The tiny docking platform hung suspended over the expanse like a pendulum. Ray pushed off the bulkhead and glided across it’s length effortlessly. The moon reeled below her. The star’s light was glinting off it’s thin atmosphere. This was her domain- her true home. Only in zero-G did she truly feel free, and she could really move!

Ray loved her new spacesuit. It was a Cordegion model she had carefully pried from the wreckage of a high-cred star-yacht that had been flattened between two space haulers. Evidently one had run the light.

It had been designed for a woman although one slightly taller than she. She’d had to get it patched and tailored but Flynn had covered the cost of that. “Every spacewalker needs a good suit”, he had insisted. Ray had accepted graciously, she was up here fixing his spacedock for him after all.

The suit was brown with creme trim and very sleek and smooth. The helmet was one of those wide open domed models- she could look around freely and see everything. After all the ill fitting, bunched up, low-visibility suits she had used her whole life, it was a dream.

Everything at the surface was such a struggle, like each part part part art art art art art error, error, Er er er er er, eh eh eh eh, resume playback. …like each part of her body was weighed down. Always stuck to the ground, never getting more than a few feet from the surface. Up here she was light, up here she was nimble, up here she could fly. She flitted around the perimeter like a banshee unchained.

The adrenalin surged into her body with the familiar tingle of thrill. Her senses dialed in, focused on the next target coming up. The corner marker would be approaching rapidly. She peered into the dark searching for the telltale blinking yellow light. There it was! She reached out to it as if completing her leap, but this wasn’t her stop. She gripped the narrow rung firmly and wrenched her body upward pulling it past. The maneuver increased her velocity while bending her trajectory out slightly away from the platform. The next one was going to be a little tricky.

The platform had been a wreck but it was starting to come together. At least it had turned out to be a legitimate space dock, Transfermium core and all. It was a good size too, 48.585 megatons. The core on that old circle of death she had been on before was only around 20 megatons and some of that was just compressed spacejunk the old man had dropped on it. Spacejunk never spun very well, but a properly balanced Transfermium core, now that she could work with. Ray had pilfered some ram-jets from a tug shuttle to replace the long ago stripped out thrusters. The rigging had all been scrapped as well so she had to make do with what she could fabricate on her own.

She arched out past the edge of the platform now and again felt her stomach drop. It was always a little disconcerting to be moving away from a target in space that you needed to return to. Especially without real thrusters. Still, she got by pretty well with her propellant cans and knew to suppress the panic and focus on her next goal. At the apex of her curve she put herself into a somersault spin and watched for the flashing marker with each revolution. There is was! She was still a little too high so she increased the speed of the spin. Have… to… time… this… just… right! She flung her body out straight again and reached with all her might for where she knew the marker was going to be. She connected allowing her momentum to carry her around the marker for 1 complete revolution before releasing at exactly the right moment. She flew outward parallel to her string of Tandorri cargo capsules. Her aim was good, she was flying true.

“Good toss,” came Jimmy’s voice through her helmet. He must have been watching from the control module. She did a quick visual on each set of tethers binding the capsules as she flew by them. She knew she had welded them all but it never hurt to double check, especially since she was already heading this way.

Ray liked Jimmy. He was the most down to earth boy she had met so far, the landborn son of the woman who ran the commissary. Everyone called him “quiet Jimmy” because he didn’t talk much but she knew once he got started it was hard to get him to quit. At least when it was just the two of them. He was approximately four GalFed years younger than her but was really smart for his age. He knew all about astrogation and other space maths. Jimmy was also studying for Starlanes certifications but was working on becoming a Navigator.

“Dang girl, you’re spacebaby all right, the way you move.” came the voice again. She smiled in spite of herself.

Her final target was coming up. “Oh yeah? You ain’t seen nothin’, watch this.”

She turned her body 90 degrees and rolled so that she was sliding sideways toward the end of the massive tow cable. It hung in space limply at the end of the string of capsules. She could just make out the splotchy yellow paint of the pintle ring at the end. She reached her right arm out over her head and aimed it straight at the end of the cable. She fanned her other arm and legs into an X behind it. Her outreached hand made contact gripping the ring hard as her entire body whipped around the end of the cable. The maneuver was quick but her aim had been perfect and her outstretched right foot connected dead center on the 4” wide cable. Her motion stopped with a jolt. The entire cable bobbed and swayed as it absorbed the impact of the 100 lb. girl. She waved at the control module with her other free hand and giggled a little to herself. It had been a while since she’d had this much fun.

