The Docking Ring, or “Why Blake Is Explicitly Not in Charge Here”
The docking ring was the obvious first choice.
Which was exactly why Blake had immediately handed authority to someone else.
Gunny stood at the threshold of the airlock, posture relaxed in the deeply alarming way of a man who had decided this was now his problem. Bates was beside him, visor down, already reviewing firing lanes and fallback arcs like this was a training exercise instead of a two-hundred-year-old bug nest.
Blake hovered three steps back.
Deliberately.
“…Just to be clear,” Blake said, “I am not in charge of anything involving guns, angles, tactics, or decisions that end with screaming.”
Gunny didn’t look back. “Correct, Skipper.”
“And if I have an idea?”
“You keep it to yourself.”
“Perfect,” Blake said. “I thrive in clearly defined irrelevance.”
Bates nodded once. “Captain, your current role is ‘don’t get in the way.’”
Blake gave him a thumbs-up. “I can absolutely do that.”
The docking ring opened up ahead of them in a vast, circular expanse.
Blake’s first, immediate, unhelpful thought was:
That is absolutely the size of a football field.
His second thought was:
Why do I keep ending up inside things that could host sporting events.
The ring’s deck was wide and flat, guide rails running its length where ships once docked nose-to-nose. The ceiling arched high overhead, lights long dead. Offices ringed the outer wall—glass-fronted, dark, and deeply untrustworthy.
“One exit,” Bates said calmly. “Straight corridor into the rest of the facility.”
Gunny nodded. “Good. Choke point.”
Blake squinted at the far corridor. “I hate that word.”
“You’ll hate the alternative more,” Gunny replied.
Blake shut up.
The Battle Bots rolled out first.
Two low-profile platforms, turret assemblies mounted cleanly on their backs, moving with quiet confidence. Their cheerful beeping was gone—combat mode had replaced it with silence that felt intentional.
Blake watched them go with a mix of awe and the creeping realization that he’d somehow enabled this.
Gunny raised a fist.
The team halted.
Bates tilted his head slightly. “Contact.”
Blake didn’t see it at first.
Then a beetle crawled out from beneath a collapsed guide rail—armoured, glossy, cat-sized, mandibles flexing experimentally like it was warming up for violence.
Blake’s entire body tensed.
Gunny didn’t raise his voice.
“Bot One. Single target.”
The turret snapped.
A short burst.
The beetle collapsed mid-stride, armour glowing briefly before splitting apart.
Gunny nodded once. “Confirmed kill.”
Blake swallowed. “That was… efficient.”
Gunny glanced back. “That’s the point.”
The deck vibrated.
Once.
Then again.
Bates didn’t hesitate. “Multiple contacts. Offices.”
The glass-fronted rooms began to bulge.
Panels cracked. Shattered. Beetles poured out—walls, ceilings, vents—fast and aggressive, legs clicking against metal as they surged toward the open deck.
Blake opened his mouth.
Gunny cut him off without looking. “Captain, with respect—stay behind the line.”
Blake immediately obeyed.
“Oh thank God,” he muttered, retreating several more steps than strictly necessary.
Gunny took over completely.
“Bots, wide arc suppression. Bates, left flank. I’ll take center.”
Laser fire stitched across the ring in controlled, disciplined lines. Beetles charged and died in heaps of smoking chitin. The Battle Bots rotated smoothly, turrets tracking and firing without hesitation.
Bates moved with precision, calling targets and adjusting coverage. No wasted shots. No panic.
Blake stood safely behind cover, heart pounding, Repairman sense screaming useless information about heat buildup and structural stress that absolutely no one had asked for.
“This is working,” Blake said faintly.
Gunny laughed. “Damn right it is!”
Wave after wave broke against disciplined fire.
Then fewer.
Then none.
Silence returned to the docking ring, broken only by the hum of cooling systems and the faint hiss of scorched metal.
Gunny raised a fist again.
All fire ceased.
Bates scanned once more, then nodded. “Clear.”
Blake peeked out from behind cover like a man emerging after a natural disaster.
“…Secured?” he asked.
Aubrey’s voice came through, calm and precise. “Docking ring shows no active life signs. Structural integrity remains high. Area suitable for staging and fallback.”
Blake exhaled shakily. “Excellent. I enjoyed not dying.”
Gunny turned to face him fully now. “Docking ring’s ours. This is our safe zone.”
Blake nodded quickly. “Great. Love safe zones. Big fan.”
He looked toward the single corridor leading deeper into the station—the dark throat of Naderia beyond the ring.
“That,” Blake said, pointing, “is where I absolutely do not want to be in charge.”
Gunny grinned behind his visor. “Good news, Skipper.”
“What.”
“You won’t be.”
The Battle Bots rolled forward, turrets tracking the corridor entrance.
Bates took position beside Gunny.
