The Inner Ring (gxg)

Chapter 6

The next few days were extremely busy. Jason was getting up to speed being the acting CEO and having meeting after meeting with the various division heads. Luckily, Anton and Vanessa were there to help answer any questions, and give him tips on how to deal with the different personalities. Vanessa, Anton, and Pepper, along with the rest of the crew, were busy getting their medical evaluations before the flight, as well as just getting to know each other.

They spent most of the days together going from office to office, getting poked, prodded, scanned, and reviewing their lab work. All the crew members had given lease and mortgage information over to Jason who was arranging for storage and maintenance. Lunch was in the cafeteria, which allowed them to at least unwind and chat. Emily and Xavier already had a good relationship, obviously, but all the others seemed friendly as well. It is always a scary feeling meeting people for the first time, let alone when you know you're about to be locked into a metal tube with them for ten years.

But this team looked like it could get the job done.

Lena, for all her fighter jock persona, turned out to have a penchant for dirty jokes and flirted shamelessly with everyone except Emily and Xavier. The married couple was quite happy together and were thrilled to finally be on a mission together, having been on several without the other. Brody wasn't a surfer guy, though he did joke that he heard that a lot. His mother had been the surfer, and her father before her which is where he got the name. She met his father in Korea during a surf competition and he travelled with her for years before they were married. Pepper and Vanessa had been prepared to be a little leery of Miles, but he turned out to be a soft-spoken man who treated everyone well. Just a big teddy bear.

Anton, as always, dominated the conversations, though he was careful to limit the information he shared. He did mention that the mission could change the course of humanity, but Vanessa was willing to bet he would have said that before the original moon landings too. Every one of the new crew members was curious though, and she couldn't blame them. They kept talking about the belt, Jupiter, and Saturn, not realizing just how many engines they were going to mount on their craft. Hopefully, they wouldn't realize it until they had no chance to tell anyone else.

The secrecy issue was compounded by the fact that PASSpace had launched no less than six booster packs into space from their Ecuadorian launch facility and had several more scheduled. The news would have been going even more crazy had they known the names of the crewmembers going up on the company shuttle. The group was scheduled to fly down on the corporate shuttle the following day, if all the medical checks were passed, and then they would be up at the space station until the modular ship was placed together. Having the ship built that way meant they could string several cargo bays together to store new thrusters for the trip home, while jettisoning the old ones to make room for whatever technology they could bring home.

"The worst thing is, I can't even bribe you into telling me the destination!" Lena complained to Anton as he grinned at her attempts to finagle the destination out of him. "You can buy the whole damned planet!"

"Well, I truly am sorry. But you'll all know within a few days. Once we're on the space station we'll go over our plan," The older man promised.

"Well, maybe I can get the information out of your daughter then," Lena purred, running her hand down Vanessa's arm.

Vanessa looked at her like a gasping fish, before gingerly pulling away her arm. "I'm sorry Lena, my lips are sealed," Pepper reached over to grab Vanessa's other hand to make sure she wasn't too uncomfortable.

"Yeah, yeah, I figured," Lena grumbled.

"I already know, so it doesn't matter," Brody smiled at them, as Lena slapped his shoulder.