Emergency Situation - Episode 4 3D Render, Digital Art by emarukk

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Emergency Situation - Episode 4 3D Render, Digital Artwork by emarukk

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PROFILE

Emergency Situation - Episode 4

3D Render by emarukk

Mattias grinned, shoulders relaxed, hand in hand with Lotta, standing beneath a flickering streetlamp, old blue neon bleeding over their faces. The city’s pulse echoed in the puddles at their feet, coolant and something chemical: the signature stench of Portauthor’s underbelly. You could almost taste old battery acid on the back of your tongue. He was nothing like the feral creature I’d dragged from that trash skip years back. The transfer docks’ security lights had cast harsh shadows across his face then, illuminating knuckles split from fighting and ribs visible beneath his torn shirt. Sometimes, his mother’s desperate message still echoed when I couldn’t sleep: “Please find my boy.When I had hauled him aboard the Wayward Current, I had seen the crew exchange glances; a mercenary vessel was no place for rehabilitation projects. It was a tough life, but I had kept him out of the boarding parties, away from the blood and screaming. Now he stood with his fingers laced through Lotta’s, spine straight, eyes clear. Something like pride flickered in my chest as I looked at him. I’d made the right decision.

The only wrinkle was Mattias’s current employment status. The last intel I had was that he had signed on with Multi Group or one of their subsidiaries, putting him squarely in bed with the people who’d pay good money to see me spaced without a suit.

I skidded to a halt before him, each wasted second prickling at my nerves. The mission clock in my tactical eye flashed warning red. Weighing options against urgency, I made my call. Mattias, his compact frame belying the combat skills I had seen flatten men twice his size, could turn this desperate sprint into something with actual odds. And Lotta, with her network of whispers and back-channel access codes nobody was supposed to have; together, they might mean the difference between success and body bags.

Mattias’s mouth was already moving when I turned to face him, his smile genuine enough. He couldn’t know we’d had targeting locks on his employer’s vessel during that skirmish in the Outer Ring last month; he’d played a minor commander role. I returned only the bare minimum of pleasantries before cutting to business. Despite our precarious situation, I held one advantage: the bonds Mattias had formed aboard my ship years ago. He’d found in Aygul the maternal guidance he craved, looked to Casia like the sister he never had, and, less nobly but just as predictably, had developed the kind of fixation on Emilia that would make even the most libertine sector’s content filters trigger emergency shutdowns and erase the art from his imagination, along with the artist, if it were rendered to see.

Lotta hovered at his shoulder, her sharp eyes scanning the street, purple hair bright even under the sickly lamps. She looked like she belonged anywhere and nowhere all at once, a contrast to Mattias’s deliberate stillness, her presence a constant challenge to the world’s assumptions.

The words left my mouth with the sudden impact of a cargo container breaking loose during atmospheric entry. “Mattias, I need you.My voice was low, the city’s noise pressing in around us: distant police whistles, the hum of drones, the cough of a generator firing up. “Aygul’s in trouble. I got Casia’s warning tag, and we’re short on time.I explained how Aygul’s fierce loyalty to her homeworld’s traditions had backed her into a corner this time. Some ancestral codes weren’t meant to survive interstellar politics, especially ones involving blood debts and ceremonial daggers.

The smile vanished, replaced by the calm, icy readiness I had seen in him during close calls on the ship. He didn’t ask if it was bad. He didn’t ask if he’d get paid. He just nodded, already reaching for Lotta’s hand in silent confirmation.

I pressed on, urgency leaking into my words. “Whatever contract you’re tangled in here, let it wait. I could use both of your hands. And if we get through this, we talk about the future.
He almost smiled again, a private joke flickering between him and Lotta, probably about how they’d once been my most hopeless projects, and now here I was, asking for their help. Lotta’s blue eyes met mine, then Mattias’s. She didn’t need to say anything; she was in. Mattias opened his mouth, but whatever he planned to say dissolved as a new cacophony cut through the street’s background hum: louder than police whistles piercing the air, voices rising in anger somewhere nearby, generators idling, and the persistent buzz of drones slicing through the smog overhead.

The whine of a miniature grav-lift cut through the air, a distinctive pitch that raises the hairs on your neck.

The whine sliced through the air like a vibroblade, an unmistakable, high-pitched keening that sends your hand instinctively to your sidearm. Anyone who’s survived the Outer Ring knows that sound. Military-grade microthrusters: the kind they mount on hunter-seekers and assassination drones, compact enough to deliver a payload precisely where it needs to go, lethal enough that you don’t get a second chance if you hesitate.

My combat reflexes had overreacted. Here in Portauthor’s crowded streets, that distinctive whine belonged to nothing more threatening than a civilian hover scooter weaving through the evening traffic, illegally, on the sidewalk.

I put on my best CSB face, flagging the hover scooter with a gesture that would have passed muster in any official parade. I squared my shoulders, chin tilted at the precise angle of unearned authority. The gesture came naturally after years of observation, that particular swagger of someone who’s never questioned their right to command a room. CSB officers all carried it like a second uniform, that invisible mantle of superiority. I had learned to mimic it perfectly, right down to the slight downward glance when addressing civilians. I had observed them closely; some joker could mention the deep inspection of their Ghost between our sheets.

The scooter’s piercing whine faded to a low hum as it decelerated, coming to rest at the curb.

For a heartbeat, I let myself feel the weight of the moment, the grit and neon, the stink of the city, the memory of how easily a life can tip sideways. I remembered Mattias as a boy, learning to trust Aygul’s calm and Casia’s laughter, awkward and hungry for approval. Now here he stood, Lotta at his side, both shaped by far too much loss and by the small, stubborn kindness that keeps a crew together.