Foster sat by the diminutive looking navigation station with the strangest look on his face for almost ten minutes straight without saying a word. Caught up in his thoughts, he kept staring at the same few words of text on the underwhelming screen. And no matter how many times he read the description, that puzzled look would just not go away.

  He read the words again and sighed. Multiple Axis Refueling Station Detected: Caution Advised. The scientist tapped on the screen and wondered just what ‘Caution Advised’ meant for them all.

  “Foster,” Hoover interrupted after giving his friend what seemed like an eternity of elongated silence to sulk. “You’ll tell me if you’re having a stroke. Right?”

  The bleary-eyed scientist turned his attention to the tablet lying on the nearest console to him. He didn’t answer right away. He just stared quietly at a holographic image of HAL 9000’s red eye. Well, not exactly HAL 9000’s eye. This eye was bright blue, but it still pulsated every time his little buddy spoke out loud.

  “Don’t ask me that question. Not when your purposively trying to make me question my own sanity.”

  “What?” The circular eye kept pulsating repeatedly like an old school oscilloscope. “Why are you accusing me of something so underhandedly dirty?”

  “Underhandedly dirty?” Foster had to parse the words for a second before formulating his retort. “Why do you sound like a senator testifying before a subcommittee panel?”

  “Probably because I’m guilty of what you’re accusing me of.”

  “Stop making me laugh.” Foster looked back at the navigational screen and sighed. “But this does bring up something quite sad.”

  “What do you mean?” Hoover’s eye disappeared and was replaced by the holographic image of a massive, gas giant planet. A mixture of dark red and brown clouds, the planet slowly rotated in the open space like the world’s greatest high school science project. “How could this be considered sad?”

  “That’s not the sad part, Hoover.” Ignoring the grandeur of the image, Foster stood up and walked over to the swirling mass of holographical rendered hydrogen and helium. Then, he waited patiently as the high-definition planet spun clockwise in front of him. After a minute, he reached out with one hand and halted the image. “This is.”

  “What?” Hoover acted like he wasn’t aware of Foster’s misgivings. Even though the program was well aware of his friend’s concerns. “It’s a refueling station. That’s a good thing. This piece of shit is almost empty.”

  “That’s not exactly correct, little buddy.” Foster said with a smirk. “This intergalactic ship still has about 30 percent of its fuel left. And that’s not bad considering this ship is over 250,000 years old.”

  “Talk to me when it reaches its 300,000th birthday. Until then, it’s just a piece of shit.”

  “Fine,” Foster relented. “Have it your way, Hoover. It’s a piece of shit. But we need this piece of shit to make it to Joseph’s planet. And to do that, we somehow need to board this... thing.”

  Reaching up his other hand, Foster pinched a black speck near the planet’s equator. A few finger motions later and the speck grew to almost the same size as the prior image. Mainly black with some muted white accents, the refueling station consisted of five spherical containers, bound together in a circle by a lattice of industrial strength metallic walkways and pipes.

  In the center of this circle was a flattened oval structure about twenty meters high and seventy-five meters wide. And below that was a smaller structure that contained a suction tube that needed to be dropped down into the lower atmosphere of the gas giant. Once in place, the tube would allow for the collection of helium and hydrogen.

  Once these gases were collected, they would be transported along a series of feeder pipes for processing in one of the station’s spherical containers. Elegant yet ancient, the whole setup looked about one step away from tearing itself apart. And that was whenever this last scan was taken. Who knew how old the thing was now?

  “The worst part of the whole thing is the station spins on both its x and y axis.” Foster flicked the edge of the image and the refueling station began to rotate. “See here.”

  He pointed to another structure nestled between two of the spherical containers. The habitat, for lack of better word, was a pressurized living compartment where the controls of the station were kept. On the outside of the structure was the docking collar the escape ship was going to have to connect with.

  “We’re going to have somehow match the rotation while at the same time maintaining the same horizontal horizon.”

  “And you don’t think we can do that?” Hoover’s voice suddenly became indignant. “Scratch that. Are you saying that I can’t do that?”

  “I don’t know.” The scientist shyly said as he sat back down at the navigation terminal and allowed his shoulders to slightly slump. “And don’t act like you know you can do it either. Last time I checked, this is the first time either of us have piloted a spaceship.”

  “True,” a new voice chimed in from the open elevator door. “Neither of you morons have ever flown a spaceship before. But I have.”

  “Joseph,” Foster nodded to the deputy as the tired looking man extricated himself from the lift. “I know you can build a spaceship. But how many have you actually flown?”

