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A commission from https://x.com/chickhawk96
I've had this story in mind for a long time. It occurs near the beginning of Tash's story. Would have posted this sooner, but I had to "quickly write a nice story to go along with the pic" which took me a few weeks lol. Chickhawk does great work and you should check out his art.
Story is below.
The main entrance of RRG was still in view of the tram when Weyland called.
“I saw there was an explosion at RRG. Are you and Leck all right? What happened? I just got out of my meeting,” he said. Tash had been waiting for him to call and she sat at the back of the tram, picking the raritanium shards from her mask.
“Coolant mix-up, long story,” said Tash, “Incident Investigation Services are there, they’ll figure out.”
“Are you-”
“Yeah I’m fine, so is Leck. Foreman got hit with some raritanium shards- I don’t think it’s serious though.”
“Any ideas on what happened? Who mixed up the coolant?”
“That’s all I know,” said Tash, “IIS will have the details soon. I’m headed back to the Hub- I sent Leck home.”
“Good call, little buddy was probably shaken,” said Weyland, “hey uh, your gift came in! Should check it out when you get back.”
“What? Weyland, I said not to do that anymore,” a few of the Blaarg toward the front of the tram looked up as Tash raised her voice.
“It’s not like that; this is business related,” said Weyland. “Sanna and I talked about it.”
“She was okay with it?”
“She’s okay with the idea- she’ll like what I got.”
Most of the Blaarg were RRG’s first responders and she had given them a debrief when they’d arrived at the scene. She gave them an embarrassed smile.
“Tash?” Asked Weyland.
“Is there anything else that needs to be checked on while I’m out?” She asked.
“Uhh,” Weyland’s chair creaked like it did whenever he sat up, “I don’t…think so…yeah no, looks like- oh, something at T3 Labs.”
“What’s ‘something’?” Asked Tash.
“’Ozone detected in subterranean processing chamber,’ It doesn’t look serious; nobody’s on-site now.”
Tash shut her eyes.
“O-kay,” she said.
“They’re closed so nothing is running; it’s just something the hazard detection system picked up. Probably a regulatory thing, right?”
“I should check that out,” said Tash.
“Okay, yeah, better safe than sorry. Call me when you’re done.”
Tash disembarked at the Hub and hoped Weyland wouldn’t come down to the station to talk. Midday at Mecta meant two shift changes between the mercenaries and the administrative staff of Mecta Central Authority. The next set of trams to stop at the platform were stuffed with the taller, armored Blaarg and she waded through them and toward the end of the station, where the less frequent routes ran. Less than a minute after arrival, the trams departed again and sent Orxon's green haze swirling over the platform.
T3 rented nearly three kilometers away from the MCA Hub in the small-scale laboratory spaces and the route wound through the industrial region surrounding the Hub. The only other occupants in the car were a few facilities bots, locked into charging slots by the exits.
Tash pulled her mask off. The last of the odor of burnt gunpowder dissolved into the tinny smell of sanitized air. Saracen Group had built another firing range somewhere by the Hub. Tash slid a stimulant patch from the pack tucked into the side of her mask. She held the patch in two fingers and breathed on it. The tram rounded a turn as she pressed the patch against the underside of her chin. The translucent square stuck to her fur and she rubbed her chin against her chest.
Tash pulled her mask back down and unlocked her tablet.
She’d visited T3 Labs five times. Their listed business was “Process refinement and pilot batch production for specialty chemicals.” The facility had received seven safety reprimands, paid seven-hundred and fifty bolts in safety violation fees and she had yet to encounter anyone at their facility.
The small-scale laboratories felt much more like her university than the rest of Mecta Industrial Park. The tram passed through neat, empty streets flanked by squat, nondescript structures no bigger than an apartment in Corson V. The renters paid a small fee for perimeter checks, but otherwise, Saracen Group and the rest of the mercenaries had little to do with the area. Even materials shipments were usually local courier, rather than coordinated through MCA. She saw the renters from time to time; they always drove beater shuttles and were usually young Blaarg working at startups.
