by Greg Dragon
“Imagine if all hubs were like this,” Raileo said.
“Once we destroy the Geralos, I can see another Sanctuary being built within Alliance space,” Helga said. “It wouldn’t be a civilian hub, I don’t think. Maybe a center for science, where some of our galaxy’s most brilliant minds come together to improve on … everything. With the war our scientists suffer because the resources are taken up by the Alliance’s naval defense. Even on the planets, the focus is on staving off the lizards. No one wants to be the next Vestalia.”
“A center for science would be amazing,” Raileo said. “Too bad none of us, or our children, will live to see it.”
“Children, Ray?” Helga said. “Something you want to tell us?” This prompted Quentin to laugh; he always liked it when she made fun of their resident sniper.
“We won’t see it, but we get to see Sanctuary, and as a boomer from the scummy alleys of a hub, this for me is reward enough,” Cilas said. “I’ve been sent to all types of stations, where I was made to do murder, or pull someone out. This is a new experience for me, bringing my team to a place that validates everything we’ve been taught about our Alliance. Look at that thing, Nighthawks, look at the size. We built that. The Allied planets built that, all while we fought our rears off to keep the Geralos plague from spreading. We should be damn proud of this accomplishment; I know that I am.”
“And like everything beautiful, there’s bound to be an ugly side,” Quentin Tutt said. “From here it’s an object, a thing that we collaborated on to make real, but within that object are people, our people, and as much as we love them, we all know there’s bound to be corruption and darkness.”
Helga looked at him then, and he met her eyes, but she kept on staring until he became uncomfortable. “Ray,” she said, “first order of business once we’re on that station. I need you to take the sergeant to the nearest bar and get him a stiff drink and some Meluvian company.”
27
With the spectacle of Sanctuary being such a fantastic reality, Helga expected the docking to be a new and challenging experience. After making contact with the station’s controllers, however, it turned out to be no different than docking with a satellite. Helga was made to give her identification as well as her captain’s, Cilas Mec. Even after doing what was asked, it took evoking Retzo Sho’s name before they were given clearance to approach.
Several drones came to escort them, unmanned vessels armed with tracers strong enough to cripple an infiltrator. This was especially intimidating as Helga watched them dart about like tiny mosquitos on an arm, surveying them patiently for a vulnerable spot. Once their identification checked out and the computers synced, however, the drones finally dispersed, leaving them to make their approach.
Docking was tricky; Sanctuary had all of its access ports tucked away on the interior of its belt-like outer rim. Helga was awed by the size of the station, which was like a tiny moon sliced in half. As they grew closer, she saw that the lines running to the center—the spokes in its wheel-like appearance—were covered passageways allowing for fast access back and forth to the generator. It was fascinating and alien, the only thing remotely Vestalian being the paint on the outer hull.
The lines grew denser as she began her entry, and became obstacles to navigate through as she tried in vain to line them up with one of Sanctuary’s access ports. It took her two times to get it. The first time she came in so fast that she had to bring them back out and circle around. On the second attempt, with urging from her fellow Nighthawks, Helga swallowed her pride and allowed the computer to take over the controls. This was beyond her experience as a fighter pilot, though she had been trained on flying vessels the Ursula’s size.
The computer maneuvered them about and brought them in at such an odd angle that Helga threw her hands up in disgust. “Guess it’s impossible to do it manually,” she said, feeling vindicated for her failure. Then she sat back and pulled her feet up into the chair to enjoy watching the view of Sanctuary. There wasn’t much to see after they matched thrust with the rotation of the station’s inner ring so that a tether could be made to bring them in.
When a connection was finally established, she sat for a moment, enjoying the accomplishment. They had ridden a luxurious corvette across who knew how many systems to arrive here at Sanctuary, a place that shouldn’t exist. “How’s that for a half-alien orphan?” she muttered. It felt like vindication for all the abuse she had suffered as a child.
“How are we looking?” Cilas said, startling her. She hadn’t noticed him come up to stand next to her chair. It was becoming a thing, this sneaking up when she least expected it, then standing so close that she swore he was doing it on purpose. Helga wasn’t proud of how she’d treated him since that first cycle, and was aware that she had put up a wall when all she wanted more than anything was to be with him again. But how exactly was she to answer that question, when she had no clue what she was looking at?
“Why is this okay?” she said quietly. “How can we afford to have something like this?”
“We aren’t an Alliance just in name,” he said, “This sanctuary is a prototype for future stations that will guarantee our people’s survival. Once we make it inside, you’ll see Vestalians living the way our ancestors did on the planet. You can already see it. Do you see those moving lights below the glass there? Those are flying vehicles, transporting people from one district to the next.”
“Like Meluvia,” Raileo said, and Cilas removed his hand from her chair and turned to face him.
“Like Meluvia,” he agreed. “Are you men ready to go?”
“I am, but Tutt is doing a few last-minute checks on—whoa, are those people?” he said, stepping forward to point at the station, where a section of transparent glass revealed a body of water with tiny people crossing a bridge.
“Your eyes are sharp,” Cilas said. “That’s a city, albeit a small one, with people who were born and raised there.”
