Day 9:
I'm positive today did not start out with the intention of being a long day. It began with a tapping sound, while I lay in bed. It took a moment to realize the sound was coming from the door of my quarters, and it was not merely some odd ship noise, but a knocking. I forced myself to my feet, though it seemed some incredible weight was pressing down on me. I pulled the sheet from the bed and wrapped it around me, muttering as I approached. There could be only one source of the tapping at my door, and pressed the button to open it.
And there, before me stood - "Sai?" I barely asked before it registered in my sleep-addled mind, that my fighter pilot stood before me, in all her glory, and not a thing else, except a bow around her neck, like a choker. I felt myself back up. I wanted to say that this was not appropriate. We only barely knew each other. I wanted to say anything, but I felt my foot tangle in the sheet, and I found myself falling backwards. It was one of those moments where an instant seems to stretch on toward infinity. I closed my eyes, and braced for an impact that never came. Instead I sat, bolt upright in my bed.
It has been a dream. A very awkward one, brought on by, well, who really knows what triggers dreams. But what was not a dream was the tapping at my door, which could only have one source.
"Sai?"
"Hey, we have a problem."
I slid from my bed, pulled on my suit as I began to clear my head.
"What sort of problem?", I said as I picked up my helmet. Instinctively I went to pull it on, but stopped myself. If I put my helmet on now, before brushing my teeth, I'd be quite displeased before lunch, so I carried it with me towards the door. For the slightest second, I started to hesitate as I reached for the button to open the door, but I opened it nonetheless.
"There are spiders on this ship." Sai said with the sort of sternness that said 'I am not afraid of spiders, but these are not ordinary spiders.
"There are no spiders on this ship, Sai." I reassured.
"Yes, there are, come with me and I'll show you."
I regarded her for a moment. Her hair was still slightly damp, but she was fully dressed, much to my relief. I followed behind, admittedly curious at this point.
"We went through a full decontamination before we left, and we haven't seen so much as a crystallized microbe anywhere we've stopped. So how could there be spiders on the ship?"
"I don't know, but there are." She led the way to one of the storage areas. It must have been where she'd gotten the rose hip creme soap that was usually stocked in the ship's luxury cabin, as well as the satin workout suit she wore. I didn't notice anything else, save the disheveled state of the store room, which must have been her rummaging through the supplies. Then she pointed towards the vent.
"See, right there." She pointed towards the vent. From the vent hung a clump of fibrous material, long, wispy and black. I knew a few things about a few kinds of spiders, and no spider I knew of made any sort of webbing like that. My ocular implant ran a basic analysis and I could tell immediately that this was no kind of organic fiber. It was synthetic.
"Interesting. Tell me," I prompted, as I reached up towards the fibers, "were you doing laundry before you came in here?"
"Yes, why?"
"Did you happen to clean the lint collectors?"
"As a matter of fact, I did. I do know how to do laundry."
I gathered the fibers around my fingers, and found they rolled easily into a fluffy, black mass. There were not adhesive in any manner. In fact - that's when it dawned on me.
"I know what this is, damn it."
"What is it?"
I flicked the ball of fluff at Sai as I revealed its true nature.
"My missing sock."
She jumped back from the bit of fluff.
"Gross!", but she laughed a little all the same.
"It must have gotten sucked into the return, shredded by the blower fans, and is now very likely all throughout the duct work." I said, peering into the vent.
"So now it's going to smell like feet everywhere."
"No, but this is nowhere near enough material to account for more than a toe's worth of sock, which means the rest of it is probably still in there somewhere. If it gets bound around a blower shaft, we could wind up with an air system fault, which means either someone's going to have to check all the duct work from the bridge to the primary exchange, or...."
"I hope you're not suggesting me. Remember, I didn't even know what a back pressure gasket was."
That struck a nerve, and I could not hold back a deep laugh.
"Well played. You just saved yourself from duct duty. My other option is to simply turn up the heat for a while. Feel like going out on maneuvers? I can seal off the rest of the ship and vent the cargo bay so it doesn't wind up sweltering in here."
"You're the boss, boss. How long will this take?"
"About an hour."
It took almost two hours, and I could smell burning fiber all the way onto the bridge while Sai kept a tight defensive formation around the Singularity. By the time she'd finished, and the internal temperature was back to normal I could just about taste burnt poly-fiber. This was not how I'd planned to start the day.
