Epilogue
Terra Firma
“Okay, so the descent is going to be pretty rocky,” the orbit-to-planet transport pilot said over the comms.
Davik nervously checked his buckles and then Fia’s.
“Expecting a little turbulence, but nothing outside the norm. So, if you hear a snap, a crackle, or a pop, keep calm. Unless I’m screaming, then definitely don’t keep calm. We’ll be landing on lush Eobos in twenty.”
“Fia? Are you sure this is a good idea? I don’t think I need to be physically at the supply depot to help them figure out their maintenance issues. I mean, yeah, it’ll make stuff easier, but…”
She just smiled and grabbed his hand, weaving her fingers between his. “I think it will be worth the trip. I am nervous too, though. The last time I was planetside was long, long ago.”
Aboard this ship, they were just two among nearly two hundred.
There were so many excited families talking to each other about their plans to settle, to build a home, and to explore.
Old Icthians who were speaking in Teelish about finally returning to water.
Or at least, that’s what he thought they were saying.
He had been trying to pick up more words here and there, and he was getting the hang of it, but it was still hard to follow.
The pseudo-grav of the orbital station they were docked at faded away, and he felt the odd lightness in his joints as weightlessness replaced synthetic g-forces. He gripped Fia’s hand, half in excitement, half in anxious nerves.
“Hey, look, another first. You’re the first girl that’ll hold my hand in real-grav,” he said with a chuckle.
Fia leaned over and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek. “First, and hopefully the last, no?” she asked with a sly wink. An expression that she had not quite mastered yet, but he was still too smitten to tease her about it.
“If I play my cards right.”
Fia pursed her lips and made a hard-to-discern noise of contemplation. “I think your cards have been well played.”
“Your grasp of English language slipping there a bit, love?”
She chuckled and winced. “No, just dizzy.”
He was feeling it too. They had left low orbit and had entered the slow arc towards the surface. The rumbling sensation of the ship and the pull of the massive planet beneath them was an odd thing to get the inner ear used to.
They held onto each other tightly and watched out the window as the inky black sky slowly faded behind a gray plume. It was a massive shape, roiling and edgeless. He could swear it looked familiar. In fact, he was dead sure that it was the slow-moving smoke from an electrical fire.
“Shit, Fi. I think the ship is on fire!” he uttered in a worried hush, pointing out the window.
It might be an emergency, but there were too many people crammed into too small a place. It would be a meat grinder in here if he set off a panic.
“Oh, Davik.” She cupped his chin softly and smiled, the corners of her eyes crinkling. “Those, my beloved, are clouds.”
The first few days had been rough. Davik wasn’t sure if it was the sparse accommodations that he and Fia had been stuck in that left him so drained, or just the brutal travel days as they made their way by ground to get to the supply depot.
Traveling by a wheel-based vehicle was a wild thing. Sure, on larger stations, there were some ground cars for the fancy folks and rail transports for the rest. But even on the largest stations, the furthest lines took twenty, maybe thirty minutes before you reached the other end.
Here, though? Here, you could drive for hours, endlessly. He felt exposed with no ceiling overhead, and a shifting sky that actually warmed his skin during the day. The air smelled and tasted odd. Not bad, just odd.
Fia was adapting about as well as he was, but they were finding ample time in the nights to distract each other from the oddity of this new experience.
It was temporary, though. He had to remember that. This was just a temporary assignment while they fixed some problems planetside. Then, like always, Fia would be summoned elsewhere, and he would follow along.
Maybe that was why he was so reticent to really enjoy the feeling of his joints adapting to this new environment.
He had halved the amount of pain meds and anti-inflammatory doses already, and they were barely a week in.
He couldn’t let himself get too used to it.
The pain would be back as soon as they were sent skyward again.
Work on the depot had been fun, though. It was a livestock and animal products supply station, so he had a fun logistics challenge.
Figuring out the details of refrigeration, safe stasis setups for live animals that were being sent to supply other stations, and anti-vermin efforts for the grain silos.
It also meant he had a nearly endless supply of eggs and actual produce.
Dinners in their cramped little cargo-container-turned-cabin were the best he had ever made.
The makeshift shelter used for traveling officers in Heliovor wasn’t quite homey, but it had a stovetop and a bed, and that was more than enough for him to be happy.
He was enthusiastically making another protein-heavy bowl of grains and greens for Fia as she came home that night. She looked absolutely wrecked as she shucked her boots off by the door.
“Long day?” he asked.
She let out a laugh as she finished hanging up her thick coat. “They all are, but it is good work.” She gripped his hand and smiled before they both settled into the little dining table. “How was your day?”
“Ah, same as usual. I got to hold a duck today!” He gestured at the bowls. “I got duck eggs!”
She took a hearty bite, and her eyes rolled back in a happy sigh. “They. Are. Delicious,” she mumbled, her mouth full of lentils and yolk.
“I know it isn’t forever down here, but this has been nice. Really, really nice.”
He picked at his own bowl, running his thumb along the rim and frowning.
He didn’t want to spoil the moment by dwelling on how it’ll end, but he was a logistics engineer.
With that role came access to the schedule.
He knew next week another officer was landing, and the newcomers were slated to stay in this little cabin he had grown so fond of.
Fia’s hand found his thigh and squeezed it. That brief pang of dreariness slipped away and immediately swapped to a much more insistent and carnal throb.
