FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Tales from Grimmerspace: Operation Ghost Hotel

By Stephen Landis

Set in the Grimmerspace Universe

All Rights Reserved

Colonial Distress Beacon Detected…

Error: No Registered Colony Listed At Location...

Dispatching Voti Marine Xeno Encounter Recon Unit Delta to location to investigate…

Aila Fireblossom was quietly performing another maintenance check on her submachine gun as the XERU frigate Thunder and Ashes made its way to the distress beacon. Aila hadn’t heard much yet, there was supposed to be a briefing in an hour, all she knew was that her squad of XERU Voti Marines had been dispatched to respond to a distress beacon from a civilian way-station and they would be there before the end of Third Watch.

Hard Voti Rock music played in the background as Fireblossom finished reassembling her submachine gun and inspected her armor in the ship’s armory, making sure the environmental seals for her Hazmat Recon MKII armor were functioning properly. The music was hardly regulation but then XERU’s were a little more lax on discipline compared to other branches of the Voti Marines, when it came to anything other then weapon maintenance or conduct within a mission zone. Non-regulation music was allowed as long as it wasn’t played obnoxiously loud and there were a handful of other “allowances” made… and many Voti Marines STILL regarded XERUs as a punishment assignment. Aila was not most Marines, the redheaded Voti female enjoyed the adrenaline rush that came from facing the unknown and making it known or at least dead. And besides, the short humanoid was a Voti Marine, one of the hardiest warriors in a galaxy that produced no shortage of hardy bastards, what could kill her?

Continuing to inspect her armor as she put it on over her padded undersuit, she continued to check seals and occasionally adjusted the weight of the alloyed armor to make sure it sat comfortably on her shoulders. The Voti were strong but it took more then just brute strength to be able to carry a suit of heavy armor and a fully loaded APO plus other assorted combat gear for prolonged periods of time.

Slipping her gunmetal gray armor on and setting her cybernetic Anti-Personnel Ordnance weapon onto her right shoulder, she stepped out of the armory with her helmet tucked under her arm. The music stopped playing the moment she left the armory, the room sensing that there was no one present. But Aila hardly noticed, she had a briefing to attend and she was never late to a briefing…

“So what’s the Corps got for us today sir?” Choker, Aila’s fellow heavy gunner in the squad, asked Axel, the squad leader.

“Command wants us to investigate a distress signal from a civvie supply depot connecting the core to this part of the frontier.” Axel replied. “Proximity to the rest of inhabited space and intel says its a real frontier mom-n-pop operation…” the marine officer replied, his voice trailing off.

Goggles, the team’s science specialist, immediately chimed in. “But…” As the science officer of the squad, he was responsible for figuring out what the rest of the team was facing. Which, among other things, he was often the one asking questions.

“But the intel contradicts just about everything else we know.” Axel answered, shaking his head. “Everything else we have states the station shouldn’t be here. According to the starmaps there isn’t a station in this sector, pioneer battalions are not scheduled to start building one out this way for another month, and long-range sensor readings suggestion the station is Attien construction… BIG Attien construction. Which, political ramifications aside, makes no damn sense.”

“Yeah aren’t we on the wrong side of the galaxy to run into those hyper-corporate bootlickers?” Hammer, squad’s tech sergeant and Axel’s NCO, chimed in gruffly.

“We are.” Axel replied simply.

“And isn’t their supply chain so badly mismanaged that even losing one colony sends their entire logistical network straight to the shitter?” Choker replied.

Axel frowned, as much from the situation they were heading into as from the continued questioning. “Enough. We have our orders. We arrive on at the station within the hour. As the distress call is a generic automated message, we have no idea whether the outpost is suffering from a full assault from unidentified lifeforms or a simple mechanical failure. Once we arrive and breach the station, our first priority is to determine the nature of the threat and search for survivors if any. Afterwards, we will either eradicate the threat or contain it long enough to evacuate survivors and extract any intelligence as to exactly just who in the Gyre these people are. Any questions?”

“Couldn’t they just be independents sir?” Aila asked after listening to the others quietly. Not everyone on the frontier belonged to one of the five polities or a criminal organization.

“Even independent colonies need to be registered and logged on the star charts corporal, if they are unmarked they’re playing a very dangerous game.” Axel replied.

