[Val]

Zoe and I made our way through the Alpha Quadrant before taking the Upper Road to the Delta Spoke. Two uniformed members of station security carrying rifles met us at the lift. We both gasped, squeezing each other's hands, when we came upon a bloody smear across the white deck, leading from the lift to three corpses.

The mercenaries in bloodied black uniforms laid in unceremonious heaps in a corner, face down by the wall. But another corpse separated from the others, laid under a smoothed white sheet. My chest tightened around a shadowed heart as I realized this was one of our own, putting the stakes back into grim reality. My eyes refused to turn away.

Riding silently up the lift, we shuffled to one side, avoiding the sticky blood pool.

"That was Cory," the female security guard muttered in a flat tone, looking away.

I barely knew Cory, only crossing paths with him a few times, but I knew he was Shera's good friend. And my heart ached for her.

The crowd at Delta Dock surprised me. I had expected Kate, John, and Shera with a few Ark Hope crewmen and station security staff, for they led the assault, but not the everyday station people, many I knew. And Harley was here. She wrapped both Zoe and me in a tight bear hug, nearly lifting us off the ground. Apparently, the mercenaries had vacated this section, so people ventured out to help.

Pulling away, I sought Shera, who sat by herself on a small crate, facing away. Dried blood stained her shirt. Sitting next to her, I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. What could I say? Finally, a few halting words came. "I'm sorry about Cory, Shera."

She turned to me, her dark face as expressionless as stone. "It would have been me."

"We are all here for you," I said, putting an arm across her back.

"I know," Shera replied, leaning into me. "But you have work to do now. You and me — we protect."

As I rose, Captain John Greer caught my eye. "Val, if what you say is true, we need to move out now."

When Zoe came to my side, I took hold of her shoulders. "I need you to stay here."

Her deep blue eyes pleaded. "I won't get in the way--"

"Please, Zoe."

She pushed in, wrapping arms around me and pressing her lips to mine, sending a pleasing warmth through my core. Then she poked a finger against my chest. "You'd better come back."

Kate wrinkled her forehead as she scrolled through her com-viewer. "The way up the spoke is clear, but I'm not getting any video around the reactors."

"You won't," I replied. "There's too much electromagnetic interference. We'll have to go in blind. But if they really plan to breach the fusion containment, they won't want to hang around anyway."

Kate, John, and I stepped into the lift. I also asked Harley to come along because we might need her mechanical skills. "Hell, yeah!" she replied to my request with an unexpected amount of enthusiasm.

By the time we reached the central core, the artificial gravity had dwindled to almost nothing. From now on, we would be essentially weightless.

Along the way, a ping came to my com-viewer. "It's Cassy!" Kate jerked up her viewer.

Cassy: Anybody pick this up?

Val: We got you! What happened out there?

Cassy: We blew up the missiles! Don't ever want to do that ever again, though.

Kate: Awesome! Give Eric a big wet kiss for me.

Cassy: Already did...

Mona: <smiley face>

Harley: <smooch>

Cassy: The marines want an update. What should Eric tell them?

Kate: Tell them Delta Port is secure and they can dock there. Also, Alpha Sector is ours, but otherwise the station is still under enemy control.

Ma: We're pitchin' the whup-arse! Never mess with the quilters guild!

The lift opened into the Core Delta Lobby, a circular segmental space with a low overhead. Deck mounted monorails, on which the service bots traveled, disappeared through rounded-top hatchways, giving the area a railway station vibe. Because of the local micro-gravity, there were handrails everywhere, including the overhead. As my dark hair billowed out, I tied it back into a short, crude ponytail.

The Central Core was the guts of the Phobos Transit Space Station — heart, lungs, and digestion system. Besides the fusion power generators, most of the air purification, waste processing, and water reclamation happened here, along with several industrial plants, including metal ore processing and specialty fabrication. Also, the docking tugs and outside maintenance shuttles deployed from nearby service docks.

