Captain Marcus stood with Aspen as the cargo platform rose into the belly of the Meili. A chirping alarm from above warning to stand clear of the moving parts. Aspen looked around as they entered the cargo area, unsure what to expect.

 

Stacks of containers lined the starboard wall from floor to ceiling of the cargo area, their contents clearly labeled on their front facing doors. Opposite of that, three large water tanks dominated the port wall, each labeled in large block lettering, ‘CLEAN,’ ‘GRAY,’ and ‘BLACK.’ The cargo skiff Aspen had seen before was whirring away as it lifted pallets of goods into the containers lining the walls with methodical precision.

 

“The Meili can hold supplies to sustain a hundred souls for up to a year in space, though at the moment, with you and those Marines we only have eighty.” Captain Marcus said from beside her. “Our water filtration systems are the best the Federation of Sol have to offer, and the air scrubbers have quadruple redundancy.”

 

Aspen looked back to the containers, “How much of that is food?”

 

“Oh, almost all of it. Some of it is spare emergency supplies should we encounter a floundered ship or something like that, but most areas of the ship store their own things,” Captain Marcus moved off the platform towards an airlock and waved for Aspen to follow, stepping inside.

 

“The medical supplies you will be working with are all stored in sick bay, the search and rescue team keeps their own gear on the forward airlock area, and so on, “ Captain Marcus walked them through the airlock and sealed the hatch behind them, “On your orders, you saw it said S&R and then ‘auxiliary’, correct?”

 

Aspen pulled her tab out and thumbed open her orders again, “Yeah, I was actually gonna ask about that.”

 

“So, we have a dedicated Search and Rescue team on this ship, they are trained to a higher standard than Space Rescue Technicians as they specialize in spacewalking and navigating scuttled ships in vacuum, you, as a SRT, will support them as needed, and possibly join them for rescue missions should the need arise,” Captain Marcus walked them down a hallway and to the next hatch.

Aspen nodded along to the captain’s speech, “I figured as much, my primary learning area in A-school was emergency medicine, after all.”

 

Aspen and Captain Marcus stepped through the latest hatch and entered a large room with warm lighting. A mezzanine floor wrapped around the entire room, multiple doors leading to other areas brightly lit by signs above them. Several crew members sat at tables scattered around it, eating, socializing, and in one case, sleeping with their head down on the tabletop.

 

“This is the common room, from here you can get to anywhere else on the ship, except my quarters,” Captain Marcus raised a hand in greeting toward a few men who greeted him, “Sick bay is towards the front of the ship, close to the S&R airlock. Due to the nature of your job, your sleeping area is situated in close proximity to sickbay.”

 

Captain Marcus walked them up the mezzanine steps and through a door labeled ‘FORWARD.’ The warm and soft lighting was the same in the halls as the common room, “The ship keeps a sixteen and eight hour day and night lighting cycle, we are currently in our day time cycle, once nighttime hours are reached most lights are dimmed to their lowest settings, similar to just before sunset on Earth, if you’ve ever experienced it.

 

Aspen eyed the emergency lights set into the walls, floors, and ceiling every meter or so, “And those?”

 

Captain Marcus laughed, “You had better hope you never see those lights on outside of a drill, they only activate when shit has gone real south.”

 

Stopping just outside of a door labeled ‘Sick Bay,’ a star of life symbol prominently displayed. Captain Marcus approached the door and it opened automatically, and Aspen followed him in. She was greeted by a small and empty waiting room, six simple chairs waiting for future patients. The captain approached a second door and it unlocked automatically as he approached, “The only things that are locked to me as the captain of this ship are people’s personal footlockers, and bathrooms.”

 

Stepping through to a secondary room, Aspen spotted a tall, thin man standing over a microscope, one eye peering through the eyepiece as he marked something on a digital notebook next to him. Another man sat at a table with his back to Aspen and the captain, feet kicked up and leaned back in a chair, a large pair of over the ear headphones blaring music audible from across the room.

 

Noticing their entry the man at the microscope turned toward the door and smiled as he saw the captain, then frowned as he saw Aspen, eyeing her lapels and uniform, “Marcus, who the hell is that?”

 

Captain Marcus looked at Aspen in mock incredulousness, “Why, it’s the help you’ve been asking for, Holt.”

 

The thin man ran a hand over his face, setting his jaw, the muscles on his sharp jawline bulging slightly, his sunken eyes opening fully, “I asked for another physician, not a fucking SRT! The one I have is already damn near useless!”

