Shortlisted - Day 0001
Gareth followed Harlin as they climbed the landing gear ladder. As he ascended, he began to truly appreciate the size of the retractable landing gear. The wheel well they ascended into was bigger than a small house.
"There we go." Harlin pointed at a scaffold that ran around the well near the top of the ladder. After a hop to the small step-off, he turned to take Gareth's duffel bag. It was no easy task carrying it while climbing a ladder, and Gareth appreciated the assistance. Once standing on the scaffold, Gareth scrutinized the landing machinery, eyes roaming.
Harlin observed him for a few moments. "First time?"
Gareth lifted a corner of his mouth. "No, just doing my inspection. This gear is remarkably clean and looks in good service."
Harlin laughed and gave him a slap on the back.
"Stacy wasn't kidding. His safety record is one of the best. He has no problem yanking a shuttle out of service if something isn't right. He's pissed off a lot of people for that, but he doesn't care. And as for his techs, he'll ship them Earth-side fast, on charges, if they take shortcuts. And truth be told, he has good reason for being tough."
Gareth looked at Harlin. "Oh?"
"Remember that shuttle that came apart over Maajidoor city twenty years ago?" asked Harlin, a sad note in his voice.
Gareth thought for a moment. "Yes, I do. It became a meteor shower on approach, if I recall. Almost a hundred and fifty fatalities from debris falling, along with shuttle crew and passengers. Almost three hundred dead, total."
"Well, Stacy's daughter was on that shuttle."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
Harlin gave an offhanded shrug. "I'm just telling you in case you're ever with him and the subject comes up. He spent three years seeing to the maintenance crews and inspectors getting the maximum sentence."
That meant a charge of 'Disregard for life' followed by the death penalty. The death penalty was rare, but in this case, Gareth could see where it was warranted. It didn't matter if one intended loss of life or not, where responsibility was concerned. Taking the life of the guilty did nothing to ease the pain of the families of the victims. But it did send a clear message to society as a whole, and Gareth couldn't argue with that.
Harlin broke the somber silence with, "Come on. Let's find Sheila." He turned to make his way around the scaffolding toward the airlock to the shuttle proper. At the door, he keyed the electronic pad, but nothing happened. He tried again to no avail.
"Now what?" he asked in confusion.
"Just wait," said Gareth quietly behind him.
Harlin turned to him with a questioning look.
"Protocol is that this door remains locked from the inside. We have to be let in, and Stacy did say a tech would be expecting us. Give him time to stop what he's doing to come and investigate the alert we just triggered."
"Oh. How do you know all this?"
"I told you, I was a shuttle jockey."
"That you did. But you said military."
"Yep. But on a military shuttle, we wouldn't have made it halfway up the ladder. Still, some procedures remain the same. No matter what, a shuttle is a shuttle." Gareth shrugged.
"Okay, but now I've got to ask. No bad guy climbs up a ladder with people around. So, assuming no one's looking, what would stop him from going up the ladder?"
Gareth grinned at Harlin's question. "The bad guy's weight would activate the A.I.'s attention, and without him meeting the standard requirements for entry, the ladder would be electrically charged. Whether it's merely a stun or it's lethal would depend on the A.I.'s decision. Still, even a stun could be lethal if the bad guy falls."
Harlin looked blank for a moment, then stated, "You military guys can be really extreme."
Gareth became serious. "Protecting our population is not a joke. A shuttle can do serious damage, even if it's unarmed, and it only takes one mentally deranged person to pilot it. We protect from enemies within and without, but mostly we surveille the world for that one-in-a-million power-hungry, war-mongering egomaniac that pops up in history every so often. Or even the suicidal maniac."
Harlin stared at Gareth in disbelief. "Are you serious?"
Gareth gave Harlin his casual shrug again. "It happens. And it doesn't take much to turn a shuttle or airplane into a missile if you think about it. You yourself have the skills."
"How come I never hear about this?"
"Because we make it hard to steal a shuttle." Gareth smiled. "But mostly, military is just routines and boredom, so don't fret."
"Fret, no. But now I'm going to be thinking about this the whole time we're on this flight. Thanks."
