You're jolted awake to the screeching sound of klaxons echoing through the claustrophobic, cramped metal corridors of Sechs Nuen station, accompanied by the muffled echoes of panic from beyond the bulkhead of your bunkroom. Your name is ${name}, and you're a ${gender} ${occupation} aboard the crowded deep-space research installation.

Blinking in confusion, you haul yourself into a sitting position, shaking off the numbing fog of your sleeping chems and looking groggily around the cramped quarters. Sechs Nuen isn't exactly a luxury liner; from the bare, brushed metal walls, to the exposed supports and crossbeams, the whole station is built on a budget, and run on an even tighter one. You share what was supposed to be a four-man cabin with five other crew, your clothes and belongings piled haphazardly around your bunk, a tattered curtain hung from an overhead pipe to give the illusion of privacy. Drawing the cloth aside, you find yourself the only occupant of the room; normally a rare luxury, but with the sirens and alarms echoing through the station, your isolation only serves to encourage the creeping dread that threatens to overtake you. How long have you been asleep?

"Warning. An evacuation order has been issued," a computerized feminine voice cuts in over the station's PA, and with a pang of anxiety, you realize it's a recorded message on repeat. "Please proceed to the nearest escape pod."

Lurching from your bunk, you stumble across the room to the squat, utilitarian terminal bolted to the wall, a touch of your finger conjuring a digital map of the station. A moment later, your fears are confirmed; all of the lifepods in the dormitory module have already launched. You quickly realize there's only a single pod still docked, in the command module several levels above you. Worse, the main lifts have gone into lockdown: you're going to have to make your way through each level of the twisted, labyrinthine station floor by floor to reach that pod.