USD: 80 days after the battle of Dedia IV, 30 minutes after arrival at MIL-1A

Location: Van Biesbroeck’s star, Meltisar, Orbital Elevator Nexus MIL-1A

Elis woke up when the airlocks cycled open to the station’s gangways. Alex squeezed her sister’s hand supportively. A weak grunt came from the bed before Elis started to flex and move randomly in agitation.

“Elis, it’s ok. We just arrived at the station,” Alex whispered.

Elis’s movements slowed down and her eyes roamed listlessly until they finally settled on Alex. She stopped squirming as much and made some noises that Alex couldn’t find any meaning in.

Feeling a bit lost, Alex launched into a concise explanation of where they were and what they were doing. A few moments later, a nurse and CNA from the station came on board.

The nurse shook her hand and greeted her while the other checked Elis’s vitals. “Are you the patient’s sister, Ma’am?”

Alex nodded.

“I’m Josh. I’ll be Elis’s nurse while we transport her to the Navy Neurotrauma and Rehabilitation Center.”

“That’s on the station, right?”

The nurse nodded. “It’s part of the Navy’s Level One Trauma center on the station. It normally only serves service members and their families. I understand she has been registered as a veteran?”

Alex blinked in surprise. “Captain Thraker handled her registration.”

“That’s great. You’ll be coming with us to the medical center, according to the chart. The doctors will need information on her medical history, along with any relevant information about her condition.”

“It wasn’t in the notes sent ahead?” Alex asked.

Josh smiled at her. “It was, but it would really be best for a family member to go over things with the staff. It was in the notes that you’ve been with her when the injury occurred up to now, so it’s medically relevant enough for you to come with us.”

The CNA looked over at her. “Get to bypass the security screening line, isn’t it nice?”

Alex laughed weakly.

“No, seriously. The lines are getting out of control lately. Budget cuts on station have meant less staff for the same amount of traffic.”

Josh nodded. “Spent an hour in line with the wife last week waiting to go planetside. Was a nightmare.”

Alex felt a bit of relief. Going through security checkpoints was likely to lead to questions that she didn’t want to answer. Still, there was another big reason that was obvious to prefer skipping the line, too. “That’s good then. I wouldn’t want Elis to have to wait in line with a bunch of people.”

“Exactly. Don’t worry about it. The medical center has its own express tram line. We’ll be on it.”

“How far away is it, exactly?” Alex asked.

“About twenty kilometers? It’s not that far. Its one of the first structures down the main line from the transfer hub.”

Alex nodded. “I saw the map. It didn’t seem like that far to need a tram.”

“That’s a deceptive thing. The station might seem small, but it’s massive. You don’t really get a good idea for it on the way in on a shuttle or from the map. Best advice is that everything has a direct line to the main hub station, which is really a bunch of little hubs that are numbered. You can always find a tram between them or that leads to the major annexes.” Josh advised her.

“Thank you for the tips.”

It only took a few more minutes before they certified Elis for transport and Alex quietly followed behind the medical bed. Once they had maneuvered the bed out of the shuttle and down the gangway, it surprised Alex at just how fast they moved down the corridor.

Despite the thick crowd of humanity exiting the shuttle and lining up at a gate, she and the medical team had their own little cordoned off lane they zipped through. When they came to the scanner, Alex felt nervous. Josh swiped his badge through a card reader, and the gate light turned green. The sliding doors responded immediately, opening for them without protest.

No one really paid them any mind as they went through, either. Everyone else was having their bags searched while they went through detectors and scans. When the medical bed suddenly stopped, Alex almost tripped and bumped into it.

The space past the gates was mostly empty, with only a few crewmen filtering out of the gates at a time, but Captain Thraker was already standing in their path. “Gentleman, if you could wait a moment, I would like to have a word with Ms. Myers.”

Josh and the CNA looked at each other with a confused look for a second.

Josh ended up shrugging. “Sure. It’s not a problem as long as it isn’t too long.”

Thraker nodded, and Alex stepped to the side to talk with him.

“How are you holding up, Alex?”

Remembering the last time Thraker started a conversation that way, she went with the truth. “I’m feeling nervous, but I’m okay. They said they want Elis’s full medical history and stuff, but I’m not sure how much to tell them.”

“I’ve been over our doctor’s report. It’s not likely there will be any evidence of you having used nanites on her as first aid. You can simply tell them she suffered severe blood loss that was stopped. Here is a note from the doctor, with specifics. We already sent it ahead, but it might help you remember everything while explaining.”

Thraker slipped a notepad into Alex’s hands.

