Past Conditional: More Speedfics and Drabbles by Present Perfect

by PresentPerfect

Impending

Impending
by Present Perfect

Tempest's boots thundered down the reflective gunmetal chrome of the station's hallways. She caught herself with her cybernetic hand as her balance failed around a sharp turn and nearly sent her into the opposite wall.

"Move!" she snarled to a corridor full of junior officers. They didn't need a second warning, getting out of her way as she barrelled past them, looks of confusion and shock on their faces.

The Swigart was at this very moment docking in bay D, with three life forms confirmed aboard and the entire ship on lockdown. Early sensor sweeps couldn't say what had gone wrong, only that it had been catastrophic. Some unknown hostile had managed to take over the ship and kill nearly two thousand people. And now that ship was coming into her base.

The door to the stationmaster's operations room slid upward as she surged toward it. The inside was empty, just the same chrome as the rest of the station and various monitoring systems giving steady readouts of station activity, heedless of the danger.

"Unauthorized entry," said the dispassionate female voice of the station's computer. "Identify--"

"Can it," said Tempest firmly. "Voice authorization Alpha-three-two-five-nine-zed-X."

The computer spoke again after a light buzzing sound. "Authorization accepted. Welcome, Commander Shadow."

"Yeah, whatever," Tempest grumbled, making her way to the center of the room. "Open a station-wide frequency already."

She spread the fingers of her flesh and blood hand, placing them on the large vertical console as the comms frequency open confirmation sound played.

"All hands, this is Commander Tempest Shadow. As I speak, the H.M.S. Swigart is docking with the station. Whatever happened to her crew, we're the lucky sons of bitches who get to clean her up. If you're in xenobiology, first response, or, god help you, security, you need to be at Docking Bay Delta five minutes ago. Good luck."

She closed the comms, wasting no time as she moved to her commanding officer's weapons locker. She wasn't the kind of person who sent people to their death then stood by and watched. As she retrieved whatever she could comfortably carry, which was a lot, she steeled herself. She was going to be right there alongside them, hell or high water, no matter what the cost.

She didn't even bother to close the locker as she took her plasma rifles and booked it back the way she had come. Hopefully, she wouldn't get there too late.

Author's Note:

Sorry it's not, like, a full story or anything. That's what this collection is for, after all. :B This was a dream I had this morning, and I wanted to make sure I got it down before I forgot the details. That's why the space station isn't named and it cuts off where it does. Okay, I love you, bye-bye.

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

Fascinating glimpse of a concept. Thanks for preserving it.

[PresentPerfect]

10730985
Along with just the setting, the things that stood out were the ship's name and status, the conversation with the computer, and the ship's alert. And even that part got a bit mangled in the old brain.