Behind the Veil

[Zapp]

Both Guardians slowly sidled up to the docking bay of West Point, red lights, signifying their landing status, blinking. The rest of the way to West Point had been uneventful bordering on tedious, with no hostile - or friendly - contacts evident. As his ship settled into place, Looper jumped up and over, landing with both feet on the ground. Joyce dismounted her ship a tad more conservatively, opting for the ladder that allowed her to alight gracefully.

She meandered over to Looper, swaying side to side as if drunk, or as if the enjoyment of simply walking and taking in the sights of the docking bay had overloaded her sensory nerves. They both knew it was just a show, though. She pulled off her flight helmet, and a wave of silky auburn hair cascaded down her face. Looper, who had already taken his helmet off, had graying-brown hair, and a face with more than a few "fine lines".

"Hey Chief, I gotta go take care of a few things. I'll meet you at the bar, save a seat at the card game for me!" she said amiably, then swaggered off to who-knows-where.

Looper just smiled and shook his head, striking off for the bar and a frosty drink to lose the patrol in.

It was late - 2 AM Manhattan Standard Time. As such, the lights were dimmed to a semblance of night. Being a spacer was no easy job, and especially was it hard on sleeping patterns. Jet lag is nothing compared to what some pilots and crew go through, so to help things out almost everyone space-side has settled on MST (the GMT of Manhattan) to attempt to reduce this. When going planet-side it's still rough, but on stations and ships everything is the same.

All this is a roundabout way of saying the halls were darkened and for the most part empty. Which is setting up the background so you can understand what Looper saw - a man furtively hunched over a wall-mounted computer panel, trying to melt into the wall as he accessed it. At first glance, his clothes marked him as a Navy Ensign, but closer examination by Looper's trained eye caught discrepancies that amounted to full-blown suspicion.

Looper walked up behind him and said, "Whatcha doin'?" The man practically jumped out of his skin and bolted.

"Hey, stop!" shouted Looper after the receding form. He was immediately in pursuit at a dead-run. The man that was running steadily made his way to the perimeter of the station, and at the first airlock he passed he ran in. He must be insane... Looper thought.

This was reaffirmed in his mind when the light outside the thick door started flashing red, signaling the start of decompression. Looper tried to override it from the console outside, but was too slow. Soon, the light turned yellow and everything shook slightly as the air - and man - rushed out of the airlock.

What the hell...