Blake stayed exactly where he was.
Out of the way.
And for once?
That was the smartest tactical decision anyone had made.
Gunny Builds a Box, Clarifies the Box, Then Builds the Correct Box (With Screens, Because Blake Is Not Walking In There)
Gunny stared at the corridor hatch for a long moment.
Not like a man afraid of what was on the other side.
Like a man mentally rearranging geometry until violence became efficient.
“That hatch,” he said at last, “is still a problem.”
Blake, who had very deliberately positioned himself behind several large, solid objects with comforting right angles, nodded immediately. “Yes. It’s a door. Doors are how bad things arrive.”
Bates studied the schematic overlay. “If we open it directly, beetles can breach into the docking ring.”
Gunny grinned. “Exactly.”
Blake sighed. “I don’t like that grin. That grin means you’ve already decided something and I’m about to hear it.”
Gunny tapped his comm. “Repair bots. I need a box.”
Blake blinked. “…A what.”
“A box,” Gunny repeated patiently, like Blake was being difficult on purpose. “Big enough for the Battle Bots. Armored. Sealed. Built around them.”
Blake frowned. “Around them.”
“Yes, Skipper.”
“So they’re inside the box.”
Gunny nodded. “Correct.”
“And the box is built around the hatch.”
“Yes.”
Blake rubbed his face. “So when the hatch opens—”
“—the only place anything can go,” Gunny finished, “is into the box, where the Battle Bots live.”
Blake froze.
“…That’s actually very clear.”
Gunny beamed. “Thank you.”
The repair bots got to work immediately.
Small units laid down anchor points directly around the corridor hatch. Medium bots followed, erecting a reinforced frame that enclosed the hatch completely—walls, ceiling, floor—forming a solid armored chamber with the sealed hatch at one end and nothing opening back into the docking ring.
No gaps.
No vents.
No clever beetle-sized shortcuts.
The box was a dead end.
Inside it, the two Battle Bots rolled into position, turret assemblies tracking the sealed hatch with patient, mechanical focus.
Blake did not move closer.
Instead, a portable holo-display unfolded beside him, then another, then another—live video feeds snapping online from the Battle Bots’ forward, side, and turret-mounted cameras.
Blake folded his arms and leaned back.
“…This,” he said, gesturing at the screens, “is the correct way for me to experience this.”
Elenor nodded approvingly. “Remote observation.”
Booth exhaled in relief. “Blessed technology.”
Gunny glanced back. “You’re missing the ambiance.”
Blake pointed at the screens. “I am seeing everything I need to see.”
The final plates welded into place with heavy, resonant thuds.
Aubrey’s voice cut in, calm and precise. “Containment structure integrity at one hundred percent. No detected ingress paths into the docking ring.”
Blake nodded. “Music to my ears.”
Gunny folded his arms. “Alright. Time to knock.”
Blake stared at the screens.
“Quick reminder,” he said. “I am emotionally fragile and watching this through cameras is already a compromise.”
Gunny waved him off. “You’ll be fine.”
A small repair bot scuttled forward, slipped into the box through a maintenance panel, and positioned itself at the hatch controls.
On the screens, the corridor hatch filled the view—scratched metal, ancient warning glyphs, shadows beyond.
Blake held his breath.
The hatch cycled open.
Something slammed against it instantly from the other side.
The impact rattled the feed hard enough to make Booth flinch.
Gunny grinned. “Contact.”
The Battle Bots fired.
On-screen, twin turret assemblies snapped to life, controlled bursts filling the confined space with hard white light. Chitin shattered. Limbs scattered. Beetles collapsed into a rapidly growing pile of very dead problems.
Blake stared at the footage, mouth slightly open.
“…That’s horrifying.”
Gunny nodded. “That’s containment.”
More impacts. More fire.
Then—nothing.
The feeds steadied.
Aubrey confirmed calmly. “Immediate threshold clear. No additional life signs detected within ten meters.”
Blake exhaled shakily. “Okay. I’m still alive. Good start.”
“Advance,” Gunny said.
On-screen, the Battle Bots rolled forward together—moving past the hatch and a short distance into the corridor beyond, just enough to widen their firing arcs and illuminate the space ahead.
The cameras swept the dark passage—metal walls scarred by age, debris scattered across the floor, shadows retreating under harsh illumination.
Nothing crossed back.
Nothing could.
Behind them, the armored box remained sealed, a solid barrier between the docking ring and everything worse.
Blake watched the feeds intently, hands clenched despite himself.
“So,” he said, voice tight, “we’ve created a one-way murder valve and I get to watch it in high definition.”
Gunny laughed. “Modern warfare, Skipper.”
Bates nodded. “Controlled, repeatable, secure.”
Blake leaned back against the bulkhead, heart still hammering. “I hate how competent this is.”
