by Trent Falls
A message flashed across Alex’s auxiliary screen. “Nellis Station. We’re go with CTC synch.” Alex flipped a switch, allowing computer takeover control of his ship by the Nellis Station ground control system. Alex was able to release the controls and let the Tequesta fly itself. Ground control computers would place the Tequesta in a landing queue, coordinating it amongst all the incoming and outbound traffic.
Julie looked out the window as best she could. She was fixated by the sight, what little there was, of them landing on another planet. She had read about Proxima Centauri in text books. She had visited the planet in online school sims. Nothing simulated could match the real experience. The angled starboard window of the cockpit was a bit skewed from the flight engineer station, making it some work for Julie to get a view of anything out the window.
Alex looked over her shoulder and saw Julie struggling. “You can get out of your seat, you know. We won’t hit any more nasty bumps but you’ll have to sit back town on final approach.”
Julie happily removed her seat harness and got up.
“Check it out.” John pointed out the port side window.
The Tequesta was cruising at about twenty thousand feet much like any commercial airliner on Earth. The sound of the engines and the compressed air of the cabin made Julie liken the experience to flying in an Earth jet. The Tequesta turned gently to the left, raising the horizon on the left side of the ship. The view out the side was spectacular. The sun had just come up in the distance, casting the waters of the bay below in an amazing shimmering gold. A gigantic bay reached out into the distance far below. Julie could see there were a few major settlements on the sides of the crescent shaped bay. People lived down there! The rising sun cast long shadows on the ground. In the middle of the somewhat crescent shaped bay were a number of dots, set from the interior of the bay in a long line leading out to sea. Long v-shaped wakes trailed off of every dot.
“Arizona Bay!” John said with a grin looking out the side of the Tequesta. “I never thought I’d see this again.”
“What are those?” Julie asked, looking to the dots driving out to sea.
“Commercial fishing boats.” Alex answered.
“That many?!?” John noticed the fishing fleet far below in the ocean.
“Yeah.” Alex glanced over at John. “I told you things have changed. We got several planets to feed.”
“How many people are on Proxi Five now? Twenty million?” John asked aloud, still looking out the window on the golden waters of Arizona Bay.
“Try a hundred and twenty.” Alex corrected him. “There’s about two million in New Australia alone.”
“Wow! The Marshal’s office must be pretty big by now.” John replied.
“It is.” Alex noted. "I hear they’re thinking of turning into a proper police force. There’s a push for regional autonomy among the big cities. People looking to cut large swaths of land and make states, maybe even nations.”
“Here I thought we were done with the concept of ‘nations’.” John shook his head. “I mean, we all travel to space the same from Earth, right?”
Alex couldn’t help but chuckle. “The Xen originated from Earth and you had a war with them that cost eight million lives.”
“Good point.” John grumbled.
The Tequesta slowly descended in its bank around Arizona Bay. The ocean was off to the left of the Tequesta. A large city loomed ahead along the shore. New Australia was visible at first as a patch of grey among the surrounding green. Other air vessels, starships or airplanes, could be seen flying off from another part of the massive spaceport near the water. A gigantic freighter was coming in over the ocean, easing down into one of the giant cargo slips built up from the tarmac like giant dry docks.
John was stunned by the number of high-rises in the city. Most of them had been built during his ten year absence. The marina tower was the same. A giant disc on an hourglass shaped pedestal, the marina tower helped to monitor traffic from both the sea and the incoming starships. John identified a few new residential towers. They looked the same from one planet to the next, even thought the ones John was looking at hadn’t been built during his time on New Australia. There were also a few office buildings bearing the logos of well-known Earth companies. Hewlett Packard. United Technologies. Geico. It was more commercial like Aiyana had said. It was a strange sight for John. It was as if these giant office towers had been transported to Proxi Five in their entirety already built.
“Where is this Nellis Station?” John asked as he looked to the city passing by below.
“It’s an annex to the spaceport. Used for light loads and a few private transports.” Alex explained. “It’ll be easier than using the main terminals.”
“I take it you have connections there?” John pressed.
“You could say that.” Alex replied.
The Tequesta turned out at the shoreline, banking back towards a section of the spaceport tarmac that had similar sized vessels to his own. The larger bulk carriers loomed in the distance across a standard runway. The wire frame track changed from green to red, indicating that Alex should slow his rate of speed on descent. Alex held the controls, yawing the spade shape of the Tequesta to the left as it fell into hover.
Julie noticed the change in pitch of the engines outside. The repulse emitters whined mechanically. The gush of wind from the VTOL thrusters was like the sound of hurricane force wind beyond the hull; a deep roar that could barely be felt inside the ship. She looked ahead to see what looked like the upper body of a human fixed into an ATV. The arms of the robot held glowing orange wands that it waved to guide the Tequesta down. The weight of the Tequesta settled downward, like an elevator in slow motion with far more mass. The weight of the ship finally settled on its wheeled landing gear. The hydraulic pistons of the landing gear depressed significantly under the Tequesta’s weight.
