Jason woke up slumped against the shredded remains of the formerly intact inclosed dock. His body was pressed against a support beam as soreness and a pounding headache bombarded him. As his senses finally recognize the danger he is in he quickly but carefully stands up activating his magnetic boots locking him in place. The floor all around the massive metal beam was completely blown out into space in the explosion and sudden depressurization. Emergency crews were already assisting those that could be saved; the red and yellow first responders were carefully pulling people and bodies from debris.
Roger’s voice cut through the shock. “Jason! Jason are you alright are you there!”
Jason opened his menus and saw he was still connected in the group chat.
“I am alright.” Jason said with a groan.
An explosion of responses came all at once, each member of the team asking where he was. Apparently he was the only one that was separated from his team. Everyone else managed to activate their magnetic safety boots in time to not be sucked out. Jason reactivated his tracking, the device having shut off at some point without his input.
The robotic voice of the dock AI states in Jason’s head. “Jason Smith designation EJ-2557 connection reestablished. You have been in an accident. Your position has been determined to be within recoverable range. Are you in need of rescue or medical attention?”
“No, I like being stranded in an exploded dock.” Jason responds sarcastically.
The Dock AI responds aptly. “Very well no request will be made please return to your team as you are located within an area deemed hazardous.”
Jason let out a long breath. “I would like to change my request. I am in need of rescue.”
“Your request has been noted please wait while the closest authorities are being notified. Sol Rescue Team Inc. is already on site. Would you like Sol Rescue Team Inc to provide rescue services? Now displaying available rescue packages.”
A menu appears in Jason’s view showing him a plethora of rescue options and how much it will cost him after his insurance. The cheapest options being two thousand five hundred credits and it only covers the basic rescue and a single surface medical scan. He lets out a pained laugh that two weeks' pay is about to go down the shitter just like that. He hoists himself in a more secure position on the steel support he found himself pressed against.
“I will take the basic package. No need for expedited service.” Jason states as he rolls his shoulder with a wince.
“The Sol Rescue Team Inc. requires all fees be processed before rescue operations commence. Sol Rescue Team Inc. is not responsible for…”
Jason listened to the AI list a series of disclaimers about rescue operations and nonrefundable fees should he die during or after rescue due to the package he chose. His shoulders slumped when he saw his account twenty-five hundred credits lighter. He will have to tell Wynn and most likely have to ask Kevin to help them with rent… again.
All that was left to do was wait for the rescue team to get to him. The AI estimates a rescue time of twenty minutes before enough debris will be removed to reach him safely. While he waits he looks around the debris field and from what he could tell it appeared that an explosion somewhere in the rear of the NV Aurora Star Lily caused the whole thing. The entire back end of the vessel looked more like a multi-trillion credit party popper than a vessel. There is enough equipment and parts flying out into unrecoverable space to build twenty fully functional ships.
The dock itself didn’t fare any better despite being reinforced to withstand most warp drive breaches; it appeared it was not up to handle the explosion of the Star Lily’s… wait… what exploded? Jason looks around the damaged area on the Star Lily and it is not the location of the warp core. Since he had nothing but time to burn while he waits for rescue he opens his tech data and looks at the ship to compare. It is a habit of his to look at a problem and try to find solutions, one of the reasons he was so drawn to being a techy in the first place.
“What could have exploded?” He says to himself as he looks at the tech data. “With the ship being docked, any residual energy left in the drives would have been bled out of the system before the dock was closed and pressurized.” He flips through a mountain of reports to find the last recorded status of draining the fuel tanks before the explosion. “Looks like they weren’t using the tanks at all.” He whistles with a smile. “That’s fuck’n stel, twenty fuel tanks arrived empty. Must be a custom dark matter power plant… damn I wish I had the clearance to see that tech data.”
Jason looks around at the carnage of the situation, unknown casualties and his own life nearly ended. The smile left his face but he has always been the type to block out the painful stuff and search for the silver lining. He would rather focus on the things he can do than what he can not do anything about. A casualty and unrecoverable list will come out tomorrow and he will be reassigned to work somewhere else.
He looks at the tech data then at the ship and tempers himself. There is a time and place to be excited about tech data and right now wasn’t that time. He takes everything he was looking at and saves it to his augmentation to look at later. He then turns on his music and closes his eyes. While the music thumps in his head he feels a dam of emotion break, tears flow down his face. He had never been so close to death before and it is a miracle he wasn’t one of the unrecoverable.
It takes nearly two hours before Jason is finally saved. His team had already been escorted out as an investigation into what caused the explosion is well underway. Jason is surprised it is the Homeworld Guard conducting the investigation not the Bridge Police. Jason decides right then and there he is not going to ask any questions and get out of there as fast as possible.
