The Outer Moon (A Sapphic Sci Fi Adventure)

Chapter 5

               "The evil overseers at PASSpace have seized control of the entire solar system. They have ships that should be under my control, in service to the Atlantis, so that you, my followers, could reap the riches of the entire galaxy. The corporation must be overthrown! They're stealing the heritage that should be shared among the citizens of the world! My followers, do not let them continue to despoil your birthright! I want that company in flames before the month is out!"

Pepper and Vanessa stared in horror at the screen after the video was done playing. It had been uploaded a day after the otherworld exploration survey had been sent around the world, and contained almost thirty minutes of that same drivel, but they had no doubt that the call for action would be taken up by their followers.

"Which of the fake prophets was that?" Pepper asked in a shaky voice. "Was it one of the big ones?" She hoped not, but assumed so since the editing was done so well.

"That was the American," Jason replied. "The biggest. But it doesn't matter, since the call was echoed with similar messages from the other two large ones less than an hour later. It looks like they're cooperating to paint us all as the greedy corporation who is withholding information and technology."

"Well, we are withholding some," pointed out Vanessa. "But it would only make things worse if we told the people what else we knew. Are you taking steps to protect the company?"

"Yeah, we're doing the best we can. We've already sold a lot of our assets off to raise funds for the equipment you need. A lot of that is already at the space station and being loaded into containers for transport. Beyond that, anyone still essential is working from home so there are no offices anymore, and the only other people still on Earth are at the shuttle port in Costa Rica." Jason sighed deeply. "The situation in America is getting worse, so we're buying a lot of gear from other places. The solar panels came from Australia, the medical supplies from Canada, and so on. The hardest part is getting the gear from wherever it is to the shuttle port, but there isn't much we can do about that."

"We could help with that," Pepper suggested.

"We can?" Vanessa asked, with surprise on her face.

"We have the other four ships on the Atlantis. If we can borrow two of the Mars shuttle pilots, they could take the two larger ones like ours, and they could go pick up the equipment where it is, rather than waiting for it to get to the landing field. Once Emily and Xavier are available, then we could use the two smaller ones too, or use theirs. If you lend us the team that you have on the space station, they can help get equipment onto our Uranus space station from the two relics, and we can all be more productive. I don't think you need to have them study anything more there before we leave, we can be more productive with this new system."

Vanessa opened her mouth to complain, but then realized that Pepper was right. With all the bunk rooms on their ship, and the beds folded away, they could store a lot of gear on each trip, and they could skip the middleman, so to speak, by going to where the equipment was, rather than waiting on ships. "I like that plan. Is there anything you're still waiting on?"

"We have a lot of things on cargo ships that are in transit to Costa Rica, but we're still low by about 100 mattresses, Lena's porn stash, and the sperm bank and IVR stuff." They heard Jason shuffling some papers around as if he were going over a list. "We have the mattresses bought, but they haven't been put on a ship yet. However, they should be at a shipping terminal in New Jersey within a few days, so there is progress. We also have a line on a fertility clinic in Los Angeles. There is a married couple, both doctors, who are willing to sell us their entire inventory. I also may have prompted them to take the survey, and they both scored quite well, so you may just want to take them and their entire outfit and we'd be all set. But we still need to get everyone else once you select them."