"Look at the birds, Mommy!" a child's voice exclaims.

You snap awake, checking for your weapons automatically before you remember you're on a civilian transport.

"Bout time, Zee. We left underspace half an hour ago," Hinsman says from beside you. "Smooth as butter. They have stabilizers set up here now, I didn't know that. This system's really had some work put into it since I was here last."

In his fifties but not yet looking his age, he's supposed to be dressed as an asteroid speculator out on holiday and is struggling in the narrow confines of his seat to tug his coat on. Hinsman's on the short side, and the garment is a couple of sizes too big. All around you others, tourists, businessmen, and families, are starting to collect their things as well.

"Anyway, just waiting on our transfer now."

You unsnap your safety belt. "Okay."

Hinsman's got the aisle seat, just one more factor in his unspoken role in keeping you from too much direct contact with the public. Fine by you. Your job has always been to protect these people, not make conversation. Gazing out the window, you have a good view of the green planet. Camarov IV. It's supposed to be beautiful, but it's not like you're here to sightsee. This is just your fastest route back to work.

The Order cruiser you'd been using got enough of a beating on your last mission it needed to be taken to a real shipyard for repairs, and meanwhile this transport was headed directly for Camarov and had two vacancies. There's another Order ship en route to here which you'll transfer to to be taken back to the Outer Rim. You'll never even set foot on this planet.

There is a gentle thud as the landing ship locks on and the crew starts shepherding passengers towards the exit. Hinsman combs his dark hair and tends to the mustache he's been cultivating. You just sit and wait.

Both of your wrist comms beep at the same time, and you see the Order ship has left underspace. There's a little flurry among the crew when it requests to lock on, but Hinsman flashes a badge and his signature smile and the two of you transfer over without incident.

Once aboard, the ship unlocks and moves to a safe distance for a jump. Then there's a delay as the pilot seems to have no intention of leaving until he downloads whatever media Camarov IV has to offer. Images of green hills and misty lakes and crystal spires and dancers on a stage and some sort of historical reimagining of Old Earth tumble across the viewscreen.

The pilot, Karoff, is middle aged, tall and with thinning blond hair just starting to shade to grey. His mustache however is much more impressive than Hinsman's. You've worked with him before. You don't always get his sense of humor, but he's okay.

The next stop will be The Last Outpost for refueling, then you'll be taken along a scenic tour alternating between the most boring and dangerous parts of the Outer Rim as you go down the list fulfilling your various obligations there and being available to lend assistance in emergencies.

You lean against the wall and mentally check out until it's time to strap in for the jump to underspace. Hinsman was right, the in system stabilizers do improve the experience quite a bit.


*****


The Last Outpost is dark when you approach.

"Well that's not a good sign," Karoff mutters. The station floats in place like a fat black spider against the pale backdrop of the system's single barren planetoid. Karoff makes a few adjustments to make your approach less obvious and then starts running scans from a distance. It took you nearly a week to get out this far from Camarov and you're all aware that if there's trouble it'll be just as long before you can find any backup.

The Last Outpost was once a research hospital on the edge of protected space. Now it's a ways past the official line, although after the rollback it persisted as a stopover and fueling station for both the military and any junker the colony worlds could put together to evacuate in. Officially out of service and abandoned now as far as anyone outside the Order is supposed to know, it's still got enough automated defenses that any scavengers looking for scrap will be sent packing in a hurry. Or it used to, anyway. Hinsman is frowning over the console now too.

"That's a lot of damage."

"Pirates?"

Hinsman shakes his head. "I don't think so. The way some of the plating is buckled, this looks like a string of explosions from the inside. Mostly just in that one arm, but the defenses are offline and there's no more than basic life support anywhere on the station."

There's a soft beep as a scan is completed.

"One life sign," Karoff grunts.

"Even if they pulled out everyone on mission, there should've be at least three here for maintenance still." Hinsman joins you at the window as he finishes speaking and stares across the distance. "But...I'll hail them I suppose."

"You sure?"

"Might as well. Doesn't look like they have much left to shoot at us anyway."

"Let's hope appearances aren't deceiving."

You inquiry

Karoff looks tense as Hinsman tries to contact the station. There's a long wait with no reply. He frowns and tries once again using Order passcodes.

A green light blinks on, and then a moment later a haggard-looking blonde woman with high cheekbones and thin lips appears on the viewscreen with a crackling of static. "So someone finally did show up."

