“Oh, that's reassuring. Still, shouldn't there at least be a few vehicles around? I see dents and impact marks in the surfacing.”
“You're right, it's like they removed everything to make it harder to approach without being noticed, like whoever is holding out in there is getting ready for a siege. At least our cloaksuits are doing their jobs, it doesn't look like we've been spotted.”
“I'm still not going to stand still if I can help it. Suddenly I feel like a duck in a shooting gallery.”
“Okay, decision time. We either go through and try to help any resistance inside or go around and try to get to one of the express tubes that run underground,” Ayan said as the bank of doors drew nearer.
“I vote we lend a hand,” offered Minh.
“I agree,” said Oz.
“That's if we can find them, it's huge in there, something like ninety levels, we might not be able to get to them in time,” Jason said calmly.
“But what would you rather do?”
“If there's friendly life in there I'd rather help. Besides, there should be a lot of transit tube access points in the station.”
“Good, then we're going in,” Ayan said with finality.
The signs of a firefight and the indiscriminate murder of thousands inside the main lobby were impossible to ignore. A hole had been blown in the center of the polished granite floor, there were scorch marks along the scroll worked light red and blue walls and the main lift shaft was blocked off by a brutally crushed air vehicle. In every corner, across every wall and coating the floor was smeared and strewn all manner of biological remains, evidence that the Holocaust Virus had hit suddenly, and no one had time to run from the automated security. To the relief of the foursome the bodies had been removed so there were no faces in the widespread gore.
Minh took their attention off the scene, walking towards the crashed air car. “Whoever flew that thing in had to be an ace, it would have barely fit through the doors,” Minh mentioned as they paused near the wreckage. “Guess we're not taking any elevators in this section.”
“Guess not. The control panels here are either fried or offline,” Jason said as he looked at one of the primary consoles in a long island in the center of the lobby, it stretched from the main doors almost all the way back to the interior windows overlooking the large docking and landing sections at the station's center. “No corpses, I wonder what happened to them?”
“Maybe the survivors had a chance to take care of the dead?” Asked Ayan.
“We can hope, but it makes more sense that someone was getting the port ready for use again.” Oz trailed off.
“I know, just trying to be optimistic. Let's start looking for whoever's fighting those soldiers. Regent Galactic doesn't seem to care much about securing this entrance at the moment, so I'm guessing we won't find anything here.” Ayan and Oz took point with Jason and Minh behind.
They kept a quick pace. Everyone felt exposed crossing open areas made to accommodate thousands of travellers at a time. There were empty outer security stations, where guards were given a place to screen and run detailed scans on people coming and going, gift shop stands with cheap electronic entertainment pieces, jewellery, stuffed toys, miniatures of various ships, landmarks and many other mementos all on display, deactivated and waiting to be purchased, brought to synthetic life.
Minh brushed his shoulder against a candy cart loaded down with packaged candy cane and other sugary treats. “Sorry!” he whispered reflexively.
“Watch your step, our cloaksuits can't cover up that much noise or interference with our surroundings,” Jason reminded him, looking at the slight disturbance Minh had left behind.
The toys in the booth just to their right all turned their heads and stared at the disturbance. “Could that be creepier?” Minh muttered. “This virus has gotten into everything.”
“Yeah, but toys don't turn themselves on. Something activated them,” Ayan said quietly. “They might be sending something this way to check it out right now.”
“This doesn't add up. If those toys are active that means that someone or something is taking advantage of them, using them as lookouts, maybe even sentries but the scanners in this section should have run a few hundred passes over the whole place,” Jason said, looking around as he reviewed his own sensor data.
“You're right. Ports like this have aggressive scanning tech everywhere, especially right behind the front door but there's no active electromagnetic activity here except for the lighting and a bunch of trinkets. Something or someone shut the security down from inside,” Ayan agreed.
“Way inside. That kind of control can only be assumed from primary security sections and if I designed this station I would have put it much deeper inside the structure. Anyone who tried to fight their way in from the outside would be committing suicide.”
“What about people in cloaksuits?” Minh asked as they continued through the cavernous pedestrian reception lobby. “Or people coming in from the subways?” He continued, nodding at a ramp leading down towards a tram, it was strange seeing such an entry way empty, silent.
“Our cloaking systems have a good chance at working against those kinds of scanners, but they're not perfect. If this port has anything that can measure micro gravity, then those sentry guns would have started firing the moment we got to the top of the stairs,” Ayan said.
“Ah, guess it's good you didn't let me in on that detail before we strolled inside. I'm still going to blame you if I start turning grey before my time.” Minh replied quietly.
They approached the main interior observation window and stopped to look inside. The low lit yawning pit was several kilometres across and beneath them were retractable landing platforms, heavy grappler arms and wide docking bay doorways for as far as they could see. Two storeys above their level were dozens of collapsible lift tubes, made to extend to the smaller starliners and other public transit vessels as they stopped above to take on or drop off passengers. There were many observation areas as well, thick transparesteel windows that overlooked the normally bustling innards of the space port. As they looked on it was like seeing it frozen in time. Some ships were half docked, still in the grip of heavy grapplers, while others were still linked to boarding tunnels. One hung precariously over the side of a landing platform, held up by nothing but umbilical cables. Several of the vessels had been broken into or out of, their passengers either killed or free to roam the massive interior of the spaceport.
“Wow, I've never seen anything like it,” Minh said.
“Pretty cramped design up top.” Ayan commented. “I'd hate to direct traffic for this place.”
“I'm assuming only high priority transports get to use the upper linkage points, there's no way that could service all the starliners that come through the system,” Jason said as he closely watched the landing platforms for any movement at all. “If there are any resistance fighters they're hiding as well as we are.”
“I see three dropships down there on a southern platform, three levels down,” Oz pointed.
“Looks like someone put the boots on them. They're locked down,” Minh added. “Maybe the resistance actually got control of the port control systems?”
“That would be encouraging, but if that's the case why didn't they manage to get to the transmission bunker we just busted?” Oz asked.
“Movement!” Ayan interrupted. She highlighted it on the secondary display shared on their visors.
They all looked on at the aftermath of a small explosion and saw over twenty fully armoured Regent Galactic soldiers pull back, pressed onto a large, half extended landing platform with an older forty meter long, boxy general purpose starship. They hid behind the landing struts and several large crates as one of their number was picked apart by several blue bolts of weapon fire. At the same time over thirty Regent Galactic soldiers came into view through a transparesteel window, they were moving down a hallway towards the ramp leading to the platform, obviously coming to the rescue of their comrades.