For reasons I’ll explain in a couple pages, I decided to replace the pursuing police cruisers with automated tracking drones for this leg of the chase. But originally they were supposed to be the same police ships that had been chasing them throughout. Totally a last-minute change, which, as it turns out, was completely unnecessary! But they look kinda cool at least.
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Consider it a safety concern (alien equivalent of OSHA). The police don’t want live officers pursuing anyone through airlocks due the probability that they could be injured or killed (by traffic, loss of force field containment, suit damage, etc.), therefore they have automated drones at entry/exit points to take over when the police pursuers reach a certain distance from the tunnels.
Makes sense to me! Plus I think it was time for all the officers’ coffee breaks. So I guess they deployed the drones to cover for them while they all disengaged for a quick cup of joe.