The woman's voice is flat and blank. She's young and might have been pretty under other circumstances, but her eyes have dark rings under them, her face is sallow and her hair hasn't seen a brush in awhile. She dips a spoon in a tub of drippy, melting ice cream while staring at the screen indifferently.

Karoff pulls up her ID while Hinsman coughs and clears his throat. "Ah...you're Matti Oswen, correct?"

"Yeah."

"I'm Agent Hinsman. We were just stopping over on our way into the Rim, but it looks like you've had a bit of trouble here. Do you need assistance?" He keeps his tone light and injects a note of friendly concern.

She blinks at him owlishly a moment, then sets the ice cream aside and scratches lightly at the side of her neck. "I sent out a call, but the computer lost power and I'm not sure it went through. That was...almost a week ago, I think."

"You're a maintenance worker, correct? What happened here, Matti? And where are the others?"

"Inea and Markov? Oh, they're dead." Her voice is still flat and strangely disinterested.

Karoff dutifully pulls up their IDs as well. Their new status as deceased hasn't been updated in the Order database yet, anyhow, and as the three of you have heard nothing regarding the damage to the station or a rescue attempt you can only assume her distress signal never did make it out.

Oswen continues only after Hinsman prompts her again. "Inea had an accident while doing repairs and Markov killed himself and tried to take the rest of the station with him a couple of days later. I rerouted the power to redirect the blast just in time, but most of the generators still blew. I've been sitting around in the dark and trying to eat everything in the freezers before it all spoils, and then figuring I'd inject myself with something before the oxygen fails."

Hinsmans voice is soothing. "Well I'm sorry you had to go through that Matti, but you'll be safe now. We're going to send out a request for help and then lock on to see what we can do about repairs in the meantime. We can route enough power over to make sure life support holds up, anyway.

"Whatever."

Once the call is cut, a distress signal is sent back to headquarters along with a short recorded message. The three of you briefly go over the situation.

Hinsman sums it all up. "It'll be a few days before anyone can arrive to help, and we can't leave until then. Even if no survivors were here, the station itself is vulnerable and hell, it's probably more necessary to the Order than any of us, if we're being honest. Although this Oswen woman...she might be in shock, or there might be something else going on there. Not sure we can trust her."

Karoff spits out the end of his mustache. "We're gonna get in there and find out the bitch slit their throats and made bikini tops out of their skin. Seen it happen before."

You look at him. "Really?"

"Ahh, well not the skinning for bikinis part, but people get assigned to an out of the way place like this too long, they can just snap and start killing each other. Or there maybe was some kind of love triangle going on that turned nasty. And not the good kind of nasty," he adds, apparently feeling the need to clarify.

"Well I guess we're just going to have to risk our skins then," Hinsman says with a slight roll of his eyes. "Or you and I anyway, Karoff. But Zee, you were always going to be working alone anyhow. You won't have us standing by in orbit if you go on by yourself, but there's nothing stopping you from suiting up and taking a spare shuttle, if the job is urgent enough."

"Still may be awhile before we know exactly how bad the damage is to the Outpost," Karoff points out. "She could be needed here."

"True, but...Zee, I guess this one is going to be your call. I don't have details on the mission you've been requested for, so what's protocol here?"

This would all be simpler if you could directly contact a commander, of course, but out here that's rarely possible and having to make decisions like this on the fly is part of the job.

ORDER when it started out stood for Outer Rim Defense, Evaluation and Research. The joke everyone likes to make is how when the Hunger virus appeared on the scene the E stood for Evacuation, and then finally Eradication.

Of course that's the part you're all still working on. And it's not actually all that funny.

The Order is the peacekeeping force out past the edge of protected space, although not in any kind of official capacity anymore. A little over twenty years ago when the Hunger virus was at its peak and blazing from planet to planet, the border was rolled back and then rolled back again. Colonies and mining facilities, trading stations and outposts were cut off in the midst of the chaos and anyone who wouldn't or couldn't evacuate was left to fend for themselves.

Some of the Order agents were recalled back to New Terra, but for many more this was their home, this was just what they did. Momentum and habit went a long way and the organization already had enough ships, stations and equipment out here to continue operating much as they always had. If anything they were more effective now that the bureaucracy and red tape had been stripped away, although that sometimes birthed its own kind of controversy.

