Gravity Between Us

Chapter 1

ONE

ELAINA

The sandstone surface of Earendel was soft under her boot when Elaina stepped off her shuttle at 3400. Her head swam as she tried to orient herself in the planet’s higher gravity. Being back on solid ground after a full segment in orbit would take some getting used to.

The boxy slate-gray mechanical pack hound carried her luggage down the ramp. Elaina sighed at the underloaded machine, carrying a single backpack and a toolbelt. She strapped the belt around her waist and slung her pack over one shoulder. Flexing her toes in her boots to get a feel for familiar ground, she set off down the dusty road winding its way toward Chevron.

It was late at the edge of the universe, so the solitude of her walk wasn’t surprising. But something about the quiet of the road was unsettling nonetheless. There was a tautness in the air, something Elaina couldn’t quite shake—or maybe it was just her imagination, still reeling from the atmosphere pressing on her shoulders.

By the time Elaina dragged her feet up the metal staircase to her hab on the outskirts of Chevron, she could barely keep her eyes open enough to pass the retinal scan. Her backpack kicked up a puff of dust as she let it drop to the floor, soon followed by the clatter of her toolbelt. Elaina dragged herself to the bathroom, stripping her clothes as she went. She rubbed her eyes and stared at her barely visible reflection in the mirror, illuminated dimly by the motion sensor light orb at the sink. She had showered before departing the station, but now the dust of Earendel seemed to be in every nook and cranny of her body. As much as she wanted to collapse into bed, she felt her way to the shower pod instead.

Elaina lifted her face to the stream of water, letting the cascade relax her muscles. Once the grime was washed down the drain, out of her hair and nostrils, Elaina wrapped herself in a fluffy flaxweave towel and—finally—crawled into bed. That feeling from before was gone, the solitary tension of the walk. It had just been the adjustment to the atmosphere after all.

“You’re off today, El.” Tuskin glanced up from the circuit board he was soldering as she entered.

“I know.” Elaina trailed her hand over the metal tables lined with disassembled components. Her fingers itched to pick up the gutted satellite motherboard, to reconfigure and replace its broken parts. The urge to repair tingled at her fingertips.

“Busy down here too, huh?” she said.

“How’d you guess…” Tuskin grunted, magnified behind old specs he refused to ditch.

“Up there too. More than last shift,” Elaina mused. “Something is going on up there, and here too, I think. It’s… weird.”

“Things break, El. It’s in their nature. ”

She clicked her tongue. “Not like this. The wear patterns I’ve seen all suggest?—”

“Station’s old,” Tuskin cut in. “Planet’s old.”

Elaina hummed. He was probably right. They were just going through a bad cycle. Or a good one, as far as work was concerned—more to patch, more tokens for them. Elaina should’ve been happy. She had done well for herself since she’d arrived on Earendel from Glacial Twelve a decade ago. There was demand for a specialist astrotechnician to do component repair planetside, and more intricate work up on the orbital station. Not to mention all the generic bits and bobs that needed patching. Elaina wasn’t yet in a position to build her own hab and retire in the mountains of Alpha Prime, but she did well enough for herself.

“Go rest, El,” Tuskin urged. “Take a walk. You’re still recovering from orbit. Mild paranoia’s routine after these longer shifts, remember?”

He was right again. Every time she returned from a stint at the orbital station, Elaina’s anxiety ratcheted up for a few sols. Something about the variable air pressure, maybe.

She just needed some fresh air.

Chevron city center was busy as usual, and Elaina took the quieter side streets as she navigated to her favorite teahab, a cozy little hole nestled inside an oversized cargo container. Repurposing materials was their specialty on Earendel. When you’re at the edge of the known universe, on a planet named after one of the most distant stars originally detected, you take what you can get.

“She’s back!”

“And awake.”

Elaina cut through the tables toward the voices, pressing a palm to the side of her neck in greeting. The corner table in the back was the coziest spot in the place, and that was where she’d always find the group—the Chevron Chatters, they called themselves. Four of them this time. She’d started attending their syncs to get out of her hab more. It was good for her to be around people, she’d realized a couple of cycles back. It was just… There were always so many other things to do! Repairs to make, new tech to deconstruct, hikes out in the arids.

Lance pushed a bowl of sandseeds toward her as Elaina took a seat. He jerked a strand of glistening golden hair from his eye. “How was it up there? A segment’s a long time.”

“Good.” Elaina popped a seed in her mouth. The dry, crumbly outer layer gave way to a burst of sweet nectar as it cracked between her molars. “Missed these, though. The ones on station are always stale. What are we chatting about?”

“The sand. Again.” Mia, the organizer of the conglomerate, sighed, adjusting her sheenlace hood around her neck.

“Not just the sand,” Petra protested, smacking her palm on the table in faux outburst. Petra was the dramatic one. “The fact that it gets everywhere .”

Petra had only been on Earendel for a season.

“You get used to it,” Elaina offered. It had certainly taken her a few windy cycles to get used to the sand and dust getting… well, literally everywhere. Now it barely bothered her anymore. It was only the dark segments that still got to her sometimes, when the sun was dimmer and almost completely obscured by atmospheric sandstorms. It had been an adjustment after Glacial Twelve. The station in the bustling center of the Kessler Galaxy had its lighting and climate strictly controlled for optimal mood enhancement and performance .

That was fine, though. Elaina was nothing if not adaptable. Besides, her decision to move hadn’t been about creature comforts. It was about adventure. The itch to go somewhere new and do something different. A fresh start in a new place to discover.

After the tea was cold, the sand topic worn out, and the sandseeds devoured, Elaina was happy but ready to trudge back home and crawl into bed with a book on her dataslate.

“It’s great to have you back,” Lance stepped out onto the curb next to her. “What are you looking at?”

Elaina tipped her chin up. “That.”

“What? There a ship up there?”

She looked at him. “No, just the sky.”

Didn’t he see the silvery wisps of cloud interspersed with red and orange grains overhead, weaving through like a glistening braid stitching together two halves of the sky? Hadn’t he noticed how beautiful it was?

“Oh, right.” Lance grinned sheepishly. “Yeah, it is. Hey, we should sync up here sometime. You know, without the others.”

Elaina’s first impulse was to politely decline. She had way too many other things to do, by herself. But Lance was objectively exactly her type in seemingly every way. And… wasn’t this what she wanted, in the end?

She realized he was looking at her. Waiting.

“That sounds really nice.” The pressure under her ribs subsided when she forced herself to ignore it.

“Great.” Lance’s shoulders relaxed. “I’ll ping you later and we’ll arrange something.”

“Sounds solid.” Elaina’s smile was mostly genuine. As she walked back home, her initial pang of trepidation morphed into tentative hope. Lance had been edging up to her for a while. He liked her, and maybe she could just let herself like him too .

But she had work to do, Elaina remembered as she passed by the garage. Too much work, by the looks of things. A nice problem to have. When would she even have time for Lance with all that work?

Stop it.

As Elaina climbed the stairs to her hab, that nagging disorientation of lingering gravity adjustment hit her again. She pressed her fingers to her sternum, massaging a spot there to will the sensation away.