Chapter 6: Welcome to Hope Station

“Geoffrey Volkstag?” asked a harsh, barely feminine voice from behind the airlock, immediately after I entered the double set of twenty cm thick doors.

“Yes,” I replied through my helmet microphone.

“Please wait for decontamination to be completed before exiting.” I had been briefed. First stage was decontamination of me wearing my suit followed by me stripping and getting hit with the slightly caustic deluge again in the next set of double air lock doors.

“Have you read through and accepted the Laws of Hope Station, sir?” asked that same woman, still separated behind a locked door.

“I have to both questions.”

“You may proceed to station 2.”

Station 2 was where I received my implant, something that all Hope Station residents and visitors were mandated to carry. A microchip was inserted under the skin below the armpit, necessary for security and location aboard the station. Removal of the implant while on the station was cause for a one-way trip out the airlock without a Vac suit.

At Station 3, I was issued a Debit card. Neither Hope nor Grenadier station used UF dollars for its transactions, kinda. How exactly the monetary system worked, I wasn’t totally clear. But since I wasn’t planning on doing any mass purchases, Sol Credits, the basic unit of money aboard the Hope Station, would be what I would concern myself with while onboard.

The Sol Credit was mainly used for exo-planet spending. Everything from a cup of coffee to clothes to bedding. The Sol credit even had a planetary exchange rate if one wanted to use UF dollars, Yen, Euros, or most other major stable earth currencies a bank was available for both residents and visitors.

They were one-way transactions though. The Sol credit wasn’t directly convertible into any of the base Earth currencies. Don’t ask me how it worked, I wasn’t an economist.

My briefing added a caveat to that clause; individuals could trade Sol credits for cash on their own in limited amounts. Again, I didn’t understand how the system worked.

Transactions between stores or suppliers did not have to be in Sol Credits. But according to my briefing notes, they almost always were when it came to non-bulk transactions. The transport of goods from Earth to Hope station tended to be in UF dollars or Euros — not always, though. Oddly, the Sol credit had become a small economic force on Earth.

Instead of buying my own Sol credit card, which worked more like a debit than a credit card, I was assigned one. One with a positive balance of five thousand credits.

I felt that to be an excessive amount. A pair of coveralls was five credits and a decent meal five. All of my needs and expenses were covered while under contract to captain the Legacy. How the currency system worked in real life, I would need to discover for myself, I reminded myself.

A teen in a standard set of coveralls under a white lab coat met me once I cleared their version of customs.

“Geoffrey Volkstag?”

“Yes?”

“I’m Fitzroy. You can call me Fitzroy. Follow me and I will take you to my Master.”

“What about my luggage?”

“Boris will handle that once he is done unloading the stupid birds and Grandmaster’s delivery.”

“Lead the way.”

Without speaking, the fifteen year old kid led me into the heart of the station. The sudden drop in gravity after the third airlock was noticeable. Taking a single step to switch between 0.6g and 0.3g, or so, was too abrupt. I stumbled. My guide stumbled to a much lesser degree. His shit eating grin told me that his lack of warning had been intentional.

I shrugged, a harmless prank by a kid wasn’t going to rile me.

The freight elevator down was the longest time I spent on an elevator, ever. We descended almost seven hundred fifty meters straight down, non-stop.

“Watch your step. The next section is at 0.92g.” Typing a numerical sequence on the security panel, Fitzroy issued that warning even before the elevator had come to a complete stop.

It seemed that one joke played on me was enough.

Fitzroy led me through a double airlock, down a four-meter-tall corridor, passed another set of secure double doors and into a large office-classroom.

I didn’t have any other way of describing the setup of eighteen desks, each with a double set of computers and three monitors. Sitting at those desks were teens between thirteen and eighteen years of age, all of whom seemingly ignored the fourteen or fifteen year old redheaded girl berating a very large older boy regarding his lack of ‘follow-through’.

“ ... and if you are going to continue to view porn, then share with the rest of the class. You no-dicked, pimple faced, common-brained never-will-be. Either quit wasting Master’s time, or actually put some effort into your studies. Now get out of my face. We have a guest who actually achieved something with his life.”

