Heather was glad to have Loka and Hoan at her back as they walked into the main engineering room. Panels had been ripped off, and wires were torn from their holdings. Most of the controls had either been smashed or blasted with what looked worryingly like lasers.

She was relieved to see the magma core that powered the space station was stable. No chance of blowing up just yet.

“Hoan, check there are no more bots in the area,” Loka said.

Hoan nodded and hurried away.

“The bots have been destroying this place.” Heather’s hand hovered over a panel to see if it would activate. Nothing happened.

“No bots.” Hoan returned from his swift survey of the room. “They’ve gone through a hole in the door. They have done an excellent job of ensuring engineering is in chaos.” He walked from panel to panel.

“Where is everybody?” Heather asked.

“If they are sensible, they’ve abandoned this area.” Loka also looked at the mess surrounding him. “If the bots were anything like the ones that attacked you, they would have been in fear of their lives.”

Hoan hummed under his breath. “If the bots tear this place apart, it will bring the whole station out of orbit, taking them with it.”

“Perhaps they just want to make the station impossible to live on.” Loka stood in front of the magma core. “They haven’t touched the main power source.”

Heather swallowed, trying to get some moisture in her dry mouth. If the main power was cut, it would be game over. There would be no breathable air. No heat. No lights. Gravity would take over, and Prodigy would take a nosedive. It would fall apart as it hit Earth’s atmosphere, killing everybody inside.

“Check communications,” Loka instructed Hoan. “See if we can find out where everybody is.”

Hoan hurried to the comm panel. He slid his hand across it several times, but it didn’t respond.

Heather looked down at her wrist comm. It normally had a reassuring green glow to it. It also looked dead. She tried it anyway. “Heather to Vegas. Are you there?”

The silence was unsettling.

“It would make sense for whoever is doing this to want the ship’s comms disabled,” Loka said. “It adds to the confusion, makes it harder for us to coordinate things.”

“Who would want to do this?” Heather asked. “Why sabotage the station? There are dozens of space stations like us in this galaxy.”

“Perhaps we aren’t the only station being targeted?” Hoan suggested. “This could be going on across your galaxy.”

“It would need to be an advanced alien race to do that,” Loka said.

“Definitely not humans,” Heather said. “As Loka pointed out earlier, we’re not advanced enough to do something like this.”

“Or mean enough.” Hoan smiled at her. “Besides, most of us aliens love you humans. You make the star system a better place.”

Heather grinned. “I think so too.”

Loka cleared his throat. Hoan had such an easy way about him. Loka wished he could be more like him. It would make it easier to speak with Heather. “Let’s check the systems and see what the bots were targeting. It will give us a clue as to what they are doing here.”

He focused on the communications systems, while Hoan checked the power lines and Heather scanned the general systems of the station.

“This is weird.” Heather peered at the screen in front of her. “There is anomalous code active in the system.”

Loka and Hoan joined her by the screen.

“You’re right.” Loka stared at the strange text scrolling down the screen.

“I’m not an expert at coding, but I recognize a few commands. Someone is making the station bots malfunction.” Heather pointed at a line of code. “See that there? That’s ordering them to destroy the communications system.”

“And that line of code shows the commands are coming from outside the space station.” Loka pointed at the odd mixture of alien code symbols.

“You were right,” Hoan said. “Someone is targeting this place. Someone wants to damage this station.”

“We still have no idea why,” Heather said. “Prodigy isn’t all that special. It’s one of the earlier space station models. We don’t even have advanced thermonuclear heating and cooling systems.”

“I doubt they’re interested in things like that,” Loka said. “There must be a reason why they are targeting this place.”

A grinding sound had everybody tensing and looking up from the screen.

Heather felt Loka’s hand on her shoulder and was reassured by his touch.

Chief Engineer Roland Blackfriar strode in, holding a laser. He lowered it when he spotted Heather, Loka, and Hoan. “What are you doing in here?” His crisp British accent announced every word perfectly.

A crew of six engineers in red jumpsuits appeared behind him, their gazes anxious as they looked around at the devastation.

“Looking for you,” Heather said. “We need to know what the problem is with the lights and, well, everything else.”

“Crew, check vital functions,” Roland ordered. “Get things as stable as you can. I want a systems-wide status report in fifteen minutes.”

His crew flew into action.

Roland turned back to Heather, suspicion clear in his dark eyes. “How did you get in? We sealed the main door after the bots broke through.”

Heather pointed a thumb over her shoulder. “I know the back-way in.”

“Have you got something to do with the bots’ meltdown?” A vein bulged in Roland’s forehead, and sweat trickled down the side of his stubbled cheek.

Heather raised her hands. “No! We found the place like this. When we arrived, several malfunctioning bots were fleeing. We disturbed them.”

“You are fortunate we did.” Loka stepped in front of Heather. “They could have damaged a crucial component since you abandoned your position.”

Roland snorted and wiped his brow. “I abandoned nothing. I had to get out of here. The place was being overrun.”

“What’s making the bots go crazy?” Heather asked.

