“Cabin pressure stabilized, airlock secure, docking complete. All personnel, please report to the cargo bay for accountability and duty transfer.” The Scaladorian in charge of life support called over a general announcement channel once the process had completed. Maintaining a positive atmosphere during docking and other maintenance was always a pain no matter what ship a soldier served on. Some were worse than others, and this ship captain was particularly awful to everyone that fell into a lower social class than he. All these problems were almost over. He had orders to transfer to another ship, provided he could deal with the captain's insults for a few more days.

  He was tired of playing this game. Life support was supposed to be a vital part of any ship’s duties, but they were always seen as unskilled labor at best. A few years ago, the Stygiboran Empire had announced plans to give their premiere servants access to an A.I. platform that could handle basic ship functions on its own without mortal oversight. It would effectively put most Scaladorian sailors out of a job, but he highly doubted their masters cared about that. If everything went well, his next assignment would only last a year, then he could retire.

  The life support tech slid his chair back and stood, stretching his libs and antennae after hours of staring at the monitor to ensure the docking process went smoothly. It would take a few minutes to get all the way through the ship and into the space station, but that would be a time where he wasn’t expected to do anything productive.

  Ship personnel and rotation guards alike were rushing here and there, making sure they had everything they needed in order to avoid being called out by the captain. It was mostly an arbitrary task. Captain Took’Sar enjoyed watching the soldiers he commanded stand in a formation for hours on end for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Some people thought the secret to avoiding punishment was to have a perfectly pressed uniform. Some polished their chitin until it shone like the light of a star.

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  They were all wrong. The Captain would always choose someone to screw with, and it had little to do with appearance or performance. They failed to see that it was always political, that soldiers with families in good standing could avoid all punishment simply by supporting the right party and pretending to fall perfectly in line.

  As the tech stepped through the airlock and into the station, he noted the distinct lack of inspectors from the station's crew. A small voice in the back of his mind told him he should report that discrepancy, but Took’Sar was a pain in the sternite and was due a little inconvenience. If he was lucky, the oversight would ground their ship and allow the tech to get some real sleep before needing to return to his post.

  It took another five minutes, but eventually everyone was in formation and waiting for the captain to call accountability and let them go. By now, the tech had noticed more than a simple lack of inspectors. The door to the station was still closed. Usually, the person running life support would’ve opened it to allow free passage to and from the docking bay by now. But, luckily, he was in formation and this discrepancy was also Took’Sar’s problem.

  “I want all of you ready to leave this miserable rock the moment everything is in order. Quartermaster, have you spoken to the ground crew to verify the size of our load?” Took’Sar asked, pacing across the deck with one pair of arms behind his back and the other holding a heavy scepter.

  It looked ridiculous, but the technician figured that if the captain wanted to look stupid, it wasn’t his problem. In just one more jump, it wouldn’t be his problem ever again.

  “Sir, the ground crew says they have nearly seventy kilos. That’s a little higher than average, but not by much.” The quartermaster said from somewhere in the back.

  “Good. Order them to fly the load up first and… what is this? Life support!” The captain screamed as the airlock door to the cruiser slammed shut.