Chapter 3: Set Up
The memory hit Eva like a stray bullet, sharp and disorienting, as she watched Garcia frantically reroute power conduits. Not the screams, the groaning metal, or the cold voice of the Judgment. Not the ticking bomb in the fusion core. But before. The smell of hot engines and ozone cutting through the colony’s usual recycled stink. Sunlight glaring off dusty concrete.
Three weeks ago.
The landing pad vibrated beneath Eva’s boots, a constant thrum from idling engines and the distant, bone-deep hum of the perimeter defense grid. Dust devils spun lazily across the vast expanse of scarred concrete. Shuttles hulked like grounded beetles, fuel lines snaking to them like umbilical cords. Mechanics shouted over the din, their voices swallowed by the roar of a ship settling onto Pad Gamma-7.
Not a standard CDF hauler. This was the Star Hopper, a modified freighter pieced together from salvaged parts, its hull patched and repainted so many times it looked like a quilt. It landed with a surprising grace, engines flaring blue before cutting out with a final, resonant sigh. The cargo ramp hissed down almost immediately, disgorging not just crates on automated pallets, but a whirlwind of energy in the form of Lyra Navani.
She hopped down the ramp before it fully touched the concrete, landing lightly in worn flight boots. Her dark, curly hair escaped a messy braid, framing a face flushed with exertion and maybe just the thrill of threading the needle through the Arachnid patrol lanes again. She wore practical cargo pants and a faded green flight jacket, sleeves rolled up to her elbows, revealing intricate, swirling tattoos snaking up her forearms. Her eyes, scanning the bustling pad, were a startlingly warm brown, sharp and intelligent, missing nothing.
Lyra didn't head for the cargo manifest station. Instead, she jogged over to where a group of pad techs wrestled with a malfunctioning loader drone. "Hey, Mack! Your left lateral motivator's throwing sparks like it's New Year's Eve!" she called out, her voice cutting through the noise with cheerful authority. She didn't wait for an answer, just ducked under the drone's chassis, nimble fingers probing. "Yeah, see? Loose coupling. Hand me the hydro-spanner. The big one, not that piece of junk."
Eva watched, leaning against a support strut near the control booth. She’d come down ostensibly to check the manifest for the critical meds Lyra was supposed to be carrying – replacements for the stocks depleted after the last swarm breach near Outpost Kappa. But her eyes kept drifting back to the pilot. There was a fluid competence to Lyra's movements, a lack of hesitation that spoke of deep familiarity with machines and the void. And an energy… an openness that felt alien on Haven, where tension was the default setting. Eva saw Lyra laugh at something Mack said, the sound bright and genuine, momentarily silencing the ambient growl of the pad.
Lyra slid out from under the drone, wiping grease onto her pants, just as her gaze landed on Eva. The easy smile faltered for a fraction of a second, replaced by a look of surprise, then a flicker of… recognition? Respect? She straightened up, snapping a surprisingly crisp salute that felt both genuine and a little incongruous with her appearance. "Captain Rostova."
Eva pushed off the strut, returning the salute with her usual economy of motion. "Navani." She gestured towards the Star Hopper. "Heard you had a close encounter with a Reaper patrol near the Kuiper debris field."
Lyra shrugged, the easy grin returning. "Just a little hide-and-seek, Captain. Those lumbering pieces of junk couldn't keep up with the Hopper if I strapped rockets to their thoraxes. Besides," she patted the patchwork hull affectionately, "this old girl knows all the quiet spots." She fell into step beside Eva as the Captain headed towards the cargo being offloaded. "Got your meds, though. Priority one, locked down tight. Also snagged some fresh synth-coffee beans from Persephone Station. Heard your replicator sludge was starting to taste like regret."
A ghost of a smile touched Eva's lips, gone almost before it formed. "Appreciated. The sludge… has its loyal defenders. Mostly those who've forgotten what actual coffee tastes like." They stopped near the first stack of crates. The pad techs worked efficiently, the drone Lyra fixed humming smoothly. Eva scanned the manifest on her wristpad. "The medical supplies are critical. We lost a lot after Kappa."
Lyra's expression sobered slightly. "Heard it was rough. Lost a couple of freighters from the regular run. Good pilots." She looked at Eva directly. "Glad you guys held."
