Karatros Station

Zara Quinn woke to the second alarm.

Her first alarm had chirped an hour ago—some chipper trill baked into the default settings of her personal assistant node. She’d silenced it with a swipe and a groan, burrowing deeper into the tangle of sheets that clung to the edge of her bunk.

The second one, though—lower, louder—left no room for indulgence. It buzzed like an angry wasp in a tin can, the vibration rattling against the clutter on her shelf.

“Okay, okay, I’m up,” she muttered, slapping blindly at the source.

The alarm cut out, but her personal assistant, MINK, decided to chime in helpfully.

“Zara Quinn, your shift began forty-one minutes ago. You are currently logged as absent without update.”

“Yeah, well…” She sat up and rubbed her eyes, “...they’ll live.”

Her hair, a mess of copper-red curls, stuck out at angles that suggested she'd wrestled a static field generator in her sleep. She looked around the cramped quarters, eyeing the half-dismantled circuit board balanced on the desk beside three empty ration wrappers and an open energy drink with something crusted around the rim. The air purifiers purred quietly behind the walls, circulating the tang of synthetic coffee and old solder.

Zara swung her legs off the bunk and stepped onto the floor—bare feet crunching lightly on a spill of micro-capacitor beads. She hissed, hopping over them.

“MINK, remind me to clean that up.”

“You’ve asked me to remind you to clean six times this cycle. Each instance was ignored.”

“Sassy today,” she muttered, pulling on a pair of thick gray coveralls that had definitely not been washed in the last week. She spotted a minor scorch mark near the right thigh and shrugged. “Adds character.”

Her locker door barely closed from the mess packed inside, but she managed to retrieve her ID patch, slapping it onto her chest and grabbing her ball cap to hide her unkempt hair. Then, with a half-empty ration bar in one hand and a wrench in the other—because she'd forgotten to return it yesterday—Zara bolted for the corridor.

Station 9-Daxel: “Karatros”

The station's main spine thrummed with quiet life, a continuous low pulse of machinery, ventilation, and foot traffic. Karatros was more city than station—home to over fifty thousand beings spread across nearly a hundred levels, orbiting the gas giant Aphros like a steel ring. Designed as a deep space research platform and scientific hub, it was a floating ecosystem of scientists, diplomats, soldiers, and civilians of every species known to the Republic.

Zara stepped onto the transit walkway, its segmented floor humming underfoot. The central promenade curved around the massive inner cylinder, where light panels simulated a natural sky—deep blue this cycle, dotted with soft clouds. Alien voices mixed with human chatter, and the scent of grilled kelproot mingled with lubricant and ozone.

She kept her eyes half-lidded as she walked, avoiding eye contact and sipping the last of her lukewarm drink. Zara didn’t hate mornings. She just resented the expectation that she had to perform like everyone else at 0800 hours sharp. Her mind didn’t really kick in until at least 1000.

Tech Maintenance Hub 3-B

When she finally stepped into the maintenance wing, she was only an hour and twenty-three minutes late. Not a record.

“Good of you to join us,” came the unmistakable drawl of Chief Engineer Maddox, a hulking bramble of a man with cybernetic arms and the patience of a dying star.

Zara offered him a lopsided grin as she bit into her ration bar.

“Someone’s gotta test the fail-safes on the scheduling system,” she said, walking past him toward her workstation.

“You’re the fail-safe, Quinn. And you’ve already failed.”

Her console was a disaster. Open panels, dangling coils, half-written reports floating on her embedded screen. But she knew where everything was. Kind of. Zara dropped the wrench into a bin, sat on the edge of her chair, and started scrolling through the day’s queue.

Four minor malfunctions. One non-responsive lab sensor. One oxygen scrubber diagnostics alert.

And, of course, the one thing she’d hoped wouldn’t be flagged.

System 41D-R1: Inter-species compatibility bay—environmental regulation fault. Assigned to: Specialist Zara Quinn.

“Of course,” she muttered.

