After returning to his quarters, John got lost in thoughts. Over the recent decades, world peace was unstable with conflicts happening each year. Governments were heavily relying on the wealthiest, including major corporations, which had power to interfere with all the matters around the world, not limited to Earth, but also reaching Mars and smaller space colonies.
Though people still continued electing governments within their countries, it no longer had such influence on their life as in past, because politicians were all connected to various corporations, beyond the country level. Even fresh faces appearing on political scene were quickly pulled into this humongous machine, losing the ability of making independent decisions concerning their countries, their freedom of choice.
The intelligent people, aware of how this world was functioning nowadays, were in majority taking care of their own well-being, disregarding anything that could possibly make a change, mainly because any such action was risky.
For truth was cruel - individuals were nothing in face of financial power. How many of them would be needed to stand against such a giant force? Hundreds of thousands or millions could not manage to win such a fight. Even if someone started such an action, it would have turned out into nothing else than fight against the windmills.
So far, Marlow thought he was making proper decisions to efficiently avoid getting mixed up in any business of such kind. John always focused on his duties, and targets he set for himself were aimed at improving his life conditions and prestige. Should anything put him into unfavorable position, he would rather avoid such a situation. This kind of approach maybe was not courageous, but gave him a sense of being safe.
However, recently everything was going through rapid changes. Since the moment major got invited to the conference and, in fact, was forced to participate in the project, his original plans went haywire. John had to leave everything he built and gained back on Earth. Despite all of these adversities appearing in the way, he still managed to adapt to this new situation, to the point of even feeling a kind of comfort and ease in current environment.
Unfortunately, the most recent events brought him down to grim reality. Life was not beautiful and easy, conrary to that, it could be compared to a bumpy, very steep and twisted road leading uphill, on which one had to watch their steps. Marlow was not sure where he made a mistake, and how in the world he got the attention from way too many people, who were better off kept at a distance.
He met colonel McRae for the first time during the conference and it was because of him to leave the hall. Even today, John wondered if he really had no choice, or maybe Ryan just skillfully manipulated him into participating in the expedition. What came later was Kaller appearing in his life, getting involved in his work. Oh, and of course, there was Keira - while her looks and character were pulling him in, and he could not cut ties with her, he still remembered that she was not honest about being involved in the project before the conference, a thing he learned about by accident.
There seemed to be too many people popping up here and there now that he thought about it.
The problem was, Marlow had no idea what he should look for, but he could clearly feel something was off. He was not sure what this was about, but in recent days, he had this weird gut feeling. This expedition could by no means be called a standard mission. There were to many suspicious events and conspiracies around. And what was the worst, it has been been way too late to fall back.
Major woke up and stood up with unpleasant headache, therefore he reached to a medicine box to take a painkiller. A small sip was enough to get rid of it.
- What am I even thinking about? - he told to himself, while standing in front of the mirror - As if worrying had an effect on anything. If people are conspiring, let them do that. I should focus on surviving and return to home in one piece.
He stood like this for a bit longer, looking at his reflection and telling to himself to not worry and just head forward, no matter what problems arise on the way.
No one said it will be easy. Life has been always throwing logs under his feet, but - luckily for him - he managed to jump above them all.
***
First day on the new allocation started very calmly, with a short introduction to stock status - types and amounts of equipment in military hangar.
They were transporting a large variety of different machines and weapons. Among the equipment, what caught the most attention were Mobile Tactical Suitsi MTS in short - they had two different models in stock, the humongous Polish Ursi and much smaller, but highly agile and much faster American Savages.
They had "only" ten Ursi models. Main reason for that was the size of a single Ursus, but aside from that, finding a qualified pilot for such machine was not an easy task. These colossi required a special training, and countries having them in stock were not willing to give away their aces, because pilots were invaluable during military conflicts.
