Day Trip - Part I
A 13-year-old girl is unhappy about moving to a space station with her parents
Part One | Part Two | Part Three
It was too early in the morning. Thirteen-year-old Aaralyn did not enjoy getting up at two in the morning. The viewscreens in her room in her family’s apartment could simulate any time of the day or night or any scene from pretty much anywhere mankind had sent probes or people in our celestial neighborhood. Right now, Aaralyn’s walls were programmed to show a small cabin in the woods, with the early morning light casting the sun’s rays through the leaves and branches. It was a nice, warm view. Not a bad way to wake up really, but still… it was only two in the morning. Way too early.
“Hurry up, Aaralyn! We need to be going in a few minutes so we don’t miss the train to the elevator station,” said Leah, Aaralyn's mother, from the other side of her bedroom door.
“Uggh…” Aaralyn groaned as she flopped out of her bed onto the floor. “Lilly, dim the lights.” Lilly was the name Aaralyn had given her personal AI.
I’m sorry, Aaralyn, but your mother has already overridden that command this morning. You have 13.7 minutes remaining until the recommended time of departure, said Lilly.
“I hate you so much right now, Lilly,” said Aaralyn.
I’m sorry, Aaralyn, you’ll need to get dressed quickly so that you don’t cause your family to miss their departure time, Lilly said, sounding apologetic.
Aaralyn and her parents would take the elevator to Taurus 3, a low-gravity station that encircled the space elevator. Taurus 3 was primarily a laboratory space and contained, most notably, a large lab for Aion Bio Robotics. Aion used the low gravity lab for experiments they were doing with connecting human neural tissue to robotic devices.
Aaralyn’s parents, Ted and Leah Roth, were considering moving the family to Taurus 3 for three years. Her parents had both worked for Aion since before she was born. Her mother was a lab tech and had been nominated as a candidate for a special assignment aboard the sub-orbital station. Her father was a pilot and had been selected as a shuttle pilot for Aion, transferring employees and materials between the elevator-based stations. They said it was a great opportunity for them. The pay would be great, and the assignment was only supposed to last three years, and they would be able to return home after that.
Aaralyn didn’t buy it. They were going to force her to move away from her friends, her school, her clubs, and sports activities. Basically, they were ruining her life! She had no intention of going quietly.
The Roths hurried out the door of their apartment at exactly 2:15 am, rode the elevator to the ground floor of their building, and crossed the street, descending another two stories into the subway. The train ride lasted roughly an hour and a half due mostly to the frequent stops. By four in the morning, the train was pulling into the station at Elevate Corps’ Terminal C.
Despite her irritation at being dragged along on this sightseeing tour so early in the morning, Aaralyn couldn’t help but feel a bit of awe at the size of the terminal at the base of the space elevator. She’d seen it in net vids and on the news, but she’d never seen a structure so large in person before. This place was awesome!
Aaralyn pulled out her phone and took a selfie with the glass roof above her and the space elevator extending up and out of the image.
“I’ve got to send this to Jillian! She’s going to be so jealous!” said Aaralyn to herself.
“What’s that dear?” asked her mother.
“Nothing, Mom,” Aaralyn bit back. “I’m just taking a photo to make my friends jealous.”
Ted rolled his eyes and gave Leah a knowing look. “We need to keep moving if we’re going to make it through security in time,” he said as he continued to walk toward the security gate.
The lines were fairly short this morning, probably due in part to the early hour but also because scanning technology had come a long way in the last few years. Instead of having to pass through a security scanner one at a time, whole crowds of people could be scanned as they walked through an X-ray curtain. There was a line on the floor, a one-foot wide yellow line that marked where the curtain was located. The overhead announcements were continuously reminding passengers not to stop on the yellow line due to the risk of receiving too high a dose of X-rays. As long as you kept moving, you received a dose less than what you would getting an x-ray at the doctor’s office.
Aaralyn surveyed the large terminal, taking in the grandeur of the high glass ceiling and watching as thousands of people seemed to be heading for one of the elevator gates and just as many seemed to be moving toward the exits, heading back to their lives on the ground.
As her eyes traced the curve of the ceiling down to the floor, she saw a young man in a brown jumpsuit heading toward an employees-only security gate, and she wondered what it would be like to work on one of the massive elevators. She imagined it was similar to being a flight attendant.
After passing through the security zone, they climbed aboard yet another elevator. This one would take them up two stories to Gate 29. Aion had really pulled out all the stops for this little trip. Well, almost all the stops. The tickets they purchased were for business class, not first class.
Aaralyn knew that her parents would never have spent the extra money for business class on their own, let alone first class. “I thought Aion wanted you to enjoy this trip,” she said to her parents. “Why didn’t they put us up top in first class? I really wanted to see the stars as we left the atmosphere.”
“Oh, I think you'll see more stars today than you've ever seen before,” said her father. “Just before the launch, our seats will recline back and you'll be able to look right out the window above you. You should have a great view as the atmosphere thins out.”1
“Yeah, I knew that,” Aaralyn retorted. She wasn’t going to let her parents think that she was enjoying any part of this trip, though inwardly, she was struggling to contain her excitement. She didn’t want to leave her friends, but she knew that riding the elevator was something that most of her friends wanted to do, and here she was, boarding one of the elevators bound for low Earth orbit!
This is so cool, Aaralyn whispered to herself, careful not to let her parents hear.
