Earth's Last Angel (31 page)

Each modular mining camp is one kilometer tall and one kilometer wide. Each camp accommodates 20 LTMs plus service and support crew. The mining crews nickname the modular mining camps ‘Starfish' because of the five large leg sections that protrude out from the central biospheres of each section.

The top four sections are living space, with a massive hexagonal shuttle hanger on the fifth level, and a huge workshop on the lower level, both are the same width as the legs, giving the appearance of a huge hexagonal counter weight. The top central cylinders are linked together top to bottom, looking like four starfish stacked one on top of the other. The legs are access walkways to the laser tripod miners and staff accommodation, each laser tripod miner is docked on the end of its assigned leg.

The first group of miners to tour through the now completed Starfish 001 is Tarillia's crew of 40, plus 6 maintenance crew. The transport shuttle gently lands on the floor of the shuttle hanger, there is enough room on the shuttle hanger floor for at least 6 / 50 seat shuttles. The crew is a mixed bag of sweats from every remote corner of Thera.

Tarillia, the crew's dirt boss, calls for everyone's attention when they are all off the transport shuttle and assembled in the flight lounge.

‘Ok guy's listen up! This handsome young Mazuban here is Gosha, and he is going to show us through the starfish.'

‘You are too kind, little one.' smiles a small, powerfully built, silver frilled, older Mazuban. A livid scar runs from his right eyebrow straight down his face to his jawbone.

‘Your mother would be so proud!'

‘You should know, Papa.' she smiles, giving him a hug.

‘Just leave your luggage here and we'll come back and pick it up later. I have four friends to help me show you around. What we'll do is split into four groups of 10, the rest will be with me. Please let me introduce Maria, Marcos, Amelia, and of course Frank.'

After splitting in to five groups they begin the grand tour of their new home away from home. The groups go their separate ways, crossing each other's path at regular intervals throughout the tour. The layout of the Starfish is quite simple. The upper deck houses the offices, training room and pre-shift instruction room. As well as a well equipped medical center. The second deck is the entertainment level, which has the main restaurant style mess and a wet mess/bar done in the Wild West saloon theme, called the ‘Stagger Inn,' complete with double swinging wooden doors at the entrance. A small coffee café is tucked in next to the four immersion cinemas.

On the next floor down there is a well equipped gym and a full size swimming pool. With the girls favorite floor next, shops! There is a nail & beauty shop, a frill dresser, a therapy spa shop with massage available, and of course a general store for shopping. Below the girls floor is the shuttle hanger with the flight lounge and flight control in a central glass hex-dome, outside floor space is the shuttle dock.

Below this is the massive workshop area and docking space for the fleet of shuttles and laser tripod miners to be serviced and repaired. Life support and the life services plant are also housed on this floor.

The reassembled crowd is noisy with excitement in the flight lounge.

‘Hoi! You lot, pipe down!' yells Tarillia from the chair she is standing on.

The noise gradually dies down.

‘You are each going to be able to choose your own room. As you have seen on your tour, the accommodation is in the leg sections of the starfish. There are 20 legs so you will be assigned a leg to choose a room in, your LTM will be docked to your assigned leg. Please team up with your cross shift operator and join the operators assigned to your floor. Then you can all pick out your room, so take your bags with you. I'll see you all at the mess in one hour. The chefs have knocked up something special for us, so don't be late!'

With that, the crew file out of the shuttle flight lounge organized into groups assigned to each floor, with a service staff member to guide them. The excitement is electric as conversations buzz in the new starfish. Everything smells fresh and new, this is the transformation of a new house becoming a home.

‘I'll take this one here, A 7.' Taneasia comments to Marcos, The rooms are self-contained, with an en suite bathroom and walk in wardrobe. A small fridge and food heating unit are in the kitchen, with a comfortable lounge in the living area, and a queen size double bed in the bedroom.

‘I like the view from the top.' Taneasia comments adjusting the lens on the external viewer down and in to see down the entire length of the starfish. Her entire wall projects the view so that she feels like she is standing on the edge of a platform looking down.

