.

  The ship shook again and he focused on Yulia. The girl seemed ued by the turbulence, she was more ied in trying to sneak a peek outside the window. Her eyes were wide in delight as she watched the psma stream off the underside of the ship from the superheated atmosphere.

  sidering who her parents were, this very well might be her first time setting foot on the surface of a p. He was gd artificial gravity existed. Otherwise, she would have had all sorts of problems dealing with the gravity.

  Y6X-3H2-4 only averaged about eighty pert of Earth’s gravity so it was slightly less tharov Station which kept theirs at y pert of Earth's. It probably wouldn’t take the girl very long to adjust to the ge. She would likely have more issues adjusting to the day-night cycle and the stink. Yulia had already pined about the smell when they first boarded the shuttle through the dog ring and that was only the lingering aroma, it would be much worse on the ground. This was oime he was thankful his body didn’t include olfactory senses.

  As for the day-night cycle. It was a doozy. On average, each day was nearly forty hours long if you included dawn and dusk, and eaight was over twenty. The p wasn’t tidally locked, which was a blessing, but it did have a mean orbital ahis angle shifted the day-night cycle almost pletely at two points in the year. It was going to take some getting used to.

  He would likely pick up whatever system the inhabitants used, he was sure the people below had adapted to it by now. Most of the facility was buried below the surface or sported thick crete c so natural light wasn’t really a anyway. The only part of the plex that wasn’t buried or covered, the observation dome, was a wreck of broken gss and rusted metal due to exposure.

  That was on his priority list to get fixed. Not because he wao stare at the blue star or take measurements of the thing, but because the damage exposed other parts of the structure. He had already been told by Captain Matthews that the damage had spread quite far from that location. If it wasn’t taken care of the entire facility could bee jeopardized.

  That riority wo after speaking with this representative. Priority one was finding a safe pce for Yulia to stay while he worked ing the pce up to livable ditions. He did wonder why the locals hadn’t do themselves. Whehought about it though, he realized they likely didn’t have access to repair schematics. It’s a good thing he did.

  “Touchdown in five,” the pilot yelled over the roar of the thrusters.

  “Alex, it hurts!” Yulia cried.

  “It’ll be over shortly,” he tried to calm the girl. There was ing past the extra G’s they had to pull to not sm into the surface. The p didn’t have a thiough atmosphere to slow the drop-ship’s dest enough.

  “Pretend someone’s hugging you real tight and push back against it,” Jallen spoke calmly.

  The girl nodded and Alexander watched her tense up. Yulia had slowly e out of her shell aboard the Zephyr. She was still a bit shy though and almost always refused to talk to anyone she didn’t know. He prihe words ‘Thank You!’ under his avatar's face. The man nodded. “I have two small nieces.”

  Soora weight lifted and the ship touched dowly. He had heard some of the first drops were rather rough sihey did bat drops. He was gd they hadn’t o do that today.

  “Alright, Yulia, time to put your breather mask on.”

  She pouted a bit before slipping the gray mask on. Alexander unmagized his body and double-checked the seal was tight on her mask. He o Jallen who hit a buttohe back. The door slowly lowered, allowing the harsh gre of the blue sun into the .

  It was nearly blinding after being stu the natural yellow light aboard stations and ships, he wished he had gotten Yulia some sungsses.

  “Sorry bout the light,” Jallen said in annoyance. “We nded he peak of the day cycle. Just use your tablet to cover your eyes and follow me. The door isn’t far.”

  Alexander would have picked Yulia up, but the girl insisted on walking. She held the holo tablet over her eyes like a visor with one hand and held onto Alexander’s hand with her other. However, her eyes kept roaming to the sery around them. To be fair, Alexander was taking it all in as well. This was his first time on an alie after all or at least the first time he could remember.