Eva met her gaze. The warmth in Lyra’s eyes was disarming. It wasn't pity. It felt like… shared burden. An acknowledgment. "We held," Eva said simply. The memory of triage tents overflowing, the smell of antiseptic and blood, the hollow eyes of survivors – it pressed in, momentarily overwhelming the sounds of the pad. She pushed it down. "Your runs are becoming increasingly vital, Navani. And increasingly dangerous. The swarm tactics are changing. Getting more aggressive. Smarter, almost."
Lyra leaned against a crate, crossing her arms. "Noticed that too. Patrols are denser. They're probing shipping lanes they used to ignore." She frowned. "And the last shipment request came through with some… unusual coding. Heavy shielding components? Stuff you usually fabricate planetside. Had to dig deep to source them discreetly."
The comment snagged Eva's attention. Unusual coding. Discreetly. "Heavy shielding? For which department?" She hadn't authorized anything like that recently. Maintenance requests were usually straightforward.
"Huh. Manifest just said 'Engineering Priority Sigma.' Assumed it was for reinforcing that busted section near the thermal vent on Sub-Level Nine?" Lyra looked puzzled by Eva's reaction. "Got flagged from Central Requisitions with your command override seal."
Eva kept her face neutral, but ice water trickled down her spine. Her seal? Used for an unrequested, shielded component shipment? The implications were dark and tangled. "Must have been routed through my office. Things get… chaotic." She couldn't probe further here. Not without raising alarms she couldn't afford. "Thank you for sourcing them. And for getting the meds here." The gratitude was genuine, layered over the sudden, cold suspicion.
Lyra seemed to sense the shift. Her gaze sharpened, searching Eva's face for a moment. She didn't press. Instead, she offered another small smile, softer this time. "Hey, it's what I do. Keep the lifeline open. Maybe next run I can smuggle in some real pastries. Heard Persephone’s baker finally cracked the yeast-free croissant."
The absurdity of yeast-free croissants, discussed amidst the roar of engines and the ever-present threat, struck Eva. A tiny, unexpected bubble of lightness. "Don't make promises you can't keep, Navani. Mutiny is likely if you dangle real pastries."
Lyra laughed again, that bright, clear sound. "Challenge accepted, Captain." She pushed off the crate as the drone lifted the last medical crate. "Gotta run the Hopper through post-flight. She gets cranky if I neglect her." She started to turn, then paused. "Captain?" Eva raised an eyebrow. Lyra hesitated, then gestured vaguely towards Eva's head. "The new look. Shorter. It’s… good. Suits you. Killer hair, honestly." The compliment was delivered with a disarming casualness, a slight flush rising on her cheeks before she spun and jogged back towards her ship, whistling.
Eva stood for a moment, watching her go. The sunlight caught the shorter strands of her own dark hair at her temples. Killer hair. The absurdity lingered, a strange warmth battling the chill of suspicion about the unauthorized shipment. For a fleeting second, the weight of command, the constant vigilance, eased. There was a person beneath the rank pins, one momentarily seen, acknowledged. The connection was fragile, barely formed, a spark in the gloom. She tucked the feeling away, a secret warmth against the colony’s chill, just as the urgent ping of an incoming priority alert shattered the moment on her wristpad.
Back to duty.
The memory dissolved like smoke.
The present slammed back with the force of a hull breach. The command center groaned, dust sifting down like powdered bone. The fusion core’s decay counter blinked relentlessly on Jenkins’ flickering screen: 17:42 MIN ESTIMATED CONTAINMENT. The bone-deep klaxons wailed their dirge. And Garcia’s voice cut through it, raw with urgency.
“Eva! Motion signatures! Multiple contacts breaching the main access corridor! Heavy weapons signatures! They’re not bugs!”
Traitors. Boarding parties. Coming for the command center. Coming to silence them before the distress call got out.
Eva’s hand, reflexively, went to the sidearm she’d drawn as the Judgment spoke. Her knuckles were white. The lingering warmth of that sunlit landing pad, that brief, stolen moment of human connection, crystallized into something cold and lethal. They wanted Haven dead. They wanted its story erased. They thought Eva Rostova was already broken.
They were wrong.