"You asked," Gareth said lightly.
"Yeah, I did, didn't I?"
Just then, the keypad chimed, capturing their attention. The airlock cycled open. A young technician poked his head out and greeted them both by name, nodding at them in turn.
"Stacy told me to expect you. My name is Walden. I must say, that was an interesting conversation you two were having. Just so you know, the keypad goes audio as soon as you touch it." He tapped his earpiece to indicate that he'd listened in.
Harlin lifted a brow at Gareth. "Another protocol?"
"Wouldn't you want to know what's going on on the other side of a door before you open it?" Gareth answered flatly.
"And visual, as well," Walden interjected. "Your faces matched your biometrics Stacy sent over, or I'd never have opened the door."
Harlin looked at Walden and said with chiding sarcasm, "What do you guys have to worry about? This is a passenger transport."
"Stowaways," replied Walden, his face and tone flat.
"Oh."
Walden gave him a huge grin. "Doesn't happen often, but some do try. Mainly teenagers. Pranksters looking for glory."
"That just cheers me up, Walden," said Harlin. "Anything else we should know?"
"We'll be passing over a monsoon once we enter the atmosphere. Don't worry, but keep the lid on your drinks when they start serving. We might see a little turbulence."
"This is getting better and better. Will Sheila be doing the serving?"
Walden laughed, then smiled at both of them. "Sorry, Sheila is the head flight attendant—she'll be up in first class."
"Then where did Stacy put us?" Harlin exclaimed.
"In second class. Didn't you know?"
"No, he didn't tell me. Wait until I meet him again, though. You can bet we'll talk about it."
As Walden motioned for them to follow him, Gareth asked, "Just how much did he lose to you at this card game?"
"Apparently too much," replied Harlin sourly as they followed Walden into the shuttle proper.
They walked along a narrow passage surrounded by engine controls, computer interfaces, and machinery. Handholds, ladders, and grips were located everywhere, even on the ceiling for zero-G situations. They passed through another airlock door, then a second door into the escape pods area. Round doors sealed off the pods on both sides, two long rows. Each one carried two people, but Gareth knew they were designed to handle four in a desperate situation if you didn't mind being packed against each other. The pods could also handle atmospheric entry if the shuttle had already broken the atmosphere.
Harlin remained quiet as they walked, and Gareth was kind of grateful for that. He didn't mind Harlin, but Gareth had never been a 'people person'.
Walden keyed the next airlock, and they entered the passenger area. Seats of four lined both sides of the aisle, with baggage compartments overhead and handrails within reach. Gareth counted and came up with the total of one-hundred-twenty passengers for this cabin.
A tall woman with short dark hair, dark skin, and graceful features entered through the open airlock ahead and approached them. She was slim, but not as slender as she would have been, had she spent all her time on an off-planet diet.
"Sheila," Walden said, "these are our guests Stacy sent. I looked them up—they're part of the Two Hundred, so put the first round of drinks on my tab."
Sheila started smiling when Walden spoke, but at "Two Hundred" her face transformed from surprise to a stunning and genuine smile.
"Well, this is quite an honor, Walden. Tell Stacy he's surprised me once again." Sheila didn't take her gaze off of Harlin and Gareth as she spoke. She stretched her hand out first to Harlin and then Gareth. Her eyes locked with Gareth's as she continued, "Don't you worry about the tab, Walden. Word just came down: drinks are on the house to any Two Hundred that flies with us. Even the first-class high-dollar stuff, Captains. Let's get you seated and settled first before we start the boarding process. Follow me, please."
Sheila spun on her low-profile heel and headed back toward the open airlock. Harlin followed a few steps behind her but looked back at Gareth to mouth the word, "Wow." Gareth shook his head in mock sorrow at Harlin's back as they continued down the aisle. Soft laughter came from behind. Walden must have seen their exchange.
They emerged from the airlock into a second set of escape pods. Beyond them, they passed through another open airlock to the next passenger compartment. Sheila stopped, pulled a data device from a Velcro pocket on her thigh and consulted it.
