Space, Orbiting the Gas Giant Indra, ~15 AU From Brahma
Indra glowed like a jewel set in the black. Its angry radiance drowned out the stars behind it, making it the only source of light save for the floodlights that dotted the solar sail frames and washed the copper-colored sails in bright, white light. This was the first time Laz had laid eyes on it. He had seen images of Indra, and watched videos that showed the violent dance of clouds that rushed across its surface. Like all school children on Brahma, he knew the Indus system in a trivial, artificial way. By the time he was six he could name all of the planets, place them in order, both on distance from the main star and on biggest to smallest. Discounting the brown dwarfs Shiva and Kali that lumbered along the farthest edges of the system, Indra was the largest object orbiting Indus. It had four times the mass of Jupiter, the biggest gas planet in the old Earth system. More relevant, and hard to fathom for Laz, Indra was somewhere around seventy five times the mass of Brahmapura. It was big, Laz could see, but there was nothing next to it that allowed him to visually understand how truly big it was.
Indra wasn't known for its size. Sharing a system with Shiva and Kali, it was only considered the biggest when they were taken out of the running. Indra was known for it's savage surface. A swirl of fast moving brown, yellow, and red bands, Indra stewed with millions of immortal storms. Unlike Jupiter, who's Great Red Spot still played a part in the collective memory of humanity, Indra had seven such storm eyes. They differed in size, some mere pimples while others were large enough to swallow all the moons of Brahmapura seven times.
"That is why I chose to get into this field." Eury said, excited and awestruck. He could see it in her eyes. She looked at the planet below like a teenager in love.
"It is incredible." Laz agreed. "I always wanted to visit the planets, but I never imagined them like this. There is nothing that captures the experience of actually being there." He looked at Eury and smiled fondly.
The cloudy bands of the planet were as scattered and violent as the storms that occupied them. They mixed with each other, zig-zagging and stirring into one another until their boundaries were no longer easy to see. Every few moments, pinpricks of light flashed on the surface, dancing just beneath the surface of the clouds.
"Is that lightning?" Laz asked.
Eury nodded. "Indra produces a lot of lightning. They look small, but in reality they are so big that a single strike would cover the entirety of Brahma twice over." A sudden sense of self-awareness washed over her face, and she blushed ans smiled shyly. "I'm sounding like your teacher or something now, aren't I?"
"Not at all." Laz answered. "This sort of thing is fascinating." he looked out the window as another point of white light flashed on the surface. "What causes it to be so stormy?"
"That's very interesting." Eury replied excitedly. "Indra has a moon that is also a Gas Giant. The only time that has ever been seen in human space, as far as I know at least. Aindri. You can't see it from here, it's somewhere above us right now, but the tidal force Aindri's exerts on Indra disturbs its atmosphere."
//"Corporals Oils, Marx, and Paladino to the landing bay. Corporals Oils, Marx, and Paladino to the landing bay."// a soothing voice called out over the PA.
"What's that?" Eury asked.
Laz stood up and straightened his uniform. "Arrivals. The passengers we picked up at Indra Station." he grinned. "I will be back soon. There isn't anything dangerous down there."
She nodded and looked out toward the planet.
Laz rubbed the grip of his grandfather's Ultrasonic Pistol as he walked. It was instinctive, a small reminder of home while he was this far away. He figured that it looked authoritative, like a reminder to everyone around him that he was armed and ready. This was a IU ship, and its crew was made of naval personnel, but most weren't armed. This was a simple supply ship after all. They had no need of marines.
The hallways of the Aro were long passages with few abrupt turns. Rather, they curved slightly until they reached their destinations. Laz wasn't sure if they did this for some structural reason, or if it was just another attempt by the designers to soften the design so it hid the reality that they were in a nuclear missile hurdling at painful speeds through the radioactive nothingness of space. Space travel was, at its root, a terrifying prospect. There were safety's guaranteed to them by being on a habitable planet. When stranded on Brahma, you could breath the air and walk across a surface thanks to the presence of gravity and friction. In space, you stayed in your vessel or you died. Help, two, was millions if not billions of kilometers away. There were plenty of people with genuine phobias of space travel, much more than there were of planetary forms of transportation. Designers fought this with controlled lighting built into the wall panels, favoring soft glows to harsher alternatives. The surfaces were variations of "Off-white", light enough without being glaringly bright.