By the time we were underway again, Sai had gone in search of something to spray around the ship. The burnt smell simply lingered everywhere.
The sight of this brilliant water world couldn't quite get the burnt smell out of my head.
Nor could the site of this neighboring high metal world, that could easily pass itself off as something more terrestrial that it really was.
The contrast between planet and rings only made me think of the contrast between how the ship should smell and how it did. Which got me to thinking, for a single sock to create so much burnt smell, it would have had to have gotten into the main exchange before I super heated the environmental control.
We must have crossed 600 light years of single-star and binary systems before coming across this nicely contrasting gas giant, populated by water-and-carbon life. The burnt smell had finally either subsided, or fully saturated my sense of smell by this time, and that's when I started to notice something else.
This "Hell Planet" was not half as much hell as I was ready to raise, as a new scent began to assail me. It was that terrible, artificial everything-nice scent one of the travel agents had suggested I stock last year for the holiday season. If I recall correctly 'Holiday Season' is what it was called. I pressed the intercom.
"Sai." I could hear my voice echo throughout the ship. I could hear hers from the door of the bridge.
"Yes?" she chimed.
I turned enough to watch her bound onto the bridge with that sort of energetic happy kind of bounce only possessed by of a girl her age. I also noted she'd tied her hair back with a red ribbon. For some reason I couldn't quite put my finger on at the moment, I found this strangely disturbing.
"Question the first - is there any store room on board you haven't been in yet? Question the second - how much of that horrid spray did you spray, and into where did you spray it?"
"Umm... I don't think so. But you did tell me to make use of the ship's facilities, and just one can, into the main air return. Don't you like it though? It smells festive, and it IS nearly the holiday."
I started to say something, but stopped. Started and stopped a second time before I finally had to concede.
"Yes, I did say that, and no, it smells like a festival of gak."
"Aw, I thought it was kind of nice. It certainly smells better than your burnt sock, which I could smell all the way down to the fighter bay."
At this point, I could only fully concede defeat, and donned my helmet. Once the pressure system engaged, and the freshly recirculated air began to flow I remembered one of the other reasons I liked wearing my helmet - it saved my senses from assaults like this.
"Oh that's just.. hmph." Sai squeeked.
"What?"
"Nothing, I was just getting use to you without your helmet on."
"Well I'll take it back off, once it doesn't smell like commercial district any more."
Several hours, and many hundred light years later, it happened again.
Another crystalline colony, only this time they were built around vents of hot silicates. I wondered if the crystal-dwelling microbes considered this an "industrial" area. I cracked open my visor to check the air. The scents had faded to a mere bad memory, and it was time to eat something. Sai had long since vacated the bridge, and as I made my way through the ship, couldn't help but notice the quiet throughout. The gym was dark, the zero-g pool was dark. I strolled through the observation lounge and it was dark as well. I passed by Sai's quarters as well and knocked. She was either asleep, or wasn't there either. I found myself wondering while wandering where she might have gotten to as I eventually found my way to the galley. I wasn't particularly in the mood to cook, and simply picked something at random from the automated dispenser. I'm still not exactly sure what it was supposed to be, but I'm positive it was a very excellent variety of tan, with hints of grey, served in an easy-to-squeeze tube.
It wasn't until I made my way to the hanger that found Sai, sitting up against the red fighter she was fond of. A slight whimpering noise escaped her. The soft light of a holo-projector bled out of her fingers, as she clutched a personal projector in her hand. I hesitated a moment before I approached, and knelt next to her.
"What's wrong, Sai?" I asked.
She didn't look up as she responded after a long moment.
"It's just.. it's almost the holiday and...." her voice trailed off, and I could see her bite at her lower lip.
"And.. I upset you?"
"No, I just.. I miss my son. I don't even know where he is. That's why I signed up to be a pilot. I figured, as a fighter pilot I could get hired on and use my travels to look for any information about where they might have taken him. And now it's nearly the holiday, and I'm not going to see him. I don't even know if he's all right." she erupted in one long burst.
Her words hit me like a broadside barrage. As her commander and her employer, I had to consider her well being.
"Do you want to go back?" I offered.
"I want to do my job. I mean, I'd love to track down whoever took him, but..."
"If that's what you want, I understand. I'll help you look."
She looked up at me. I could see the determination forced into her face.
