New Beginnings

The service bay door stands ahead, half-lit and half-hidden. Nahuli and the others are one step from the refit when the Station Clerk barrels in, suit wrinkled, frill damp with sweat.

Behind him, the relay screen spits static over the station logo, then briefly resolves into a grid of access nodes turning red one by one. Somewhere deeper in the bay, a warning light begins to pulse.

The Clerk thrusts a service token toward Nahuli, eyes flicking toward the corridor as if he expects a camera to blink awake any second. The bay hatch waits open, a narrow path into the restricted service spine and the only shot at getting the ship upgraded before corporate surveillance closes the net.

Nahuli is already moving when the others follow, the token hot in the Clerk’s hand and the bay hatch yawning ahead. The corridor beyond the cantina is clearer than the room behind them, but only because everyone is running out of time.

The station’s map is worse than the hallway. A red lockdown seam crawls across the relay screen, and the nearest route to the ship is shorter by a full deck.

He jabs at the token, then at the corridor, making the choice for them all. The open hatch hisses wider, and the first distant clank of a locking bulkhead echoes through the cantina.

Nahuli gets the answer cleanly, the ship is closer. Not by luck, by station layout, and that is enough to matter right now.

Nahuli slips into the service spine, and the station immediately feels narrower for it. The corridor hums with overtaxed power, panels flickering as red lockdown nodes crawl across the walls behind him.

The Clerk shoves the hatch controls once, then lets it seal the cantina off from the rest of the station. Behind Nahuli, the open room vanishes into a tightening hiss of metal.

Ahead, the route bends past bundled conduits and maintenance tags, a shortcut chosen by people who know the public paths are dying. The reissued seal on the datapad flashes once in Nahuli's glove as the map resettles to the spine.

The Mechanic is already moving at a crouch, one hand skimming the wall for vibration, while the Dockhand keeps to the center line, watching for a lane wide enough to haul equipment through.

A crackling relay feed bleeds through an overhead speaker, clipped and distorted by the station's workload. It sounds less like an announcement than a machine trying to stay awake.

The service spine swallows the group in a dim, narrow hush. Nahuli slows his pace and lets the others settle around him while the lockdown routing thrums overhead.

The Mechanic eases to a stop beside a conduit bundle, one hand flat to the panel as if listening through metal. The Dockhand shifts half a step wider to leave room for carried parts, then stops too.

The Clerk lingers by the sealed hatch behind them, shoulders dropping a fraction as the cantina side disappears into the station’s metal throat.

For a moment, nobody moves. The relay feed crackles faintly above them, and the corridor holds, just long enough to breathe.

Nahuli waits. The relay feed above him spits and settles, then spits again, as if the station is counting down in its sleep.

The lockdown routing shifts somewhere deeper in the spine. One red node clicks dark, then another, and the corridor light changes from panic-red to a hard maintenance amber.

A bulkhead ahead unlatches with a dull hydraulic cough, opening a narrow slit to the next service segment. The air beyond is colder, cleaner, and moving.

The Dockhand shifts first, then the others follow. Nahuli’s window is no longer theoretical, the station has given it a shape.

Nahuli slips through the slit as it admits him, the bulkhead brushing his shoulder plates and then letting him into the colder segment beyond.

The opening seals behind him with a flat hydraulic clunk, and the access window he used narrows to a seam of amber light.

The service segment ahead is narrow and cluttered, cable trays along one wall, pipe sweat on the other, the floor marked by old maintenance boots and fresh lockdown dust.

Behind him, the crew is still outside the threshold, their shapes briefly framed by the closing gap as the station’s crackling relay feed spits overhead.

A small scrape answers from Nahuli’s toolbelt as he clears the frame, and one clipped tab on the reissued datapad seal snaps free against the bulkhead edge.

Nahuli plants a hand on the next bulkhead and drives it open before the lock can finish cycling.

The seam gives with a muted hiss, and the panel slides aside just enough for him to slip through into the darker maintenance throat beyond.

A gust of stale, refrigerated air rolls out, carrying machine oil, dust, and the hard electrical bite of the overworked relay feed overhead.

The service spine stretches ahead in tight angles, then bends out of sight, its amber routing strip flickering once across the deck.

Behind Nahuli, the closing bulkhead thuds into place, and the corridor’s amber light settles into a tense, narrow line.

Nahuli drives on without slowing, his boots tapping a fast, careful rhythm over the grated spine floor.

The amber routing strip guides him through the bend, and the crackling relay feed overhead throws jittering light across the narrow maintenance throat.

A second bulkhead ahead is already cycling open on the clerk’s token, its seam widening just enough to admit one body at a time.

Nahuli slips through before the lock can think better of it, the reissued seal on his datapad flashing once in his grip.

Behind him, the service spine narrows into another dim run, but the route to the ship stays open.