Commander Jang perceived the demise of Station One as his a fault of his own, and as such he felt personally responsible for the subsequent repercussions. Though his title afforded him the right to take residence at a government-allotted, fully furnished, luxurious house completely free of charge until he could acquire a new home of his own, he chose instead to stay in the Oregon camps with the people who had given the Station its life. With little to do but wait for the country to rebound from the January disaster, Jang spent much of his time socializing with other members of the camp, the leaders of whom he came to know quite well. Though he never ceased talking about reinhabiting the Station, studies conducted by the international airspace governing board's Hobbs Armageddon select committees showed that it would take over a year to re-establish the downed satellite network.
By July of 1995, conditions at the evacuee camp had deteriorated to an appalling state. Repeated cutbacks of government funding had led to inadequate medical care and nearly no maintenance of the site. The people had food, water, shelter and clothing, but that was it. Their hope began to wane as they had no means to re-establish independence in any form. Many began devising a plan to move south to California, but a lingering concern was the inability to store food and supplies; rations were strict and no excess was afforded. When a delegation from Epsilon Moon base landed at the camp, spreading news of a possible site for re-establishment of Station One far off in the Wieca sector of the Milky Way, Commander Jang and his collegues could only laugh to hide their pain. "Indeed, it sounds like it would be a feasible site, if we could get there," stated a former member of Station One's High Command, "IF we could get there." He was referring to the fact that the propulsion engines on the Station were for orbit stabilization only and no one would even think of using them to actually relocate the entire operation. However, one engineer from Epsilon had already been pondering this obstacle and had researched a viable way to overcome it. With two of the experimental High-Transfer Molybdenum-Lithium (HTML) solid fuel engines, being developed on the Moon outpost to power asteroid-intercepting missiles, an entire facility the size of Station One could be moved at speeds of up to 43,000 miles per hour through the weightlessness of space. Everyone stood silent. New hope had been found.
Commander Jang and his immediate subordinates went back to the Moon with the Epsilon team and negotiated a deal to acquire the HTML engines in exchange for providing free module space on Station One for the developers of the engine, once the move had been completed. Two generator ships were rented to supplement the Station's backups while the retrofit was taking place. The work went smoothly and quickly and by the one-year anniversary of its initial opening, Station One was reloading all of the refugees from the Oregon and Epsilon camps.
Anticipation ran high on November 3, 1995. At 9:10 PM in Des Moines, Iowa, all heads were turned up towards the sky. The countdown to the firing of Station One's new engines was broadcasted accross nearly all of the nation's television and radio frequencies. With ten seconds remaining, not a whisper was uttered and not a finger twitched. Nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one...
The entire night sky was rendered aglow as Station One rocketed away and heartfelt cheers muffled the roar of its monstrous engines. Only nine days later, the main propulsion was cut off and stabilizing rockets were used to turn the Station around 180 degrees, still moving at over 70 times the speed of sound. The huge HTML units were now fired once again, opposite the direction of travel, bringing the Station to a comfortable stop in the Ectar quadrant, square in the center of the Wieca sector, just as planned.
There is no end to this true story, as
Station One
thrives to this day.
Now it is your turn
to become a part of this
glorious history.