She was still looking at her tablet when she exited the tram.
The alert had come from MCA’s Groundwork hazard detection system. T3 still hadn’t submitted information on their safety controls and so MCA had maintained the basic system built into every rental space.
“10PPM Ozone detection in subterranean space.” read the alert, which had been generated about an hour prior.
T3’s train platform and lab façade were still unchanged from when the company had moved in and they hadn’t put up any signs outside of their single-story building. The only indication the structure was inhabited was the readout on Tash’s tablet.
She unlocked the door and looked inside.
The “reception area” of the building was a mess of a mixture of office and laboratory equipment. A sandwich laid atop the front desk, next to a box of flasks. The receptionist’s terminal had been pushed aside and a series of burners were arranged on the desk.
Tash typed a note about equipment misplacement, then opened a map of the facility. The building was still in Mecta’s default rental layout. T3’s scientists were probably old, academic researchers and they didn’t know how to use restructuring software.
A hall with three administrative offices extended out of the reception area and Tash stepped around the receptionist’s desk. The first two offices looked about the same as the reception area, with laboratory equipment piled inside.
The third office was locked. Tash overrode the lock and peered in. An administrative tablet and keyboard sat atop a lockbox of data storage. She relocked the door and continued down the hall, to the stairs.
Each small-space laboratory had a subterranean level and most renters used it for pilot runs or bulk storage. T3 described its lower level as in use for “materials production”. They made no other notes, other than affirming they were not using or storing any ultra-hazardous materials in accordance with their rental agreement.
Tash typed a note about inadequate process description, then descended the single flight of stairs and peered into the “materials production” area. The lights were in power-saving mode and she waited for her eyes to adjust to the sleepy red glow.
Four interplanetary shipping containers made a wall on one side of the space while two half-constructed high-pressure reactors stood in the middle of the space. To the left of the reactors stood a worktable piled with welders and wrenches. The rest of the lower level looked empty.
Massed around the reactors were liquid storage drums. Tash stayed in the stairwell and magnified her view of the containers. They held organic solvents in the second-class flammability category.
She was typing another storage violation when an alert appeared on the tablet screen.
“158PPM ozone detection in subterranean space.”
The MCA sensor only had to be mounted in a non-enclosed location within the 6,700 sq. meters of the lower floor. Either the sensor was malfunctioning or the entire lower level was waiting to catch fire.
She switched to a thermal view. The reactors and drums were ambient temperature but the shipping containers glowed a few degrees warmer. She eased open the door and crept into the production area.
An electric hum built as she approached the shipping containers. Reaching them, she peered around the corner of one. A stainless-steel cabinet, around three meters by three meters, leached heat into the floor. The cabinet drew power from triple-sized conduit and the floor vibrated under her feet.
A pipe extended from the top of the machine and ran along the ceiling. The pipe was nearly black with cold and Tash switched out of thermal view.
The pipe was coated in a layer of frost which thickened as she followed the pipe across the lower level. She passed the reactors and tracked the pipe into the opposite end of the production space. The pipe abruptly reached a 90-degree fitting and dropped from the ceiling. It ran for a few meters at foot-level before feeding into the floor.
Tash stopped.
A dark blue stain bled across the floor from one of the pipe’s fittings. Steam curled off of the pool as the ozone evaporated.
Accessing tenant systems sent an automatic alert to Sanna.
Tash swiped to her personal messages and selected Sanna's smiling profile picture. Tash typed a message, then deleted it. Her fingers hovered over the screen for a few seconds, before she typed again.
“Someone at T3 goofed their refrigeration temps and it’s causing a leak. Just going to fix that and leave them a note.”
The patch had dissolved into the skin under her fur and her heart thumped in her ears as she opened T3’s operating systems.