‘Pretty impressive,' comments Marcos. ‘Check this out.' He retrieves the small controller from Taneasia, pressing three buttons in sequence.

‘Holy snapping duck shit!' she squawks, as the entire room, including ceiling and floor, snaps into the complete 3D spherical view of outside. She flings her arms out to get her balance as she sways back and forth.

Marcos can't help himself, and explodes into a loud roar of laughter.

‘You rotten mongrel!' she swipes at him, with a grin.

‘I'm sorry, but you've got to admit it is pretty damn cool!'

Feeling a little steadier on her feet Taneasia asks him ‘So what else can it do?'

Marcos shows her the other functions of the controller, including setting control to voice command. Taneasia's favorite function is full room view with different landscapes, she is just a little partial to the deserted island clip with palms gently waving back and forth with the sea out front, waves washing up over the sand. The sound quality is perfectly real, and with the air gently blowing from the vents she could swear she was sitting on her bed at the beach.

The vision is a 24 hour film clip so she can enjoy watching a sunset or the night sky with stars blazing overhead. Marcos leaves her to unpack.

Taneasia finishes unpacking then has a refreshing shower, dressing in some light casual clothes. She heads down the hall that opens out to the central floor, where she finds the escalator near the edge of the open floor center. Walking over to the balcony, she looks down over the edge to look for the restaurant. From her vantage point she can see her friends moving around four floors below her. She looks across the 200 meter gap to see Stan emerge from his room, he spots her and waves. He then walks around to meet her. They rode the escalator together down one floor to the entertainment complex then they walk over to the mess.

‘Would you like to share a table with me?' asks Stan a little shy.

‘Ok,' replies Taneasia.

A waiter met them at the entrance, ‘A table for two?'

‘Yes thank you.' Taneasia replies before Stan could respond, winking at him.

‘The cheeky flirt!' Stan thinks, although he is secretly flattered.

‘This way please,' he waiter directs, taking them to a small cozy booth.

Some tables are set out to seat four in little booths around the edge of the restaurant, with larger table settings towards the middle of the floor. Their setting is for four, with soft leather upholstery and a blue marble tabletop. The silverware is polished to a mirror finish. They order drinks while they wait on their meal, and engage in some light conversation.

Quite quickly the mess fills up with happy, hungry people. The chefs have simply outdone themselves, the food is superb. The waiters are kept busy bringing in the food and drinks to the hungry horde.

After the meal, Stan invites Taneasia for a drink at the wet mess/bar, the ‘Stagger Inn.' She accepts and smiles at the 10 gallon hats and cowboy boots on the barmaids.

After enjoying a couple of beers, Taneasia decides she wants to check out the cinemas and see what movies were on, Stan readily agrees.

The cinemas are a short three minute walk from the wet mess.

There are four cinemas with four different movies on. The first is a girly romance movie, the second a fantasy adventure, the third a horror movie, and the fourth a science fiction adventure. Stan looks at Taneasia a little nervously, he really doesn't want to endure a chick flick.

‘What do you reckon, Stan?' she says with a devilish grin on her face ‘Romance in Paris? Or ‘Android the final chapter?.'

‘You choose, I'm cool with either of them' he lies.

Going over to the ticket booth Taneasia purchases the two tickets. She goes back to Stan, who is keeping their place in line to go into the cinema.

‘Got the tickets!' she says waving them at Stan, covering the title with her fingers.

Stan can't see which movie she has picked on the waving tickets so he resigns himself to going to the chick flick.

Passing through the ticket gate, they head for cinema one, the chick flick. Stan's head drops, just as he is about to go into the cinema Taneasia grabs his arm, and tugs him away.

‘Where are you going, clown? I'm going to see a real movie, are you coming?'

Instantly Stan lights up. ‘Damn right I'm coming! Which one is it?'

‘Cinema three, Android the final chapter,' she grins.

‘You're a stinker Taneasia! You really had me going there for a minute!'

Taneasia just grins some more, saying: ‘Come on mate this way.'

