14. The Aetherfin Undertaking #3
Tavi was still taped to Charlie's right side. They'd been sharing the headphones for over two hours now, and Tavi was addicted. She played more Led Zeppelin, songs from Kansas, some Cyndi Lauper, and even some Flock of Seagulls. He'd loved it all.
But Charlie had a keen feeling that his love of it all was because he fell in love with Earth music the moment Robert Plant let out a scream.
Charlie was buckling herself into her seat, the harness securing in their proper places, while Tavi did the same on her right. Apparently, they were going to share the headphone all the way to the ground.
As Charlie heard Torvax start calling out the procedures and tasks for the crew and pilot to engage in landing on the station, Charlie settled into her seat, this time no longer fearful or unknowingly going to damage any Coalition property.
Then, Reyna sat down next to her on her left again, the same seat as the launch. Charlie turned to her, only for the headphone to pop out of her ear, but she left it for the time being.
"What are you doing here?" Charlie asked.
Reyna spun in the seat, the last buckle of the harness in her hands about to be secured. "Sitting here?" Reyna answered in a questioning voice.
"I mean, what are you doing here?" Charlie said, pointing at the chair Reyna now occupied.
Reyna paused, the buckle still in her hands. "You're okay now?"
"Oh!" Charlie said, realization dawning.
"Oh, yeah, I think I'm good. Besides, you're the captain and all, I'm pretty sure you have things you really need to do besides sit here and literally hold my hand through a shuttle landing.
" Charlie chuckled softly, knowing she meant the words but somehow they still didn't feel right. Why?
"Good," Reyna said. Something crossed her face, quick and unreadable, there and gone before Charlie could name it. Then she smiled. "I do, actually. Have things to do." Reyna started to pull at the harness around her when Charlie placed her hand on the armrest between them.
"You took really good care of me on the launch, I feel safe now. Because of you."
"That's good, Charlie," Reyna said. She smiled at her, warm yet brief. Yet, somehow, that didn't seem right. "I'm glad you're okay now."
"Thanks to you," Charlie added.
Reyna nodded once. Then she finished unbuckling her harness, rose from the seat, and crossed the deck to the Captain's chair she'd occupied during the launch checks.
Charlie didn't understand why she suddenly felt a distance between her and Reyna. At least, it was something more than the warmth and care Reyna had showed her on the launch. It ate at her in a way she couldn't understand.
Charlie realized she was probably being ridiculous. There was nothing wrong with how Reyna was acting towards her. In fact, let me just look up at her and smile, see what happens.
Charlie raised her gaze to Reyna across the deck and sent her a sincere smile. Reyna caught it and smiled back, warmth emanating from her gaze before she looked back at her datapad.
See? Everything's fine! She smiled back, you doofus. What more do you want?
Charlie wasn't sure what it was, but she just couldn't convince herself. What more did she want? She didn't know. But it wasn't this.
Three minutes before landing, the station itself became visible in the viewport.
It hung in orbit near Zephyros, but it was Zephyros that caused Charlie to balk.
A gas giant, banded in deep oranges and creams and swirling storms larger than Earth.
It was bigger than anything Charlie had ever conceived of as a single object.
She imagined planets near Earth were this big, but no one had ever seen them up close.
Photographs had been taken and shared from satellites multiple times, but nothing could garner the sheer size and vastness of what this kind of scientific miracle looked like outside your own window.
It was so massive and so close that it didn't look like a planet at all. It looked like a wall.
The station was small against it. It was dark except for the faint pulse of the emergency lighting running along its hull. Its purpose had been served and now it looked derelict. Its subjects had been forgotten. But that's why the Emberkind crew was here.
Charlie could see the structural degradation even from the shuttle.
She could see the panels slightly misaligned, what looked like a communications array dark and cold, and even the docking lights flickering instead of holding steady as they arrived.
It seems they got there just in the nick of time.