It was not the case with SVG, popularly called Savages. Here, the complexity was much lower, therefore they had much more people capable of piloting than the machines to pilot. They took a hundred MTS-SVG in total, while there were over three hundred people with appropriate license to operate them. But obviously, military personnel was first in line, and any changes were to be made only in special circumstances.
Aside from MTS, which everyone openly called mecha, they had a large number of F-suits with built-in exoskeletons, capable of enhancing the parameters of people wearing them, noticeably improving the strength, endurance and agility, while allowing adaptation to various conditions. Owing to small size, they managed to take several dozens of thousands F-suits onboard, meaning there were several pieces available per each crew member.
Interesting positions on the list were also jetpacks and antigravity shoes, though these were much lower in number. Despite the technological advancement, this equipment was available in lower amount mainly because of the number of accidents involving these devices. Back on Earth, using them in urban areas was strictly forbidden.
As they walked through the warehouse, John's eyes caught a glimpse of production lines used to build drones, mecha, and other useful machines, but were not limited to aforementioned. This kind of machinery required only specific materials, metals to be precise, which were supposed to be in high abundance on the New Gaia. If that was the truth, they could create thousands of machines within a year, useful in exploration and development of the new planet. They had one more important function, to which Marlow was quite sceptic - it made it possible to connect organic matter with machines, creating biomachines. And it could not be confused with methods used by trained medics to implant prosthetics.
The person guiding them was John's acquaintance - Marta.
- You still haven't seen the best thing yet - she said after they visited most of the stations - These will take use to the New Gaia's surface.
Marlow knew they had these in stock. In fact, same model of the ships Marta showed them earlier was used as a base for Future's landing pods, though largely modified.
These modified pods, model VT-303, popularly called Wasp had more space inside than the original. One such ship was capable of transporting fifty people and the cargo at the same time. Putting it in simple terms, cargo space was capable of fitting four MTS-SVG. Moreover, owing to modified structure, these ships could be turned into a temporary, mobile residential buildings.
- So these will be our homes after we land? - Martin was openly interested - There's more room inside than I thought - he said after opening the door.
- Wasp has the biggest capacity among all currently produced landing pods - Marta explained - If need be, combining cargo and passenger modules we can easily fit one hundred people in a single ship.
Obviously, engineers and mechanics in the group knew everything about that, but the woman looked really happy by being able to talk about technical stuff, therefore no one made any comments, so everyone was listening to her talk about VT-303 specification.
After learning about the storehouse, they have moved to the main dock with repair stations. These were multifunctional, which - in practice - meant that each station could be adjusted to a specific type of equipment, from Ursi and Wasps to much smaller vehicles such as land transporters or flying vehicles.
- So this is our main workplace? - Johnson was looking at control panel of one of the stations, on which mechanics were working on Savage - It'll be nice to take care of something new.
Suddenly, there was a loud bang. Martin jumped back at the very last moment. As he quickly put himself back together, he noticed that mecha's hand was lying on ground at the spot he was standing at a moment before.
- Is everyone alright? - they heard yet another familiar voice - You said I could start checking the arm!
Jeanne was clearly agitated. She nearly screamed at the mechanic, who first apologized to her, and then to Johnson, who - despite shaking a bit - turned the whole situation into a joke.
- So it's already official, Jo? - Marta asked her friend, who managed to leave the cockpit already.
Jeanne leaned on one of the pillars, looked at the MTS and let out a loud sigh.
- It turned out to be the case, unfortunately for me - anger could be heard in her voice - I was supposed to be only a part of maintenance team, and not the combat pilot.
She pulled out a smoke, lighted it up and took a puff.
- Jo, for godness sake, it's a hangar, you shouldn't... - Marta started talking, but seeing Jeanne's face, she stopped.
According to official procedures, participants of the expedition could only smoke in designated zones, and hangar was obviously not one of these - the main reason was the presence of flammables. Everyone knew about this, given they got familiar with full documentation concerning security rules. As a service crew member, Jeanne obviously should have known about that. It also did not change the fact that this one was the most often broken rule. Even at this very moment, when Marta pointed that out, John could quickly count several other people, who were also smoking. Because of long-term stay in space, and being far from home, he understood it too well that it was how they were fighting their stress.
