They were on a routine response mission. The station they were visiting, Station 332, had sent a distress signal nearly a week prior. A week stuck with Jay and Robin on the cramped ship had sent Charles half insane—and she certainly wasn’t looking forward to the trip back—but she enjoyed visiting different stations, even if the moon’s surface was made out of stupid diamonds.

“Okay,” Robin said, checking their suits’ signals on her monitor, “you guys know the drill. Play it cautious. If you need to use your weapons, keep their safety locks on, yadda, yadda, yadda. Let’s get this over with.”

They sealed their helmets in place then crowded into the ship’s tiny airlock. Jay gave Charles’s butt a playful slap, and she jabbed her elbow into his stomach in response, even though both of their suits were too heavily padded for either of them to feel much. Charles couldn’t see it through the tinted helmet, but she could easily imagine Robin’s eye roll as the older woman began stabbing at the buttons on the console to release the airlock and open the outer doors.

They spilled out into the powdery diamonds. Charles sank up to her knees and wobbled, trying to keep her balance in the shifting surface.

“It’s like snow!” Jay’s voice came through her helmet’s communication unit. He sounded delighted, and Charles glanced behind herself to see him flat on his back, swinging his arms and legs to make a snow angel.

“Get up, ass,” Robin snapped. She was already five paces ahead of them, stomping towards a large, dark shape a dozen meters away. “If you slow me down, I’ll be delighted to ditch you here.”

Charles raised her eyebrows at Jay then jogged after her leader. The diamonds were dense, and by the time they’d reached the front doors of Station 332, they were both panting.

“Why haven’t they opened them already?” Robin groused. She pressed the flashing red light beside the doors, requesting entrance. They waited in silence, but the light didn’t turn green, and the doors didn’t open.

“They know we’re here, right?” Charles asked.

“I sent an alert when we were an hour out. They damn well better not have fallen asleep.”

Jay finally caught up to them, stray diamonds falling off his suit. He glanced at the two women then at the door. “Want me to manually open it?”

“No, I think I’d rather stand here for a few hours first,” Robin said, her voice dripping with scorn. “Idiot.”

Jay chuckled and pulled a tiny square kit out of one of his suit’s pouches. He extracted a screwdriver and began working the top off the grey access box.

They often didn’t know what sort of situation they were responding to. Central’s communication system was frustratingly crude. It used localised wormholes and refracted light to send messages across light years in a matter of minutes, but that limited messages to a very small selection of presets: supplies low, assessment requested, and emergency assistance required.