The floorplan illuminated around her.
The pipe fed into a high-pressure cryotank installed below grade. Besides an installation date, T3 had saved no other information about the tank. The machine feeding the tank was a Dreksson OX-809.
Tash pulled up Dreksson Industrial’s catalogue. The OX-809 could produce up to a metric ton of ozone in an hour. Her nose went cold as she looked back at the palisade of shipping containers.
She shut off the OX-809 and as the hum faded, the hiss of ozone filled the silence.
The emergency supply room hadn’t been opened since T3 had moved in and the door was still keyed to the default password. Tash slung the vacuum cylinder over her shoulder and checked its battery.
The production floor had been set to comfort environmental controls and the temperature would only adjust down to 7.2C. Tash reset the system to MCA controls, which could cool the lower level to -70 C. The electric hum returned and the walls rattled as coolant began flowing around her.
Another alert pinged her as she knelt by the spill. She stretched her fingers and pulled both gloves tight. The evaporating ozone breathed across her suit, charring an unseen layer of grime. She straightened and drew a long breath.
She was still exhaling through pursed lips when she brought the vacuum nozzle to the edge of the spill. The cylinder whirred and she took another long breath through her nose. A call from the MCA Hub made her blink.
“Hey Weyland.”
“I keep getting alerts for T3, the concentration is going up I think?” Said Weyland. “Are you there now?”
“Yeah, there’s a substantial ozone leak,” said Tash as the tube filled with blue liquid.
“Ugh, sounds like a pain. You just turn on the ventilation for that, right?”
“Little more complicated,” said Tash.
“Ah, crap, really? Isn’t it a gas?”
“Usually.”
“Well, it’s their lab, so maybe just write 'em a citation and leave them with the mess?” said Weyland.
“Ozone sets things on fire and explodes pretty easily- I’m going to have to call you back.”
“Oh geez, want me to come down?”
“No, just- I’ll call you back, all right?”
“Yeah, for sure. If you don’t need me, I’m going to head out for the day,” the line went quiet and Tash changed the angle of the nozzle, “Tash?”
“What?” she asked through clenched teeth.
“Oh, sorry haha… wasn’t sure if you were still there. Let’s not write anything up for this visit. I mean, use your judgement of course. Sanna’s just having a hard time with this audit coming up,” he paused and waited for a response, “and uh, make sure to check out your gift when you’re done. I left it in your office.”
Tash ended the call, before muting all but emergency notifications.
Ice began to form throughout the lower level of T3 as the temperature dropped. She couldn’t exactly remember, but the MCA refrigeration systems reached minimum temp within an hour of startup. Even at -70C, the ozone steamed off of the leak and the surfaces around her began to corrode. Tash got onto all fours and steadied the vacuum nozzle over her left wrist.
For the next twenty minutes, she remained motionless. The evaporating ozone flowed around her, hissing every time it found something to oxidize. Her back started to ache through the numb of the stimulant. In half an hour, the flow of dark blue ozone through the vacuum tube slowed to a trickle. Despite the cold leaching through her suit, a drop of sweat ran down her forehead and settled on her chin. She wiggled her ears, cracking a few tiny icicles off of them.
The last check from the MCA sensor showed the ozone at 9PPM.
The cylinder was about a third full of blue-black crystals. Her mask fogged for second as she let out a sigh. She glanced at the reactors and storage drums. The solvents were stored in factory containers- 9PPM of ozone wouldn’t be a risk to them.
She was still typing her report when the tram entered the Hub. She’d missed the office shift’s departure and the rail platform was empty. Tash removed the cylinder from the cargo slot beneath the tram and passed the container off to a disposal bot.
Sanna hadn’t responded and Tash tossed her work tablet onto her desk before crossing the hall to the locker room. She unzipped her suit and threw it down the chute to decon. Tash seated herself under the showerhead and shut her eyes.
