At that moment, Doctor David Fullerton approached and asked Will’s guests to leave “We just need to give him a final check and then he’s all yours” he said, ushering them towards the door.
“OK, no problem, Doc. Will, once you get out of here, there will be a guide outside who will escort you to the Captain’s office. He would like to meet you” said Auryn, as he left the sick bay.
Half an hour later, Will was outside the Captain’s office. His guide, Tom, knocked on the door. There was a call from within “Enter”.
As he entered the Captains office, Will was struck by how opulent it was compared to the rest of the ship they had passed through from the medical centre. That said, he also noted how subdued it was compared to the office of General Gott.
“Welcome, Will. Pleased to meet you. I’m Captain George VanDelden.” Said the Captain, holding out his right hand in greeting.
“Hello Captain. Thank you for asking to see me. I’m intrigued as to why, though.”
“I thought it would be good to see who has put us through the last few hours of action and, at the same time, thank you for helping us become aware of the invasion that we were, in the circumstances, completely unaware of. Please take a seat. Would you like a drink?”
“Coffee, white with no sugar would be lovely, thanks” replied Will, feeling slightly confused.
The Captain called his Steward “Two coffees, please, Henry. Mr Hunt would like his white with no sugar.” Turning to Will, he said “from what I understand, you have had quite an exciting few days. I’m sure that over the next few days our Intelligence team will want to have a detailed chat with you about the people who held you captive. Before then, though, it would be most helpful if you could give me a quick run-through. To keep it simple, I won’t ask questions until you’ve finished. Take as long as you like. This isn’t a formal interview, although it will be recorded. Once Henry has brought you your coffee, please run through what has happened. It would be helpful if you could give as much information as you can. Whilst we think we have stopped the invasion for now, we need as much information as we can to make sure that this is the case. A lot of lives are potentially at stake.”
At that moment, Henry entered carrying a tray with two coffees and some delicious-looking food. Will realised just how hungry he felt and decided that he needed at least one sandwich inside him before he began.
An hour and a half later, he had told the Captain everything he could about how he had been transported into this universe, how he and Billy had gone to Astraeus 5, found the two ships and the rear hangar, how he had been captured and what had happened in the other reality, including his, thankfully brief, interrogation by General Gott, and the Captain had asked several questions seeking clarification on several points.
Satisfied that they had exhausted everything for now, the Captain said “Thank you, Will. That was most helpful. Now, on a lighter note, we need to get you some papers and some means of surviving here for a while. Unfortunately, we can’t publicly reward you. In fact, your experiences of the past few days and the fact that you’re from another reality must remain strictly confidential. If this information became general knowledge, there would be more questions asked than we would want to answer. There are only so many ways of denying something. I gather that your background is in communications, similar to Billy’s. I can offer you a job on this ship if that would be of interest. Good communications technicians are, curiously, hard to get hold of. I must warn you, though, that that would mean having a haircut and your beard trimmed. If not, we may be able to sort something out with something on the station, although that may open a can of worms that may be best left sealed, at least for now. Either way, we can provide you with some funds for you to get set up here but that will take a couple of days to finalise.”
“It’s all been a bit of a shock to the system, Captain, so I’d like to think about it a little before I agree, although it sounds interesting. I wouldn’t mind a change of career, although I would have preferred to have done it in my own reality. Is that OK?”
“Yes, I understand. That’s not a problem. I would like to return you into the care of Major Truran for now, as we will be arriving at Columbus shortly and I should be on the bridge.”
The Captain called Henry again “Henry, please ask Major Truran to come and escort Will to his office.”
“Yes, Sir” replied Henry
A few minutes later, Auryn arrived to collect Will and took him to his office two floors below the Captain's.
As they entered, Will was pleased to see both Billy and Sarah were there. Auryn ushered Will to sit in the remaining empty chair.
“OK, folks. Our priority is to come up with a cover story as to why Will is here. I’m also authorised to give both Will and Billy a reward for finding out about the invasion. Without their involvement, we would by now be fighting a war that we would have started very much on the back foot.”
Before we start, though, some food would be in order. Whilst I gather you had a snack whilst you were with the Captain, Will, I would think that you would be looking for something a bit more substantial. He pressed the communicator button on his right shoulder and a few minutes later, two navy personnel brought in a large trolley laden with all kinds of food and laid it on the table in Auryn’s office. Once the two personnel had left, they moved to the table and started to eat, discussing the cover story the while.
After two hours, they all agreed that the story they had produced seemed to be the most likely to arouse the least level of suspicion when they landed back at the station. For now, pending his decision regarding the Captain’s offer a job on the ship, Will would wear the uniform of a Navy Communications Technician.
As they left the office, Will was taken to the storeroom by a young marine and they chose a suitable uniform for him to wear. Will changed clothes as soon as he could and took his non-naval clothing to put on Billy's ship. As he arrived, Billy was there to greet him.
“Sarah and her crew are about to return to her ship. She didn't think it would look right if she landed with the navy. She said she would meet up with us again as soon as she can, once we’ve landed.” explained Billy, as Will approached him.
“Oh, OK. I'd hoped to thank her for all her help but I guess it can wait. Did she say where she would meet us?”
“No, but I gave her my contact details, so she can get in touch. I need to get going, or I'll be trapped on board. I’ll meet you at the Navy dock, and we’ll go on to my place from there. If I’m not there in time, just wait. OK?”
“Understood. No problem. See you shortly.”
Five minutes later, Billy's ship left the hold and flew in a gently curved trajectory, so that he could approach the company docks on the other side of Columbus.
As they approached, Billy called the port and told them he was on his way to dock at the company dockings and asked if there was anything he needed to know about regarding other traffic. Whilst there was some routine traffic, there was nothing unusual that required him to wait or take a different trajectory. Having docked thousands of times on the station since he started work for the company, he pulled into the dock he usually used and killed the engines.
Having docked cleanly, Billy quickly shut down his ship, grabbed his bag and ran to the Navy dock, three levels below the civilian docks and further round the station. As he arrived at the entrance to the dock, he could see Will standing there and rushed to meet him.
As Will looked around at the docking lobby, what struck him was how similar, yet how different it all looked compared to Shackleton. Now he was outside the naval docks, the lobby was a public area and the colour scheme, the wall and floor coverings and even the lighting design were different to what he was used to. It was almost as if he had gone to a different space station that had been built using the same plans as the ones used for Shackleton but which had been decorated by a different interior designer. In effect, that was what had happened, except that it occupied essentially the same location in space.