Eagle X, Mission 21: CTRL

Part 20: Drewbecca Stacks

Three years ago, standard time...

The shuttle doors slid open and Drewbecca Stacks took her first steps on Ganymede Secundus Station. An excited grin split her face into an ear to ear smile. The billboards and neon lights flashed brightly, advertising what she'd known from the moment she left home.

"Welcome to the edge of space," she whispered, reading the letters sliding past on the display above.

The message repeated in felarnian, canamarian, and xnean, all while the raiel singsong language hummed through the air. Around her EC soldiers and rough frontier types disembarked from the shuttle and continued down the tunnel to the station proper. Men, women, other. Clones, constructs, aliens. She felt as if the whole of the CGG washed past her like the current of some great galactic sea. After years of training and climbing, she'd finally earned the assignment of a lifetime.

"Five years and the big tech R&D firms will be banging on my door, climbing over each other to hire a lead auditor. I'm—"

A hulking canamarian in an EC navy uniform shouldered past her, dragging two heavy crates behind him. He grunted an apology without losing stride.

"You're blocking the walkway, Drew," Jay said. He shouldered his bag and squeezed her hand. "Come on. We don't want to miss our connection."

Drewbecca met his gaze and a jolt of warmth spread through her chest. Somehow managing to get the same post with her best friend was more than good fortune. It was fate. The stars put them together as children and carried them through grade school and higher education. The pair had experienced every life milestone together, and here they were about to change the face of artificial intelligence and nanotechnology.

"Stop staring up at that sign and let's catch our ship."

She let Jay guide her to the end of the tunnel where they came to the outer terminals. Ganymede City loomed beyond, a city of towering skyscrapers and flying sedans. Corporation advertisements covered the sides of buildings and floated by on automated billboards that weaved around the jutting structures. The artificial atmosphere darkened by pollution, told of gaiar shields in need of recalibration.

Looking out on the city through dirty glass, Drewbecca followed Jay around the outer edge of the space station. She'd never been to such a busy transit hub. Ganymede Secundus was the last gridport on this side of EC Space. It was a six month journey to Valiant Anchor via the fastest commercial transports. VA was home to the third fleet, guardians of the EC border with the raiel. Their destination was somewhere in between.

Station-Z11221 didn't exist on any map and one would need to be looking for it to find it orbiting its icy planet.

The pair reached their terminal and a squad of grim-faced war constructs checked their credentials then scanned their luggage for contraband. Once they passed the security checkpoint, a lift took them down to a loading dock where a few dozen other passengers boarded a phantom class military vessel.

There were no friends or loved ones present to see them off, no farewell from the gridport staff. Only the silence of the void as their stealth transport set out for a clandestine station.

One year ago, standard time...

Transports sped by below the promenade and merged on the Sector C Bridge. The sector locals called it the sliver because of its narrow two lanes that stretched across the lake of data nodes and network circuitry separating C from D. Drewbecca admired the wide canyon of tall computer banks, RAM storage, and system back ups. Data leapt from node to node like arcs of lighting in rippling waves like the current of a terrestrial body of water. All of the station's information flowed between this and two other smaller lakes on the other side of Station Z. It reminded her of the lake she and Jay grew up on.