“Well sir, can’t say the Corps doesn’t send us to some interesting places. A colony that doesn’t exist, a threat we don’t know, and people that we don’t recognize. Just another day with XERU.” Aila Fireblossom sang happily, getting groans from the others in the briefing room. Unlike most of the others, Aila never said that sarcastically.

“Alright then, that is all. If you have any ideas for operation names, mail them to the ship’s server. Otherwise we arrive at the mission area in three hours. Make sure whatever prep you have left is finished by then. That is all, dismissed.” Axel replied as he concluded the mission briefing.

The Voti Marines of XERU Delta saluted and left the briefing room, however the conversation about the mission resumed the moment they got into the corridor. “Briefing’s done, time to open the pool.” Goggles smiled. “I’ll start; benign equipment failure, 50 credits.”

“Goggles, you always bet that… 100 credits, alien super-predator. Biological, not robotic.” Aila replied with a smirk.

“Awesome, I always wanted to take your money.” Choker replied with a laugh. “Pathogen that turns people into zombies, 200 credits.”

Hammer shook his head. “You two need to learn not to bet so big… renegade robots, 50 credits.”

Goggles shook his head as the four of them walked further away from the briefing room and towards the ship’s lounge. “You three are way too eager to go get yourselves killed. Is it really that bad to hope for just one mission where Hammer and I are the ones doing all the heavy lifting before chewing out incompetent civvies?”

“What are you going to do with the money anyway? Buy more porn?” Choker asked snidely as the four of them entered the lounge and made their way to the mess unit in the corner. Aila could already see where Choker was going and resisted the urge to groan.

“I have plans…” Goggles replied, also clearly seeing where Choker was going and not caring at all as he ordered a deli-sliced thunk sandwich from the mess unit.

“Plans like your plans on that minor colony world we passed a couple months ago. What’s with you and the Minor Species anyway?” Choker replied as the rest of them collected their meals.

“They are a fascinating oddity. Over a dozen sentient species spread between a handful of worlds after being transplanted to our galaxy by an unknown means. How can you not be interested in them?” Goggles asked as the four of them sat down

“Oh really, is that the pickup line you used for that Pahtra female?” The Voti private asked, making Aila shake her head after she tried to remember which species the Pahtra were. Were they the gray-furred canines or the spotted felines from a low-g homeworld from somewhere called the “Veskarium” or something?

“No, actually the line I used was about Voti stamina.” Goggles replied nonchalantly, oblivious to Aila’s unspoken questions.

“Dude why?”

“Well you know what they say; once you go furry, you never go back.” Goggles replied back, the smirk on his face making it clear he had that comeback tucked away in his back pocket for a while.

“If you two idiots are done acting like a pair of drunken frats, the rest of us are trying to eat before we check our gear one last time.” Hammer replied as he quickly devoured his sandwich and left the mess hall, Goggles was soon behind him muttering something about making sure his sensors were properly calibrated.

It was at that moment that Fireblossom regretted being in such a hurry to make sure her gear was ready to go. Both of the specialists had additional gear to check, leaving her alone with Choker. The younger Voti Marine turned and looked at her expectantly, his mouth starting to open when Aila cut him off.

“Did you transfer into the XERU division right out of Basic or something?” She asked, her tone dripping with acid.

“What?” He asked incredulously… apparently he did.

“Okay, rule one of being in an Xeno Encounter unit. Unless you are questioning a squadmate’s ability to do his job, you do not pester him about his vices or his private life. If you aren’t a weirdo when you get here, you will be after your first couple drops.” Aila replied before standing up and walking off. Even though she already went through her gear, one more inspection wouldn’t hurt. Neither would another couple magazines for her APO either. Especially if they did run into zombie parasites this time...

The final approach to the unnamed space station appeared to be uneventful from Aila’s perspective. There was a brief moment where her muscles tensed as the lights flickered but the helm assured them everything was fine over the intercom and it appeared to be just a brief power fluctuation. XERU Delta suited up in their sealed armor and gathered inside the airlock, ready to board the moment the frigate docked.

Boarding the station was tense but entering a hostile mission area was always tense. As the Thunder and Ashes finished connecting to the docking ring, the inner airlock closed behind the squad and the outer airlock door hissed ominously before opening onto the station proper. Weapons raised, XERU Delta passed through the docking tube and into a large empty atrium, fanning out and each facing different directions. APOs swerved idly and nothing echoed through the room except for the heavy pant of Voti Marines breathing through helmet respirators as Delta Squad waited for Goggles to finish his scans.

