And all other common spaces aboard the UB313 dark site base. Strobing orange and blue lights spin with reckless abandon upon every flat surface alerting everyone to the mission at hand. The blisteringly cold air inside the base has a crisp tension to it now. The taught faces on everyone who passes along the gangways and in the halls makes the fear and excitement most palpable.
The away teams Eta & Theta have scrambled to their muster stations, and are reading their data packets in preparation for their impending departure. No direct route, just an order to get out to Lagrange point five out beyond Pluto / Charon and await further instructions there. The away teams are running at one third man power, and they have orders to add in the lost crew members weight in additional fuel cells or hard uranium pellets.
Looks as though the rosters were drawn at random within each team, as the crew compliments differ between Eta & Theta. One team appears to be all command, and the other all various types of grunts. No idea if the point is to work in tandem or to be isolated in obtaining the asset – whatever it is.
Muffled shouts and clanking of boots and machine parts on the rough metal grates makes it hard to think. Their are service vehicles and lift trucks going about their business as usual, and the machine shop people are busy retrofitting anything they can get their hands on. The screech and rattle of unbalanced loads in the lathes and cnc’s is nearly deafening. The light in here is dim, and the smell of acrid smoke and burning lubricants permeates the air. Air quality on UB313 is usually shit at the best of time, add propane engines, and burnt lubricants to that, and a million other solvents and you have the quality toxic cloud of air that we call home. Hanging down from the rough hewn rock ceilings are the under powered exhaust vents, miles of pipes and cables all tied together and mounted off of swinging all too thin chains. It really looks like a last ditch attempt to make the best of a bad situation. You’d be hard pressed to know this base has been operational for several hundred standard years. The hard worn and battered baffles that are up on ceiling swing wildly under the chaotic air currents and draughts.
The closely knit teams are already communicating with hand signals or on our closed circuit sub-vocal channels. Sounds like we stand to make a pretty good chunk of cash if we pull this daring heist off successfully. Will be left to rot in the surgical bay at the hands of the beast should we fail. The check lists for deployment are hours long and deeply intricate. Call from upstairs says be ready to drop in six hours time. So much to do, so little time.
All around the drop ships, the ground crews are scrambling to check off multiple items at a time. Oil slicked hands drop nuts to instrumental bolts, and sweat pours profusely from every pore. The stink of old breath and sweat mixed with oils, grease and desperation are an unwelcome but well known element to a dark ops deployment this far away from civilization. When you work to destabilize, steal and corrupt everything around you, the smell of fear is always nestled in your nose, and resting upon the back of your tongue so you can taste its fetid presence.
Part six: Ghost of the Dirty Starling.
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