The doors slid open with a heavy sigh. Zen had been one of only five people to wake up and depart on this planet. Truly, the middle of nowhere.
The cryo really did a number on the joints and muscles, but with the technology being around for a while, the symptoms were pretty mild. Though he had been traveling for quite a while—seven and a half years to be exact.
For him, nothing but a weird dream; dreaming during cryo was impossible, so he knew it must've been his imagination.
A man stood on the other side of the sliding door, dressed in a messy military uniform, sloppily put together. His rank on his shoulder indicated that this man was a Major, but the filth covering the insignia suggested he had been one for a long, long time.
The man's face was sullen, and his eyes screamed indifference. His beard was wild and unkempt, and his hair messy and unwashed. He even had a non-standard sidearm on his belt, carrying an old-school sling gun, famous from the old-time Westerns they used to show on TV.
Zen wanted to point out so many things to this man and his lack of decorum for the military. In his eyes, men like him were the reason the military was so hated nowadays. He opened his mouth to give the Major a piece of his mind but was immediately interrupted.
"You Zen?" the Major said, without honorifics or proper acknowledgment of his own rank.
Zen swallowed his retorts and accepted the current reality as it was.
"Yes, Major, I'm Officer First Class Zen Jones. It is a pleasure to meet you."
Zen even did a little bow to make the best first impression he could.
The Major just kept looking at Zen, not even giving a hint of a response.
'Shit! Did I do something wrong? Why isn't he saying anything? Was it the bow? Was it really overkill?' Zen's thoughts were already back to his old overthinking self barely five minutes on this new planet.
"It's Robert, not Major," Robert said all of a sudden, prompting Zen to retort quickly.
"I'm sorry, Major, but I can't overlook such a breach of etiquette. Blame my schooling, but I simply cannot allow myself to talk to you casually." Zen was always a sucker for rules and regulations, so he prided himself on his flawless military etiquette.
"If you call me Major one more time, find your way to the base yourself. If you really want to follow the rules, then that's an order. Now come—I don't want to be here any more than you."
Robert just turned around and walked away, not even offering to help with any of the luggage Zen was dragging around.
'What the fuck kind of superior is this? I knew the outer colonies were lax, but not to this degree!' Zen quickly trailed behind Robert, dragging his suitcases along the floor.
They bypassed all security, if you could even call it that. Zen counted a total of three guards, all at least 50-plus in age. He doubted they could resist any kind of conflict.
Once outside, a medium-sized ship waited for their arrival. It was the only one on the small landing space meant for medium to large-sized spaceships.
Zen recognized its model as a Starfighter X3, infamous for its speed and difficulty to control. Its sleek design and wings made it one of the fastest ships in the atmosphere, and it certainly wasn't cheap.
However, this specific model had seen better days. Rust was accumulating here and there, some parts were missing, and it was also an outdated model, as the X7 had been released just last year—or would that be eight and a half years ago by now? Cryofreeze is weird.
"We're flying that?" Zen nervously asked. He had no doubt the ship could fly—these things could take a beating—but there were notoriously few pilots who could control them.
"I'm not flying that bucket of bolts. I'm not crazy enough," Robert replied.
"She is, though."
Robert pointed at the woman sitting near the entrance of the medium ship. She was small, had blonde hair, and an overall happy disposition. She was listening to some music while drumming her hands to the rhythm. Once she saw Robert and Zen, she jumped up and walked toward the pair.
"Hey, Rob!"
Zen cringed at the blatant disregard of rank. The woman was only a pilot, yet she carried herself like an admiral.
"This the new guy?" she asked while approaching Zen.
"Yeah, he is. He's a sucker for rules, though, so better look out," Robert commented, unenthusiastically.
"Oh, wow! We haven't had one of those here in a while!"
She now stood in front of Zen, barely reaching his chin.
"Nice to meet you, I'm Amelia, the best pilot this side of the cosmos!"
Her warm smile and outstretched hand had a mesmerizing effect on Zen. He shook her hand and smiled back, not even commenting on her lack of manners.
"Yeah, nice to meet you. I'm Officer First Class Zen Jones. I look forward to working with you."
He almost immediately cringed from the pain—Amelia was absolutely crushing his hand in an iron grip, still, of course, smiling.
"What's wrong, beansprout? Never had a good old-fashioned outer colony handshake before?"
Zen didn't even listen to her. Falling to his knees, he was pretty sure something had broken in his hand. After Amelia's victory, and at the same time a horrible first impression, she let go of Zen.
