Left beaten, bloodied and bruised in a ditch somewhere, @MadMikeMarsbergen lost the Pot 1 Finals of SmackDown: The Second Coming to @torontojim (who later ended up winning the Grand Finals, too). Now he's back to get some revenge on all you competit...
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The cigarette dangled from his lips precariously as he stood on the planet looking up at the sky. The space station hung there directly overhead. How the hell it had ended up in such a low orbit around this dirty rock he had no idea. But there it was. He jumped into his small personal Space Cutter and blasted off steering manually against all regs.
It was a short trip and within fifteen minutes he was landing in the dark Hangar of Flare Station. He hit the kill switch and the Cutters engine turned off, leaving a deadly silence in the air of the cockpit. He checked his sensor readings and to his surprise, the atmosphere was still breathable. That in itself was a good sign but he wasn't going to get excited yet. What his sensors weren't giving him were life signs and that was what he was here to find.
Of course, he really didn't expect to find any...the last time he'd set foot on this station was over 50 years ago and he'd hoped to never see it again. Unfortunately, his conscience wouldn't let him go to his grave without making sure that everyone had died in the explosion he'd caused. And it didn't matter if it was or was not an accident it was still his fault. He pulled on his suit quickly, tossing away the cigarette and checked his seals. Then he cycled the air lock. No matter how this turned out it was going to be bad, he just knew it.
Deja vu...that's what they called it and he had it 'big time', as his boots hit the deck. For a fleeting moment, his mind took him back all those years. He was just a snot nosed brat of a ranger in the 1203rd fleet. And Flare Station was just a 48-hour stop over before he slept his way out of the solar system. But it hadn't turned out that way. He realized he'd been standing on deck thinking and listening to the cooling sounds of the ship's engines too long for safety, and spun around to check his back but nothing was there waiting to pounce. He was edgy. He checked his sensors again and cautiously raised his visor. The air was stale and damp, but it was air. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. He blamed the sweat left on the back of his glove on the suits internal heating system and turned it down. As he began his search he realized the station even smelt the same. That oily metallic smell you get around large machinery and a definite taste of ozone to the air that set his teeth on edge.
He walked down the corridor exiting the huge hanger area, which was obviously empty, and his boots clanged on the metal floor noisily. Well, he certainly wasn't going to sneak up on anybody like that ... but part of him hoped like hell there was nobody to sneak up on. All of the station lights seemed dead, which only made sense; so after a few steps into the deepening gloom, he was forced to turn on his emergency suit light. That would drain his suits battery pack faster than ever, and he cursed himself for not planning ahead. As he walked onward he realized he should put his visor back down and reseal his suit ...but he just wasn't thinking straight. In a depressurization emergency, he'd be dead before he could button down, but he just wanted to get this over with and leave.