“You are nuts.” came Jimmy’s reaction.

With Jimmy operating the boom she guided the cable to it’s destination and connected the large cotter pin.

“Ok, start the winch. I’ll keep an eye on everything from out here.” She gingerly bounded from one container to the next checking the rigging between them as the ends of the giant string were slowly drawn together.

“Alright,” Jimmy’s voice came over the radio. “Hey when we’re done up here would you like to come into to town with me. We’re supposed to be getting two new flavors of ice cream at the commissary, asteroid clusters and b’varian road which is supposed to have real guavaberries in it.” Was he asking her out? Like on a date? Probably not, Jimmy was just Jimmy. She liked him and all but he was like a kid brother. In actually he’d be about the same age as her brother if he was still alive. If he IS still alive, she corrected herself.

“Can’t. Once we get the ends secured I’m gonna start on the Spars. I bet I can weld them all up in less than 2 hours. Once the spars are in then there’s not much left before we can spin this thing!”

With some spin she’d have some sort of gravity and then she could stay up here even longer.

“Sheesh, don’t you ever rest? Tell you what. I’ll help you get the spars in but then we’re gonna stop and get some ice cream, deal?”

“Sure, I’ll give it a try.” She grimmaced, people ate such weird food on this moon. She mostly preferred her protein bars and they had good protein bars here, for sure. They were the freshest she had ever had- not having to eat a single expired one since she got here. “No guarantee that I’m going to like it though.”

They finished the spars in record time and got in the tiny reentry capsule.

“So where do you stand on the whole transwarp drive issue?” came Jimmy’s unexpected question. What issue was he talking about? She must have given him a blank stare.

“You know the secret rumors that have been getting around, how something big is going down technology wise but nobody really knows what. Ol’ Marty thinks the Flabonians found some ancient relic from an advanced civilization or something. I mean everyone has their own theories and such.” She didn’t know what he was talking about.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She told him.

“Well you see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see,” Zghon whacked the well worn, beyond slightly broken electronic device. “Damn thing,” he muttered. The gaffer-tape wasn’t helping it.

He walked to the nearby table (his only table) where that other thing was. The thing they had given him. The thing he was a little afraid to use. He plopped down on the worn yet comfortable command couch (which also served as his dining room and vid watching lounge) and picked up the small sleek device. It was about the size of a small stone. He rolled it over in his hands. In fact it looked and felt exactly like a small stone, the weight was just right. He examined it closer and watched as it focused into the simple yet marvelously complex little box that he knew it was. He took off his left glove and held it with his bare skin.

“Uh, Zghon ValZghon here, uh requesting help.” he said into the air.

“Yes sir, hello sir, how can I be of service?” came the prompt and clear reply in a soothing feminine voice.

“Um, I need a new tablet, my old piece of junk is pretty much done for. Uh, can you help me with that?”

“Why yes sir, I can have a replacement beamed to you immediately if you wish, but let me ask you, what task is it you are trying to accomplish?”

“Well uh, you know I’m doing this job for the Big Guy and all and,”

“That’s ok sir!” she cut him off. “I already have access to all the details I need, just tell me specifically what you are trying to do.”

“Well I’m trying to watch these videos about the target but my tablet is kaput.”

“Ohhkaay, well that can actually be done directly from your Device, do you mind if I turn on visual mode?”

“Um sure.”

The room exploded into light and visual displays. Words were suddenly everywhere. It was as if every object had been labeled. The ingredients rolled on the bottle of hooch sitting on the table in front of him, a ‘hazardous materials’ warning flared around the edges. His head began to spin and his eyes bugged out a little. Suddenly an entire string of blinking exclamation points flared up around his cockpit/living/dining/bed-room. Most were yellow or amber but a few throbbed red. A number of them clustered around his dirty laundry pile. He felt a wave of nausea wash over him.

The room blinked back to normal. “I’m so sorry sir” came the soothing voice. “I didn’t realize this was your first time using The Device. We’ll just go slowly and I’ll help set it up for you. Do you have about 45 minutes to an hour?”

“Uh yes I suppose, ok.”

A single small screen opened up directly in front of him.

“Ok we’ll give you a home screen and you can just come here to start if you need anything at all.”

The pretty voice went on to describe some of the most basic functions of The Device. It could do just about anything he could think of. It could look up any data he requested on just about any item or topic. It could run simulations and extrapolate the outcomes with the corresponding accuracy percentage of each one. It got 4.2 million channels of trans-galactic television. She described how this particular device had been spatially and genetically bonded to Zghon, he could not lose it if he tried.

