A deep mechanical impact shakes dust from the chamber ceiling. An old armored recovery frame, a squat six-legged machine with a battered sensor crown, blocky manipulator arms, and amber status strips tears through the maintenance wall, its broad plating scraping sparks across the diagnostic alcove.
The frame’s containment logic marks the six searchers outside as hostile extraction forces. Heavy shutters begin sealing both entrances while blue-white weapon coils charge in the cramped chamber.
Rhea Voss
It is protecting the station from them, not us. When that rear panel opens, move behind the frame and do not hesitate.
Rhea twists toward the machine, one hand still fused to the damaged access key. A narrow service gap flickers open behind its rotating shoulder assembly.
Rhea Voss
The weapons are almost hot. If it fires, this chamber becomes a sealed furnace. Devin, now.
At the entrances, armored searchers hammer against descending shutters. Their scanner beams cut through the dust, while the frame’s targeting apertures settle toward both blocked corridors.
The service gap contracts by degrees. Behind the recovery frame, darkness drops into an uncharted maintenance shaft, carrying cold air and the distant vibration of colony machinery.
Escape the recovery frame and search teams