Station III - The Neolyte Station

Beginnings

by Michael G. Crawford

Captain Jennifer Presinden, looking out the small windows in the Shuttle nose, took a long look at her home for the next six months. Looking much like a child's bristle block structure, with long passages leading off to nowhere or odd shapes clustered non-symetrically about a somewhat central axis, Station 3 appeared to have been ill planned and thrown together.

On the contrary, Jennifer knew, the station had an excellent finished look ahead of it. Only at the current time it lie somewhere between almost ready and liveable. Station 3 was not due to go fully online for another 45 days. The original plan had been for her crew of replacements to take residence some two weeks prior to going online, but several extraordinary events had made the World Space Consortium rethink that timeline. Key of which were the sudden rash of accidents the new station complex had experienced in the last 30 days. All of which seemed to be attributable to a certain carelessness of those manning the station. This patent lack of attention troubled everyone in the Station's senior chain of command. So, not only was the new crew to come up-station early for a longer and more gradual changeover, but many had the added responsibility to discover what had happened to the morale, skills, and attention span of those who had spent the last 60 to 90 days aboard the misshapen space station.

Jennifer also knew that many government executives back on Terra One had come to believe some of the accidents not so easily explained away. Sabotage was a clear possibility. And as might be expected, this theory had everyone just a little edgy. "Actually a lot edgy, the hell with the little bit crap", she voiced sub-vocally to herself.

Jennifer wondered about all these things as she wrestled with the very inappropriate first impression she had of the station. Her logical mind told her that the plan called for connection and online operation of key modules first, while her emotional self cried out, "Oh my god, what have I got myself into now." Her paranoid centers were screaming at high pitch and her butt already ached from the case of diarrhea she was certain to get soley from nerves. The big D in space was certainly no fun, especially when the station wasn't due to have any form of gravity spin for months yet. Hooo Boy!

"Not much to look at Captain" echoed the pilot of the shuttle.

"Got that right pilot. Any of this your fault?" she asked with a grin.

"Hell no. Not this jock. Sorry sir, but if you want to find someone to yell at about this one, your heading away from 'em", meaning she supposed those cretins on the technical council who kept folding to political pressure from "below".

As she watched, the station moved out of sunlight, a harsh band moving enxorably across the face of the upper pylon of Globular One. The glittering gold foil of the power section and the navigational arrays caught the last bits of the light and reflected in an errie warble of light that made her think of some man made movement. Only this was the swelling and contracting as the foil did its thing in space, surrendering to the harsh elements that nowhere on Terra One could be duplicated.

"Tell ya what pilot, that view is pretty nice right there."

"Yes Sir, Captain. One of the fringe benefits of being up front".

"Thanks for the opportunity" she said.

But the thoughts of just how unsafe this all was had invaded her reverie again.

Well, at least the last 90 years in space had taught the contributing countries where they could not push polictical concerns. Few accidents occurred in the U.S. space program for instance, especially after the STS Challenger disaster in the late 20th century. Safety was a key concern today, much more so than even the paranoid past.

What was troubling, though, was the sudden ramp of accidents by seemingly competent crew members, and the scary fact that the responsible parties were found not to have been looney or otherwise off their game so much that they would make stupid mistakes. With the rash of accidents, it wasn't any wonder more than just two people hadn't been killed. As if that number had not been enough to shut the whole project down.

Fortunately (or maybe not), the huge investment made so far had essentially paid for the lion's share of the project's costs, fuel for the final ferry trips being a minor drop in the bucket compared to that that had gone on over the last 15 years.

As the pilot swung the aging STS II package around, she returned to the passenger section and her seat. She hated going from weightlessness to acceleartion (or in this particular case, de-accel). As an atmospheric pilot, she also hated the flaps down, gear down "dirty" configuration of aircraft as well. It had this feeling of falling associated with it. A barely controlled plummet to the ground. It was worse near planets, where the onset of gravitional perception felt enexorable and nearly malignant. In fact, malignant was an excellent description for space flight and de-accel, cuz if you de-accel'd too fast, you got very dead from too many Gs "down". If you didn't de-accel fast enough you got real dead from impact. Either way was a great way to spoil your day. She intended to experience neither of those mistakes.