The Homeworld Guard are the boogeymen of the bridges known simply as “Ghouls” because of their intimidating all black military grade tech and reputation of being coldblooded killers. The media, the police, the corporations, everyone knows to shut up and get out of their way when they show up. They don’t take prisoners and they only answer to Ultron. The fact that they are conducting the investigation means Jason is going to keep his head down to stay out of their radar.
After being saved Jason receives a message from the Dock AI that he will not be receiving pay for the day and that he is to return to work tomorrow. The news of being stiffed on a days wage is muted by the absolute despair that he is bombarded with as soon as he makes it through the airlock into the hallway. Men and women lined the outer edges of the walkways, some crying over losses, others injured and a few being worked on by the Sol Medical Team to stabilize. Jason sees more than a few bodies of people that did not make it.
Jason walks quickly down the hall to get out of the misery as soon as possible. He did not know many people outside of his team. There are simply too many maintenance personnel and teams don’t interact much on duty. Even so there are plenty of faces he recognizes amongst the grieving, injured and dead. He sees his own corpse with each body slumped against the wall waiting for collection. His suit becomes increasingly suffocating every breath harder to find until he finally exits the hall in a panicked heap. All he can think about is his own courtship with death because had it not been for dumb luck he would be dead too. It takes a few minutes but he finds a place in the main lobby to sit mulling over what he should do next.
A call from his sister snaps him out of his ruminations, especially seeing the call is coming from an HTN. The Hyperspace Telecommunication Network or better known as HTN allows for instantaneous communication anywhere in the solar system there is a tower to connect to. The technology revolutionized communication, forever allowing people to connect across any distance with no lag time.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“You are connecting to the Hyperspace Telecommunication Network brought to you by HyronTec Inc. Interplanetary Fees may apply. Please hold as you are connected.” An automated voice says as the call connects.
“Wynn.” Jason says in a far more somber tone than he intended.
The image of his sister in what looks like the flight deck of her patrol ship pops into his vision. Her face full of concern with a pang of relief with the confirmation he is alive.
“Jason. Jason, thank creation you are okay.” Wynn screams. “You are okay right? Where are you? I am coming back to the relay right now. Did you get hurt, did you see a doctor?”
“Woah there, hop down.” Jason says. “I am fine, I swear. Just a little bruised up that's all. I had the Sol Medical guys do a medical scan, I’ll beep it right over.”
Jason sends all of the medical records he received from the surface medical scan and waits for a response. He can see Wynn reading the document while biting her thumb, a nervous tick the twins shared. She visibly drops her shoulders and takes a deep breath.
“You still need to go to a hospital. I will contact my superiors and see if I can take the rest of my shift off to come home.” Wynn says.
“Better if you don’t. Did you see the invoice.” Jason says as he stands up. “I will be fine.”
“Twenty-five hundred creds? What the hell is that shit?” Wynn screams in outrage. “For a rescue they were already at and a fuck’n serface medical scan. All of them are scam artists.” She shakes her head in disbelief letting out a fast breath from her nose. “Promise me you will go to the hospital and get a real check up. I will pay for it. I still have nineteen hours left on my shift so I will be back tomorrow.”
“Should I talk to Kevin about rent or…”
“Yeah, you should, he ain’t going to let us become decks because a dock exploded.” Wynn states. “I know we told him we can handle it on our own but this is an extreme circumstance and it’s not like he is hurting for ones. I doubt he’s heard about what happened yet though. I only know because it's all over the police chatter right now. Also heard the Ghouls are sealing off the area, no one can get in, not even the Bridge Auti. Scary shit for those guys to get involved”
“What about you guys? Orbital Auti not getting involved?” Jason asks.
Wynn snorts a laugh. “Happened in the docks that means not Orbital Police Department jurisdiction and you wouldn’t catch me or Frank anywhere near the Ghouls. Speaking of which, you should get as far from there as possible.”
“Yeah-yeah I know.”
“Okay, I have to go, Frank is asleep so I have to man the comms. Love you and don’t be a ruam, I mean it, go to the hospital. I expect to see a real medical scan in a few hours. Beep it over to me as soon as you get it.”
“Of course officer, I will have it right away. Love you too.” Jason said with a curt bow.
“You ass.” Wynn says right before closing the call.
Jason sits for a few minutes just watching people letting his mind drift. The lobby to the dock was growing increasingly congested as more and more flights, cargo ships and the like were being delayed and canceled. The debris field caused by the destruction of the Star Lily was a danger to incoming and outgoing vessels. Until The investigation is complete and the new space junk is cleared the Trevser Starport will be on lockdown.