The Voti warrior-scientist stared intently at his scientific apparatus until it beeped happily back at him and spat out a report that Aila couldn’t make sense of. “Okay, there’s atmosphere and it’s breathable. No trace of chemical or biological contamination in the air. So whatever happened here, it’s not airborne.”

On reflex, the squad deactivated their rebreathers and were immediately greeted by the unnerving absence of smell. In a confined space like a space station, there was always some sort of smell whether it be the foul odor of the rotting flesh of slain colonists killed by any number of horrors or the cocktail of sweat, chemical fresheners, and cooked food that marked a functional colony. On here there was nothing. Either no one had been here in a long time or the interior paint hadn’t finished drying yet.

“I don’t like this, not at all. Fresh Fazharian automat got more people then this.” Choker grumbled as Hammer walked up to a nearby computer terminal in the middle of the empty atrium.

“Your opinion has been noted Private.” Axel replied dryly but Aila could see that even their leader was on edge. Everyone other than Choker had been on enough hostile drops to recognize when something weird was going on and this was definitely toggling those honed senses. The fact that he picked up on the wrongness so quickly caused Aila to start to reconsider her original opinion of the private.

Sgt. Hammer pulled out his custom rig and removed a panel from the side of the public information terminal. Drawing an adapter cable, he connected his rig to the terminal as the latter displayed a very officious looking warning about tampering with colony property.

“Yeah, yeah, bite my high-g ass you bloody toaster. The interpolity rescue and relief treaty says otherwise.” Hammer grumbled as he activated his custom rig’s computer functions and displayed what he was doing on the information terminal’s monitor.

“Okay, activating diagnostics and black box retrieval programs and… what do you mean ‘incompatible software detected’?” Hammer sputtered.

“What’s happening Hammer, talk to us.”

“Program architecture is not standard… at all. I can’t access engineering or the security archives from here.”

“You can’t access the encrypted backdoor into the station’s network? I thought that security feature was standard after the incident on Visitant IV?”

“That’s what I’m saying. Whoever built the operating systems for the station is not using standard code. If we want to access security files or engineering, I can’t do it from here.”

Axel exhaled before replying, an action that was telling in itself. “Alright, we’ll keep an eye out for the command center while we search the rest of the station for survivors. Delta, let’s move out.” Axel ordered, gesturing deeper into the station. With their weapons raised, XERU Delta left the atrium and hopefully closer to the bottom of this mystery...

As they left the dock atrium for a central plaza that seemed to run the width of the station’s central spire, Aila carefully scanned her surroundings and tried to make sense of them. Each of the five polities maintained their own way-stations to connect the core worlds of the Plate to the Crux and to each other. And each of them had their own unique personality based on who built it, who staffed it, and who was a frequent visitor. Yet even as familiar as she was with each of the polities, Fireblossom was getting conflicting messages about who actually worked here and who they were supposed to serve.

The interior of both the plaza and the station in general was painted white accented with various bright, happy colors. The metal benches were finished with chrome and luxuriously upholstered. It all looked very Fazharian to Aila but if it was it was very “dumb”, lacking the hyper-automation and computer interfacing the green robotics wizards of the Thriftic Binary were known for. Charging ports for roving mechanical valets and porters, hook-ups for mechanical waldos and arms… none of that supporting infrastructure was there or wasn’t in a form that she recognized. Many of the shops also looked too big for the typical Fazharian automats and self-serve stores. It looked like the stores were set up with living clerks and backroom storage instead of self-checkouts and robotic fabricators that manufactured goods on demand. The engineering decisions looked more like what she had seen in Attien Combine colonies but the color scheme still screamed Fazharian. An Attien station serving routes between the Combine and Fazhar’s native Thriftic Binary could still have been possible but XERU Delta was on the wrong side of the galaxy for such a combination.

Other then that, the plaza looked like a standard way-station marketplace, a place for travelers to stretch their legs and pick up various sundries before they continued on. A perfectly ordinary shopping plaza… that looked like everyone in the station had all got up and left for lunch just five minutes ago. The lights were on, vending machines hummed with electricity, and there was not a soul to be seen except for the five Voti Marines.

In the center was a secure elevator that would take the squad either down to engineering or up to the command center and residential decks. The squad moved closer, weapons still raised, and fanned out around the elevator as Hammer stepped in front of the control console and called the elevator. Only then did they lower their weapons and begin to relax ever so slightly.

