T-Minus 8

 

The elevator shot upwards, lugging along with it several sleepy specialists and a few hundred tons of supplies. It was early in the morning, too early for the men who were returning from their week long vacation. The thin atmosphere emanated a light, transparent blue as they broke one hundred kilometers. The Sun peeked over the horizon and illuminated a rugged and cratered surface. In the distance, Neptune glowed a deep blue. It didn’t take long for the city at the base to become a dot on the moon’s gray surface. The altimeter rolled as they climbed towards the heavens. Ten thousand, fifteen thousand, twenty thousand.

 

Eventually their ascension slowed to a stop, their arrival marked with a chime and accompanying pre-recorded voice.

 

“Welcome to Nereid Station, please exit to your left. Current climate temperature is... a lovely seventy degrees. The time is... oh-five-thirty-six universal time coordinated. Thank you for riding with ISEC.”

 

The hydraulics hissed and began to pressurize the airlock on the other side. One after another, the groggy technicians disembarked the space elevator, tapping their IDs on the wall scanner as they floated into the airlock. A gruff and equally groggy voice spoke from the intercom.

 

“Station security. Please place your belongings in the tray and prepare for spin gravity insertion.”

 

The engineers secured themselves to the wall and lowered their suitcases into the scanner. The room began to pressurize, and with a jolt, began a long trek to the massive habitation ring. After a few short minutes, the airlock module reached the ring, now spinning quite quickly, and finished pressurization. The men, now firmly plastered to the wall by centrifugal force, unstrapped themselves and retrieved their items. The intercom came to life once again.

 

“Alright, thanks. Grab your stuff and exit the airlock. Welcome back to Nereid Station, guys.”

 

The lead engineer gave the security camera a short salute and filed out with the others in tow. After agreeing on when and where to meet back up, they dispersed to find their quarters.

 

“Aight, I’ll see you at the bay later, Oliver.”

 

“Yeah, yeah.”

 

Oliver yawned, waving away his friend as he plodded away to his quarters. He knew the habitation ring layout like the back of his hand. After all, he did spend almost a decade assisting with the construction. Navigating through several corridors, he found himself in front of a familiar door. Residential Area 1A, Room 244. He slapped his ID on the scanner and stumbled inside.

 

Home sweet home, he thought.

 

The room lit itself, a soft white glow coming from a lamp in the far corner. Oliver heaved his suitcase onto his bed, unlatching it. Out splayed his attempts at repacking, an explosion of clothes, essentials, and souvenirs. He sighed, rescuing the more delicate items and placing them in proper locations in his room. His clothes went into their cabinet, the essentials into the small wash closet, ISEC 3D model collectables from the city on his shelf, and the all important surface food into the other cabinet.

 

He especially couldn’t wait to try out the new chip flavors from the surface: spicy seaweed. Oliver didn’t even know what seaweed was, but it sounded interesting. Regardless of the taste and regrets, at least it’ll spice up his meals, right? Station food was bad for the mind and the soul.

 

The display case beside his bed glowed with the numbers 05:48. Oliver donned his uniform, splashing some water onto his face to wash away the remaining clutches of sleep. Reaching for his razor, he shaved the stubble that began to grow from his week long escapade. He turned the water to hot and poured it along with instant coffee mix into his mug. With a quick chug, the coffee went down smoothly, albeit a bit scaldingly hot. His clock chimed: 06:00. Time to go to work.

 

He joined the line of workers heading toward the lift. Most of them were wearing the same uniform as his. The blue and white patterns milled around, giving wide berths to those who weren’t wearing the colors. Oliver snagged a seat in the middle of the lift, shifting as close to the edge as possible for others. All around him greetings and “morning”s were exchanged.

 

The sight of a different color, purple, caught his attention. Oliver turned to see two Navigators taking their seats directly behind him. With the two of them there, no one dared to take any other seats from their row. They glared at the curious glances they attracted. Pretentious pricks. Oliver turned back around, leaning against his seat and waited for the lift to start.

 

“Hey, check it out.”

 

“Hmm? Wait, you actually got assigned to the expedition?! Oh my god! Congrats! When do you ship out?”

 

“Right? I can’t believe it either. I’m leaving next Friday, first thing in the morning!”

 

“Ahhh, what am I supposed to do when you're gone?”

 

“It’s only a thirty year round trip to Proxima Centauri. Besides, we can still send each other messages monthly.”

 

“It won’t be the same.”

 

“You’ll be fine. It's not like I'm your only friend in Astro Nav.”

 

“You have to remember to contact me often, okay? And bring me something from Station 13.”

 

Oliver glanced towards the fledgling Navigators. The badges on their uniform signaled that one was a Rank Three and the other Rank Five. Both of them were female, and looked like they were in their twenties. Of course, he knew from experience that they were probably fifty, maybe even a hundred years older than him.