  Joseph walked over to the navigation station, pulled up another stool and sat down next to the haggard scientist. For almost a minute, both men sat quietly and watched the refueling station just hang there in midair. Suspended by bouncing wavelengths of light, the entire thing looked like a fever dream from a 50’s sci-fi movie.

  Finally, after another minute of gathering his thoughts, Joseph answered the question. “Most dockers on the Forge have a rudimentary knowledge of orbital mechanics. Some of us have even piloted ships to the outer asteroid belt to retrieve raw materials. Hell, there’s a whole colony of miners living inside the belt. And they fly around in space all the time.”

  “Really?” Foster leaned over and placed a hand on the deputy’s shoulder. “Does that mean you’ve flown a ship in space before?”

  “Yes. Kind of.” Joseph shied away from show of friendship, but he didn’t entirely pull away. “That means I’ve performed some test flights before in low orbit.”

  “Wow. Low orbit,” Hoover let out an overtly sarcastic whistle. “So, you’ve drove a car to the end of the driveway and back. Hardly a ringing endorsement of your flying skills.”

  “Hoover,” Joseph looked at Foster as he responded to the jab. “If you know of anyone more qualified to dock this escape shuttle with a refueling station, please put their name forward. If not, kindly shut the fuck up.”

  “Well,” Hoover’s tone dialed back just the slightest bit on the asshole scale. But the reduction in sarcasm was barely noticeable. “Someone hasn’t been getting their 8 hours.”

  “Foster,” Joseph started to once again begin his usual plea for Hoover’s total erasure when Foster raised a hand to forestall his words.

  “Listen.” The Mad Man of Wilson tried his best to both calm the situation down and bring their current situation into sharp relief. “None of us on this escape shuttle are qualified to be here. Even with your intelligence, Hoover. And even with your experience and knowledge, Joseph. We just not qualified.”

  “So what?” Joseph’s building anger almost instantly deflated as he spoke. “We just give up? We don’t even give it the old college try?”

  “Did you even go to college?” The AI chided as a smaller, blue eye appeared just below the refueling station.

  “I got accepted.” The deputy said proudly. “I just never went.”

  “Intro to Appreciating Architecture isn’t even a real course.”

  “Tell that to Elmira Community College.” Joseph voice started to raise a couple of octaves as he tried to bolster his academic prowess. “Three credit hours.”

  “More like a survey course.”

  “For love of God,” Foster finally decided to step in between his oldest and newest friends. “Stop it you two!”

  Silenced, both Joseph and the pulsating eye stared at each other. Neither spoke. But from their body language, or in Hoover’s case, the speed at which his eye pulsed, it appeared they both wanted to continue arguing. However, like most times they went at each other, cooler heads prevailed.

  “Thank you. Besides, not trying isn’t really an option,” Foster placed his hand on the Navigation station’s neural pad. After a second of thinking, a map of the surrounding space flickered to life on the screen. “From what I’ve been able to glean from the database, this refueling station is geographically separated from any other habitable planets. It’s like...”

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  “It’s like what?” Hoover, himself having decided to take the situation a bit more seriously, asked. “Stop being mysterious and tell us what you think.”

  “It’s like another layer.”

  “Another layer?”

  “Yeah.” At that moment, an image of Mouse flashed inside his head. And for a moment, Foster couldn’t help but wonder what his old friend was doing right at this moment. Was he out? He should have been, especially given the time dilation effects from the black hole. But was he happy? He hoped he was happy.

  “Foster,” Hoover’s tiny eye shifted back to preoccupied friend. “Remember, you have to tell me if you’re having a stroke.”

  “I’m not having a stroke.” With a slight shake of the head, he continued. “Yeah, layers. It’s like back at Wilson. There was the entrance area to the facility which contained receptionists. They acted as a buffer. Past them was a guard station. And past the guard station was a nurse’s station. And past the nurse’s station was the inmates. Multiple layers. Each designed to keep normal people away from all the bad people.”

  “Bad people?” Hoover asked.

  “To the Arbiters anyway.” He looked at Joseph. “It’s probably the same thing setup they have in one of those supermax prisons.”

  “In any prison actually.” The deputy acknowledged. “Every jail cell I know of has multiple layers of security from the cell to the street.”

  “So,” Hoover said. “What you’re saying is that this refueling station is so isolated because we haven’t exactly escaped the prison yet.”

  “Something like that. Although from what I know of the Arbiters, I don’t know how far we would have to go to truly escape their control.” Foster refocused on the docking ring and sighed. “I just wish the damn thing wasn’t orbiting a gas giant. I mean. Why couldn’t it have been in a nice empty spot of space.”