“Alright people, any guesses who built this place?” Axel asked as they all waited for the elevator.

“Looks like it might be the robo-wimps from the Binary sir.” Aila replied, she wasn’t a fan of the Fazharian hyper-reliance on machinery and their style was pretty distinct. Machines failed, muscle and six inches of solid titanium alloy never did.

“No way.” Choker replied. “Sizes are all wrong. We got furniture scaled up for something bigger then the average humanoid and some scaled down for a Voti… how many places outside of the Voti-Kun Empire do you see cater to our size? I mean actually cater and not make some sort of token gesture.” He countered, it was a good point and the others knew it. But on the other hand, just who made this damn place then?

“Ironically it looks like something the Minor Species would build if they had the resources to build their own stations instead of just use ours. Some of those chairs look like the perfect size for Ysoki. Maybe someone’s trying to cater to them?” Goggles remarked. Leave it to the science officer to make the observation that made the most sense even if it did still have multiple unanswered questions.

“But the Minors are still dependent on us for construction machinery and heavy industry; if they were building something out here, we’d know it.” Choker again, voicing what everyone else was thinking.

Aila was just about to respond when a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye made her raise her submachinegun with a snap and turn in the direction of a small bank of drink vending machines. Yet as soon as she finishing turning, the figure vanished.

Everyone else turned their heads and their APOs in the direction Aila pointed her gun in. “What is it?”

Aila lowered her weapon. “I thought I saw someone for a second.” She replied with a shake of her head. She could have sworn she saw a humanoid figure standing by the drink machines like they was about to buy a drink but as soon as she focused on it, the person vanished. Still, something seemed… off about the person she thought she saw. She wasn’t sure what, the person didn’t stick around long enough for her to get a good look at them.

Goggles looked down at his scanner. “You sure? Scanner says there isn’t anything alive in here except us.”

The elevator chimed and the doors opened, Axel shook his head. “We’ll figure it out later. Upstairs everyone.” Axel replied and motioned for the squad to get onto the elevator.

The elevator ride up to the top of the station was uneventful, depositing the squad into the middle of the command center without incident. The station’s command center was an open room with terminals and computer banks for various stations surrounding the main elevator shaft, the only walled section was off in one corner with the words “Stationmaster’s Office” emblazoned in a metal plaque bolted over the doorway.

Moving swiftly and checking for survivors or threats hiding behind the terminals, the squad filed into the stationmaster’s office. On cue, Hammer got behind the desk, pulled up a chair, and plugged his custom rig into the computer. Immediately the screen came to life and several programs began to display on the desktop.

“Odd… the computer was left on.”

“I was going to say, that’s a fast crack even for you. What do you have?”

“Running the station diagnostics now… Hmmm, life support is good. Gravity is good. Reactor is good though there’s a lot of power being drained by something but I can’t tell what yet. Rest of the damn computer’s a mess, whoever ran this station knew nothing about file organization. Also there’s some program called hardlite.exe, looks like it’s been running since we got here.”

“Any idea what it does?”

“No clue, looks like random bits of bad code crashing, rebooting, and crashing again in one big loop.”

Axel shook his head. “Alright, keep working on it and contact us on comms when you find anything. Choker, stay with Hammer. See if there’s any hard copy files and if they’re in better shape then the computer. If there aren’t, see if you can get a security terminal working and help recover any black box data. Goggles, Aila, you’re with me. We’re going to search the rest of the station top to bottom and see where everyone went to.” He ordered and turned to start walking back to the elevator

“Okay, off into the unknown once more.” Goggles sighed.

“Oh come on Goggles, we never get to explore an empty space station before.” Aila laughed and started to follow off after Axel.

“I know, that’s what worries me.” Goggles sighed as he followed the others onto the elevator and descended down to the top of the residential level beneath the command center.

The station’s residential level, where all the employees lived for several months at a time, wasn’t particularly large. Aila estimated that at most about two hundred people lived here judging by the size and complexity of the area she found herself in. Which continued to reinforce the question that was on her and everyone else’s mind. Just where was everyone? They should have run into someone or found a body by now, but the residential level was just as empty as everywhere else they had seen.