That lab was always a mess. Run by Dr. Hlavin, a crusty arthropod biologist with too many mandibles and zero sense of humor. Zara swore the guy filed maintenance requests for the joy of human suffering.

Maddox grunted from behind her. “Fix the R1 unit first. They’re threatening to shut the whole compatibility program down again if it’s not stable by end of cycle.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Zara grabbed her toolkit, snagged another ration bar from her drawer, and popped in her earpiece.

Tech Maintenance Hub 3-B

The double doors to the hub hissed open on a gust of cooler, recycled air, carrying the clean scent of sterilized plastics and lubricant—a sharp contrast to the curry-scented walkway outside. Fluorescent strips glowed overhead, flickering faintly in that way Zara always meant to report but never did.

Inside, the workshop was a sprawl of chaos and routine. Wiring hung like vines from wall-mounted consoles, drone shells lay half-gutted across several tables, and diagnostic screens blinked in slow, steady rhythm. It was an ecosystem of tech, parts, and people—each with their own mess, method, and mood.

Zara strode in with a half-eaten ration bar in her mouth and a half-zipped coverall exposing the tank top beneath.

“Heya, sunshine,” a familiar voice called from behind a vertical stack of fusion coil housings. Tallis Rayn, another systems tech, poked her head out—safety goggles pushed into her short, choppy platinum-blonde hair and fingers blackened with micro-circuit grime. “You look like you lost a fight with a vacuum seal and a coffee grinder.”

Zara pulled the ration bar free with her teeth. “You try sleeping next to a coolant manifold that clicks every thirty seconds like it's counting down to my ****.”

Tallis laughed. “Let me guess—bunk 3-Delta? That one’s possessed. I filed a work order on it three weeks ago. Maddox told me to ‘get a better sense of rhythm.’”

“Guy’s a poet,” Zara muttered, tossing her empty wrapper into a bin that was already overflowing. “What’s the queue look like today? Please tell me it’s nothing with biological waste this time.”

Tallis leaned out farther and tapped her terminal. “Let’s see... a lab sensor’s throwing fits, a couple scrubbers need recalibrating, and someone flagged the inter-species enviro-bay again.”

Zara groaned.

“Yup. It’s gonna be a long shift.”

Just then, the metallic clomp of boots on the grated floor cut through their conversation like a buzzsaw. A shadow loomed across the workstation before the unmistakable growl of Chief Engineer Maddox filled the air like the engine of a dropship.

“You’re late, Quinn.”

Zara turned around slowly, offering her best attempt at an innocent grin. Maddox stood just a few feet away, arms crossed over his broad chest, his reinforced cybernetic limbs clicking faintly with each shift in weight. His uniform bore more battle scars than protocol allowed, and his face looked like it had seen more explosions than birthdays.

“Technically,” Zara said, holding up a finger, “I was early yesterday. So averaged out, I’m only late by—what—twenty-two minutes this week?”

Maddox’s eyebrow twitched. His face was the only part of his body not partially mechanical.

“You’re the only person I know who can try to weaponize math against a time clock. And fail.”

Tallis ducked back behind the coils, suppressing a laugh.

Maddox stepped forward and jabbed a thick finger at the nearest terminal. “You’re on the R1 environmental fault first. Again. Hlavin’s department is threatening to shut down the compatibility program if we don’t get it sorted.”

Zara groaned again, louder this time. “Why’s it always me?”

“Because,” Maddox grunted, “you’re the only one Hlavin hasn’t accused of contaminating his mucus fields. Yet.”

“Great,” she muttered, grabbing her toolkit from under the console and slinging it over her shoulder. “Love that for me.”

Maddox gestured toward the board again. “After that, scrubber diagnostics in Sector Twelve, and then you’re on standby for a possible overflow in waste containment.”

“Joy.”

“You wanted variety,” he said, turning away with a metallic creak. “Consider it a buffet.”

Zara shot a glance back at Tallis, who gave her a two-finger salute and a smirk.