"Backup power at twenty-one percent," Maren reported from her console. "Rate of degradation suggests we have half an hour before the zero-G field in the observation bay fails."
"That's half of the initial projection," Reyna said from her seat.
That only meant one thing. "The degradation is accelerating," Charlie said. The numbers were trying to tell them something, and Charlie worried that maybe it was something no one wanted to hear. "The power curve isn't linear. It's exponential decay."
Charlie looked across at Reyna. "Captain, we may very likely have less than a half hour."
That was when Reyna looked at her for the first time since she'd moved back to her seat. Charlie didn't see anything in her gaze except leadership. But something about that made Charlie feel hollow.
Charlie didn't have long to dwell on that before Reyna said, "Then we don't waste time. Team, let's get this done."
After landing and then collecting the equipment and instruments required for their mission, they disembarked and found the Aetherfin in the observation bay on the station's upper level.
Charlie walked through the dark corridors of the dying station, her hands trailing along the walls out of habit, reading the structure through the glove covering her fingertips.
It wasn't the same as touching it directly, but she could still feel the metal here was different from the Emberkind's.
Older, a much colder temperature she could feel through her gloves.
The materials felt generalized, as though this station was only constructed to serve its purpose for a short time.
Function over care, Charlie thought. She started to realize the Emberkind felt like a ship people loved and tended to, down to its last maintenance log.
But this station felt like a building someone was planning to discard.
When they reached the observation bay, Tavi went to the panel next to the bay door, plugged in his datapad, and navigated through its systems. After a moment, the door opened, and Charlie stopped breathing.
The zero-G field was still holding, barely, a sphere of weightlessness in the center of a high-ceilinged chamber lit only by the creatures inside it. And the creatures...
Three Aetherfin drifted in the failing field, graceful and elegant in only the way superior beings can be when those around them fail in comparison, and know it.
Their wingspans stretched eight, maybe nine feet, translucent membranes rippling with slow, hypnotic grace.
They reminded Charlie of manta rays back on Earth, the way their bodies undulated with that same effortless, wing-like motion, gliding as though the medium they moved through was made specifically for them.
But where manta rays were solid and dark, the Aetherfin were luminous, their bodies shifting through colors that Charlie struggled to even name, pale blues deepening to violet, silvers catching what little light remained and scattering it into prisms, bioluminescent veins threading through their fins like rivers of light mapped across a living sky.
They moved the way clouds move, if clouds were conscious and beautiful and made entirely of light.
"Beautiful, aren't they?" Maren asked, approaching Charlie and pulling her from her reverie.
Charlie looked over at Maren as she approached.
Behind Maren, she noticed Torvax, Tavi, Kess, and Reyna walk through the bay doors and into the space, taking a moment to admire the Aetherfin as well.
Charlie returned her attention back to Maren.
"Beyond beautiful," Charlie admitted. Maren chuckled.
"I suppose they are. They're easily one of the most beautiful species I've ever had the pleasure to work with, at least in my experience here with the Emberkind.
And they're even more magnificent beyond their physical features.
One of my favorite facts about them is that they navigate entirely by magnetoreception.
Their homeworld has no solid ground, just endless atmosphere, so they evolved to sense magnetic fields the way you and I sense light.
Right now, they can feel the Emberkind's magnetic signature.
They already know which direction is home. "
"That's incredible."
'You say that word a lot.'
'What word?'
'Incredible.'
'You sure are tracking my vocabulary with impressive exactitude.'
'Incredible' is an incredible word to note.'
'Well, things here keep being incredible.'
"Good word," Maren commented, looking over at Charlie. Charlie startled, then found her eyes trail over Maren's shoulder searching for Reyna, but she'd moved into position by the module with the other members of the team.
"Ready to get started?" Maren asked, pulling Charlie back once again. "You're handling the whole process once we're back on the Emberkind, but we could use your help over here with the loading, if you'd like?" Charlie's eyes lit up.
"Yeah! Absolutely. Lead the way."