Bob tapped the panel on his suit to change his communicator to Infrared and said, “Switch to IR coms.”

He watched as the group all tapped the controls on their forearms.

The Sergeant offered, “Sir, that will limit us to line of sight communications only. Why do that now? What am I missing?”

Bob began walking to the airlock in the bay and said, “The odds this station would detect our signals with how neglected we knew it would be led the mission planners to recommend standard radio coms. Those warships out there change the math on that. Try to maintain good discipline though once we get inside, because recent tests with Sessk and autopsy analysis have informed us the goons are just barely able to perceive some wavelengths of IR visually. Set your coms to repeat transmission and make sure not to break the chain.”

“Roger that.”

Bob moved back behind the ship again and looked around the bay. It was odd. Even with it being in such a dilapidated state, it seemed strange. It didn’t look much at all like the interior of the Jergoon freighter they captured.

His observations were interrupted by a voice, “Sergeant, I think I found the door controls.”

The group moved over to where one of them was looking up at a panel above their heads. Beside it was what looked to be a large pressure sealed door leading farther into the station.

The gravity in the room was effectively non-existent. They had been using mag boots to move around thus far. The soldier that found the panel tapped the console on his wrist activating his magnetic systems in his arms and hands and tried crawling up the wall.

It didn’t work.

“Weird,” was all he said.

Specialist Clay stepped over and, bracing her backside against the wall for stability, reached down and grabbed the other soldier by the ankles and lifted him. Thus stabilized, he soon removed the panel and had the door control systems exposed.

“Also weird,” the soldier remarked, “This isn’t standard Goon circuitry.”

The sister spoke up, “Let me see.”

Bob made his way over and without the grace and prowess of the Apex troops with him, climbed up and got his suit camera a good view of the circuitry.

“Weird,” the Sister remarked.

Bob wasn’t sure if she actually thought it was weird, or if she was just trying to fit in.

She offered, “This configuration is not consistent with any known Destroyer electronic configurations.”

Two of her prehensile wires came out and attached themselves to the components, and a moment later she said, “It is unpowered. Could you please get me an energy cell?”

The soldier Clay was holding up retrieved one from his hip and held it out near the panel.

She released one of her appendages and with it took hold of the terminal and directed power into the system.

She explained, “This may take a moment. Since it is not using standard Jergoon electronics I am starting with very low voltage and increasing it marginally to avoid burning out any of the connections.”

As she was working, Bob said, “Sergeant, given our friends outside, I am implementing QE-COM protocol going forward.”

“Yes, Sir. Boomer, go set the charges.”

“You got it Sarge,” the man responded with thick New York accent before making his way into the shuttle.

Bob kept his helmet cam steady on the work the Sister was doing, and asked, “Boomer is his call sign I take it?”

The Sergeant responded, “Affirmative, Lieutenant.”

Bob continued, “Any reason you all didn’t tell them to me on the trip in?”

Sarge looked up and said, “Some Lieutenants want to know, others don’t. We didn’t know what kind you were, Sir. Some of the officers that came out of the academy can have a real love for formality.”

“I want to know, Sarge.”

“Roger that. The one playing around with the panel up there is Sparks. Specialist Clay here is Heartbreaker. You heard me talking to Boomer. The one over there covering the door on the left is Lasik, and on the right is Boots. On the flanks covering our position are Longhorn and Picasso.

“You can look around, Lieutenant,” the Sister offered, “While I appreciate your keeping the camera stable, I have logged the positions of the various circuits and no longer need visual verification to complete my task.”

Bob looked around at the soldiers and noted, “How does anyone get a call sign like Lasik?”

There were some muttered sounds of amusement, and one distinct groan Bob could only imagine came from the soldier in question.

The distinctive New York intonations of Boomer spoke up first, “It’s like this LT, one night after we came back from a brutal, and I mean brutal, deployment to send some poppers to hell back in the war, no offense meant cuz you ain’t exactly a popper, we got back to civilization with some pent up need to blow off some steam. Well, our first night on leave some of us go out to a watering hole we knew in this little strip mall within walking distance to the base, if ya’ know what I mean. We drank like fish that night, and I mean we really tied one on. Let me tell you, I ain’t never been sicker than I was the next day. I won’t go into details, but let’s just say mistakes were made, if ya’ know what I mean.

So, anyways, as I was sayin’, we were in walking distance to the base by design, so at the end of the night it was just me and Lasik making our way back to our cots. Well, on the way that idiot back there starts getting’ all mopey about his girl breaking up with him for Jody back home. He says he misses having a girl, and he decides that with the clarity of mind that only comes from toxic levels of booze brain that he needs to move on and find someone that’ll treat him right.

I’m listening to this and I am getting ready to call an uber to shorten the misery of listening to all this, when he points into this shop and says, “Oh wow, that’s the most mad beautiful girl I ever seen!”