“Thank you,” Alex murmured.

“I will see Admiral Darren later this evening. Message me when you are finished with settling Elis in. If that takes longer than I expect, there might be another chance to talk to him later.”

Alex nodded. “Okay.”

He pushed another item into her hands. This time it was a plastic card with an embedded microchip. “This is your passport. Refugee, 92 Pegasi. It’s legally valid, but I don’t need to remind you the reasons it would be a bad idea for you to go ground side or use any of the transit terminals off station. We can discuss those options later once you have figured out what you plan to do.”

Alex bit her lip. “What is the IHMC going to do, though? Are you going to be staying here for how long?”

Thraker frowned. “I am afraid the ship is in bad shape, and we can’t afford the cost of repairs. I plan to ask Admiral Darren if we can get a contract as security somewhere in the system to keep the balance running positive, at least.”

Alex tilted her head. “Maybe… I could help with that? If I could get Nameless back online, repairing would be easy…”

The CNA coughed loudly, and Alex glanced over to the medical bed. Josh was looking at her and pointing at his watch. A crowd was mulling about as crewmen talked and joked about how they were going to spend their leave time. They were moving much quicker through the gates now, and the space was filling up rapidly.

Thraker patted her arm. “We can discuss it later. I am hesitant to say there is any way to do so, though. Take care of your sister and message me when you can.”

Alex nodded. “I will.”

She rejoined the medical team, and they headed down the corridor. Josh offered an apology.

“Sorry, just want to stay ahead of the rush. We don’t really want to stand around a noisy crowd. Wouldn’t want to agitate her.”

Alex nodded. “I wouldn’t want that either. Just there’s a lot to decompress with everything that’s been happening.”

Josh nodded. “Your convoy’s actually kind of big news on the net. Not often we get frontier refugees here.”

The CNA spoke up and looked to Alex. “It sounded like there is shit going down between the Corpos and Solarians again. Did you catch any word on that?”

Alex blinked. “When we went through 90 Pegasi, they both had a battle group in system and were engaging. Lots of evidence of fighting near the jump point before we came through as well.”

Josh whistled. “Wow, so the war is really going hot, then? I mean, there has never been any love lost between the Corpos and Solarians, but they’ve not been shooting at each other for… well, a decade or so?”

“Yeah, about that,” the CNA replied. “First shooting since the Erties and Imps went at it over 81 Draconis.”

Alex nudged her way into the conversation hesitantly. “Aren’t you worried about the fighting? Isn’t Meltisar right between the Corpos and the Solarians?”

Josh and the CNA shared a look before Josh answered. “Nah, it’s just two outer fleets going at it? I seriously doubt either side would escalate to anything more than that.”

“Yeah, even if Meltisar isn’t a NAI power, we still have an inner system equivalent of a defense net and fleet. Plus, there are diplomatic agreements and things. If one side tried to attack through here, it would violate a lot of things and get the other powers on their ass,” The CNA continued.

Alex nodded. “Okay. Remember, I’m from far away and never really heard of these things before. You both seem certain they wouldn’t violate the agreements if they could get the upper hand. Don’t they have battle moons or something? What defense is going to work when the orbit of Meltisar is changed to hit the gas giant?”

Josh answered first. “There haven’t been any serious conflicts like that since before most people were born. Meltisar is at the center of things for all the factions, and none of them want each other to sneak through it for a surprise attack. None of them trust each other, and that means the borders are heavily armed and guarded.”

The CNA nodded. “It has been like this for 50 years. As much as most people from the factions dislike each other, no one wants to see another cataclysm or planets be glassed anymore. Not even the Erties.”

“And the battle moons?” Alex asked.

“Sure, they are big and scary, but they’ve never moved? I’m not even sure they can move? I mean, it’s a moon.”

“There was that news about Luna causing flooding on earth a few months ago?”

“That seemed like hyperbole to me. Anyway, that might be a worry in a core system, but I don’t think waveform drive could work for something that large, either.”

“Umm, don’t they have wormhole drives?”

The CNA looked at her skeptically. “People from the frontier have weird ideas. If they had that, why would everyone use waveform? It’d be much faster getting around, anyway.”

“Yeah, no. We don’t need a second cataclysm, thank you. And the powers that be seem to agree, since they have shelved the tech as illegal,” Josh added.

Alex bit her lip. She had the perception that things that were supposed to be illegal just meant they were hidden from plain view from most people. Maybe. She was getting through security, anyway.

As they continued down the corridor, Alex noticed there was a large open area ahead. It turned out to be a concourse with multiple floors with hundreds of different boutique shops and stores. Food smells reached her as soon as they went around the corner, a food court with dozens of different food places on the far end greeted them.