Crewmen and women passed him by, busy with their own tasks. On this level of the vessel, they were all on duty. Laz watched as a plastic-plated white porterbot ambled by, causing everyone to give it a wide birth. It moved mechanically, its two-legged strides sudden, shaky, and inorganic. He loved to watch their arms. No matter how awkward their gaits might be, every porterbot held its arms so still that, if programmed correctly and given precise enough hands, they would make excellent surgeons. It was the work of gyroscopic joints at the shoulder and elbow. This model lacked a head, but instead had a single eye in the middle of its chest placed on a strip that could rotate three-hundred and sixty degrees around its torso.
Laz arrived in the landing bay as a couple of shuttles entered. They came from a massive airlock on the far end, which allowed for crewmen to move freely along the bay without being forced to evacuate with the entrance of every average-sized shuttle. Overlooking the scene from a catwalk, Captain Kgosi watched keenly as the new arrivals came to a stop.
"Is there something bad about this one, boss?" Laz grinned. Kgosi did not look up, and his expression remained one of military sternness.
"We got a violent criminal on this one." Laz watched as two guards dragged a man in a straight-jacket out of a shuttle. He was fighting them every step of the way, move as if he was punching them despite his restraints, and as if he was biting them despite a muzzle covering his face. His hair was a grey bush of uncombed knots and rats, and his skin was discolored and bruised.
"What's this one?" Laz asked.
"Orbital Madness." Kgosi suggested. "He was an eccentric, but there was no sign of insanity until last week."
"What happened?"
"He ate his roommate." Kgosi said coldly.
Laz looked back down at the man and winced. "That's an extreme case for Orbital." he said. Orbital Madness was a term given to the breakdown of mental facilities that happened to some people when they spent too much time in space. It had been compared to cabin fever in the past, though it was much more than that. Stuck in a small environment, isolated by an extreme distance from the rest of human civilization and poorly socialized, some people started to lose their senses. It was more common among sensitive people who felt isolated from those they shared their space with. Depression and paranoia were the most common symptoms, and hallucinations were not unheard of. Murderous cannibalism, however... that was something from a horror story.
"They talk to me!" Laz heard the madman shout. He screamed under his breath, like a loud demonic mutter. His voice sounded forced and strained. "They're out there."
The guards ignored him. Laz fell in line, trailing them as they led him through the halls. The two other guards fell in with the captain and took the lead, clearing the halls as they dragged their unwilling prisoner to the brig.
"Obsidian extinction!" he cackled nonsensically. "They know! They know you! They know!"
Laz was legitimately frightened. He had seen plenty in his time, but this type of deranged psychopathy was a new experience. He had spent his career in Nai Kolkatta patrolling the safe zone for pirates and Mayura, but insanity and crime were not in his area of knowledge or training. He watched nervously, ready to jump into action at any moment.
The muzzle his most of the man's face. His skin was thick and wrinkled, and his eyes were partially obscured by a jutting brow. Everything underneath the muzzle was left to imagination. Laz imagined needle-sharp teeth, like some sort of predator.
"They see!" the convict shouted on the top of his lungs. A wall panel flickered to the side as he spoke. It was subtle, but it caused Laz's heart to jump into his throat. That was silly. Laz cursed himself for being so weak minded.
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Port Said, Suez Canal
Short bursts of assault rifle fire struck the ground, scattering dust and kicking out shards of pavement. The Suez had been a desperate gambit, pitched against not only the Spanish Navy, who's slow approach felt like a the march of a lumbering giant that, when it arrived, would crush everything around them, but also against the Egyptian warlord who had claimed the Suez. It had been claimed by the same self-proclaimed dictator that ruled Damietta to the east. The area he controlled was small, but he had held onto it firmly. Their only fear now was that he would join forces with the Spanish in order to hunt down the Ethiopian forces that haunted both of them.
