Wilson Port, Tewanta - 3306-01-21 08:31 Galactic Standard Time
Francis Bonetti jabbed at the keys on the keypad beside the entrance to Wilson Port's with his index finger to enter his access code. For the fourth time the keypad made a low angry beep and flashed an icon on its display that Frank didn't recognize, while the door stubbornly refused to open. He felt tension build up in his shoulders, tension that had melted away during his two week holiday, out of the system, with Marianne. He couldn't have forgotten his access code. He was certain he'd gotten it right, and surely someone would have told him if his code had been changed or revoked. He took a deep breath, scanned his iris, and entered his access code again. He got an angry beep, and that weird little icon again, as a response. He heard the clunking of magboots in the corridor behind him and turned around to see Kayleigh in a full hard hazardous environment suit approaching him.
"Heya Frank! How was the holiday? Did you do or see anything interesting?", she said, her voice slightly distorted by the suits audio speakers.
"Hi Kayleigh. What's up with the door? And why are you in a H.E. suit? There hasn't been an accident, has there?"
"No, no accident, but I can't really chat here in the corridor: 'commenting Buurian Protectorate operations' in public spaces, yadda, yadda. Follow me to our new emergency response equipment room and I'll fill you in and get you suited up."
Kayleigh turned around and walked slowly back around the corner with Frank following behind, with a puzzled expression on his face. She stopped at a door that frank remembered opening into a storage room and entered a six digit code into a keypad that wasn't there two weeks ago. The door opened and Kayleigh stepped inside, followed by Frank. The room was completely different from how Frank remembered it: instead of rows of shelves with boxes of mundane maintenance parts, air filters, ducting tubes, pipes, light strips, etc., there were eight H.E. suit lockers, a rack containing spare air bottles, and racks of fire extinguishers. Seven of the H.E. suit lockers were empty. The door closed behind them and Kayleigh took off her helmet.
"So what's going on, Kayleigh? Why are you in a H.E. suit? And why wouldn't the door open for me?"
"We're running a training exercise on hazardous substance handling and we have the deck on lockdown: you need a H.E. suit transponder in addition to the normal security measures before the system will let you in."
"What? We've done hazardous substance training before. Aren't these new procedures kinda overkill?"
"Well Frank, before I saw the training videos, I'd have agreed with you, but this stuff is a little more hazardous than normal. Do you remember when the Buur Pit CMDRs went on their group exploration trip?"
"How could I forget! We were run off our feet with FSD upgrades beforehand, and while they were gone, Tewanta Company made a move to take over the station. It was a tiny bit stressful."
"And do you remember saying that they were planning on digging up alien artifacts?"
"Yeah?"
"Well, they did, and some of them returned with samples of alien weapons technology. They delivered that to a technology broker in Savitskaya Gateway, in Dao Zi. In return, The Protectorate got licenses to store, fit, maintain, and rearm, experimental enzyme missile racks. CMDR Gen.Zoff has requested that we be prepared to fit these weapons to ships for Buur Pit CMDRs that want them as well as the Wyvern Wing. They give considerable advantages against heavily armoured and reinforced ships. These things are nasty: they deliver a payload of caustic goo, that is designed to eat through stuff: hull bulkheads, remlock suits, people, you name it. We need to be ready to handle the racks, especially when they are in damaged states. We've been watching training videos and practicing. Today we are running a set of realistic training simulations. It's really cool, to be honest. We got a huge budget for this and we spent some of it on a smart nano crystal paint that we can make change colour. It was Miguel's idea. We have set it up as an alternative payload of munitions and in areas where we have leakage. It'll look like normal grease to start with but become a luminous green in high concentrations and the longer it is exposed to air. We can use that to see how well we do. If we get through the day without big splotches of luminous green paint on our H.E. suits, or on the deck, it will have been a very successful day. However, that will be unlikely. I have come up with a few fiendish scenarios, if I do say so myself.", she said wih a chuckle.
"I guess that means I need to stay off the deck for the day. I haven't done the training. I'll just get in the way."
"Actually, that'll be a help. We will probably have situations where there will be untrained or inexperienced people about in real situations, so we can use you to test out the buddy system. Let's get you suited up."
About ten minutes later, suited up in a hazardous environment suit, Frank passed through the doors to the outfitting deck with Kayleigh. Six of his team were already there, suited up, working on two missile racks. They had a large deep tray beneath each of the modules, that was made of a metal with a weird blue green damask pattern. "Meta alloy infused", Frank said to himself approvingly. Kayleigh waved over to the team.
"Hey Maxine! Can you come over here? Frank is playing the role of clueless dignitary for the day: can you get him up to speed?"
"Sure thing Kayleigh", Maxine said as she walked over. "Howdy Frank. I hope you and Marianne had a great holiday. We're looking forward to hearing what you think about these new hazardous material handling processes that we have been working on. Before you come any closer, I am going to run you through the basic comms protocol and hand signals, so you know what's going on and can act quickly if the situation demands it."
Frank paid close attention as Maxine explained the most important signals and what he should do in each case. As the presentation proceeded a smile crept onto his face. "They did this all on their own. They didn't need my help at all.", he thought to himself, "I must be doing something right!"