Alex couldn’t help but ask, “Isn’t this a military station? It looks like a shopping concourse.”

Josh laughed. “Yeah, but there are a million people on this station. Can’t be going down the big lift planetside every time you want to do a bit of shopping. The central hub is a city in itself, with the specialized military segments going down both ends of the ribbon.”

“So, the main hub has the habitation and commons? Got it. There isn’t security between it and other levels?” Alex asked.

Josh looked over at her. “Depends on which level you’re going to. Most of them, they’ll scan your military ID, but medical is designed for civvie visitors so you won’t have a problem. You got your passport, right?”

“Yeah, the Captain gave it to me before we left,” Alex answered.

Josh nodded. “Nice of him. Pretty important, too. You will not be happy if you gotta go through BuPers to get a new one.”

“She’s a refugee. She’d go through the embassy. It’s not as bad.” The CNA offered.

Josh laughed. “Still bad.”

The CNA shook his head. “Not nearly. Plus she won’t get her ass reamed for losing it. They are pretty nice over there.”

“Wouldn’t know. Never been to it.”

Alex quietly dropped out of the conversation as she took in the sights of the station as they moved through it. She realized that the colored lines on the floor had meaning and were the reason that no one ended up blocking their path.

Red lines meant a medical transport path, and there were literally signs painted on the floor that said, “Do Not Block!” every dozen meters.

But she found herself looking at the people more than the floor. Everywhere she looked, there were different people she hadn’t realized existed. She’d seen different skin colors and ethnicities, but on the station, there were literally people with metallic body parts.

One man looked to be made more of metal than flesh, with a chrome skull and arms. She had almost mistaken him for an android.

Until they passed by a real android that was clad fully in silver-colored metal, complete with blinking lights on his chest piece. The robot was in conversation with someone, so it wasn’t just a drone.

“That android wasn’t a NAI, was it?” Alex asked.

Both of them laughed at the same time.

Josh looked at her as they turned the corner. “Hardly. Plenty of GAIs on station, though. Some of them can even hold a conversation just fine.”

The CNA chuckled. “Just don’t ask one to draw hands.”

Alex furrowed her brow. “Huh?”

Josh shook his head. “It’s a joke, because GAIs used to struggle to draw hands, but it’s not really true anymore.”

They suddenly stopped and Alex almost bumped into the bed again. Elis made a noise and moved under the covers slightly.

Alex leaned in and patted a shoulder gently to soothe her. “It’s alright Elis, we are on the way to the hospital.” It seemed to work.

Josh frowned. “The light sedation shouldn’t be wearing off already.”

Alex looked up at the gate they were standing in front of. It read ‘Medical Personnel Only’ on the sign, with a small timer indicating a few minutes wait. She wondered just how often the trams traveled between each station.

Alex continued petting Elis gently while they waited. When the tram arrived, it was empty, and they gave the medical bed priority for boarding. There weren’t that many people boarding with them, but getting on first let them take a space in the back that left them to their selves. Boarding only took a few moments, and then the tram accelerated rapidly.

It was obviously using inertial dampening, because Alex barely felt the movement. The tram was sleek and, like the rest of the station, reminded her of the interior of the Shrike. Everything was relatively clean and polished. She’d even noted some small bots roaming around, taking care of cleaning.

Really, it felt like they had achieved a lot with GAIs, but then Alex realized that had likely been the norm before NAIs came into existence. One supposedly led to the other, after all.

When they arrived at the hospital, everyone hurried off the tram, and they were the last to disembark. People were scanning their cards as they went through the gated checkpoint while they escaped once again through the express lane.

It didn’t really feel like a separate building to Alex as they traveled down the hall. The only sign they were in a separate section of the station was the sudden lack of view ports and windows. That, and the outfits worn by most of the people they passed by changed to a medical theme.

“How big is the medical center?” Alex asked.

“5,000 beds, not including long-term care facilities. Don’t worry about getting lost. I’ll send you a map file to your pad once we get to Elis’ room.”

“Thanks.”

It felt like a maze of corridors as they continued, but Alex realized they were taking some arcane labyrinth of back routes to avoid most foot traffic. Every so often, she spotted an entryway that led to a lobby or lounge that was bustling with people waiting.

As they came to a new floor, Josh looked over at her. “Before you leave this section, make sure you get a floor-pass from the department nurse. You’ll need it to get into this section and prove you’re a visitor for Elis.”

“Okay. Thanks for letting me know.”