I couldn't really argue with her reasoning. People needing animal control are far less likely to be strong enough to jump you when your back is turned. Otherwise, they probably wouldn’t be calling animal control in the first place. It was also one of the more lucrative and flexible professions with a “Career” tag, as it still generated rev even if I decided to look into the adventuring path. The only real negative was it didn't come with any special weapons like the adventuring paths did, which made sense as it really emphasized the humane trapping and relocation of creatures in Galaxion over outright extermination. Cross that bridge if I ever need to I guess.

  More importantly, it was something we had bonded over in the last few years. As the oldest of four by six years, it was difficult finding common ground. I love my family dearly, but finding things to enjoy together when she was still a teenager was challenging to say the least. Eventually she found zoology, and I happened to be in an evolutionary genetics course and suddenly we had more to talk about than we could ever get through. We had even gone to the zoo for my farewell party. So it was one more thing to help me feel grounded and close to home.

  ANIMAL CONTROL SPECIALIST

  Type: Career Prerequisite: None

  Animal Control is responsible for the removal, relocation, or in extreme cases the extermination of nuisance creatures.

  Specialists are adept at knowing when a hive/nest/collection/grouping/etc. of creatures has been completely neutralized.

  At higher levels, this ability can be trained to work on sapient creatures.

  Once everyone had selected their profession or confirmed they wanted to remain without one for now (paradoxically, “Unemployed” was an optional profession), we were directed to a glowing outline on the wall nearest our pods. It was only 1 meter by 1 meter square, and it opened with a touch and Horizon confirmation. Inside was a multi-arm 3D printer whirring rapidly. Behind it were a dozen different kinds of goo and powder and flaky materials and mounted on top were several reservoirs of ink. In only a few seconds it stopped printing, and the print bed tilted to slide off my now completed item: Underpants. They were pea-soup green underpants in my size. Pretty underwhelming start, but its something. I slid them on while the machine spun up again.

  The process repeated several times until I had been given an entire outfit; a plain navy jumpsuit with “Animal Control Specialist” and “Roane” embroidered on opposite breasts. I was also given all of the jumpsuit under-things, a baseball cap with “ACS” on the front, a pair of sturdy boots, thick synthetic leather gloves, an empty tool belt, and a small backpack. While I was fully aware of what I signed up for and most of what to expect, this was a pretty ho-hum start to my "Great Galaxion Adventure!" A jumpsuit and grunt gear, same as I would have had on the Hildrun. I felt a little self conscious in my gear, as if my co-orienteers would judge me for setting my sights so low. I had to remind myself that I had been the one to step in to action when most of them cowered behind their pods.

  My stats page had been updated to reflect my gear once I had donned it all.

  ROANE MORIZU.....................................................................................ANIMAL CONTROL SPECIALIST

  LEVEL - 0

  INTELLECT - 10 ......................................................................................................................................................PRIMARY EQUIPMENT:

  CHARM - 10 ...............................................................................................................................................................ACS UNIFORM

  BODY - 10..................................................................................................................................................................

  AGILITY - 10.............................................................................................................................................................

  DURABILITY - +2...................................................................................................................................................

  HEALTH - 10/10......................................................................................................................................................CURRENCY

  UNASSIGNED POINTS - 5..................................................................................................................................REV - 600

  EXPERIENCE REQUIRED - 10...........................................................................................................................

  CONGRATULATIONS! YOU ARE LEVEL 1!

  REST TO COMPLETE LEVEL-UP

  I noted the addition to my protection stat, as well as the experience gained from completing my first objective in its entirety.

  The room had warmed up noticeably by the time everyone’s outfits had been printed, and there was the faint smell of burning tires. Probably not great to be trapped in the room with those fumes, but the doors wouldn’t open until we were all dressed and had confirmed out readiness. Kade needed a hand getting dressed so Gary and I stepped in. He was given a plain heather sweatsuit with the same pea-soup underpants everyone else got. JuneBug720, Chodely Whipplespurt, and Oryx were sporting the same outfit, presumably because they were going profession-less for the time being. Blaze Firestalker had a flowing red robe with glittering cuffs and an oversized hood, while Gary sported a smart, well-tailored business suit.

