The beams cast by the insertion team’s suit lights cut into the darkness of the long disused hallway. Tiny specks of dust sized particles hung suspended in the vacuum, creating a strange scene almost like they were under water. As they advanced, the little bits of matter bounced off their dark black armor, some to slowly keep pace with them in a growing, powdery wave. Bob stopped, and the little flecks continued on as if giving homage to Newton.

Looking back to the door to the bay, he said, “Leave the power cell hooked up here. I want to be able to get that door open if we need to evacuate in a hurry.”

They did as instructed and soon the group had gathered again to make their way down the hall. Moving slowly and being careful to look for sensor equipment or other detection apparatus that would betray their presence on the station. It soon became apparent that if any such devices were here, they had been unpowered and non-functional for years, possibly centuries.

As they penetrated deeper into the structure, the details of the wall at the end of the corridor started becoming clearer.

“It looks like that door up ahead is an airlock,” Bob noted, “Odd that it is not at the hangar.”

Heartbreaker quickened her pace slightly to get next to him and said, “Yeah, it’s almost like aliens with different ideas about how to build things made this place.”

Bob turned his head to look at her and said, “I’m an alien to a Human, and we tend to build a lot of things the same ways.”

She directed her opaque visor toward him and said, “Nah, you’re a Krador, and from Earth. You don’t count as an alien.”

Bob stood motionless for a moment before saying, “I think that’s one of the nicest things any Human has ever said to me. Thank you.”

“I’m not trying to compliment anyone,” she said, “I just call it like I see it.”

They moved down the large hallway and Sparks said, “What do you guys think? Were the people that built this place Broda sized?”

“Probably not that big,” Boots responded, “I am thinking Cheech height maybe.”

There were a few steps in silence before Bob said, “I am having questions about the intel we got and our ability to complete this mission. The data Redeemer acquired indicated an advanced communication hub we could use to upload the virus into the Trisklassa network. Looking at this place and the power readings we got from it on our approach, I don’t know how it could be anything of the sort. There’s just not enough activity or energy usage here.”

Sarge spoke while sweeping his light around looking for threats, “Are you saying you want to scrub the mission, Sir?”

“No,” Bob quickly answered, “That would be premature without getting in deeper. Given the situation and what we have encountered, we may be looking at gathering whatever information we can about this station and current operations of the Goons here.”

“Roger that, Sir,” Sarge replied.

The team got to the large doors and, as it had seemed, they were part of a large airlock. There was a similar panel to the one inside the bay they had interacted with before, and soon Sparks and the Sister were working with a second power cell to get it open.

“How many more cells do we have after that one?” Bob asked.

“Two,” Sparks replied with a flat tone.

“This one is a little different, but not by a lot,” the Sister reported, “More safety protocols to work with here. It will only be a little while more.”

As they were working, Bob asked, “So, has this always been your whole unit, or do you have alternates coming in and heading out from time to time?”

Boomer spoke up, “Boots here is the newbe, but he’s been here long enough for us to know he’s all right.”

“Who was it before me?” Boots asked.

There was a pause, and then Sarge said, “Specialist Davis.”

There was a low murmur of laughter over the coms and Bob asked, “What’s the story with Davis?”

Longhorn spoke up, “Well, we called him Frency. He didn’t last too long. Not the right fit.”

There was another round of amusement, and Bob finally said, “Okay, spill it.”

“Well, it was like this, see,” Boomer began, “Back at our old duty station on Gemma Seven we were on standby during the war. We would be gone a lot, but that’s where we would end up getting back to. Now, that base was a pretty major hub for everything the brass wanted to do, but it sucked for us grunts because trade ships pretty much never came by. I mean, at other bases you can get candy bars, pasta, heck, even a hamburger in some places. Not so at Gemma Seven. Nah all we ever got were more and more troops cycling through. Unlike those other mooks, though, we were actually stationed there.”

“Get to the point, Boomer,” Heartbreaker said, tilting her head at him.

“Yeah, yeah, I was just about to. So normally on a base you get a room and access to your own laundry facility and all that, but not there. That place gives you a shoebox to sleep in, and a giant industrial sized communal washing machine you’re sharing with God knows who. Also, the laundry facility is like, two hours one way to get to.”

Boots turned from covering the hallway behind them and said, “I went through Gemma back before I got in with you guys. I agree about the rooms, but the laundry was only fifteen minutes walk from the barracks. Round trip was half an hour, not four hours.”

Boomer shot back, “Yeah, that would be true if we were using those machines, but I’m not at that part yet. Now shut up and show some respect.”

Boots raised a hand defensively and said, “Okay, okay, please continue.”