Leyla pointed her pistol in the rough direction of a nearby parking garage and fired two rounds. The shots echoed like a bell in her head as she dove for cover behind a concrete barrier. "I thought they were supposed to be cleared." she yelled above the cacophony of violence to Elias as he dove in next to her. Something in front of them exploded - a grenade, a rocket, she couldn't tell - and it sent a plume of rock-shards and dust into the air, covering everything in a thin film of dirt and smoke.
"Who the fuck knows." Elias said. He stretched backward, straining to see over the barrier without taking a bullet to the skull. Leyla watched nervously, anticipating the worst. It seemed like forever, though it was only a couple of seconds. He snapped back, falling into the protection of their cover. "Three of them, I think." he said, "And they have the high ground."
A truck plodded down the road, its driver ducking beneath the dashboard and several cautious Ethiopian soldiers doing the same in the back. They drew enemy fire, and the Walinzi agents in their cement hiding place sensed it. They jumped up, their aim rough and quick as they sprayed a couple of shots before falling the corner of the barrier.
From the back of the truck, three Ethiopian riflemen rose up and gave fire. The sound of their volley was abrupt, only a few quick clapping shots being released. One of the riflemen, a young soldier who hadn't yet shed his boyish looks, fell back violently as his jaw exploded in a bloody hail of torn flesh and gushing blood. Under the constant sound of war, in between nearby rifle reports, his muffled cries haunted the field.
Elias looked at Leyla and nodded toward the truck. She took a deep breath, put another clip in her weapon, and followed him when he went sprinting away from cover. Her heart was in her throat, and it jumped every time an enemy bullet struck the ground behind her. Her vision blurred, leaving only a clear target in front of her. They slid behind the truck, both of them catching their breath as the Ethiopians in the truck-bed exchanged another round with the Egyptians in the parking garage.
Her lungs burned and her head reeled. She stared at the bloody splatter that coagulated in the dust in front of her feet. The smell of smoke and blood mixed with the dust that hung over the plaza like a fog.
"We need to get around them." she heard Elias shout up at the driver.
"No. No." the driver yelled back, straining to be louder than the gunfire. "This is a distraction. This is a dis..."
Before he could finish, something hissed above their head. It was sharp and angry, like a cobra falling from the sky. She saw the trail it left, the sparks dancing in a cloud of beige. And then she remembered. They were better armed than the Egyptians.
She heard the explosion, and the celebrating soldiers whooping from the back of their truck. A second hiss flew above her head. Bending around the truck, she watched as the rocket smashed into the parking garage and left a bloom of fire and crumbling cement where the enemy had stood before. She heard the patter of debris smacking against the plaza, and then silence. Only distant gunfire echoed through the grey urban warzone that was Port Said.
Quietly, the two Walinzi and the men from the truck approached the garage. Leyla's eyes were fixed on the smoking scar in the side of the building. Anything, any hint of movement, would be enough to spook her. It was too silent and too still, she did not trust it. Somewhere, someone was going jump up and catch them while they were in the open. She could sense that the others felt the same way, and she could feel their tension.
They made it into the garage without incident, but she was hardly put at ease. In there, it was open and dark. Shadows filled the crevices, creating the habitat for ambushes. They fanned out, inspecting each corner carefully as the moved up floor by floor.
The structure groaned above them. Leyla listened closely, afraid that the moans of damaged cement and steel could be hiding the auditory clues of a living enemy.
When they reached the snipers nest, they find their quarry. The rocket had scattered the shooters as much as it had scattered the cement. Pieces of Egyptian sat at the end of bloody trails. A red splatter dripped from the ash-blackened ceiling above.
Beyond their gory perch, Leyla and Elias could see the ENS Aksum getting into position. It was where the two canals at the mouth met and became one. The Aksum had turned itself around, broadside facing the sea. A stout tower hid half of it from view. "Do we watch from here?" she asked, grinning at her partner.