The central elevator had deposited them into a large atrium decorated with a number of small potted trees and hydroponic flower beds, taking up both floors of the two-level living quarters. Doors lined the edge of the atrium and a pair of short hallways on each level that snaked around the back to form a second block of doors facing away from the central atrium. Judging by how the doors were spaced apart in the long hallways, Aila suspected each apartment was a small dormitory with barely enough space for a bed, a desk, and a fresher. Searching each of them one by one would have been a nightmare if Goggles didn’t have his bioscanner actively searching for living beings. Starting on the right side, they swept the dormitories facing the atrium on both floors then walked around to the back of the right side residences...

As soon as the three marines turned around the corner, they spotted a humanoid figure at the opposite end of the corridor. As soon as it spotted them, the figure darted into a nearby dorm.

“Hold it right there!” Axel shouted as the three of them raced to the other end of the corridor and turned into the open dormitory to find… an empty room. The bed was made, the desk was as neat as a pin, and both the fresher and the small closet were empty. No trap doors and no maintenance hatches large enough for an adult humanoid to fit in, the three Voti Marines entered through the only way into or out of the room.

“We all saw that right?” Axel asked the other two as they all stood in a room barely larger then a closet.

“Yeah I did… I also saw it didn’t show up on the bioscanner. It’s not organic whatever it is. Maybe it’s robotic?” Goggles replied with a shrug.

“Still doesn’t explain where it went! We went through the only door and only a kid could squeeze into the maintenance duct. It should still be here if it needed to squeeze itself to fit.” Aila replied as the lights abruptly went off in the corridor outside.

Axel was on his communicator as all three of them switched on flashlights attached to the under-barrels of their weapons. “Hammer, we just lost lights in the residential deck. Was that you?”

“No sir, I’m still trying to make sense of this computer. There are no logs and all the manifests date back three months ago, looks like they just built it and left. There’s an encrypted folder in the hard drive directory but I haven’t touched that yet. Odd… sir remember the junk program that was spitting random lines of code?”

“Yes?”

“The code… it changed. It went from spitting a few lines before rebooting to spitting several paragraphs at a time before looping around. It’s also cycling much faster.”

“Interesting, is it relevant? Also, did you track down the power drain?”

“I have no idea. Power seems to be drained by some device that spans the entire central cylinder from the command module all the way down to engineering. No idea what it is though, I don’t recognize any of the circuit diagrams Choker found in the hard copy files.”

“Great. Start working on cracking that encrypted file and remind me to ask for darkvision sensors in our next armor mod requisition after we finish this.” Axel radioed back with a shake of his head before turning to the two Voti with him. “Alright, let’s search the rest of the residential deck and see if we can’t find our ghost and finally get some answers.”

The mood became more tense as the three marines fanned out of the empty apartment and back into the dark corridor. Beams of light cut a swath through the concealing gloom as the trio slowly panned and occasionally turned around to search for their missing figure or anything else that could be lingering in the shadows. Aila’s trigger finger rested ever so gently against the trigger guard of her SMG, her shoulder-mounted APO extended up and spun idly with a comforting whine. If there was any danger in here, she was more then capable of greeting it with a hail of gunfire.

With Goggle’s scanner unable to detect whatever it was that was roaming the station, the three of them were forced to open and search room by room. Each room was the same. Small, neat as a pin, and the bed made so perfectly even Aila’s drill sergeant back in Basic would have been impressed. Ready for a small community of station workers to move right in and make themselves at home before bringing the station to life. If it wasn’t for the fact that there was something suspicious going on, Aila could see Command sending a pioneer battalion to switch the décor and claim the abandoned station in the name of the Votikun Empire. It looked practically ready to move in as is, everything being as immaculate and recently built as it was.

They were halfway through the hallway when Aila Fireblossom encountered the figure. Axel and Goggles had gone into sweep yet another dormitory while she stood outside and kept watch. Blending into the shadows, Aila almost didn’t even see her standing there until it was too late. Recognizing the outline of what looked a person, she turned her lit weapon towards and felt her eyes go wide as the light revealed a monochromatic figure that was completely gray and holding a huge kitchen knife. Everything about the human woman “looking” back at her was gray; clothes, skin, hair. Yet the most horrifying feature about the stranger was her face... or lack there of. Where the face should have been was almost completely smoothed over; mouth, nose, and eyes were indistinct like in a blurry photograph. For a second that seemed to stretch into eternity, neither individual moved. Then suddenly the taller woman seemed to come to life and charged Aila with her knife raised.

