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  “Adam!” Pia gasped, and in her excitement forgot about the low gravity. She meant to rush forward, but ended up jumping towards him him instead. When they collided, her belly smashed into his face and they both almost went spinning backwards. Fortunately, the gentle giant caught them both and set them back down carefully.

  “Trexler,” Miller barked, “I see you know Lamotte.”

  Trexler fixed his glasses and smiled awkwardly. “She is the finest biologist I have ever met, Commander. Back in Argentina, she singlehandedly prevented a famine that was decimating the-”

  “Time is money. Give me a full status report.” The Commander could easily access the information himself, Pia was managing that exact feat as he spoke, but he needed to flex his power.

  “Yes, sir. Fulton and myself are in good health, as is the garden. We've managed to increase the volume by almost ten percent. Power has been kept to a minimum, with only one solar array deployed. We've only picked up an occasional passive laser ping before today, but since your ship's approach we've been lit up like a Christmas tree. Seven separate scans are now watching us, sir.”

  “Let them watch,” Miller snarled through a grin. “Fulton, come help McKinnon start unloading while Lamotte gets a quick tour. I want you and Trexler headed for Luna within the hour. If all goes to plan, this should look like nothing but a routine gas and go.”

  “Yes, Commander!” Fulton even saluted.

  Trexler gestured for Pia to follow as he turned and flung himself down the narrow conduit until he reached what appeared to be another airlock. Sure enough, its far door was clearly that of another ship. A small window in the conduit wall finally laid bare the secret Pia had already guessed.

  The Cerex spaceship was being constructed inside the hollowed out shell of an old Natocorps fuel depot. The ship was truly massive, bigger than anything Pia had ever thought possible, and this was little more than the central greenhouse and wiring strapped to a jetpack. The rest of Cerex was to be assembled before launch.

  Once they passed through the Cerex airlock, Trexler turned and grinned, “welcome to Eden.” Rows of plants were growing in every direction, with shelves of greenery inset into the walls themselves.

  “The plants are surrounded, that's great for monitoring and distribution of oxygen, but how do you…?” Pia puzzled out loud.

  “Get them enough light without frying the poor darlings?” Trexler answered proudly. “Infrared holography. These 6 inch tubes run through most of the hab modules, and every straight stretch is controlled by an advanced holographic projector that gets diffused by the mist. Sensors along the way monitor the temp, gases, all that jazz. A gentle recirculation collects the O2 and water, then sends back the needed CO2. Easy, right? Took me nearly 6 months to come up with the idea though. And another 6 months to build it.”

  “It's...elegant,” Pia admired, “and Fulton, did he help?”

  “Fulton is a sweetheart, really, but he helps me best with a wrench in his hand.” Trexler raised an eyebrow and leaned in conspiratorially. “Well maybe not best.”

  “And maybe not with a wrench?” Pia offered playfully, thoroughly enjoying her tour.

  “Thank God you're here, Pia. I don't know what I'd do if I had to leave my babies with some dull corporate gardner. But come on, these tubes are mainly just for the grasses. We still need to see the good stuff, and then I'm off to finish packing.”

  They floated down the passageway, flanked on each side by grass tubes and in front by a ladder. By pulling themselves along by the rungs, they arrived at a wide hatch.

  “During flight, Cerex will rev up for rotation and give some gravity to these spokes. There’s a dozen of them altogether, four sets of three along the central hub, then the habs, labs, and cockpit will come and get attached to this framework. But the Spine is truly the gem of the ship, if I do say so.”

  They scurried into an airlock and waited as it pressurized. It was big enough for two people, or one with some equipment, but required them to brace against the walls to keep from floating into one another. A slight shake and long hiss marked a successful equilibrium being reached with the core.

  Trexler opened the hatch door lock and swung aside with it to let Pia enter first. She immediately apologized in her head for any doubts she had over whether Cerex people could engineer a proper bio system. After all, she was Cerex people now too.

  To say this was a cutting edge setup would be selling it short. This was more than that, it was downright futuristic. The Spine housed all the main electrical and mechanical hardware, and it was encased in high strength sheathing at the center of a ten meter wide corridor running over a hundred fifty meters along the length of Cerex.

  Rows of multispectrum LED lights blanketed the Spine, delivering precise ratios of light to every segment of the ship. As Pia climbed up out of the hatch, it was as if she were coming up from underground in the middle of a forest. Ferns and flowers of numerous types stretched out around her, all reaching towards the spinelight.

  “Wait, there’s gravity? But when did…?” Pia asked confusedly, looking back at the still attached airlock.

  Trexler grinned and sputtered out some laughter as he enjoyed his little surprise. “I thought you’d like it better if you experienced it yourself first. The core is circled by tracks at multiple points with airlocks attached to them. They match the velocity of the entry side, the stationary dock entry corridor in our present case, and lock in place. Then they switch and gradually match the inner spin rate and lock onto a new airlock site.

  When the other labs and module arms arrive, they'll connect at these circle tracks and get spun up to their particular G requirements. No more single spin rate for the whole ship.”

  “So what G is the central corridor kept at?” she asked, although she guessed the answer immediately.

