Valhalla Summer Trip

Maxine Inoza wanted to be furiously incensed because she wasn’t being allowed to sleep. She had trouble being angry. She was just too tired. Sleep was against the rules. She wished her dad could afford a better ship. “Why did you let grandpa sleep and not me?”

“I didn’t. And you couldn’t wake him up either. Don’t go pointing fingers.” Enoch, her father, was flying The Ebaneezer, a prehistoric freight hauler that constantly went off course. Every few minutes, the ship’s helm control would beep and he would have to make adjustments to the flight controls.

The ship’s air system was on the fritz too. They got air circulation going, but just barely. It was getting stinky on this clunker. In some parts more than others.

A different beeping sound was now being emitted from a different control station in the pilot chamber. Enoch unbuckled to get up and step across to the left of their flight screen. The chamber is zero G so he needed to push himself down from the ceiling when he moved around. He shook his head and hit a button to get the beeping to stop. 

“We need to get fuel in the tanks.”

“Again? Will you please fill them this time?” 

“Ha, ha. You know I did. This old crate just doesn't go as far as it used to.” Enoch buckled himself into his station, then started tapping away at the control board. “According to the nav comm, we’ll be reaching Heaven’s Gate within the next hour.”

“Why there?” Maxine unbuckled herself, then also had to keep herself off the ceiling. “I’d rather go to the Truck Stop.”

“Can’t, Mac Daddy’s is too far out of our way. We’ll stop at the Gate then get on to Valhalla.”

“Will we then make it on those tanks?”

“Easily. Just another day and we’ll be at the crappy capitol for this province so I can defecate on the counter in their waiting room.”

“Great. You know how much I want to get there. My heart swoons at the thought.”

Maxine sometimes wished she could report the theft of her summer vacation. But chances are, the authorities would be arresting her. She was the one that made it go away.

She wanted scholarships. She knew her now dead dad couldn’t pay and she wanted to go to college. It pained her that now her summer was gone. 

She made her way over to the frightening food hutch and hit the button for coffee. She remembered watching her dad take the whole thing apart looking for what was producing that hideous stench. But he couldn’t find anything. 

The hutch wasn’t quiet either. It was almost like you could hear every loud undertaking. After the cacophonous procedure, a tube of food paste comes out the dispenser. She hits the button again. She hopes her grandpa will wake up this time and want some coffee.

She put the two tubes in a pocket then started to make her way back. She’s lost her summer, but her grandpa has lost more than that. He’s lost at least two years to prison. And that’s if he gets paroled then. If he doesn’t, it's gonna be a lot longer. 

“Not so loud.” Gerald was trying to reposition himself, but seemed to give up.

“That hutch will never be quiet. Here’s your prize. Have some coffee.” Maxine stuck a coffee tube in his pocket then got over to her station to buckle in.

“I don’t want to be up.” 

“You weren’t supposed to fall asleep.”

“A man has needs.”

“And since this man couldn’t get any sleep. You agreed not to either.” Enoch laughed at his own poor attempt at humor.

“You made me agree to that. I didn’t want to.”

“I didn’t want to take you to Valhalla. And Maxine doesn’t want to go either, so we’re all doing something we don’t want to.” The helm control erupted into another series of raucous prompts making Enoch correct their course again.

Most of the time, those adjustments are made at the forward station her dad’s at. Sometimes it’s the rear station, where she’s at, that needs to get remedied so they can get to where they’re supposed to.

That was also why they couldn’t sleep. The ship needing continuous corrections meant they couldn’t auto pilot to anywhere. Humans were needed to keep doing the fixing.

Her grandpa was the lucky swindler, she thought. Her dad said he couldn’t trust her grandpa to man the rear station. He might be too tempted to flee. They needed to get him to Valhalla so the two years don’t become more.

Gerald finished the coffee tube and then got up from his station. He then pointed at Maxine. “You want another?”

She nodded her head. Her grandpa then spoke to her dad. “You want one?” He also nodded.

Gerald started his way over to the food hutch.

