New Hope: Book 1
15

The next morning, Ellie stretched out her arms in the comfortable bed and opened her eyes. A lot of room. Quite a change from the hammock on the landing pod! she thought. Now that she was well-rested after the tiring meetings and long talks full of technical information, which had caused her headache, she could finally think clearly and think about her situation in peace.

She looked around her new cabin. Technically, it was a simple room. After all, they were no longer on a spaceship but a research installation on the Moon. Ellie smiled at the thought. The room was furnished tastefully, though minimalistic. There was a bed, a few cabinets, a desk with a chair, and her laptop. She also had a small kitchenette and bathroom with basic accessories and a shower. What more could she need?

Ellie showered, dressed, and prepared breakfast using the products she found in the small fridge. After a quick meal, she looked at her watch. There was still some time to go until her meeting with Dr. Yeager at 9, so she decided to explore the installation on her own. The official tour was meant to start soon, but Ellie was always independent and self-sufficient. She decided it wouldn’t hurt to take a look around by herself.

She had barely left her room when, looking the other way, she bumped into lieutenant Lassiter who came from the opposite direction.

“Ouch!” gasped Ellie as she crashed into him. “Sorry!” she said. “It’s you!” Ellie realized as soon as she restored her balance. Low gravity in such circumstances doesn’t help. On the contrary, the force required to pick someone up off the ground is much lower than on our planet so it was a miracle that nobody flew several feet across.

“No worries,” said the soldier with a smile. “I rarely get to bump into someone new here, so it’s a pleasant meeting, Ellie, albeit slightly painful,” he said, rubbing his chin, which had collided with Ellie’s head during the unexpected encounter.

“I’m so sorry. I hardly left my room and I’ve already done damage,” she scolded herself for not being more attentive. She should have been watching where she was going instead of succumbing to the temptation of looking at every single element of the installation’s architecture.

“Let me guess. You wanted to take a walk before the official tour around our facility?” asked the lieutenant. “If you’d like, I have some time before duty. I can take you around a little and leave you at the spot you’re to meet the Director. What do you think?”

“Hmm... I wanted to walk around by myself, but now that you reminded me that the meeting with Dr. Yeager is on the other side of the facility, I don’t really know how to get there. So it turns out I could use a guide,” replied Ellie, returning the smile. “Shall we?” she asked. They both started walking the wide corridor which had evenly spaced out doors on the sides.

“This is the residential section. All of the installation’s staff live here on an area of around 300 thousand square feet,” said the lieutenant, walking next to Ellie.

“Wow. I knew that a thousand people work here, but until now I hadn’t realized how much space is needed to accommodate them all comfortably,” she said. “This installation must be huge!”

“Several decades of somewhat undisturbed development work can produce spectacular effects,” said John. “The creators of the installation weren’t really limited by anything. Once the surface of the Moon was penetrated and the first tunneling was done, as I’ve been told, as well as separation from the vacuum outside, the expansion possibilities were huge. Plus, the low gravity and less dense regolith made it much easier to gorge out the tunnels and dig out the rooms,” he explained. “Did you know that the entire area of this facility exceeds 2 million square feet?” he asked. “That’s more than 50 acres of living and laboratory space!”

“It’s almost as much as the Empire State Building!” said Dr. Johnson in surprise. “Why so much space? I’m sure a thousand people don’t need that much to live and work?” she asked.

“The entire facility houses over 300 different laboratories. There are also hangars for ground vehicles, machines for drilling and digging. Remember when Director Yeager mentioned that we do research on the surface of the entire Moon? We need to get to these places somehow, and driving on the Moon’s surface is not always the best solution. And it isn’t very time- or fuel-efficient. That’s why we have hangars here for small suborbital vehicles and larger vehicles that can deal with the gravity of the Moon and Earth, as well as those to travel between the two worlds,” he explained. “You’ll probably hear more about it shortly from the Director herself.”

“What’s she like?” asked Ellie. “I mean Dr. Cassandra Yeager. What kind of boss is she?” she added.

“Demanding,” laughed the lieutenant. “Very much so. But then again, what could you expect from someone who has been commanding the most secret installation in our solar system for the past six years?” He paused for a moment. “Besides that, I’ve noticed that she seems to be a very forthright and honest person. She treats her subordinates well, and I think everybody has great respect for her,” he said.

They conversed for another couple of minutes, and then the lieutenant stopped.

“We’re here,” he said. “Your meeting with the Director will begin shortly behind that door.”

“Do you know if Julius is already here?” asked Ellie, realizing that she’s had no contact with the captain since yesterday afternoon.

“No, as far as I know, Captain Cousteau had a minor surgery yesterday, and he won’t be participating in any meetings today,” he said.

“Oh?” Ellie reacted with worry and fear. “What surgery? Did something happen?” she asked.

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing serious. The head of our medical unit noticed that the broken arm hadn’t been put together to his satisfaction so he did a procedure that should reduce the captain’s recovery time from 6 weeks in terrestrial conditions to only 10 days here on the Moon,” he explained. “I’m sure Mr. Julius is well. He’s in the best of hands. Remember,” he added, “we have state-of-the-art technologies here, not available to ordinary people. Since you’re both joining our crew, all these inventions and benefits are also for your use,” he smiled.

After a while of awkward silence, the lieutenant said:

“Forgive me, Ellie, my duty is starting in a moment so I must run. I’m sure we’ll bump into each other again.” With that, he smiled broadly, turned around, and quickly walked off, disappearing into one of the side corridors.

“Sure, see you,” said Ellie to herself as the lieutenant disappeared. “We’ll see what the Director has to say.” Ellie reached for the door, opened it, and entered the room.

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