Paige's dropship flew around Pax orbis like a bee circling its hive. Rowan noted from the porthole that you really could only fathom the size of the station from the outside. Paige remained at the controls while Rowan started at hundreds of windows dotting the surface of the enormous metal beast.
On the final approach Rowan could see the control section of the station. It was a small cluster of grey spheres at the top of the station. It was completely dark, instead of yellow or white, the windows of the control section were black. He squinted his eyes and searched intensely for any signs of life. He brought up his comlink and its zoom lens. At a single window there was a shape of a man in uniform but it looked like he was resting.
"Hey Paige, did you notice that the control section of the station is unpowered? I'll snap a picture for you." Just as he was about to click the button to take the picture, the dropship did a roll sending Rowan and his comlink tumbling to the floor. "Damn. I should have braced myself. That's on me."
"Honey!? Are you ok? I had to initiate the final approach. About control, they have odd sleep patterns to maximize coverage with minimal personnel, so the lights aren't always on."
"Yeah, I guess that makes sense." Rowan cursed at himself for not getting a photo of the person at the window, something seemed so odd about him.
Apart from the lightning storm, the trip to Avior 7 was pure bliss. Paige learned enough from Rowan to swim and tread water. Rowan managed to get in a couple of hours of sailing on an inflatable catamaran, which Paige found terrifying. Spearfishing and prepared foods kept them fed, and the nights and mornings were met with long periods of lovemaking.
After they landed and cleaned up what they could from the drop ship, they ordered the maintenance robots to handle getting the dropship ready for the next flight. The lanky bronze robots saluted Paige as she waved goodbye to them.
"Ugh, I'm getting that anticlimactic feeling after a vacation," Rowan told Paige as he followed her to the elevator. "That's when you know the trip was top notch."
Paige turned around and grabbed him by his jumpsuit. "Well I hope that means I get to come along for the next one."
If someone had asked him before he knew about Logan, he would have protested a little, saying Indigo may have wanted to travel to the surface. In his perfect world he would have had all three down there and maybe Stefan and some of his friends too. Now with what happened in his apartment, he smiled and nodded. "Yeah, I would love that."
…
Rowan cracked open the door to the apartment and called out, "Hey everyone! We're back!" He heard the whir of a vacuum cleaner and voices in the bedroom. Rowan knew that Logan was returned to the brothel and had directed him to clean himself up. Carmen simply unlatched the crate and left without saying goodbye.
Paige looked around and sniffed. "Smells like they were doing a bit of cleaning while we were away. That's nice of them." She went into her room with her luggage and shut the door.
Rowan walked at a regular pace so as to not draw too much suspicion. He knocked on his bedroom door, causing it to drift open. Inside he saw Indigo vacuuming the floor while Carmen was just finished slipping on a fresh mattress cover.
Carmen caught sight of him out of the corner of her eye and screamed. Indigo screamed as well. Rowan put his hands up, "Girls! Girls! It's just me."
The pink haired beauty put her hand to her mouth, "Darling! You scared me half to death! We were just cleaning up the place while you were away! Right Indigo?"
"Yes! We thought it would be nice for you to come back to a nice clean apartment."
"Aw, thanks girls," Rowan replied and smiled. "That's thoughtful of you. Here, why don't I take that dirty laundry to the machine for you, I already have to wash my hands."
Carmen reached for the basket and snatched it away from him and said, "Um, no need! Indigo and I were watching a romantic comedy in bed and I spilled a drink on the sheets, so I'll have to pretreat it. Just leave it to me Darling, why don't you just unpack and get settled in."
Indigo took his hand and walked him out to the kitchen. "Why don't I make you a cocktail, Teddybear?"
"Oh, no need, Indigo. After that trip I'm going to cut back a bit. I have to lose a bit more of this tire." He slapped his belly. "I think you all deserve a new and improved Rowan, don't you think?"
Indigo pouted, "I like you just the way you are Teddybear. I like you cute and cuddly."
"Well, I'd like to improve my health just the same. Hey you and Carmen seem a bit jumpy, did anything happen while I was away?" Rowan couldn't help not asking provoking questions.
Indigo did her best to hide the reaction she started to make and said, "Not really, we're just a bit pent up if you know what I mean. We've been here all alone, talking to each other about the great times we had with you." She approached and kissed him.
"I wish I could have brought all three of you down, but that's all the company could afford."
Indigo started to nibble on his neck before saying, "Well, one day I need to show you around the lycan section of the station. It's not a secluded beach, but it can get quite… exotic. I'd also get you all to myself for a night or two. Hey, Teddybear, I can't wait for tonight."
Rowan hugged her, saying, "Neither can I, I'm going to sleep like a baby." He opened his eyes and saw Paige's door slam shut.
…
"Sweetheart…"
"Teddybear…"
"Darling….Darling! Wake up! We have to talk to you."
"Huh? What?" He cracked his eyes open and looked around the dark bedroom. Three shapes hung over him. He blinked and rubbed his eyes. "Isn't two hours enough?"
"Maybe, but that's not what we want to talk about Darling," Carmen said. "The girls and I snuck out of the room after you fell asleep and we had the chat."
"What's the chat?"
"We came together and ironed out the ground rules for our relationship." Carmen signaled to each of the people in the bedroom as she turned up the nightlight enough for him to see.
"Don't I get a say in all this?"
"I figured that since you're the one benefitting from the situation, that you don't get a say." Carmen beamed at him.
"Okay, well since you've come up with these rules, I might as well hear them," he said as he propped himself up. "Maybe I get lucky and they are fair."
