Fiction Friday - Chapter 4

Previously:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3

* * * * * *

The next couple days were a whirlwind of meetings.

First we had to go to the Department of Commerce to meet with Rusack's contact and fill out reams of forms and sign multiple copies of legal documents to start up our own corporate entity. It cost a bit of money to buy the permits and pay for the legal signatories, but we could afford it and soon K & K Corporation was a reality.

After wasting a day in the dreary offices of the government we checked out of our hotel and caught the shuttle up to the station where we had to make an appointment with the Station Warehouse Manager to rent some space to store the 2500 packaged ATV units we wanted to unload of of Barak Vorn's ship. I expected it to take a few hours but it was surprisingly quick and easy once we paid the exorbitant fees to rent the space. I commented on the speed of the process to the man on the other side of the desk and he responded that they had lots of space to accommodate the sheer amount of traffic they could expect to see on a daily basis.

I guess I never realized how large orbital stations really were before. When you are in a shuttle approaching one it looks impressive but its hard to grasp scale and distance in space because everything looks so clear and close unlike the effects of astmospheric blur when looking at a distant mountain. But as we left the public spaces of the station and into the more functional parts I began to realize I had vastly underestimated the extent it size.

We passed by the administrative level once through security and then into an area that could be better described as a elevator hub. There were banks of elevator doors and signs pointing to various ones as "express to ship hangers", "express to living quarters", "executive offices", "CONCORD", etc. We headed towards one bank of doors listed as "express to warehousing".

The lift dropped us into the bowels of the station where we picked up a conveyor walkway and walked/rode for about ten minutes, chatting with the attendant assigned to guide us. The conveyor walkway was in a small corridor only a few meters wide and the guide explained that the warehouses all connected up with a large automated trolley system on the other sides for moving stuff from warehouse to warehouse and up to the ship hangers.

We arrived at the door to our warehouse and the electronic display beside the locked door said "K & K Corporation" which made Korannon and I smile and laugh at each other in a kind of "can't believe it" way. The attendent set up the biometric sensor to our thumbprints and voice and we went inside.

The first part of the warehouse was a small office with a station console on a desk and a few chairs. The office had a window that looked out on the warehouse floor which was 100 meters by 200 meters of empty space and about 30 meters high. Across from us was the other warehouse door, a massive set of sliding panel doors that went almost to the ceiling and was about 50 meters across.

The attendent took his leave of us and Korannon pulled a bottle of cheap champange and a couple plastic cups from his bag. I smiled and took one of them as he popped the cork, filled our cups, and said "Here's to K & K!"

I laughed and gulped back the sweet drink. "Tomorrow," I added with a grin, "the real work begins!"