"I wish we could." Elias replied. He pointed out to sea. The Spanish fleet was approaching. Across the horizon, from east to west, she could see them. They were spread out, giving themselves room to maneuver, but they did not need the spread to exaggerate their number. It was obvious that there was enough to take control of the African coast with no contest.
"We should get back down and get into position." Elias warned, "If they decide to fire on the city, this is not the place to be."
Short bursts of assault rifle fire struck the ground, scattering dust and kicking out shards of pavement. The Suez had been a desperate gambit, pitched against not only the Spanish Navy, who's slow approach felt like a the march of a lumbering giant that, when it arrived, would crush everything around them, but also against the Egyptian warlord who had claimed the Suez. It had been claimed by the same self-proclaimed dictator that ruled Damietta to the east. The area he controlled was small, but he had held onto it firmly. Their only fear now was that he would join forces with the Spanish in order to hunt down the Ethiopian forces that haunted both of them.
Leyla pointed her pistol in the rough direction of a nearby parking garage and fired two rounds. The shots echoed like a bell in her head as she dove for cover behind a concrete barrier. "I thought they were supposed to be cleared." she yelled above the cacophony of violence to Elias as he dove in next to her. Something in front of them exploded - a grenade, a rocket, she couldn't tell - and it sent a plume of rock-shards and dust into the air, covering everything in a thin film of dirt and smoke.
"Who the fuck knows." Elias said. He stretched backward, straining to see over the barrier without taking a bullet to the skull. Leyla watched nervously, anticipating the worst. It seemed like forever, though it was only a couple of seconds. He snapped back, falling into the protection of their cover. "Three of them, I think." he said, "And they have the high ground."
A truck plodded down the road, its driver ducking beneath the dashboard and several cautious Ethiopian soldiers doing the same in the back. They drew enemy fire, and the Walinzi agents in their cement hiding place sensed it. They jumped up, their aim rough and quick as they sprayed a couple of shots before falling the corner of the barrier.
From the back of the truck, three Ethiopian riflemen rose up and gave fire. The sound of their volley was abrupt, only a few quick clapping shots being released. One of the riflemen, a young soldier who hadn't yet shed his boyish looks, fell back violently as his jaw exploded in a bloody hail of torn flesh and gushing blood. Under the constant sound of war, in between nearby rifle reports, his muffled cries haunted the field.
Elias looked at Leyla and nodded toward the truck. She took a deep breath, put another clip in her weapon, and followed him when he went sprinting away from cover. Her heart was in her throat, and it jumped every time an enemy bullet struck the ground behind her. Her vision blurred, leaving only a clear target in front of her. They slid behind the truck, both of them catching their breath as the Ethiopians in the truck-bed exchanged another round with the Egyptians in the parking garage.
Her lungs burned and her head reeled. She stared at the bloody splatter that coagulated in the dust in front of her feet. The smell of smoke and blood mixed with the dust that hung over the plaza like a fog.
"We need to get around them." she heard Elias shout up at the driver.
"No. No." the driver yelled back, straining to be louder than the gunfire. "This is a distraction. This is a dis..."
Before he could finish, something hissed above their head. It was sharp and angry, like a cobra falling from the sky. She saw the trail it left, the sparks dancing in a cloud of beige. And then she remembered. They were better armed than the Egyptians.
She heard the explosion, and the celebrating soldiers whooping from the back of their truck. A second hiss flew above her head. Bending around the truck, she watched as the rocket smashed into the parking garage and left a bloom of fire and crumbling cement where the enemy had stood before. She heard the patter of debris smacking against the plaza, and then silence. Only distant gunfire echoed through the grey urban warzone that was Port Said.
Quietly, the two Walinzi and the men from the truck approached the garage. Leyla's eyes were fixed on the smoking scar in the side of the building. Anything, any hint of movement, would be enough to spook her. It was too silent and too still, she did not trust it. Somewhere, someone was going jump up and catch them while they were in the open. She could sense that the others felt the same way, and she could feel their tension.
They made it into the garage without incident, but she was hardly put at ease. In there, it was open and dark. Shadows filled the crevices, creating the habitat for ambushes. They fanned out, inspecting each corner carefully as the moved up floor by floor.