“Hey,” Tallis called after her as she passed the door, “if you see anything actually explode down there, I call dibs on your locker stash.”

“Over my dead body.”

“That’s the idea.”

Zara rolled her eyes and stepped back into the corridor, the door hissing shut behind her as the workshop swallowed her absence and carried on like she was never there.

Mid-Morning | Level 36-A to Subsection 42-D

Zara’s boots thunked onto the moving walkway, and she let the system do the work as the inner ring of Karatros scrolled past. Her shoulders sagged a little from the weight of the toolkit, but more than that, from the usual inertia of starting a shift she didn’t ask for.

The promenade curved ahead in a gentle arc, artificial gravity keeping her anchored as holographic overhead panels shifted subtly to simulate a noon-light glow. It wasn't sunlight—not really—but the station's simulation software had gotten better over the years. The “sky” even had programmed contrails from imaginary atmospheric shuttles.

To her left, transparent panels offered a dizzying view of Aphros, the gas giant below, all swirling bands of mauve, storm-gray, and electric sapphire. Its churning atmosphere pulsed with storms the size of continents, and lightning flickered silently in its depths.

A small group of Avethans—a crystalline species that moved like bipedal prisms—were clustered near the glass, speaking in melodic hums that barely registered as sound. Zara gave them a wide berth. Avethans tended to overload nearby audio pickups, and she didn’t want another headache.

A few steps later, she passed the entrance to a vendor stall—"Griddle Spindle: Protein Café"—where a squat, beak-faced Toril cook flipped translucent pancake-like discs over an open sonic stove. Steam hissed upward as a human woman argued over whether or not the t’hirr fungus was still “technically venomous.”

Zara sniffed. “Might actually try that later.”

The crowd thickened where the main walkway intersected with the residential ring—all species converging like particles in a collider. She maneuvered past a tall reptilian in station security armor, ducked under the arm of a slow-moving mech loader unit piloted by a child-sized rodentian alien, and avoided eye contact with the seven-foot Ardani priest swaying rhythmically and muttering prayer sounds through its six mouths.

No matter how long she lived here, it was never boring.

She swiped her ID patch against a bulkhead scanner as she veered into a side corridor marked for Sector 42-D, the lights dimming slightly as the surroundings grew more specialized. Research sectors were always quieter—cleaner, too—but it was a different kind of silence. More sterile. Like everything here held its breath.

As the walls narrowed and the deckplates shifted subtly beneath her boots, Zara finally let out a breath and muttered, “Alright, R1... let’s see what nonsense you’ve got for me this time.”

The door to the lab bay stood ahead—thick, curved, and inset with warning glyphs in five different species’ languages. A small readout above the entry blinked a calm green: Atmospheric Stability: ERROR 7B. Manual Calibration Required.

She keyed in her override and stepped into the bay.

Environmental Bay R1

Sector 42-D | Inter-Species Compatibility Lab

The doors parted with a deep hydraulic hiss, exhaling a breath of stale, overly humid air that clung to Zara’s skin the moment she stepped across the threshold. She recoiled slightly, squinting into the haze.

“By the void, what is this setting—'tropical swamp sauna’?” she muttered, tapping her wrist console to start atmospheric readings.

Humidity: 87%

Internal temp: 35.6°C

O₂/N₂ levels: Borderline acceptable

Particulate density: Elevated (biological matter present)

The air had weight—thick and wet, flavored with the faint tang of copper and rotting plant matter. Artificial flora sprouted from vertical beds lining the walls: multi-hued vines, leathery pods, and furred stalks adapted to simulate a variety of alien climates. Condensation clung to everything, including the embedded interface pads, which were fogged and blinking yellow.

Zara ducked beneath a low-hanging vent spewing warm mist and muttered under her breath, “Of course it’s the frogs again.”

The compatibility bay was designed to house and observe species that required finely tuned environments to even breathe, let alone interact. Most of the station’s mixed-use zones accommodated Terran-standard atmosphere, but here… everything was a compromise. A balancing act between extremes.

It was also temperamental as hell.