“Jenkins,” Eva’s voice was a rasp, low and dangerous. “Lock down blast doors Gamma through Echo. Reroute all remaining auxiliary power to internal defense grid. Simmons, priority override on that distress burst – include the breacher signatures, their origin point, everything. Garcia – light them up. Give them a Haven welcome they won’t forget.” She raised her sidearm, the hum of its capacitor charging a thin, deadly whine cutting through the klaxons. Her green eyes scanned the ruined command center, finding each of her crew – battered, terrified, but resolute. The fortress wasn’t just concrete and steel. It was them. It was the spark Lyra had seen. It was defiance. “No surrender. No quarter. They want the command center? They walk over us. All of us. Hold the line!”
The command center doors shuddered under the first kinetic impact. Bang. Like a giant fist pounding. Dust rained from the ceiling tiles. "Gamma through Echo locked!" Jenkins yelled, fingers dancing across cracked screens. "Internal grid active! They're cutting through!"
Bang. Sparks showered from the reinforced plating around the door seal. "Distress burst away!" Simmons gasped, clutching his console as another impact rocked the deck. "All data appended! Transponder codes, breach vectors, the works! It's screaming into the void, Cap!"
"Good." Eva raised her sidearm, the whine of its charge cycle a high-pitched counterpoint to the bass thump against the door. She scanned her crew – Garcia sighting down his rifle at the entrance, Jenkins frantically monitoring structural integrity and the core decay (16:03), Simmons pale but resolute. "Light 'em up, Garcia. Now."
Garcia slammed his fist onto a console override. Harsh white light flooded the corridor just beyond the main doors through external cams. Screams – human screams – erupted, mingled with the vicious crack-hiss of the internal defense grid’s focused plasma emitters activating. Figures in sleek, unfamiliar black combat armor, caught mid-breach, vaporized or fell writhing. The view dissolved into static as the emitters slagged the external cameras too. "Gotcha, you fraggers!" Garcia snarled.
The pounding stopped abruptly. Silence, thick and heavy, broken only by the groaning station, the klaxons, and the frantic beeping of the core monitor. 15:48. Sweat trickled down Eva’s temple. Too quiet.
"Jenkins?" Eva kept her eyes locked on the smoking door.
"Internal sensors spotty," Jenkins whispered. "Heat sigs... gone? Scattered? Hard to tell with the grid interference and the structural damage. Maybe we—"
A high-frequency whine pierced the air. Not from outside. From the floor vents. Small, disc-shaped drones, no larger than a hand, shot up like malignant insects, skittering across consoles and piping. Their single red lenses glowed.
"Scuttlers!" Garcia yelled, swinging his rifle. "Emp burst! Take 'em—"
Blue-white lightning erupted from the discs. Not an EMP. A focused microwave pulse. Garcia’s rifle sparked and died in his hands. Jenkins screamed as her console exploded in her face, throwing her back. Simmons cried out, clutching his wristpad as it melted. Eva’s sidearm sparked violently, the capacitor overloading, burning her palm before she dropped it with a hiss. The discs clicked, shifting targets.
Eva lunged, grabbing a heavy spanner from a fallen toolkit. She smashed the nearest scuttler mid-pulse. It crumpled. Another skittered towards Jenkins, prone and moaning, her face burned. Eva kicked it like a steel boot, sending it spinning into a wall where it shattered.
"Non-lethal suppression tech," Eva spat, breathing hard, scanning for more. Only three discs. Neutralized. But the damage was done. Consoles smoked. Weapons dead. Jenkins was down, face blistered, struggling to sit up. Simmons helped her. Garcia stared at his ruined rifle in disbelief. "They weren't here to kill us. Just shut us up."
The main doors exploded inwards. Not cut. Blown. Shaped charges. Thick smoke billowed, carrying the acrid tang of high explosives. Three figures stepped through, armored in matte black, visors opaque, weapons raised – compact, efficient-looking pulse carbines. Not standard CDF issue. Not Arachnid. Traitors.
"Command center, remain still!" The voice, filtered through the helmet speaker, was the same chillingly modulated tone as the Judgment. Cold. Certain. "Compliance is mandatory. Resistance is termination."
