Trapped

Sara was roused from her charging cycle as much by the dull grating of ice in the wall of the cabin she and Enzo shared as the sudden loss of her connection to the shipboard intranet. Fully in silico at the time, she had been conversing with members of the planetology sub-department of the In-Situ Resource Utilization Department. As an astrogeologist by profession, Sara had been reviewing telemetry from the early probes sent to the Falconer's Eye System and wished to share some suggestions about how to capitalize best on the astounding mineral wealth of Ibren's more hostile planetary cousin, a chilly and chlorine-tinged world known as Corot. Unfortunately, she had just gotten to the best part of her presentation - at least what she assumed was the best part, judging by the by the lack of nodding heads and roaming eyes in the conference call - when the line went dead.
That was odd, she thought. There must be infrastructure work going on downstairs. But there was nothing on the schedule...? Silently resisting the urge to curse at missing her stride, she fiddled with her personal card computer's wireless connection option only to discover that it, too, was disabled. She picked up the computer and stepped out of the cabn in the hopes that maybe it was just the dense shielding of the General Purpose Module's pykrete hull was blocking signal from the repeater just outside.
Sara found herself joining a crowd of confused crew and civilians in varying states of nighttime dress on the balcony overlooking the spiral stairwell leading to the GPM lobby below. There, three Cobalt Knight Espatiers stood, emergency respirator hoods pulled over their heads and pulse pistols prominently holstered with spare capacitor magazines at the ready on the opposite hips. One of the three carried a clipboard and, as Sara watched, started walking around to each cabin to take a count of the residents present. Something, Sara knew, was terribly wrong...