<div class="floatleft">(https://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/0/08/Dollydagger.png)</div><br/>Outside Dolly Dagger's safe environment, the asteroid's surface stood suspended in zero g. That first step out into weightlessness could easily be an unwary crewman's last, if you were to let the asteroid or ship drift away from you. Thankfully, buried beneath a prepared landing pad the magnets in Isadora's boots found a ferrous sheet, and clung just enough to enable a slow, plodding walk.<br/><br/>Once at the silent doors, Isadora's tools allowed her to bypass their normal protocol and speak directly to the emergency open mechanism. Slowly, the doors opened, and a raging fire within extinguished. Ashen breath rushed out into the void through the broken airlock, and by the time a vac suited body could crouch down and enter, the bay was airless and blanketed in soot.<br/><br/>Inside the spacious bay loomed loading machinery like metal talons over a burned-out ship, crudely sabotaged to prevent takeoff. This was not the promised O-12 spacecraft but an Ikari vessel, Yu Jing with the serial numbers filed off, stripped to bare metal and its jettison pods retrofit to rapid deploy jump troops into a conflict. The make and modifications were clear to Isadora because she faced one much like it in a recent dogfight. It could be made spaceworthy again, but not under such limited supply of oxygen.<br/><br/>Beyond this wreck, and with ample room for Dolly Dagger to berth, lay the elevator into the mine station. Its doors would not operate before the outer doors closed again, and the bay restored breathable atmosphere.