Eva stood straight amidst the wreckage, hands open at her sides, palms burned. Her green eyes locked onto the lead intruder's visor. Jenkins groaned. Garcia tensed. Simmons held his breath. The core decay counter flickered: 14:22. The lead soldier raised his carbine slightly, centering it on Eva's chest. "Captain Rostova. You will order your personnel to disarm and submit."
A deep rumble vibrated through the deck plates, stronger than before. Dust cascaded. A structural support near the shattered door buckled with a shriek of tearing metal. The lead intruder shifted stance, compensating. His visor tilted fractionally upwards.
Eva moved. Not towards him. Towards Garcia. She shoved the stunned sergeant hard towards the relative cover of a heavy, overturned console. "DOWN!"
Pulse fire sliced the air where Garcia had been. Staccato thumps chewed into the deck. Eva dove sideways behind a sparking terminal bank. Pain lanced through her ribs from the earlier fall. Thump-thump-thump! Rounds slammed into her cover, spitting molten composite. Simmons dragged Jenkins behind another console. Return fire was impossible. They had nothing.
"Stun her! Take the Captain intact! Eliminate the others!" the leader barked. Two soldiers advanced, flanking Eva's position. Methodical. Precise. The third covered Simmons and Jenkins. The rumbling intensified. Another beam groaned overhead.
Eva braced. Trapped. Outgunned. The core counter blinked 13:15. The stun setting meant they wanted her alive. For interrogation. Or worse. Panic threatened, cold and sharp. She crushed it. Think. The vents? Too slow. The buckled support? Unstable. She needed a second. A distraction.
A proximity alert shrieked – a new, different tone. External. Jenkins, half-conscious, mumbled, "Wh...what?"
The lead intruder's helmet snapped towards the main external display. It flickered, damaged but functioning. The view showed the void, the looming shape of the Judgment... and a small, patchwork ship screaming in from high orbit, engines flaring crimson from emergency overburn. It weaved erratically, trailing minor debris.
The Star Hopper.
"What the hell?" Garcia whispered, peering over the console.
Lyra Navani's voice, strained but clear, exploded over the command center's open channel. "Haven C&C, this is Star Hopper on emergency approach vector! Some shiny bastard painted a target on my back and I've got a hungry swarm on my tail! Requesting immediate landing clearance or a really big hole to hide in!" Pulse fire from the Judgment lanced past her, illuminating the Hopper's battered hull.
The lead intruder snapped back towards Eva. "Ignore it! Take the Captain!"
But the distraction was millisecond. Enough. Eva saw the fissure in the deck plating near the buckled support pillar, widened by the last tremor. She grabbed a chunk of shattered console casing. "Jenkins! Auxiliary lighting! Port side! NOW!"
Jenkins, blinking through pain, slapped a hand on the only functioning panel near her. Emergency floods near the port viewport exploded in a blinding glare. The intruders flinched, visors auto-polarizing. Eva hurled the jagged chunk of composite not at them, but down, into the fissure. It struck a sparking power conduit below the deck.
The explosion wasn't huge. But it was violent and perfectly placed. A gout of flame and sparks erupted from the fissure directly beneath the buckling support pillar. The groaning metal shrieked, gave way, and the entire section of ceiling and heavy structural beam collapsed directly onto the two soldiers advancing on Eva.
Crushing them instantly.
The lead intruder, shielded by his position, staggered back from the debris cloud, coughing. His carbine swung wildly. Thump-thump-thump! Rounds went wide, punching holes in the far wall. Garcia saw his chance. He lunged, not for a weapon, but for the heavy spanner Eva had dropped. He scooped it up and hurled it like a club at the intruder's helmet.
It connected with a dull clang. The man stumbled, visor cracking. Eva was already moving. She vaulted over her cover, ignoring the fire in her ribs, and slammed into him. They crashed to the deck. She drove her knee into his weapon arm. Bone crunched. He roared. She clawed at his damaged visor, fingers finding the seal. Ripped it off.
Revealing cold grey eyes in a face she didn't recognize. Utterly devoid of fear. Filled with hate. His free hand, impossibly strong, clamped around her throat. Eva gasped, stars exploding behind her eyes. She locked her hands on his wrist, straining. His grip tightened. Blackness crept in. The core counter blurred: 12:01. Lyra’s voice crackled again, frantic now: "Haven! I'm coming in HOT! Can't shake 'em! Point defense is… engaging? What—?"