  “Ceres standard, 0.0275G.”

  “It's absolutely beautiful.”

  “Well thank you, but really I had nothing to do with planning that. I'm strictly the gardner, or was. That title is now yours. There's never been living things out as far as Ceres, so you be sure to take good care of them, and yourself. Come, one last surprise then I promise I'll hand over the keys.”

  They glided in the low gravity along pathways that meandered through the vegetation, stopping occasionally for tips on certain plants or irrigation techniques. Every ten meters or so they passed out of the garden and into various utility areas. Storage racks, water pump machinery, and lab stations filled in the gaps of the clearings. It was extremely disorienting for Pia to see both sunlight and more forest above her as the central Spine of the corridor could equally be treated as up from every direction. It was hard to keep from bouncing right off the ground with each step, and she felt as if with a proper leap she could make it clear across the corridor. For now she held onto the makeshift cable handrails along the path and tried to keep up with her nimble little guide.

  “Behold your assistants,” Trexler announced after coming to a halt in front of a dozen large crates. Pia had her now all too common look of befuddlement as she approached the plain boxes, then froze in place when she heard it. She shot a glance at Trexler, who was betraying nothing of his final surprise, then brushed her hair away from an ear and listened closer. There was an unmistakable hum coming from the boxes. But surely it couldn't be, not here.

  “Bees!” Pia exclaimed at last. “Bees? Are you telling me we have space bees? Oh my god, I love it! I was wondering how you managed to keep up with the manual pollination of such a large greenhouse by yourself.”

  “The hives get released on a set schedule, once a day each. They have been trained to return to their hive when the lights are dimmed to mimic sunset. Some UV strobe lights on the hives help any stragglers get with the program.”

  Pia drew a big breath and held it behind smiling cracked lips. Perhaps she had been a bit arrogant in demanding to come see the setup early, but now she was glad to have a bit of extra time to get acclimated before launch. As i
f he could read her mind, Miller’s deep voice came through the ship's comm, “Time's up, ladies. Trexler, get your things and report to the docks.”

  Chapter 4

  Over the next few days, modules began getting rapidly assembled inside the old depot shell. Some came up from Earth, others from the Lunar colonies, and each took its turn being swallowed up by the derelict camouflage. Drones grabbed and directed them carefully into place around the core. In addition to twelve pairs of arms that could swing around the belt tracks, there were massive water and nutrient tanks, a twenty meter command module that sat on top of the entire ship, and several tanks of fuel that would be mixed and injected into the engines at the time of launch.

  Along with the modules, the rest of the crew came onboard and began setting up their respective stations. They all eventually found their way along the pathways of her little forest to introduce themselves to the odd young woman sweaty from digging or wearing a beekeeper’s helmet tucked into her Cerex uniform.

  Besides Miller and McKinnon, there were engineers, techs, and the pilots. Theo Koenig was the first to come by, a hulking teddy bear of a man who tiptoed in a few meters before calling out, “Hello Lamotte! Come on out so I don't squash all your pretty friends.” When Pia came out to meet him, he stood there with his feet tight together and his arms down by his sides. He waved one huge paw up by his head and flashed the widest grin she’d ever seen.

  Theo was an expert drilling engineer from Norway, but he described his work as mostly just playing in the dirt. Shortly after arriving, he was off helping the final assembly of the ship with Lara Hixley, the solar engineer. She had come on the same shuttle as Theo, but the two clearly weren't close.

  Lara hadn't bothered to come visit Pia, and they only finally bumped into one another at dinner on the third night. “So there you are,” she simply said in a haughty British accent, “well I can see why Theo ran off to find you, but I haven't the time for such niceties. Neither has he, mind you, and yet…”

  “I'm sorry? I don't mean to hide away or anything, but my work happens to be rather kept apart from the rest of the ship. You know, bees and whatnot. Plenty of time to become best friends during the trip, I'm sure.” Pia’s mouth tilted sideways in a playful shrug of a grin, and both women wordlessly agreed to drop their guards.

  “Bees...good lord,” Lara muttered as she went off to order her food. She was older than Pia by a decade, but was still a statuesque woman, with a strong jawline that stuck out when she talked and a long graceful gait. If Lara had been getting a feel for her new colleague, she appeared to come away satisfied. Pia had always been well liked, despite her aversion to most social situations.

  The ship was coming together quickly, with new parts arriving almost hourly. Theo and Lara oversaw the meticulously designed construction, along with a small crew of workers. Zee was also playing a vital role in assembly, Pia was surprised to hear. His nano tech and drones were capable of an astounding variety of tasks from mundane parts transport to advanced plasma welding in spaces much too small for humans to reach.

  Zee kept his comp holo pendant ready at all times, and upon getting some unseen signal or update, would tap out quick instructions on his holo display while eating a grilled cheese sandwich with one hand. Pia recognized a kindred isolation in him, even if it was in the form of total chip immersion that seemed utterly alien to her. It was in these moments that she was able to reflect on how her living out in a deserted forest for the last three years must seem equally bizarre to others, and most likely even more so.