  “Well,” the ever-knowledgeable alien began. “It’s orbiting the planet for two reasons. First, location. If the station had been set adrift like you suggested, they’d never have found the damn thing again. Being tied to a planet means stability and permanence.”

  “And the second?”

  “The second thing is resources. Mixed fuel, like the type of fuel this craft utilizes, has a shelf life of about a hundred of your Earth years. That means this station can’t store the stuff for long. Plus, these refueling stations often serve several different kinds of species. And those species usually have different fuel needs.”

  “So, what are you saying?” Foster’s already worried mind just added a few more worries to the list. “That this refueling station is like a Soda Stream? All you do is add hydrogen and mix in your favorite flavor of ionizing liquid.”

  “Foster,” the image floating in front of them swiveled until the bottom of the station could be seen. There, directly beneath the pumping station, was the massive suction tube. “I think that’s exactly what he’s saying. And to be honest, the design’s pretty elegant.”

  “Thanks?” Joseph said in a voice between appreciative and frightened.

  “What about the speed?” Foster stood up and grasped hold of the tube. Without the greatest care, he lowered the device until it disappeared into the gas giant’s inner atmosphere. “I don’t want to hang around this place any longer than we have to.”

  “I recognize the overall design of the station but not the specifics.” Joseph rose from his seat and readjusted the 3d image so they could see an overhead view of the station. “In my time, the collected gas would be shunted to the nearest spherical container. There, the mixing would commence. This process usually only takes a couple of hours.”

  He pointed to superstructure and pipes that connected the spheres together in a circle. “Then, the mixed fuel would be sent off to this outboarding bay.”

  “You’re talking about this section?” Foster pointed to that pesky docking collar. “Yes. That’s where the ship links up for refueling. In a perfect world, everything would be done from the bridge. These stations are designed to be unmanned.”

  “Unmanned?” Foster shivered slightly upon hearing the word. “The space station we just escaped was technically unmanned. And we all remember how that turned out.”

  “Point taken.” The deputy said with a grumble in his voice as images of metallic teeth and deadly arms made him physically shiver. “But I don’t think we’ll run into any hordes of monstrous squids this time. Probably just one or two maintenance robots. And they shouldn’t even be online when we get there.”

  “No offense, Joseph.” Hoover’s voice dripped with incredulity. “But that a whole lot of probable's and should haves.”

  “I know." The deputy seemed almost apologetic as he continued. "But until we get on site, that’s all I have to offer.”

  “And that’s not even the weirdest part.”

  “What!?” Both men said/yelped at the same time as a new voice entered the conversation. In unison, they slowly turned around to see a sleep deprived Justine standing in the open door of their sleeping quarters. Caught off guard, it was Joseph who was the first to respond. “What do you ‘not even the weirdest part’?”

  Justine stepped out onto the bridge with more than a little drool matted to the side of her disheveled face. But she didn’t let a little thing like bed head slow down her flow. “The refueling station is parked over a large gas giant. Right?”

  “Yes,” Foster’s answer was only a little bit apprehensive.

  “And that gas giant is located in a solar system the navigational records refer to Enshide Prime.” The two men hunched over the screen and began confirming her claim. Not wanting to wait for their big brains to process her words, she continued. “And don’t ask me what that means because I don’t know.”

  “Yes,” Joseph said. “There it is, Enshide Prime. But what’s weird about that?”

  “On its face, nothing. But drill down on the system’s identification tag.”

  Again, the two men did as she asked and opened the system’s identification tag. Only this time, it was Hoover he spoke first. “The system’s is classified as a Prime planet. So what? It’s a prime planet.”

  “Well,” she rubbed her eyes. “If something is considered a prime planet, that usually means it’s of some importance to the person doing the naming. Also, it usually means there are usually some subordinate planets that surround the prime planet. Most likely in the same solar system.”

  “I guess.” Foster said while his brain began to compute the meaning of her statement. “But again, what’s the big deal. So, what if there’s a cluster of subordinate planets out there also named Enshide? How does that affect us?”

  “It doesn’t really.” Her smile faded slightly. “But the navigational database doesn’t list any another planet with the name Enshide.”

  “You mean. In this area of space?” Joseph countered.

  “No.” Her eyes narrowed on the haggard looking man. “I mean anywhere in the universe.”

  “That’s impossible. The universe is a massively large space and there are only so many names in the dictionary.” Determined, Joseph rose up from his seat and pushed Foster off to the side. Then, for a good two minutes, the alien pressed his hand to the neural pad and ran every search he could think of.