I've had this story in mind for a long time. It occurs near the beginning of Tash's story. Would have posted this sooner, but I had to "quickly write a nice story to go along with the pic" which took me a few weeks lol. Chickhawk does great work and you should check out his art.
Story is below.
The main entrance of RRG was still in view of the tram when Weyland called.
“I saw there was an explosion at RRG. Are you and Leck all right? What happened? I just got out of my meeting,” he said. Tash had been waiting for him to call and she sat at the back of the tram, picking the raritanium shards from her mask.
“Coolant mix-up, long story,” said Tash, “Incident Investigation Services are there, they’ll figure out.”
“Are you-”
“Yeah I’m fine, so is Leck. Foreman got hit with some raritanium shards- I don’t think it’s serious though.”
“Any ideas on what happened? Who mixed up the coolant?”
“That’s all I know,” said Tash, “IIS will have the details soon. I’m headed back to the Hub- I sent Leck home.”
“Good call, little buddy was probably shaken,” said Weyland, “hey uh, your gift came in! Should check it out when you get back.”
“What? Weyland, I said not to do that anymore,” a few of the Blaarg toward the front of the tram looked up as Tash raised her voice.
“It’s not like that; this is business related,” said Weyland. “Sanna and I talked about it.”
“She was okay with it?”
“She’s okay with the idea- she’ll like what I got.”
Most of the Blaarg were RRG’s first responders and she had given them a debrief when they’d arrived at the scene. She gave them an embarrassed smile.
“Tash?” Asked Weyland.
“Is there anything else that needs to be checked on while I’m out?” She asked.
“Uhh,” Weyland’s chair creaked like it did whenever he sat up, “I don’t…think so…yeah no, looks like- oh, something at T3 Labs.”
“What’s ‘something’?” Asked Tash.
“’Ozone detected in subterranean processing chamber,’ It doesn’t look serious; nobody’s on-site now.”
Tash shut her eyes.
“O-kay,” she said.
“They’re closed so nothing is running; it’s just something the hazard detection system picked up. Probably a regulatory thing, right?”
“I should check that out,” said Tash.
“Okay, yeah, better safe than sorry. Call me when you’re done.”
Tash disembarked at the Hub and hoped Weyland wouldn’t come down to the station to talk. Midday at Mecta meant two shift changes between the mercenaries and the administrative staff of Mecta Central Authority. The next set of trams to stop at the platform were stuffed with the taller, armored Blaarg and she waded through them and toward the end of the station, where the less frequent routes ran. Less than a minute after arrival, the trams departed again and sent Orxon's green haze swirling over the platform.
T3 rented nearly three kilometers away from the MCA Hub in the small-scale laboratory spaces and the route wound through the industrial region surrounding the Hub. The only other occupants in the car were a few facilities bots, locked into charging slots by the exits.
Tash pulled her mask off. The last of the odor of burnt gunpowder dissolved into the tinny smell of sanitized air. Saracen Group had built another firing range somewhere by the Hub. Tash slid a stimulant patch from the pack tucked into the side of her mask. She held the patch in two fingers and breathed on it. The tram rounded a turn as she pressed the patch against the underside of her chin. The translucent square stuck to her fur and she rubbed her chin against her chest.
Tash pulled her mask back down and unlocked her tablet.
She’d visited T3 Labs five times. Their listed business was “Process refinement and pilot batch production for specialty chemicals.” The facility had received seven safety reprimands, paid seven-hundred and fifty bolts in safety violation fees and she had yet to encounter anyone at their facility.
The small-scale laboratories felt much more like her university than the rest of Mecta Industrial Park. The tram passed through neat, empty streets flanked by squat, nondescript structures no bigger than an apartment in Corson V. The renters paid a small fee for perimeter checks, but otherwise, Saracen Group and the rest of the mercenaries had little to do with the area. Even materials shipments were usually local courier, rather than coordinated through MCA. She saw the renters from time to time; they always drove beater shuttles and were usually young Blaarg working at startups.