“Do you think they call themselves Boomers?” Raileo said. “They’re not spacers, and this isn’t a ship, but it’s not a planet either.”
“There’s Tutt,” Helga said, not wanting to hear any more of his philosophy.
She got up and led them out of her cockpit, where Quentin stood waiting patiently in his sharp dress blacks. He looked like a commander, with his white hat tucked beneath one arm and his medals gleaming beneath the overhead light. They were all dressed to the nines, in similarly cut uniforms but for the colors that showcased their rank and branch.
Quentin wore black, since he was once a high-ranking member of the enlisted Marines, while Raileo wore the blue that was a step below that. Helga was in her white officer’s uniform, but unlike Cilas, who looked handsome, she thought that her pants were way too big.
“Alright, Nighthawks, let’s make the Rendron proud,” Cilas said. “The first order of business is to get down there and meet our contact from the Vestalian council. After that, we’ll likely be shown our quarters, and an agenda will be presented for us to know where to deliver the cargo. That’s another thing: check your speech from here on in. The Geralos is to always be referenced to as cargo, you understand? We don’t want civilians knowing we brought a lizard from the war to their utopia. “
“We’re not taking her with us?” Helga said, surprised.
“Not till we know where we’re going, and can get some sort of security to escort us in,” Cilas said.
It did make sense, Helga decided. Why would they want to be stuck pulling around a stasis pod while looking out of place on a strange new station? It was times like this when Helga felt the most self-conscious about her position. She had been so concerned with the mission that she hadn’t stopped to think on the details, like learning where they needed to deliver the pod, and rendezvousing with their contact.
“All ready?” she said, and Cilas gave her a nod, so she led them over to the exit hatch. Turning around to look past them at the ship’s interior, she felt a tight knot inside her stomach.
“Here we go,” she whispered before accessing the screen near the hatch. She ran some final diagnostics on the state of the ship, then inputted her ID to release the lock. If the seal made with the docking tube had any sort of breach, an alarm would go off, so she waited with bated breath.
The heavy door hissed and opened, revealing the lights of the shallow tube leading out. Helga stepped through first, trying her best to avoid touching the sides. They were filthy, and the last time she wore white on a dropship, she had accidentally brushed against the tube, which left a permanent mark on her jacket.
This time she made it through okay, and then waited on the men. Raileo had been behind her, followed by Quentin, and finally Cilas, who stopped to secure the hatch. When they were all inside, Helga let him take the lead, and they walked to sanctuary’s airlock, where they waited for the starport’s security to grant them access.
It felt like a lifetime passed with them huddled inside the tube. Quentin had it the worst, being so tall that he had to hunch. He went down on one knee after a time, as they all studied each other’s faces, wondering how long it would take. Well we came this far, Helga thought. What’s a few minutes for a once in a lifetime experience?
After five minutes passed, the door came open, exposing a carpeted room with a set of metallic double doors at the opposite end. They stepped inside and the hatch locked and sealed behind them. Then a tone came over the intercom, followed by a voice not unlike that of the Ursula’s.
“Welcome, travelers, to Sanctuary. We hope that your journey has been without incident, but if you’re in need of medical help, please select that option on the terminal near the door. My name is, Hope, H-O-P-E; an acronym for Holographic Persona. I am a part of Sanctuary’s central AI, and I will serve as concierge for your stay here on the station.”
“We have no injuries,” Cilas said out loud, looking about foolishly, as if trying to locate the source of the voice.
“Commander Mec, you are expected. I’ve alerted the council of your arrival. Kindly take your team through those doors to the decontamination room, and once cleared, ride the elevator down to the starport.”
Cilas touched the doors and they opened automatically, revealing a room shrouded in what could best be described as mist. As they made to step inside, an alarm began to blare, and Hope was back on the intercom with her mechanically soothing voice.
“Outside weapons are not allowed on Sanctuary. Kindly remove edged weapons and firearms before entering the chamber.”
“Knew that would happen.” Raileo knelt and removed the knife that was strapped to the shin beneath his pant leg.
Quentin held out his hand to collect it from him, along with two pistols that were holstered beneath his jacket. Helga, not wanting to give up her guns, hesitantly watched as Cilas removed his own arsenal.
Quentin gave her an impatient glance, and she unclipped her sidearm and dropped it onto the pile. The big Marine, arms full of weapons, followed Cilas back to the airlock, where the commander led him back into the tube. Fifteen minutes later, he was back empty-handed, and they all huddled together for a chat.
“Just because we don’t have teeth and claws doesn’t mean we can’t defend ourselves,” Cilas said. “Basic rules: we stick together, at least until we meet our contact and get a lay of the land.”
“It’s a civilian hub, and we’re highly-trained fighters. What are we so worried about?” Raileo said.
“Civilians can be dangerous, Ray,” Helga reminded him. “With the Geralos we have a definitive enemy, but down here they can get you when you’re just taking a stroll. If we stick together there will be few fools willing to take the risk, but there’s always one, isn’t there, Commander?”
