Darkness once more. It was becoming all too common a sight. This was somehow different. He could sense something different in the air, though he could not focus enough to determine what it was. He could not remember where he was or how he got there. But he was… comfortable, somehow. Warmer. Clothing… he was wearing clothes. He had forgotten how they felt. Clean. He was clean too. All rewards from his master. His mentor. The man who had shown him the way. And the man who had shown him his enemy.

He was not alone either. In the darkness behind him, several guards stood their silent vigil. A hum, there it was. His mind was waking to the world around him now. A light? It was dim, orange, above the… door? A door ahead of him. The light barely illuminated the small cubicle room which felt… yes there it was. The room was moving down. And elevator. He was inside an elevator cart, large enough to be a freight elevator. His returning senses further began to realize the situation around him, resolving in gradually hardening detail as he slowly regained full consciousness.

A battle-scarred Rupture cruiser gracefully slid into the dim lighting of the docking bay and parked in the center, guided with pinpoint accuracy by the station interlink to the ship’s navigation system. Through the various large alcoves on either side of the dock, other ships in similar disrepair were visible either making an entrance or already docked and being attended to by emergency crews and station drones that were buzzing around them. With an almost eerie sense of symphony, his ship was subjected to the same welcoming party by small robotic droids using nanoprobes to repair the damage to the armor.

The hatch slid open amidst the distinct buzzing of the drones’ anti-gravity drives and regular short bursts of Halon gas, sprayed from the nozzles under the drones’ nano-probes every time the flames pick up again. Darius stepped firmly onto the walkway leading to the ships hatch, his exit from the ship announced to all by the sound of his heavy boots rattling the gantry. Darius took a few steps away from the towering Rupture before turning to watch the ballet of drones dance across his vision. Things were a little different now he had joined the Freelance Unincorporated crew some months earlier. His old corporation could never have afforded such things. Nor were they necessary back then for such a small corporation as his.

The small, metal-walled room was poorly lit, save for a small candle burning on a low stool against a wall. A dark figure kneeling in front of the candle cast a barely noticeable shadow across the hard carpeted floor. Hands firmly gripping his kneecaps, Darius’ eyes were clenched tight as he tried to focus on his meditation. Not even able to control his breathing, Darius gave up the struggle and opened his eyes, relaxing his shoulder and neck muscles. He had not noticed how tense he was until that moment. He let out a deep breath and sighed as he rose to his feet. Darius made his way through the dark to his bathroom to get a glass of water. His throat was dry from the re-circulated air in the station quarters. At times like this, he craved the tranquillity of home on Matar. The humidity in the air would be a welcome change from the coarse air provided by the station’s air filters. Not to mention that there were too many distractions in a station to even contemplate meditation. There was a slight but constant deep humming noise that seemed to reverberate through the solid structure. It was even more noticeable, and somewhat irritating, when he was sitting in silence in a dark room trying to clear his mind.

Darius waved a hand over an optical sensor mounted to the wall of the bathroom and, with a reluctant flicker, the lights switched on. As he ran the water and put the glass under it, he caught his reflection in the mirror. His eyes were red and sore looking. They were sad. He rubbed them gently, smearing a tear across his cheek. The memory of his late brother Kordan’s death came back to him. He dropped the glass into the basin and ran his hands under the cold tap, splashing the water on his face and around his eyes. He tried to wash the tears away, but he could still feel them.

Darius leaned closer to the terminal in his office at the Anubis Inc. headquarters in Pator and frowned. Across the table, his younger brother Kordan could sense a change in the air as Darius growled in the back of his throat.

“Something wrong bro?” He inquired with his usual silly grin on his face. Darius did not even need to look up to know it was there. One day he was going to have that grin surgically removed from Kordan’s face, just as soon as he could find a doctor that knows how.

“Nothing…” he replied curtly followed by a pause. “Well, actually, yeah. Our resident agent for the security services has a tip off about some kind of Angel Cartel scouting operation she wants me to gatecrash. They suspect they are checking out the defenses of a remote outpost on a moon in Audensder and will be followed by a slaver fleet.”

The darkness almost seemed to rush past him at incredible speed. He felt as if he were falling through a void. He was falling faster with each second, as if more than gravity was propelling him towards the darkness. Dim lights began to encircle the tunnel, moving past as speed as he fell. The lights gave shapes in the darkness, ledges along a tunnel wall. He tried to grab hold of them, stretching to reach. He could feel himself moving towards the edge, but despite this he was no closer to the walls, almost as if they were keeping their distance from him. He could not stop himself. The end of the tunnel came rushing towards him. Stars and swirls of stellar gasses filled his view beyond the tunnel edge, separated only by a sheet of glass at the end of the tunnel. He hit the glass as if it was not there, smashing through the pane as pieces of broken glass cut deep into his flesh. The boiling cold embrace of space tore its fingers through every inch of his body as his veins ruptured. His torn flesh hardened and his eyes swelled in their sockets as he was subjected to violent decompression. The air formed crystals in his lungs as it rushed through into the vacuum of space past his gargled screams.