Aspen stood in the hallway just outside of the placement office and stared at the digital display of the clock bolted to the wall. She’d been standing outside the office for the past half hour, watching three different people enter and exit the office, waiting for her assigned time to enter. 

Forty five weeks she’d been at Ascension School, learning the ins and outs of human anatomy and pathophysiology, emergency paramedicine, and search and rescue tactics utilized by ship-bound Hospital Corpsmen. An education assisted by the Federation of Sol’s breakneck pacing and Artificial Intelligence networks allowing her to learn in just under a year what would have taken others a few centuries ago almost a decade. Even assisted by A.I, Aspen cringed at the thought of the marks she’d received in some of her courses… A medic she is, but a rocket scientist - she most definitely isn’t. 

Still, she was proud of herself, with no one to sponsor her for a commission and send her along to a specialized college to become a physician, she manage through sheer hard work (and a not insignificant amount of hair pulling nights in the library) to get through one of the most difficult Ascension School courses there was. 

Her reverie was briefly interrupted as the minute on the clock changed and the door opened, a dejected looking young man in a pale gray uniform staring at his datapad as he exited the office, and the door shut automatically behind him. 

Aspen sniffed and looked down at her uniform, pushing the nonexistent wrinkles straight on her BDUs, and settled back on her heels, her smaller than average frame cushioned against the heels of her duty boots. Catching her reflection in the reflective metal of the door she quickly ran a hand through her light brown hair, a worried thought quickly racing through her mind on if it met regs, then frowned as she patted it back into a presentable shape.

 She turned her leg slightly to check the tuck of the blouse on her boots and let out a small yelp and snapped to attention as the clock on the wall changed once more and the door simultaneously slid open. A bored looking man in a uniform matching her own looked at her from his seat behind his desk and waved her in and shook his head, “Fidgeting is unbecoming of a Corpsman, mind yourself.” 

Aspen nodded nervously as she entered the small office, it’s spartan interior matching every other office she’d been in on base - desk, chair, terminal, clock - , “Sorry sir, bad habit, oh-” she cleared her throat and snapped to attention once more, “Corpsman Aspen Conway reporting for placement!”

The man sniffed and gave Aspen a look, not bothering to introduce himself, “Whatever, at ease. Take out your tab and dock it in the slot.”

Aspen gave a small frown but did as she was told, the sleek black glass tablet she pulled from her pocket slotting perfectly into an indent on the man’s desk, the screen came to life, a small animated cartoon kitten playing with a ball of yarn as her screensaver shifted to a blank white screen as her tab synced with the man’s terminal. 

“Cute,” the man said, as he eyed her tab, then shifted his attention to his own terminal.

Aspen stood and watched quietly as the man tapped at random things on his screen and keyboard, watching as the screen changed in the reflection of his eyes. 

A short moment later the man looked from his terminal to Aspen, and then back again, “You are from Titan?”

Aspen nodded quickly, “Yessir, until I was fourteen,” she looked down, “then I got sent to Mars for the Navy Boarding school.” 

The man looked back at his terminal and gave it a few more taps, and a swipe, “Good scores on placements… Barely passed some of the prerequisites for Space Rescue Technician, you know.”

Aspen stiffened, “But I did pass.” 

The man gave Aspen another look and squinted slightly, “Hm. Right. Well, with your scores and… familial history, your options are both limited and not. There are a few options for you, and right now the Fed’s A.I is choosing for you.”

Aspen frowned slightly at this, but gave a quick nod. The man’s wording not sitting right with her, why would he tell her there were options when she wasn’t going to be the one to choose from them? And why would her family matter?

The man’s terminal gave a small beep and he tapped it a few times, “Alright, here’s what you get. Fringe space, border patrol, aboard the,” he scrolled a bit on his screen, “Meili. Congratulations, you’re going to a different solar system.”

Aspen stared at the man and opened her mouth, then shut it again. She licked her lips, her mouth suddenly feeling dry, “Fringe space?”

The man nodded, “Yup. Details will be on your tablet, pack your bags, Corpsman, you’re shipping out next cycle.” 

Aspen picked up her tab and turned for the door, and suddenly understood the dejected man she saw exit the officer earlier, her shoulders slumping as soon as the office door slid shut behind her. 

