Rowan was doing squats in the autospotter rack when alarms rang out at an ear splitting intensity, causing his chest to vibrate slightly.
Dicia called out, "Emergency. Emergency. Hull breach located in the human section of the station. Deck B, subsection two. All safety teams please proceed to your designated damage control rendezvous point."
"Fuck," Rowan muttered slipping from under the chrome plated bar. He sprinted for the door as the klaxons rang in his ears so loudly they started to make him go deaf. He had to go, he was damage control for the human section. "Dicia! Turn the fucking alarm off!"
"Alarm muted," Dicia replied through his comlink. "Bulkheads around the breach have sealed."
"Subsection two? That's just outside the cyborg reskin lab. In fact, that's all empty storage space." He walked fast while flipping through his pad. "Can we seal it off and ignore it?"
Dicia changed the screen to show the interior of the warehouse, in the corner was a pair of faint blinking lights. "Heat signatures indicate the presence of intelligent life, regulations state all efforts should be made to rescue survivors."
"Okay, sounds good." He reached a nexus of corridors and found a pressure suit storage closet. He slipped on the one-size-fits-all minimal space suit and polymer helmet. Pulling a cord at the chest, the suit cinched the accordion like arms and legs to better fit him.
A robotic voice spoke into his ear, "Level One Pressure suit armed. The suit will seal in the presence of low air pressure and provide oxygen for one hour." Rowan frowned as the suit played through its standard warnings. "... suit is insufficiently shielded from radiation, Safety Systems Incorporated is not responsible for loss of fertility while wearing the suit in high radiation environments for extended periods. Please consult the user manual for further warnings and instructions. Godspeed and good luck."
"Fucking corporates…", he grumbled.
Next to the suit he found an emergency hull breach kit. He grabbed it and ran to the end of the corridor to find a way up. Bathed in the orange illumination of warning lights, Rowan found the vertical access shaft. After a bit of maze running he stopped. In front of him was a large steel door painted in yellow and black stripes, indicating this was an emergency bulkhead.
"Dicia, I'm going to need you to seal the bulkhead…eighty seven B. I've got a breach kit with me. Once you make things safe, unseal eighty eight."
A wall of steel slammed down behind him like a guillotine, making him jump. He knew these doors wouldn't care if you were there when it closed. The hatch in front of him slowly opened and he felt a slight pull of the air getting spaced. A half second later the seals on his suit squealed shut and he heard the suit's regulator make its familiar flowing sound that synced with his breath.
He flicked on his helmet light and looked around the dark warehouse. To his left he saw a large hole in the hull of the station. The twisted metal curling away from the hole like a giant grey rose. Through the hole, he could see stars. He looked around to see what had caused such a massive rupture and found a large metal almond shaped vessel, the size of a car resting on the other side of the warehouse. Above it was a deep dent.
"Escape pod? What the hell?." Rowan dropped the breach kit and trotted over to the escape pod and peered through the clear hatch. Inside he saw the face of a young woman sleeping serenely. He touched the status panel and saw that the woman was in an induced coma to lower oxygen consumption.
"You're not in a pressure suit so I can't pop the hatch yet, looks like I have to make a patch." He backed away a few steps from the pod before turning around and getting back to the kit.
Rowan set about to make a patch of the station. Opening the kit he pulled out a large wire mesh blanket, some heavy duty magnets, a mini welding kit, and a large tank of ferro-foam. Taking the wire mesh, he covered the large hole and anchored it with the magnets. He then cracked the seal on the ferro-foam sprayer and covered the wire mesh with a generous portion of brown gray foam. The substance penetrated the wire mesh before expanding. When he was done, the patch looked like a giant pile of excrement had been stuck to the wall.
"Now for the hard part, I hope my welding skills haven't gotten too rusty. Dicia, I'm going to need you to disable gravity while I get this finished."
Dicia did as she was ordered and Rowan immediately felt like he was falling. His magnetic boots kept him anchored to the floor. He hated zero gravity walking because of the way that the body expected weight on his joints. Rowan took baby steps to the wall and moved his feet one by one to the wall. The orientation of the room changed and now the big metal turd was at his feet. He bent down and hoped the mini welder's battery still held a charge.
Fifteen minutes later, the gravity was back on, pressure had been restored, and he was standing next to the escape pod with his helmet flipped back. Rowan's face was covered with sweat and grime and he blinked repeatedly as the sweat got into his eyes.
"Okay, let's pop you open and see who you are." He put his hand on the large hatch release and put his foot on the pod to yank the handle back. The spring mechanism resisted before slamming open and sending Rowan onto his back.
The large oval cap swung open and he saw that the young woman was completely naked. He expected it to be Paige but the avatar didn't look like this person. Both Paige and this girl were brunettes with long straight hair, but Paige's avatar was not nearly as cute as the one lying unconscious. The girl here was tall and slender, but she was by no means skinny. Her face made you think of the girl next door characters you would see in classic romantic movies. He got up and stood transfixed looking down at her naked form.
Dicia snapped him out of his stupor when it called out over the comlink, "Survivor is currently in an induced coma and needs medical attention. Please proceed to the nearest medbay."
