MSE media centre archives. It was through this mysterious sponsor that the young officer was introduced to MSE Director Hilary Armstrong, early in his first year at the University. Mars quickly realised the benefit of rubbing shoulders with some of the world’s richest and most powerful people. His list of allies included the United Nations, Carlos Saville, and Director of the CIA, Max Powell and of course his sponsor Alex Templar the industrialist. With these kind of associates and an attitude that promised to be tenacious, cunning Commander Gonzalo found himself in a position of influence, he knew how to use it and that was how he had come to be here on Maverick, now in a position of ultimate power over them all.
The next day Wolfe Magellan was the first of the senior managers of the station to rise. He had not slept well since his midnight chat with Mars about Gonzalo and was becoming anxious about the scheduled meeting with Gonzalo. Wolfe was a man who liked to be prepared and liked to know an agenda prior to meetings, so he could have answers available for anything, which fell, under his authority. Today’s meeting had made him nervous due to Gonzalo’s appointment as Commander and because of Mars’s unnaturalised records, stored by Celestial amongst the stations personnel files. He still wanted to protect Mars’s identity from the Ministry of Space Exploration MSE, until he knew whom they could trust about the boy’s stay on the station.
Wolfe paced his quarters and checked on Mars who was asleep in his bunk. He could see his shallow breathing and smiled with apprehension at the possibility of loosing him. It was four o’clock in the morning when he sent an urgent message about Mars to Celestial, but unsurprisingly because of the hour there was no immediate reply. He lay back on the sofa in the living area relaxed and drank a coffee, before closing his eyes.
Hour’s later Halley's voice woke Wolfe from a deep sleep on the sofa. She shouted at the children to get ready for their mentoring classes. It was 8.30 when Wolfe rose from the sofa, his legs could not keep up with his brain, as he tried to get dressed for his ill prepared first meeting with Gonzalo, a meeting he dare not be late for.
As the Magellan’s left their quarters that Monday morning there was a sense that nothing in their lives would be the same again. Halley led the children away to IGE’s offices and spoke softly to Wolfe. ‘I will be joining your meeting with Gonzalo at 10:30 am, to brief him on the scientific communities capacity on the station. Try to leave him in a good mood,’ she pleaded.
‘I hear he can be a difficult person to deal with, but I will try.’ Wolfe made his way across to the control tower and was surprised to see Celestial already in the offices.
His friend seamed in a good mood. ‘Come on in,’ Celestial said, as the two chums shuck each other’s hands, as the formal setting of the meeting seemed to require.
‘You know something I do not, Celestial,’ Wolfe said in a searching tone.
Celestial sat on top of the Commanders table, arms folded and a broad smile on his face. ‘Indeed I do.’
‘You will not be when you hear what Mars has uncovered about Gonzalo.’ He filled the commander in and added. ‘I do not think we can trust him, he is too ambitious.’
Wolfe had just finished his briefing when a voice came from behind. ‘Good Morning gentlemen! Although once you have heard what I’ve got to say, you might consider it a challenging day.’
It was Commander Gonzalo who had entered the room with two of his guards. ‘Gentlemen please sit down and make yourselves comfortable,’ he made his way across the office to the desk, opened a brief case, laid out a report and other pieces of paper in a methodical manner.
For a few seconds Gonzalo looked at the papers then sat down and peered across at the two colleagues before him. ‘I would like to introduce myself to you Wolfe Magellan.’ He looked the man in the eyes. ‘I am the new commander of the station and have been assigned the duties of preparing the lock down of the facility. Now that the UN declaration to stop space exploration has been authorised, I want IGE personnel to be returning home to Earth within a week.’ He looked at the men before him with sharp cold eyes. ‘Commander Celestial was given a short briefing last night on my arrival. However I will need to be more specific today in discussing what precisely I need from your leadership, to make the evacuation deadline achievable.’ He continued. ‘I have prepared a breakdown of duties needed to be carried out. Maintenance and service crews will need to make the ECO zone self sufficient and automated to sustain life, the rest of the station systems are restricted and to be shut down.’