Fringe space. The thought should excite her, a chance to be one of the few humans outside of the Sol system is almost exactly what she had been wanting, but border patrol? Not her idea of a great placement. Stuck on a small destroyer class ship fixing heads bumped on hatches and whatever other nonsense was not what she had in mind for the beginning of her career. She figured she would’ve at least been able to stay on Mars, possibly in one of the hab hospitals or a dockyard due to her Space Rescue Technician certification this early in her career. It was a gamble, of course, and she knew the risk of being sent out to the outer fringes of human exploration was there, but a boring border patrol ship was not what she had envisioned. 

Aspen began to walk towards her barrack and sighed, ignoring the other passing Corpsmen as they went around her or past her in the hallways of the station, the red light refracted through the windows showing off the terraformed area inside of the dome in which the base resided. Typically she would take the time to gawk at the amount of open space and greenery present in the sizable dome, the sight not getting old even after seeing it for almost a decade now. Growing up in a research station that was effectively a giant windowless metal box on Titan would do that to a person. 

Aspen stopped and sat down on a bench and pulled her tab out, the kitten on her screensaver wiggling its tail and pawing at her finger as she unlocked the device and opened her orders. 

Aspen skimmed through the text on the screen, searching for the good stuff. 

• Assignment: FoS Meili Alpha Centauri, Medical Bay, S&R (Auxiliary)
• Position: Hospital Corpsman - Space Rescue Technician (HM-SRT)
• Commanding Officer: Lieutenant Commander Jeffery Holt, MD
• Duration: = 1,825 Standard Days

 

Aspen quickly did the mental math, 1,825 standard days was five Earth years… So, not forever. She exhaled in relief and leaned back on the bench. Five years. While rare, it was not unheard of for people to have been placed in an all but permanent position by the Federation’s A.I, with the only chance of movement being promotion or quitting. 

Cracking a smile, Aspen looked through the rest of her orders as she thought. Five years and she would get out of whatever backwater they sent her to. The amount of time seemed like in her own twenty four year old mind, but she knew that logically, as someone who meant to make a career of being in the Navy, that was a small drop in the bucket. 

Aspen stood and stretched, then made off toward her barrack once more. Hoping to catch her roommate, alone for once. 

 

\\\

 

Unsurprisingly, Aspen found Terrance lying on the bottom bunk in their shared barrack dormitory room, wrapped around a muscular looking gentleman, both watching a video on Terrance’s tab, laughing. His small frame looked damn near miniature next to the size of the guy he was laying with, and she knew that’s just how he liked it. 

Aspen chuckled at the sight as Terrance turned his attention from his tab to her, “Hey Asp, how’d placement go?”

“Fringe space,” Aspen said as she plopped down into her rolling chair, spinning it away from her desk to face Terrance and his friend, giving the other guy an up-nod, “Hey.”

The guy gave a small wave and pulled his own tab out, adjusting himself as Terrance propped himself up on his elbow, “Oh, no. Not permanent, right?”

“No, five years in Alpha Centauri.”

“Oh, well damn that’s not too bad,” Terrance rubbed his chin, “When do you ship?” 

Aspen pulled her tab out and checked the date, “Two days, next cycle. Not much time to say goodbye, but honestly other than Sergeant Wilkes and you I don’t have many people to say that to anyway,” Aspen looked over Terrance’s shoulder at the guy thumbing at his tab, making an obvious effort to not pay attention to their conversation and raised an eyebrow at Terrance, her question not needing to be asked. 

Terrance waggled his eyebrows at her in response and gave her a smirk, “Maybe if you followed my advice sometime you’d have as many friends as I do.”

Aspen rolled her eyes and got up, “Well, maybe if you didn’t go through friends as fast as some people go through a bottle of water I’d be more willing to take your advice,” she teased as she made her way to the door.

Terrance threw a pillow at her and she let out a giggle as he missed completely, and looked back towards the duo from the doorway and gave them a wink, “I’ll be back in a bit, I’m gonna go tell Sergeant Wilkes.”

 

\\\

 

Aspen exited the barracks and made her way towards the Ascension school building, making a mental checklist of things she would need for her assignment. Her basic needs would be taken care of by the Navy - food, water, uniforms, so on, but things such as entertainment items, luxury toiletries, specific food treats or personal items she would need to fit into a single trip. Not sure of the state of any commissary out-system, she couldn’t be sure she would get whatever items she’d be after without putting in an expensive order with a very long turnaround. 