“Fuck!” Aila shouted as she quickly raised her weapon and fired twice, once with her submachinegun and once with the APO cybernetically connected to her brain. Her obscenity was drowned out by the short burst of the APO minigun punctuated by the double-tap of her other weapon.

Hearing the sound of weapons fire, the other two Voti quickly turned to face the door just as Aila’s attacker doubled over and cried out in pain with a scream that sounded more electronic then natural to the Voti Marine’s ear. The alien woman then began to flicker in and out, “glitching” in a way that reminded Aila of a character in a poorly programmed video game, before disappearing entirely.

“Corporal! You good?” Axel called out as Aila walked into the room backwards, weapons pointing in the general direction of the corridor.

“Yeah… yeah, I’m good. I think I am at least… Benefactor what was that?” Aila replied, panting ever so slightly. “I shot it and then it just disappeared.”

Axel and Goggles looked at each other then at Aila. “You sure? Corpses don’t just vanish.”

“It vanished, trust me I’m not going to forget that anytime soon. Least it clearly didn’t like getting shot, so we got that going for us.” Aila replied as she tried to mentally break down what she just saw.

Axel’s face was frozen in contemplation, Aila had been on enough missions with him to recognize that look, their leader was deciding between pulling them out right now or trying to gather more information about what they were dealing with. It was a call that XERU field officers made countless times during their careers and one where there was never a good answer. The lieutenant was just about to voice his decision when their radios crackled with a distraction.

“Hope I’m not interrupting anything sir, finally cracked the encryption on that one file, skimming now while I transmit it to Thunder and Ashes. Say, does the name Starfinder Society mean anything to anyone?” Hammer interjected abruptly over the general channel.

“Are you asking because it’s relevant to the mission or are you just curious?” Axel replied back

“Just found a file mentioning something about preparing for the eventual arrival of someone called the Starfinder Society and… Sir, we need to leave NOW.” Hammer replied, his tone implying he was reading while he was talking and found something disturbing.

“What? Did you find out what happened to the inhabitants?”

“Sir, there are NO inhabitants. This whole station is one giant Dorkah’s Gambit.” Hammer replied, sending chills down the spines of the rest of the squad. They all knew the story of Dorkah, a sadistic space pirate that lured freighters and free traders into carefully planned ambushes using fake distress calls and convincing decoys. He was so notorious for it that the phrase Dorkah’s Gambit referred to anyone that employed similar tactics.

Axel sucked in his breath and nodded. “Alright, you two get what you can and get out of there. Everyone else fall back. We’ll regroup back at the Thunder and Ashes. Once we’re all on the ship, we’ll atomize this thing so no one else gets snared in whatever we found ourselves in. Everyone stay in radio contact with each other.” The squad leader ordered before motioning for them to move out.

Moving out into the hallway and making their way to the now darkened atrium, Axel stayed on the line with Hammer. “Any idea what we’re facing sergeant?”

“I’m still working out the specifics but… the machine that runs the length of the central cylinder and drawing all the power is a projector of some kind. There’s a whole lot of engineering jargon I need time to review and… it looks like the station’s computer hacked us on approach. I’m currently looking at files on each of us based on our infosphere history and online shopping habits. I have no idea what that means and frankly I don’t want to know. I’m transferring everything I have to the ship right now and… wait, Choker? Damn it private this isn’t funny, where did you-ARRRRRGH!” Hammer screamed over the channel, his cries punctuated by sounds of gunfire as he shot at something on his end before cutting out.

“Sergeant? Come in sergeant!” Axel called as the trio gathered in front of the elevator. Hammer did not reply.

Aila was silent as she looked around and felt a chill run down her spine. In the darkened residential atrium around them, humanoid shapes appeared seemingly out of thin air. Many, many humanoid shapes. More then the three of them could hope to fight off, Fireblossom forgot if it was her or Goggles that slammed their armored fist into the elevator call button like it would make it come faster. Not that it mattered, the “ghosts” would be on them before the lift finished coming down.

With an unholy electric shriek, the station’s inhabitants charged. The trio of Voti replied in kind by opening fire. Aila’s flashlight caught glimpses of long, sharp knives and massive wrenches that were clearly never meant for maintenance. Muzzle flashes from their APOs turned the space outside of their flashlights into a shutter show of collapsing figures and electronic screams. Yet they still kept coming, pushing closer every time the three marines cut them down, Aila swore she killed four of the same ones at least twice.

