It was a day like any other. Cameron awoke with a start, bathed in a cold sweat from the nightmares that had ran through his mind the night before. He couldn’t remember which one it had been to jolt him awake, as there had been a revolving selection of past regrets and twisted memories these last few months since he’d left Ketris. He shook his head, clearing it of the fog that sleep brought on, and looked out the porthole to see if he could tell just where in the galaxy they were. His eyes widened as they were met not with the lonely void of deep space, but with the bright lights of spaceships. Thousands of them, from the smallest shuttle to the giant, city sized colony ships from the mother planet, all converged onto a single Asteroid that was about half as big as a standard planet, and wrapped tightly with a shield of shimmering purple energy.

“Woah…” He said breathlessly, watching the comings and goings of the various spacecraft as they docked at the asteroid, dipping inside the purple energy shield before a long tube rose from the rocky surface, likely functioning as an airlock or transport system. He continued to gaze for a few moments longer before a knock at his cabin door pulled his attention away, looking up just in time to be greeted by Logan, offering a slight smirk and pointing out the porthole.

“Well, what do you think?” He asked, taking a few steps inside the room.

“I'm still trying to figure out just what the hell it is,” Cameron said, his gaze returning to the asteroid once again. “Is it some kind of spaceport?”

“Not just a spaceport, Kid,” Logan said, clapping Cameron on his shoulder as he came to join him at the porthole. “That’s Arsius Station. It’s the largest port in Free-Space and the seat of power for the biggest GACs in the galaxy.”

This gave Cameron pause. He blinked and shook his head, almost as if he was unable to understand what he’d just heard. Then he turned to Logan, raising in eyebrow, “Wait, I thought there wasn’t any ruling power in Free-Space. Isn’t that kind of the point of planets being free?”

Logan’s smirk grew wider, and he shook his head, chuckling as he did so. “You got a lot to learn, kid. Which means I have a lot to teach you. Get your clothes on, we’re going shopping.”

***

It took a while before they could get the Fenris docked high above the asteroid and inspected by Arsius Station’s port authority, but soon enough, Cameron along with Logan and Aurora were allowed to exit the craft. Sure enough, one of the tubes Cameron had seen before rose up from one of the many craters on the surface and connected with their ship. There was a whiny hiss that echoed throughout the interior of the tube, and after a moment, a series of steps jutted out from the bottom, slowly lowering themselves like the escalators of ancient earth. The trio stepped on, allowing the gentle sloping descent to usher them down while Logan finally explained to Cameron the ins and outs of Free-Space.

“So, here’s the breakdown,” He began, leaning against the railing, “Free-Space came to be a long time ago, when corporations from Earth ventured out here, laid down roots in their respective systems and used prisoners as early colonizers right?”

“Yeah…” Cameron said slowly, unsure of where the man was going with the history lesson.

“Well,” Logan continued, “Seeing as how it’s basically human nature to fight and die over the dumbest shit, A.R.M.S. manufactures grew the most out of every type of corp out here. Dealing death was their business and business was ‘a-boomin’. However, while they had the method, they didn’t necessarily have the means. See, there was a time when threaded pilots weren’t as rare or… independent as they are today.”

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“What do you mean?” Cameron asked, looking back at Logan as they slow approached the bottom the moving staircase, stepping into a long tunnel of stone, dimly lit by a series of wall lights drilled into the wall on either side, and spaced out every few meters.

“I mean,” Logan said, stepping off and taking the lead next to Aurora, looking over his shoulder as they walked down the tunnel, heading to entrance for the station proper, “That being a pilot used to not be a choice. Corps would often take the youngest and most fit of their workforce, graft uplink threads on them, and send them off to fight… casualty rates be damned.”

“What the fuck?” Cameron said, unable to stop himself. “That’s horrible!”

Logan simply nodded, speaking louder as the sounds of conversation and trade met their ears the closer they got to the end of the tunnel. “Yeah, the pilots thought so too. So, they unionized. Now at first the Corps didn’t care. Demands for better pay and working conditions were met with laughter and feet-dragging. So, finally having enough, the pilots left. They became the very first GACs.”

“But wait a second,” Aurora said, chiming in for the first time since they left the ship, “The companies just let the leave? Just like that? With all those suits?”

Logan shrugged, “I don’t think ‘let’ is the right word here. They didn’t really have a choice. When I say shit was bad for pilots, I mean bad. You really think they were going to run the risk of making more units and pilots to try and get their shit back, just for those same guys to leave too?”

“Fair point..” She said.

“Indeed. So now you had a bunch of freelance pilots running around, pulling jobs for the highest bidder. No shit pay or corporate fuckery to deal with, no decade long contracts of work, and no lack of mental of physical health services. Pretty soon, the remaining Corp pilots wanted a piece of the action, so they left too. Cue a couple decades of negotiations and contracts between the GACs, Corps, and EarthGov, and now you have this…”

The tunnel finally ended and opened up into what could only be described as a mech utopia. The first thing that Cameron noticed was just how massive and populated the interior was. Repair shops and parts merchants lined the walls, going up what must have been a dozen levels and wrapping around a slow-moving sidewalk, stretching far off into that distance which must have been kilometers away. Neon lights bathed the space in a series of pinks, purples, blues, and yellows, and Cameron couldn’t tell if it was from the storefront signage or from the twinkling artificial stars that hung suspended in the middle of the space, slowly drifting up and down a large shaft that was the centerpiece of station itself.

Words had left him at this point, he could only stare out in slack-jawed wonder.

Logan, on the hand, had no such qualms with speaking, clapping Cameron on the shoulder and proclaiming in a proud, grandiose tone, “Welcome to the Fleet.”