  When the common areas got a bit crowded, she took her meals back to the forest core and worked hard at memorizing the layout and system timings. Trexler had provided her with a masterpiece, and she was determined to be a worthy steward for him.

  The flight team of Colonel Charles Vineland and Sara Barton flew in separately as a precaution; Vineland shuttled in Goeff Coburn, a top notch satellite and communication specialist. Last to arrive was Barton along with the Brazilian robotics whiz Gabriel Santos. That rounded out their nine person crew, though nearly twenty other workers were scrambling around the Cerex hull with boot mini-thrusters securing non essential hardware for launch and cutting away the carbon fiber trusses holding Cerex to the empty station shell.

  Pia would be quietly installing netting around one of the larger plants when she would get distracted by endless information updates from humans and computers alike. She could watch the ship’s progress in real time as a 3D projection in her head. Most other chippers had gotten used to the sea of information surrounding their thoughts, so much so that it became hard to tell the individual’s thoughts apart from the outside data. The Cerex info became so frequent that Pia got in the habit of turning off her chip to cut out all the chatter.

  She had just finished her netting work when she noticed the lights slowly pulsing and figured it must be a test of the power systems. She walked lithely along the narrow pathways back to a storage shed carrying her trowel and spare parts, then went to find a rabbit hole to climb out of her area. She finally realized that something was wrong when instead of being spun up to a higher speed to match the dining area, she began floating in zero G.

  When the airlock door opened, panicked support crew rocketed past her across the room carrying emergency oxygen tanks. Pia finally turned her chip back on and was nearly overwhelmed by the noise. Immediately a voice cut through it all and filled her skull, “Nice of you to join us Princess! We're under attack, get your ass to the flight nets immediately. We launch as soon as you get here. Move!”

  Now it was Pia’s turn to panic. ‘Under attack? By whom? Shouldn't there be explosions or something? Is it even safe to launch? Who the hell fights in space?!’

  Pia used her renewed connection to ask the ship’s computer for the fastest route to the command module. Normally she would take the rail transports that ran along the outside of her central corridor, but they all appeared to be locked down. She pushed off a table in front of her and somersaulted backwards to the airlock she had just left. Once she climbed back up into her forest, she spotted her target at the end of the Spine, dug her feet into the soil and dove forward.

  Pia flew through the forest and let the leaves slap at her face as she kept her pose, not wanting to start any spins or flips going with the extra movements of swatting away the greenery. She rose until her back felt the extra warmth of the Spinelight then slowly began sinking back into the leaves. Right before she landed, only a few meters short of the end of the corridor, a strong vibration shook the ship. The leaves rustled against each other and sounded like a strong breeze had blown through.

  “What was that, were we hit?” Pia commed, but didn't hear any new outbursts or see any damage being reported.

  “Outer hull is being compromised by nanoshells,” Vineland explained calmly. “We just opened her up and untethered. We'll use the depot as a shield until launch. Get a move on.”

  “I'm only two modules away, I'll be…”

  “We can see where you are, just keep going.” This time it was the copilot Barton. Pia kept forgetting that everyone on board could be watching her progress, and redoubled her speed.

  Waiting for each hatch to unlock was interminable, but eventually she was in the command module. She had only seen it once before, and it was equally imposing then as well. It was a cylindrical space nearly twenty meters in length and width, with the Spine running through the center.

  At the top were the pilot pods, essentially acceleration netting enclosed in spheres with holo displays and a hardline connection between the pilot’s chip and the ship. Pilots were easily identified by the small double port on their temples. They got them put in when they earned their wings, and each organization used a signature style of port. Vineland’s was shaped like a U.S. Marine logo, an eagle sitting on a globe with an anchor through it. Barton’s was a cropduster plane with spray lines streaking downwards.

  The room had desks and stations bolted all around, each one dedicated
to a different ship system, but they were merely wall decorations during launch. Between the walls and the Spine was an eerie sight, one that had earned it the nickname Spider’s Lair by some of the crew. There were seven large white pods being suspended by a thick mesh of black netting. Each extended from several rings encircling the Spine and then out to anchor points on the walls. Pia quickly propelled up the central ladder to the only empty pod and strapped herself into place.

  “I'm so sorry…”

  “Save it,” Miller snapped, “are we good for launch, Colonel?”

  “We don't have much choice in the matter,” Vineland responded flatly, his hands reaching out rapidly to the various holo displays around him. “Sensors are indicating that the outer station hull is nearly breached. Those nanoshells are eating their way through meteorite resistant armor like it was nothing. Suggest we fire immediately Commander.”

  “Agreed, let's get out of here.”

  Barton was working furiously when she suddenly stopped and yelled out, “wait!”

  Vineland turned to his copilot for an explanation, then his eyes glazed as he began reading some digital report. “Damn! We've got more incoming, Commander, this time from Luna. A swarm of attack drones are heading for an intercept point. They must know we're headed for Ceres and are planning on blockading our path.”

  Pia was terrified listening to all of this from down below with nothing to do but wait. She had anticipated plenty of danger on this trip, but not before they had even left. As she was desperately trying to use her chip to access some of the information that they were discussing, Zee shouted up to them from the pod next to hers.