The thin teen stepped past the fuming older kid, dismissing him from her thoughts. “Fritz. You may return to your desk. I’ll escort Mr. Volkstag from here.”

Wordlessly, my guide left me standing and headed for one of the empty desks.

“Captain, you can follow me.” The seemingly hostile girl glared at me.

What’s with this place? Even the teacher only sat behind her desk, not saying a word at my visit or one of her youngest pupils lecturing her eldest. Did this girl run the asylum?

Leading me to a private classroom, each wall covered by electronic whiteboards, with only one desk and two chairs, the redheaded teen pointed at the larger chair and closed the door behind her. I still had not learned the little alpha-princess’s name.

“I have no idea why Master doesn’t kill them all.” She shook her head in disgust. Pulling out a chair from behind her desk, she moved it before mine and sat, angrily, and not at me.

“And you got to witness another day with the lackluster Device Creator wannabe class. I apologize, Captain Volkstag. Sometimes, those asses need a smack in the ego. I’m Rose, second disciple and student of Master O’Shannan. You probably know her as Lady Strife. I hope you have been warned, everyone is to address her as ‘Lady’ onboard the Station.” The young teen calmed down while speaking in crisp, short sentences.

“How was your trip?” The girl cooled off quickly, I noticed.

“Beautiful as always.” Traveling through space was either empty or exhilarating. “I had Boris to keep me company.”

“Master Sydney actually let her over-powered motorhome out of her sight for more than a day?” That surprised the disciple of Lady Strife.

“Yes, we also brought along a shipment for the station.” For some reason, this girl reminded me of Mrs. Larkin.

“Our chickens needed new blood, there was a problem with the last batch. Unfortunately, we had to put most of them down.”

Rose leaned back, frowning, “I’m supposed to take you to Marissa. I thought I should warn you first. Marissa is sick and she is sensitive to her condition. Under no circumstances can you take her with you. She won’t survive another trip in space. Either to Earth or the next solar system.”

“What’s wrong with her?” That was the first I had heard of Marissa Milsner being ill.

“Master won’t tell me. But she has been gaining weight for the last five years. If she isn’t three hundred kilos, I’ll become a nun.”

“Where is your Master? I have a letter for her.”

“Back in the classroom. Didn’t you see her at her desk?”

“All I saw was a young woman at a desk...”

“Lady Strife in the flesh. About twenty years ago, she and Master Larkin went through a full rejuv. Neither age anymore.”

I was stunned speechless.

“You’re not alone. Everyone expects her to be sixty, not twenty. Last time I asked about it, Master assigned me to the recycler for a week. I can wait until I am older to ask again.

“Master Sydney...” Rose paused mid thought, “Are you loyal to her or the Project itself?” this athletic redheaded teen seemed sharp, very sharp. My initial thought of comparing her to Miss Larkin felt correct.

“I’m committed to the Legacy.” For my two voyages.

“You do know that they expect the universe from you,” Rose stated.

I half-laughed. ‘The universe.’

“Master Larkin via Master Sydney already has Earth and Mars in her palm.”

“Okay...” I had never thought of it that way before. I knew she was influential, just didn’t consider that she was That important.

“Don’t ask me, I’m still fifteen. But, I did press to make sure your ship is armed. Both Master and Master Sydney agreed. Master Larkin thought that it might send an inappropriate message to the aliens you meet for the first time.

“Thankfully, Master has the final say, since she is the one building IV.”

“What good will arming it do?” My crew was supposed to be part of the problem.

“Not the initial four hops with your sacrifices. I meant when you enter the System Gate.”

‘Sacrifices?’ That was harsh. Even Sydney never blatantly stated that my initial crewmates were disposable.

“Is there any more information on what is on the other side the System Gate or where it leads to?” I felt silly, this girl was half my age and suddenly became my handler.

“None.” Giving me her full attention, which was more considerable than a teen should own, she continued, “Sorry, Captain Volkstag. Master is busy with upgrading the intra-system drives on the Legacy for you — and Marissa is ... well you will see when you meet her. That leaves me. None of the so-called ‘Outer disciples’ are worth much. Master had to accelerate my education and info dump.