"Come on, wimpy, old man! We're leaving," Amelia happily said as she walked back to her ship, leaving Zen and Robert standing.
"Told you—you'd have to be insane to fly one of these things," Robert said while following after Amelia.
'Jesus Christ! She really is absolutely insane! My hand hurts like a motherfu—'
"By the way, she'll just leave if you take too long!" Robert yelled without even looking back, snapping Zen out of his self-pity.
Grabbing his luggage, he quickly threw it on board and found someplace secure to fasten it. Walking to the cockpit, he saw there was enough room to fit five people comfortably.
Amelia was already in her seat, strapped down, whistling happily to some tune playing on the ship's sound system. She looked back and smiled, saying,
"Oh, you're done! Let's get this show on the road then!"
Without warning, the ship became airborne, giving Zen no time to find a seat and settle down. Just as he managed to sit, he grabbed the harness to buckle in, and the second Amelia heard the snap, indicating he wasn't going to bounce around inside her ship, she sent it to maximum thrust.
Maximum thrust, of course, was meant for atmospheric exit, not atmospheric flight—but for Amelia, that was just more fun.
Seeing the landscape of endless red rock race by, Zen started to feel sick. Amelia had gained some altitude; otherwise, the sonic booms the ship produced would surely destroy any buildings on the planet below. Zen could barely move his head as he looked at the speed indicator, hovering around 3,500 meters per second.
'3,500 m/s?! That's like… basically Mach 10 on Earth! Even during emergencies, atmospheric speed limits enforce a hard limit of around Mach 5. True Mach depends on the medium sound travels through. But with terraforming, all planets have roughly the same sound velocity.'
'She's way above the speed limit—twice that, even! As an official officer of the Protection Force, no less,' Zen's thoughts spun wildly as the craft abruptly slowed down, making a spin maneuver as it landed on the pad below. Undoubtedly, it looked cool from outside the craft, but inside, it was like being stuck in a washing machine.
Zen rubbed his neck, feeling like it had snapped during the landing, which was fairly soft—if you were a machine, at least. Amelia had landed the plane in perhaps the fastest way possible without causing injury to the ship itself. The crew, however, had different results. Robert stood up from his seat, cracked his back and neck for a second, and looked at Amelia.
"Was that really necessary, Amelia?" His voice still devoid of joy.
"Was what necessary, Robert?" she smiled back, deviously.
"Ugh—whatever," Robert waved away her question.
"You just explain to Effy why the rough landing was needed."
With that, Robert pushed a button, and the door slid open with a hiss. Amelia suddenly grew a little pale and nervously started the shutdown procedure.
Zen wanted to add the blatant violation of the speed limit, but the throbbing pain in his right hand protested against such ideas. He stood up from his seat and started collecting his bags. Not much inside them was still in one piece, but whatever—there had to be a repair shop nearby, surely.
Zen and Amelia finished around the same time, exiting the ship simultaneously by sheer coincidence. Amelia was being uncharacteristically quiet, at least gathering from the short while Zen knew her.
Just as they exited the craft, the door to the complex slid open, revealing the silhouette of a small woman. She had flowing brown hair tied in a knot, her face was smeared with grease in some places, and she wore a jumpsuit that downplayed her figure severely—but she was quite stunning, nonetheless.
As the woman revealed herself, Amelia shrieked and jumped behind Zen.
'This woman! She almost breaks my hand, neck, and back in less than an hour, and now she uses me as a shield!? The gall of such behavior!'
The woman was coming closer, and Zen could see her face more clearly—she was pissed. Not just a little bit, but royally. Eventually, she stood right in front of Zen, gripping a wrench with such strength that he was sure it was going to break. Her face suddenly turned into a smile that didn't extend to her eyes.
"Very good day—you must be Zen! I read your report. I'm going to enjoy working with you. You know, I imagined you as a real-life Sherlock Holmes, but to be honest, I might've been expecting too much," her voice was smooth as butter.
She stuck out her hand, going for a handshake, but Zen had recently had a bad experience with handshakes, so he hesitated for a bit too long.
"You know it's considered impolite in the outer colonies to leave a girl hanging, right?"
Zen snapped out of it. She must be better than the brat that was hiding behind him. He took out his protesting, throbbing hand and shook hers, half afraid of having it broken for real this time.
"Y-yeah, I'm Zen Jones, Officer First Class. It is a pleasure to meet you," he said, sweating profusely, expecting another real outer colony handshake.
