cruisers since she’d taken the job out here. Smaller craft docked more frequently, but never for long. Just to get tooled up, or to re-sync the latest bounce report on their way to whichever station was their final destination. Piper liked the little hop, though. It was the first one she’d been on that was synced up with Mars’s orbit instead of Earth’s, and even though they maintained a Terran day-night schedule and the orbit didn’t actually make any difference in her day-to-day routine, it still felt more exotic, somehow. And there was some kind of executive suite down on the lowest level that was off limits to all the techs and corporate peons like her, and that at least gave everyone something to talk about.
It still struck Piper as funny that the station had a down. Technically the station’s top-most section was supposed to be aligned along the same axis as Earth’s magnetic northern pole, but that didn’t really make any sense either when you thought about it, because it’s not like ground folk went around with all their heads northward. And it all seemed a little sad to her too, the amount of effort everyone put into trying to make life in space just like life on one of the planets. Such a waste, to get so far out and then to refuse to embrace all the promise the Deep offered. Like going to the beach for the first time and spending the whole day inside.
Maybe Piper had never really been meant to live on-planet. She had some affection for Earth, and a mild loyalty to the United American Federation, but she credited that more to her place of birth than anything else. Many of her hopmates spent endless hours talking about the politics between planets, making predictions about what the latest treaty or interplanetary report would mean, arguing about whose fault it would be if a war ever started, and who would win. But to Piper that was exactly the kind of thing that was holding the entire human race back. Her forebears had moved to a neighboring planet, but nothing had really changed. They were all still doing the same things they’d always done.
For Piper, it was a disappointment to see people so concerned with such petty nonsense. There was so much more out there, so much waiting to be discovered, and yet everyone was still obsessed with deciding which patch of dirt belonged to whom. Terran dirt, Lunar dirt, Martian dirt – it was still just dirt, and there was a whole universe full of it.
The strained relationship between Earth and Mars had about as much impact on YN-773 as any of the millions of disputes that took place on either planet’s surface every single day. It was all too distant to matter, the station too remote to feel any noticeable effect. And yet it was still a constant source of chatter. The fact that her coworkers relished the meaningless debates probably played into Piper’s decision to volunteer for so many shifts on watch. Though, if she was being fair, she had to admit there usually wasn’t a whole lot else for them to do. It just all seemed like a waste of energy and brainpower to her.
Of course, there had been a bit of excitement of late, at least as far as the hop was concerned. A hauler, called Destiny’s Undertow , was limping its way towards YN-773 and had been for a couple of weeks, supposedly all the way from the belt. According to the ship’s captain, they’d been hoping for a gravity sling off Mars to help them get all the way back to Earth, but took damage from a collision and missed the window. Somehow that put them far enough out of the way of anything that 773 was the closest hop that could provide service, and so they were slowly trundling their way towards the station.
The story didn’t completely add up. Unless the captain was really bad at math, there was no way 773 was the best choice for anyone trying to sling Mars. Of course everyone on 773 had their own theories about what had really happened. The most elaborate involved pirates and an attempted
It still struck Piper as funny that the station had a down. Technically the station’s top-most section was supposed to be aligned along the same axis as Earth’s magnetic northern pole, but that didn’t really make any sense either when you thought about it, because it’s not like ground folk went around with all their heads northward. And it all seemed a little sad to her too, the amount of effort everyone put into trying to make life in space just like life on one of the planets. Such a waste, to get so far out and then to refuse to embrace all the promise the Deep offered. Like going to the beach for the first time and spending the whole day inside.
Maybe Piper had never really been meant to live on-planet. She had some affection for Earth, and a mild loyalty to the United American Federation, but she credited that more to her place of birth than anything else. Many of her hopmates spent endless hours talking about the politics between planets, making predictions about what the latest treaty or interplanetary report would mean, arguing about whose fault it would be if a war ever started, and who would win. But to Piper that was exactly the kind of thing that was holding the entire human race back. Her forebears had moved to a neighboring planet, but nothing had really changed. They were all still doing the same things they’d always done.
For Piper, it was a disappointment to see people so concerned with such petty nonsense. There was so much more out there, so much waiting to be discovered, and yet everyone was still obsessed with deciding which patch of dirt belonged to whom. Terran dirt, Lunar dirt, Martian dirt – it was still just dirt, and there was a whole universe full of it.
The strained relationship between Earth and Mars had about as much impact on YN-773 as any of the millions of disputes that took place on either planet’s surface every single day. It was all too distant to matter, the station too remote to feel any noticeable effect. And yet it was still a constant source of chatter. The fact that her coworkers relished the meaningless debates probably played into Piper’s decision to volunteer for so many shifts on watch. Though, if she was being fair, she had to admit there usually wasn’t a whole lot else for them to do. It just all seemed like a waste of energy and brainpower to her.
Of course, there had been a bit of excitement of late, at least as far as the hop was concerned. A hauler, called Destiny’s Undertow , was limping its way towards YN-773 and had been for a couple of weeks, supposedly all the way from the belt. According to the ship’s captain, they’d been hoping for a gravity sling off Mars to help them get all the way back to Earth, but took damage from a collision and missed the window. Somehow that put them far enough out of the way of anything that 773 was the closest hop that could provide service, and so they were slowly trundling their way towards the station.
The story didn’t completely add up. Unless the captain was really bad at math, there was no way 773 was the best choice for anyone trying to sling Mars. Of course everyone on 773 had their own theories about what had really happened. The most elaborate involved pirates and an attempted
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