Alex throttled back the engines and the repulse drive as his instrumentation indicated his ship as down. The wheeled landing drone beyond the nose of the Tequesta sped away, moving on to the next available landing slot to guide the next ship in.
“Ramp’s going down.” Alex noted, taking a look at another indicator screen above his head. The screen seemed to show a bunch of local information. “Looks like it’s… ninety eight degrees out. A hundred and one on the tarmac.”
“Great! It’s summer!” John grumbled in disappointment.
“That’s cool. It’s summer back home.” Julie noted.
“Summers in New Australia are like back home but can get worse.” John complained as he unfastened his seatbelts and stood up. “It gets wicked hot here.”
“It’s the star. It pulses now and then and it’s more noticeable in the summer.” Alex explained.
“Is it dangerous?” Julie asked somewhat nervously.
“It can give you a nasty burn if you’re not prepared for it.” John answered.
Julie got up from her seat and followed John and Alex back into the hangar bay.
“A long time ago they thought this star was a red dwarf until the colonists arrived.” John continued as they walked back through the cargo bay. “There’s a lot of early warning satellites out there that will alert the planet of an incoming pulse.”
“It’s not that bad.” Alex added. “It’s just a little annoying, that’s all. If you’re not careful you’ll get a nasty sunburn is all.”
“Yeah, a sunburn you need a doctor to fix.” John jabbed back.
They were about at the ramp of the cargo bay. The bright afternoon sun poured in with brilliant white intensity from the outside. Already all of the cold air from within the cargo bay had bled outside, replaced with hot air and noise from the tarmac. The outside air had a hint of jet fuel. The roar of a VTOL system grew outside, dissipating just as quickly as one of the nearby freighters lifted off the tarmac to rotate up into the sky.
The top of a white helmet drifted quickly into view outside the open cargo bay. As the group reached the cargo bay they no
ticed that the helmet was on a man who had driven up to the back of the Tequesta in a white electric cart. The man was a port handler. He was dressed in a white jumpsuit with a fluorescent green reflective vest on his upper body for safety. The white helmet was fairly lightweight and breathable. Reflective goggles, tinted like gold reflective sunglasses, covered the man’s eyes. The port handler held a datapad in his left hand.
“Hang back with Julie. I’ll handle this.” Alex said aside to John as the man neared the ramp.
“Hey, you the skipper of this rig?” the man looked up at Alex from the bottom of the ramp.
“Yes, I am.” Alex replied. “This a manifest inspection? We’re not carrying anything.”
“Routine inspection sir.” The port handler squinted up through his goggles at Alex. “You’re deadheading in from Earth?” the handler asked with some surprise.
“No, coming in from Freeport. Promise of a big contract to take a load back there. If they pay me to deadhead I’ll take it.” Alex answered.
“I’m going to need to check your ship over.”
“Sure no problem.” Alex walked down the ramp alone, extending an arm out to the port handler’s shoulder as he neared him. “There was an intermittent red light on my rear port landing strut when I landed though. I’d like to check it out first.”
“Sure, sure.” The port handler followed Alex around the underside of the ship. “It is locked down, isn’t it?” the port handler turned his eyes up a tad nervously.
“Oh yeah! Sure! No I got it down with a green light.” Alex assured him. “I just want to make sure it….”
Alex and the port handler vanished out of view and earshot from John and Julie, who remained at the top of the ramp. Julie looked over at her uncle curiously.
“What’s going on?” Julie asked.
“Routine inspection. Port Handlers are supposed to do them on all vessels. Alex is just a little nervous about them being on board given what happened is all.” John explained carefully.
“Oh.” Julie accepted the explanation.
A few moments later Alex reappeared with the port handler following close behind him with his white datapad. Alex and the handler walked halfway up the ramp and stopped.
“Looks like everything checks out.” The port handler looked back up again at Alex, handing him the datapad and a white plastic stylus. “I just need you to sign at the bottom.”
“Okay.” Alex took the pad and stylus and scratched his name on the pad quickly. “Here you go.” He turned the pad back around and handed it back to the port handler.
“Thanks.” The handler took the pad back. He looked curiously again at Alex. “Uh… my pen.”
“Oh yeah!” Alex grinned, handing the white stylus back. “Sorry.”
“No problem.” The handler took the stylus back. He took a few steps backwards and walked back to his electric cart. “A taxi-bot will be along in a moment. You folks have a nice day.”
“You too.” Alex smiled back at him.
The handler dropped into the well-worn black padded seat of his cart and drove off. The electric cart darted around the underside of a nearby Boeing Starmaster and vanished from view.
“What was that about?” John walked up behind Alex to see the port handler drive away.
“He saw things my way.” Alex replied plainly.
“Hmmm.” John replied curiously.
The taxi-bot drove up to the back of the ramp. It was essentially another golf cart-like vehicle only with a squared off robotic terminal in the driver seat. John, Alex, and Julie approached the cart and got in. Alex got in the padded seat next to the computer driver. Julie and John slid into one of the two bench seats in the back. John reached up to the back of the computer terminal and hit a large worn green button that looked as though it had been hit hundreds of thousands of times already. The button indicated that all passengers were inside the cart. Doors at the side of the open air cart slid shut. They were included on the vehicle to keep passengers from rolling out.
