"Facial entry denied!" blared a mechanical voice from a panel above the door, accompanied by a sharp burst of red light that flickered across Dr. Frank Siegmund's face.
He blinked, then stepped back as if the laser had actually scorched him.
"Alright, alright. No need to yell," he muttered to the system.
Next to him, a younger engineer flinched at the outburst and gave an apologetic smile. The man looked no older than twenty-five, with a narrow build and a mop of uneven blond hair that curled slightly under his clear face shield. His white suit looked recently unwrapped, still too clean, too crisp.
"Sorry, Dr. Siegmund," the engineer said hurriedly, eyes darting between Frank and the security scanner. "We haven't updated the biodata registry yet—facial permissions are still syncing with the internal database."
Frank sighed, brushing a hand through his hair, which had already begun to float slightly from the low gravity assistance field. "No problem," he said with a shrug. "I'll just tailgate you in."
The engineer looked momentarily alarmed before letting out a nervous chuckle. "Right. Yeah. Of course."
He stepped forward and allowed the retinal scanner to flash a quick pulse of green light across his eyes. The doors slid open with a hydraulic hiss, revealing what lay behind them—and Frank immediately forgot about the scanner.
The room they stepped into was immense.
Unlike the narrow, metallic corridors they had passed through on their way up the corridor spine of the station, this chamber opened into a cavernous space filled with a quiet mechanical hum. The far walls were replaced entirely by reinforced observation windows that ran from floor to ceiling, giving an unobstructed view of the vast emptiness of space beyond. Stars blinked like scattered sparks, distant galaxies swirled faintly behind the veil of vacuum, and somewhere far off, a blue planet—not Earth—reflected the nearby system's light.
Frank slowed his pace instinctively, his footsteps growing quieter as he took it all in. The room itself was lined with equipment that looked both ancient and formidable. Towering racks of control panels blinked with status lights. Entire walls were lined with green PCBs—printed circuit boards—some larger than desks, their surface veins glowing faintly with embedded current pathways. Coils, diodes, fiber bundles, and ribbon cables ran in neat, color-coded lines between massive processing units that seemed to hum with intelligence of their own.
"This is the main system," the engineer said with a sense of reverence, gesturing toward the heart of the room—a rectangular platform surrounded by six monolithic towers, each about three meters tall, venting soft streams of chilled vapor from their tops. Tubes connected them to the ceiling like arteries, pulsing faintly with illuminated data streams.
Frank could only stare for a moment, awe written all across his face.
"How in the world—"
A familiar voice interrupted from behind.
"Doesn't seem too great," said Dr. Thomas Andile dryly, his shoes tapping briskly on the polished floor. He joined Frank at his side, glancing around with a critical eye. "A lot of these systems are seriously outdated."
He rapped his knuckles on the side of one of the towers. It gave a dull, echoing thunk, the kind of sound you'd expect from punching a vending machine, not a delicate piece of quantum communication infrastructure.
"Like, this'll do for micron-level processing, sure," Thomas continued, adjusting his cuffs. "But who even makes components this big anymore?"
Frank tilted his head, half amused, half defensive. "Yes, but imagine forty years ago, Tom. This is practically genius! It's like stepping into the mind of a mad scientist with a nation-sized budget and no supervision."
Thomas rolled his eyes. "Well, it's not like they can ship new tech here. I'll admit—it's an okay setup. Not elegant, though. We could make whatever we need, but... it won't be as compact or shiny as I'd like."
"Dr. Ingrid said that the system looked great," the engineer mumbled under his breath, clearly unsure if he was supposed to defend the station or not.
Thomas snorted, running a hand across a panel that flickered at his touch. "These systems are practically as old as her."
Frank stifled a laugh, grinning. "Harsh."
Dr. Ingrid was the most senior member of the engineering team—pushing seventy, quiet and contemplative, more myth than person to most of the junior crew. She rarely spoke unless directly addressed, and even then, her responses were short and precise. It was well known that she hadn't wanted to join the mission—rumor had it she'd only agreed because she'd helped design the original architecture of the station decades ago.
"She's probably enjoying some ice cream in the cafeteria right now," Frank said with a laugh, shaking his head. "We should probably get some too."
As the two of them turned to leave, the young engineer hesitated. He took a half-step forward and cleared his throat, almost too quietly.
"Dr. Siegmund?" he said, barely audible over the hum of the systems.
Frank paused, turning around.
"Yes?"
The engineer's shoulders tensed slightly. "Later—whenever you're free—I'd like to show you some of the difficulties we're facing... with the quantum cores. Nothing urgent! Just—there's some anomalies that might be worth your time."
Frank's expression softened into something far more professional than his usual sarcasm-laden smirk. He gave the engineer a firm nod.
"Sure," he said, smiling reassuringly. "Let me know when you're ready. I'll take a look."
The young man looked immensely relieved, giving a small bow of his head before returning to his station.
Frank turned back to Thomas as they exited the chamber. "Well, at least someone here has the good sense to be terrified."
Thomas scoffed, brushing imaginary dust from his lapel. "Fear doesn't fix wiring."
Frank laughed. "No, but it usually makes people double-check their circuits."
And behind them, in that towering cathedral of old tech and humming processors, the station systems blinked silently on- watching.