ly Station
By Ronald Brandenburg
Copyright 2016 Ronald Brandenburg
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Uriah was the pits; a lonely space station that used to serve as a mining hub in a far flung asteroid belt. But after the easily mined metals were depleted from the nearby asteroids, the belt was abandoned to those who would work harder to retrieve the precious metals. The profits were too low for the corporations, so it fell to the smaller clans to try and squeeze a living in the dark depths of space.
At the moment, the station was undergoing a crisis. A micro-meteor had randomly collided with the station, breaching its thin skin and opening it to the vacuum of space.
Jesse was a handyman, and hurried to the spot of the fracture. He carried nothing but a simple mask with an oxygen tank and his tool box. The meteor was small and so was the hole that it tore open, but given time all the atmosphere in the station would be sucked out into the nether. The capsule that the meteor had hit was a habitation module. Fortunately, it was devoid of its normal occupants.
Jesse kicked clothing and poorly made furniture out of his way as he searched for the cavity. It didn’t take long to find. With small objects being dragged toward the aperture, he quickly grabbed his roll of thermal insulation tape, cut off a section, and applied it over the fissure. This was a quick patch as he started his next task. Jesse kept squares of metal in his toolbox for just this occasion.
Rummaging through his box, he found a square big enough to cover the lightly covered vent and began welding it directly to the deck. Within a few breaths he was done. This was the third hole today that he had patched. Jesse gathered up his tool box and left the habitation module. Once outside he grabbed his radio.
“All clear”
“Thanks Jesse”
“I’m going back to my place to pick up a few more patches, let me know when you need something.”
“Roger”
Jesse replaced the radio on his belt and started the trek back to his small bachelor pad. The corridors of the station were small, only big enough for one person at a time. Fortunately, the majority of the stations inhabitants were miners. There two shifts of Uriah, but nobody called them day shift or nightshift. There was no nearby star to shed light on their operations. The miners either worked their trade or slept. The few people on the station that weren’t miners had jobs to do too, like Jesse. All in all, there were less than five hundred people on the station and nobody wanted to be there.
The station had belonged to the Brevett Corporation for decades before it had been towed out here to act as the hub for mining the nearby asteroid field. The long decades and the underperforming yield of the asteroid field led the Brevett Corporation to abandon Uriah and use it as a tax write off. After that, small families moved in and continued the work that Brevett didn’t think was profitable. The families eked out a living, but it was deadly work for little reward. The families never moved on though, they had nowhere else to go.
No personnel transports came to Uriah, the only way to leave was on a freighter that came to collect the raw ore mined from the asteroids. Small time traders visited the station from time to time, but they were looking to sell their rations and water, not provide transport for guests that would take up space. Jesse had come to the station with his parents and older siblings, but soon after their arrival his father had been killed with he had been hit by a micro-meteor like the one that had just punched a hole in the habitation capsule.
His body had been retrieved, but only to recover the suit. Jesse’s father’s body had been dumped in the recycling vat, just like dozens of bodies before it and hundreds after. There was no waste here on Uriah, nobody could afford it.
Jesse was lucky actually, he had two bunks to keep his stuff in. Since space was tight, only families had habitation capsules and they often shared those. Since he was a bachelor, he got a shelf. But because of his job, he was assigned an extra one to place his tools. The minors kept their gear by the ore compacters, so they didn’t need to store anything other than a few personal items. The bunks were tiny, measuring just over two meters long, one meter wide, and half a meter tall. They did have pullout lids though, that could be closed for some privacy. The hallway where Jesse’s bunks were located had five bunks stacked on each side. His bunks were the top and second to top.
Jesse knew that some of his neighbors were trying to sleep, so he tried to be quiet. Other bunks were empty as their owners were out working. He opened the top bunk and grabbed a few more patches to replace the ones that he had used that day. Then he closed the lid and made his way down the hallway to the maintenance bay. There was always worked to be done here. Jesse had to stay busy throughout the day to earn his wages, which were just enough to keep him fed, clothed, and housed.
Inside the maintenance bay were piles of equipment requiring repair. Already inside was Rick, the man that had taught Jesse everything he knew about keeping Uriah functioning. Rick was listening to a multichannel radio. This far out in space the only air traffic was the miners out in the field, but Rick liked to listen. He used to be a miner himself; before he lost a leg when an emergency door came crashing down on him after a sensor detected an air leak. It was because of Rick that the settings on the emergency doors had been ratcheted back to only lock down on catastrophic breaks.
Rick gave Jesse a nod as Jesse picked up a space suit that he had been working on when the micro-meteor had struck the station. It was such a routine occurrence that Rick didn’t even bother asking about the task. The two of them worked in silence, listening to the radio for over an hour before an unusual transmission came across the speakers.
“Mining Station Uriah, this is the New Order Ship Longleaf demanding docking access. We have been heavily damaged by Confederate forces and require repairs.”
Rick and Jesse looked at each other in wonderment at the transmission. The New Order was not known to patrol around here.
“NOS Longleaf, the largest bay we have available is for ore storage. If you can fit in there, then you can have it.”