“So where was I? Oh, yeah. Well, there were a couple things that royally sucked about the base laundry. First, sharing a load with troops that had just been ground pounding in a Snotzi fungus planet would leave you smelling almost as bad as if you were there. Now, the detergent was, in theory, supposed to get all that crap off, but it never did. I mean, the military wasn’t exactly springing for Tide Ultra or anything. No, you get the stuff from whoever made minimum spec and cost the least.”

“Is that a complaint I’m hearing?” Sarge asked.

“Not at all, Sarge,” Boomer replied, “Just an observation on the efficient and effective use of military resources during the war.”

“Damn straight, carry on,” Sarge replied.

The New Yorker proceeded, “Well, that was the first thing. The second was that there were a few incidents where our clothes got all messed up and sent to who knows where. See, the incoming troops who were returning from said ground pounding were in an understandable hurry to get out of their funky kit. So, it was common practice to strip right there at the laundry facilities, throw everything in a pile, and head to the showers straight away. They even had these crappy little hospital gown lookin’ things you were supposed to wear because the base commander didn’t like seeing a bunch of GI’s running around his base in nothin’ but their birthday suits.

Anyway, pretty regularly, and especially when there were quick turnaround times, they would just grab everything out of the washing machines and sort it out on the way to their next gig. Now, if our stuff was in there, off it went to the front lines, never to be seen again. I figure my clothes have been on at least five times as many deployments as I have because of that.

Eventually, Sarge gets sick of putting through unit requisition forms for new clothes and trying to explain ‘em all the time, so he has a talk to the Cap. Cap turns around and runs it up the line to the Full Bird that was running the place. Well, he decrees from on high and gives us access to a decommissioned construction facility that was used to build a part of the planetary defense net.”

At that point, Boomer turned to Boots and said, “And that place was two hours away. Happy now?”

Boots turned and nodded at him and responded, “Yeah, and I especially appreciate how sweet you were in explaining it to me darling.”

Heartbreaker cut in and said, “Still not at the point, Boomer.”

Boomer glanced over to her, then back to Boots again.

His visor lingered in that direction and he said, “We’ll chat about that comment later.”

He then he turned to Bob and continued, “So, given this place was mad far away, we figure out a rotation so that once a week one of us would head out there and do the laundry for the whole squad. Everything was going nice and smooth until Frenchy   decides to clown Heartbreaker.

One morning, when it was her turn to do the laundry, she gets back from her workout and finds this full-on French Maid outfit hanging on the door with a note suggesting she wear it while doing the laundry. Now, she knew none of the old guard in our unit would be suicidal enough to pull something like that, so right quick she knows who it is.

The thing that still gets me is how did he get it? That base is so far outside the trade lanes for anything civilian that I still stay up at night once in a while thinking about it.

Anyway, Heartbreaker comes walking in to the common room where me, Longhorn and Sparks were watching reruns of Stargate. Before we even look up we know from the sound of her breathing and footsteps someone is gonna’ need a medic.

She yells, “Where’s Davis?” and holds up the outfit. She called him Davis because we hadn’t given him a call sign at that point seein’ as he was so new still. Now, he wasn’t stupid enough to be anywhere nearby. Longhorn’s and jaw hits the floor, Sparks over there and I start laughing out butts off realizing he was a dead man, and Sarge just happens to walk in at that moment.

Sarge, being the picture of military decorum, goes over and has a chat quietly with Heartbreaker. A second later, she gets this wicked evil grin on her face and heads back toward her quarters.

Bob whirled to face Sarge and asked, “Did you start an investigation? Were any charges pressed?”

Sarge replied, “I like to take care of that sort of thing in my units a less formal way, Sir.”

Bob looked between the two of them and asked, “So what happened?”

Heartbreaker offered, “I put it on and did their laundry. Eventually, Frenchy   came skulking back just as I was leaving for the facility. The look on his face when he saw me in that getup was about as stunned and happy as anyone I have ever seen.

Unfortunately, earlier that day I got tired and took a nap. When I woke up, I got a late start on the ride out to where the machines were. It did let me take pretty much everything from everyone though, since I could even take the stuff they got out of before sacking out for the night. I didn’t get back with all their wash until 0330 the next morning.”

Heartbreaker nodded her head toward her NCO and said, “Sarge here was my inspiration for all of it.”

Bob’s antennae began to go rigidly forward in a way rarely seen outside of conversations about the Vashali, “Sergeant, how could you possibly condone, let alone inspire, such a disrespectful environment in your unit?”

Sarge shrugged and replied, “I didn’t tell her to put it on. All I said was that at 0400 the next day I was going to wake everyone up, tell them to hit the showers, get dressed time now, and practice parade drills for the day. The rest was all her idea.”

Bob’s antennae lost their edge, and he looked back and forth between the two of them, “What am I missing?”