Enoch spoke up. “It will be so good to get real coffee when we land.” Maxine could hear enthusiasm in his voice. She liked that, but hadn't heard much joy or zeal lately, not since he made himself dead. 

Her dad was afraid of getting fingered in corporate embezzlement. He knew his boss was the dirty one. He saw things that he said made him wonder—odd outersys transfer funds. This made her dad want out of there. That was when he notified the authorities and got dead.

“We’re here.” Enoch pointed towards the front screen to the Heaven’s Gate way station. He was angling The Ebaneezer toward the Gate’s docking rings. “We’ll be there in minutes. Sending our dock request now.” 

He punched a few more buttons before hitting the big red one at his station, thereby submitting their request. A code series was immediately received, letting them know which dock was expecting them. They were about to land on the way station.

After The Ebaneezer docked, they then put special plates onto the soles of their boots. These magnetic plates let them sort of stick to the ground as they walked around the non gravity parts of Heaven’s Gate. Once they got to the outer ring, the spinning would set gravity for them and they could turn the magnetics on these plates off.

“Don’t go too fast grandpa. I don’t want to have to chase you.” Maxine was following Gerald towards the lift that takes them towards the outer rings. When she reached him she grabbed his suit. “Wait. Dad needs to put in the fuel request to get the tanks filled.”

“I want real food.”

“Don’t run off. I don’t want those alarms to go off again.” It was one of the conditions on allowing his family to be the ones that drop him off at the prison depot in Valhalla. 

The way he explained all this to Maxine was that the minute he got sentenced, he knew it would mean living in a version of Dante’s Inferno. He knew there would be worse rings, but he’d still be in hell. The prison transport hit these outer provinces quarterly. Which meant it could be a while. 

These colonies had terrible jail quarters, which was no surprise, but then the trip on that prison transport ship would be a ring further down into hell when compared with the opulent cell he got at the local jail. 

Maxine had been complaining about having to go there for her lost summer, so he figured they could take him and drop him off themselves.

Since he was a convict, whoever transported them needed to get a sensor implanted, so the convict didn't flee. Since Enoch was dead, Maxine had to be the one that got the implant. If Gerald exceeded the allowed distance, alarms would go off. Alarms that are only silenced by their proximity getting restored.

Gerald then points at Enoch, still at talking with a dock attendant. “Tell that dead man to hurry up.”

“Just wait.” Maxine walked back to her dad.

Enoch was shaking his head and laughing as he watched Gerald starting to get impatient. “I’m hoping he doesn’t go too far this time.”

“Me too. Hey, you don’t go dying again.” She punched him playfully in the arm. “If you do, at least leave me an inheritance this time.” She raced back to stay close to her grandpa. 

Once the fuel order had been placed, Enoch ran to catch up to them as Gerald was dragging Maxine onto the lift. Inside, they just all took a station, she picked the window and was pleased as Punch that the air circulators were working super good in the lifty, no stinky smells. After a few minutes, others were also filling the other spots. It was almost full when it closed then started moving. 

What had always been funny to Maxine was that as the lift traveled to the outer rim, it rotated 90 degrees so that when it arrived at the outer ring, they’d be walking out the door like normal with almost normal gravity. 

“Where do they got the diner?” Gerald appeared to be getting anxious as he was looking around and not seeing food places.

“Relax dad, just follow the signs.” Enoch was pointing up at the billboards at this busy way station.

They could see the signs were pointing to their left and then walked to satisfy their anti-paste food wants. Gerald joked about how this was a court he liked, not the one that sent him to prison. These way stations tended to be all alike in the way they look. They all seem to have a food court in the middle of everything. Near the food are the places you sleep. Near those are the places you buy things. 

Gerald leads them into a Chub ’n Grub diner and they get seated by the hostbot.

“Grandpa, what do you want to eat before jail?” Maxine was looking over their menu on the wall near their table.

“I don’t care. Just no more paste.” Gerald is just staring down. 

