Parking a squid is hard, doubly so if the station is not prepared in the slightest to accommodate it. He liked to wrap tentacles around the place, sticking to the windows and polished siding while waiting for me to get back. It's not as if he'd go anywhere on his own, it just freaks out the authorities enough that you come back to a "situation" as they tend to call it. It was my second time at this particular space station though, so I hoped that things would go smoother than normal. I eased off on the gravity well I'd been using to make him fall towards the station, reducing speed a bit with one positioned behind us. We came in mouth first so I had to rely on cameras. Only jostled it a bit though. He grabbed out with his tentacles, better than normal docking clamps, as I unstrapped and floated down to the hatch down at his mouth. The walls were getting a bit dryer, less wet than they had been at the start of the voyage so I put water on my list of chores as I made my way to the airlock. It was fastened into place with the station, so I didn't have to suit up to get through, just go through two sets: mine and theirs. Aupaula station was a spindle. It wasn't like the giant donut types that spun around with a stationary dock at the center, and it wasn't a sphere that relied on internal gravitation fields to create a livable surface. It was a long, thin needle that had docks on the outer shell and a second layer inside for the working and living quarters. It orbited a moon, small and on edge of most normal trade routes. This area had been colonized a while back because of a big gallium deposit that they found, back when those things were valuable. It gets along half on the black market and half on the local resources of the moons in the area, but not enough that there is a full-time crew. As a non-artificial gravity location, it couldn't act as a habitat anyway, crew having to rotate every few months anyway. I didn't recognize the man in the suit that was pulling himself down the hall towards me, so I guessed I hadn't run into any of the same crew that was here 3 years back.
"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to explain your vessel."
"It's a techno-organic space vessel."
He doesn't seem to register what I said, either because he heard it before or doesn't understand what I meant. I'd bet on the later. "Once again, I'd like you to explain your vessel, and why it is latched onto my hull."
"If you go back through the reccords, I came here with it three years back. . ."
"That was before the reformation of the trade regulations, before the ship classification requirements for systems." He was referring to the stipulations that popped up from the new political power recently. Trade Proctorate.
"Well, if we're getting into the very technical applications, I and my large friend came here in a semi-assisted suit-less flight which under regulations means. . ."
"That we are obligated to receive you in and offer medical assistance if possible with limited risk to my crew. Fine. Prove to me you're limited risk."
"As I said before, the records. . ."
"Were wiped sometime last year in a magnetic storm. Barely managed to keep the base from crashing into the moon."
"Well, do you have a connection down surface-side? I think it was Major Phillips who was in charge at the time?" He put a hand up to his ear when I said that, mumbled something into a fairly well hidden communicator. I caught the word verify, but little else. Lip reading might be useful to pick up.
"We should have an answer back shortly. Major Phillips is stationed at landing zone Alpha groundside. Got put in charge there a while back." I wasn't sure if it was a promotion or not, so I kept my mouth shut on the matter. I just smiled a little, not too much though.
"He says you're about as far from harmless as you can get out in space." That would be Major Phillips for you, why had I thought of him first? "He also said to send you down to the land-side port because you and he need to have a little chat. Says to put in in Granite Lake and he'll take a car out to pick you up." Well, not a total loss then.
"Thank you for your time, sir."
"It's my job, civilian. Now get off my station."
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