"I took this job, I'll see it through. I go where you go. It's my oath. You don't owe me anything."
"Sai, what I'm doing... it's not important. I'm out here cruising the edge of the galaxy in cruise liner. I don't mind helping you out."
"No, really. It's ok. I'll be ok. It's been almost a year since they took him, and never so much as a ransom demand or anything."
"Any idea who 'they' are?"
"No, I mean, pirates to be sure, probably onion head smugglers. There were a few gangs of them in Ceti. A lot of the farmers there grow it, because its one of few things that actually grows there, and there are always pirates and smugglers around, you know? I'd run some of them off on a few occasions, for hassling the farmers. The only thing I ever got was a second-hand message 'Stay out of our business if you want to see your kid again.' One of the local patrols found it, along with this."
She held up her hand, which shook slightly, revealing the holo-projector she was clutching. It was a simple device, and showed a still image of Sai and small boy, perhaps 3 years old.
"The local authorities couldn't really do much. They found this, and a repeater of that message in the wreckage of a ship. For all I know my son could be dead. I didn't know what else to do. I was an ex convict, a single mom, nobody important. I started to make a little bit of a name for myself running these guys off, but then this... what else could I have done?"
I'd heard one too many stories like this, and I knew they almost never ended well, and I'm pretty sure Sai knew it too, but just didn't want to admit it to herself.
"I think you did what you had to do. And my offer still stands - if you want to go back and look, I'm willing to help you. If you don't want to go back, I'm still willing to help you. I know quite a few people, some good, some... not so much. And I know people in both the Imperial Navy and the Federation Navy. I probably have a favor or two I can call in."
"You'd..? You'd do that for me?"
"I would."
"Why?"
"Because, that's who I am. That's what I do. I help people who need help, and it sounds like you could use some help. So what will it be?"
"I... I mean..." Sai was at a loss for words. I could tell she'd turn the galaxy inside out looking for anything, but I also knew that a single ship could search for a hundred lifetimes and not find a single thing. Sai swallowed hard, and wiped her face.
"You're my commander, my employer, and maybe the first really decent person I know. I know you said what we're doing out here isn't important, but I think it is. I think it's important to you, and as much as I'd like to start turning over every square meter of every system out there, I can't ask you to go back for me. But if there is anything you can do, anyone you might know who might be able to tell me anything..."
"Consider it done. I send word out when I'm back on the bridge, and if I hear anything, we're heading to look for your boy. This can wait."
Sai threw her arms around me, nearly knocking me over and simply sobbed into my suit. I held her for as long as she needed. When she was ready, we stood up together. I misjudged my position, and banged my head on the fighter's wing.
"Ohh.. are you alright?", Sai winced and nearly laughed at the same time.
"Nnngh... I will be, but you might want to check that fighter for damage." I mustered. This time she did manage to laugh, at least a little.
Maybe it wasn't peace I'd come looking for out here after all. Maybe it was just a human connection. I did spend the majority of my time alone, jumping from place to place, contract to contract, job to job. I didn't really take much time to really get to know anyone. I suppose we'd see.
We made our way back to the bridge, after a brief stop by the galley. I cautioned Sai against the tan-and-grey squeeze. She commented about it having to be at least twice as good as what they served in the pilot's lounges, and fixed herself a sandwich of some sort and said she'd join me shortly. I made my way back to the bridge, and made preparations for our next jump.
By the time Sai finally made it back to the bridge, I'd put us in orbit of this rocky little world. After what had just transpired, I was willing to risk another shriek. Sai was more somber, though she did beam a smile as she settled in to a seat. I sent out word to the contacts I knew, though I knew a message from out here would take some time to reach them, and had Sai upload the image from her holo-projector, along with all the information I had.
"So, just how far are you planning on going?" Sai finally asked.
"All the way, around the outside, then once across the very center."
"That's quite a trip."
"That's what I thought, but I meant what I said. If we hear anything at all...."
"I know. And I meant what I said too. I'm with you, for as long as you'll have me. It's my honor to work for such an honorable person."
"And mine to have such a good one as you. You ready? The galaxy isn't getting any smaller."
"Actually, can we just sit a little while longer? I don't really know why, but these red planets are so pretty, and they make me feel better inside."
"Alright. You give the word."
I leaned my chair back, and just stared, watching the clouds of this little ball of red rock drift. Sai sat in the gunnery seat, her feet alongside her, staring out as well.
