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+++ Contact Alpha/33/1/Eta, please identify yourself +++

Officer Varla pulled his coat tighter as the servitor relayed the message to the incoming craft. He had woken early, roused to deal with several unidentified contacts approaching Sub-Orbital 7, and the day cycle of heating the station had yet to begin. The lack of his morning caffeine in his system also greatly irritated him. He could have remained in his quarters for most of the working day, judging on the lack of activity, as with a crew of only a dozen officers and several arms men, unusually small for a defence station, boredom and lack of discipline was common here.
To be fair, Varla cared very little for the oncoming craft: Sub-Orbital 7 had seen very little traffic for over 8 months now, bar the infrequent freighter or cutter. The technology on board the station was beyond efficient and would probably never be repaired, yet somehow they were expected to defend the Lunia Jump-Point with the very minimum of equipment. Regardless, the scan would be complete soon, Varla would give clearance as always, and then he could get a few more hours of sleep.

+++ Contact Alpha/33/1/Eta. This is your last warning. Identify yourself or you will be fired upon. +++

The temperature on the bridge suddenly dropped even further as the ageing reactor powering the station relocated power to the lance arrays situated below deck. The lances themselves hadn’t been fired in decades, before Varla had even arrived, the circumstances of which he had found himself here he had chosen to forget.
Condensation began to form on the viewports as the temperature became unbearable, yet the servitors seemed unfazed by the sub-zero conditions. Feth it, Varla thought, feth them all, let them sort it, as he turned from the bridge back to his quarters. Hopefully Ferlon would be awake to relieve him, if the lazy bastard would even bother to stir from his bunk today. If Varla’d had any sense, he would have pushed the fether into an airlock months ago, yet he tolerated him, as Ferlon was the only crew member who had any knowledge of the reactor and thus was the only thing stopping them freezing to death.

+++ All crew, potential incoming hostiles…prepare to…combat teams report to posts… +++

Static filled the air as the intercoms aboard the station barked out combat drills and incoming vectors. After months of pointless broadcasts, Varla had learned to phase out the automated messages, focusing only on getting back to his bunk and not freezing to death…

…freezing to death…
…freezing…

…he paused. The temperature had suddenly skyrocketed. Had he imagined the icy viewports? Were the frostbitten servitors simply a dream? Why in the Emperor’s name was he wearing this coat? He ripped it off as well as his shirt, but leaving behind a sweat-soaked vest. The corridor was turning into an oven; heat rising from vents was visible as a thick distortion in the air. Every breath was torture for Varla, as he saw Tyrrip stumble from the mess hall and collapse in a fit of exhaustion and dehydration. Temperature fluctuations were common on board a station as old as this, but nothing on a scale as this.
Suddenly, Varla was aware of a hideous rasping that seemed to come from everywhere at once. The noise was impossible to escape: it offended the ears, a form of echo that gave the impression that something was eroding, eating its way into the station. As quickly as he could given the unbearable heat, Varla unholstered his weapon: an antiquated auto-pistol given by his late father as a graduation gift. The weapon was probably the only thing on Sub-Orbital 7 that received regular maintenance, and Varla was grateful for that now as he racked the slide in one fluid motion.

Varla’s curiosity was short –lived however, as the entire wall section of the corridor suddenly disintegrated under a swarm of metallic insects. A scream began to form in Varla’s lungs, but was cut short of forming by the absence of oxygen, instead a haze of ice crystals left his mouth like an escaping soul. In his death, his final spasms caused his pistol to silently discharge, sending a single round drifting through the void towards the swarm consuming the station, ripping apart a single member of the swarm, the only casualty inflicted upon the unknown attackers.

Minutes after the swarm’s attack on the reactor complex, Officers Varla, Ferlon and Tyrrip, along with the rest of the crew had perished to the void. The lances aboard the station had already failed during the firing sequence, leaving the station defenceless hulk with no chance of even delaying any form of hostile attack. Sub-Orbital 7, a destitute station guarding a backwater mining planet a dead sector of space was ripped apart with only a single .25 pistol round fired in retaliation.

This is my first short story in this manner, and criticism is welcome.

Thanks for reading!

I liked it, I like how you have writhen this. And absolut great work in your description of the althou shortlived characthers

Thank you very much

Np, if you dont mind check my fluff out, it migth not be that good but I try. More info on the regiment it is about will follow tomorrow

I enjoyed reading it, and especially liked how you built up the suspense in so short a time. Nicely articulated ending as well

“So what exactly am I looking at here?” Asked Tzela, removing his gold-rimmed spectacles from his face and setting them down on the richly engraved desk. Short, aged, and with a girth that spoke volumes of his banqueting habits, he stared across at Persa, the gas mine’s chief engineer. On a dead world like Lunia in a facility suspended amongst the tremendous gas clouds, Tzela didn’t have the hardest job as the mine’s foreman, but small incidences like this seemed to give the impression that he was actually doing something here.

“I’m not sure exactly, it’s humanoid, but nothing I’ve ever seen. I doubt it’s even Imperial. Probably Xenos tech. We dredged it out of a filter so it must have fallen from orbit somewhere.”

“Couldn’t have done, anything falling from orbit would have been immolated by re-entry. And anyway, something this small couldn’t have arrived without something larger showing up as well. We haven’t heard anything from the orbital platforms.”

“We probably wouldn’t have heard anything from the Sub-Orbitals anyway. 1, 4 and 8 are too far for real comms, and I’m not even sure 2, 3 and 6 are still in service

“Good point. Still, does it seem like it’s looking at you?”

They both looked at the object in question on the table: A small mechanical device, resembling a beetle lay in several components, partly disassembled by Tzela. Despite a .22 round place in the dead centre of what would have been its thorax, there was still evidence of what could be called life in the machine. Tzela walked across his office to an antiquated cabinet and pulled out a bottle of cheap amasec and two glasses. “So what would you recommend Persa? You seem to know a lot about the mechanisms, will this affect our output in any way?”

“Unlikely, but the damage to the filter has set us back a bit. We have about 4 days before the transports arrive, but I can say we’re certainly going to reach out quota by then.” Perla explained, swirling the cheap liquor in his glass. He had never been a fan of alcohol, but had endured the bitter taste when in the company of others.

“Good. As long as we reach the quota, I couldn’t really care less about what happens to this”, gesturing to the machine on the desk. Looking back at it, Tzela could have sworn he had made more progress on taking apart the components. Even the bullet-hole looked far too small to have been made by a .22 round. “Once those carriers arrive, I want this thing packed and removed from this place. I…I just don’t like it, tell me you don’t like it either.”

“I can’t say I’m that fond of it either. I’ll go get a crate for it. Thank you for the drink” Persa said, holding back the gag reflex that usually accompanied Tzela’s generous dose of amasec.

“No need to thank me, I just…” They both looked at the desk. The creature had disappeared…

First part was pretty good. Reminded me of a chapter from the Iain M Banks Book 'Excession' where a similarly eccentric custodian of a space station meets a slightly more gory end.