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The silence was unsettling.

“It would make sense for whoever is doing this to want the ship’s comms disabled,” Loka said. “It adds to the confusion, makes it harder for us to coordinate things.”

“Who would want to do this?” Heather asked. “Why sabotage the station? There are dozens of space stations like us in this galaxy.”

“Perhaps we aren’t the only station being targeted?” Hoan suggested. “This could be going on across your galaxy.”

“It would need to be an advanced alien race to do that,” Loka said.

“Definitely not humans,” Heather said. “As Loka pointed out earlier, we’re not advanced enough to do something like this.”

“Or mean enough.” Hoan smiled at her. “Besides, most of us aliens love you humans. You make the star system a better place.”

Heather grinned. “I think so too.”

Loka cleared his throat. Hoan had such an easy way about him. Loka wished he could be more like him. It would make it easier to speak with Heather. “Let’s check the systems and see what the bots were targeting. It will give us a clue as to what they are doing here.”

He focused on the communications systems, while Hoan checked the power lines and Heather scanned the general systems of the station.

“This is weird.” Heather peered at the screen in front of her. “There is anomalous code active in the system.”

Loka and Hoan joined her by the screen.

“You’re right.” Loka stared at the strange text scrolling down the screen.

“I’m not an expert at coding, but I recognize a few commands. Someone is making the station bots malfunction.” Heather pointed at a line of code. “See that there? That’s ordering them to destroy the communications system.”

“And that line of code shows the commands are coming from outside the space station.” Loka pointed at the odd mixture of alien code symbols.

“You were right,” Hoan said. “Someone is targeting this place. Someone wants to damage this station.”

“We still have no idea why,” Heather said. “Prodigy isn’t all that special. It’s one of the earlier space station models. We don’t even have advanced thermonuclear heating and cooling systems.”

“I doubt they’re interested in things like that,” Loka said. “There must be a reason why they are targeting this place.”

A grinding sound had everybody tensing and looking up from the screen.

Heather felt Loka’s hand on her shoulder and was reassured by his touch.

Chief Engineer Roland Blackfriar strode in, holding a laser. He lowered it when he spotted Heather, Loka, and Hoan. “What are you doing in here?” His crisp British accent announced every word perfectly.

A crew of six engineers in red jumpsuits appeared behind him, their gazes anxious as they looked around at the devastation.

“Looking for you,” Heather said. “We need to know what the problem is with the lights and, well, everything else.”

“Crew, check vital functions,” Roland ordered. “Get things as stable as you can. I want a systems-wide status report in fifteen minutes.”

His crew flew into action.

Roland turned back to Heather, suspicion clear in his dark eyes. “How did you get in? We sealed the main door after the bots broke through.”

Heather pointed a thumb over her shoulder. “I know the back-way in.”

“Have you got something to do with the bots’ meltdown?” A vein bulged in Roland’s forehead, and sweat trickled down the side of his stubbled cheek.

Heather raised her hands. “No! We found the place like this. When we arrived, several malfunctioning bots were fleeing. We disturbed them.”

“You are fortunate we did.” Loka stepped in front of Heather. “They could have damaged a crucial component since you abandoned your position.”