Deimos, the small moon of Mars, was a big Navy base in the old days. It still had dockyards and metal towers and old structures that Joe couldn’t guess the purpose of.
But nowadays few buildings showed the lights of habitation. Like the old Indomitable, like the Empire itself, Deimos was fading away. Decaying. Heading towards the future as a tourist attraction or a scrap yard.
The pilot flew to a better-kept well-lit area, bright and cheerful against the black of space and the cold of stars. The Deimos Depot.
There was a small piece of comet recently towed in by tugs, floating in the void nearby. Ready to be broken up for water, hydrogen fuel and oxygen. The stuff that kept the Fleet going.
What was left of the Fleet.
The shuttle slowed and crept between tall aerials and pylons. The leftovers of some ancient project. “That’s where we land Sir. Bay Eight”
“Right. I don’t see any other ships here. You haven’t any ideas what I could be here for?”
“No Sir. A few rumours about Mirconium. That’s all.”
“What about it?”
“Hang on Sir. I need to touch down on that cradle or we can’t be taken inside.”
Joe let the pilot get on with his job.
The depot was really a series of atmosphere domes covered in bits of ironmongery. Probably communications and cranes or even weapons. Airlock doors opened. The cradle with its shuttle load was pulled in. The doors closed, others opened and Joe was in a loading dock. Stevedores waited with box handler grabs and forklifts. All with grav vortexes to lift out the shuttle cargo of food cassettes. Buffalo stew and yam curry.
“You’re the passenger?” It was a grizzled stevedore, not a pretty Petty Officer. He looked long overdue for complete rejuvenation. Hard work, weird gravity and artificial air had taken its toll.
“That’s me.”
“Right Sir. If you would just step onto this pallet….That’s it. It’s programmed to take you to the Vengeance crew assembly.”
“What crew? Vengeance? What ship is that?”
But the pallet was already hovering away down the warehouse floor and into a wide tunnel in the rock. After a few junctions, and near misses with more automated pallets and trains, Joe reached another dock.
And the ship.
Big clamshell doors in the ships bow opened onto a loading bay and weapons positions. Projectors for mines, bugs, missiles, and two small shuttles, you name it. And there was the outlet tube of the biggest laser Joe had seen. It was on one side of the loading bay and probably stretched back the length of the ship.
The name Vengeance was written inside the black coloured doors and on the yellow shuttles. Joe could easily see into the ship. Beyond the front loading bay a brightly lit hold was visible, through open air lock doors.
The thing was Joe could see the inside of the ship.
But he couldn’t see the outside.
Vengeance was a spinner.
An invisible ship.
Joe knew they existed but of course had never seen one. Now it looked like he was sailing on one.
The pallet dropped to the ground and Joe shuffled off.
Dozens of people in overalls were loading the Vengeance. Checking manifestos. Hovering trunks and boxes through the air lock, into the hold. It was a tubular shaped hold with the cargo being placed “down” on the floor walls and ceiling. That meant the centre of the ship was zero g and “down” was on the inside of the tubular hull. Joe imagined the rest of the ship was the same. However long its invisible hull was.
“This way Lieutenant” It was a Commander. A tall woman with short red hair.
“Yes Commander.”
“In here.” It was a
room with glass walls. Maybe the office of whoever ran the dock. “I’m
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