The Teragoid Incident

1. Early Warning

"Chief, wake up... Chief," hissed a voice.

"God dammit," said Perez in a soft dangerous tone, "I just got now to sleep, just."

"I know, Chief Perez, but the OOD (Officer of the Day) wants you in Control, right now. He says there something wrong with your detector mod."

"What detector mod, I didn't mod any... oh ... the ... wait, who is it?" asked Perez.

"Reagan."

"Oh, naturally. That moron. Jeebus... And if I kill you, then he'll just send someone else," said Perez, "Oh. Yeah. Pearly; don't EVER OPEN my curtain again," said Perez.

"Sorry, Chief," said Seaman Apprentice George Percival Lee, un-apologetically.

Perez blinked his eyes and the sand poured out on his cheeks.

Chief Petty Officer Randall Albert Perez , ETC/[SPC, EVA, SO] (Electronics Technician Chief/ Space qualified, Extra-Vehicular qualified, Special Operations qualified) slid open the curtain the rest of the way and dropped out of the top rack, reached in and grabbed his boots, wiping his face with the towel hanging in the clamp on the side. Perez shrugged on his uniform tunic and tightened the belt, put his boots over his shoulder, and staggered off to face his nemesis.

This outpost, number 126, a small simple toroid (donut)  and spindle station hung out on the edge of the Vega Cluster, about 150 light years from Terra. The station was essentially a research, weather and rescue installation to provide support to the anti-piracy patrols and scouting groups of light attack craft patrolling the sector. It was a pretty simple design: living quarters, workshops, mess, life-support on the toroid, and control, docking, engineering support, shields and minimal defense weaponry on the spindle. The drive unit detached and connected to a bulk storage unit for supply runs.

Outpost 127A is typical space station designed in science fiction in the 1930's and saved for posterity, just bigger. They all look the same. It had auxiliary propulsion units for position control and station keeping. It had some shields for meteorite protection. It had docking bays in the center hub, warehouses, elevators, living quarters. This outpost was oriented perpendicular to the galactic ecliptic plane. It had 4 emergence buoys along the ecliptic, equidistant at 15 light minutes. The nearest sun was some 2 light years away, an empty single sun system, no planets and a bunch of asteroids and rocks. There existed some common interstellar planetary bodies and other gases and junk around, unexplored.

Perez climbed into the inward spindle and reoriented inward, head towards the center station up and climbed up, getting lighter with every foot. After about 50 feet, he reached the transfer platform and swung into it, bare feet hitting the deck right on the mark. He stepped off into the spindle and grunted when the T+.1-normal gravity took hold. He leaned over and put his socks and boots on, and tightened the laces, then started through the airlock.

Mumble, mumble, grumble, buzz headed Zero ( a common derogatory description for officers, because the pay-grade starts with O, or zero) the Chief groused to himself. "Idiot."

The surly sailor climbed on the elevator cart, ensured the gimbals were locked in station mode and pulled the handle to traverse to Control Level. The station was almost a kilometer in length, and the transit cart took about 2 minutes to get the whole way, there were no interruptions, it being way too early in the station's 'day' for incidental traffic. The normal mission complement was only 160 or so sailors, plus several SAR (Search and Rescue) , supply and ferry crews which nearly outnumbered the formal complement, who were gone most of the time to more wonderful places. The drive unlocked and mag-braked to a halt at the Operations level in the saucer where Perez got off the cart and headed to the stations' Bridge, still grumbling like a bear awoken by tourists in the winter.