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The station was fully abandoned, as far as the public data said.  The companies with stakes in it had formally withdrawn them, the large fusion reactors had been gutted, and rumors and stories Urle found on the net said that much of it had been picked apart for scrap by scavengers.

Yet that was not the case upon approach.

Urle used every passive scanner he could to probe the area, seeing several other small skiffs near the station.  When they noted him, they quickly moved out of line of sight, behind the station.

Which could be scavengers, but there were lights on the station, and heat signatures.  The main reactor was gone, but other smaller reactors remained.

“People are definitely here,” he told Kell.  “I was skeptical, but . . .”

“Your people lie easily,” Kell said, looking out the glass at the station.  “Such a secluded space seems obvious for criminals to use.”

“Yeah, that’s true.  I guess we only see it rarely in the Sapient Union, no one is stupid enough to go live in abandoned wrecks.  Space is hostile enough.”

He pointed.  “I see a docking port there.  It’s a small one, probably in use by smugglers.  We can attach there and force the airlock.  I think there’s a spacesuit in the back-“

“I do not need one,” Kell said.

“There’s a lot of radiation and no air,” Urle warned.  “None at all.”  He could only hope Kell truly understand what this meant-

“I lived before the oxygenated atmosphere existed,” Kell told him.  “Before the atmosphere.”

Well, that was that, Urle thought.

They docked, the clamps on the station showing no signs of functionality, but Urle was able to use the skiff’s electromagnets to create a firm seal.  Still, the tunnel was not pressurised.

And as Kell had said, he seemed untroubled.

Urle only need turn on his own air storage for the crossing, putting rad-reflecting sleeves over his exposed real skin.

After they were in, he brought up the map of the station – no true map existed, but he’d cobbled one together from all the bits of information he’d found on the nets.  It seemed coherent enough.

“I’ve marked the heat sources that could be people,” he said, pointing.  “Let’s head to this one first.”

Kell was looking around, his head upraised, eyes partially closed.

“I feel something . . .”

“What?” Urle asked.

“I do not yet know,” Kell replied.

Urle did not like the sound of that.  He wished that he’d thought to bring some small drones to scout for them.

“This way,” he said, having to take lead himself.  “I think this is the most likely location . . . though I did detect a lot of air leaks in that area.”

After ten minutes of travel they had found the site.  Urle had guessed right, but the cause of the air leaks was not something he had expected.

The flickering lights and holes in the walls made pretty clear that a gunfight had happened in the room.  Some of the bullets had pierced the outer hull, letting the station’s limited air leak out.

No one had come to patch the leaks, he saw.

Urle approached the door carefully, but he detected only low heat signatures inside.  Nothing in the range of the living.

He gestured for Kell to stay back, but the Shoggoth ignored him.

“They are all dead inside,” he said, approaching the door.

“They could still be trapped- Kell, stop!”

The Shoggoth had reached up, slipping his fingers into the space between door and frame.  The power was out, but he forced the door easily.

“There are no traps,” Kell said.

Urle cursed.  “Well, there could have been damn it.  Maybe you’re not worried about them, but I am.”

“Don’t worry,” Kell told him.  “I won’t let them hurt you.”

Urle could feel the mocking in it, but ignored it to peer into the room.

He had detected the blood that had seeped through the holes in the wall, but now that the door was open he could see just how bloody a fight it had been.

The whole room had a pink hue from the floating droplets, much of which had settled onto surfaces.

“Oil amongst the blood,” Kell said.  “These men were like you.”

“Yeah . . . were,” Urle said, seeing the dead.

The bodies still floated, their limbs moving freely as they tumbled slowly in the microgravity.

They had not simply been shot, he could see, but nearly shot to pieces.  So many rounds had been put through their bodies and heads that no details remained, only a splattered mess of blood, bone, and augments.  On several, their limbs had been severed completely, floating around on their own.

A quick scan showed no active major components, and looking closer at a body it appeared that someone had even gone through the effort of putting a round through such parts.

“Someone was sending a message,” he murmured.

“The bodies have not cooled much,” Kell noted.  “This occurred only a little over an hour ago.”

“I agree,” Urle replied.

He did not want to enter a room and get covered in a blood mist, but he really had no choice.

Floating in, he carefully avoided the surfaces.  “Kell, it’ll be best not to leave traces of our presence.  Try not to touch-“

He turned as he spoke – and saw Kell wiping his hand along the wall.

“. . . nevermind,” he said.

“I will leave no trace,” Kell said.  But he seemed troubled.

Urle couldn’t blame him, seeing the fate of these bodies.  Approaching one, he analyzed the man’s hand, and saw signs that he’d been firing a weapon.

Which was gone now – stolen, most likely, by the ones who had shot him.

Tracking the holes and estimating calibers, he got an idea that the attackers had started firing from the outside, opposite the door that he and Kell had entered through.  The firing pattern appeared planned, but blind – not just random spraying, but they had lacked the ability to pinpoint the targets through the wall, which suggested they were not Augs themselves.

The Augs inside had fought back, but so much lead had been poured in that they’d been massacred.

Approaching the back door where the attackers had been, he saw that it was mostly shredded.  Poking a scanner through, he saw very little blood outside, and no bodies.

So the attackers had taken their own wounded or dead with them . . . it made sense, but something was still wrong here.

Looking back around the room, seeing how devastated it was, it was hard to figure out what purpose it might have served, but there were still some clues.

A box of electronic components was floating by, its contents spilled.  Grabbing one of the wafers, Urle saw that it was a specific type he knew – a type used in augments.

“This was part of the chop shop,” Urle said softly.  “These were parts from people . . .”

Kell was looking at his hand that he’d wiped on the wall.

“Someone did not take kindly to their work,” he commented, frowning.  “And I may know who.”

“You do?” Urle asked, dumbfounded.

Kell moved, not pushing off anything, simply moving forward, towards a hole blasted in the window and went out through it.

Urle moved hurriedly to follow him, tucking in tightly to fit through a shattered window, and saw Kell stopped at a wall.

It appeared blank, but Urle could tell something was odd about it.  Static began to tinge the edges of his vision.  Errors were creeping in, and he felt his hackles rising.

“Kell . . . what is it?” he asked.

“Without intent, a mark was left,” he said.

Holding his palm up, Kell brutally slashed his own hand with his nails, gouging the skin easily.  Dark red blood, too dark to be human, welled up in it.  As Urle watched it seemed to grow darker still, until it was nearly black, no tinge of red left.

Kell took his bleeding hand and pressed it against the wall, wiping it across the surface.

His blood spread across it like a living thing – and a shape emerged.

It was a symbol that Urle could not place.  Almost like an eye.

“The Esoteric Order,” Kell said.  His voice was void of emotion, his face set in sharp lines.

He turned to Urle, as if to say something, but then they both heard it.

Gunfire from deeper within.

“They are still here,” Kell said.

He turned and went deeper.

Drawing his sidearm, Urle followed, his eyes drawn to the symbol on the wall.  The blood appeared to be fading already, or perhaps the mark itself was, but as he looked at it, he could not help but to shiver.

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