“Open the doors; we are heading towards you now.”
On a different channel, the radio crackled again, “All personnel, clear the ore bay, I repeat, clear the ore bay. A New Order ship is coming in to dock for repairs and demands the use of the ore bay.”
Finally, on both Jesse’s and Rick’s radios, the same voice came on, “All maintenance crew, report to the airlock on the ore bay. You will assist the NOS Longleaf in its repairs. We have to get them out of here as soon as possible. With that ship in the ore bay, we can’t store anymore ore.”
Jesse had already set his suit down and was heading towards the door. Rick was older and slower to get up. Jesse had his toolbox slung over his shoulder and was hurtling through the station towards the center where the ore bay was. The gravity was lower here because the central spire was the axis of rotation. By the time Jesse arrived at the airlock of the ore bay, the NOS Longleaf had already docked. The external doors were closing. In a few moments, the room would be flooded with atmosphere again and he could go in, but in the meantime, Jesse stared at the NOS Longleaf.
He had never seen a New Order ship before, let alone a warship. The Longleaf looked sleek and deadly to Jesse. Little did he know that the Longleaf was a small destroyer,
not some mighty battleship or carrier. Rick caught up with Jesse before the re-pressurization of the ore bay was complete and took a moment to size the Longleaf up. It was clear that she had been in a fight, there were blackened scorch marks all along her hull and several assemblies were clearly missing. What stood out the most to Rick was that the ring at the tail of the Longleaf were damaged, that was why she had to limp on sub light engines to a space station instead of jumping to a New Order facility.
“Rick, the commander of the NOS Longleaf has accepted our offer for maintenance support. He will meet you in the ore bay and direct you.”
“Acknowledged”
The airlock door slid open and Jesse and Rick made their way down the stairs, between piles of ore, towards the Longleaf. Jesse was clearly amazed about being this close to a ship. Rick had a knowing grin on his face, he had had a life before coming to Uriah and it had been as a deckhand on a warship like the one before them. By the time the pair had made their way to the ship, the commanding officer was waiting for them.
“You are Mr. Rick Walters I presume? You are to assist in the repairs of my ship. Who is this?”
“This is Jesse Ownsman Captain, he is my apprentice.”
“Very well, the first order of business is to repair the Gauss ring. Without it, the NOS Longleaf cannot jump. My men will assist you, but they are not machinist Mr. Walters. Are you capable of repairing the ring?”
“Ay sir, I have served on a ship before”
“Very good, I will you to it then.”
The captain turned around and headed up the ladder into his ship, leaving Rick and Jesse alone to begin their work.
“Let’s see here, a Gauss ring huh, haven’t worked on one of them in ages.”
“Can you fix it?”
“Of course I can, but I need to refresh myself first. Let’s go see what we’ve gotten ourselves into.”
The two of them walked around to the end of the ship and stared at the ring. The Gauss ring was the same diameter as the ship and had small probes sticking out of it at every angle. There were two breaks in the ring where a shot from a Confederate ship had pierced the ring and gone through the other side.
“We can fix this, provided they have the replacement parts. Come here and look at this. The Gauss ring creates a bubble of electromagnetic energy around the ship from the prow to the stern here. At just the right frequency, the ship shifts from our reality into another one. The other reality is more compact than ours, so the engines fire through the ring to propel it forward, but instead of going hundreds of kilometers an hour, the ship goes millions or billions. When the navigation computer decides that it is nearing the destination, then the Gaussian bubble shifts the ship back into our reality, light-years away from where they entered the nether.”
“The nether?”
“Yeah, that’s what we call the other reality. Now, this ring is broken, so it can’t complete the Gaussian bubble, so the ship can’t go into the nether. It can only travel as fast as its sub light engines allow, which in space, isn’t fast enough. We have to make the ring whole again, and then reinstall the probes. I’m going to talk with the captain; you go get a ladder and a welder. This is going to take a while.”
The break in routine was exhilarating to Jesse as he rushed back to the maintenance bay to retrieve the tools that Rick instructed him to get. By the time he had returned, Rick had boxes of parts and a handful of New Order sailors around him. There were other New Order personnel all over the Longleaf too, already at work on radars, antennas, and the hull. Rick wasted no time, quickly sending Jesse up a ladder to begin the repairs.
“What’s the rush?”
“The captain informed me that the Confederate ship that engaged them is likely looking for them now. We are the only station for light years, so we are an obvious place to start looking. He doesn’t know how much damage the Confederate ship took, so we have to be quick so that the Longleaf can get back out there and finish the Confederate ship off. Otherwise, the bastards might find the Longleaf here and simply destroy the station in order to finish her off.”
“They would do that?”
“Ayy boy, we are helping the New Order, enemies of the Confederation of Traders. That makes us fair game. But if they don’t know that we are helping the New Order by fixing the Longleaf, then they won’t attack us, that’s why we need to be quick about it.”