“There are just too few of us. I hope you understand,” she added, comforting me.

Did she just pull a Sydney Thomas and read my thoughts?

“I’m glad I can’t read minds.” Rose answered as if reading my thoughts... “Too many of those wannabes out there rather think of sex than study. As for your question; No. Master is unwilling to send an unarmed craft through the Gate, in case it only has enough power for a single trip. Sometimes, I desperately want to sneak aboard and leave all this mess behind.”

“Are you not a believer in the Web theory?”

“I am a believer. Grandmaster has hinted more than once that Master Larkin’s guess is correct.” Changing the subject, yet again, Rose apologized, “I’m sorry, we have to see Marissa now. Call her Miss Milsner unless she gives you rights to do otherwise, please.”

I promised.

“Marissa probably won’t keep you. She just needs to see who the person that is going to ‘ruin’ her experiment is.”

“Ruin?” I asked while standing up to follow the young lady to the door.

“Of course. Only she can pilot the Legacy the way it is supposed to, just ask her.”

Ah.

“Yes. Marissa is always right,” Rose snorted in derision.

“I think Master is using her as an example of what not to do when I begin Creating my Devices when I get older.”

“How old do you need to be to create your own Devices?” That seemed like a safe question.

“Sixteen. Unless something Drastic happens, like the Earth exploding.” She shrugged as we passed through a few more sets of airlocked doors.

Pressing a doorbell, we heard from the other side of the door a series of low bells ring as if at church.

“Who?” A woman’s voice came through the speakers, clearly.

“It’s me, Marissa. I brought Captain Volkstag with me. Can we come in, or do you want to reschedule?”

“Just him.”

“Sure. As long as you can get Master to agree,” Rose dismissed Miss Milsner’s request.

“Rose, don’t be mean.”

“Marissa,” Rose insisted.

Clank.

Opening the door, Rose gave me a half bow with her arm extended. I entered the office of Marissa Milsner, something that every Earthbound Physicist would give their left arm for. Unexpectedly, Miss Milsner’s office was exactly the same size as Rose’s. Inside, a massively obese girl sat on a reinforced leather love seat, taking the whole four feet of cushion up herself.

With wet brown hair, and a new dress, she looked me over while I surreptitiously inspected her.

“Geoffrey Volkstag, after your runs with the scrubs, I petition to assist you for your trip through the System Gate. No one knows the Dimensional Borer Device as well as I do. If you encounter a mishap, I, and I alone, am best suited to aid your return.” She had that warble that only the truly fat women can reproduce.

“Miss Milsner, it’s an honor to meet you.” It truly was. Regardless of her weight and illness, she was one of the top five minds in humanity.

“For your request to be part of my crew, that is for Lady Strife to decide. She is your Master, is she not?” I thought that was a safe reply.

Bursting out crying, the woman — I could not discern her age even if I knew it to be five years less than mine — whined, “but she won’t let me.”

I felt a light touch on my arm. Rose drew me away, while her sister-disciple cried hopelessly.

“Captain,”

“Call me Geoff.”

“Once she starts crying, it takes hours for her to calm down. When she is ready, we can try talking to her again. Your office is on this level, let me take you there,” Rose too seemed subdued.

Inside my office, the exact same size as Lady Strife’s Disciples, I was given a wrist communicator, instructions on its use, and pass codes. After that odd meeting with the FTL designer, my guided tour by the young super-genius was pleasant.

Everything from laundry to lunch was robot assisted for the twenty-some students of Lady Strife. In some cases, the upper floor residents, mostly spouses and children of the workers here, performed the final touches, such as in food preparation.

Coffee was available almost everywhere, but the variety of the life sustaining beverage was limited. The three hundred pounds that I personally brought along with me to the station were worth a great deal more than I had originally suspected.

The hydroponic farms assured that the residents and visitors of Hope Station would not go hungry or suffer from lack of variety in their vegetable and spice choices, but they were limited to two choices of coffee and three teas.

Complete hell to some people.

