CASE [GL]

We walked through the pretty much deserted space station towards our ship, encountering only a couple of armed guards along the way and while I hadn’t really expected a big departure committee, I had also not expected that we would just walk into our ship like nothing had happened. We only encountered one logistics officer right across the connector who was waiting there for me, holo stick already presented. 

“All supplies are aboard and accounted for, Commander. I just need your signature to officially hand her back over to you.” 

“Thank you, Lieutenant.” I quickly put my scribble down on the holo stick. 

“Have a safe journey.” And with a quick salute the Lieutenant crossed the connector over into the space station leaving us alone on our ship once more. 

I stood near the airlock for a bit with Luna by my side while the other officers filtered through behind me, with Doctor Winter and Doctor Freemann entering as the last two people from our officer corps. 

“I assume you know the direction towards your station, Doctor?” I nodded politely. 

“I do, Commander. Should we head there immediately?” 

“I think we’ll jump in about half an hour to forty-five minutes from now so feel free to make a little detour if you want to.” 

“In that case I think I’ll make my way towards my cabin first. I’ve seen it on a picture before but I’d like to see it in person as well.” 

“I will walk you there, Doctor.” Eva replied. “Mine is pretty much next to yours.” 

The doctors gave each other a polite nod and off they went on their walk towards their cabins. 

That left Luna and I alone staring across the bridge connector into the space station. Luna then took her holo stick and subsequently faced me. “All officers are accounted for, Commander. Should I close the airlock?” 

I waited a couple of seconds while I kept staring into the corridor. This would be the last piece of human engineering that wasn’t our ship that was within arms reach for, presumably, quite a while.  It was weird but I didn’t really feel anything, probably because the person I cared for most was standing right next to me. 

“Yes, you can close it, Lieutenant-Commander.” 

And just like that, with the press of a button on her holo stick, the doors slowly closed in front of us. 

“Depressurizing connector bridge.” A familiar somewhat robotic voice sounded over the intercoms. 

“Hello there, Ellie. Missed us?” 

“I did. Welcome aboard, Commander.” 

“Thank you.” I smiled. “How are the embarkations going on the other levels?” 

“Still a couple of shuttles approaching that ran a bit late. Everyone should be aboard and ready in ten minutes maximum, Commander.” 

“Good.” I nodded and turned towards the direction of the bridge. “How are those robotic soldiers that you got your hands on?” 

“Very useful.” Ellie replied. “But if you don’t mind, Commander. Would I be allowed to borrow one of them? I will keep it ready for emergency operational use though.” 

“Oh? What would you like to use it for, Ellie?” Luna asked. 

“I think I already know the answer to that.” I smiled. “But please do explain.” 

“I would like to make a more physical representation of myself that is not my AI mainframe.” Ellie came forth with her reasoning rather easily. 

“Ah. Yeah, I guess we didn’t really finish your thing back on earth with the auto-duster, did we?” 

“Don’t worry about that, Lieutenant-Commander. Scheduling is a challenging thing and there were more important things at hand.” 

“So any idea on how you want to create this more physical representation of yourself?” I continued while I halted at the first corner we came across. “Are you going to body mod it?” 

“I have a couple of ideas but first I want to try less material solutions.” She replied. “These combat bots are not designed to be modified externally to a big extent. I might have to strip it completely for what I want to do with it but I prefer not doing that to start with.” 

“Well, try not to wreck it.” 

“I’ll be very careful with it, Commander.”

“And Ellie.” 

“Yes?” 

“We are glad to be back as well. Please take care of us.” 

“Evidently, Commander.” 

 

We continued towards the bridge where our crew had already taken up their posts. As we were still waiting on the last couple of people to enter the ship, pretty much everyone was still chatting with one another. Although a couple of the officers were looking out of the window instead, among which were Lieutenant Zu and Lieutenant McAllister. 

“Hey, Commander, come look at this.” Zu called me over.

I walked over and as Luna had nothing to do currently she followed along. “What should I be looking at, Zu?” 

“Look at all those lights circling around the moon. Those are all ships, aren’t they?”

It was a bit hard to see as we weren’t terribly close to the moon but it was clear that there was quite a bit of activity going on around Earth’s only natural satellite. “Yes, those would be ships alright. We’ll get a better look once we drive by later on. But as you will be focussing on doing your job, let’s let our helpful AI help us a bit. “Hey Ellie, could you put up a screen focusing on the activity around the moon?” 

“Yes, Commander.” As soon as Ellie replied a screen covered the window, having zoomed in tremendously on the moon. Apparently most of the lights we were seeing were construction vehicles busy at work building a series of drydock stations above the moon’s surface. 

“Are those stations outside of the moon’s gravity field?” I asked our reliable crewmate. 

“They are, Commander. They are orbiting Earth at the same speed the moon is.” 

“I see.” It was actually a rather smart thing to do. Using the moon as a shield against line of sight weapons while still having the advantages of 0G construction. Right now most of the 0G shipyards were all in rather vulnerable positions. Considering the size of the new shipyards they probably don’t want to lose them that easily in case of enemy incursions.

“Do you think they will be construction warships there, Commander?” McAllister asked. 

“Undoubtedly. I know from good sources that they are already shifting over a sizeable part of ship construction for military means. Shipyards that big will no doubt be used to construct space battleships or dreadnoughts. 

“The construction of Federation class battleships has already been planned at this new site according to budget allocations. The construction of the first ship is scheduled to begin in a month if construction of the shipyard doesn’t get delayed.” Ellie informed us. 

“Federation class battleships… Would you know how big those ships are going to be, Ellie?” Lieutenant Zu asked. 

“I have not found any blueprints on non-classified channels.” Ellie replied, although I am sure that she actually did manage to look into the blueprints, all things considered. “The allocated budget per ship however indicates that those ships will be several times as big as this ship.” 

Zu whistled. “Wew. I would like to get a close-up look of those when they are done.” 

“And I wouldn’t mind getting behind the wheel of one of those either.” McAllister commented. 

“Oh? Would you already like me to sign your transfer papers?” I joked. 

“No way, Commander.” McAllister was quick to rebuke me. “While I would like to take those ships on a joy-ride I wouldn’t want to trade this gig for any other.” 

“Same goes for me, Commander.” Lieutenant Zu replied. “Besides, I think the chain of command on those ships would be huge and a lot more strict than what we have here.” 

“Hmm, stricter is probably true, but I don’t know if it’s going to be larger when it comes to crew.” 

“Yes, those ships are probably going to have a lot more automated systems.” Luna spoke up for the first time during this little side-conversation we were having. “And we have a lot of crew that is necessary for research, colonisation prep and other exploratory functions alike, not to mention armed ground teams.” 

“If designed purely for space combat purposes this ship could be run with less than a twentieth of the crew currently aboard this ship.” Ellie explained. “Especially when it would only be designed for solar system defence. Damaged systems could way easier be repaired here than by an on-ship engineering department.” 

“Oh, right, that makes sense.” Zu nodded. “But maybe that means bigger cabins?” 

“You’d probably be severely disappointed, Lieutenant.” I chuckled and crossed my arms. “As Ellie just mentioned, those ships are not going to be built for any comfort either. I would assume they’d look more like the shared bunks us marines got during the war. Just about enough space to sleep while curled up and that’s about it.”

“That sounds like hell…” Luna commented. 

“I can assure you, it was. But it at least kept us alive in cramped shelters. We very much preferred safety over a good night’s sleep that could be prolonged into eternity…”