She was still looking at her tablet when she exited the tram.
The alert had come from MCA’s Groundwork hazard detection system. T3 still hadn’t submitted information on their safety controls and so MCA had maintained the basic system built into every rental space.
“10PPM Ozone detection in subterranean space.” read the alert, which had been generated about an hour prior.
T3’s train platform and lab façade were still unchanged from when the company had moved in and they hadn’t put up any signs outside of their single-story building. The only indication the structure was inhabited was the readout on Tash’s tablet.
She unlocked the door and looked inside.
The “reception area” of the building was a mess of a mixture of office and laboratory equipment. A sandwich laid atop the front desk, next to a box of flasks. The receptionist’s terminal had been pushed aside and a series of burners were arranged on the desk.
Tash typed a note about equipment misplacement, then opened a map of the facility. The building was still in Mecta’s default rental layout. T3’s scientists were probably old, academic researchers and they didn’t know how to use restructuring software.
A hall with three administrative offices extended out of the reception area and Tash stepped around the receptionist’s desk. The first two offices looked about the same as the reception area, with laboratory equipment piled inside.
The third office was locked. Tash overrode the lock and peered in. An administrative tablet and keyboard sat atop a lockbox of data storage. She relocked the door and continued down the hall, to the stairs.
Each small-space laboratory had a subterranean level and most renters used it for pilot runs or bulk storage. T3 described its lower level as in use for “materials production”. They made no other notes, other than affirming they were not using or storing any ultra-hazardous materials in accordance with their rental agreement.
Tash typed a note about inadequate process description, then descended the single flight of stairs and peered into the “materials production” area. The lights were in power-saving mode and she waited for her eyes to adjust to the sleepy red glow.
Four interplanetary shipping containers made a wall on one side of the space while two half-constructed high-pressure reactors stood in the middle of the space. To the left of the reactors stood a worktable piled with welders and wrenches. The rest of the lower level looked empty.
Massed around the reactors were liquid storage drums. Tash stayed in the stairwell and magnified her view of the containers. They held organic solvents in the second-class flammability category.
She was typing another storage violation when an alert appeared on the tablet screen.
“158PPM ozone detection in subterranean space.”
The MCA sensor only had to be mounted in a non-enclosed location within the 6,700 sq. meters of the lower floor. Either the sensor was malfunctioning or the entire lower level was waiting to catch fire.
She switched to a thermal view. The reactors and drums were ambient temperature but the shipping containers glowed a few degrees warmer. She eased open the door and crept into the production area.
An electric hum built as she approached the shipping containers. Reaching them, she peered around the corner of one. A stainless-steel cabinet, around three meters by three meters, leached heat into the floor. The cabinet drew power from triple-sized conduit and the floor vibrated under her feet.
A pipe extended from the top of the machine and ran along the ceiling. The pipe was nearly black with cold and Tash switched out of thermal view.
The pipe was coated in a layer of frost which thickened as she followed the pipe across the lower level. She passed the reactors and tracked the pipe into the opposite end of the production space. The pipe abruptly reached a 90-degree fitting and dropped from the ceiling. It ran for a few meters at foot-level before feeding into the floor.
Tash stopped.
A dark blue stain bled across the floor from one of the pipe’s fittings. Steam curled off of the pool as the ozone evaporated.
Accessing tenant systems sent an automatic alert to Sanna.
Tash swiped to her personal messages and selected Sanna's smiling profile picture. Tash typed a message, then deleted it. Her fingers hovered over the screen for a few seconds, before she typed again.
“Someone at T3 goofed their refrigeration temps and it’s causing a leak. Just going to fix that and leave them a note.”
The patch had dissolved into the skin under her fur and her heart thumped in her ears as she opened T3’s operating systems.
The floorplan illuminated around her.