“Not a clue. The first I heard about it was when they came scuttling through a hole they smashed in the main door. We held them off, but don’t have lasers in here. It’s too much of a risk around the equipment. I told the crew to abandon the area and went to get weapons.” Roland scraped a hand over his chin.

“I was grabbed by some spider bots,” Heather said. “They dragged me out of my room. That’s the first I knew about the bots going wrong.”

Roland blew out a breath. “I didn’t mean to accuse you of anything. It’s just this place.” He waved a hand at a damaged panel. “It will take weeks to fix this. We’ll have to order a ton of new parts. With the comm system down, we can’t even request assistance.”

“How extensive is the damage?” Loka asked.

“It’s spreading across the station,” Roland said. “It won’t be long before the whole place is crippled. I can’t locate Helga. She must be considering abandoning the station if things continue to get worse.”

Helga Batiste was Prodigy’s station Commander. When she told you to abandon ship, you listened to her.

“We found something that might help.” Heather gestured Roland to the panel. “I’m not sure what this means, but it’s strange code.”

“Coming from an outside source,” Hoan said.

Roland studied the coding. “Bugger me. You’re right. Someone’s reprogramming the whole system. But why?”

“That’s what we were trying to figure out,” Heather said. “If there’s anything we can do to help, we’re happy to stay. There’s not much else we can do, and we’d like to stay out of the way of those angry bots.”

“I’m not sure you can help. I’ve been working on decommissioning the security cyborgs with mixed results,” Roland said. “They are a big cause of concern. They can tear a hole in the space station wall if they have a mind to. We also need to keep an eye on the smaller bots. They can get into panels and do just as much damage.”

“Heather discovered the strange code in your system,” Loka said. “She is valuable. Make use of her.”

Roland eyed Loka. “And you are?”

“Loka’s working on the space station doing the mapping program for our galaxy,” Heather said. “He’s also useful to have on your team. He’s sort of a genius among the Picar. So is Hoan. They’re clever. They can help.”

Roland nodded. “I am interested in the mapping program. I didn’t realize you were involved in that.”

“I’m not,” Heather said.

“But she will be useful to you,” Loka said.

“Maybe you can help.” Roland turned and looked at his crew, who were scurrying from panel to panel checking the damage. “If you can help fix this, then you’re welcome here.”

Vegas appeared in the doorway, Nell by her side. “Heather! I’ve been looking for you.” She ran over and hugged her.

“I’ve been trying to get in touch with you.” Heather shook her wrist. “The communications are down. We came here to see what was going on.”

“Everything is down.” Vegas’s wide eyes took in the damage in the room. “What happened here?”

“The bots,” Heather said.

“Someone’s made them seriously unhappy,” Nell said. “You think this has got something to do with the one that attacked you in our office?”

“I hadn’t thought.”

“What happened?” Loka asked.

“I didn’t tell you. When I was working, a spider bot came into the office and lunged at me. It was acting like it wanted to kill me."

“Diadora crushed it,” Vegas said.

“This must be why it behaved so strangely,” Heather said. “We’re going to lend a hand here getting the main systems back online.”

“You’d better make sure Diadora doesn’t catch you,” Vegas said. “You’re not going to believe this, but she still expects us to work on making matches.”

“That’s impossible. We don’t have access to the database. How can we make matches?”

“The old-fashioned way, using the application forms the aliens submitted. You know she insists on us keeping offline files, so we have no excuse not to work if there’s a problem with the database.”

“I need to stay here,” Heather said. “I can work with Loka to help fix things.”

“You two are working together?” Vegas flashed a grin at Heather.

Loka’s hand touched Heather’s back, as if showing her he was there for her.

“I guess we are.”

“I’ll cover for you as long as I can,” Vegas said. “You’re more useful here than pulling files in the office. Honestly, it’s a complete waste of time.”

“If I can’t help out here, I’ll come find you,” Heather said. “I don’t want Diadora getting angry with me.”

Vegas gave her another quick hug before leaving the room with Nell.

Heather turned to see Roland on his knees, a tool bag open. “Where shall we start?”

“Focus on the panel above my head,” Roland said as he dismantled a singed looking supply route. “Keep checking the code. You might spot something else. The thread you’ve got is incomplete, so I’m not sure what all the commands mean. See if you can block any code variations. I’m concerned whoever is doing this could send more instructions.”

“We’re on it.” Heather strode to the panel with Loka. The panel felt hot as she stopped in front of it. She frowned and leaned closer.

“Do you see something?” Loka asked.

“I’m not sure. Something is off here.” She ran her hand over the top of the control panel.

“Another coding error?”

“Let’s see if I can get full access. This screen is operating in compatibility mode, so we aren’t seeing everything.” As Heather pressed on the screen, a surge of white hot energy shot out, slamming into her chest and knocking her backward.

She imagined she’d cried out, warning others to stay away, but she couldn’t be certain as her fingers throbbed and tingles of energy flooded through her.

The last thing Heather felt was Loka’s arms capturing her, preventing her from hitting the ground as she passed out.