She had heard of the "fun" the first crews had on station, back before the main modules began to populate the space nearby. This fun consisted of the realization that while cooking along in zero gravity, that the wall ahead of you was all that was going to erase your forward velocity. The next step in this realization was the sudden and horrible understanding as you hit the wall, that the velociity was well beyond your body's ability to cope. In other words, broken faces, arms, legs, or at a minimum if you were extremely lucky, broken pride.

Another aspect of station living that she was sure to avoid.

As she felt the de-accel begin she forced herself to breath normally, much like a SCUBA diver must. But in this case it was for purposes of preventing hyperventilation as the G forces built up. Not that they were anything all that nasty, it was just a new adjustment that had to be made after several hours of weightlessness. It would be real embarassing to be taken across her new command's threshold on a stretcher out like a light due to hyper-vent. Not a pretty picture, and certainly not a good first impression. Nope. Again she was glad her mind was working...even if it was on overdrive and overtime.

Well that only left eating, sleeping, toiletry and sex to worry about, all of which she felt pretty calm about after some four missions in space already. Sex was pretty much out for the Captain (shit, six months would be hell), toiletry was totally unforgiving so all of WSC crews were expert, and sleeping grew on its own. Now eating. That could be fun, and the meals were reported to be pretty damn good, a much improved fare from here previous short time missions. It seems the French had supplied all the eats the crew would ever want. In fact, one of the most interesting reports she had been forced to digest (there I go thinking like a connoisseur again, she thought as an aside), was one about how the crews were going to be hounded to get proper exercise. There was this clever little balance between gourmet food and nutrition...not so much having to do with what the good had in it, but whether or not the space crew would eat or not. Boring meals left the crew under-nutritioned, gourmet meals meant they were never burning off enough calories. And in a closed system like Station 3, the effects of either condition were horrible. Over exerting humans tended to make the station stink like a gymnasium (would someone ever figure out how to scrub the air of stinky bacteria while keeping the "good" bacteria around), and under nourished folks tended to make dangerous mistakes.

The pilot came on the intercom in a cheery voice, "Okay folks, prepare for final de-accel. Docking in five minutes."

Then the force began at her back, her body sinking into the rather stiff passenger seat. A little vibration kicked up and the shuttle made a few snaps and groans, enough to make the young ensign sitting behind her kick the underside of the Captain's seat in alarm.

"Easy Ensign, she whispered back to the young man. "It's like an old automobile, it has its own little creaks and groans. There really nothing to it."

"Thanks" came the low whisper from the overly tall crewman. Jennifer knew from her files that there were many like the ensign aboard the station now, all worried about how they were going to perform and worried about the certain hostile environment on board. Part of her job for the first few months would be to keep the younger or at least inexperienced crewman from worrying too much. And to keep them from mating like rabbits...the use of sex as a treatment for worry went back to the beginning of man, she theorized, and certainly in confined spaces such as the typical room for the newer people on board, tended to leave little else to do with spare time. The first really sick women on the early modules had been the three women who had turned up with morning sickness. Hell a full third of the women on board today were pregnant. Another unplanned for series of events. Pretty soon, she figured, she would be knee deep in baby toting Moms. Now that would be an interesting few months.

The resulting institution of mandatory birth control had religious leaders screaming back "on planet", but she knew that was a battle that had been won before the politicians could even raise a hand to object. Since the WSC's Exploration Service was quasi-military, it was very simple to place the jurisdiction over conception in the hands of the Captain. Even married couples would have to have permission to change the population balance on the super-sensitive eco-system that was Station 3. Oh yes, another fun policy to enforce. Yuk!

writers@mcint.com
Last Updated: Feb 28, 1996