Rose told me in a no-nonsense tone that I should never reveal that I had a bulk shipment of coffee with me, unless I wanted to part with most of the beans.

I thanked her and continued on with our tour of the ‘real working section’ of the station.

“Don’t get me wrong. What the workers do here is vital for Hope to exist. Welding is a dangerous profession and micro-g welding even more so. There are too many accidents out there for anyone to be dismissive of their efforts.

“But the real purpose of Hope is to give us a foothold to the stars. And that can only be done by Master, Master Catherine, and Grandmaster. I can only learn right now. And I won’t be good enough to take over any of their places on the team for a decade.”

“What about Marissa?” I asked the too-serious girl beside me.

Dragging me to a corner away from the flow of the light foot traffic, Rose huffed. “Marissa can only think of her Device. Astrophysics, fusion, wiring of the ship, are all areas which she could care less about. And don’t get me started on people. You met her; can you imagine finding the right person to fly that behemoth? Legacy III was a half of a kilometer long and was completely automated. The rest won’t be.

“If she goes on a voyage, she will tinker with everything. All I see is death and destruction if my Sister is allowed to go with you.”

“Is there anyone that you think can go on a voyage safely?” I asked.

“No,” she unhappily replied. “That’s why Master Sydney has the job of finding people. I don’t like her, but there isn’t anyone better. Even Master agrees that we need Master Sydney to find people like you.” Taking me by the hand, Rose led me toward the shuttle bay.

“Master was worried, you know.”

“About what?” What was she talking about now?

“That no one would qualify. We all know that the whole Mars experiment is a failure people-wise.”

I caught on, “Because no one other than me has stayed for more than 90 days without fraying?”

“Precisely. If you ask any of the previous Techs if they would return to Mars, they would all refuse. Master Larkin and her Earth Web theory sounds more and more accurate as the years pass.

“No one else will tell you this, but we need you more than you can imagine. Master will give you an armband tomorrow. Make sure that you never take it off. I want to be able to go to the stars one day and you are our pathfinder.”

This thin athletic girl leading me around Hope station sounded so mature and serious, it was hard to grasp conceptually.

“Marissa is working on the Dimensional Boring Device. What do you plan on doing?” I needed to ask something and her topic was a little too heavy for my first day on the station.

“I’m still in the learning phase. Grandmaster thinks that I can learn his shield technology. I’m in the process of designing better intra-system shuttles and fighter craft to protect what is ours...”

Rose was quite open during our walk through the mid-lower levels of the station. I also recognized a loneliness in her that I had not expected. If all went as she planned out, Lady Strife’s latest pupil would end up standing side by side with her Sister Disciple. Something I found hard to imagine after our first encounter of my guide berating the older student in her care.

I spent all day with the teen with boundless energy and not once did she give any indication of slowing down. (Or stopping her narratives.)

With a wave and a ‘talk later’, Rose left me at my bedroom door at 21:00. On the dot. And never once did she look at her watch during our wanderings. Or cross pre-traveled paths, that I knew of.

That girl definitely gave off a vibe of someone special.

It had been remarked during my training but all of Hope Station used UTC-7 as their base time. Exactly the same as the New Mexico base where I had spent the last six months. Speculation was that Lady Strife’s choice of clock was based off of that base to make communication easier.

In any case, I wouldn’t have to change my body clock after readjusting it from my Mars one.

“Well?” Lady Strife, Moria O’Shannon, asked her youngest student.

“He’s nice, patient, observant, and I like him,” Rose tiredly collapsed into one of her Master’s guest chairs.

“What else?”

“He’s as intelligent as the reports say. Do you want to bet that Boris likes him too?”

“No bet. Would you trust him with the fate of the Earth?”

“Master, I wouldn’t trust you with the fate of the Earth. How can I easily trust anyone else? But he did bring coffee.”

“Coffee will stunt your growth,” Moria replied while drinking her preferred brand from her own oversized mug.

“That’s bullshit and you know it. Master, did Master Sydney send the package along with Boris? Marissa is getting worse.”

