Elias
“Tower, this is The Invincible Reason, registration number 7763225 coming from, uh, Drumduethui requesting docking.”
I gave a heavy sigh. I had hoped for at least a minute of relative calm before dealing with my next task. There were days where I hated being an air traffic controller, and the last three days were certainly one of them. “Copy Invincible Reason, standby for hangar assignment,” I said before looking at the hangar bays. The last three days could only be described as hell with all the ships, most of them merchant vessels, seeking shelter either aboard or near the Strength Through Diplomacy. All of this would have been well and good, if it weren’t for the fact that I was one of the “lucky” bastards that had to manage the airspace around the city sized ship.
And that wasn’t even accounting for the constant drills that the average citizen aboard the ship had to go through in the wake of the Yalayan threat! Thank God those marines took that ship out of commission before it could do some real damage.
I felt myself starting to daydream, so I shook my head vigorously and looked back down at the various docking bays around the ship. After a moment studying the sea of charts and docking procedures going on, I finally found a place for the ship, a nice parking spot in Hangar Bay 37 Zeta. I turned back on my headset. “Invincible Reason, this is the tower, you are cleared for approach, make your way to Hangar Bay 37 Zeta, docking clamp 33 Beta. Please Confirm.”
There was a moment of silence. “Confirmed Tower, Hangar Bay 37 Zeta, docking clamp 33 Beta, coming in for approach.”
I switched off my radio and gave a sigh as I pulled up my pad and tallied up another successful docking sequence. I looked out of the window of the tower to see the very same ship that I had guided float silently through the void. Some people hated being this close to space and the complete hostility that it represented, but I loved it. There was something about the adrenaline rush that you could get when the only thing being between you and certain death was a sheet of glass a foot thick. Sure, most kinetic munitions couldn’t crack the glass, but that didn’t change the rush that I would get just by staring out the window during work. It almost made the work worth it. Almost is the key word there.
“So, what’s your total now?” asked Jarom, one of my coworkers two stations down.
I eyed my total for the first half hour of my shift. “I’m at 33 so far, pretty good considering that ninety-nine percent of all of the Terran ships out in the galaxy are accounted for in one way or another.”
Another one of my coworkers, Isaac, gave a dismissive snort. “That’s impressive Varela, but that’s nothing. I’ve had forty-five since starting this shift.
I nodded my head. “Very nice,” I said. I put my hands together before pointing at one of the traffic controllers that was still on the radio with a ship. “Let’s see Lucas Johnston’s count.”
Johnston finished talking to his ship and typed some things into his pad. He slowly turned the pad around to show us the number being displayed on it. My jaw dropped to the floor. “Ninety-seven?!?!?! How the hell did you pull that in half an hour?” Isaac shouted as he spilled energy drink all over himself.
Johnston just shrugged. “Well, when you’re not quoting dumb movies from a couple of centuries ago, you tend to do your work a lot faster.”
Isaac thought for a moment. “It can’t be that old, can it?” asked Isaac. “I could have sworn that that one came out this century, at the very least!”
I shook my head. “No dude, it came out 2000. If it came out this century the special effects would have been a hell of a lot better. But Johnston is right, we should probably get back to work.”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
After a round of nodding and agreement, we all went back to the extremely difficult task of finding a place for the thousands of ships within communications range of the Strength Through Diplomacy. I wish that I could say that the time flew by, I mean it did, because I have some nice coworkers, but it also didn’t because there were some ships that were requesting to dock that didn’t even have any business trying to dock in the first place.
“Tower, I don’t understand why we can’t dock here,” said one of the idiots as I tried to fight the migraine that was coming my way.
“Shuttlecraft 37Z995, as I have said five times already, your craft is not high enough on the priority list of people who need to dock currently. Break off from your current course and go back to whatever merchant vessel you came from.”
“Uh, negative tower, we really need to dock now.” This conversation has been going on for far too long. I thought to myself as I continued to rub my temples.
“If you have a medical emergency going on right now, then we will have an ambulance craft dock with you to take any injured passengers you may have on board. Even if that were the case, you still don’t have clearance to dock at this time.”
There was silence. “Copy, tower. Just know that I’ll be reporting you to your supervisor for not letting us dock.”
I don’t know why, but I was feeling particularly combative, so I said, “Go ahead. We’re so short staffed right now that they couldn’t afford to fire me even if they wanted to. Now stop harassing me and go back to whatever ship you came from.”
There was more silence as I thought that they had disconnected from the call. “Fine, this is shuttlecraft 37Z995 departing.”
“Oh, thank God,” I said out loud as I relaxed a little in my chair. It wasn’t long before I felt a light tap on my shoulder. I spun around to see who could have bothered me when I was in my element, only to see that it was my replacement. “Shit, is my shift over already?” He nodded. “Damn, I’m sorry dude,” I said, standing up, “Go right ahead.”
He held his hands up. “Hey man, I get it. Time flies when you’re trying to manage a shitshow like this.”
I shook my head. “You don’t even know the half of it.” I paused as I thought for a moment. “And watch out for shuttlecraft 37Z995, they seem like the idiots that are going to become a venting hull if they keep up with their shit.”
He nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind. Enjoy your time off!”
“I sure as shit will!” I said enthusiastically, exiting the room and into the elevator that would take me to the transit system. Only a minute passed until I was among the thousands of other people that were coming too and from their workplaces. I hopped on one of the rail lines to my apartment complex. The gunmetal grey and shining walls of the transit system gave way to a view of one of the many alien corridors that were a part of the embassy portion of the ship. Not that you’d see very many aliens these days, with all that trouble going on, but they were still there and being used by the various mechs that people aboard the ship had. The rail line also passed by one of the many parks aboard the ship. I started to daydream a bit more until I finally made it to my stop, a modest apartment complex at the heart of the ship. It looked quite like a regular apartment complex you would find back on Terra or a colony on Mars except it was made entirely of metals and composites painted to look like a building made from wood and stone. It wasn’t long before I was at my door.
“Daddy Daddy!” came the shout of my two children, both under the age of ten, as I opened the door.
I knelt to give them both great big hugs. “Hey there kiddos! Did you miss me?”
“Of course, we did, Daddy! Oh! I need to tell you about what happened today!” My oldest then went on a tirade of describing his entire day, down to the last detail and how he planned to make the next even better.
“Alright, I think you should give Dad some space,” came the fantastic voice of my loving wife, Marina, as she came over and gave me a kiss. “Glad to have you home again sweety.”
I smiled. “Good to be home, you wouldn’t believe the day that I had today.”
“Let me guess, someone tried to dock without permission again.” She shook her head. “You’d think that they’d stop trying that by now.”
It was my turn to shake my head. “You would think that, wouldn’t you? No, some shuttle was requesting permission to dock when I told them more than five times that they couldn’t. I just can’t deal with these people some days.”
She smiled again and pulled me into a hug. “Well, at least you have tomorrow off. You could take the kids over to the park!”
I nodded. “Yeah, it would be nice to get out of the house for purposes not related to work.” My pad chimed and I looked at it. It was my boss asking me if I could work tomorrow because the person that was supposed to cover that shift had gotten sick. I gave a heavy sigh as I tilted the pad over to Marina. “I’m going to kill the bastard that caused this shit.”