The space was cramped. Far smaller than even his freshman dorm was. His bunk wasn’t even a room, but a tinny alcove that he just barely fit into. A coffin would have had more, Orion mused to himself. Next to him, the subtle buzz of a fan blew over his face. Ensuring he didn’t choke on his own carbon dioxide.
That was one of the problems of zero g environments. Without gravity, carbon dioxide would just hover around your mouth rather than float away. It was entirely possible to end up in a suffocating bubble of your own making if you didn’t circulate air around you while you slept. There were even a few horror stories about that very thing happening in the 2030s, during the big push to make space travel cheaper. Substandard parts lead to more than a few deaths.
An astronaut dying rocket exploding was a tragedy, but understandable. An astronaut dying because a 50-cent motor died, was less so.
Orion undid the Velcro strap holding him down and floated out into the equally cramped hallway. All the other bunks were open and empty, all except for one other. Yuri tended to sleep a bit later than the rest of them. Normally that might be a problem, but since he was technically just a mission specialist, his expertise was not needed on the actual flight to the station.
Outside one of the small ports holes the moon’s cratered surface glowed. They were already in far orbit of the rocky planetoid and off in the distance one could just barely see a gray dot, if they knew where to look. A silhouette of their destination, Lerna station.
Orion squeezed through the tight compartment into the slightly more spacious common area of the shuttle. It was the last generation of lunar personnel transport and it was the smallest of the proposed designs. Originally, there was going to be one that could have taken all twenty at once. As it was, they needed two shuttles to bring them all to the station. The first of which was about two hours ahead of them.
"Hey kid, do you know if Yuri is up yet?" Art was a rather buff looking man, who didn't seem to quite fit in any of the small craft's seats, even less the co-pilot's seat. Though he always insisted they were quite comfortable and sung. He was the mission commander for this shuttle and as Orion understood it the second in command of the mission overall.
Orion shook his head, "No, he was still in his bunk."
A few of them laughed, with one making a rather lewd gesture with his hands.
"Kid, do us a favor and wake him up. We'll be docking in under an hour. If something goes wrong, I want everyone strapped in a seat, not their bunk."
"Commander, you've got me flying! We'll be fine." Ross joked from the piolet seat.
"Good point Ross, I think we should also write up our last will and testament." The joke came from Roberta, a rather butch girl who gave Art a run for his money when it came to muscles. The joke was well intentioned and Ross didn't seem to take it personally.
"So what are you going to do after we dock, chair-force? Not much need for a piolet on the station."
"They'll be transporting missions to the surface, they'll want a human on some of them, and remote piloting. The station still needs supplies too. Plus someone is going to need to bring you idiots back home in a year."
Orion left the command deck and floated back to wake up the other mission specialist Yuri. Who was already leaving his bunk. Yuri was one of the oldest crew members, not old but maybe early fifties. He didn't talk much about himself, always focused on either math proofs or chess. A typical Slavic mathematician. "They tell the kid to come wake grand pa up?"
He was nice enough though, so long as you didn't beat him at chess. Not that it happened often. Yuri kept promising to teach Orion to actually play. Maybe if they had any free time on the station, he'd take him up on the offer.
“Lining up approach… Everyone needs to get in their seats, now." Ross gave everyone a few moments, but not many before he started to rotate the craft, "matching spin.” He was matching the cross shaped entryway into the station.
Orion smiled and laughed to himself, the shape and design of the port looked like some kind of ward against space vampires. His laugh caught the gaze of Roberta. "I'll tell you later." She was an interesting one, a big fan of horror films from the 20th and 21st century. Not the VR stuff or holo recordings, but straight film. She was interesting to say the least, they all were.
Docking with the inside of the station was a complex endeavor, made simple for such a talented pilot like Ross. Orion didn't think he could have ever managed it. A series of clicks and some strong vibrations, indicated the docking was complete and they were now attached to the station. "Docking complete. Anyone that wants to tip the pilot I take credits, wings and free beer." Ross smiled as told his own rather poor joke.
The sound of Roberta slapping him on the shoulder overtook the rest of the crew's groans. "I got a tip for you chair-force, don't quit your day job."
They were the second part of the 41st crew to be sent out to the station. All other crew missions before this had reported success or at least partial success in the case of the last few who were chronically understaffed. Those were after Next World took control of the station and tended to cut staffing wherever possible.
Orion already knew the rest of the crew, having trained with them Earth side for a bit. Still, he didn't really get a chance to know them that well. Except for Adiana, who was a complete hard-ass and always in his face. Orion was 29, the youngest of the crew, but she wasn't all that much older at 35. They had similar degrees, only Adiana managed to get her hers at 24, a full 4 years earlier than Orion did.
Her ridged focus on training and self-development lead to her being one of the youngest mission commanders Next World employed. It also led to her having few friends in real life or the program. But lack of friendship didn't change the massive respect everyone seemed to have for her. Respect he had a hard time giving her. She was always in his face over the most trivial minor things. Granted she was that way with everyone, but the phrase “Don’t sweat the small stuff”, seemed to me a mortal sin in her eyes.
Stolen story; please report.
"Welcome to Lerna station and crew 41. You all know who I am, and I know you. So, let's skip those introductions. There are two AIs you should become familiar with. Asher and Ezra." Adiana looked to near by monitor, two images appeared. The one was just a set of geometric shapes and lines it introduced itself as " I am Asher, and welcome to Lerna station, crew 41. As an AI I am in charge of world simulations in the Central Core. You will be welcome guests for the next year. My job is to ensure the integrity of the simulations taking place in the core."