  Once Kade had been fully dressed and everyone had confirmed once again they were ready to proceed, a new outline on the wall appeared before sliding apart as a set of double doors. I helped hoist Kade on to Gary’s back and we walked tentatively through into a transport tube that felt like a gigantic glass pill capsule inside a solid tube. Some sort of station. We didn't have these on the Hildrun, but it was similar enough to a basic mag-lev trains or a subway station. At the far end was a smiling woman holding a clipboard.

  She gestured towards the bench seating along the walls and introduced herself. “Welcome to Galaxion! My name is Etsuko, and I will be your docent. Please have a seat, as we are due to depart in just a few minutes. There's water and orange slices in the compartments behind your chairs.”

  Etsuko waited until everyone had been seated, or placed in a seat, before walking up the center of the capsule and checking everyone was present. On seeing we were missing a few, she poked her head out the door to glance around our little room before tapping a few times on her clipboard’s display. She proceeded back to her original position and tapped a few more things before addressing us once again.

  “I’m sorry for your rough start to your time here. My introduction was similarly violent, but I assure you that was the scariest part of my transition. Since getting settled, I’ve really enjoyed Galaxion. Granted, if you chose or intend to choose adventure professions your story will be pretty different than mine, but at least you know what you’re getting in to.” She said, looking us each in the eye one at a time.

  “How long have you been here?” Junebug720 asked.

  “About 8 months? Yeah, that’s about right.” She answered, nodding.

  I raised my hand at the same time I asked, “Any tips for us newbies?”

  “Oh yeah, sure. We’ll get into some of it here when we depart. But for starters it’s a dead giveaway that someone is new here when they don’t introduce themselves first.” Etsuko said. She wasn’t being passive aggressive, I genuinely felt like she was trying to be helpful. “Newer people tend to think that because our name is always displayed, we don’t need to introduce ourselves. But it’s a custom that never really went away. And especially with some professions being able to hide or disguise their name it can be reassuring when meeting new people.”

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Oh, my bad. Roane. It's nice to meet you.” I corrected myself. Everyone else followed suit and in order around the capsule we each gave her our names. “Do you have – “

  “Sorry,” she cut me off, “we’re departing now. There will be a jolt as we get moving, and you'll feel like you're in a rising elevator while we are under way, but other than that it should be smooth sailing!”

  The capsule lurched forward along a tubular track. Fluorescent lights in the tube flew past faster and faster until they were white streaks inches from the glass. Just as it reached its indeterminable cruising speed, we shot out of the tube into the main body of Galaxion two hundred stories up. Like she warned, I felt my guts drop in to my shoes and a brief bout of motion sickness took over. The shift was too much, it was sensory overload. Even as I steadied myself, the feeling of being in a rising elevator remained. But I didn't care. The Hildrun was similarly sized and structured, but this really was a different world entirely. Its central core was completely encrusted with quartz crystals, the size of mountains. Where we had clusters of gray units mashed together, their habitation layer was divided in to zones, some with hardly any people at all. We were all struck dumb.

  The ship, originally the Happelia before being transformed to the Galaxion, was similar to the others in the fleet in that it was nothing more than a hollowed-out asteroid made habitable. 3-mile-thick walls held all of the precious oxygen, water, and heat inside the 30-some mile wide cavernous interior. Almost like living in a gigantic coffee can. A generation ship, it was one of many built to ferry humanity to a new home over several thousand years. To accommodate, all of the ships were terraformed to include multiple biomes and varying day/night cycles. The Happelia, though, suffered a tragedy a few generations ago and had been repurposed as a sort of experimental hub. Eventually it took off as a form of entertainment. A way to experience things that would otherwise be impossible on the other ships. While the main generation ships were governed by restrictions meant to keep humanity grounded and not too reliant on advanced technology, the Galaxion didn't have any of those restrictions. Because it had failed as a generation ship, rebuilding it as one would introduce too many unknowns. So rather than scuttle it completely, it was given this new purpose.

  We zoomed through the sky on a thin rail at a few hundred kilometers per hour. Our rail gently curved to join with a main line that corkscrewed through the interior, a full kilometer from the walls (or ground depending how you looked at it). I could clearly make out a handful of similar capsule cars exiting hidden tunnels in the wall. They, too, joined on the main line just ahead and behind us, complete with their own docent and awe-struck passengers.