She made her way down the main aisle, boots squelching faintly on the synthetic moss matting that lined the walkways—another custom feature for the more tactile species.

The diagnostic terminal blinked to life as she approached. She pulled on a pair of thermal gloves and wiped down the display with a rag she kept clipped to her belt.

“Let’s see what’s gone stupid this time…”

The readout crawled with error logs—most of them minor, but one thread repeated:

Zone D4: Thermo-Reg Failure

Zone D4: Localized Pressure Fluctuation Detected

Zone D4: Feedback Loop Suspected

Manual Inspection Required

“Of course it’s D4,” she said, already heading toward the back quadrant of the bay. That section had always been a thorn in her ass—wedged between a refrigerated microclimate pod and a methane-bubbled water tank. Moist, cold, and temperamental.

As she walked, she passed a translucent holding dome housing a half-submerged tank—currently empty—its surface swirling with oily rainbow sheen. On its rim, small metal arms occasionally twitched to stir the fluid. Another zone glowed a sickly purple behind a glass barrier, filled with lichen-covered stones and faint insect chirps.

Everything here felt alive.

Her breath fogged in front of her as she neared Zone D4. Sure enough, the floor sensors registered an ambient drop—5 degrees below ideal. Steam curled from a corroded panel overhead.

She popped open the access port.

The interior was a mess: oxidation around the relay nodes, two fluid regulators blinking in sequence, and a third one—completely dead—its seals warped from condensation damage.

“Well there’s your feedback loop,” she muttered, flicking on her wrist lamp. “Let me guess—central didn’t authorize the part replacement last time.”

She reached in with her multi-tool and started the slow work of draining the fluid valves. The panel gave a metallic pop and drizzled water down her wrist.

“Ugh. Of course.”

Working by feel in the tight space, she disconnected the corroded regulator, reached for a fresh part from her pouch, and—

CLANG

A loud thud echoed behind her. Zara froze.

She turned.

Nothing.

Just the rhythmic hiss of the vents cycling and the gentle bubbling from the amphibious sector tank.

Zara narrowed her eyes, waiting.

Silence.

Then—

“Specialist Quinn, please confirm manual inspection progress.”

The voice came from the intercom above—station standard, crisp and clipped. No hint of anything unusual.

Zara exhaled and tapped her comm. “Yeah, still elbow-deep in this system’s poor life choices. I’ve found the fault—replacing the failed component now. Should be stable in... ten minutes, tops.”

“Acknowledged. Log status upon exit.”

She shook her head. “You’d think the AI could do its own plumbing.”

Back at the panel, she swapped in the new part, sealed the relay, and ran a basic integrity check.

System Rebalancing… Stabilization in Progress... Diagnostics Nominal.

Zara slumped onto a nearby bench, flexing her sore fingers and wiping sweat from her brow. The air was already starting to feel less oppressive—cooler and more balanced.

She logged the repair on her wrist console and made a note to requisition two more regulators. Odds were this would break again before next week.

She started to rise—then paused.

A flicker.

Just for a second, the overhead lights dimmed. Then a soft pulse—so faint she could’ve imagined it—ran through the mesh flooring.

Zara waited.

Nothing followed.

She narrowed her eyes, then shook her head. “Weird. Probably just system recalibration ripple.”

Still, as she gathered her gear, she gave one last look at the now-quiet terminal... before walking out.

Level 22 – “Spindle Tilt” Bar & Lounge

Cycle Evening | Karatros Station

The light on Karatros Station was always artificial—but during station "night," the ambient panels dimmed to a dusky purple and gold, and the civilian sectors took on a lazier, sleepier rhythm. Maintenance drones retreated. Vendors closed their shutters. The corridors were quieter—except on Level 22, where the Spindle Tilt pulsed like the beating heart of every off-duty crew.

Zara slouched into a cushioned booth with a half-empty glass of something neon and fruity in one hand and her boots kicked up against the opposite bench. Her toolkit was gone—ditched the moment her shift ended. Her ballcap was also missing, probably left behind at a job site, and her cheeks glowed faintly from both the ambient light and the Station Blue Rum Tallis had insisted they try.