“Wait, even if I throw it out an airlock?” he asking deviously.

“Yes sir, even if you threw it out an airlock it would beam itself back to you within a few seconds. However, please don’t.” She implored. “Beaming uses a lot of power and is very expensive. Please keep it to an absolute minimum.” The voice said in a soft and only slightly joking manner. He imagined the young woman sitting at her desk rolling her eyes at him, but compassionately, sweetly.

“You can get pretty much anything you could ever need from the catalog,” the voice continued while spinning through a few sample pages of camping gear on the display.

“Even weapons?”, he asked. Zghon was always looking for new toys. ‘Always resupply when you can,’ went the old assassin’s creed.

“Oh yes! Let’s see, you’re cleared for all class 2 energy beams and class 1 explosives.” The catalog flipped though pages and pages of hand held pistols, rifles, bazookas, and even bigger backpack worn or vehicle mounted weaponry. “There are also projectile weapons of every make and caliber, whatever you prefer.” the voice said politely before continuing.

“Although now that I think about it, I’m guessing you’re more of an up close and personal kind of guy, right?” she softly jibed. Pages of throwing stars and knives of every shape and design whirled by as Zghon began to drool.

“Well, yes I suppose so,” he blushed. Was she hitting on him? There was something personal yet unreal about how she had said that last part.

For two hours the lovely young lady walked him through not even close to all of The Device’s features and options while Zghon asked what he felt were silly questions. The Device could be tuned to work with whatever inputs desired, even eye motions and sub-audible grunts and clicks. They settled on a mostly gesture based control scheme as it seemed to be the most natural to him. Eventually however his eyes began to glaze over. That was what Zghon hated about technology. It had a way of taking over and sucking the life right out of you.

“Ok well I’ve really enjoyed this but I really do need to get back to work now.” He said politely.

“Certainly sir!”

“So to watch those videos I just call them up like this?” he made the appropriate hand motions and found the “evidence” folder that had been apportioned to him.

“Look at you, you’re almost a pro,” the lovely voice chided him, with no hint at all of patronizing snideness.

“Ha ha, well I don’t know about that. Hey um so if I get stuck and call up again will I get to talk to you?”

“Sir I am YOUR personal assistant, you can contact me any time you need.” She said comfortingly.

“You’ve really been very helpful, thank you so much. And I must say you have the loveliest voice I have have ever heard.”

“Th-th-thank you sir.” Came the slightly surprised response.

“Oh I’ve been so rude, I don’t even know your name,” he ventured.

“My name is Alice, and it has been my pleasure sir.” Came the sweet and pleasant reply.

“Oh please don’t call me sir, nobody has ever called me sir. Just Zghon.” He chuckled nervously.

“Sure thing Zghon.” She giggled hesitantly back at him.

“One last thing, do you think it would be possible to talk face to face next time, like not literally of course but like a video-con or something?” He might be pushing his luck here, but so what? Fortune favored the bold.

“Um sure, I don’t think there would be anything wrong with that.”

“Great, well I look forward to talking to you again soon Alice.” He said victorious.

“Me too, Zghon. Take care.” The line clicked silent.

Well that had gone much better than expected. “Let’s see,” he said to himself. It was oh four thirty, time for a bit of exercise and then he had some serious shopping to do. Accessing The Device he called up a list of cardio workout simulations. He settled on ‘Hydroskiing through the Palorini Alps.’ This was way better than the old dumbbells and ancient exercise bike in his makeshift cargo gym. This God-tech was alright, he could get used to this kind of thing.

*Transfermium – actually one of the most common and completely worthless materials in the Known Universe. There’s just mega-tons of it, everywhere. Now “everywhere” in space means only a few particles per parsec but at anything even approaching light-speed it could pose quite a hazard as it was highly dense stuff. It had taken the development of highly accurate mass detectors to even make space navigable because of this stuff. It was always moving around bouncing off itself and moving somewhere else. Navigating a ship through space was an always changing game of Frogger. Computers, of course, could do it quite well. So anyways, because of it’s mass it makes an excellent anchor. Just a few cubic tinches of the stuff had more mass than a dozen Hundaiarian star cruisers. Thus it is commonly used to provide the mass necessary to anchor vessels in orbit or center space stations. Transfermium itself may be common but the labor involved in gathering and transporting even a tiny quantity of it is considerable. It takes specialized equipment and very special handling otherwise it tends to destabilize into a variety of other elements- some of which could be quite radio-active. Handle with care!