Then, the world outside lit up. On the display, the Judgment shuddered as multiple kinetic slugs slammed into its flank from another vector. Colonial Navy slugs. Someone was answering the distress call. The Judgment's fire shifted away from the Hopper, targeting the new threat. The Star Hopper, trailing smoke but intact, veered sharply, diving through the chaotic crossfire straight towards the colony's dorsal landing bay.
The intruder snarled, spittle flying, and slammed Eva's head back against the deck. Pain detonated. His other hand scrabbled for a sidearm. Garcia, weaponless, tackled the man's legs. Simmons grabbed a fallen chunk of metal. Eva saw the gun clearing its holster. She kicked upwards, hard, connecting with his elbow. The gun flew. Simmons brought the chunk of metal down on the intruder's head. Once. Twice. The grip on Eva's throat slackened. The grey eyes glazed.
Eva rolled away, coughing, sucking in ragged, burning air. Garcia scrambled for the fallen pulse carbine. Simmons dropped the bloody metal, shaking. Jenkins stared, wide-eyed. The core counter blinked: 11:47.
Lyra's voice burst over the comm, tight with adrenaline. "Bay doors are jammed! I see the hole! Coming through the merchandise entrance! Brace for impact!" On the external feed, the Star Hopper, dwarfed by the battle raging above, plunged towards the massive breach torn in the colony's side by the Judgment's first strike – the jagged maw leading into the shattered southern utility decks near the ruined geothermal taps.
"Move!" Eva choked out, staggering upright. "Everyone! To the secondary lift shaft! Now!" She pointed towards a service hatch on the far wall, miraculously intact. "That breach is unstable! If the Hopper makes it… it's our way out!"
Garcia hauled Jenkins up, supporting her. Simmons grabbed the fallen carbine. Eva spared one glance at the dead intruders, the ruined command center, the dying colony. The Judgment's cannons flashed against unseen attackers. Time was bleeding out. She scooped up the dead leader's sidearm, checked the charge. Half full. It would do.
"Go, go, GO!" She shoved Simmons towards the hatch. Garcia half-carried Jenkins after him. Eva covered their retreat, backing towards the hatch, weapon trained on the ruined entrance and the smoke-filled corridor beyond. Nothing moved but settling dust. She slammed the hatch control. It slid shut with a groan, manual locking wheel spinning.
The secondary lift shaft was dark, lit only by emergency strips. The cage rattled violently as the deck trembled. "Can you get it moving?" Eva yelled over the din, helping Garcia lower Jenkins to the floor.
"Power's out!" Simmons yelled back, frantically spinning the manual override wheel. "Stuck between levels!"
A deep, shuddering boom echoed through the shaft, followed by the tortured sound of rending metal. Distant. From the direction of the southern breach. Then, miraculously, Lyra's voice, panting, over the comm: "Hopper's... down! More like crash-landed! Hangar Seven... or what's left of it! I'm in! Debris everywhere! Where are you guys? This place feels like it's gonna cave!"
"Secondary lift shaft, Sub-Level Three access!" Eva barked into her wrist comm. "Jenkins is hit! We're trapped! Can you—"
"On it!" Lyra cut in. "Hang on! I know this bucket! Back way!" The connection crackled with static and the sound of Lyra running, breathing hard.
The lift cage groaned. Dust rained. Another tremor hit, stronger. A seam ripped open in the shaft wall above them, spilling sparks. Jenkins moaned. Garcia clutched her shoulder. Simmons strained at the wheel, teeth gritted. Eva watched the seam widen. Watched the core counter blinking on her fractured wristpad display: 8:15. The Judgment was still battering their unseen saviors outside. Time was collapsing inwards.
Then, a grinding, scraping noise from below. Sparks flew from the bottom of the lift cage. A panel wrenched open. A dusty, grease-streaked face, haloed by wild dark curls, appeared. Lyra Navani, breathing hard, a heavy laser cutter in one hand, grinned fiercely up at them.
"Need a lift?" she yelled. "Told you I'd make it! Now get your asses down here before this whole rock turns into a sun!" She tossed a coil of thick cable up through the hole. "Climb! And someone grab Jenkins! We gotta move!"