Independent, isolated colonies and small time miners and traders had no one to protect them from piracy, not to mention the trade consortiums that amounted to a more organized version of the same thing. They welcomed the Order's presence on one hand while resenting anything they perceived as meddling in their own affairs on another. In areas where the line between New Terra and frontier authorities blurred, certain parties also never failed to point out that the Order had no more jurisdiction than any other private organization; outside of the ancient one of might making right and the bit about possession and how it related to law, anyhow.

And although on paper the organization kept to the same laws and standards they had from the beginning, they were just as on their own out here as anyone and had to see to their own people's interests and protection as well. New blood could be hard enough to find as it was without asking it to spill itself simply because it was the right thing to do. About the only thing anyone could agree on was that the Order were the only ones equipped to really do anything about the Hunger virus and so they should be left to it, no questions asked.

So thankfully, politics and the rest of that nonsense aren't anything you ever have to concern yourself with. All you do is your job, and all you worry about is doing it well. Right now that means making a judgment call on where you'll be the most effective. And right now, that does seem to be here. Nothing you were given indicated anyone was in direct danger, and the Last Outpost is as valuable to the Order as any of the other facilities you were asked to check on, and far more strategically important. The refueling station is what makes these little forays out in this area of Rim possible in the first place.

You secure the station.

You indicate to the others that you'll stay for now and Karoff directs the ship on a route toward the station. It makes sense to at least do a cursory inspection of the damage and make sure that at least life support will hold up. And of course there's the other issue of the alleged sabotage and personnel having been lost under circumstances still waiting to be confirmed. Leaving just two operatives to handle it all isn't ideal.

Of the station's eight arms, the docking bay is luckily on the side that's suffered the least damage. Karoff locks on without incident and the panels of the reinforced portal retract with a gentle whirring. Beyond, the station is dark and cold. You all file out and make your way out of the landing bay and down a hallway with the aid of flashlights. With what little power remains rerouted to life support, the portal to the central complex refuse to open. Attempts to contact Oswen on a short range channel fail, and so Hinsman finally gets the door moving with the aid of his gun; wiring the energy cell to the panel next to it, that is. At the jolt of power it snaps open with sudden speed, then begins to close again in slow motion and grinds to a halt about a third of the way. The three of you squeeze past and before long find yourselves in an open area, a kind of joint dining hall and exercise room with dead video screens lining the walls.

The kitchen area behind the dining hall is a disaster zone of empty plastic trays, overflowing trash bins and spoiled food. There's no sign of Matti although you do find her abandoned ice cream bucket. The three of you begin to search area by area. Although reluctant to split up, you do move a bit faster than the others and take to checking into rooms and around corners ahead of them.

A pool of vivid crimson against the polished grey tile is your first confirmation that something has gone wrong. You race forward to Matti Oswen's crumpled form and check her pulse, clamping another hand down on the stub of her severed arm. Lifting the woman from the ground and calling out to the others, you splash your way through the blood, tracking it behind you while more soaks into your uniform.

A medical station was one of the places the three of you had already searched, so you hasten to it and deposit her on a steel table, keeping your grip just above the wound while Hinsman activates the computer.

"This nursing AI was obsolete fifteen years ago," he grumbles, taking a protective suit from a persistently dinging open door and yanking it on over his clothes.

"Isn't that a bit of overkill?" Karoff asks, watching him.

Hinsman's response is muffled through the breathing filter. "It won't let me even proceed without it. This place was last used to quarantine evacuees exposed to Hunger, there's no such thing as overkill as far as the computer is concerned. Just be glad the whole station isn't set to self destruct the moment someone gets a paper cut." He pauses a moment to apply a tourniquet. "Now...Zee, you step back, it hates you too."

Karoff looks at you and snorts. "I imagine so. You look like you just left the scene of an axe murder."

You'd already moved away at Hinsman's order, and now you ruefully wipe you face, hoping to achieve a clean spot. Karoff's ensuing guffaw informs you you probably just made the situation worse.

"I'll go clean up the mess in the hall...and myself," you say, turning to go.

"Zee, wait, wait, Miss Oswen is going to need an arm transplant, don't you think?"

You blink at Karoff. "Are you serious?"

This just provokes more laughter.

Hinsman, who has been preoccupied with the soothing voice of the medical AI and the use of instruments taken out of little drawers that have been popping open in sequence, now shakes his head at the two of you as he changes to clean gloves. "I'm not that good a doctor, I'm afraid. Zee, you go on."