The three officials gathered together and looked at the schedule printed out on their copies of a manifesto. The description was as follows:
Station Shutdown - SCHEDULE:
Day 1: Cascade the information down the line of command and to communicate any immediate problems to the command centre.
Day 2: Define detailed working itineraries for the Astro & Service technicians to follow. Parties would work on a shift system to effectively close down systems. Personnel would be evacuated each day starting with none essential personnel.
Days 3-6: Carry out duties to close life support / accommodation block / Maintenance bays / Terminal bays / Labs.
Day 7: All remaining personnel mostly from the scientific community to prepare for departure once the records and labs had been closed down.
The command structure for the overall responsibility of the space station was detailed in a newly drawn contract, Celestial, who would oversee Wolfe and Halley’s areas, in maintenance and the Labs, would retain project control. The logistics, the station and management of the evacuation would be Gonzalo’s ultimate responsibility. Every member of the group was under no illusion that there was large scope for conflict with Gonzalo, especially under the tight deadline.
Wolfe raised his objections to the time scale almost immediately, stating the need to be more safety conscious. However it was dismissed with no room for negotiation. The meeting finished as Celestial and Wolfe discussed how best to organise the maintenance crew chiefs and shift pattern. They gathered their notepapers together and agreed to catch-up every morning at 8:00 am to discuss how the project was progressing.
As the two men exited the control room Halley made her way down the corridor. She stopped and chatted. ‘Are we happy boys?’ But realised from the looks of concern that the meeting had been a tough one.
‘Good luck,’ said Celestial, as Gonzalo came to the doorway to introduce himself. The three of them went their separate ways as Halley entered for her meeting
That evening a drawn looking Wolfe returned late to his living quarter, Mars had been right about the new commanders character, Wolfe had not been able to convince him to budge from the original orders. Gonzalo, he could see was going to be trouble. He had a very testing day convincing his work crews that the time frames were achievable. It was only the last minute new contract for treble pay, and a veto on dangerous external maintenance to the outer structure that found favour with his men and made the lock down workable.
Wolfe left his workbag and briefcase near to the door, the room was unusually quiet and dimly lit, he looked at his watch. He was shocked, it was 11:40 pm, yet he still had mountains of work to do so the crew chiefs had a schedule for tomorrow’s shifts.
Halley ventured in from the bedroom in her Pajamas and smiled at him. ‘Mars and Capella had ordered Italian food for you as a treat, but as the night wore on they fell asleep. ‘Come and have a bite to eat before you do anything else,’ she said, as they moved into the living quarters.
Wolfe slumped into the sofa, he was exhausted and his shoulders tight with tension. Halley returned with a steaming bowl of spicy spaghetti meatballs, which brought a huge smile to his face. He accepted it gratefully and hungrily devoured it before licked his lips together to taste the last moisture of the sauce. The food had revived him after such a stressful day.
Moments later Halley handed him a small package.
‘What’s this?’ he asked as his fingers snapped the security seal.
‘Celestial calle
d by the labs this afternoon; he said he had something that would put your mind at rest about the boy. He said you were not the only one who could not sleep last night.’ The two of them looked down on the package. It contained an IGE Community Card, a paper birth certificate and a silver data disk, which read Mars Magellan - Personal details. The contents came with a note: The Card will make the boy legitimate and no longer an alien, congratulations Mars Magellan, regards Celestial.
Wolfe broke the seal of the card and it flickered to life, the boys picture displayed on the card, alongside his personal details. It had a bank account facility and a communication facility set up in the navigation menu. The boy was now registered as an official IGE Community member, and a citizen of Earth. He rose from his comfortable seat entered the boys room and slid the card into the left arm of Mars’s uniform without waking him and then quickly returned to the room approached the monitor and slid the disk into the drive. Mars’s old and new profiles came into view with a breakdown of all of the boy’s statistics, educational achievements and interests; the list itself was impressive as it read of his thirst for knowledge. Every IGE mentoring class statistic of the boy’s grasp of Astro physics, engineering and sciences were listed as well as an