"No, please, the pleasure is all mine. My name is Effy Lee. I'm the mechanic in the department. Taking care of that old rustbucket is my responsibility, hahaha. Speaking of, I'm assuming Amelia flew it respectfully and with love, right?" Her eyes lost even more kindness as she spoke.
Zen was temporarily considering lying due to the pressure she was giving off but quickly changed his mind. Amelia, on the other hand, started poking Zen from behind, hoping to upturn his truthful nature.
"It was scary as shit, and I think we topped Mach 10 at some point," Zen replied. Normally, he was very good at keeping his mouth shut, but with this woman, he felt immense pressure. Plus, covering for Amelia, who he disliked quite a bit at the moment, wasn't in his interest.
"Ah, I see…" Effy took a step back, looking Zen right in the face.
"Well then, Zen, would you mind stepping one step to the left? Oh, and Amelia, if you stay behind him, I'm doubling your punishment!"
Her smile faded as she kept trying to stay calm. As soon as Zen stepped aside, a wrench flew past his face, hitting Amelia right on the forehead.
"What did I say about the X3!? Don't fly it like it's brand new, you goddamned speedbrain! Good-for-nothing stu—" Effy's rant and Amelia's punishment went on as the door slid open once again, and Robert appeared. Studying the situation for less than a second, he shrugged and signaled for Zen to come inside.
Inside the building was much like a regular office, as in any precinct Zen had been to, just twenty times smaller and with no separate office rooms.
Five desks with computers were placed here and there, and one could see the type of person inhabiting each one through the items strewn about on top of it.
One was filled with military magazines, another with gears, bearings, and drawings. One desk had an insurmountable amount of paperwork piled up, while the last two were completely empty. Robert walked to one of the empty desks, slapped it, and sat down, saying,
"This one's mine. The military fan is Amelia, and the one with the gizmos is Effy. You get the paperwork desk," Robert readjusted his seat to be more comfortable and closed his eyes, attempting to doze off.
'So they're really going to dump all the paperwork on me, huh? Well, not like a backwater planet like this has that much work piling up, can it?' Zen moved to his desk, only to find that the drawers were, in fact, also stuffed with unprocessed paperwork.
"And that other desk? Can't I have that one instead?" Zen asked, before even processing the amount of paperwork on his table.
"Nope, that's Doc's. Now get to it—work ain't gonna do itself," Robert said, kicking his feet up on the desk. Within a surprisingly short time, he started snoring.
"Goddamnit," Zen muttered, resigning to his fate. He sat down and started with the paperwork—mostly petty theft, area disputes, and bandit stuff that lower-level recruits usually had to handle. And now, Zen had to as well.
Falling into a trance of concentration, he barely registered Amelia and Effy walking back inside and going about their business. He heard Effy say something about maintenance of the X3 and Amelia going off to do something or other.
As he grabbed the final piece of paper from the stack, he allowed himself a moment of respite from his concentration. The room was darker than when he had begun, and also way quieter. Robert had left some time ago, but Zen had barely noticed. Looking around the empty office, he sighed.
"Would it kill anyone to have informed me it was already time to lock up!?"
He let his gaze wander and searched for some way to determine the time. He booted up his PC and froze.
"It's fucking 10 PM?! I've been working overtime for five fucking hours!?" Zen wasn't usually one to fuss over working overtime, but five hours? And on the first day, no less!
The doors suddenly slid open, and Zen gazed at them, curious as to who else was still here at this time, besides him. Effy walked out the door, absolutely covered in oil and grease. Seeing his gaze, she smiled.
"What? Don't they have pretty girls where you're from?" she said, grinning from ear to ear. Zen wasn't used to being teased, so he immediately jumped from his chair to defend himself.
"N-no, I was just wondering why someone was still here at this hour, you know? Besides me, haha," he stammered.
'Yeah, very smooth,' Zen thought, punching down his internal doubts and trying to act normal—with an emphasis on "trying."
Effy just laughed in his face.
"Yeah, very smooth, cowboy. Amelia screwed up some of the landing gear, so I had to give it some attention. Never expected the damage to be so thorough, though," she shrugged and walked to her desk, fishing some keys from one of the drawers.
Walking briskly toward the exit door, she opened it and stood in the opening, turning around with a mischievous smile that made Zen's heart race for the second time that day.
"I'm taking a shower and heading to the bar. Are you coming with?"