Another voice broke in and said, “I don’t sound like that, you-”

Boomer cut back in, “Yo, I’m tellin’ a story here. It’s not like you even remember anything from that night anyway. I do, so I got the right to tell it how I want.”

He continued, “So, anyways, I start looking around to see where this angelic being is, and then he points. Despite my compromised state, I knew then and there I couldn’t let this opportunity go on by. I say to him, ‘Hey, why don’t you go ask her for her number?’ So, he stumbles over and starts talking to her. Now, I’m off to the side at this point because I don’t wanna’ have anything to do with this scene.

He must have stood there for a half an hour rambling on and on about how pretty she was, now nice her skin looked, and the whole time she ain’t sayin’ a word back to him. Hell, she wasn’t even making eye contact. Things like that don’t stop my boy though, so he keeps soldiering on until I come over. I start dragging him away down the street as he’s making promises to treat her right and buy her flowers every night or some crap. The rest of the way she’s all he can talk about until his head hits his pillow.

So, the next day we’re both just messed up. I had some hangovers in my day but that one was a real doozy. Despite my pain, I heroically make my way back to where he met the new love of his life and talk to the owner of the business he was outside. I tell him the story, and the owner does me a solid and gives me a copy of his security camera footage. I was in luck, because it had sound too.”

There was a pause, and Bob asked, “Did the security footage help you find this mystery woman?”

Boomer responded, “Yeah, you could say that. By the end of the day every last person on base from the lowliest private to the base commander had seen the security footage of him leaning against a shop window proclaiming his never ending love to the mannequin inside.”

Try as they might to hush it down, the entire team broke into laughter. The only exception was Sarge, who let out a short chuff of sound and then after a few moments said, “Ok, quiet down people.”

“That’s a great story, but how did he get the name Lasik?” The Sister asked, “Isn’t that some form of vision corrective-”

She stopped mid sentence and said, “Oh, I see.”

There was s small spark from the console above them and Bob asked, “Everything going okay with the door controls, Sister?”

“The pathways in this panel are very fragile. I have never seen anything this poorly constructed before,” The Sister replied.

Sparks spoke up, “It’s not poorly constructed; it’s old.”

“I will find another pathway and begin again with more care, Sir,” she said, “This will take a few minutes.”

“So,” Bob asked, “Longhorn, how did you get your name?”

“I’m from Texas.”

Bob waited for a few breaths for him to continue, but realized it wasn’t going to happen. Apparently that was all the justification his call sign needed.

“Okay, what about Boots?”

Heartbreaker spoke up, “We were ground pounding back in the early stages of the Vashali conflict looking for a base that the Intel branch told us was in the area. After two days of searching, we were sacking out for the night and me and Sparks were on watch. What do we see coming our way? You guessed it, a squad of four of the freaks, floating crystals and everything. They were ready to start something and they were making a beeline straight for our position.

So, we get everyone up and let them know we would be in contact in two mikes. Well, at that point Boots was new to the team, and he hasn’t quite got the hang of getting in and out of the combat armor. This was back when the Mark One Suit had just come out. Don’t get me wrong, it was a world changing improvement to go from a Snotzi shooting you and killing you to one of them shooting you and you shrugging it off. The big thing they fixed with the Mark Two was how quick you could get it on and take it off.

So for the next minute the only thing Sparks and I hear coming out of the shelters is the sound of armor and weapons getting equipped and made ready. In under a minute all the guys come out ready to rock and roll with one exception. The only thing coming out of Boots’ tent was swearing and the sound of latches and frustration. We set up, and with about thirty seconds left he comes out of his tent with nothing on but the underwear he was sleeping in, his helmet, and-”

The Lieutenant and Heartbreaker finished the thought together as Bob nodded his head up and down, “Boots.”

“What about you Sparks?” Bob inquired.

The soldier turned his head to look at him and said, “I like electronics. Not much more than that really.”

Bob was about to respond when Boomer piped up, “Yeah nah. You tell or I will.”

Sparks looked back at the ship Boomer was working in and reached out an arm to extend a rude gesture, saying, “Hay, I got something for you here.”

Without looking back, Boomer replied, “I’m flattered by the offer, but now’s not the time.”

Retracting his arm, Sparks said, “Well, I was stationed in a training regiment and we were taking in a batch of new volunteers in Europe. I had this sweet little setup on the outskirts of Paris. I was on leave one day walking around these super fancy shops. One of them had all the latest gadgets. Now, historically I have been a straight razor kind of guy when it came to shaving, but it takes a while and I saw this new electric job they advertised was based on some alien tech or another. So, I buy it and for once the product lived up to the hype. It cut just as close, and took a quarter of the time to get the job done, it recharged the battery in about a minute, and it never needed to be sharpened. Best of all, it was small and could fit inside a standard hygiene kit. I used that thing every day.