The pipe fed into a high-pressure cryotank installed below grade. Besides an installation date, T3 had saved no other information about the tank. The machine feeding the tank was a Dreksson OX-809.
Tash pulled up Dreksson Industrial’s catalogue. The OX-809 could produce up to a metric ton of ozone in an hour. Her nose went cold as she looked back at the palisade of shipping containers.
She shut off the OX-809 and as the hum faded, the hiss of ozone filled the silence.
The emergency supply room hadn’t been opened since T3 had moved in and the door was still keyed to the default password. Tash slung the vacuum cylinder over her shoulder and checked its battery.
The production floor had been set to comfort environmental controls and the temperature would only adjust down to 7.2C. Tash reset the system to MCA controls, which could cool the lower level to -70 C. The electric hum returned and the walls rattled as coolant began flowing around her.
Another alert pinged her as she knelt by the spill. She stretched her fingers and pulled both gloves tight. The evaporating ozone breathed across her suit, charring an unseen layer of grime. She straightened and drew a long breath.
She was still exhaling through pursed lips when she brought the vacuum nozzle to the edge of the spill. The cylinder whirred and she took another long breath through her nose. A call from the MCA Hub made her blink.
“Hey Weyland.”
“I keep getting alerts for T3, the concentration is going up I think?” Said Weyland. “Are you there now?”
“Yeah, there’s a substantial ozone leak,” said Tash as the tube filled with blue liquid.
“Ugh, sounds like a pain. You just turn on the ventilation for that, right?”
“Little more complicated,” said Tash.
“Ah, crap, really? Isn’t it a gas?”
“Usually.”
“Well, it’s their lab, so maybe just write 'em a citation and leave them with the mess?” said Weyland.
“Ozone sets things on fire and explodes pretty easily- I’m going to have to call you back.”
“Oh geez, want me to come down?”
“No, just- I’ll call you back, all right?”
“Yeah, for sure. If you don’t need me, I’m going to head out for the day,” the line went quiet and Tash changed the angle of the nozzle, “Tash?”
“What?” she asked through clenched teeth.
“Oh, sorry haha… wasn’t sure if you were still there. Let’s not write anything up for this visit. I mean, use your judgement of course. Sanna’s just having a hard time with this audit coming up,” he paused and waited for a response, “and uh, make sure to check out your gift when you’re done. I left it in your office.”
Tash ended the call, before muting all but emergency notifications.
Ice began to form throughout the lower level of T3 as the temperature dropped. She couldn’t exactly remember, but the MCA refrigeration systems reached minimum temp within an hour of startup. Even at -70C, the ozone steamed off of the leak and the surfaces around her began to corrode. Tash got onto all fours and steadied the vacuum nozzle over her left wrist.
For the next twenty minutes, she remained motionless. The evaporating ozone flowed around her, hissing every time it found something to oxidize. Her back started to ache through the numb of the stimulant. In half an hour, the flow of dark blue ozone through the vacuum tube slowed to a trickle. Despite the cold leaching through her suit, a drop of sweat ran down her forehead and settled on her chin. She wiggled her ears, cracking a few tiny icicles off of them.
The last check from the MCA sensor showed the ozone at 9PPM.
The cylinder was about a third full of blue-black crystals. Her mask fogged for second as she let out a sigh. She glanced at the reactors and storage drums. The solvents were stored in factory containers- 9PPM of ozone wouldn’t be a risk to them.
She was still typing her report when the tram entered the Hub. She’d missed the office shift’s departure and the rail platform was empty. Tash removed the cylinder from the cargo slot beneath the tram and passed the container off to a disposal bot.
Sanna hadn’t responded and Tash tossed her work tablet onto her desk before crossing the hall to the locker room. She unzipped her suit and threw it down the chute to decon. Tash seated herself under the showerhead and shut her eyes.
Category Artwork (Digital) / All
Species Lombax
Size 2217 x 1662px
File Size 2.96 MB
Listed in Folders
Comments