Gunny clapped his hands together. “Alright. Beachhead established.”
Blake kept his eyes on the screens—on the dark corridor beyond the Battle Bots, where the rest of Naderia waited.
Slow.
Dormant.
Full of teeth.
“…I really liked Selene,” Blake muttered.
Gunny grinned. “You’ll like this more once it stops trying to eat us.”
And with the feeds still rolling, the team held the line—
not with blind charges,
not with open doors,
but with cameras, armored geometry, and two turret-backed robots doing the dangerous part while Blake very sensibly stayed the hell out of the way.
One Hundred Metres of Silence, Then the Real Problem
The Battle Bots advanced exactly one hundred metres before anything interesting happened.
Blake knew the distance because Aubrey put a neat little range marker in the corner of the video feed, and because Blake had become the kind of person who fixated on numbers when his brain wanted very badly to panic.
“Okay,” Blake said, watching the feeds. “That’s… farther than I expected.”
Gunny’s voice came through calm and professional. “Wide corridor. Designed for traffic. Heavy equipment. Good sightlines.”
On-screen, the corridor was exactly that—wide enough to drive trucks through side by side, ceiling high, support struts spaced regularly along the walls. Scorch marks and old impact scars told stories Blake very much did not want narrated aloud.
The Battle Bots rolled to a stop in front of another hatch.
This one was different.
Thicker. Reinforced. Heavy locking rings visible even through layers of grime.
Blake’s stomach sank.
“…That looks important.”
Bates nodded, studying the feed. “Main facility access. Everything beyond that is the core of the station.”
“How big is ‘everything,’” Blake asked, already regretting it.
Aubrey answered immediately. “Station length: approximately three kilometres. Maximum width: one kilometre. Multiple vertical layers.”
Blake stared at the screen.
“…That’s not a station,” he said faintly. “That’s a city that hates us.”
Gunny chuckled. “Now you’re getting it.”
The good news—if it could be called that—was the area behind them.
Gunny and Bates moved up carefully once the Battle Bots held the forward hatch.
Blake watched through helmet cams now as the two marines swept the corridor methodically.
Offices first.
Glass doors shattered easily. Desks overturned. Storage lockers checked and marked. Beetle remains were sparse—old, brittle, crushed by time or something larger.
“Minimal activity,” Bates reported. “Signs of prior nesting, but abandoned.”
Gunny nodded. “They moved deeper.”
“Of course they did,” Blake muttered.
Crew quarters came next.
Rows of bunks bolted to the walls. Personal lockers hanging open, contents long gone or reduced to dust. A few mummified beetle husks clung to corners, inert and thankfully not moving.
Blake watched Gunny pause at one bunk, reach down, and straighten a fallen nameplate before moving on.
He didn’t comment.
Neither did Blake.
The mess hall was last.
Long tables bolted to the deck. Food dispensers cracked open and empty. Scorch marks on the walls where someone—long ago—had tried very hard to hold this space.
Gunny scanned, then gave a sharp nod. “Clear.”
Blake exhaled slowly.
“So,” he said over comms, “from docking ring to this point… we’re okay.”
“Yes,” Bates replied. “This stretch is viable as a forward operations zone.”
Blake closed his eyes briefly. “Good. I like zones. Zones imply we’re not immediately dying.”
On-screen, the Battle Bots remained fixed on the main hatch.
Beyond it, the feeds showed nothing.
Just darkness.
Depth.
Space.
Blake leaned closer despite himself. “Aubrey… any life signs past that hatch.”
A pause.
Then: “Multiple dormant signatures. Density increases sharply beyond this point.”
Gunny snorted. “That’s a polite way to say ‘bug city.’”
Blake rubbed his face. “Three kilometres long,” he murmured. “One kilometre wide. Vertical layers. That’s a lot of places for things to hide.”
“Yes,” Aubrey agreed. “A systematic clearing operation will be required.”
Blake opened his eyes.
“We are not,” he said firmly, “doing anything systematic today.”
Gunny’s laughter crackled over the channel. “Roger that, Skipper.”
Bates added, “Establishing perimeter and fallback positions only.”
Blake nodded, even though they couldn’t see him.
“Exactly. We cleared what we needed. We didn’t wake the hive. We didn’t get cocky.” He paused. “I’m counting that as a win.”
The Battle Bots’ turrets twitched slightly, tracking nothing.
Waiting.
Blake stared at the main hatch—the gateway into a space big enough to swallow them whole.
“That,” he said quietly, “is tomorrow’s problem.”
Gunny’s voice was cheerful. “Looking forward to it.”
Blake leaned back, exhausted but grimly satisfied.
They had a foothold.
A buffer.
A place that didn’t bite.
For now.
And sometimes, in a station three kilometres long and full of sleeping monsters, now was the only victory worth taking.
