The Spring storms hammered the side of the house. Gwen could hear them repeatedly slamming into the habi-house’s side, making the whole construction shake as it did so.
The newbies to Outpost-347 were cowering in their bunks. Some were crying, Gwen could hear them. A few had even clustered around the escape pods, desperate to try and find freedom. It had meant Gwen had posted Tim and Catalina to guard the door. The two strongest of the original crew, they knew how to knock a few heads together.
Gwen on the other hand, ignored the storms. She had experienced these when they had been huddled in the little ranger craft that had been anchored down by chains and bolts. Compared to that, this was gentle, secure.
Gwen hummed as the walls shook again. Today was mid-Spring day, which would be marked with the annual celebration of eating real food instead of medi-pouches of nutrients. Normally, real food was only reserved for dinner, and then only in small enough portions to allow for their stomachs to adjust to the medi-pouches nutrient hit. A perfunctory useage, nothing more.
But today, mid-Spring’s day, it was a time of celebration. They had managed to stay on this hellscape of a moon for almost three years now, far longer than originally predicted.
Gwen’s peaceful mood was instantly shattered by a siren going off.
The breach siren.
“What the,” Gwen said, pulling out her pager from her pocket. She flicked through the messages from the habi-house’s exterior systems, finding the error code.
It was in the containment bay.
Where they had been holding Troy.
Gods help us, Gwen thought. The last time Troy had escaped he had only killed one person, the only person on the Outpost.
Now, the Outpost was full of revellers with their guards down and mostly drunk.
This was going to be a bloodbath.
First Posted in 2020
Featured Image by Alice Hampson on Unsplash
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Alex.J.Cobalt 