Lombard Shipyard - Observation Deck

The sun was just cresting over the curve of the Earth. A wall of light started near the top of the wall and worked its way downward as the space station continued it’s rotation around the planet below. Howard Fredrick, crisp in his Axion uniform, raised a hand to his eyes to block some of the light.

This was a familiar sight. He’d seen thousands of such sunrises in his career in space. Still, he did enjoy taking a quiet moment from time to time to appreciate their beauty. Even now, with humanity reaching across the stars, the number of people who got to see this, truly see this, was in the minority.

‘Howard Fredrick?’

Howard turned to the sound of his name being called. A thin man with short black hair was walking toward him. He had a data pad under his arm and smile on his face.

Howard held out his hand to shake, and the man took it eagerly.

‘I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage, you are?’ Howard asked.

‘Keith Loheim, chief engineer for the Azure Dream.’

Howard nodded, ‘On my crew then. Pleasure to meet you.’

‘And you Captain. I read your personnel file when I signed on for the mission. You have a very impressive dossier.’

Howard smiled, ‘Years of not dying is what that amounts to. I didn’t do anything spectacular really.’

‘You got your jobs done and your crews home, even when things went wrong. You served on some of early Jump Drive equipped ships. That took a special kind of person.’

‘It took someone with a strong sense of wanderlust.’ Howard said.

Keith nodded, and looked out the window. He raised a hand and then looked down.

‘Oh wow, that’s the ship isn’t it?’

Howard walked closer to the window and looked down too. Beneath them, the shadow shape of the hull of a ship stretched out in among the spider like arms of the ship yard complex they were in. With the sun shinning in their eyes, it was hard to make out details, but then the sun slipped under the shape of the craft, and it was lit with a glow from behind. The station lights pointed on the hull gave them a sight of the equipment still being put in place. As they watched, a large container was being manoeuvred into place by small pod like ships.

‘That must be it. The Azure Dream.’ Howard said, quietly. That was to be his home for the next four months.

‘It’s bigger in person. You hardly get a real sense of the scale until you see it.’

Howard glanced at his watch. Keith noticed him and grinned, ‘We’re late aren’t we?’

‘Not if we move quick. Board Room 3 is just down this passageway. Besides, I doubt they’ll get to anything really juicy without me there.’

Keith nodded and together they set off, down the passage and to a waiting meeting.