Paige took his hand and said, "The first rule is that there's no more girls in your life. You're already at your limit, sweetheart."
"And what about you all?" Rowan grimaced. "Does the rule extend to you?"
"Well, Ollie gets grandfathered in." Indigo poked her fingers together and looked at Rowan's belly. "I hope you understand that."
Carmen placed a hand on his chest. "And this rule doesn't apply to work."
Rowan pursed his lips as he thought that Carmen shot a huge loophole through this agreement, but she also just had a blow up with Logan. He didn't know what to think. "Yeah, that makes sense. Any other rules?"
"Us girls will be planning out who gets to spend the night with you if there's any conflict." Paige kissed him on the ear and whispered, "If you break this rule about new girls, we're going to kill you."
Rowan gulped. "Got it, no more girls, work doesn't count. You have the ultimate choice about who I get to spend the night with. Sounds good."
Carmen cupped his cheek and said, "And one last thing, we reserve the right to come up with new rules."
"Okay, great. Can I get back to bed? I'm sure the work's backed up at the brothel."
Carmen's hand slipped under his boxers. She clicked her tongue and said, "I just decided that two hours wasn't enough."
…
After work the next day, Rowan donned an old starfighter helmet and squeezed into the cramped cockpit of the KG-1. Paige had put Rowan onto the pilot training roster (he was the only one on it) and had spent the last couple of hours explaining spaceflight and the unique aspects of the Kabutogani. Flicking on the field generators, a low hum sounded through the fighter and the ship floated off the ground far enough for the landing skids to retract.
Paige's distorted voice came through the ship-to-ship radio. "Rowan, today's training will focus on the ship skim section of the standard attack the KG-1 is designed to perform. I've turned on the safety interlock, so you'd have to get out of the vehicle in order to arm the ship's plasma weapon again. We really don't want you cracking the station open on your first training mission."
"Right, that's reasonable." His hands hovered over the controls. "So what do I do?"
"First thing we'll do is get you out onto the surface of Pax Orbis and have some fun. The yoke will act much like a steering wheel and the accelerator and brake are footpedals, not unlike driving a car. There is one exception, the low altitude control. That throttle tells the KG-1 how high you want to fly over the target's greeblie."
"Greeblie?"
The hangar doors started to open as Paige replied. "So the surfaces of large ships aren't completely smooth as they're never meant to go through any form of atmosphere. Conduits, shield arrays, view ports, emergency generators, all that stuff is just bolted to the outer hull of the ship. All the things that break up the smooth surface of large spaceships is called greeblie. That means that if the KG-1 tried to fly as close as possible, it would quickly crash into a pipe or something like that."
"So it flies as close as possible, but still over the greeblie."
"That's exactly right. There are six induction coils under the ship surrounding the plasma emitter. The coils create electromagnetic force that keeps the ship at the right altitude above the greeblie, as well as keeps the ship stuck to the target when it deploys the weapon."
"This sounds complicated."
"Don't knock it till you try it. Take the speed up to 200 kph and fly over the superstructure at 10 meters above greeblie. We'll then increase the speed and lower the altitude as you gain experience."
Rowan engaged the controls and the fighter's engines roared to life. The KG-1 sent the man deep into his seat as it rocketed out of the hangar.
"Paige! It feels like I'm driving a sports car on ice! I'm coasting with almost no friction."
"Welcome to the world of newtownian laws of motion. There's no tires and no wind resistance. The inductor coils can simulate traction, but it will sacrifice speed to do it."
"Yes! For goodness sake! Where is it?"
"There's a rotational dial next to the altitude controls. Ease into it or you'll slam forward."
Despite just clicking the traction control to the first selection, Rowan's five point harness dug into his chest as the electromagnets removed the frictionless slipping he felt over the surface of the station. Now, rather than coasting over ice, it felt more like driving a high powered boat in a lake. It was good he got the hang of it because a forest of communication arrays was coming over the horizon.
Pylons covered with communication dishes and antennae zipped past the nimble fighter. The KG-1's flight computer provided possible routes through the metal forest through Rowan's heads up display. Rowan took his time and drove the fighter through the widest course.
"Not bad Sweetheart! You're going to be coming up to a trench that we want to try to fly down a few of those. They're formed by the joining of the large square plates that make up the station. They let the station expand and contract as it is exposed to sunlight. Trenches in sunlight will be narrower than darkside trenches."
Rowan exited the coms array forest and lined up with an edge of a trench, hurtling over the surface of the station. He pushed the fighter over the edge and it hung for a moment above the trench before the induction coils pulled it down. Underneath him, he could see the finger joints zipping under his starfighter. His HUD flashed a warning
"Paige, this is extremely fucking fast."
"Yeah, and you're going to need to perform two ninety degree turns to come back here."
"Right angles?! It can't be done!"
"If you execute a pop flip like you did before you can cheat by hopping over the corner of the plate so you don't have to make an instant turn. The computer will do most of the work, you just have to execute the jump at the right time."
A relief map of the station appeared in Rowan's HUD along with a pulsing dot showing his position. That dot was soon approaching a cross of two trenches and a count down timer clicking down from five seconds."
"Three, two, one, mark!" He slammed the jump button down and his stomach dropped down again as the KG-1 did a combination of flip and drift. It pointed its carapace at the new course and dove for it. Rowan braced for impact, only to find the induction coils had cushioned his descent."
"Paige?"
"Yes dear?"
"This is awesome!" The young man slammed on the accelerator and whooped as the little ship hurtled down the next trench.