As
the low whine of the engines of la Vie en
Rose turned down, the silence that Sophia Rose had known for the past week
was revealed to be a lie. Sophia leaned back in her chair and looked out the
broad, angular window of the spaceship's bridge. Before her, she saw the cloud
of brown, red dust stirred up by her landing slowly roll away from the ship. As
the dust dissipated, it revealed the skyline of JADE Propulsion Industries'
large factories and silos.
Sophia
swirled around in her pilot's chair twice before jumping out of it and landing
on her tip toes. As her short brown, red hair slowly fell back onto her soft
features, she stood balanced on her toes measuring the gravity that this new location
was forcing upon her. About a quarter G,
she thought. "A rock this small shouldn't have that much. I wonder if they
buried mass reactors when they terra-formed this place." she said to no
one as she slowly lowered herself off her toes. Sophia skipped down the short
hallway from the bridge to the small combined kitchen and living space. With
and outstretched left hand she caught the grab bar of a door.
With
push of a button, the door slide to the right without a sound and revealed her
private room. This room, when the ship was built, was originally intended to be
used as berthing for a crew of six, but with Sophia being the only one on the
ship, has partially been turned into a work shop. The two bunk beds that stood
next to the opposite wall were now the resting place of a multitude of gizmos
and gadgets, mostly broken, and the tools to fix them. Only the bunk on the
left wall was still being used for its intended purpose. Sophia quickly changed
from her pajamas she had been traveling in into the dark red skin tight one
piece meant to be worn under a envirosuit to prevent chafing. Pushing a cluster
of gadgets on one of the bunks to the side, she grabbed the red and yellow tool
bag that is customary for Galactic Universal Technical Service members to
carry. Sophia scurried around the room grabbing a potpourri of tools and cables
stuffing them into her bag before leaving the room.
Back
in the kitchen, she grabbed her phone which was laying on the counter and
pressed small button on the bottom of it. The phone lit up with a dark blue
light and projected a colorful hologram of the Hello Kitty cat six inches above
its face. "You have seven unwatched messages!" a speech bubble said
from cat with the bow on its head. Sophia popped the floating bubble and viewed
the resulting spread of names before selecting VERONICA VALLEY. The names moved
back out of focus and the face of a middle age woman with long black hair
appeared and began to speak.
"Hello
Sophia, I just wanted to inform you that you have just received your security clearance
from upper management to enter the Amalthea facility. When you get here, Dr. Manelski
and I will meet you at the landing site and transport you to area with the
problem. Good travels."
After
the recording's last words, the woman's head shrank down and the seven names
from before came swirling back into focus. Sophia pressed the bottom button
again and the hologram and blue light vanished. I'd better hurry up, they're probably already out-side waiting for me,
she thought as she turned towards the storage bay of the ship.
There
she found the rack of two envirosuits hanging up next to cargo lift to the
outside. She took the dark red envirosuit with the GUTS insignia off its hook
and grabbed the helmet from the rack above it. In the storage bay, Sophia worked
her way into the envirosuit, which fit like a tight pair of clothes to allow
her to move without interference. With the helmet thrown over her head, it was
rotated a quarter turn to lock it into place, the translucent face shield only
an inch off her nose. The right arm control panel was flicked open and the
button which powered the suit was pressed. Instantly the fans in the helmet
wicked away all the fog from the inside of the face shield and a variety of
heads-up display information including air supply, location, and environment statistics
appeared in the corner of Sophia's vision.
Sophia
gave a quick smile. She liked being in her envirosuit. To her, it was a cozy
place; a way to isolate herself from the rest of the solar system. She grabbed
her tool bag and slung it over her shoulders, then moved over to close the
airlock to the living quarters and lower the loading ramp. While the ramp
lowered silent, there was a loud hiss as the pressure between the atmosphere on
Amalthea and inside the La Vie en Rose's
storage bay equalized. The air escaping the ship caused another small cloud of
dust to radiate away from the loading ramp as Sophia walked down it. She
quickly took a look back into the ship. See
if I can score some free water.
As
she reached the bottom the dust dissipated, revealing a small pickup truck with
two people clad in green envirosuits standing out next to it. They started to
approach as Sophia finally set foot on the hard dusty ground.
"Howdy."
a woman's voice emanated from one of the green suites. "We weren't
expecting you for another six hours or so."
"I
made good time. The Belt was in my favor this time. It was clean flying for the
most part." Sophia replied heartily. "But I burnt up a little more water
than I was expecting to." she lied, "But I guess that's the trade off
to get here earlier."
"Well
I'm sure if you can help us with our little problem quickly we could probably
get you a couple of kilolitres." the woman replied with a knowing voice.
She extended a gloved hand, "Veronica Valley."
"Sophia
Rose." Sophia stated confi-dently as she shook the green gloved hand.
Veronica
extended her free hand towards the other envirosuit with her, "And this is
Dr. Manelski." Framed by the helmet was a young man with short blond hair
and thin metal glasses.
"It's
a pleasure to meet you Ms. Rose." the doctor said offering Sophia a
handshake. Sophia accepted and looked at the man behind the helmet and saw the
discomfort on his face.
"Nice
to meet you Doctor. Don't get out in a envirosuit very often, do you?" she
joked.
"It's
my first time. We never really had much envirosuit experience at Mars."
Dr. Manelski replied, referencing his time at the prestigious Mars Institute of
Technology. "Ever since its one hundred percent terraform was completed
sixty years ago, there's been no need for them. And with most of the work at
MIT being theory there weren't many field visits. But I did have one professor
who-"
"I'm
sure there will be enough time to talk to Ms. Rose about your college days
Doctor on the car ride back to the factory." Veronica interrupted. She
turned back towards Sophia and gestured toward the pickup, "I hope you don't
mind. It's a bit archaic, but big wigs back on Earth don't give us enough creds
to get a hover truck."
"Not
at all. I grew up in a small mining community on Iapetus. It's fixing trucks
like these that got me into GUTS." she attempted to mention as humbly as possibly.
"Great,
so I won't have to apologize for the ride back. It's going to be a bit
rough." She said as she held open passenger door of the Toyota U92 Atomic
Pickup Truck for Sophia. "Oh, Doctor, there's only two seats up front. Would
you be a gentlemen and ride in the bed for the ride back?" she politely
ordered. "I want to make sure she's in the front with me when we pass
security."
Veronica
closed her door of the truck and started it up with the outdated metal key as
Dr. Manelski climbed into the bed. "He can be really chatty. You'll thank
me for this later." She pushed her foot down hard on the accelerator and
the Toyota took off going faster and bumpier than it probably should be going.
Cries of pain could be heard from the bed of the pickup.
"Really
chatty." Veronica whispered.
No comments:
Post a Comment