“Always one,” Cilas echoed, then gestured towards the decontamination chamber.
Helga stared into the cavernous room, so thick with the mist that she could barely see. She found herself frozen as she recalled Dyn, and how she and Cilas were hung from hooks inside a room just like this one. The mist they dealt with there put them in stasis and kept them frozen for weeks on end. She could still remember waking up to the numbing fire inside her limbs, and she began to feel the panic welling up inside her head.
A hand found the small of her back, snapping her out of the memory, and she looked over to see that it was Cilas Mec, urging her forward to stand next to him. “I know,” he whispered, as if he could read her thoughts, and she let him take her into the mist where they stood together with the other two Nighthawks.
Several laser-lights of varying colors scanned their bodies from head to toe while the mist coalesced about them. For two minutes this went on and then the lasers faded out, but nobody dared move, as if they were awaiting further instructions. Hope was no longer talking, and Helga remembered her saying that there was an elevator waiting once they were finished.
As if on cue, a blue line appeared on the floor, animated with arrows to guide them to the exit. Cilas started forward and they followed him out to an adjacent room, which turned out to be the elevator, with seats installed against its circular, translucent walls.
“Freaky,” Raileo whispered, scanning their faces to see if they were as uncomfortable as he was. All around them was a façade of holos giving the appearance of clouds, but the trick was working, and made it seem as if they were in a tower, suspended several hundred meters above the ground.
“Is any of this real?” Quentin said, placing his hands on the glass. “We’re in a station, and it’s sealed up tight, but my brain wants me to believe that this is a skyscraper.”
“I don’t think this is fake. You saw on the Ursula that they do have buildings,” Cilas said. “And the station is big enough to have tall constructs inside. It just blows my mind to see that they’ve actually done it.”
They began their descent, a slow cloud-filled experience, which was both intriguing and frightening at the same time, and then there came a chime and the doors opened to a lobby filled with a motley group of people. Helga walked out and stopped, taking it all in.
Sanctuary, the pride of the Alliance. It reminded her of Isis Deck, the retirement wing of the Rendron, with its cosmopolitan atmosphere and holo-illusions making it feel as if she was on an alien planet.
Above her, against the backdrop of a brilliantly blue sky, the sun shone down through wispy clouds, forcing her to shield her eyes. It was a masterful illusion, and when she squinted her eyes, she could see the stars peeking through the glass beyond it all. Even the ground was made to look like a planet, with real stones amongst the dirt, broken up by patches of bush and tall, unruly grass.
The nine planets were represented here, and she could see that in the people. Louines were present, Traxians, and Casanians; she even saw mixed-species couples walking about with their arms interlocked for all the station to see. She saw Louines with Meluvians, and a Casanian woman with a Vestalian man. This made her so happy, though the woman showed her jealousy by hurrying her man away from Helga’s probing eyes.
“Looks like someone’s impressed,” Cilas said, managing to break her trance. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look this happy.”
Then you weren’t paying attention, Helga thought. “This is the future,” she said as he led her away from the elevator and into the sea of people going about their business. “With no Geralos, there would be no Sanctuary, only individual planets with no mixture of species. I can’t help but think, what does that mean for someone like me? Would I not exist without the Geralos invasion, forcing us together in an Alliance to create something like this?”
“Helga, trust me, if there were no Geralos or war, most of our planets would have a mixture of species just like you’re seeing here. We all would eventually find each other, develop trade and travel, with immigration naturally coming up. You could have a home in Vestalia, but retire in Casan, and your children could live on either planet, free to love who or what they choose.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Helga said. “I’m just glad to be here, to se
e that this place really does exist. Look at this place. It’s a world on its own, and none of these people look as if they’ve had any combat training.”
“Yet they’re all dressed like spacers. Not Alliance, but close enough,” Quentin said. “I don’t know how I feel about uniforms being worn for fashion.”
“Speak for yourself. I’m loving the jackets those women are wearing,” Helga said, smiling. “We need to take some pictures to send back to Captain Sho as an example of what our uniforms could be. A little color wouldn’t hurt. I still have nightmares of dressing in all gray and blue.”
“Those jackets are pretty jazzy,” Raileo said, and Helga turned to give him a nod of approval, but caught him leering at the posterior of a shapely Meluvian.
“I think that girl’s a klick or two outside your range, sniper,” Helga said, and he snapped to attention, revealing his shock, but his lips betrayed the smile that he was hiding. “We’re going to have to watch this one, Tutt, he’s already marking targets down here. When it’s time to shove off, we may be down a man, begging to stay in paradise with his Meluvian—”
“Okay,” Raileo said. “Lieutenant, I can assure you that when it is time to leave, I will be front and center. You don’t have to worry about me.”
Helga couldn’t help but be amused at Raileo Lei. For a recon specialist, he was predictable where women were concerned.
“No pregnancies, Laser Ray. I can assure you that they won’t grant you citizenship for being a careless thype,” Quentin said.
Raileo appeared to be wounded by his words; having the big man making jokes at his expense was apparently a step too far. “Go on, have your fun. You think this is easy, looking like this?”