The chime of the elevator was drowned out by the sound of battle, it wasn’t until Axel shouted at her to get on that Aila realized it had arrived. Turning and running, her APO swerving around to continue firing at the beings still screaming behind her, Aila raced into the lift as the elevator doors shut behind her….

As the doors sealed shut and the residential level outside fell silent, Axel pressed the button to bring the lift up to the command deck. Aila steeled herself as she readied for the fight that was almost certainly coming. Still, they needed to try and rescue Hammer and Choker, XERUs did not leave their own behind if they could help it. And there was still a chance they could rescue their squadmates.

The elevator deposited them on the top floor of the station once again, the three of them fanning out to see if they could see what became of their squadmates. Sgt Hammer was found quickly, his dead body lying on the floor mere feet away from the elevator. Several stab wounds in his back and side made it easy to see what killed him.

They were still examining Hammer’s body when Choker fell out of a utility closet, pushing the closet door open before landing face-first on the floor with a thud that made all three of them jump. Frowning and moving to a position where he could watch over both Aila and Goggles, Axel stepped back and motioned for Aila to go over to check on Choker.

Grimacing herself, she carefully walked over with her weapon raised, lowering it as she walked up beside him. Even before she turned him over and looked at his face, she knew he would never rise again. Flipping him over, Fireblossom was greeted by the sight of Choker’s mauled face. His right eye had been put out when a heavy bladed weapon was slammed into that side of his face. A huge gash was carved into the left side of his neck, severing several major arteries.

“Is Choker alright corporal?” Axel asked.

“He looks fine for a dead guy sir.” Aila replied dryly as she looked over her squadmate’s corpse. While forensics was Goggles’ specialty, Aila had been in enough fights and dealt with these things long enough to have a rough guess how the private met his end. Lured into breaking the first rule of successful XERU squads and wandered off alone, one of these damn ghosts probably lulled him into a false sense of security and struck him down with a large knife to the neck and a meat cleaver to the face. Goggles would have to be the one to prove it but Aila was certain that Choker was the station’s first kill, the squad falling down one after another after that.

Axel shook his head and collected the ID tags Hammer and Choker wore around their necks before stowing them in a metal box worn on his belt. Carrying their bodies out would have been difficult even without the constant threat of being attacked by an enemy that seemed to be infinite, their dog tags would have to suffice. Once Goggles finished his medical scans, the trio returned to the elevator and began their descent. For whatever reason, the station did not attack them, something that didn’t dawn on any of them until they were on their way down. Aila didn’t know why that happened but she was certain whatever intelligence was controlling this place wouldn’t make the same mistake twice...

The atmosphere in the elevator car as the squad rode down to the market plaza was tense, both Aila and Goggles frantically reloaded their weapons and quickly glanced at how much ammunition they had remaining. Axel was on a channel with the Thunder and Ashes, telling them to be ready to disembark the moment the squad returned to the ship.

Fireblossom wondered why the three of them still weren’t attacked as they stood waiting in the elevator car. It was small, they couldn’t fire effectively without hitting each other, and they were all out in the open. Yet here they were safe for the moment, did it have something to do with whatever Sgt. Hammer was going on about before he was ambushed? And if there was no one living on the station then what were they shooting at?

“Command is going to go insane trying to figure this one out.” Goggles groaned and shook his head, clearly thinking along similar lines.

“I think I already have. The machine Hammer was talking about, it’s spitting these things out at us. Only parts I can’t figure out is the program, hardlite.exe, and the data breach. Of all the things it could walk off with, the computer went with seeing what kind of porn we downloaded and what we bought off of the Infosphere.” Axel replied.

“Wait… lite, light. L-I-G-H-T. Sir, the program’s name is a typo.”

“Light? We’re fighting holograms?” Goggles asked then thought about it for a second. “Well, that would explain why they look and die like badly programmed video game characters but I thought that tech was still theoretical. Or at least no one managed to make holos solid enough to react to a bullet yet.”

“I hope it’s a typo corporal because if I lost two people to a pun, I’m going to find who built this place and rip their teeth out with my bare hands. Still, even if you’re right, that doesn’t explain the data breach.” Axel replied, tapping his finger against the outside of his trigger guard as the elevator finally arrived at their floor.

The instant the three of them stepped back out into the marketplace, the lights came back on and not a single hostile could be seen anywhere. Indeed, the market had become much livelier since they were last there, holographic advertisements had activated to tempt the three humanoids with a variety of products. Still, there was not a living employee or robotic cashier to be seen anywhere.