He finds himself thinking about the strange woman he saw in his dream. The experience felt so real he could swear he really felt the woman touch him through the suit. Something about her voice resonated with him. It was melodic and sweet. He could remember everything about her so clearly like she was actually there. He shook the thought free and began his journey home.
“She knew I wasn’t going to the hospital.” He said to himself.
The creation of artificial gravity generators meant that Sol Relay could function the same as any city on earth. Unlike in space the station has an up and down although there are some passageways of zero, inverted or low gravity depending on the need of those that lived here. Leaving the starport takes Jason into the open street of the mid level of the Sol Relay Station.
The relay is structured in layers with the middle layer housing the city with buildings and even a few skyscrapers dot the landscape they connect into the upper layers. The city is circular with rails and roadways cutting through to the center like a whirlpool. In that center is the largest structure visible like a massive shaft stuck through the bridge. It is the orbital elevator, a direct connection to the Earth below which ships trillions of tons of material each year to and from the starport. The site would be beautiful if not for the orange hued smog cloud and countless homeless or as they are colloquially known the decks or deckhands.
The streets around the starport and the orbital elevator are the cleanest and most well maintained in the city. Going further out from either and the city becomes a mess of shanties, crime and degeneracy although nowhere near as bad as it is in the lower levels. There is some level of bridge police patrol here offering some order. Although they are just as likely to kill you as any criminal you come across.
The smell in the Sol Relay Station is the worst part of life here although it is supposedly less toxic than most relays in the bridge. Mainly because all manufacturing happens on the surface and not in the Bridge like in other relays. Because the air is supposedly breathable the corporations and Ultron won’t do anything about it. According to them it is a “deck deterrent” but so far the number of homeless have only risen year by year.
Jason doesn’t have to walk far before he makes it to the passenger train line. The small monorail is one of hundreds zipping at a breakneck speed all around the city. His transport will be taking him up one level above the city in the nicer neighborhood. Well by nicer he knows that he won't run into a scavenger wanting to rip the Sensory Augmentation Grade-5 out of his nervous system… probably. He is sure to keep his engineer spacesuit on the entire time as he would rather not have to smell the Great Stink while he stands at the door on the monorail.
He flips through his contact ready to call Kevin to let him know that he is okay. As he flips through the news story finally breaks and it is all over his feeds. He looks through one of them and when he sees the picture on the article. It is a shot from miles off with the NV Aurora Star Lily hanging out of the dock and its gutted power plant showering into space. The sight stops him as it looks identical to the strange dream he had with the woman floating through space. Again he can almost feel the woman's touch and hear her voice. Wait no he can hear her voice.
“Who would have thought that the land of Gods would be so Godless.” A sensual voice whispers in Jason’s ear so close he can feel the breath on his neck.
“What the hell.” Yells as he ducks down.
Jason spins around looking for the source of the voice but he is standing alone next to the door. The closest person an elderly man drifting off to sleep in the seat across from him. After looking around he turns his attention back to the article and closes it. It would be impossible for someone to breathe directly onto him with his suit on. He shakes the feeling and instead opens his social media TKLiveSpace account posting that he is okay.
He Then scrolls to Kevin’s gaming account DoubleTap and sees that he just posted a picture of his apartment cleaned out with just a few boxes remaining. Kevin’s soon to be fiancee Jessica replies to the image with a couple of emojis. He thinks about responding as well but decides not to as he sees a flood of their fans swarm the comment section.
“Oh, right he is leaving today.” Jason says to himself.
Jason’s older brother Kevin is eloping with his girlfriend from Mars. The woman is some kind of bigshot or something and her family hates Kevin with a passion. The two of them are apparently moving Homestead-14 some space colony out near the asteroid belt. Kevin plans to propose to her when they meet at an interchange before making the last leg of the journey. He wanted to take Jason and Wynn with them but they wanted to make it on their own show that they could. Jason is regretting that decision a little bit more each day.
Zenith Apartments the largest and most affordable of the upper level housing. Affordable is relative as it is nearly all of he and Wynn’s monthly salary to afford their studio. His entire walk from the monorail station to his apartment can not shake the feeling he is being watched. He even turns and looks behind himself every now and then to the chagrin of those trying to go about their normal days. The feeling only growing more intense the closer he get to his apartment room.
“What is going on?” Jason says to himself as he looks down the empty hallway to the apartment. “Hello?”
He waits a moment almost expecting to see the ghouls rush down the hall and tackle him to the ground for terrorism or something. He shakes the thought from his head and continues to his room. When he is only a few doors down he hears a door slide open in front of him. He immediately recognizes the man stepping out with a box under his arm and a half mask to filter out the smell. The man didn’t seem to notice him as he hoists the into a better grip and starts walking away.
“Hey, Kevin.” Jason yells after him.