The vehicle didn’t bother asking for a destination. It was preprogrammed to drive starship crews to an annex terminal connected to the side of the spaceport. The car lurched forward on its electric motor, much the same as an old golf cart would.
The vehicle raced quickly around the underside of the Tequesta, driving down its length. Julie looked up at the underside of the large ship. She had yet to see it up close from the outside. It stood about as high as an airplane fuselage, only was much wider and spade shaped. She could see the scrape marks on its underside, touched up recently from its crash landing. It was larger than she imagined. She liked the white and powder blue paint scheme. It looked a lot like Air Force One.
The cart raced out from under the Tequesta out into blinding daylight. It was HOT outside! The white tarmac made it hotter, reflecting heat back up from the ground. The cart passed a few freighters similar in size to the Tequesta. Julie, though taken aback by the heat, couldn’t help but marvel at the sight of all the parked starships looking up over her head. In the distance, there were even a group of Delta Clipper style vertical launch vehicles, which were more like old stand-up rockets only they looked like wide bottomed obelisks.
The cart headed directly towards a ramp at the side of the VTOL light freighter field. The cart designers knew it was best to get the cart off the tarmac as fast as possible for safety reasons. John himself recalled responding to many an emergency call of some drunk or idiotic ship hand who jumped out of the cart to create a safety issue in the landing field. It wasn’t a perfect system but the design of the many different cargo-carrying starships prevented a universal gate-like system.
The cart drove up a ramp up to an elevated access road that ran along the enclosing wall of the tarmac. The road was two lanes in either direction with a two meter wide gap between oncoming interior lanes. The towers of the surrounding city rose into view once the cart was at the top of the ramp and on the elevated access road.
Julie stared with wide eyes at the large buildings around them. The nearest building was an odd shaped tower with curved reflective gold glass; the Comtex complex. Julie had seen the building online and in school books. Comtex was a major provider of mining equipment in the colonies. Beyond the Comtex Center was a building with blue glass and brushed stainless panel and about 40 stories in height. The HP logo was set at the upper right corner of the building. There were also a lot of light flying vehicles zooming around the city. They looked to be birds at first in the sunlight until Julie realized they were moving too quickly against the scale of the towers.
“Wow!” Julie spoke aloud as she looked to the city.
Not all of the city appeared glamorous. Indeed, only the areas above twenty meters looked inspiring. Most of the ground level structures and traffic, from what Julie could see, was worn and used, with lots of heavy machinery set in different parts of the city. Most of the building masonry was painted white. Other prominent colors were the safety yellows and greens of heavy equipment. Temporary barriers of green nylon or plywood blocked many construction sites from public view. The city discouraged the use of large billboards so a lot of smaller signs advertising goods and services dotted the vista. Julie looked up to the side of the access road to see small LCD screens advertising Pepsi in impact lettering and their current blue and red logo background.
“It wasn’t like this when I left.” John found himself looking around the city in a similar manner to his niece. “The Comtex Center was being built but a lot of this,” John pointed to the many new buildings and construction sites, “none of this was here.”
“Progress.” Julie noted aloud.
“If you say so.” John smirked.
The white taxi-bot followed the elevated road down a gentle slope. The road split off from the oncoming lanes. It then became an off-ramp leading to a wide roadway, much like an airport drop off zone. The white cart led to a wide terminal entrance, where dozens of other white taxibots and other vehicles were parked.
&nbs
p; John leaned over to Julie to make sure she could hear him. “Remember, stay close to me. I know this place might seem pretty cool but it can be pretty dangerous too.”
“I know Uncle John.” Julie smirked somewhat condescending manner.
“Okay.” John smiled back smartly. “We’ll see.”
The cart waited behind a small number of taxibots. The cart eventually reached the curb. Alex, John, and Julie slid out of the seats of the cab. Once they were out the cab zipped away down the access road, allowing the next cab to take its place.
“What? We didn’t have to pay?” John asked Alex.
“They made them free.” Alex explained. “People were tired of waiting behind confused freighter hands as they decided who was going to pay. It was getting out of hand so they just tack it on to port fees and call it a day.”
Julie looked around the wide terminal entry. It was about twenty meters wide, with several automatic glass doors set up along the length of the drop off zone. The doors rolled open repeatedly at random intervals as humans entered and exited by the dozens per second. Alex led the group through the doors. John kept Julie in front of him so he could keep an eye on her.
The inside of the terminal looked somewhat like a mall. Information and ticketing terminals were set up along the right. A somewhat clean white pathway led directly ahead. To the left of the concourse were a number of vendor carts, set up much like a bazaar. The carts sold everything – food, clothes, music and vid cards, souvenirs, toys, cheap jewelry, flowers, and an assortment of many other random items. A transparent umbrella with a fluorescent light rod shaft caught Julie’s eye.
“Hey, come on.” John urged her on. “We don’t have much time.”
“What do you mean?” Julie asked.
John tried to look unphased, even though he may have tipped his hand.
“Yeah, what do we do now, John?” Alex asked.