"Right, right, sorry," Rowan muttered and bent down to grab her wrist to pull her up. He briefly glanced around the pod to see if there were any personal items, but found none. "That's odd."
He hoisted her up over his shoulder and fireman carried the lady out of the warehouse. He sealed off the room and told Dicia to make it permanently off limits unless directed by station command. He tried to remain professional but his eyes occasionally wandered to the pale skin of her ass that was right next to his face as he lumbered down the station corridor.
After a five minute walk, he was able to find the nearest medbay and scanned his eye to get in. When he laid her onto a padded gurney the entire medbay came to life. Androids tethered to the walls stood at attention and walked to the unconscious woman. A scanner popped out of the ceiling and started to cast a band of intense white light on the body. Data started streaming across the computer screens that walled the med bay. Rowan backed away, looking left and right at the emergent chaos.
One robot approached him and stated, "Please remove yourself from medbay, we are protecting the patients privacy."
"Hey! I just want to know if she's going to be alright."
The robot reached out and grabbed Roan by the pressure suit and dragged him to the door and pushed him firmly out before the sliding door shut him out.
"What the hell!? Why can't I see her?" He flipped open the comlink. "Dicia, why is medbay locking me out? I just want to know if the girl is going to survive. I have a right to know."
"Standard protocol Rowan, you're not her relative nor in her chain of command. You're a civvie, and Paige Atlas is station control."
"That's Paige?! She looks nothing like her!"
The comlink projected against the wall of the corridor a picture of the girl from the pod, but the name underneath said 'Atlas, Paige' and her republic selective service number underneath it.
"Why would Paige make her avatar so much more plain than her real face?" Rowan now felt embarrassed about how much touching up he did of his avatar. Dicia didn't answer. He took a couple steps back before sliding down and sitting on the waiting bench in the hallway. He slumped in exhaustion.
…
"Rowan. Rowan. Rowan!"
"What is it?" Rowan yelled out and sat upright from the hard metal bench, his pressure suit was discarded on the floor of the corridor. He rubbed his eyes and yawned. "How long have I been sleeping here?"
Dicia "Six hours, twenty-eight minutes, and five seconds."
"Is Paige alright? Can I see her?"
"Yes, she has awoken and has asked for you. She will need monitoring for another thirty six hours here before she can return to her duties as a station control officer."
The medbay door slid open and Rowan stepped back inside. Paige's bed was propped up and she was awake and smiled when their eyes met. She was now clothed in a medical gown. Paige nodded weakly and croaked, "Howdy stranger."
He walked up and was about to grab her hand when he realized his own hands were dirty with grease and sweat, he stopped himself. "Hi Paige, I'd take your hand, but I haven't washed up from the hull breach."
"I don't care," she said and reached out with her pristine hands and grabbed his hand. She squeezed weakly. "You saved my life."
"What the hell happened, Paige?"
She smiled and said, "I told you I was coming, didn't I? It took me weeks to find where the hull was thin enough for an escape pod to puncture without crushing the pod, and a few more days to create the flight path that I could program into the pod while it put me under." She coughed before continuing, "I wanted it to be a surprise, Rowan. You're not mad at me are you?" Her eyes started to water faintly.
"No! No, Paige. I just want you to be safe." He reached out and patted her head. When he did so, she closed her eyes and smiled warmly, pressing her head into the touch like a cat. "They say you need to stay here for another day and a half. We can then find you a place to stay in the human section."
She gripped harder and asked, "I know this is asking a lot, Rowan, but would it be possible to come live with you? At least until I get back on my feet?"
Rowan's eye twitched slightly as he remembered that Carmen was probably worried sick about him. There would have to be discussions, and she wasn't likely to be pleased about the new situation. "Of course Paige, if that's what you want. My place is huge."
Paige's eyes widened in excitement and she gave him a bright smile. "Oh Rowan, I'm so happy. You don't know how long I've waited to see your face with real eyes."
"Heh, I have to ask one question. Why did you make your avatar so plain? You're much prettier in real life. I feel like a jerk for making my avatar look better than I do."
Paige shook her head from side to side. "Stop it Rowan, I'm not that pretty."
Rowan wasn't about to argue so he changed the subject, asking, "So how are you going to do your job as a station command officer down here in the main section?"
She tapped her ear. "I got a cranial implant before I got into the pod. I can bring up the station's interface whenever I want. Dicia and I are like this." She showed him her crossed fingers.
"Okay, that sounds good." He got off his knees and let go of her hand.
Paige furrowed her eyebrows and frowned, saying, "You're not going are you?"
"I just need to take a shower, I smell like a diesel engine that was thrown into a swamp. I'll go back to the apartment to get it ready, I'll also grab some things."
"Don't worry about that, the medbay has a shower, I'm sure they'll let you use it." She grabbed his wrist. "Stay. Please."
He looked to the door for a moment before smiling at her, "Yes Paige, I'll stay. By the time you're ready to go, you'll be sick of me."
"Not in a million years," she said. Her grip loosened but didn't let go.