  When he was finished, the only thing left for him to say was, “Shit. You’re right.”

  “So?” Foster said flatly. “Listen, Justine. You know I appreciate a good mystery way more than the next guy.”

  “The next guy?” Hoover practically spat out the question. “More like any guy.”

  “You're probably right.” The other two humans, along with the traitorous artificial intelligence all had a good laugh at that woefully pathetic understatement. Choosing the high road, Foster continued to stay on track. “But I think right now we need to focus on the extremely dangerous maneuver were going to try and pull off tomorrow.”

  “Agreed.” Joseph said. “Still, this is weird. Why list that gas giant as a prime planet in the database without including any of the subordinate planets? In fact, this planetary system only has the one alien star and one planet.”

  For a few moments, the intrepid explorers stood there in silence and tried their very best not to fall further down the rabbit hole. After all, tomorrow was another inflection point that could make or break their fledging mission to the stars.

  “Getting back to our original problem?” Foster said firmly. “We still have to dock with that station tomorrow and none of us really qualified to do it.”

  “Foster,” Joseph started to sound more than a little annoyed at the scientist’s lack of faith in his abilities. “I told you. I’ve got experience piloting ships in low orbit. Plus, I’ve even assisted in performing some high-altitude ship link ups in low gravity fields.”

  “Awesome,” Hoover barked sarcastically. “That totally puts my code at ease.”

  “Again, more real-world experience than you, Hoover.” Foster said while rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Still, tangential experience doesn’t necessarily mean you’re qualified to do what needs to be done.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.” Joseph said dryly.

  “Speaking of things you’re qualified to do. How is that little project coming along? You know. The one you were working on in the engine room.”

  “Just completed it.” The deputy patted a bulging pocket on his cargo pants. “This thing is probably more important than the docking manuever.”

  “Awesome,” Foster said in a subdued tone that belied the normal use of that jubilant word. “And you’re sure it’s fixed?”

  “It’s fixed.” Strangely, Joseph almost sounded hurt at the insinuation his work might be untrustworthy. “That I guarantee.”

  Foster stared at the deputy for a long couple of seconds. Then, he stared at the floating holographic image of the refueling station. He watched as the lifelike piece of equipment rotated slowly against the reddish backdrop of the gas giant. There were too many unknowns, he thought. Too many to count. But one of them wasn’t the alien’s engineering skills.

  “Joseph,” he said slowly. “I didn’t mean to suggest...”

  “Guys!” Justine cut across the incoming apology and stopped it dead in its tracks. She had been woken up by these two bickering idiots just a few minutes ago. But they weren't going to keep her up any longer. “Does it really matter if he’s qualified to perform the docking maneuver? Hell. Does it even matter if the auto assist works or not?”

  Stuck in between apology and anger, both men just stared at her with the same expression they had back on the station just before that creature almost ate them. Eventually, Foster asked the question she’d been alluding to in her admonishment of them.

  “Ok, I’ll bite.” The scientist’s normal wandering eyes suddenly because hyper focused. “Why doesn’t any of those concerns matter?”

  “They don’t matter because we have no other choice.” Justine leaned back against the wall and pointed to the large image of the refueling station. “We need fuel. And unless there’s a hidden Circle K somewhere around here that I don’t know about. That refueling station is the only place we can get any.”

  “I know that, Justine.” Foster flicked the image once again and the station began to spin. “I’m just saying it’s a risky course of action.”

  “One that could get us killed.” Joseph’s voice was low and purposeful. Like a doctor giving a not so welcome diagnosis.

  “To her, it was just another Tuesday.”

  At that moment, Justine wished she could hive five the little artificial bastard. “Just when I think you don’t have any redeeming qualities, Hoover. You go and do something awesome.”

  “I don’t know much about movies, Justine. But that scene was a classic.”

  “What they hell are they talking about?” Joseph asked with a confused look on his face. This query was soon followed by Foster presenting his own confused look to the group in response. Needless to say, Hoover found their lack of understanding disturbing.

  “We’re talking how danger is becoming a permanent part of our lives from this point forward. So, the two of you better get used to it.”

  Upon hearing the program’s admonishment of the two men, Justine just smiled and nodded along with his words in total agreement.

  “And as for tomorrow’s little escapade,” Hoover continued. “My advice to the organics in the room would be get some sleep. Because in the morning, whether you two overthinkers are ready or not, this little family minivan will be stopping at the mysterious gas station for fuel and snacks.”