 

Dr. Holt punctuated his sentence by throwing his notebook at the man wearing headphones, striking him in the back of the head. The man turned, pulling his headphones off and rubbed his head, his eurasian features accentuated with a stubbly beard, “What the hell, doc?”

 

Captain Marcus chuckled at the man, “Hello David, busy as always I see,” he turned back to the fuming physician, “I have high hopes for this one, she’ll be good for you.”

 

Dr. Holt threw his hands up in exasperation and sighed, obviously knowing arguing the point wouldn’t get him far with the captain,, then turned to Aspen, “I am Doctor Holt, you may choose to use my title or name as you see fit.”

 

Aspen nodded in greeting, “Aspen Conway, SRT”

 

Dr. Holt eyed her up and down, “Explain the renin angiotensin aldosterone system.”

 

Captain Marcus rolled his eyes, the man at the table, David, laughed and put his headphones back on, turning his attention to his tab.

 

Aspen looked from Dr. Holt to Captain Marcus, then gave a small shrug, “The renin angiotensin aldosterone system is the human body’s reaction to hypoperfusion, a cascading effect that starts in the kidneys to increase blood pressure via an endocrine response. In the context of emergency medicine, acute hypoperfusion most likely would refer to blood loss.”

 

Dr. Holt narrowed his eyes at her, but nodded, “An acceptable answer. Your knowledge of emergency medicine will be of great use to you on this ship but one of your main duties will be to assist me with the general health and wellbeing of every other crew member aboard this ship. Once we make way, we will be the only caregivers for seventy seven other people for who knows how long.”

 

Aspen nodded, “I understand, sir. I hope to help as best as I can.”

 

“Good, I’ll have the standing protocols sent to your tablet and give you permissions to access medical records, “ he turned back to his microscope, waving a hand over a shoulder dismissing both her and the captain, “I hope I don’t need to give you a lesson on the ethics of snooping through other’s personal information.”

 

Aspen shook her head, “Absolutely not.”

 

“Good. Report back to sick bay twenty four hours after launch,” he raised his head from the microscope and looked to David, then to Aspen a smirk on his face, “take the second physician suite as your lodgings.”

 

Captain Marcus chuckled, “I’ll show her the way,” leading Aspen back through the door they turned the corner and went across the hall, “Holt has had it out for David since their first deployment together. David’s notoriously lazy and if Holt had it his way he’d shove the man through an airlock and be done with him. He’s not all bad though, so we keep him around.”

 

Captain Marcus stopped in front of a door, “This is you, your own bunk.”

 

Aspen pushed her tab against the door and it opened with a click, the door swinging inward to reveal a small room, large enough for a single twin sized bed and desk with a stool, “It’s not much…”

 

The captain gave a short laugh, “It’s damn near palatial in comparison to some of the other sleeping arrangements others get, most are in bunks. My own room is only bigger by virtue of having its own head.”

 

Aspen raised her eyebrows, the thought of how much Dr. Holt must enjoy seeing David angry to ignore seniority and rank to give her an officer’s lodging, “I assume David won’t be happy about this?”

 

The captain blew a raspberry, “He might be for a short bit, but he’ll get over it soon enough. Give him your desert or something for a couple days and all will be well.”

 

Aspen nodded, then stepped inside her room and dropped her backpack on the bed, turning back to Captain Marcus, “What’s next?”

 

“Nothing, I have duties to attend to, believe it or not. Go explore the ship on your own, get some food at the cafeteria, talk to people,” the captain turned in the hallway, about to make his leave, “ You’ll know everyone on the ship soon enough, may as well start socializing. We launch in sixteen hours!”

 

Aspen sat on her bed next to her backpack and looked around, the small space dominated by her bed and desk. The walls were painted in some kind of dark gray powder coating giving them a slightly bumpy texture that somehow seemed to absorb the light emitted from the small dome shaped fixture on the ceiling. Several drawers were built into the wall, and a space was available under her bed for her footlocker to be stored once it was delivered to her room. She moved to her desk, pulling the stool out and sitting down. Several ports were available should she ever get a portable computer, and she was pleased to see the surface of the desk acted as a large charging pad, the kitten on the screen of her tab shooting lightning from its paws, a wizard hat atop its head.

 

Opening the drawer on her desk and finding it empty, Aspen stood and sighed, pushing the stool back in. She eyed the small amount of room left in her cabin and determined it large enough for stretches and some bodyweight exercises should she decide against going to the ship’s gymnasium.

 

Grabbing her tab and pocketing it, she exited her cabin, determined to wander about until she got lost on the ship, then try to make her way back. Maybe she’d run into Tara.