"This way," I said, pointing.

We half-loped with huge strides, and half pulled ourselves along with handrails toward a closed hatch. Stenciled red letters read 'Reactor Bay' and a red light blinked ominously overhead.

John stopped me as I reached for the latch mechanism. "Let us go first. We don't know who's inside."

Gulping, I stood back, fingering the stun gun tucked under my belt.

"Ready?" John said to Kate. "I'll go right. You go left."

John shoved the hatch open, and they flowed inside, each with one hand propelling themselves along by the rails while the other gripped shouldered rifles. Past training in zero-gravity combat was apparent.

Two sharp bursts of gunfire made both Harley and me jump, followed by a third. My heart accelerated as the following silence stretched on forever. After glancing into Harley's widened eyes, I moved to the hatch and peeked around the frame. "Kate? John? Are you okay?" I said in a muted voice.

"Yeah," Kate replied, much to my relief. "But two bad guys aren't. Come on in."

Harley blew out a breath. "I'm glad they went in first."

The reactor bay was my domain. Much of my former operations engineer work involved maintaining and optimizing the three fusion reactors, one or two of which were always online. We called them 'steel donuts' because of the torus shape and shiny metallic exterior within a maze of power cables and instrument leads. Each had a separate control panel. Inside an active reactor, super strong magnetic fields contained the super-heated plasma where the fusion magic took place. It had always amazed me how a tube the diameter of my ring finger could feed enough deuterium and helium-3 to power an entire space station.

"What happens if the fusion reactors breach?" Kate asked. "Will it destroy the station?"

"No," I answered, "but it will cripple it. And within a few seconds, the temperature around here will reach a few million degrees."

"Oh, that's bad."

Being at the very axis of station rotation, we were truly weightless. Thus, up and down were subjective only by visual reference. Harley and I slipped on magnetic overshoes taken from small metal bins near the hatch. Actually, they were more like oversized clunky sandals and not at all fashionable. The electromagnets allowed me to stand fixed to the metal grate decking, or, for that matter, the overhead or walls. By flexing my toes upward, it switched off the magnet whenever I took a step.

Looking up, I gasped as my heart skipped a few beats. Two black-uniformed men floated limp above us. Spherical crimson droplets surrounded them like orbiting moons.

"Can you fix it?" John asked in an even voice, pulling my attention back.

"I think so," I answered with less confidence than I wanted. "Just have to do a controlled shutdown."

Each footstep made a clink sound as Harley and I walked over to the control station. The angled transparent panels blinked red, warning of magnetic containment imbalance and safety system bypass. The AI that continuously monitored and adjusted the field had been shut off, and it was only a matter of time until a critical failure occurred.

"Hmm," I muttered with a hand to my chin. "Maybe I could--"

"Look out, Val!" Harley shouted.

She dove, knocking me off my feet with enough force to overcome the magnetic grip. Shots rang out, and deadly darts pinged against the grating where I once stood. Scurrying along, and nearly breathless, I pulled Harley with me behind a tall electrical switchgear cabinet.

My heart rate spiked again as more shots came, the sharp pops echoing around the chamber, but not at us. John and Kate returned fire against three mercenaries huddled near a hatch across the way.

Hot anger flashed up from my depths as I recognized one of them — the demon woman, Khlo Azrial herself. Even in this situation, her heavy makeup and styled hair were immaculate. I ducked back behind the cabinet while John and Kate fled to other cover, propelled along by handrails, as the two men with Khlo spread rapid-fire darts randomly across the area.

"That witch is really pissing me off!" Harley growled.

Grinning, Khlo shouldered her weapon, but instead of firing at us, sprayed the control panel with multiple darts. Blue-white sparks crackled and then the panel went blank.

"Have fun with the super-heated plasma!" Khlo yelled with a true villain's laugh, then disappeared out the hatch with her two henchmen. The hatch slammed shut behind them.