- What's the problem here? You have the license, right? - Martin was surprised - Why do you wonder you were transferred then? Look at us, they pulled us out from the engine room.
While Johnson had a point, Marlow found this suspicious, and understood why Jeanne reacted that way.
- And here I'm a bit surprised too - he jumped in before Jo managed to say anything - I didn't know you belong to the army, Jeanne.
The woman shook her head.
- You are right, I didn't - she explained - I've never served in the army, I got my civilian MTS license only to get better jobs. During construction works, we often had modified, heavy duty MTS, and same was the case for mining work. Back then, I didn't think it would lead me to such a situation, being drafted. They didn't give me the chance to decline...
Indeed, it sounded really weird. With the current amount of Savages, they had many more pilots than machines, without a doubt including soldiers. John was surprised that civilian woman was drafted. He had no solid answer, but decided it would have been bad to stress her unnecessarily.
- Apparently, you must have really good qualifications, I don't see the other reason - he claimed - I'm sure you will do well.
Jeanne smiled.
- You bet I will! I'm not making a fuss because I don't have a skill, but because they forced me into it. That's what pisses me off.
And she walked away, waving her hand to say goodbye.
- Say what you want, but it really came as a surprise - Marta continued the topic as they had to administrative section of the hangar - Recently, we have a pretty high rotation within the teams. There are so many transfers we had to delegate several people to oversee the process.
It was obvious, Marlow could agree, but did not want to make others feel uneasy. He only wondered whether what was happening now had something to do with the topic of the power struggle as changes on such a cale at this point of the expedition were disturbing. As he told himself, the main goal for him should be surviving this mission. No matter where he gets assigned, no matter what kind of problems he faces, John has to live through them.
***
New assignment turned out to be a much lighter and less stressful job than working on the engines. Equipment they were working with was rarely ever used, therefore most of their tasks were limited to maintenance. Even the machines that were in active usage rarely broke, and most of faults was really small.
Majority of repairs was related to exploitation, such as replacement of cells, transmitters and fibers in MTS arms - elements being active for the most time and being exposed to the biggest burden.
In different conditions, in open space, there would be also cases of the external factors affecting the machines' coatingmbut since they were still inside the tunnel, and there were no damages to the outside of Future, no works were being done outside. Generally, during the flight through the tunnel, they were not supposed to perfom any works outside unless damage was critical enough to be a threat to the whole mission, and such a thing would take place mainly if something happened to the central module.
Strange as it may sound, remaining modules were not as important in terms of crew survival chances, with the exception to areas where plants and various food production facilities were located. It is true that every landing pod was equipped with minimum resources ensuring the group's survival in case of fatal failures of the key systems requiring the evacuation, but for field works and colonization purposes, seedlings and production lines were needed.
Since modules had different purposes, should there be a substantial damage, some could be abandoned immediately, while the others had to survive for long enough to have the crew move the most important cargo.
Returning to the topic of work in the hangar, John and Martin could never say they were being overworked. In fact, they had much more free time now than ever before. Mechanics delegated to current repairs were working on order system, meaning that they were receiving repair requests for each shift and - depending on the work speed - they could finish up much faster, if the order was fulfilled ahead of time. Urgent repairs were happening rarely.
Both Marlow and Johnson were really good specialists. During the flight through the tunne, they had no situation where any of their orders would have taken more than one shift of work, or even staying overtime, though they decided to stay on several occasions to help other teams.
Owing to such approach, they have gained some new friends, though John - following his normal style - preferred to keep a safe distance.
Hopefully, this routine rhythm could last until the very goal of their travel. However, no one knew what was awaiting them from the moment they leave the tunnel, reaching the New Gaia's system.