  “Ok everyone! This is the Mag-line and it serves as your primary means of distance travel in Galaxion. It functions in much the same way as your mag-lev trains, but it’s a good deal faster and more efficient. They will always travel in the same direction, the same direction of rotation for the ship as a whole. You'll feel slightly heavier aboard the mag-line as a result. You'll get used to it.” Etsuko informed us, resuming her previous cadence. Every sector before the biome line-” she indicated further sunward on the ship. There was an easily visible demarcation about a third of the way out from our side of the asteroid. “- is connected to the Mag-line. Tickets are a flat 40 Rev no matter how far you’re traveling.”

  “Again, like what you’re familiar with, the habitable zones are divided into sectors. But in Galaxion you’ll find there is the familiar modern zone, most people call it Home Zone,” She gestured downwards below our feet. There we could see the slapdash structures we all knew. Buildings seemingly piled haphazardly, layer by layer upwards held together by knotted cabling, desperation, and vomit.

  “The ‘Wild West’,” She gestured to the next zone as we approached it. We zoomed over barren rocky terrains with an absurd number of tumbleweeds and old rickety wooden buildings. It was definitely less populated than the previous zone, but that wasn’t really a promise of peace and quiet.

  “The Medieval Lands” Etsuko said as we came upon a more primitive landscape with castles wrapped in moats, craggy spooky mountains, knights of the realm, and I could swear wizard towers and an actual dragon. I didn’t think people had gone to those lengths yet, but I could be wrong.

  “Mars,” easily the least populated zone, Mars was notorious even to casual observers. First, it didn’t look like mars. It looked like what old sci-fi movies and cartoons made Mars out to be. The ground was grayish lavender and pocked with craters. There were impossible buildings across the landscape. And even though we were moving too quickly to see them, I knew there were all manner of “Martian” monsters hiding around every corner.

  “And Suburbia.” We flew over the 200 square miles of cookie cutter houses, shopping centers with huge parking lots, standalone restaurants, and all manner of quaint little buildings from the 20th century. Rich people lived in suburbia. They had smooth green grass and a several meters between their houses. But that also meant it was a prime zone for more opportunistic players to try and rob the wealthier residents of Galaxion.

  “The core-” Etsuko indicated above our heads to the central tube that ran the length of the asteroid 15 miles up. “-is completely off limits. The core of the Galaxion has been repurposed for the unique terraforming needs of the space and is always working and adjusting the environment as needed. Similarly, the memorial to the Last Generation near the sunward side of the ship is a no-conflict zone. None of your abilities will work there, nor will most types of weaponry. You could start a fight if you really wanted to, but you would be marked the second you did and you’d be hunted without mercy. So just…don’t.” She gave a pleading smile. “Other than those two, everywhere else is fair game. So, I strongly recommend taking precautions. There are still laws and law enforcement, of course, but when dealing with what are basically superpowers you can only do so much.”

  A few hands went up at that, but no one spoke over her. “Please save your questions until the end. We will be riding the entire line which takes 45 minutes. I will likely cover whatever your question is.” Every hand except JuneBug720’s went down.

  “What are those?” JuneBug720 asked anyway. She was just pointing up at the ceiling as if to ask what the sky is. Everyone in the capsule squinted to try and make out what she meant. They were almost impossible to make out over the backdrop of the Medieval Lands that were directly overhead now, and the natural haze distances that great created. And when we did see them, they seemed nothing more than slow moving gnats, or eye floaters. But then we realized they were simply extremely high up riding the wind where the simulated gravity was much lower. How far they were was difficult to tell, as the only scale we had was the core itself and a few passing clouds. anything in between was a span of miles.

  “The pterodactyls?” Etsuko suggested. “Or dragons?"

  "There are a few gigantic flying things, and there are other dinosaurs- “ She continued.

  Blaze Firestalker’s hand went up so fast he banged it off the roof of the capsule accidentally. “Actually, pterodactyls aren’t dinosaurs. They’re flying reptiles, though they are related to dinosaurs and there are actual dinosaurs in most of the biomes.” The words couldn’t escape him fast enough.

  “Uh huh.” Etsuko barely acknowledged the outburst. ”Don’t worry, though. Those ones typically stay way up high. I think they roost on the outside of the core where it’s warmer. They’re not really a threat. Sometimes we get bird strikes from the lower flying birds, but these cars are virtually bullet proof. The glass also filters out any sort of laser or energy blast. In the event of a catastrophic malfunction, the whole thing will fill up with breathable retention foam, but that’s never happened anywhere as long as I’ve been doing this.” This didn’t sound like part of her normal tour script, but it did come off like it was asked more often than not. I wondered why she didn’t just include it in the normal tour. But it seemed to put everyone at ease, even if they did glance up every few seconds from that point on.