"What did she mean by that?" Kate said, floating to my side.

"It means," I replied, rushing to the broken controls, "that the alpha reactor magnetic containment is about to fail."

"Is there anything you can do, Val?" John asked.

"The only choice left is a manual emergency vent." A long red handle beneath the reactor represented the option of last resort. Pulling it pierced the containment field at a specific location, purging the reactor plasma through an open vent to outer space.

A sudden chilled dread shook me — Khlo would have known about that option. I spun around. "Harley, can you check that the external vent path is clear? I have a bad feeling that it isn't. Take a bug."

"On it," Harley replied as she dashed away.

"A bug?" Kate wrinkled her forehead.

"An external maintenance craft," I answered. "They are round with six arms, so we call them bugs."

A deep hum and low frequency vibrations rose from the reactor, slowly growing louder in slow crescendo. Periodically, the plasma monster inside groaned and screeched. Tiny blue sparks danced across the reactor surface, and the hairs on my neck and arms stood on end because of the induced electrical field. Kate's eyes widened. "Mag field distortion harmonics. Not a good sign," I explained, drawing my lips tight together.

After a few anxious moments, Harley's face, surrounded by a skullcap and com headset, appeared on my com-viewer. "I'm on my way."

Kate and John huddled around me, looking at the bug forward camera view Harley shared. A headlight illuminated a moving circular portion of the dull gray hull as she moved along, until finally, she reached a dark dished depression lined with thick refractory bricks.

Slowing, Harley pitched the bug over and looked within. The light reflected on a metallic flat surface only about a meter within the vent cone. Tingles swept through my body — the kind you get after a potentially fatal close call. If we had attempted a reactor emergency vent... Well, it would have been our last act.

"Good call, Val," Harley said over the com. "Somehow, they swung the isolation blind. We would have been toast if you had vented."

"More like burned toast," I replied, blowing out a breath. "Can you cut it away?"

"No problem. I am the prodigy of plasma cutting."

As the reactor screamed like a banshee, I urged Harley, "Doesn't have to be pretty, but it does have to be quick."

"Nobody appreciates artistry these days," Harley replied, sighing.

How did Harley stay so calm and focused? She must feed off this kind of excitement. If my pounding heart wasn't fastened inside, it might have jumped out of my chest and bounced off the walls.

A bug arm came into camera view. Orange sparks sizzled from the cutting tool end like a carnival sparkler. When Harley touched it to the metal plate, the sudden bright flash washed out the visual images with hazy white.

I turned to the one here with the biggest muscles. "John, at the right time, we'll need you to pull the lever around one-hundred-and-eighty degrees. It may not move easily."

After handing his rifle to Kate and rolling his shoulders, John unhooked the restraining latch that secured the lever to a stand. He braced his feet against a structural beam and grasped the lever handle, which stood waist high. Metal slots guided the movement in a horizontal semi-circle. "Ready," he said, mouth firm and eyes narrowed.

The reactor hum increased in volume and pitch, and my magnetic overshoes transmitted the vibrations to my feet. The dancing sparks on the reactor surface reached further, sizzling as they snatched at anything close by, almost including us. We didn't have much time before the plasma monster emerged.

"Umm, Harley?" I quavered.

"Almost there... Got it!"

The vent cone came into view as the cutting tool withdrew, displaying a jagged hole in the metal plate. Not artistic, but it would do.

"Now John," I yelled. "Harley, get out of the way!"

John's arm muscles bulged as he pushed against the meter-long red handle, but it barely budged. Kate let go of the rifles, leaving them floating mid-air, and came up beside John, adding her strength. With gritted teeth, together they pushed, and the lever conceded, swinging around.

The reactor screamed, blasting a deafening whoosh sound that resembled a jet engine. The grate at my feet trembled as if an earthquake. Then came eerie silence. The room lights flickered off for a few seconds, immersing us in darkness until the emergency battery backup came online. It would be the same throughout the station until I started another reactor.