She sucked her teeth as she considered her list and pulled her tab out, the kitten on her screen saver snoozing again, writing a few things down she couldn’t forget. She considered her luck rotten, two days to prepare - not counting the trip to Neptune for the jump - for a five year trip was shitty, but arguing against Navy orders, especially those issued by the Federation’s own A.I would be like talking to a brick wall. A brick wall capable of a court martial.

 Every thirty standard days the Federation of Sol’s galactic launch pad, colloquially referred to as the “Bifrost,” was a one way bridge to wherever humanity set its sights on. The major limiting factor being that the sensors on the Bifrost needed to be able to “see” the destination, the light emitted from the destination system’s star needed to accurately deposit those that traverse it. 

The mind boggling amount of power needed to activate the device causes the long cycle charge time, a process the best minds of humanity have worked long and hard on to reduce from a time lapse of almost a decade to just a month. The Federation of Sol’s siphon of hydrogen off of the planet Neptune for the use of fusion power effectively using the entire planet as a giant battery. 

The Bifrost is undoubtedly humanity's greatest creation. The cycle limit and technological limitations doing little to dampen the spirit of exploration… and indomitable need to conquer. The need for an “anchor” at the destination allowing for return trips compounded upon the already astrological logistical and monetary cost of use of the machine, though the military minds of the Federation of Sol determined any material that could be harvested from the destination systems more than offset the cost of activation. 

Aspen’s mind spun just thinking about the Bifrost’s mechanics and she shook her head of the thought, thumbing the lock button on her tab and pocketing it as she reached the A-school’s doors.

Winding her way through the corridors of the school, she came to the office of Sergeant Wilkes, the door proudly proclaiming their position as Chief Instructor for the Mars’ only Space Rescue Technician training course. Giving the door a knock, Aspen waited patiently outside for permission to enter. 

A short moment later, Aspen heard Sergeant Wilkes’ voice call through the door calling for her to come in. She thumbed the panel on the sliding door and entered, giving the Sergeant a smile as they looked at her from behind their desk, “Corpsman Conway, I assume you came to speak about placement?”

Aspen nodded, and leaned against the bookshelf next to the doorway, “That’s right! SRT like we thought, but - fringe space.” 

Wilkes gave a grimace, and their shoulders slumped. Shaking their head, they stood and walked around the desk and reached over and behind Aspen, pulling a book from the bookshelf and flipped it open, finding the page they were looking for quickly, “Fringe space is a challenge, even for experienced Navy personnel,” they adopted their ‘I’m teaching’ cadence to their voice, “A ship bound Corpsman’s greatest friend will be the Space Rescue Technician. When everything goes to hell in a handbasket, the SRT will be the ones to save everyone else’s sorry asses.” 

Sergeant Wilkes tilted their head at Aspen, “When do you ship out?”

“Two days, Sergeant,” Aspen kicked the toe of her boot on the ground, “I feel ready, but… what if I’m not good enough to do-

Wilkes snapped their book shut, interrupting her, and gave Aspen a dry look, “Forty five weeks ago when you and your peers stepped foot into my classroom for the first time I had little to no hope for the sorry lot of you - that any one of you would be up to par for the grueling SRT track. Not only was I mostly correct in that assessment when the majority of your class failed, I still find myself needing to teach a fully graduated Space Rescue Technician even after graduation.”

Aspen wilted slightly at these words, “Sorry Serg-,” but was interrupted by Wilke’s raising a hand to silence her.

“I am not giving you shit, Conway,” they gave Aspen a smile and a wink, “I’m happy to help a fellow SRT. You may not have had the best grades of all the pupils I have had these past ten months, but I am pleased to say you were one of my favorites. I would not have let you graduate with your certificate if I, and by extension the Navy of the Federation of Sol did not think you could perform. You will do exceptionally well on your assignment,” they moved back towards their desk and sat, waving towards the small chair in front of their desk, ”Sit, and please, call me Avery.”

The small smile that had been forming on Aspen’s face turned into a full grin, “Thank you Ser- uh, Avery.”