The station was quiet.
It was always quiet.
Anya sat on a blanket spread across the polished gray floor, cupping a mug of tea in her hands. The land beyond was shrouded in an ever-present mist, casting a mystic aura over the towering, blue-tinted foliage and purplish undergrowth.
She hardly noticed the five inches of glass between her and the outside anymore. The window stretched from floor to ceiling across the entire length of the room. Sometimes, she managed to forget she was indoors at all. The roiling clouds of fog made the landscape into an impressionist painting. The dull grays and blues hid silhouettes of massive trees and rockfaces, specks of colorful fauna floating in and out of view like stray brushstrokes. It was all too easy to pretend...
The clock beeped, summoning Anya from her thoughts in her cozy little nest. She laid her mug down beside the banket and strolled out of the otherwise empty observation room down an altogether empty hallway. She moved like a ghost through a forsaken structure, her bare feet making no sound against the heated floor. The lights were kept dim, even as they sprang to life wherever she went, the only occasional noise a soft hum of machinery within the very walls.
Anya stretched her joints habitually before she reached the control room. She sat down at the holographic monitor displaying the movement of the designated specimens across the map. The chair was slightly chilling against her exposed skin, but she was used to it. Anya never bothered to wear clothing anymore. What was the point when you were the only person on the station?
The Committee's outposts were almost fully automated, only requiring a skeleton crew to monitor the systems and ensure their reports were accurate. Technically, one person was enough to manage it all. The only thing machines couldn't do was to report errors (after all, how could you be sure the diagnostic system hadn't malfunctioned?) The real concern lay with the crew. In most cases, people couldn't handle being in isolation for that long, so teams of two to four were more common.
Anya was doing just fine.
She enjoyed having the entire station to herself. No pestering, no faked pleasantries, no restrictions. She didn't have to keep up appearances, share space or make herself presentable. She couldn't even recall when was the last time she wore anything besides an EVA suit.
She didn't know if there were other outposts on Gaius-2. She was never told. That's how the Committee managed their projects. Do your job, make sure the machines are running, and you'll be given everything you need and told everything you need to know. No more, no less.
As far as she was concerned, she was the only human on the planet.
But she was far from alone. The holograph was showing all sixty-two monitored specimens were currently within two hundred miles of the station, the chips reporting their vitals as normal. All the collection stations were marked as operational and two have been recently used. She would confirm this information when the drones ferried in the samples.
In the meantime... there was data to be obtained!
Exiting the control room, Anya made way towards the hangar where her one true love currently awaited her. The automatic door opened before her and she gazed through the seamless window at the docked Titan mech.
Vaguely humanoid and over a hundred feet tall, the machine was designed to offer advanced maneuverability through difficult, low gravity terrain as well as protection against Kaiju class organisms. She was painted a dull, blueish-gray with yellow lines running along her arms and legs. The "head" sported a thin, wide window, giving it the appearance of a helmet. Overall, the mech looked like a giant armored figure.
Officially, her name was T.U.-756EX. But the custom red calligraphy on the side of her head read: "Pasiphae".
Anya smiled at the Titan as she approached the ATCaMP control unit. All the repairs and maintenance were taken care of automatically once the mech was docked. Beyond that, the
Automatic Titan Construction and Modification Platform
allowed for all sorts of customization. The station fabricators could build any component from raw materials the automines produced. All you needed to do was give the AI a sufficient description and, in a few hours (or days, if you were properly...
ambitious
), you got the desired result installed and ready for use.
Confirming the Titan repaired and refueled, Anya approached the boarding chamber at the back of Pasiphae's head. After entering the proper codes and confirming her biometrics, the armored doors slowly opened, closing behind her as she entered the antechamber.
"How're you doing, girl?" Anya said as she entered the cockpit.
The room was wide and round, but mostly empty. It stretched out across the Titan's head, with a window circling the front half of the cockpit. It was mostly unused as the pilot interface included a full sensory VR, but it remained in place as a safeguard in case the cameras got damaged.
The star of the show, however, was the pilot station in the cockpit's very center. It consisted of what would best be described as a formfitting exoskeleton, with various straps and cables in strategically placed locations, topped off with a VR helmet. Anya bit her lip as she regarded the setup. She had added some more adjustments since last time. She had no doubt they would work just as well as the rest... yet still, the expectation of getting to test them made her quiver.
She approached the waiting contraption and secured herself in. She started by stepping onto the foot platforms, the metallic "boots" clamping down on her feet. Luckily, making the insides padded was the easiest thing ever. Technically, she shouldn't be piloting naked, but there was no real reason she
couldn't
besides a possible discomfort. And she had taken real good care of that.
Next, she leaned back against the exoskeleton's spine and placed her hands in the control gloves, initiating the bootup sequence. She let the straps snap into place around her shins, thighs, abdomen, upper torso, biceps and forearms, before finally, the helmet lowered itself onto her head. A breathing mask covered her face with an air-tight fit, fresh air being supplied from an inlet at the side.
But there was one extra component remaining. One that wasn't part of the standard equipment, rather something a little extra she had installed.