THE STATION

Seth peered into the terminal mounted on the chest of his R-Grade "RIG", it was commonly called a "Hammerhead" due to its onboard hard light tool which resembled the shark. Seth had put it on after leaving food and water for Theodore.

He had spent the voyage training the cat how to use the toilet. And with the automated water dispenser and quality of the protein tabs he had broken apart, he was confident the feline would be fine for a couple days. He had learned much about the care for felines in the few months since he had escaped.

"How peculiar." Seth wondered aloud mostly for his colleauges to hear. Some subroutine recognizing that he stood out and defenses in his personality matrix attempting to assuage suspicion by remarking on something that could be misconstrued as emotion. "Sympathy." He realized how different, for the first time, he had become since joining the crew.

These thoughts as he began a brute force hack into the stations subnet. He almost felt a pang of remorse as his bleeding edge corporate tech attacked the comparatively ancient technology it found itself in. It brought a curious grin to his face, luckily that was obscured behind the RIG's helmet. He never went anywhere without his RIG. It was the hardest proof he could present that he was indeed a Kappa Class Aneutronic Fusion Specialist. He had to keep that lie straight. His continued survival depended on it.

It was a pleasure to wear, the suit hugged the body, using gallium and magnets to give the wearer haptic feedback, it even could project heat and cold within limits. But the best part was the safety it afforded. It was worthless against ballistics, but directed energy weapons would find little use against it. It was almost completely invulnerable to fire, and cold. Corrosive elements would find little reactive materials on the "skin" as well.

But apart from that, it boasted an industrial grade thermite lancet projector. The "Hammer Head" that gave the R-Grade rig its monicker. It was designed to rivet composite or ferric plates into a vessels superstructure. They say you could know a professional by his tools. It had other diagnostic functions, but the R-Grade techs who designed the Hammer Head reasoned that any other tool could be obtained on site.

The terminal bleeped and Seth saw a notification from his Credit Union that funds had been transferred. He looked over to see two others, Bob he recognized, the other guy he did not. "Good to see you Bob." He called out and made a beeline for the new arrival. "Greetings. I am Seth, Kappa Class Aneutronic Fusion Specialist." Seth had a particular way he moved, even in the Powersuit it was graceful, almost too precise for the 50kg of mass it added. And the way he spoke. It wasn't cold but flat, nothing excited Seth. As he approached the radium blue glow of the lighting in his powersuit lit up the air around him. The peculiar stride that he moved with making almost no sound as he approached.

Bob gets up from the chair he has been reading from his tablet about the mining operation on Persei 19. He did not fail to notice the fact that barely anyone expected the station to still be functioning. After getting the message from Adam, he quickly applied for a job at the station. His knowledge of geology and xeno-habitats was an easy sell. For what job it's a bit less clear. At least they are in.

Business has been slow, and they really needed this money, or they'd lose their ship and be stranded on some forsaken backwater station in the middle of the system. The bills were already far into the grace period...

Bob gets his oxygen suit. The atmosphere should be tolerable, but given how out of date everything seems to be, things can get really dangerous, really quickly. And maybe he should take his pocket gun. Miners are a rough type.

"Hey Seth, not taking little furball here with you?" Bob replies to Seth's greetings. The man doesn't talk much, but they have been together since Bob escaped the corporation, and he is good with the ship's systems. A reminder pops up on the screen. The list of chemical tests that might be useful for whatever job they will find. Though their real job will probably depend more on the new crew member. Decapitated corpses next to the processing machine sounds more like engineering to Bob.

He turns to "The Mechanic" and tries to make a joke, though it comes out in his most monotonic tone."Ready to experience some horror? For all we know, those machines have never seen a drop of oil"

"Oh you must mean Theodore." That flat informative tone that Seth had made it the most boring sounding statement ever uttured. "I surmise that a murder investigation is unsuitable for a feline companion. Therefore, I have trained Theodore to use my toilet. She likes to eat the spiders in my vessel there are, several thousand of them, and so she will not starve. She knows how to use the sink as well. Sometimes she luxuriates by turning the water on hot. I find this behavior, suitable. She is quite a talented feline." It was just like Seth to carry on about his cat. He may have been a brilliantly talented general physicist, but he was hardly human.

Seth quickly sought root user access following his initial hack. He injected some custom software, a rudimentary self learning program. Something to make his stay more pleasant. Like Seth, it sought out credibility. It lied perfectly, concealing itself between the runtimes. A cluster of related programs, analyzing, and then constructing. It was like a spore, slowly spreading, becoming alike, glomus.

