DT 2021: The Meadows Ambush

The unassuming loading bay opened, bathing starlight upon sealed space suits and reflective visors. Almost forty in total, colored black and gray to the backdrop of empty space.
For a moment, Andra was blind with the alien sun’s onslaught but the feeling passed as her power armor compensated for intensity. The criminal flotilla gathered in uncivilized space was massive. Hundreds of ships, some mere intersystem trade ships and others matching size for the largest of human military gunboats.
The real prize came into view, eclipsing the fleet-rather-than-flotilla altogether. Andra’s visor glanced up into a shade darker than space itself but glinting with rich furnishing more beautiful than in all the palaces of human history. The space habitat Asphodel Meadows, her target and destination.
Ivory towers dotted the giant hive of a space station running for kilometers in every direction as space proved directionless. Throne for the once Iskandar Syndicate, now just The Syndicate.
This is where the richest of frontiersmen lived, the place rumored of back on Earth and the Inner Colonies but no one imagined to be so grand. A testament to the will and power of those that refused to play by the rules and traditions forged through Earth’s fair history.
There was no grand music to introduce its appearance. No deafening brass instruments or droning air horn to mark its imposing superstructure. Only the sound of Andra’s quickened breathing.
Dread cooled her blood beneath her full-seal Mjolnir suit. The grandness of the station made her want to turn her assault unit’s commandeered yacht around and escape into the dark of space. Forget assassinating Helen Powell, how the heck were three dozen commandoes supposed to fight their way through hundreds of floors to reach the Syndicate leader in the first place?
She kept her fearful thoughts to herself as the voices of her teammates prepared to jump through voice channels and hand gestures. Their words sounded distant, not registering in her mind as the anti-material rifle in her hands seemed to weigh down fifty kilograms more despite no gravity where she stood.
Designated marksmen with handheld railguns lined the edge of the loading bay as they prepared for the zero-gravity flight to the station. Andra recalled the mission handler calling it the ‘three minutes of uncertainty.’
Commander Kedar promised only light resistance until they made landfall on the station. He promised and Andra believed him.
She didn’t register a railgun shot punch through the deck floor two meters to her left beyond a light tickle in her legs. A shattered helmet, coated in crystalline scarlet droplets clicked against Andra’s shoulder. A gasping half-skull from a Marine gawked at her, its eyes melting into the hard vacuum.
Two rapid clicks rippled beneath her feet signifying more impacts. More than one person radioed the words but only Andra heard her own mind scream it out. Ambush!