The structure groaned above them. Leyla listened closely, afraid that the moans of damaged cement and steel could be hiding the auditory clues of a living enemy.
When they reached the snipers nest, they find their quarry. The rocket had scattered the shooters as much as it had scattered the cement. Pieces of Egyptian sat at the end of bloody trails. A red splatter dripped from the ash-blackened ceiling above.
Beyond their gory perch, Leyla and Elias could see the ENS Aksum getting into position. It was where the two canals at the mouth met and became one. The Aksum had turned itself around, broadside facing the sea. A stout tower hid half of it from view. "Do we watch from here?" she asked, grinning at her partner.
"I wish we could." Elias replied. He pointed out to sea. The Spanish fleet was approaching. Across the horizon, from east to west, she could see them. They were spread out, giving themselves room to maneuver, but they did not need the spread to exaggerate their number. It was obvious that there was enough to take control of the African coast with no contest.
"We should get back down and get into position." Elias warned, "If they decide to fire on the city, this is not the place to be."
Dinh AaronMk said
fox at hart
Our local furry is a dude who wears big fluffy fox ears and a fox tail. He legally changed his name to "Mr. Fox" and carries around a raccoon hand puppet that he talks to.
I kept hearing stories of him until one day I went to see a movie and he was in the audience. The really fucked up thing is, he is married. Not sure how. She didn't look like a fox anyhow.
TheEvanCat said
That's fucking racist.
"White. White. White. Really White. White..."
Pepperm1nts said
If you redo the map edit and save it as PNG, sure. That JPEG looks horrible and I'm too lazy to redo the map myself.@Vilage: I can add it to the OP if you want.But...Dark blue - me (when I post app)Gray - EvanOrange - AaronRed - QueenPink - CheesyPurple-blue - CaydenYellow - IsotopeGreen - RareBaby-blue - Nai Kolkata (NPC)
Yeh, make sure there is some way to figure that out in the OP.
Is there a way to look up what color is who on that map?
Chapatrap said
In the movies, it's never made clear what credits are. Are they credit cards filled with 'points' or notes and coins?
Electronic money, theoretically. There would be no physical credits you hold in your hand. It would all be numbers. For our purposes, it would be similar to today but with no physical money.
Sovi3t said
Before me and Cayden progress , is there any sort of Finical system in place?
We'll probably just work with the modern market system because everyone understands it. The future will probably be different, but if we designed a system to reflect this we would most likely just confuse everybody.
So we'll probably just roll with the idea that the IU produces an official currency that is the baseline, but some nations and city states have their own currency. We can go with the traditional sci-fi "Credit", or we could come up with something else.
Space, ~20 AU From Brahma
"So you never have?" Laz teased. He tried to sound playful, but he was really surprised. She was older than him, after all.
"It isn't THAT hard to believe." she blushed. She was young, with dull red hair and skin made ivory pale from years aboard a dimly lit space station. She was cute. The fact that she was long in the face somehow made her cuter. It made it all the more surprising.
"You've HAD To have thought about it, though." he prodded playfully. "Some cute astrophysicist. Maybe a young guy bartending at the Catina."
"There were a few..." she said, looking at him tentatively as if she was weighing whether or not she could trust him. "Okay, so as few years ago I assisted a senior astrophysicist in studying the fluctuation or radiation levels on the Shiva's pole during some sort of proto-solar storm. He was so different than the other men I had worked with. So... I don't know, passionate about his work. He would look out at her, Shiva that is, and say things. He would quote the bible, or he would quote old Hindi poetry." She paused for a second and looked Laz in the eyes, and he felt his heart flutter at the lively girlishness in hers. Seeing his smirk, she giggled. "It's corny, I know... but I hadn't seen that in a man, really. Not about our work. Not about what we did."
"So... what did you do?"
"I flirted... I think. I didn't really grow up like that, when I was a teen I spent most of my free time studying. But I tried to get his attention. I complimented him a lot, brought him his lunch so he didn't have to get it..."
"Assistant stuff." Laz said.
