Shore Leave

Note: Image associated is from Ironage.media, specifically their prompt, 'The Canteen'

Conglomeration.

The word hadn't left Jacen's mind since his morning shower, the first from clean 'white' water in months. If the Resource officer on The Hermes was any less of a stickler, even while docked, he'd still be indulging in it. Amazing how dedicated space travel shifted one's perspective. Just 5 years ago, a warm shower was utterly routine in his life, an absolute given supplied on demand by infrastructure that, while different in material construction and machines used, hadn't seen many particular innovations since the days of Rome on Earth, the planet he now orbited over, in Cradle Station. While a shower was still routine, the time, heat, and water used were strictly monitored. Otherwise, their ship would run out well before any given trip could be completed, even if you could time the trip to pull moisture from comet trails or abnormally large asteroids.

Again, the word rolled across his mind like a loose bearing from the engine bays where he spent his working shifts. Grease Monkey was the nickname for his job. However, grease was falling out of fashion in engineering designs, replaced by the Molecular Monopole Mag Lev System, or MMMLS for short. If the marketing could be believed, it had been installed in 90% of eligible powered ships only ten years after its creation. The Hermes was actually docked here to get it installed, and the crew was to be trained on its maintenance and limitations. Why the Captain had agreed to it was well over Jacen's pay grade, though he worried if he'd keep his job. Rumours claimed its efficiency was enough that most engine crews could be halved, and getting left behind, even on the largest space station in the system, was a worrisome prospect. Which only brought the word rolling back across Jacen's mind.

His bunk fellow, Evans, had a habit of asking little brainteasers that wouldn't leave your mind until you had an answer, not that there was ever a right one. Today's had been, "In a word, describe Cradle Station?". He'd already listed his response in the ship's digital and physical logs before taking off into the station for their four days' leave as the ship was overhauled. Still, it wouldn't leave his head as he wound his way through the City of Stars.

As he walked through the familiar steel streets, his HUD kept pinging for his attention, no doubt the station-wide AI offering directions, historical data, or the latest in sponsored food and entertainment to spend his pay on. There was shamelessly little else to do station-side. Even with the upgrades to Hermes, laws forbid the establishment of any hotels or the like, so his bunk remained open to him whenever Evans wasn't registered to use it. An effort to limit the presence of diseases in the shockingly sterile Stations, though all it really did was shift the problem ship-side. Unions were still fighting most of the Stations Alliance on the matter; only the privately owned stations had come to any agreement, though each had different terms with each Union and questionable chains of events attached. Jacen was just happy that the Captain ran his accounts well enough that they could avoid those Stations. While the Alliance taxed the hell out of you and openly encouraged reckless spending by the crews, the stories that ran around every ship about the seedier private stations scared off many Captains from ever visiting.

Even to their deaths if some claims could be believed.

Sure, space death was awful. Most crews mutinied in the event, with few ever surviving such events, derelict bloodbaths waiting in the black for some patrol to find them. But docking on 'lawless' stations, or Stars-forbid, finding out that the one you chose was Mafia run was, by most spacers' opinions, just that bit more awful. Kidnappings were pleasant stories, with an almost dead-even chance of ransom or that crew member being lost forever to an unknown fate. Extortion tales were standard, and fees were nearly as bad as any Alliance station, but there was no guarantee of good business or honouring the payment. Every now and again, you'd hear tell of a 'nice' private station in the sector. Still, every time, it was a case of some gang or lawman who'd terrorized their competition or criminals so egregiously that they left or, more often, were executed in mass. Captain called those ones "Volatile. Unfit for business.".

As the thoughts ended, he found the door to his favourite bar on Cradle, The Void. Tended by an AI, it was members only, though you could buy your way in if you purchased your drinks at the door for a steeper price than its competitors in this area. Membership was well worth the price, and perfectly reasonable for the perks. Any drink you could name, any alcohol on the station, or an appropriate substitute if it was unavailable, any time, any number and the only extra fees were for fighting, puking, or failing to use the bathroom properly. No food, though. AIs were still struggling to accurately prepare food, primarily concerning dietary restrictions. The near-infinite variability was proving arduous to program in, let alone train.

In contrast, drinks were easily codified and measured, and the worst thing possible was flavourless liquors, skunked beers, or oxidized wines. Unpleasant things but nothing lethal, so AIs were legal, though rare. Most people still wanted a friendly face behind the bar, after all.

The real treat, though, was the view. Most of the station was between The Void and the Moon that hung behind it, the lights and ads mingling with the stars as Cradle held still over Europe. A precarious position that put strict limits on every aspect of the station and meant if it ever fell back to Earth, it would land amid the Atlantic, dooming most in the fall and marooning any survivors at sea. But not one person who lived on or had visited Cradle ever complained. The view was just too beautiful. Hell, it's why Jacen was here. Sure, space left you only feet or moments from terrible deaths every second, but nothing he'd ever seen compared to a nebula, blackhole, quasar, or a hundred other phenomena that space offered. And each one on its own was more than enough reward to him.