Rick and Jesse worked as quickly as they could; assisted by the New Order sailor’s where they could help. Jesse found that the sailors were not very useful in this effort, they mostly loafed around and handed them tools or parts. Fifteen hours is what it took to repair the Gauss ring. By the time that was done, the rest of the crew of the Longleaf had fixed the radars, replaced the antennas, and welded large patches over the hull of the ship where it had been damaged. The New Order captain had even ordered additional armor to be mounted over the hull. Without saying so, he admitted that the Longleaf was outclassed by the Confederate ship lurking out there in the darkness.
Soon after Rick inspected the ring and deemed it to be functional, he informed the captain thusly.
“Thank you Mr. Walters, you have done fine work for the New Order.”
“Thank you sir, it was my pleasure for a break away from fixing this station.”
“It’s a pity that you lost your leg. The New Order needs men like you.”
“Well, Jesse here knows almost everything that I do. I’ve been teaching him how to fix things since his father died.”
“Does he now?” The captain turned his attention to Jesse.
“My Chief Engineer was killed during our brush with the Confederate ship. I have had to promote several men to fill vacancies, but that has left me with other roster positions to fill. How would you like to serve the New Order onboard the NOS Longleaf?”
Jesse gasped a chance to leave Uriah with a job! “I’d be very grateful, sir.” Jesse issued an energetic salute.
The captain smiled as he continued, “I intend to invite several members of Uriah to join my crew, to fill a variety of vacancies.”
“You will have an overwhelming amount of applicants, I believe. There isn’t much of a future here on Uriah.” Rick replied.
“Well, if that is the case, then when I return to a New Order dock, I will inform them of this station. Maybe they will send out a transport on a recruiting drive. Go gather your effects Mr. Ownsman; we will be leaving very soon.”
Jesse raced out of the ore bay towards his bunks, his mind racing at this turn of events. Once at his bachelor pad, he had to stop and think about what he could take. The tools belonged to the station, so only his personal belongings would be going with him. He also wrote a note to his mother and siblings that he was leaving to join the New Order Navy; he left the note on his thin mattress. Taking a quick look around and finding nothing else, Jesse returned to the ore bay and embarked on the NOS Longleaf.
Within fifteen minutes, a handful of other Uriahans had come aboard. They had been taken to the mess hall with their belongings and told to wait. Outside the atmosphere was evacuated, the outer doors were opened, and the NOS Longleaf left the station. Ore mining had been disrupted for a little more than one shift, but not by much. The minors had still gone out to mine; the fruits of their labors had simply piled up in the barges that traveled between the asteroids and the station. Jesse and the others were clearly excited to be leaving Uriah behind and they waited to begin their new lives in the New Order Navy.
It wasn’t long before the captain came into the mess hall and began addressing them.
“Welcome boys and girls to the NOS Longleaf. You have been inducted into the New Order Navy to serve in our mission to bring peace and stability to the inhabited sector. Our current mission is to hunt down the Confederate ship that has been spotted in this area; he surprised us the first time, but will not do so again. The last brush resulted in casualties, which is why you are here. Each and every one of you
are now enlisted in the New Order Navy. You will be assigned tasks, and you will perform those tasks. If you are unable or unwilling to perform your tasks, then you will be reassigned. If you purposely damage or are attempting to damage this ship, then you will be executed.”
The last remark wiped the smile off of Jesse’s face. He was a soldier now, not an apprentice mechanic on some backwater station. The others came to similar revelations at the same time.
“My first mate will assign you to your teams. After that, you will report to your new team and begin learning your responsibilities. You are all being given a great gift, lifted from your dismal lives aboard an abandoned mining station to serve in the Navy.”
Jesse sat and waited as the first mate came forward and started calling off names and assigning them to teams. As expected, Jesse was assigned the Engineering team. Once all the names were called, members of the crew came forward to collect their new teammates. A fellow only a few years younger than Jesse pulled him out of the mess hall and towards the back of the ship.
“So you’re Jesse? I’ve seen you at work, you’re pretty good. None of us could have fixed that Gauss ring, which is why we landed at your station. My name is Max, Corporal Max. You’ve been assigned to the Engineering team, we are in charge of maintaining the Longleaf, keeping her in the sky if you will. Roxanne is in charge now that our chief died. He was trying to plug a gap in our hull when it opened up and sucked him out into space. It’s a shame really, he was a good guy, always knew what to do. Anyways, I’ve been tasked to show you the ropes. Just follow me around and I will get you familiar with the systems. You don’t say much do you?”
Jesse grinned; Max had been talking too fast to get a word in edge wise. “No”
Max nodded his head and seemed to task himself with completely filling the whole ship with his voice. Max started showing Jesse every system that the Engineering team was responsible for, which was the whole ship. He would tell Jesse the most likely cause for failure for each subsystem and how to fix it, and then move on to another subsystem.
The two of them slowly worked their way around the Longleaf before the intercom cracked to life.
“The Confederate ship, Orleans, has been sighted. We are beginning our maneuvers, everybody to their battle-stations.”
“Oh boy, this is exciting, let’s go.”
Max started off towards the rear of the Longleaf with Jesse in tow. Several times they had to squeeze past sailors going the other direction.
“During combat, our station is near the rail cannons, so that we can reload them. This