"I wore a tighter jumpsuit." she retorted, "Not the grey uniform one. It was shiny, sort of silver."
"And he didn't notice."
"No." she answered, remembering her past frustration. "He kept talking about Shiva."
Laz laughed. "I'm sorry you lost out to a brown dwarf, Dr. Florin."
"I'm Eury" she corrected, brushing back her hair.
"Eury" Laz smiled warmly.
Eury's story was not as surprising when he considered the way the people on Shiva Station carried themselves. It was a place where, even when people were off duty, they were expected to be working in some way. To do anything else, like having a life, was the surest way to stall your career. Working on Shiva Station was one of the highest honors solar scientists could attain. The station monitored the brown dwarf Shiva and it's twin Kali, who orbited each other as they orbited their main star. From way out there, in the farthest depths of human space after the listeners had silenced the other worlds, Kali was the brightest object in the star-filled blackness of space surrounding Shiva. Even Indus, the sun at the center of the system, was dimmer than the Shiva's twin. They were distant and alone, so isolated that it was difficult to fathom. Two hundred and fifteen billion miles from Brahma. To pick it as a home, to sacrifice so much of one's life in the name of science, was hard for a boy who had spent most of his life in the Safe Zone to understand.
Though Laz couldn't wrap his head around the obsession scientists had with it, he couldn't argue that Shiva was something special. She was the red-purple color of a fresh bruise, much darker than Brahmapura, and even with nothing but an orbital station to compare her too Laz could somehow tell that she was much bigger than the giant that dominated Brahma's sky. She looked like a gas planet despite the fact she was technically a star. Cloudy strips of gas banded around her, twisting and shifting across her surface at a rate so slow that you could only see it in sped up footage. The detail that hinted to her solar status was the glow she gave out. It wasn't the same familiar omnipresent glow that all heavenly bodies exuded. This was deeper, like a fire raging deep beneath her clouds, and the darkness of the distant corner of space made it all the more noticeable. She looked like a massive paper lamp, like those found in the silent zen garden on the edge of Nai Kolkata. The scientists on Shiva Station called their star a 'she', and the pronoun hadn't been lifted from the masculine Hindu God it shared a name with. There was a living quality to her. A breathing, fiery calm. Though they had only stayed for a week, it had felt somber leaving her behind. Laz wondered what it had felt like for the scientists that had chose to come back with them on the return journey. Many would go back to their beloved star soon enough. Some, however, had seen her for the last time.
Several of their passengers, including Doctor Eury Florin, had chosen to stay on the bridge. For them, the bridge might as well have been a viewing deck. Shaped like an elongated semicircle, It was big enough to fit several dozen people, and all but the back wall was acrylic glass so that a panorama of space appeared before them. The ceilings and floors, as well as the back wall, were eggshell-white panels that glowed and filled the room with a soft light. Crew members paced the room, many holding sleek computerized tablets, while others worked from kiosks or talked amongst themselves. The room was filled with people, but it was quiet. In the same way the surfaces of the room controlled the lighting, they also soaked up sound. It gave the room a library-like atmosphere, even when it was hectic. Laz could see why it would be practical. There were fewer distractions up here, making it easier to focus, and this was a place where focus was vital.
Laz's place was simple. He was a guard, though oftentimes he felt like a babysitter. His job was, more often than not, to intervene in simple disagreements. Canteen guards had it the worst, where they were faced with drunkeness on top of the regular problems. Guarding the bridge, however, was one of the easier tasks. It was nearly ceremonial, and Laz found himself socializing or reading most of the time. At first, he had enjoyed conversing with the ship's Captain, Kgosi. A self-described intellectual, he talked like a professor and carried himself like a soldier. Laz had learned how Kgosi fled to Nai Kolkata with his mother after his father and brother were murdered, pushed into the KangChai sinkhole by rivals jealous of his father's position in the company. He also learned how Kgosi had started out as a cook before working his way up the chain of command and getting his own vessel. This was his, the IUSS Aro, a refitted Solar Barque that had been upgraded to endure long distance trips. Like most Barques, its missions usually were usually supply and delivery. Kgosi reckoned he had been to every station in the Indus system.