"Hell of a light show out here!" Harley exclaimed over my com-viewer, breaking the silence.

Then relief swept through me like a summer breeze. Shera was right. Each in our own ways, we protect what matters.

A ping on my viewer caught Kate's and my attention.

Shera: Everyone seeing this? The mercenaries are all falling back to Beta Dock. Must be getting ready to leave on the Erobus.

Ma: They be running for the hills! We whuped 'em good.

Greta: <smiley face>

Harley: Do we stop them? I can disable their ship from the outside.

Kate glanced over her shoulder at John, who shook his head.

Kate: No. Let them go. Space Force will track them down.

Harley: But Andras Toth is rich and powerful enough that he might get away!

Kate: No more battles on the space station. There's been too much death already.

On my com-viewer, I watched the mercenaries stream through the docking tunnel leading to the Erobus, followed finally by Andras Toth and Khlo Azrial. I shared Harley's outrage, but Kate and John were right — no more killing. Then, with a twinge of remorse, I switched to an external dock view to watch the ship pull away. But as it fired maneuvering thrusters to turn away, my eyes widened as I noticed a maintenance bug attached to the Erobus underside like a tick on a dog's belly.

"Harley, what are you doing?" I said over the com.

"I'm letting them leave," she answered with a voice inflection. "Just not letting them get far." Orange flashes appeared beside the bug, which I recognized as the plasma cutter. "The thing about these types of mining ships," she explained, "is that the main power coupling is external mounted. Won't take much to cut through it."

True to Harley's words, bright electric-blue sparks erupted near the bug. Then the Erobus slowly tumbled end-over-end, dead in space, as Harley jetted the bug away.

*****

The entire Phobos Transit Quilters Guild assembled on Beta Dock for the perp parade. After letting them simmer for ten long hours on the disabled ship, the marines led out the handcuffed mercenaries, one by one. Each added to a growing group of dejected criminals seated at one side of the dock.

I stood beside Zoe, her fingers interlaced within mine. Serene joy wafted up from my soul, like you get when you overcome the odds and achieve something truly worthwhile.

The marines arrived five hours ago in two Space Force frigates, docking at Delta Port. John Greer was there to meet them and their commander, Captain Allissa Talun, who apparently was a friend from John's military days. Also, as it turned out, she was a quilter, so we invited her to the next Guild meeting.

Cassy nestled into Eric's arms. After parking the Ark Hope in near orbit, a station shuttle retrieved them. Their blossoming mutual love warmed me, something I wanted to emulate with Zoe. And I was also happy for Kate and John, who, by all appearances, had rekindled their relationship.

Who knew what Ma started when she invited us into the Quilters Guild?

Finally, the stars of the show emerged. Two burly marines pulled the handcuffed Khlo and Andras along by the arms. Her perfect hair and makeup was no longer so perfect, rather mussed and smeared. When Andras glanced at her, a bitter sneer rose on her face.

The marines led them to Captain Talun and an older man with a gray mustache, who was the station Security Chief. He glanced back at us and tilted his head, saying, "Shera, would you do the honors?"

"Gladly," Shera replied, stepping forward. Her narrowed eyes shot contempt. "Andras Toth and Khlo Asrial, you are under arrest for multiple counts of terrorism, murder, and public nuisance. You are hereby remanded into the custody of the Space Force for transport." Shera then said to Allissa Talun, "Captain, they are all yours."

And thus, justice was served.

"It was Andras!" Khlo spat, pulling against the marine that gripped her arm. "He made me--"

"Shut up, Khlo!" Andras shot back, baring his teeth.

No love lost there.

"Take them away," Captain Talun said while rolling her eyes.

Ma grinned at the spectacle. "Now, ain't that a heapin' helpin' of karma? Should never had messed with the Phobos Transit Quilters Guild."