The other AI's image was strange looking. It appeared like a doll in a suit. It's head was bald and plastic looking, like one of those 3D renders you might see on a retro poster from the 1990s. The suite had subtle curves that might have been found on either a woman or man. Physically, it didn't seem to have a gender just by looking at it. "Welcome crew 41 to Lerna, I am Ezra. I will be your organizer and assistant in day-to-day tasks. You may think of me as your common secretary."
"Right, with that lets get down to it." Adiana tapped at her table and sent something off them.
Each of them had their own data tablet, a late 21st century equivalent to a smart phone. All of them suddenly started buzzing with assignments. It looked like they'd be hitting the ground running. Well, so to speak. Orion hoped he'd get at least a few small breaks here and there to study and work on his own projects. It was an open secret among the crew that he wanted time to study the singularity’s effects on space. He had hopes that it’s secrets might unlock a path to take humans to the stars. Of course, the crew thought it was hilarious, even his professors scoffed when he talked about his ideas for “faster than light travel” in his programs. But his thought process was, if no one looked for it, how would they ever find it? Worse case, maybe he’d write a paper or two.
In the end though, he was just a mission specialist and not even the primary, having just graduated from his PhD program. His primary job would be to help keep the plasma lens and apertures calibrated for the data connections in the core and perform other duties as assigned. It was a simple job, in theory, but required advanced knowledge of quantum computation in high energy environments. A rare skill. He was smart, smarter than most, but even he knew that compared to the original of the central core, he couldn't even compare. Maybe he’d get to work with them in his time here?
Orion's assignment was simple enough, familiarizing himself with the plasma control and mag-pipe systems. They were critical to the success and survival of the station. Originally, the station was supposed to have three reactors. Only one was ever fully built with the fragments of a second behind it. It was mostly done, just lacking some of the control systems. It was seen as an unnecessary expense by Next World. Something Adiana went at length about the stupidity of.
The control systems for the reactor were in the center of the station, which meant they were in microgravity. Orion had gotten used to the magnetic shoes on the ship, but it still wasn't quite natural. The controls were odd. It seemed like nothing he did on them mattered. Not that he was doing much, mainly some calibration checks, or at least he was trying too.
Every time he tried to enter a command in, the system seemed to reject it with an error message, "Safety lockout." After nearly two hours at it, Orion was desperate to consult the non-existent manual. Which happened to come walking through the nearby bulkhead.
Adiana wandered through the door. She was not happy. Then again, when was she ever? "I was expecting the diagnostics report about an hour ago, any problems, specialist Orion?"
"Sorry commander, I'm having a hard time with this interface. It won't let me put anything into diagnostics mode."
"Well, you're doing something wrong. Here let me do it." She pushed him out of the way, not forcefully, but not with any real regard either.
As soon as she put the first command panel it beeped at her. In the same way it beeped at him. The same error message appeared, "Safety lockout." Adiana whispered and shook her head.
Orion didn't say it, but a part of him relished her inability to get it working too. She tried again. Then, she tried a different set of commands. Eventually Adiana sighed and did something Orion couldn't really follow. She seemed to tap at non interactive parts of the screen, and eventually a keyboard came up, along with what looked like a field to enter text. But before she could enter anything in, the panel went dark.
"What the hell." She smacked the side of the screen, but it remained off.
Suddenly a voice came over the internal speakers, Asher's voice. "I'm sorry Commander. For safety reasons, the Fusion core controls are fully locked down to just AI control."
"Says who?"
"The board of directors and executive suite agreed to the changes. I am perfectly capable of controlling the fusion process."
"Even if that's true we still need to do physical work on the system sometimes. Like right now I need a diagnostics report."
"The diagnostics were already completed. I've sent the results to your tablet. As for maintenance, robotics are more than capable of handling any repairs needed."
Adiana sighed and began rubbing her head. "I'll need to bring this up with my director. Orion, I'm sorry I didn't realize they locked this down."
"It's ok, I'll work on something else for now."
Back in the habitat ring, the crew was lounging outside the mess hall. "This protein paste tastes like protein paste." Roberta stated her dissatisfaction between bites.
"Well, that's good, I was afraid it might taste like your cooking, Roberta."
"Ha ha, Taylor. No, this tastes like bad protein paste."
Everyone at the table ate their packages and winced at the taste. Art was the first to something, somewhat positive, "Well, it's not that bad. It's just not the best. We're scheduled for a supply drop in a month. Adiana and I will get something better on it."
"Ugh, a month eating this slop."
Adiana broke from Orion and quickly moved to her crew. "What's going on? Is everyone done with their assignments?"
Art dropped what he was eating, "Nothing to do commander."
"Yep, everything was already in order when I got there." Roberta said, again between bites.
"I can't do anything with the station's supply shuttles. They removed all environmentals from them. I can use my neural link for remote interface, but I have no control. Everything is locked out."
Each of the crew had a similar story.
The commander looked around at her crew. Everyone was laughing and enjoying the moment, but something was wrong. The AIs were not supposed to have control over everything like this. It was not in the mission briefings. She needed to make some calls.
Orion sat at the table and ate from the same packages. Like art said, it wasn't bad, just very bland. Like eating soy paste.
No one was privy to the conversation Adiana had with the higher ups. But the shouting could be heard all the way in the mess area. When she came back, she had their new orders. "We are to provide backup support for the Asher AI and await further instructions."
"Sounds like a vacation, commander?" Art tried to make the best of the situation.
"Yeah. Yeah, it does. Be ready, there will be orders in the future." Something about the tone of her voice bother Orion. But he couldn't tell what exactly.
Well, worse case, Orion thought he might spend the rest of 2088 and 2089 in orbit around the moon and get to work on his papers. At least he was closer to the stars out here.