Like the fungus it was named after its moves were patient. Insidious. He was in and in minutes he would be very difficult to remove, let alone detect. Seth had no reason to enslave the station, it wasn't done out of malice either. It was just something to utilize, his instincts told him to conquer it. So he did. Building the platform of his power. He had based the infestation on his observation of mycellium. The Glomus forming inside this ancient space station - in Seth's eyes a necessary upgrade.

"You're probably right" Bob assents, not paying much attention to the subject, as he moves past the other crew members to search for his lab equipment. Once he finds some useful chemicals and starts packing them in a safe suitcase, he shouts back "Have you considered a more diverse diet for her? Not sure spiders are the most nutritious."

Heron woke up and crawled out of his cot, he had set up close to the reactor of the ship. Not the safest of places nor the spacious one, but he liked feeling the vibrations of the ship's machines and he always felt more protected while in cramped spaces. He wore his clothes and his RIG on top of them.

The mechanics' RIG was more like a light exoskeleton rather than a full enclosed RIG, designed to go over any type of clothing or even an EVA suit. Overlapping brass coloured alloy plates that slide into each other, provide basic protection against radiation and physical hazards in an engineering bay. It mostly covers his chest, abdomen, arms and legs, like a knight's armour from stories of old Earth. The RIG comes with a helmet that is a mix between a welder's helmet and a pilot's helmet, providing a HUD with usefull data about the machine that you are working on it. Or it is suppossed to work like this, since Heron bought the thing second hand and has upgraded so much till then.

He grabs his bag that has some basic tools, a multitool and before exiting his cabin he stops and grabs a small pistol from deep inside his locker. "You never know..." he tells to himself as he holds the old pistol in his hand. He arrives to the ship's exit bay and greets the other crewmembers. Heron is a softspoken and spartan with words, he prefers machines from people. "Are we ready?"

"Two doctors and a chief engineer walk into a space station..."

Seth didn't know the rest of the joke.

"I bet 500cr that there's something badly wrong with the reactor here." Seth pointed to the rusted conduits. The background radiation read out 40msv, not a concern, but a significant increase. He shared the datapoint on the mission log, requesting sign off by his partners.

Bob signs off the request. He signs off most of Seth's requests. Mostly because he knows no one will care to read them and, anyway, maybe this sort of information could be useful later. "As ready as I'll ever be, I guess." Having seen how Seth likes to infiltrate all systems, Bob abstains from the bet as he already lost enough to the other crew-member. He looks at the map in front of them and traces it mindlessly with his finger. "I guess the admin office is just next door. We can't really miss it now, can we?"

"Ooofff..." scoffs Heron. Checkpoints are his least favourite thing. After cold coffee.

Seth steps up to the scanner and retrieves his badge, Aneutronic Fusion Specialist Kappa Class, it also had a bar passively monitoring his rad count. It was cyan indicating conditions were optimal. He hands it to the guard and steps through the scanner.

If the guard is not going to guard, then Bob is not going to bobther. Since guns are usually not allowed in these places, Bob tries to sneak them in while the others scan their equipment.

---

Bob looks as surprised by how quickly the guard grabs his gun as he would if he saw a positive balance on his account!

Did he say workers don't have these? Damn it!

"Oh right. We are here to... We were hired to check the facilities. Related to that incident with the food processing machine. You heard about that, right?"
Bob turns to show the others. "Here's Heron. Specialist in machinery. And Seth. Computer expert. " He points at the gun and adds, trying to sound as professional as he can, "Self defense. These investigations tend to get heated"

"You can check with the Teamsters' Union. They sent the message" After a moment of pause, Bob remembers to mention the union, though hopefully, he doesn't check.

"Well, the incident with the food processing machine. You know, headless body and all that." Bob mentions the incident again, a bit annoyed that he has to put up with the guard. "A dutiful and vigilant security officer like yourself must have heard something about it, no?"

Bob hopes that praising the guard would get them some information or, if nothing else, diffuse a bit the tension. "Not sure where the investigation will take us. The Union just wants to be sure this was the miner's negligence. So we'll need to visit them. And the food processing facilities, of course. I would like to check the medical records and maybe have a little chat with some of the workers around here? Ah! Do you have some sort of conscience backup system? That could be useful as well, in case we need to check with other similar victims"

As Bob puts away his gun he turns to the others. "Anything else I forgot?"

Heron leaves a sigh of relief. He has his pistol on him after all. He nods to Bob that he said everything.