“Well,” Heartbreaker replied, “The next morning when Sarge woke us all up, the only thing Davis had to wear was a French Maid outfit. To my eternal shame, I forgot the rest of his clothes back at the laundry facility.”

“So what did Davis, er, Frenchy  , do?” Bob asked.

She answered, “Well, he tried to get out of it of course, and that’s when I learned Sarge and the squad here were my boys and would always have my back.”

Bob turned to face the senior soldier and gestured for him to explain.

“Well,” Sarge began, “I told him that the laundry detail was an official duty on our roster. By that logic, anything suitable for one soldier on my team must therefore be suitable for any other soldier on my team for official duty. Given he suggested it as suitable attire for another member in the squad so occupied, I told him I would yield to his clearly superior knowledge of military dress code and accept his use of it while we did parade drills in front of the entire base all day.”

At that, Boomer piped up, “When Sarge laid it out for him, he came to all of us beggin’ for some of our clothes. As it turned out, none of us had a stitch to offer him.”

“What happened to him after that?” Bob asked, “Since he isn’t here now, I mean.”

Sarge stopped surveying the surrounding walls a moment and offered, “Well, soon after that, the Captain and I recognized a unique set of skills Specialist Davis could provide to this man’s army. He was reassigned to guard duty on the Antioch Four armory station. I made sure he took the outfit with him as a reminder of his time with us.”

Sparks turned his face away from the board in front of him for the first time since the conversation started and said, “It’s a pity, Heartbreaker wore it so much better than he did.”

“Damn straight I did,” she replied.

Bob tilted his head to the side and thought about that before saying, “That’s weird, I don’t remember Antioch Four from any of my maps or training in the Milky Way.”

“No, you wouldn’t, Sir,” Sarge amended, “It was decommissioned for structural problems. The reason for the guard was to keep any design specifications for our facilities from potentially falling into enemy hands before our engineers could go out and do a proper demolition. Last I heard they still haven’t gotten around to it.”

Bob looked around at all of them, then asked, “Sister, how is the door coming?”

She responded in a chipper tone, “In accessing the door controls, I found some other pathways that lead to an access node in the base system and have been exploring it. It appears to be a network hub, and remarkably intact. Unfortunately, all the connecting circuits have been unresponsive so far. I believe the systems on the other end are currently unpowered rather than damaged.”

Bob tilted his head to the side and asked, “Do you have any indication of what species made this station, or possibly its original purpose?”

“No, not yet, Lieutenant. All I have is a basic directory of connected systems.”

“Like what?”

“The first are the local atmospheric controls including lighting, humidity, temperature, and pressure. Next is the access point to the security grid, followed by the communication system. Given the logic of the system architecture, I believe it would be possible to get into many of the base systems through a terminal such as this one.”

Bob looked up at the power cell and said, “We would need a lot more juice to get all that up and running. I don’t think that is something the Goons on the station or in those ships outside would fail to notice.”

The Sister stated matter-of-factly, “Juice would not power this station, Lieutenant. We would need electricity like is being provided by our power cells. I have no indication that facilities onboard could utilize biological inputs for power generation.”

A series of chuckles were softly communicated by the suit coms.

“What?” The Sister asked, “What is something I said?”

Sparks spoke up, “Juice is a common slang term for electricity.”

There was a brief pause and she asked, “Why?”

“No idea,” Sparks responded.

At that, Bob realized something and said, “Wait, Sister, have you completed the task of accessing the door controls?”

“Yes, Sir. I have.”

“So we could have gone through when exactly?”

“Exactly?”

“Yes.”

Three or four seconds went by and then she responded, “Do you want that in time units or contextualized by what point in the conversation you were in?”

Bob’s antennae flicked in mild annoyance and he answered, “How about you tell me at what point in the conversation we were when you fully gained access to the airlock systems?”

She replied in her voice, but then switched to Boomer’s for his part and reported, “It was when Boomer was saying, ‘Back at our old duty station on Gemma Seven we were on standby during the war.’”

Bob raised his upper arms in a questioning gesture and asked, “And how come you didn’t tell us for the last few minutes, time where we were waiting for you to finish, that you were in fact done?”

There was a surprising amount of biological intonation in her voice as she said softly, “I didn’t know what was on the other side of the door.”

Bob began reaching for his weapon and said, “Do you have some indication that there is an elevated risk on the other side?”

“No.”

“Then why didn’t you tell us you were done?”

Everyone but Bob could see the little flashes of light that emerged from the holes where her prehensile wires came out of the armored box. They understood her crystal was pulsing as she processed something serious.

Bob was more curious at this point then impatient as he pushed, “Sister, why didn’t you tell us?”

The flashing inside the armored carrier stopped, and she admitted, “I wanted to know the end of the story about Frenchy  .”