There was no need for me to do maintenance. The hangar was well enough outfitted that my ship could take care of itself automatically. Neither was there any need for me to give orders. An enemy force of unknown size approaching a small mining station could only be responded to in one way: muster every ounce of force you have and hope they are few enough you can take them. The soldiers here knew the drill.

Lotsa baldheads. Not surprising. Not a lot of maskers, though. That part was more surprising. It’s hard to defend a comet with just baldheads. Whatever. It wasn’t my job to distribute troops. My job was to defend where they told me to with what troops they saw fit to provide.

An enemy force would be here in a few hours. Unfortunately the enemies had figured out a new way to scramble our sensors so we wouldn’t know what kinda force we were dealing with until they were on top of us.

The baldheads scrambled around the hangar, checking and reparing their gear. The maskers mostly just sat around near their ships and accellerator canons. The routine maintanence for the expensive gear was all automated, so there wasn’t much for them to do but wait.

As for me, well… I was a masker. The highest ranking soldier on the whole rock, but a masker nonetheless. When the battle started I would be flying my own personal interceptor: a ship substantially better outfitted than anything the grunts would have.