He leaned in to get a closer look at what the Sister was working on as he continued, “So fast forward two years, and by then we got the band here together. So I’m trying to keep it clean and not look like a scruff like Boomer over there, and the energy cell goes out on the thing. So, I decide to go in and charge it up. The thing is we were being transported on the Cheetah. Now, that was the first one before she went down and the one we have now was built. Well, on that old girl the plugs were all different, which is why I hadn’t charged it sooner.

Eventually, I corner an engineer and tell him I need to get an adapter for my shaver, and he blows me off telling me that I was on a warship not taking a cruise in the Bahamas. Well, I didn’t like his attitude, so I offered to help him straighten it out. He saw my point, and I gave him the charger and thanked him in advance.

He took the rest of the trip to finish that thing off, always giving me one excuse or another. He got pretty good at avoiding me, and no matter how hard I looked for him he was always one step ahead.”

At that, Sarge spoke up and said, “That was your first mistake. Ship crews watch out for each other just like we do for our own. He was probably getting intel on your position from the security personnel the whole time.”

“Well,” Sparks continued, “I had given the charger up for lost, when just as we were gearing up for drop, he appears out of nowhere and hands it to me. I look, and there in my hand was my charger and an adapter. I told him he was a good guy, and I had him pegged all wrong. All he did was nod and smile before Sarge here kicked him out so we could make our drop.

We did the whole next assignment and I was getting more and more excited about using my shaver again when we pulled off whatever ball of rock we were kicking the Snotzi’s off. When the shuttle was pulling out of atmo into orbit after we finished, I had a shower and a shave all planned out. Within thirty mikes of being on the return ship, the cruiser Bull Shark, I was stepping out of the shower and getting to the mirror. I plug the shaver in and wait to hear the chime that it’s ready to go.

Then, all hell breaks loose.

The shaver lets out a loud pop, and then starts going up like a sparkler on the Fourth of July. Fire alarms go off in the bathroom, people start running out of the showers, and before I know it a security team shows up thinking we had an enemy stowaway or something.

In about half an hour I am standing in front of the Captain, still in nothing but my towel, trying to explain what happened.

I tried to tell him it was a revenge thing from the engineer that was bent out of shape. I suggested if he was going to get mad at anyone, it should be that punk. Well, if he believed me he sure didn’t show it. He told me never to let it happen again, and I agreed. I guess he didn’t trust me to keep up my end, because he had a chat with my C.O. at the time and before I knew it I was in a beginning electronics class. I think they thought it would be funny or something.

Well, the joke’s on them. It turns out I have a knack for it. If I ever find that engineer that rigged my charger to fry my fancy alien shaver, he’ll wish he saw me before I saw him.”

Bob considered that a moment then said, “So, you took your call sign from an event where someone screwed you over? Did you do that to make sure you never forgot or something?”

The soldiers head turned to Bob, and the opaque visor revealed none of the expression behind.

In a voice barely audible to his helmet microphone he mumbled, “I never thought of it that way. Crap.”

Bob broke the awkward silence and asked, “What about you Boomer?”

The man responded absently, “I like to blow stuff up.”

Bob waited for anyone else to speak up and then asked, “Everyone agrees? No bigger story there?”

A chorus of confirmation met him in return.

“Ok, what about Heartbreaker? Is that one as straight forward as it sounds?”

She replied, “They appreciate the way I turn down soldiers that try to hit on me.”

Bob nodded and turning his head to face him said, “Okay, that tracks. What about you Picasso? Are you into art or something?”

The soldier replied, “Nah. I was on point in a boarding action on a Popper ship. One of them jumped out and got a little too close. I took it out with my sword, but part of its shell came up under my visor, barely missed my throat, and stuck in my helmet. I thought from all the blood it nicked a jugular or something, but when I got back to our medics and took my helmet off, it turned out one of my ears didn’t come out with me. The doc reattached it, but they don’t send plastic surgeons into space with us. It doesn’t look quite right.”

“Oh,” was all Bob could think to say.

There was a long silence, then the Sister said, “I have it. The system is coming online now. This is really weird. The operating system is not like anything we have seen before. Give me a moment to figure it out.”

A handful of seconds passed, and the large doors began to open. Bits of dust and other debris, now loosened, floated up and away as they parted. The team slipped inside and seeing it unoccupied turned on their suit lights. As the door closed behind them, Bob stepped forward to examine the room.

“I think,” he said, “This station wasn’t built by the Jergoon. The hallways are too big, and the technology seems in some ways more advanced than theirs, at least at first glance.”

Sarge stepped up next to him and said, “Every time we open a door, this mission gets more complicated. What is your assessment at this time, Sir?”

Bob looked around at the shining metallic blue walls and said, “I think it’s an opportunity.”