He snaps his fingers at Karoff and in the other hand produces an oversized needle, like a magician's trick. "But I will need a blood donor, and guess who's compatible?"

Already on your way out, you turn and get a glimpse of the pilot's grimace as the door slides shut between you.



Cleaning up is a tedious but straightforward affair. You scrub yourself down and change into a plain grey jumpsuit you find before returning to the scene of the accident and getting to work.

You dispose of the severed arm

It seems Oswen had been trying to unjam a door that leads to one of the station's storage arms, in much the same way Hinsman had gotten you all into the central complex earlier. It was her misfortune that upon receiving a jolt from a maintenance tool the door had snapped shut, meaning it had been open to begin with.

There's enough juice left to get it back to where it was and you carefully retrieve the severed limb on the other side, slipping it into a biohazard bag. Taking a moment to confirm with Hinsman there's nothing he can do as far as reattaching it, you consider your options for disposal. An incinerator would the most straightforward, but those require an amount of energy that seems wasteful if not impossible to produce given the station's current reliance on emergency backup power for life support.

You remember then the walk in freezer in the kitchen behind the dining hall. At least that would keep it from rotting if it takes longer that expected to get the power on full. The room isn't able to maintain freezing temps anymore but it's still noticeably colder than the rest of the station, and the rest of the station is cold enough. Placing the bagged arm on a shelf, you halt a moment as your gaze fixes on the two bundled forms in the back. So you weren't the first one to have the idea to use the place as an impromptu morgue. These must be the bodies of the other two maintenance workers, Inea and Markov.

You inspect the bodies

Opening the largest body bag first, you briefly examine Markov. Evidence of cuts, burns, and some bits of broken glass still embedded in the skin seem consistent with him having been in the vicinity of an explosion, although there were a lot of unanswered questions in Matti's brief explanation. Further details will have to wait till she's conscious again, you suppose.

You zip the bag back up and turn your attention to Inea. The dark haired woman's cause of death is immediately obvious, her skull on the left side having been caved in just above and behind the ear. 'An accident while doing repairs' was how Matti had described her death. While you can't yet find anything to contradict that, as you probe along the edges of the splintered bits of skull and cold globs of brain matter it seems to you it would've taken an awful lot of force concentrated in that one spot all at once to do that kind of damage.

Then again, Matti had nearly managed to kill herself as well. You wonder what sort of accident it was supposed to have been. It's almost incredible to you that three people so incompetent had been left in charge of such an important Outpost. It's true that space is a big place and Order agents and personnel are stretched thin, but in your experience it's rare for things to go this spectacularly wrong without someone being at fault.

Finding nothing more of note, you close up that body bag too and then exit the freezer. Grabbing a mop from the corner of the kitchen and filling up a bucket, you make your way back to where you'd found Matti and go to work on the rapidly drying blood. The blood has begun to dry and it's obvious this will take awhile so you clear out your mind and focus on the task.

Back to the nursing station

Matti is asleep. Hinsman is seated at a table near the bed, freshly showered and changed into a grey jumpsuit identical to yours and looking exhausted. Karoff is nowhere to be seen.

"He's back on the ship seeing how much power we can spare," Hinsman tells you, before you can ask. "This medical station's about the only thing working as intended in this place right now. We need to at least get the computers up before we can figure out what all needs to be repaired and how. It'd be really great if we had a maintenance worker familiar with the place to talk to, but..." He inclines his head toward the young woman's supine form and shrugs. The end of what's left of her arm is neatly wrapped in bandages, but her face looks pale and strained even in her sleep and her eyes twitch restlessly behind her lids.

Briefly you relate what you'd discovered.

"The plot thickens," he mutters, then gestures toward the computer. "Why don't you see what you can find there as far as internal records on these three?"

You nod and take a seat, flashing your wrist at the sensor. The computer blips once and you're in. You have a pretty high clearance. Higher even than Hinsman's you suspect, although that's not really a thing you're supposed to ask anyone about. Retrieving sensitive data from wrecked Order ships or evacuated command stations is one of the things you need to be able to do with no fuss when required, and your superiors know this.

You look up Inea

Name: Inea Banca
Eyes: brown
Hair: black
Height: 5'9"
Weight: 145
Age: 46
Other: tattoo on right forearm
Origin: Camarov IV
Skills: fringe space station maintenance
Years service: 9