“She did.” Rose perked up with hope that her Sister-Disciple could be saved. “But reading over the instructions and side effects, I can’t implement the treatment until IV is launched.”

“Dammit. Nothing is easy.”

“If it were easy...”

“Then it would suck. I know. Fuck, I missed a full day of studies escorting Captain Volkstag around,” Rose complained.

“Taking time off to smell the roses once in a while is necessary, young lady.”

“Fuck the roses. I rather play with my fighter’s configurations. It’s too bad that we’re afraid to automate them. I still say bots are the best for fighter craft. The g-forces alone will kill any regular human and installing inertial dampeners in thousands of fighters is too expensive. Do you think Master Sydney will give us one of her toys to practice with? Helen would be best...”

Right after eating a decent buffet breakfast with the near silent ‘outer disciples’, I received a notification to go to room U321. Pulling up the map of the floor, I learned that the destination was only a few doors down from my assigned suite.

I pressed the buzzer and was granted permission to enter by a husky woman’s voice.

Lady Strife looked younger in person than on the vids by thirty years at least. Face to face, I wouldn’t have believed that she wasn’t freshly out of college unless I knew better, just like Catherine Larkin and Sydney Thomas. The vids of her had to have been doctored to make her appear older than she looked after receiving the rejuv treatment twenty years ago.

“It’s a wonder what a little make-up can do. Isn’t it, Captain Volkstag?”

“Yes, it is, Lady Strife,” I replied, remembering my briefing and Rose’s reminder about always using her title aboard Hope Station.

“Rose took you on a tour of my station, what do you think of it?” she asked with a note of interest.

“It’s a marvel of engineering,” I replied honestly. “I know that Grenadier was patterned after this one, and other than scale it is almost an exact duplicate.”

“Yes. Catherine used my plans when constructing the Mars orbital station. Have you ever wielded a weapon?”

“No, I haven’t, Lady Strife.”

“I expect an hour per day at the range. Outside of your room, you need to be armed at all times. Rose will oversee your efforts. Stand here.”

I did as instructed.

“This Bracelet has a personal protection Device woven through it, along with a ward or three. You will wear this at all times. It’s for your own protection, but you must agree to wear it of your own free will. Do you do so?”

If it was a trap or a setup, I couldn’t see a way around it. Either I put the Device on my wrist or get washed out of the program. Coming this far, I felt that I had little to no choice but to wear the eight-centimeter wide dull-black protective Device.

“What do I need to do?”

“The clasp needs two drops of your blood. There is a lancet and an adhesive bandage there.”

I sliced the back of my hand, just enough to get a few drops of blood. Using the tip of the blade, I smeared the blood over the clasp, affixed the bracelet over my left wrist and closed it. Hearing that audible click gave me the shivers.

Standing up, she strode to the door, “Aren’t you interested in seeing your new ship?”

“I am.” I was interested in seeing what they had accomplished. Even if I was also vastly concerned about the latest gadget permanently affixed to my left arm.

Silently leading me a quarter mile clockwise around the station, Lady Strife opened a locked door and entered with me right on her heels.

Flourishing her right arm, she waved me forward. “Take a look for yourself and tell me what you see.”

The model of Legacy IV was encased inside a glass enclosure. The latest version of the gray ship was different than the other configurations. Whereas the first three Legacies were built similar to a skyscraper lying down, Legacy IV was constructed using a three-hundred-meter-long bullet as its body. Four chamfered and bent, angled prisms sprouted slightly out and away from the main body fifty meters from the tip and continued past the main body by twenty meters, with numerous conduits anchoring the pods? in place.

Closer examination revealed that the main body was sectioned. Every twenty-five meters was a definite joint reinforcement. For some reason, the designers believed that numerous smaller sections were stronger than a single one-piece body.

The external pods weren’t pods for carrying something, they were engine mounts, I guessed. Pulling up the specs from the tablet that was in front of the nose cone, I searched out their purpose, discovering that I was correct in my assumption that the pods held engines for intersystem use. I knew from my lessons that the Milsner Boring Device did not need an exhaust for propulsion. Only ion drives and chemical drives would need such a thing.