 

Navigators live in their own little world. They’re not bad people but I shouldn’t get involved.

 

Nereid Station was an anomaly in the solar system. The average human would be lucky if they met even one Navigator in their lifetime. Oliver had already seen at least twenty on Nereid. A new Navigator would fly in from Earth or Mars every few months, and one or two would leave the station for expeditions, ensuring a constant flow of new faces. They all bore the insignia ARCNAV on their shoulders. He knew the name from the station schematics and many of the station employees displayed the ARCNAV badge on their ID, but he knew little to nothing about what it actually was. He shrugged. It was on a need to know basis, and as much as he wanted to know, he didn’t really need to know.

 

The lift slowed to a halt as the destination marker text blinked and switched to say “Engineering Bay”. This was his third home. The 22nd Engineering Division disembarked the tram in a less than orderly fashion, making their way towards the equipment room. Connected by a long passageway were the various divisions of Engineering, ranging from the pilots, computer specialists, maintenance, and command. At the very end of the hallway, the last two rooms, were the locker rooms. Straight past that was Engineering’s hangar.

 

In the equipment room, drone pilots donned their control helmets, computer specialist retrieved their tablets, and maintenance equipped their wrenches and blowtorches. As for Oliver, he grabbed his toolbox from his locker and quickly made his way to the drone control center. Maintenance Aerospace Technician was his official title. It didn’t pay as much as the title would suggest, but it was more than enough to live on.

 

“There you are Hensley,” the chief engineer growled as Oliver shuffled in. “The drones assigned to Lab 5C aren't responding again. I’ll need you to diagnose the problem.”

 

He sighed.

 

“I'll get on it, chief.”

 

Oliver nodded a greeting to his friend as he hefted his toolbox with him out the door. What happened to the drones in Lab 5C this time? Last time they were acting up, apparently the researchers had, as a joke, messed with their programming and started drag racing with them. The time before that some new researcher had accidentally sent them out for trash, and they almost got demolished. And the time before that... well, you got the idea.

 

Lab 5C was in the Development Area right beside where the Engineering Bay was located. Oliver didn’t know which smart guy decided it, but they shoved all the troublesome ones in this research lab where someone who could clean up their messes was close at hand. And unfortunately for him, the chief usually slotted him for babysitting duty.

 

He pressed the intercom at the door.

 

“Hey. It’s Hensley.”

 

“Oh! Finally! We reported that last week! Guys, guys, open the door!”

 

The doors slid open with a woosh, and three scientists immediately corralled him inside, the usual culprits. Blondie’s name was Toast. He had a PhD in nuclear engineering. Rough personality though, so they stuffed him in here. The Russian was his aide and he went by Soup. His field was mechanical engineering, and he was sent here as Toast’s leash. The last one was a newcomer, a lady by the name of Bacon. A fresh graduate from the Olympus Mons Institute of Technology with a degree in applied mathematics sent here as an assistant. Oliver couldn’t help but feel pity for her. They dragged him by his elbows to where they usually kept their drones.

 

“I’m considering bashing your heads in with a wrench. What did you guys do this time?” Oliver sighed upon seeing the drones.

 

Their hulls were battered, even dented in some places. He squatted down beside them, tapping their control helms. Those booted on just fine, although when he tried manipulating them the connection cut.

 

“We didn’t do anything!” Toast protested. “We sent them out like we were supposed to, but we ran into some freaky gravitational anomalies right around the range limit. We lost all the drones during that mess. That was a few days ago. We haven’t been able to complete any of our experiments because they said all the techs were out.”

 

“Can you fix it?” Bacon inquisitively asked, squatting down beside him.

 

He gave the hull of the drone a tap. “Not immediately. It’ll take a few days depending on how well some of the internal hardware fared against the gravity,” he answered. “Don’t you guys have some spares?”

 

“Uhhhhhm...”

 

“Toast crashed those the week before and he was too much of a chicken to report it,” Soup said, selling his boss out.

 

“Wait! Soup! You traitor!”

 

Toast flailed angrily at Soup. Bacon went to mediate the two of them, leaving Oliver to take a closer look at the drones’ damage. It looked like someone had crushed them like a soda can. Luckily, the engines and powerplant were in working order. Those wouldn’t take too long to repair, just a matter of touching them up. The antennae on the other hand was another matter. He didn’t think they had enough spares on hand to replace all of them. They’d have to request a batch from Triton, or pay a visit to the Manufacturing Division. Either option would take around a week to process. He’d probably have better luck repairing their spares so they could get back to work.

 

Speaking of the spares, Oliver went to the lab’s storage to inspect those. They didn’t look like they were about to be taken out for recycling, but they definitely needed some touch ups. Did they take these ones out for some racing again? He inspected the closest one, D-4076. There was a faint hissing noise coming from it, which became more noticeable as he approached. He paused for a second.

 

“Oh come on-”

 

The storage room exploded.

 

***