Deep Space: Rescue

"This is Maroone IV, hailing to Station Ulmo, please respond!"

"...."

"Station Ulmo, respond!"

"...."

"Damn it," swears captain Elara, punching the coms unit in frustration. "What the hell happened here, who's ever heard of a total coms blackout on a fucking E-Class Station?!"

Looking out at the station, you privately couldn't help but agree - the place is massive, reportedly the largest station ever built, its total size equaled the entirety of the European continent.

You shuddered to think of how much work repairing total blackout on that station would be - for that is your job; Maintenance and Engineering. The most tedious job in the Fleet.

"Janice," spat the captain, annoyed, "are we picking up any docking servers?"

"No ma'am," replied the much more reserved First Officer, Janice Stormwiller. She smiled slightly at you as Elara turned away - you've been best friends and casual lovers for three years, something the captain and the Fleet couldn't know about.

"I can land us manually, captain," declared, bravely, the pilot - Lawrence Fisher. "Just bring up the blueprints for docking bays and I'll get us in."

Elara grumbled as her fingers danced across a holographic computer panel - blueprints were sent over to Fisher's screen and the ship shuddered as he took control of the thrusters.

"Easy, Law," you say, a bit concerned as he started pulling the ship through the web-work of the station's structural obstacles. "Don't kill us now."

"Shut up, John," he answered, smirking. "Just because YOU flunked the pilot's test doesn't -"

"Be quiet you two," growled Elara. "Did anyone else hear that?"

The cockpit fell silent.

An odd sound - like a sharp, hard object knocking against the metal hull could be heard, faintly.

"It's like there's something... walking on the outside of the ship," whispered Janice.

"That's impossible," said Lawrence. "Nothing could survive -"

BANG!

Warning alarms blared as the ship's engines cut off - Lawrence fought the controls, trying to aim the ship as best as he could - Elara yelled for Janice to hit the gravity fields - your fingers were screaming across the Status screen, looking for the cause of the malfunction -

With a horrible screech of metal against metal, you looked up and realized that Fisher did the impossible - he landed the burning frigate inside the station's ship bay!

"Well...," sighed Lawrence, eyes closed in relief. "That was fun."