Apparently, Lady Strife’s Legacy IV’s engines didn’t release a normal exhaust either.

There were no windows, and only a few hatches on the ship. I spent an hour going over every detail of the model with only brief scans of the notes provided. I tried to distinguish what I could and mentally compare it to its predecessors.

For some reason, I felt that this version was ... better? more stable? than the previous builds of the Legacy series. I was sure of my feelings, but engineering and experimentation were the only way to prove that feeling correct.

Turning to Lady Strife, who watched me without movement or word, I asked, “Has this version been tested?”

“Just in simulators. The real one is still under construction inside Ceres.”

“Ceres? Didn’t the EU claim ... Oh. Let me guess, since they aren’t using the planetoid, you might as well, right?”

“Catherine believes that they will not even launch their first set of workers for seven more years,” Lady Strife informed me.

“What will happen when they find that you holed out their asteroid?”

“Nothing,” she replied uncaring.

I tentatively agreed with her. Besides making some noise, they would not do a thing. They couldn’t. Both L&S and Lady Strife were in too much of a dominant position over the latecomers to space.

“Let’s go see your bridge,” Lady Strife commanded. “It’s a prototype of what we have planned for your ship and, if you have any suggestions for changes, let us know. You have time.”

I did have time. I had five months of studying and physically adapting to my new environment and my new ship before the proposed launch date.

The bridge had six stations. The Captain’s chair and console was dead center of the forward-facing trapezoidal room. The overhead retractable monitor faced the narrow end of the trapezoid.

Four stations faced forward and had a meter-high padded wall surrounding them on three sides, giving the people who worked at those stations a sense of privacy and separation. Yet the lower walls allowed the crew members to feel like they were part of a larger whole.

Reading the report of the ergonomic assessment gave me a sense of what Lady Strife’s team hoped to accomplish. During the long journeys deep into space the small crews needed a feeling of connection along with some feeling of freedom and privacy.

While the other four stations remained mostly stationary with only one-hundred and twenty degrees of chair swivel, my Captain’s chair and station swiveled three hundred sixty degrees. My station was also raised thirty centimeters off the floor unlike the rest of the crew’s stations.

There were four exits from the bridge, a door to the right and left of my chair and an emergency elevator under and above my chair for me only. Either up or down led me to a different level in a secure room. Those escape elevators were put in place in case if someone from the crew tried to mutiny or went insane, aka Cracked.

There was a sixth station, one without a chair, centered against the front wall under the retractable monitor. That station was for a bot to use for navigation. I believed that the only reason that the bot was placed there was for my and my crew’s reassurance. Since none of us would be able to fly the ship as well as the Bots could do, having one in sight and hearing range would give me and my crew confidence, I suspected.

I sat in the Captain’s chair and let out a deep breath, relaxing as much as I could. Opening my eyes, I scanned the Captain’s, my, workstation. Resting my hands on the keyboards, I began typing.

Comfortable.

Good.

I turned to my left and looked at the stations there. All good. To the right felt the same. Over the next half hour I sat, typed gobbledygook interposed with real questions that sprang up to my mind, and acclimated myself to the ‘bridge’ of Legacy.

Having my back that open would take some time to get used to. My desks always had my chair close to a wall and my desk facing out into the room.

“Why is my station in the center instead of having my back against the wall?” was the first of many questions that I asked.

“Where would you place your station and why?” Lady Strife responded to my own question.

I stood and walked around the room taking mental snapshots of the other stations from each location, ultimately ending up with my back at the wall opposite to where the navigation bot would be located.

“Here. Lady Strife, can we set up a temporary station here?”

“Come with me,” she ordered. Across the hall of this mock-up was a similar room with near the same layout, but the center was empty and the sixth station had been moved to exactly where I thought it should be.

I sat, tried to spread my awareness and then opened my eyes to look over the room through my triple monitor setup. And found the problem.

I couldn’t see anyone else. I could see the edges of the first desk to both my left and right. There was also the safety that no one could approach me from the blind side if they Cracked. Which everyone connected with the Legacy project that I had spoken with so far believed that the crew would.