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structure that is able to withstand five thousand tons of pressure per square inch. We tested it by dropping it here from orbit once we had it built.”
    “ Damn ,” I whistled, impressed. That's one way to see if your engineers were full of crap or not. “Is this place almost indestructible or something?”
    “Pretty close,” Gerry nodded. “Without going into the technical details of the station, you could say this place could survive…quite a bit.”
    “That must have cost a fortune,” I guessed. “Why'd they spend so much money on a station here, anyways?”
    “Why, indeed,” Gerry said. “Must be something pretty damn important here for them to lie about the timing of the construction, as well as pouring almost fifteen dreadnoughts worth of money into a planet-bound science station.”
    He was good, but I didn’t take the bait. I wanted to play it cool.
    “A crewman of the shuttle that brought me in mentioned that there's a Navy task group above the planet. What're they up there for?”
    “Well, Titan is technically claimed by the United States,” Gerry explained. “But since Russia and China protested the US claiming planets within the home solar system, it's under UN jurisdiction for the time being. But this is a moon, and one that doesn't orbit Earth, so things are in legal limbo, for lack of a simpler description. The US task group above is there to maintain a UN presence until a relief force can be provided.”
    “But we're the nation primarily funding the UN,” I looked at him, surprised. “Who's going to be sending a ship – much less a small fleet – here to operate under the flag of the UN?”
    “Who, indeed?” Gerry's smiled was filled with mirth. “We expect that a coalition of Chinese and Russian military vessels will arrive to relieve the US of security duty here at this station in three years. At which time, we'll pack up and leave.”
    “And the station?” I asked, though I had a sneaky suspicion I already knew the answer to that question.
    “What station?” Gerry looked at me as innocently as a child caught with his hand in a cookie jar was able to. “It's not scheduled to be completed for another five years. We were running so far behind that the station was never completed.”
    “Devious. Of course, there is still a station here... I bet there's a plan in place to render it unusable and uninhabitable, like we used to do at embassies in hostile countries back in the day. Maybe even sink it to the bottom of this lake and call it an ‘engineering accident’.” At Gerry’s silence, I pursed my lips in thought. “Okay, so perimeter security is handled by the Navy. So what, exactly, are we here for?”
    He pushed a button, holding it down until it turned green. The doors slid closed. “Fingerprint scanner. Just in case.”
    “That was a weak dodge,” I said. “Should have tried something a little more subtle, like talking about the amenities or chow.”
    “Yeah, good catch on that one. There's always a good reason why they send a noob here. It's easier for me to show you than to explain everything, though.”
    “Show me what? And who're you calling a noob?”
    “What we're doing here,” Gerry explained. “Why we need security when the Navy is orbiting around the moon with enough firepower to take on a small fleet.”
    “That's no moon…” I said in a mock-somber tone.
    “What?” Gerry looked at me, confused. “This is a moon. Why would you think it wasn't? Didn't you see that big blob in space while you were en route? You know, Saturn? Of which this hunk of rock is a satellite of, which by definition makes it a moon?”
    “Never mind,” I sighed. Some people had no respect for the classics. “It's a geek thing.”
    “You're a weird guy, you know that?”
    “So…the elevator shows that there are fifteen levels,” I said as the elevator began to descend. “That tells me that this station is a hell of a lot bigger than it looks from the