The engineers thought the flight up had been without drama, although Floyd Herez wouldn’t agree with that.
The pilot hadn’t docked at Tiangong Space Station but had manoeuvred the ScramLake straight into the vast engineering bay. The ship had to be tethered for the time being as the rubber tyres had yet to be replaced with metal skids, so the ship would adhere to the magnetic floor.
The engineers got to work almost immediately – after checking in to their accommodation and changing out of their EVA suits. Most of the fit-out had been done at the hangar in Dubai, but now the ship was in orbit the main engines had to be swapped out for the Ion drives and a few other upgrades were needed.
Herez didn’t like weightlessness at all. The constant falling sensation made him permanently nauseous.
Unlike Armstrong, Tiangong didn’t have a rotating artificial gravity wheel, so the staffing cycles had to be shorter.
The Chinese hadn’t signed up for the Mars mining program. Instead they had set their sights on plundering the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Originally, they’d made plans for Ceres, the largest dwarf planet in the solar system. But the three unmanned craft – all landed in different areas – discovered that before they could get down to anything even remotely worth mining there was between one and three kilometres of ice crust.
They changed their plans and focused on Vesta, which had been attributed as a minor planet and second only in size to Ceres, although, at five hundred and twenty-five kilometres in diameter, it was certainly no small rock.
The three test craft they landed there produced hugely promising results. Almost immediately, they set about the process of establishing a permanent mining settlement on the surface. With the disappointment of Ceres – which had put them back a decade –and the vast distances involved, it would be at least another eight to ten years before they’d be likely to show any return.
The two Lake Aerospace engineers annoyed Herez greatly. They showed him no respect and seemed to consider him an underling. This, he was most certainly not used to, but up on the station there wasn’t a lot he could do about it. So, he spent most of his time either sleeping, eating the dreadful food or reading the scanning array manuals, trying to ignore the bumps, bangs and general racket of the ship being rebuilt around him.
Later that day his Gentab chimed, which was unusual and made him jump; up to now it had remained completely silent. He’d begun to think it didn’t have reception up here on the station, but obviously it did.
The unread vmail flashing on the screen was from Lake.
‘Trust him to be able to get through when no one else can,’ said Herez to himself and pressed play.
‘Good morning, Floyd. I hope you’re having a pleasant holiday,’ said Lake, smiling and making a big show of taking a sip of a glass of wine.
‘Patronising bastard,’ said Herez.
‘Now, now – that wasn’t a very sporting thing to say about your employer, was it?’ said Lake, chuckling.
Herez glanced down at the settings to reassure himself this was a recording and shook his head in bewilderment when he confirmed it was.
‘I don’t know how secure this is,’ continued Lake, putting on a more serious face. ‘So I’ll keep it brief. I’m informed by your two engineer colleagues that the scheduled work will be complete during the day cycle tomorrow. I’ll plan to pop up tomorrow afternoon for a full systems check. Make sure you’re ready, Mr H.’
Herez stared at the screen long after the recording had finished and wondered if it wasn’t too late to find alternative employment.