“Well sir… this probably explains why the station’s computer wanted our browser histories.” Goggles explained dryly.

“I’m not even going to ask which one of you looked up things like Madam Satin’s Silken Tea House when you were off-duty. Computer must be busted if it thinks we’re going to fall for this after what we saw upstairs.” Axel snarled as he motioned for them to keep moving.

At Axel’s motion, they moved. Keeping close together as they swiftly moved through the bright lights of advertising glistening at them, Aila kept an eye out for one last ambush. The marketplace was designed to facilitate the quick exchange of goods and credits between large groups of people, there weren’t many places where the three surviving XERU marines weren’t exposed from multiple angles or could quickly make a stand if they needed to. There were plenty of ways for them to get rushed with the exit in sight and plenty of places for the electric ghosts to hide among the advertising.

Yet the team made their way to the exit unharmed. Closer, closer, the three of them were practically through the door when it happened. One moment Axel was running right beside Aila, the next minute he fell over dead, the back of his head charred and sizzling from an energy blast that came from somewhere behind them. Fireblossom turned, weapons raised and her blood boiling as she hungered for one last chance at vengeance. But whatever killed her commander had vanished back into the bright lights of the plaza’s advertisements.

“Corporal! Come on! We got to get out of here!” Goggles shouted. With everyone else dead, he was the acting CO on the ground.

Aila paused just long enough to grab Axel’s dog tags and the container on his belt before following after Goggles. The run through the docking atrium to the safety of the Thunder and Ashes was short and bittersweet; there was no danger, apparently whatever was attacking them couldn’t reach them past the plaza. But Delta Squad returned to the Votikun Empire frigate much smaller and traveling much lighter then when they went in.

Goggles was already on the ship’s comm as the airlock door shut behind them. “This is Warrant Officer Stonecutter to bridge, reporting completed assessment of station.”

“Affirmative Stonecutter, what is the status of the rest of your squad and your assessment of the station?”

“Corporal Fireblossom and I are still mission capable, the rest of the unit is… they’re gone sir. Station is overrun with hostiles, unable to pacify and reclaim with available assets. Recommend detaching and targeting the station’s reactor with the ship’s weaponry, it’s the only way to be sure.”

For a moment, there was silence. Then a mighty rumble as the ship detached from the station and the XERU vessel Thunder and Ashes resorted to its other option when fighting the horrors of the galaxy, bombarding it from orbit. XERU Delta had completed its mission...

_Operation Ghost Hotel Post-Mission Summary:

Overview: XERU Delta was assigned to investigate a distress call from a sector that supposedly uncolonized. Upon arrival, they discovered a way-station constructed by an unknown actor. Further investigation by Delta revealed that the station was constructed as a deceptive death trap for yet another actor only known as the “Starfinder Society.” The trap was triggered shortly afterwards, whether by the unit or by an outside actor is unknown, leading to the deaths of several Voti Marines by something the survivors called “electric ghosts.” Connection to the Arcanumbra suspected but unconfirmed._

Status: Pyrrhic Success, Threat Successfully Neutralized however XERU Delta suffered catastrophic causalities.

Squad Status: Disbanded, surviving members Corporal Aila Fireblossom and Warrant Officer Bertil “Goggles” Stonecutter will be transferred to other units.

Addendum: Intercrux personnel request received. Request granted due to security concerns surrounding Operation Ghost Hotel. Corporal Fireblossom and Warrant Officer Stonecutter will be transferred to Intercrux unit “Truthseekers.”

From: Magos Alita “Scream Queen” Kensworth

To: Sundermage Magos Council

Subject: Re: “What The Hell Are You Doing?”

It has been brought to my attention that several members of the Sundermage Council are questioning my operations after this “Operation Ghost Hotel” report started making the rounds in the Votikun Empire’s military command. First of all, there should be no question whether or not we need to have something in place in case interlopers from our home galaxy or galaxies follow in our wake. Second, did you idiots forget how long I had been running similar operations in the Pact World Galaxy? I built my fortune selling the video footage of incidents like this one as “horror movies.” My contacts in the Votikun Empire confirmed that the Voti Marines recovered nothing from that station but a few fragmented construction notes and the mention of one of our enemies by name. By the time they realize the truth, it will be much too late for either the natives of the Gliding Rim or any meddlers from the galaxies we left behind.