  "Now…” Etsuko looked around the cabin thinking, “Oh, so you’ll want to find some place to get settled. Rental prices vary. Some people even just buy a tent and rough it out in the Wild West or Medieval Lands. But I have for each of you a few vouchers for free night’s stays at the newbie hostels in the Home Zone.” She handed everyone a little coupon booklet. “It’s not great, but people don’t typically bother anyone staying there. You’ve got nothing worth taking.” Etsuko smiled in a way that said she had said that 1000 times because she was told to, not because she wanted to. “There’s also some coupons for free or cheap food that should hold you over for a few days while you get settled, and some coupons for discounts at a few places.”

  “Anything native to the biomes doesn’t really care about the dividing line. So just know the closer you are to that line the more likely it is you’ll encounter wildlife native to both areas. The closest ring has jungle and temperate forest, and that is where many of the adventurer professions will also find the more advanced operations you can undertake.” We were approaching that line now as we continued to corkscrew around. The line looked like it passed 3 or 4 miles into the biomes before circling back and heading starward.

  “Everyone with a profession should have a mentor specific to what you chose. You’ll want to touch base with them as soon as you can. If you’re profession-less, you’ll also have a mentor, but they’ll be more like a career guidance counselor to help you choose a profession.” Etsuko rattled off this last bit like it were a disclaimer.

  She looked down at her clipboard tablet and tapped off a few things. “That does it for the main portion of your welcome tour. I’m happy to answer any questions.”

  A few hands went up, and I could see people in the car ahead of us raise their hands as well. It seemed they had also reached the Q&A portion of their tour. One man, a younger guy with blonde spikey hair and invisible eyebrows caught me looking their way. He seemed far more interested in what was going on with us than in what was happening in his own car. He didn't look villainous, but he didn't seem just naturally curious either. It was unsettling. I stared back, refusing the blink and when he finally did I just pointed at him and made an ooooh! face at him. He just glared back.

  “Are there any Mag-lev, er, Mag-lines that go out to the Last Generation monument?” Gary asked.

  “Nope. The Mag-lines only cover the habitable zones. It does extend over the jungle forest biomes, but there are no actual stops there. If you want to visit the monument, there is an underground maintenance tunnel that leads straight there.” Etsuko said. “OH! Before I forget. The Galaxion does have the comb like the other ships," she said, referring to the other ships hexagonal honeycomb structure just below the surface "but they haven’t been updated since the Blight. They are accessible, but there is virtually no security or law enforcement jurisdiction down there. There’s rumors of black markets and very illegal dealings going on in the comb, so just avoid it. Not really a reason you’d ever need to go into the comb.” Etsuko told us. “But to revisit your question, to visit the Last Generation monument, there are marked access points in Home Zone and shuttles that run back and forth frequently.” Gary gave a curt nod in thanks.

  JuneBug720’s hand crept higher and higher until Etsuko looked her way. “How are dragons and dinosaurs part of a biome? They aren’t real.” she asked, still looking up with deep concern on her face.

  “Yeah, the biomes are pretty loose in Galaxion. Since the Blight caused everything to be destroyed there was no way to really pick up where we left off, so nothing in here is meant to be permanent.” Etsuko said. “They’ve managed to bioengineer some pretty crazy stuff. As such, if and when you decide to return to your origin ship, you'll go through a pretty extensive and invasive inspection and quarantine process. Nothing here is allowed to go to the other ships.”

  “And you’re sure they can’t hurt us?” JuneBug720 asked, still very much fixated on the flying creatures.

  “Yes. You’re safe in here.” Came the confident reply. Despite that reassurance, JuneBug720 shrank in her seat, pulling her shoulders up to her ears.

  We looked up to see why this was such an issue for her just in time to see a pterodactyl, easily 100 feet across, careening towards the track on an intercept path with us. It broke its nosedive only a few meters above us, extended its wings to stall its decent and extend its gigantic, clawed feetsies. It caught the speeding capsule one car ahead of us with the blonde creep and wrenched it upwards. The front of our capsule lifted as it pressed in to the now slowed car, creating a horrible metal wrenching sound.

  I only just managed to see their car fill with yellow foam and get carried off before ours derailed and began to tumble. Everything went black.