Inga 3D Render, Digital Artwork by emarukk

! REPORT

Inga

3D Render by emarukk

The corridor stretched like a diseased artery toward the customs zone, illuminated by the spasmodic flicker of neon tubes that buzzed with the death-rattle of failing circuitry. Advertisement displays pulsed with artificial silver light, projecting a Nexfood sign where an impossibly perfect family, teeth too white, smiles too wide, consumed laboratory-grown protein in a gleaming station that existed only in propaganda fantasies Confederation loved to share. "Every Bit. Every Soul. Every Soul. Laboratory-grown and safe," the slogan repeated, its digital stutter betraying ancient hardware. The irony hung thick as the savory aroma that violated regulation, wafting through corroded ventilation ducts: real animal flesh turning on a makeshift spit, fat dripping onto contraband coals with a forbidden sizzle that triggered primal hunger, the kind of illegal luxury that made saliva pool beneath tongues and empty stomachs contract with visceral want.

Here, in the gangrenous underbelly of Avernus Prime, silence carried the weight of impending violence. Rust-flaked shadows clung like parasites to the wrecked steel beams overhead, their jagged edges reminiscent of broken bone. The deck plates, once shiny but now corroded to lace-like patterns, transmitted vibrations through boot soles, each footfall announcing presence to those who knew how to listen. Gravit plating hummed; it sounded like it used its last energy to suck boots to the deck. Life manifested only as ghots: a hollow-eyed scavenger with radiation burns mapping constellations across sallow skin, bounty hunters and Confederation agents pressed into a doorway's curve. The blue-and-yellow uniformed shapes of two corporate security officers whose synchronized pacing betrayed their neural-link implants, their expressions vacant except for the occasional twitch of boredom-laced vigilance, fingers perpetually caressing shock truncheons charged to kill rather than stun. Somewhere in the background, a cleaning automaton with outer casing covered by filth dragged itself in endless circles, its vacuum attachment sucking weakly at the accumulated grime, pushing refuse into neat collections that would be collected to illegal fireplaces and cooking fires, its disconnected, rudimentary SI trapped in a loop of hopeful servitude long after its masters had abandoned it to this metal purgatory.

Closer to the corridor's mouth, a lost soul and two Crimson Nest spotters lingered beneath a flickering advertisement display hanging from a bulkhead. The taller one, skin bleached corpse-white from years without sunlight, sparked a freshly rolled joint between stained fingers, the narcotic smoke curling up in violet tendrils that seemed to writhe with sentience. His companion, a rail-thin figure whose scalp blazed with bioluminescent hair cycling neon green shades, wore a black void suit adorned with interface ports that pulsed in rhythm with the station's distant heartbeat. Their eyes, one set filmed with targeting implants, the other unnaturally dilated from pupil-mod surgery, trailed every lone traveler, calculating appetites and cataloging weaknesses with predatory precision. Their very presence served as both warning and invitation: in Avernus, you could purchase erasure, addiction, or something infinitely more sinister, all waiting behind those ornate doors where synthesized pheromones carried the scent of forgotten homeworlds and impossible desires.

Inga Halvik moved with the calculated urgency of prey, shoulders tense beneath her short-cropped jacket, its surface too new to appear in Avernus. Her shoulder-length hair, honey blonde with three centimeters of ash-brown roots, hung in unwashed strands that partially obscured the constellation of freckles across her left cheekbone. The data-crystal burned against her left side through the hidden pocket of the new jacket she bought days earlier, the crystal's microscopic engravings containing forty-seven minutes of unfiltered footage from the Sonos massacre under the command of the Confederation's Military governor.

The corridor's ceiling leaked condensation that splattered her neck in irregular, ice-cold droplets as she navigated toward Docking Bay 17-C, where her Jumpline Courier, a retrofitted Companion-class with mismatched hull plates and an illegal trans-band transmitter, waited with pre-programmed coordinates to pierce the Orvos security blockade until safe broadcast distance to shoot a message into the beast before they could to jam frequencies of her pirate broadcast.

She inhaled the station's fetid biography with each breath: recycled air tinged with copper-sweet mold spores, the forbidden aroma of actual animal protein charring on contraband coals, the ammonia-sharp chemical cleaners that failed to mask the iron-rich scent of recently spilled blood and raw stink of human waste. The Nexfood advertisement flickered overhead, its projection stuttering as the family's faces momentarily revealed skull structures beneath synthetic smiles before the display glitched entirely to Vanthelix Industries' neon-blue logo, a stylized eye with circuitry veins, promising "Evolution Without Permission. Live Forward." in seven languages simultaneously.

Past the Crimson Nest spotters with their battle-ready equipment and predatory postures, Inga detected their synchronized laughter, three notes rising then falling in practiced harmony, as they pivoted like twin satellites to orbit a fresh-faced visitor whose wide eyes betrayed Inner Ring origins. Pleasure seeker, or victim.

Ingas's boots, worn smooth at the heels, made gravity plating to cry as she pressed them against the deck plates as she counted nineteen steps to the security checkpoint, and a few more to her ship's waiting embrace.

Only a few meters to the docking ring now. Almost safe. Almost free to broadcast the unvarnished truth that would shatter the Confederation's carefully constructed reality like a hammer through glass.