It had only taken one indiscretion with the Captain's daughter to cool their relationship, but Laz had found ways to pass the time none the same. Eury was one of his latest.
"What are your plans?" he asked.
"What?"
"Your plans, when we reach Brahma. You left Shiva Station for something." he explained.
"Honestly, it's just been so long..." she leaned against a fold-out surface, the blue strip of light along its lip, giving her fingers a ghastly glow. Space, infinite and endlessly dark between millions of far away stars, was her backdrop. "My grandparents... they raised us after our parents died, my sister and me, they are getting older now. My grandfather just turned one hundred and five a few months ago. I want to see them, before they go."
Laz whistled. "The things he must've seen."
Eury stared out, her eyes focusing on something beyond the stars. She smiled warmly. "He used to tell me stories of Earth. He told me about how he hiked the Great Wall before they closed it to the public. I'm not even sure..." she paused for a moment, collecting her thoughts. "The way he explained it, when he talked about how fresh the air was that far out of urban China, and how weeds were overtaking the stone. I felt like I was somehow... like I was somehow there, though I have never been within a light year of Earth, let alone on it. He told me Earth was in our blood, that our primeval souls were born and made on our home planet and that no human would forget it."
"I like that." Laz replied.
Eury smiled. "So do I."
"So you never have?" Laz teased. He tried to sound playful, but he was really surprised. She was older than him, after all.
"It isn't THAT hard to believe." she blushed. She was young, with dull red hair and skin made ivory pale from years aboard a dimly lit space station. She was cute. The fact that she was long in the face somehow made her cuter. It made it all the more surprising.
"You've HAD To have thought about it, though." he prodded playfully. "Some cute astrophysicist. Maybe a young guy bartending at the Catina."
"There were a few..." she said, looking at him tentatively as if she was weighing whether or not she could trust him. "Okay, so as few years ago I assisted a senior astrophysicist in studying the fluctuation or radiation levels on the Shiva's pole during some sort of proto-solar storm. He was so different than the other men I had worked with. So... I don't know, passionate about his work. He would look out at her, Shiva that is, and say things. He would quote the bible, or he would quote old Hindi poetry." She paused for a second and looked Laz in the eyes, and he felt his heart flutter at the lively girlishness in hers. Seeing his smirk, she giggled. "It's corny, I know... but I hadn't seen that in a man, really. Not about our work. Not about what we did."
"So... what did you do?"
"I flirted... I think. I didn't really grow up like that, when I was a teen I spent most of my free time studying. But I tried to get his attention. I complimented him a lot, brought him his lunch so he didn't have to get it..."
"Assistant stuff." Laz said.
"I wore a tighter jumpsuit." she retorted, "Not the grey uniform one. It was shiny, sort of silver."
"And he didn't notice."
"No." she answered, remembering her past frustration. "He kept talking about Shiva."
Laz laughed. "I'm sorry you lost out to a brown dwarf, Dr. Florin."
"I'm Eury" she corrected, brushing back her hair.
"Eury" Laz smiled warmly.
Eury's story was not as surprising when he considered the way the people on Shiva Station carried themselves. It was a place where, even when people were off duty, they were expected to be working in some way. To do anything else, like having a life, was the surest way to stall your career. Working on Shiva Station was one of the highest honors solar scientists could attain. The station monitored the brown dwarf Shiva and it's twin Kali, who orbited each other as they orbited their main star. From way out there, in the farthest depths of human space after the listeners had silenced the other worlds, Kali was the brightest object in the star-filled blackness of space surrounding Shiva. Even Indus, the sun at the center of the system, was dimmer than the Shiva's twin. They were distant and alone, so isolated that it was difficult to fathom. Two hundred and fifteen billion miles from Brahma. To pick it as a home, to sacrifice so much of one's life in the name of science, was hard for a boy who had spent most of his life in the Safe Zone to understand.