"Here we go, Captains, 16E-F is here, the two closest to the aisle."
She showed them the row right by the escape pod airlock, and Harlin turned to Gareth as he stashed away his duffel bag in the overhead compartment.
"Mind if I take the aisle seat? You don't mind taking the next one?"
Gareth remembered Harlin's preference at the meeting. Stacy must have planned for Harlin's idiosyncrasies by giving them these seats. Shrugging, Gareth sat down in the second seat. He looked past the two empty seats on his right to look out the window.
He wouldn't have minded the seat next to the window, though during reentry the windows would be shielded, blocking any view. He was used to shuttle runs, and watching the positions of the stars and Earth would have alerted him if something went wrong. Of course, if something drastic were to go wrong, it was unlikely anyone other than the pilots would realize something was wrong before it was too late. But shuttles were routine and had a very good safety record, and after meeting Stacy, Gareth had no doubt.
"You want anything to drink while we still have gravity, or do you prefer an empty stomach?" Harlin gave his backpack a push into the compartment as he looked down at Gareth.
Gareth gathered his interrupted thoughts and answered, "No alcohol, just juice."
"Really? We get free drinks," Harlin shot back and dropped into the seat beside him.
Gareth smiled. "I know. That's why I'm staying sober. One of us has to be able to fly this thing if the pilot doesn't arrive on time. I don't plan on being late going home."
Harlin broke into a grin. "Good plan. I drink, you pilot. I like it. Do you think anybody would say anything if we launched early? I bet I could talk Sheila into bringing the drinks to the cockpit."
Gareth raised one eyebrow at Harlin. "Don't you think we should wait for the passengers first? I'm sure somebody would say something if we left them behind."
"See?" Harlin chuckled. "You think of the big picture. I knew I liked you for a reason. We should buddy-up during the next stage of training—it will help improve our odds."
"From what I understood, the final decision will rest on something we can't control. It will depend on whether our bodies can accept this navigation system or not."
"Not entirely true. He said it depends on our personality as well. It takes a specific mindset to accept a neural interface to such a large system. I know, from before I started running solo on Ganymede."
The casual statement surprised Gareth, for it held so much information. It told him Harlin was military and from a very specific branch, the CyberCorp. Neural interfaces were expensive and risky, which was why only the military used it.
There would always be those few individuals in a society that chose to turn on society. In a world as technologically integrated as his, one malicious virus could wreak devastation. CyberCorp was the military's answer. A.I.s monitored the computer systems, but they were not Human. It was best if a Human judgement overlooked the A.I.'s decisions, and that was the CyberCorp's job. They watched over the A.I.s that oversaw the digital world. Only a few could qualify, and the service placed a toll on the interfaced CyberCorps. It explained why Harlin had gone solo mining on Ganymede. Retired CyberCorps who were 'wired', as people liked to say, often became recluses. This made them highly sought-after by the mining companies who needed personnel to do the risky jobs, those who didn't mind doing it alone.
Gareth reevaluated his estimation of Harlin, raising him up several notches. But it also begged the question of why Harlin was here. The one thing being Captain of an LS would not offer was solitude, Gareth was sure. Having experience with some of the highest order A.I.s in the world definitely gave Harlin an edge in the selection process, but there was so much more to being a captain. Balancing responsibilities and priorities was a tricky thing—even small issues could become major ones without notice. Nobody thought twice about the kitchen or sewer until one of them stopped working.
Balancing the personalities of the crew was a minefield a captain had to navigate. It required a certain mindset. In close quarters, for extended periods of time, one small annoying habit could escalate to explosive flaring of tempers. Understanding the fine line of respect and fear was a mandatory aspect of being a captain. Respect did not guarantee obedience in the crew, and fear could easily turn to defiance. The crew had to respect the Captain as a man and fear his authority at the same time, and both these things without resentment.
Being a good captain meant wearing many hats, from engineer to psychologist, to babysitter. And Harlin had already admitted he hated people. Gareth couldn't imagine a Jovian miner like him doing a one-eighty on that. So why was Harlin vying for the captaincy of a Living Ship?
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