Not dozens, but hundreds of crab-like robots fresh off the 3d printers started to crawl their way into the graxlian section of the station. At the security door to this section, several large maintenance bots started to weld the door shut, and then weld heavy equipment to the door as well, shutting lizardeen off. The first mission from the crab bots were to find and destroy any maintenance rooms that would have things like torch cutters.
AZ-27's job was slightly different. Its job was to search for someone. He was part of the robot force tasked with finding Paige. At first it found there was pandemonium among the lizardeen. It paused at a grate near a makeshift checkpoint. Two guards were pacing behind an overturned burden carrier.
"Did you hear what they did to the flagship?"
"No, what happened?"
"The bastards tricked us into getting close and then they cowardly used a special fighter to hug the capital ship and slice it up. The battle lasted less than five minutes."
"Bastards!"
"They kicked us out of the slime section using exosuits. Our low velocity rounds just bounced off them."
"What are we going to do?"
"Corporal S'yok is going to put out a new video of the hostage. This time from the impregnation chamber."
"Don't you think that's a bit rash? They won't take kindly to us if they find their girl is defiled."
"Humans are soft. They will sue for peace once they see the state of their precious woman."
AZ-27 relayed the message back to Dicia who started to run searches in the schematics of the station related to anything mentioning 'impregnation chamber'. Three hundred milliseconds later the station logs showed a builders license for a Graxlian night club with that name. It was located near the outer edge of the station in the graxlian section, far away from the other races. Dicia contacted Rowan.
"Hey boy, I've got some news for you."
Rowan was walking in his space suit around his fighter on the outer surface of the station in a trench. Tritium, oxygen, and propellant was pouring into the KG-1 from a supply station. "I hope it's good news."
"It's as good as it's going to get, boy. Paige is rumored to be held in a night club in the graxlian section. The name of the place is called the 'Impregnation Chamber'"
"Those fuckers, I'll kill them."
"It's only a rumor now, I'm sending the crab bots over there. You sit tight. We need to know her exact position before we move forward."
"Right. By the way, Dicia. I know you're programmed to protect the station, but I just wanted to say thank you for all the guidance and help you've given me. Without you and station control I don't know where I'd be. Probably hanging from a graxlian trophy wall."
The response took longer than he expected. "Thanks Rowan. That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me. Thank you for everything too. You're my hands. I'd be lost without you."
"Hey, when everything is said and done we should all hang out in a virtual chat room and play some games."
"Sounds good, let's get your girl first. I'll contact you when I have Paige's exact coordinates." She cut off communications.
The KG-1's status panel indicated that the ship was completely refueled.
Rowan muttered to himself. "Hey where is station control in all of this? None of those idiots have helped me at all. I wonder how they're doing. I should do a flyby and give them a piece of my mind. I've got time until the crabs have found Paige, I'll go crazy waiting."
Rowan hopped into his horseshoe crab fighter and barrelled through the trenches up the station's height to the relatively small control section, a cylinder that was covered in communications arrays and particle cannons.
"The lights are still out. I suppose I can get really close."
Rowan eased back on the throttle when he got close enough to see inside the windows of the control section. Each window was dark. Rather than have its belly down, he oriented the fighter so the canopy was facing the station. He wanted to see inside.
The station's natural rotation blocked the sun and put him in shadow. "Goddamn it. Does this ship have any floodlights? Ahh here we are, nav lights will have to do."
Rowan flipped the switch and powerful white beams of light illuminated a window near one of the emergency airlocks. He let out a yell and brought up an arm reflexively when he saw the corpse of someone in the process of trying to get an emergency pressure suit on. The body was floating with the helmet just put on but not sealed.
"Poor guy didn't have time to fully seal his suit before he blacked out. Maybe I can see what the graxlians did here. Why is Dicia keeping this from me?"
A few minutes later Rowan was through the emergency air lock and in the same room as the body. He had to manually override the airlock controls, but it didn't take too much force, the control section was a complete vacuum.
The chubby man took steps towards the floating corpse using mag-boots. He braced himself for the grizzly sight. He grabbed the orange emergency pressure suit and brought the body towards him. The figure seemed frozen solid.
"Okay buddy, let's have a look at you. What the hell?" When Rowan pulled off the helmet he stared into the sunken eyes of what almost looked like an unwrapped mummy. The body had a satchel and Rowan did a quick search, finding a small notebook. He gingerly opened it as the paper felt like it would fall apart like an onion skin.
…I am forced to write my notes in an actual paper book for fear of monitoring by Dicia…
…Dicia becomes more abrasive to myself and my friends. I fear she will not take the news that the station staff will be abandoning the station well…
He flipped to the last page. Showing a date hundreds of years in the past.
…I must get to the general section of the station. She's become outright hostile. I hope that I can initiate a memory wipe on her before doing so…
…The whole section is on red alert. Receiving multiple alarms for micrometer strikes to the control section. I suspect her. I'll have to initiate my plan right now. Wish me luck, future self…
"Damn girl, what did you do?" Rowan muttered to himself. He heard a notification in his implant. He rushed back out of the station and managed to click into his five point harness before Dicia opened a direct channel with him.
"Rowan, I don't see you on the scanners. I've found Paige. They really screwed the pooch on this one, I guess they thought the graxlian marines would be in control of the station by now. I'll pinpoint her to you on the station map."
"Yeah, I'm stuck in a trench. Let's get to work. Do you have a place where I can blast through?"
"Come on boy, would I let you down?"
"Of course I wouldn't, I'll be there in a jiffy."
Rowan spun up the drive on the KG-1 and rocketed through the station's trenches at high speed. He had to execute several jumps to avoid conduits and pipes.
"Dicia, does Carmen know where Paige is as well?"
"I'm sending her team to draw most of their forces away from the club," Dicia replied.
"I hope her debut makes an appropriate distraction."
"Okay, you're coming up to the section she's in."
"Right, let me handle this."
He initiated the plasma beam and proceeded to cut a perfect square out of the station. Rowan moved slowly and the beam was able to cut down several decks. Explosions buffeted the fighter, but the induction coils held the ship to the station. When he was done, a ten meter gap was cut out on all sides of this one section of the station. It was cut off from all routes except the one that traveled deeper into the station. That route was currently being attacked by Carmen and the rest of the girls.
Rowan popped up to the surface of this isolated section and searched for an emergency airlock close enough to the night club. This time he brought the fighter's hatch in contact with the airlock, creating a seal.
"I'm coming for you Paige."