LJ Idol ** Fiction ** Let's take a walk.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
It took three weeks on Artemis base for them to convince me to take another mission. At first their excuse for delaying me was simple if annoying, the delay for the first meeting had made me miss the scheduled shuttle planetside. Another wasn’t available for two weeks. Then they got more creative and held my pay pending some bogus paperwork. That, of course, made me miss the next shuttle.
Artemis Station actually has a nice little park in the central dome. With lunar gravity being only 17% that of earth, the imported flora is somewhat limited, but it’s a small taste of home. They put the treadmills in the park, to better encourage some of the residents to exercise a little. With resistance bands to add some pull to the limited gravity it was better than nothing. After six years in zero G I really needed this low gravity time before transition back to earth anyway.
That’s where I was when Sara, Xeno Logistics Corps Chief of operations for Artemis base, made her final pitch for me to make another supply run and look for “their alien”.
“Tom, we really want you to make one more Saturn run for us.” I never said she wasn’t persistent.
“Come on, Sara, you just want to see if I get ‘lucky’ again, and stumble across your alien. It’s not going to happen.”
She kept after me though, “So what are you going to do? Go sit on a beach? You’re a pilot, and you’re never going to get the sky time to keep you happy planetside. It’s not like your certifications are even current any more, you’ve been up here too long.”
“OK, you have a point, but you have to know it’s a fools mission. You want me to take it? It’s going to take something truly inspiring.”
“Take a walk with me, Tom. I want to show you something.”
It was almost like old times, walking through the corridors together. I had flashbacks to the last time we walked through here together, just before I left on my last mission. Her comments about flight time had hit close to home. I didn’t have a plan for that going forward.
Our route took us to the observation room over the shipbuilding hangars. Out on the floor I could see crews working on two ships. Amethyst Dream was there in the process of getting torn down. Six years of tech advancements mean that the ship was outdated well before I got it back here, so they’re tearing her down and re-building with the updates before she goes out next. The other ship was new and sleek, and looking nothing like my old tug, though it still had the cargo pod attachments.
“Meet the new Amethyst Dream. She just needs her pilot.”
“What are you talking about, Sara? I can see your crew dismantling Amy right there.”
“Since she needed refurbishment anyway we had the crew move her A.I. over to the new ship. Your new ship. All of her systems have been upgraded, of course, and we’ve added some containment equipment to the inventory.” She was really trying to sell this upgraded ship.
“I’m sure it’s a nice ship, but…”
“Give me a minute, I’m not done here. This is the fastest thing out here right now, and it’s yours if you want it. We’ll also pay you for the run. New contract at triple the previous rate, with bonuses for alien contact and a double bonus if you can bring one back. If you do this for us, you'll be the richest pilot Xeno Logistics history. I can guarantee your full retirement after the return trip. It’s all been vetted by the lawyers. What do you say?” She had a look of hope on her face, and it was damn tempting.
I thought about it for a few minutes while watching the crews at work before I responded, “If you want me to take this run, I have a couple of things to add to the contract before I sign it.”