“I hope for their sake, someone does,” Runstom said. “Come on, let’s go.”

They moved down the long, wide corridor toward the primary supply deck. Once they reached the end, they punched the door release and the storage bay opened widely before them. Everything inside was strapped down tight and mostly unaffected by the drop in gravity.

The floor lurched violently, one way, then the other, back and forth a few times. The three of them ended up in different parts of the room. Runstom found himself near the doorway and on his back, staring at the supports high above along the ceiling. Suddenly, a high-pitched, eardrum-piercing, nails-on-a-chalkboard sound screeched from the main supply corridor.

Runstom lifted himself off the deck and hooked his arm over the rounded edge of the door frame, getting a good look into the large hallway. Bright, white light sprayed in showers of sparks on either side of the corridor. Runstom froze, unable to comprehend what was happening, unable to react. After a minute or so, the white light was just a red ghost in his eyes. A few metallic clangs, and suddenly a round section of the wall popped out and hit the floor with a clatter. Almost instantly, three more circles of wall were projected out, one on the same side as the first, the other two on the opposite side.

There was a moment of eerie silence, save the distant klaxons, which from here were beginning to sound like an alarm clock, pestering him to wake up already. The silence didn’t last. Shouts and cheers emanated from the new holes in the corridor, and were soon followed by human forms. Human forms armed to the teeth with all manner of projectile, chemical, and even bladed weaponry.

“Fuck me!” Halsey breathed, suddenly at Runstom’s side. “Fucking gangbangers!”

“Shit,” Runstom said in a hush, trying not to draw any attention. “Why are they attacking us? There’s nothing of value on this prisoner ba—”

Runstom stopped himself as the gangbangers met in the middle of the corridor. There must have been twenty or so of them. He caught sight of the symbol on the back of one of their jackets. Three arrows in a circle, arranged as if one flowed into the next, but with the arrowheads bending outward.

Halsey must have seen it too. “Space Waste!” he whispered.

No further explanation was needed. The two officers didn’t have a need to know much about space gangs in their relatively low-key planetary assignments, but Space Waste was legendary in ModPol circles. One of the largest gangs in the known galaxy, and certainly the most well-organized, Space Waste had a knack for showing up without warning, taking what they wanted and then disappearing. More often than not, they left no living witnesses; only hundreds of InstaStick decals featuring their twisted-arrows logo.

“If Space Waste is hitting a prisoner barge,” Runstom started quietly, turning away from the doorway and slouching against the wall so he could face Halsey, “they must be here to break someone out.”

“How did they get aboard?” Halsey came around the other side of him to get coverage behind the wall.

“They must have used those tubes.” Runstom gestured vaguely. “Reinforced, pressurized boarding tubes that can extend from one ship and form a seal with the hull of another ship.” He’d been asking himself the same thing for the last several minutes and finally worked it out. “They’re flexible, to account for drift. They were originally designed for rescue operations.”

“How do you know this?” said Halsey, cocking an eyebrow.

Runstom shrugged. “I saw it on holo-vision once. It was one of those rescue documentaries.”

“But if they cut through the hull, what happens when they disengage the boarding tubes?”

“Well, in a rescue operation, it’s a last resort. They only do it when they know LifSup is failing on the endangered ship, and they want to get as many survivors off as quickly as possible.”

“So lemme guess,” Halsey said grimly. “The Space Wasters won’t be so humanitarian.”

“No, I would think not,” Runstom replied calmly. He wasn’t actually calm – far from it – but the situation was beginning to feel like it wasn’t real. Like it was just a holo-vid show. “They’ll probably get whoever they’re after, and then re-board their ships and disengage the tubes without bothering to attempt to re-seal the hull breach.”

“Shit,” Halsey muttered. “This is too much explosive decompression for one week.” Runstom shot Halsey a sour look and the other man put his hands up innocently. “What? It’s not like Jackson will get framed for it this time.”

Runstom suddenly stood up halfway, his eyes darting as he scanned the storage bay. “Where is Jackson?”

“Sit down!” Halsey said, pulling on Runstom’s arm. “We’ll get him in a minute. We need to figure out what to do! We don’t have much time!”

“Okay, okay.” Runstom crouched back down and spoke in a low voice. “They’ve breached this main supply corridor. So the rest of the ship might be okay, once they detach the boarding tube. But only if someone can hit the emergency air locks, then they can cut the rest of the ship off from this hallway and be safe.”

“Safe from decompression, anyway,” Halsey said. “If the Wasters have boarded us, they must have taken out our engines. When they get what they came for, they might just sail out to a safe distance and waste us.”

“Yeah. Well, we can’t do anything about that. The only option we have is to close this hatch on the supply deck and hope they leave the storage bay alone.”

“Then we’re on the drift until someone comes along and rescues us. As long as they decide to leave us alone.” Halsey frowned, then his face brightened suddenly. He arched his head up and peered around the curve of the doorway. “There is one other option …”

“What?” Runstom tried to follow his partner’s gaze. The hallway was clear. The gangbangers had mostly moved on, to somewhere in the main part of the ship. Two of them stood there near the breaches, their backs to the supply deck.

“We get aboard one of those …” he started, then stopped. Runstom guessed he was trying to imagine what kind of ships were at the other ends of those tubes.

“Did you grab your sidearm?” Runstom asked. “I only have a stun-stick,” he said, indicating the thin rod hanging off his belt.

“Shit, I don’t have anything,” Halsey said, padding around his uniform. He turned to look back into the storage bay. “There has to be something in here. Let’s go look around.”

“Okay. I’m going to find Jax first and check on him.”

“Forget Jackson, Stan! We’re going to die out here if we don’t move right now!” Halsey was trying to yell in a whisper, and it made the veins in his skinny neck bulge.

“Listen, George,” Runstom said, pushing down with his hands and trying to take the other officer down a notch. “Let’s just pretend for a minute that Jack Jackson is innocent. We’re about to attempt to commandeer some kind of space-gang vessel. We won’t even know what it will be until we’re on board. You and I are qualified to pilot one- or two-man patrollers, but anything bigger than that and we’ll have our hands full.” Halsey frowned at this, but kept his mouth shut. “Now I’m only trying to think a few steps ahead. If we manage to get away from this situation alive, and we’re out there in the middle of nowhere in god-knows-what kind of ship, I guarantee we’ll be glad to have another hand, especially a Life Support op!”

“Goddammit,” Halsey grumbled. He sighed. “Okay. Go find that goddamn operator. I’ll look for arms. Now let’s go, for fuck’s sake!”

They gave another look over at the two gangbangers farther up the corridor and then carefully made their way through the storage bay, ducking behind crates and shelving units as they went. The breach-guards seemed to have no inkling that someone might be hiding out on the supply deck. Or maybe they just didn’t care; which was worse news, because that would mean they knew it was going to be a quick in-and-out for their cohorts.