Ted, Leah, and Aaralyn settled into their seats, which were several inches wider than the economy seats and provided ample legroom.
“I could get used to this,” said Ted, stretching his legs out in front of him and reclining his seat back so that he could look out the windows that wrapped up over their seats. The view wasn’t as good as it would have been in first class, but this wasn’t bad. The elevator car itself blocked much of the view of the elevator above them, but the view did allow them to see the sky above them.
While Aaralyn stowed her day pack under her seat and latched her harness, she looked around to see if there were any other kids in this compartment. It looked like she was the only one. Everyone else appeared to be either the same age as her parents or older. She couldn’t quite decide if that made her feel special or awkward.
“I’m really looking forward to seeing the lab!” said Leah. “Carl has been working up there since last year, and he said he’s loving it. The low-G environment has made it really easy for him to get around the lab. In fact, he hasn’t used his wheelchair in something like six months.”
“It sounds like making the move was the right choice for him,” said Ted. “I’m actually really looking forward to cutting down my commute time. Not having to ride the elevator to the Taurus stations each day to get to the shuttle bay is going to give me a lot of family time back.”
Leah turned to Aaralyn, “Did I tell you about the theatre they have on Taurus 3? It holds about fifty people, and it’s got a screen that starts off as a window that looks out at the curvature of the Earth, and then they apply an electric charge, and it becomes opaque just before the show starts. Doesn’t that sound cool?”
Aaralyn could feel her temper flaring as she listened to her parents rambling about how awesome it was going to be to live on the Taurus stations.
“Can you please pretend for one second that you understand what I’m going through?” Aaralyn said a little louder than she had intended. “You’re talking as though the decision is already made. I thought we were going up there to see what it was like and to decide as a family what we thought was best?”
“Well, honey…” her dad started.
“I’m not finished! You’re tearing me away from everything and everyone I’ve ever known and loved. You’re forcing me to leave my friends and all my teams that I’ve worked so hard for. You’re being so selfish, and you don’t even care how this move will affect me. You haven’t thought about it at all! I hate you! I hate you for forcing us to move! Can’t I just live with Aunt Naamah?”
Heads were turning and looking in their direction - some with a shocked expression, others with clear distaste that a child would be allowed in this compartment.
“Honey. Aaralyn,” her father tried again.
“All you care about are your careers! You don’t even care that you’re ending my life. I hate you!”
“Sir. Ma’am. Is there a problem?” said a member of the flight crew who had approached their seats.
“No. No problem. Just a little misunderstanding,” said Leah.
“I have to ask you to keep your voices low inside the compartment out of respect for the other passengers,” the stewardess said.
“Yes, ma’am,” replied Ted.
Aaralyn let out a breathy “Humph” and turned her head away from her parents, crossing her arms dramatically across her body.
The lights dimmed twice, indicating that the launch would occur in one minute.
“Young lady, your attitude is unacceptable,” Ted’s voice was quiet but clearly showed how he felt about his daughter’s outburst. “We will continue this discussion when we can do so privately.”
There was no answer from Aaralyn. She had placed headphones over her ears and was intently staring out the window located just above her seat.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Today's launch is a non-stop to the Taurus Triplet. Our arrival time will be roughly 11 o'clock this morning, given that our maximum rate of ascent will be a gentle 700km per hour, and our destination is located at the Mars Gravity Center, which is right at about 4,000km above our heads. Now, just recline back and enjoy your ride into space with Elevate Corp."2
The seats in the compartment automatically reclined so that the passengers were nearly lying flat. This helped to reduce the stress on their spines during the first few minutes of acceleration.
With a whoosh, the elevator rose out of its cradle and lifted into the sky along the elevator’s central core.
What to read next
A link to Part III will be here soon!
Day Trip - Part II
As the space elevator car rose into the sky, it gradually accelerated until it reached its maximum speed, a comfortable 700km per hour. The initial rate of acceleration was so gentle and so quiet that the passengers hardly noticed that they had left the terminal. The ground swiftly fell away...
Day Trip - Part III
Original Voiceover is Coming Soon! The ball bounced off the concave disc in the center of the room's floor, the shape of the disc naturally returning the ball to play. Aaralyn Roth dove to the floor, her arm outstretched, and whacked the ball with her racquet, sending the ball up toward the concave disc on the ceiling. Aaralyn was teamed up with Lillian …
Update: Originally, Ted said that they wouldn’t be leaving the atmosphere, but that was because I had placed their destination at only 500km above Earth’s surface. Upon further investigation, I learned that isn’t nearly far enough, so I moved the Taurus Triplet (three ringed stations) to 3,900km, 4,000km, and 4,100km, respectively. This location (3,900km) is known as the Mars Gravity Center. (Due to this change, the audio version of this story will not match this section of the written story.)
Update: Since the Roth’s destination is now between 3,900km and 4,100km, the elevator will need to travel much faster in order to reach their destination the same day. Instead of 100kph, they will be traveling at a maximum of 700kph. This speed should allow for a brief period of acceleration and deceleration and still have the elevator arrive at the destination within about six hours. The assumption is that as the atmosphere thins, the elevator is able to travel faster due to friction being near zero. (Due to this change, the audio version of this story will not match this section of the written story.)
I loved this!!! It’s your best yet !! The narrative is excellent! Can’t wait for the next part!!!
Really enjoyed it, even with the teenager that's still acting like a tween! LOL I really expected Colin to show up, but it's not over yet! Hummmm ............. Can't wait for Part 2!