“Okay, but tell me you didn’t see Hlavin’s second thorax twitch when you handed him that report,” Tallis laughed, plopping down beside her with another round of drinks. Her short hair was even more tousled than usual, and her eyes gleamed with mischief.

“It twitched,” Zara said, nodding solemnly. “Like a stressed-out crab in molting season.”

They both cracked up.

The bar around them hummed with low music and conversation. The Spindle Tilt catered to a wide range of species, which meant modular furniture, multiple gravity options, and at least five separate air zones for comfort. The main bar itself was curved like a crescent, staffed by a four-armed Jereen who mixed cocktails with inhuman precision while holding conversation in two languages at once.

Zara glanced at the far table where a cluster of Velari, tall feline-like bipeds with silken fur and gem-colored eyes, sipped fermented nectar from long fluted glasses. One of them made eye contact with her briefly, eyes narrowing, before flicking their gaze elsewhere.

“You think they purr during sex?” Zara asked, nudging Tallis with her foot.

“Oh, absolutely,” Tallis said, leaning in. “And I bet they make you do all the work. Just lie back and judge you while they purr and smirk.”

Zara snorted into her drink. “Ugh. That sounds awful. Or amazing. One of the two.”

A trio of Rodari engineers passed by—short, scaled, with lizard-like eyes and sleek tails tucked neatly into their uniforms. They each held a long drink tube coiled like a vine.

“Okay, okay,” Tallis said, lifting her glass with a smirk. “Rodari?”

“Hmm.” Zara squinted. “Tail play. Definitely. And they probably lay eggs.”

Tallis raised her brows. “Ooh. Spicy. Ever consider hatching someone’s clutch?”

“I’m barely responsible enough to log repair tickets. I’m not gonna be someone’s egg-sitter.”

They dissolved into laughter again, the sound echoing against the glassy walls of the bar. Conversation blurred around them—someone argued over holosports near the front, while another booth broke out into bilingual karaoke in something that sounded like wet yodeling.

“Okay,” Zara said, swirling the last of her drink. “One more: the Avethans.”

Tallis wrinkled her nose. “The crystal ones?”

“Yep.”

“I don’t think they even have a ‘what goes where’ situation. More like… harmonic convergence of light pulses and emotion waves.”

Zara blinked. “So foreplay is… singing?”

“Operatic. Symphonic. Possibly lethal.”

Zara laughed so hard she nearly slid off the bench. Tallis caught her arm and steadied her, face flushed from drink and shared amusement.

By now, their speech was slowing, slurring at the edges, and Zara could feel her body going heavy with contentment. She leaned her head back against the booth and sighed.

“Hey,” Tallis murmured after a moment. “You ever think about... I dunno. Just quitting? Ditching it all? Catching a cargo hauler out to the frontier?”

“Sometimes,” Zara said. “Usually around the third malfunction of the day.”

“Yeah. Same.”

They sat in silence a while longer, just listening to the gentle buzz of the station through the floor, feeling it hum in their bones.

Eventually, Zara stood, wobbling a bit. “C’mon, before we get gravity lag. My bunk is closer.”

“Yours always smells like solder.”

“Yours has those weird little plush things.”

“They’re mascots.”

“They’re terrifying.”

Tallis shoved her lightly as they left the bar together, their laughter trailing behind them as they staggered into the corridor—arms looped around each other, giggling like idiots.

Quarters – Bunk 3-Delta

Zara collapsed face-first onto her bunk still half-dressed, boots only mostly kicked off. Tallis flopped beside her, head buried in the spare pillow, muttering something about molten pancakes and gravity inversions.

Neither of them made it under the blanket. Neither of them cared.

The room darkened automatically as the door sealed behind them.

Karatros Station continued its endless orbit above the storm-churned belly of Aphros, the massive gas giant spinning below. Unaware. Unbothered.

For now…