Though Laz couldn't wrap his head around the obsession scientists had with it, he couldn't argue that Shiva was something special. She was the red-purple color of a fresh bruise, much darker than Brahmapura, and even with nothing but an orbital station to compare her too Laz could somehow tell that she was much bigger than the giant that dominated Brahma's sky. She looked like a gas planet despite the fact she was technically a star. Cloudy strips of gas banded around her, twisting and shifting across her surface at a rate so slow that you could only see it in sped up footage. The detail that hinted to her solar status was the glow she gave out. It wasn't the same familiar omnipresent glow that all heavenly bodies exuded. This was deeper, like a fire raging deep beneath her clouds, and the darkness of the distant corner of space made it all the more noticeable. She looked like a massive paper lamp, like those found in the silent zen garden on the edge of Nai Kolkata. The scientists on Shiva Station called their star a 'she', and the pronoun hadn't been lifted from the masculine Hindu God it shared a name with. There was a living quality to her. A breathing, fiery calm. Though they had only stayed for a week, it had felt somber leaving her behind. Laz wondered what it had felt like for the scientists that had chose to come back with them on the return journey. Many would go back to their beloved star soon enough. Some, however, had seen her for the last time.
Several of their passengers, including Doctor Eury Florin, had chosen to stay on the bridge. For them, the bridge might as well have been a viewing deck. Shaped like an elongated semicircle, It was big enough to fit several dozen people, and all but the back wall was acrylic glass so that a panorama of space appeared before them. The ceilings and floors, as well as the back wall, were eggshell-white panels that glowed and filled the room with a soft light. Crew members paced the room, many holding sleek computerized tablets, while others worked from kiosks or talked amongst themselves. The room was filled with people, but it was quiet. In the same way the surfaces of the room controlled the lighting, they also soaked up sound. It gave the room a library-like atmosphere, even when it was hectic. Laz could see why it would be practical. There were fewer distractions up here, making it easier to focus, and this was a place where focus was vital.
Laz's place was simple. He was a guard, though oftentimes he felt like a babysitter. His job was, more often than not, to intervene in simple disagreements. Canteen guards had it the worst, where they were faced with drunkeness on top of the regular problems. Guarding the bridge, however, was one of the easier tasks. It was nearly ceremonial, and Laz found himself socializing or reading most of the time. At first, he had enjoyed conversing with the ship's Captain, Kgosi. A self-described intellectual, he talked like a professor and carried himself like a soldier. Laz had learned how Kgosi fled to Nai Kolkata with his mother after his father and brother were murdered, pushed into the KangChai sinkhole by rivals jealous of his father's position in the company. He also learned how Kgosi had started out as a cook before working his way up the chain of command and getting his own vessel. This was his, the IUSS Aro, a refitted Solar Barque that had been upgraded to endure long distance trips. Like most Barques, its missions usually were usually supply and delivery. Kgosi reckoned he had been to every station in the Indus system.
It had only taken one indiscretion with the Captain's daughter to cool their relationship, but Laz had found ways to pass the time none the same. Eury was one of his latest.
"What are your plans?" he asked.
"What?"
"Your plans, when we reach Brahma. You left Shiva Station for something." he explained.
"Honestly, it's just been so long..." she leaned against a fold-out surface, the blue strip of light along its lip, giving her fingers a ghastly glow. Space, infinite and endlessly dark between millions of far away stars, was her backdrop. "My grandparents... they raised us after our parents died, my sister and me, they are getting older now. My grandfather just turned one hundred and five a few months ago. I want to see them, before they go."
Laz whistled. "The things he must've seen."
Eury stared out, her eyes focusing on something beyond the stars. She smiled warmly. "He used to tell me stories of Earth. He told me about how he hiked the Great Wall before they closed it to the public. I'm not even sure..." she paused for a moment, collecting her thoughts. "The way he explained it, when he talked about how fresh the air was that far out of urban China, and how weeds were overtaking the stone. I felt like I was somehow... like I was somehow there, though I have never been within a light year of Earth, let alone on it. He told me Earth was in our blood, that our primeval souls were born and made on our home planet and that no human would forget it."
"I like that." Laz replied.
Eury smiled. "So do I."
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