Getting comfortable along with the other 20 moviegoers, they adjust their leather recliner seats, extending out the leg rest and tipping the backs a little.

‘Where is the screen?' whispers Stan, with a frown.

‘It comes up just before the movie starts.' Taneasia whispers back, grinning to herself. Stan is looking up towards the front of the cinema.

Music softly plays in the background as the cinema gradually fills up. Then slowly from the front section of the chair arm a telescopic rod with a small hand size dish on its end extends. At full extension the dish aims itself at Stan's face and switches on creating a light shell. The light shell adjusts itself to perfectly match the curvature of his eyeballs.

‘This is unreal!' comments Stan.

‘So…you really are an immersion cinema virgin then? Just wait until they fire up the movie!' Taneasia laughs.

The movie previews leaped onto the screen, the first preview being Romance in Paris. He was glad he didn't have to sit through that soppy yarn. The next clip of the fantasy adventure looked OK, so he decides may come back later and check it out. The horror preview scares the living crap out of him, he loses count of the times he tries to wipe his face to clean off the blood, only to find his hand is clean. Then the 3D monster chases him and had a go at biting off his head! to his shrill scream, although on that score he is not alone, the whole cinema is airing their tonsils. After the movie Taneasia cannot shut him up!

‘My God! That takes getting your head into it, to a whole new level! And the sound was unreal!' marvels Stan.

‘Maybe we should do this again sometime?' he cautiously ventures.

‘Yeah…maybe,' smiles a non-committal Taneasia.

‘I'm heading down to the shop floor to catch up with the girls and the shops, so I'll see you at work in the morning.'

‘OK. Thanks for your company Taneasia, enjoy the rest of your day off. I'll slip down and check out the gym.' replies a secretly disappointed Stan.

He walks her over to the escalator and accompanies her down to the gym floor, after they said their goodbyes they go their separate ways, Taneasia continuing down to the shop floor to meet her girlfriends.

‘Captain, I am picking a unique fight signature coming from Thera, sir.'

‘And you would be correct, Nolack-1, How are you cruising Val?' comes the mischievous jibe.

‘I should have guessed you could not stay away. big brother, it'll be good to see you again.'

‘These inserts are unreal. How far out are you?'

‘Hang on I'll check with the pilot.'

A few seconds later: ‘Gordon reckons we are about half way. Roughly 23 million miles or so, we'll see you in around…five hours.'

‘That's awesome! Hey, you are shaving a couple of hours off the trip, what have you been up to..?'

‘A wee tweak here and there, I'll show you when we get there.'

‘Too right you will! I'd better get cracking and get ready for you getting here.'

‘Val…here's the thing, I'd like to sneak in under the radar if you know what I mean.'

‘What no official welcome?'

‘Yes mate, I'd like you to assign me to your best miner for the first official cut of our first plug. I'd like to ride shotgun with him or her. The last time I visited it was a very sad business indeed, this time I'm here to have some fun!'

‘Right! You're on laddie! I'll make the arrangements. We are scheduled to commence the first cut when we receive the image data from the shuttle taking the shot tomorrow. That should give us some time to catch up, and organize you a ride.'

‘I'll see you soon, Val.'

‘Travel safe, big yin.'

‘Nolack-1, keep the Croc's visit under wraps for now, He will be staying with me when he arrives and can use the royal suite when he's ready.'

‘As you wish, Captain, I'll direct his shuttle to the secondary maintenance dock to subdue suspicion.'

‘Excellent Nolack-1, I'll pick him up from there.'

The following day the Croc, dressed in blue coveralls and a cap, is teamed up with Taneasia.

‘So you are from quality control…is that right.'

‘Yep, that's right miss.'

‘The name is Taneasia, mate, not Miss…I never miss,' She smirks.

‘Name's Jack, I'm more of a customer service kind of guy. I look after our customers and try to keep them happy,' he smiles.

‘Tough job that one, buddy, I'd rather be out here where the action is!'

‘That's your seat behind mine, strap yourself in and I'll grab you a set of headphones.