“Tomorrow, can I steal you away for the afternoon?” she asked, her fingers making little circles on his legs.
“Hm, that’ll be hard. I’ll have to get that approved by an officer,” he sighed, shrugging. “You know, I don’t know how I would convince her to approve that. Though I hear she is amenable to sexual favors.”
The table beneath them creaked as she leaned over it to press a kiss right against the little spot behind his ear that made his knees buckle. Thank God he was sitting.
“In that case, you had best perform some spectacular tricks tonight, my love. It has been far too long since you have used that tongue of yours.”
“Fi, it’s been like two days! Max!”
“Too long,” she murmured, nipping at his ear.
Their food was ice-cold by the time they got their pants back on, but neither of them gave a damn.
The next day, at two o’clock sharp, Fia was waiting to pick him up in a little gray ground car.
“So, you gonna tell me what this little adventure is?” he asked as Fia set the navigation for them. The screen estimated the destination was a half hour away from their location, following a route that didn’t seem to lead to any of the up-and-coming urban areas he was familiar with. “Camping?”
She bit her lower lip and narrowed her eyes as she looked straight out the front window, mulling over her answer. “Not exactly?”
He cocked an eyebrow and laughed. “You’re driving me out into the woods to screw in the trees or something?”
“Oh, that as well, absolutely.”
He quizzed her relentlessly on their journey, but she remained steadfast in dodging the questions. She might just be messing with him, and he was half certain they were just heading towards a departure station. She probably knew he was dreading returning skyward.
Maybe she was trying to soften the blow by taking away my opportunity to fret over it.
They were well and truly in the woodlands now. Or at least, what he assumed woodlands would be. Terraforming on this planet had begun in earnest about two centuries back, so while there were no old-growth forests, lots of dense greenery had claimed this mountainous ridge.
Thick conifers, willow shrubs, and a few hybrid Bhrellan ferns were rapidly overtaking the soil. All things that flourished well in the chilly, damp climate of this hemisphere of Eobos.
The ground car trundled along the paved road and eventually turned off onto a dirt path, coming to a halt in a charging bay.
“What is a charging bay doing out in the middle of nowhere?”
“Come, come,” Fia said, beckoning him to follow her.
The daylight was fading, but it was still light enough to see the path from the ground car. Together they walked a little route paved with natural stones that made a satisfying thudding noise underfoot.
In the air was a scent that he had learned was called “earthy”.
Fitting, considering they were surrounded by earthen things.
But not quite accurate. This was a new world, light-years away from Earth.
Unfortunately, “Eobos-y” wasn’t a term that hit the ear pleasantly. Earthy would have to suffice for now.
The dense foliage gave way after a few paces to a clearing, and within it, a domed residential unit. One not unlike the ones he had helped organize transport for down here. They were cozy little pre-built domiciles, usually two or three rooms, and suited for permanent residence and expansion.
He was so busy pondering the logistics of how it had gotten there that he didn’t realize they were walking up to the door.
“Are we visiting someone?” he asked.
They had made a few friends on-planet and others in Heliovor who were also coming and going. Fia shook her head and grasped his hand, holding it to the access panel beside the front door. It scanned his palm and made a bright and cheery noise as the internal system greeted him.
“Welcome home, Davik Yerevan.”
He felt a sudden rush of realization. Then confusion. Then realization again.
“No way. Wait. No, really?!”
“You should go inside and make sure you like it first. If you do not, we can always pack up, and…”
He pulled her into his arms and felt her return the embrace with a soft and happy sway, her lips pressed to his temple.
His heart flipped in his chest. He had always dreamed of something like this.
A home, a proper home, one that had sky above and ground below.
One that could not be vented into the atmosphere, or deplete a fuel cell, and be stranded floating between waypoints.
A home. A home with her?
“Wait. Not just me, right? You aren’t leaving? This is ours?” he asked, doing his best to keep the excitement in his voice tamed.
“Unless you have an objection. I may occasionally need to venture skyward, but after much discussion with my commander…” she trailed off as she pressed her palm to the access panel.
Welcome home, Sentu Leucifia Almenes.
“Now, I have yet to check the integrity of the beds,” she murmured against his ear. “I really think that should be our top priority.”
“On it, officer!” Davik whooped, slinging his arm around Fia’s waist and dragging her into their happy little home.
The cool breeze coming through the window was absolute heaven on his sweat-slicked skin.
Both of them had ensured that the bed, the kitchen counter, the couch, and the dining table could support both their weight and rigorous movement.
He would need to make a note of that for these units in the future. Fantastic craftsmanship.
Her fingers traced down his chest as she rose from her slumber. The bed they were tangled up in had a beautiful view out the window, a little green clearing that opened up above the treeline to a pitch-black night sky. That place he had spent his entire life felt so far away from down here.
“Davik?” she asked, her voice still tinged with sleep.
“Yeah?” he replied, his fingers finding hers.
“Come, take a walk with me.”
He followed as she pulled him by the hand towards the end of the bed. Much to his chagrin, she began to put on clothes. His eyes were glued to the sweet swell of her hips as she did so, and so transfixed that he scarcely noticed as she tucked something blue into her pocket.
She held her hand out for him to join her, her tendrils flaring with nervous energy.
“What is it, Fi? You alright?” he asked, reaching out to offer a reassuring touch along her cheek as she stood in front of him.
“Come, take a walk with me. I have something I have been meaning to ask you.”