Operator Side
Adapted from the game “Silpheed” by GameArts

When you live and work in space, there’s never a dull moment. Sure, the IDS, Interstellar Deep Space, ships have down time when they’re not being bombarded by pirates or space-borne creatures the size of Saturn, but they did not have the problems I faced day to day. I worked at a hotel. Well, the official name was Orbital Installation Tango, but it was known as Heavenly Hilton and it was touted as the ideal place to stay when you wanted to be millions of miles away from home.

A multi-tiered structure with four outside rings, two internal rings and what was known as “The Core” in the center of the facility. While the rings served the civilians, someone had the brilliant idea to set up a command post for EarthStar Defense Command. Sure, it looked good on paper and as long as a battle was not brought to our front door, it didn’t matter. But even though the word “Defense” was in the name their mission was clearly offensive and the time eventually came that a battle was brought to us, through mass loading dock four, to be specific.

“Attention, ladies and gentlemen, please be advised that your craft is moving at five hundred and sixty-two miles an hour and there will be some slight discomfort as the A-Higgs field engines engage and you arrive at Heavenly Hilton. Our staff welcomes you. Thank you.”
I turned the commercial communications off and switched to the traffic channels.

“Tango to ICS crew. You are cleared for docking at port four.”
“Acknowledged, Tango.”
“Tango to ICS crew. Adjust your trajectory by seven degrees and activate your mag-beacon”
The mag beacon would lock onto the crat and safely bring it to the docking port, assuming the crew made the proper calculations—and by that, I mean listen to what I was saying.
“Of course,” came the reply.
“Tango to ICS crew, I didn’t copy that.”
“ICS to Tango, acknowledged.”
“Tango to ICS crew, acknowledged,” I answered with a little bit of venom to my voice. Oh yes, big bad man can sit in a big tin can and let the computer navigate him past Jupiter but gets a pain in the Uranus to talk to a woman so she can allow him to dock.

“You’re not a part EarthStar, you know?” Gretchen, my co-worker stated as she sat back down at her station.
“I know, but I can’t let anyone—especially this jackass—get away with thinking I’m just a computer he can dismiss.”
“They don’t. They know we’re here to assist.”
“You have way more confidence in them than I do,” I replied as I watched a red line appear on my monitor. “Tango to ICS Crew, disengage your engine core.”
Gretchen turned to me and looked at the monitor. “What’s going on, Rio?”
“ICS to Tango, we have a system malfunction.”
“Tango Operator Rio Kazama to Orbital Command. Code Angel!”
Gretchen spun back to her console. “Tango Operator Gretchen Alves to Orbital Command. Confirm Code Angel.”

“Code Angel” activated the powerful tractor beams on the central core. They were meant to be used only for EarthStar Defense ships but sometimes had to be used when cruiser flyboys decided they didn’t want to listen to me and, instead, place six thousand lives in jeopardy. Sure, we had protocols for a disaster, but I had only been a part of a VR simulation of an occurrence and even that was horrific to experience.

Two klaxons sounded off. One was an alert for the tractor beam and the other was a collision alert. They were loud and reverbed off the metal and resin structure of the control room. The civilian population of the hotel had no idea what was to occur.

The ICS was barely in visible range when the tractor beam fired and locked onto it. However, the ship’s momentum caused the inevitable collision.

“Brace for impact!” Gretchen screamed into her headset as we watched the ship fight against the Angel system and slam into the habitat ring. The facility vibrated slightly—as we were in the central core—but those vibrations were the combination of collapsing transparent aluminum, buckling titanium bulkheads and the shrieking of civilians.

The control room went dark with only red lights illuminating the walls.
“Gretchen! Are you okay? Where are you?”
“I’m over here, I’m okay, kind of bruised up.”
I could only view a dark silhouette of her in the dim lighting.
“Are you okay, Rio?”
“Yes, at least I think so.” I had so much adrenaline pulsing through my veins I could have been impaled and I never would have known it.
“Disaster Protocol,” Gretchen said as I could hear her move back to her console.
I walked back to my station and tapped at the screen. “My system’s out.”
“I’ll try to send a message.”
“No, we need to go to the designated area.”
“I plan to, but…” A low rumble vibrated the floor. “Yeah, I guess I’ll come with you. Let’s go!”
We ran out of the comm room and into the hallway. The lights were bright enough for us to see the hallway and ourselves in a vermillion shadow