“Ok. I want noodles.” She turned the pad on the center of the table so it was facing her. “I’m grabbing me an order of the Thai-Soba, that sounds good. Gramps?”

“Sure. As long as I don’t need to suck it down.”

“Great.” She tapped on that pad. “How about you dad?”

“Sure, I’ll go on this food adventure with you.”

She tapped some more. “Ordered.”

“I’ll get us some forks.” Maxine jumped up and started over to where they kept them at the Chub ‘n Grub. She grabbed them and napkins then started back. She was proud of being able to figure things out. She wasn’t afraid to ask or follow advice, both also good. It really peeved her that by asking and following advice, her summer is now gone.

Her high school had all these things out for them to look at during the college fair. As a junior, she had been encouraged, by her teacher and the school counselor, to sign up for everything. She was told that those people that decide on scholarships, look at the names submitted. Her counselor said that by seeing her name a lot, it would be a lot more favorable for her. She and her friend Melanie were inspired to fill them all out.

Imagine her surprise when the Jr ROTC chose her for their summer program. She’d be at the Academy, on Valhalla, all summer. Now she has to go. She doesn’t want a black mark on her name for these people. She wants scholarships.

She arrived back at their table as the waiterbot brought their food. As she gives her dad and grandpa their forks, she said to the waiterbot, “Chopsticks.” They don’t keep those at the utensil hutch. A pair arose from the center of his dome. It then placed them in front of Maxine.

Enoch watches the waiter leave their table, then says, “Max, you don’t even know how to use those.”

She giggles. “I know how. I just can’t. I wanted to practice.”

“Is that why you wanted noodles?”

“Yes. No. Maybe.”

“I can do it. But haven’t in years.”

“Grandpa. Where did you learn?”

“Out there somewhere. I was on a ship. Another marine in my platoon showed us how.”

“I didn’t know that.” Enoch

“There’s a lot you don’t know. How not to get dead is one of them.”

“Go easy on him gramps.” Maxine still felt bad for him. 

Her dad knew the axe would be swinging where he was working and didn’t want to be there when that boss got what was coming. In a near panic, he was trying to get transferred. He put in for the move. It was late at night when he did it. He did get a call minutes later asking for him to confirm his request, which he did.

Well, he found out later that that call was for the death notice that he submitted. He found out when checking on the transfer request in their system that he clicked on the wrong button and reported himself dead. He now had to fly all the way to the capitol to prove he is still alive.

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“Lighten up.” Gerald said.

“You’re one to talk.” Maxine was now on the defensive.

Her grandpa became the swindler not by swindling, but by sweeping senior women off their feet. He found himself living at what is called a Senior Solution Home Station. They’re typically referred to as SSHSs. That’s where old people go. Maxine saw the reasoning. On these satellite stations, their quarters are on the outer ring, where they control gravity; these don’t spin as quickly so their gravity is less, which is good for old people.

He had gotten to be friendly with one, then another, then it was like he became a resident at the Outer Limits SSHS, just from bouncing out of the bed of one of the seniors there to that of another. They seemed to like him and he seemed to like them.

It all came as a surprise when he got busted for selling a fake autograph. At court he told how it was a joke. How he had signed that picture of Hank Astromeck, the famous vision star, himself to pretend that he had been lucky enough to meet the megastar.

He used to take that picture with him as he bounced around from this girl to that one. Someone saw it and offered to give him a lot of money for it. That person then tried to get it auctioned for more and that was when it was discovered to be a fake. It all went downhill from there.

Maxine thought her grandpa was now looking like he was eyeballing reality in the face. A day from now and he'll be spending the next two years in prison.

“Dad, just let it go. We all know what’s making you this way.”

“Yeah. And be good inside. I want you out in two years.”

Enoch's chest started beeping. He pulled a tech pad out of a pocket then put it back and was nodding. “The ship will is fueled. We need to get going. Finish up." He put the bowl up to his face to drink what was left.

He looks at Maxine and his dad wistfully. "We three need to get on with the consequences of our decisions.”