I'm positive today did not start out with the intention of being a long day. It began with a tapping sound, while I lay in bed. It took a moment to realize the sound was coming from the door of my quarters, and it was not merely some odd ship noise, but a knocking. I forced myself to my feet, though it seemed some incredible weight was pressing down on me. I pulled the sheet from the bed and wrapped it around me, muttering as I approached. There could be only one source of the tapping at my door, and pressed the button to open it.
And there, before me stood - "Sai?" I barely asked before it registered in my sleep-addled mind, that my fighter pilot stood before me, in all her glory, and not a thing else, except a bow around her neck, like a choker. I felt myself back up. I wanted to say that this was not appropriate. We only barely knew each other. I wanted to say anything, but I felt my foot tangle in the sheet, and I found myself falling backwards. It was one of those moments where an instant seems to stretch on toward infinity. I closed my eyes, and braced for an impact that never came. Instead I sat, bolt upright in my bed.
It has been a dream. A very awkward one, brought on by, well, who really knows what triggers dreams. But what was not a dream was the tapping at my door, which could only have one source.
"Sai?"
"Hey, we have a problem."
I slid from my bed, pulled on my suit as I began to clear my head.
"What sort of problem?", I said as I picked up my helmet. Instinctively I went to pull it on, but stopped myself. If I put my helmet on now, before brushing my teeth, I'd be quite displeased before lunch, so I carried it with me towards the door. For the slightest second, I started to hesitate as I reached for the button to open the door, but I opened it nonetheless.
"There are spiders on this ship." Sai said with the sort of sternness that said 'I am not afraid of spiders, but these are not ordinary spiders.
"There are no spiders on this ship, Sai." I reassured.
"Yes, there are, come with me and I'll show you."
I regarded her for a moment. Her hair was still slightly damp, but she was fully dressed, much to my relief. I followed behind, admittedly curious at this point.
"We went through a full decontamination before we left, and we haven't seen so much as a crystallized microbe anywhere we've stopped. So how could there be spiders on the ship?"
"I don't know, but there are." She led the way to one of the storage areas. It must have been where she'd gotten the rose hip creme soap that was usually stocked in the ship's luxury cabin, as well as the satin workout suit she wore. I didn't notice anything else, save the disheveled state of the store room, which must have been her rummaging through the supplies. Then she pointed towards the vent.
"See, right there." She pointed towards the vent. From the vent hung a clump of fibrous material, long, wispy and black. I knew a few things about a few kinds of spiders, and no spider I knew of made any sort of webbing like that. My ocular implant ran a basic analysis and I could tell immediately that this was no kind of organic fiber. It was synthetic.
"Interesting. Tell me," I prompted, as I reached up towards the fibers, "were you doing laundry before you came in here?"
"Yes, why?"
"Did you happen to clean the lint collectors?"
"As a matter of fact, I did. I do know how to do laundry."
I gathered the fibers around my fingers, and found they rolled easily into a fluffy, black mass. There were not adhesive in any manner. In fact - that's when it dawned on me.
"I know what this is, damn it."
"What is it?"
I flicked the ball of fluff at Sai as I revealed its true nature.
"My missing sock."
She jumped back from the bit of fluff.
"Gross!", but she laughed a little all the same.
"It must have gotten sucked into the return, shredded by the blower fans, and is now very likely all throughout the duct work." I said, peering into the vent.
"So now it's going to smell like feet everywhere."
"No, but this is nowhere near enough material to account for more than a toe's worth of sock, which means the rest of it is probably still in there somewhere. If it gets bound around a blower shaft, we could wind up with an air system fault, which means either someone's going to have to check all the duct work from the bridge to the primary exchange, or...."
"I hope you're not suggesting me. Remember, I didn't even know what a back pressure gasket was."
That struck a nerve, and I could not hold back a deep laugh.
"Well played. You just saved yourself from duct duty. My other option is to simply turn up the heat for a while. Feel like going out on maneuvers? I can seal off the rest of the ship and vent the cargo bay so it doesn't wind up sweltering in here."
"You're the boss, boss. How long will this take?"
"About an hour."
It took almost two hours, and I could smell burning fiber all the way onto the bridge while Sai kept a tight defensive formation around the Singularity. By the time she'd finished, and the internal temperature was back to normal I could just about taste burnt poly-fiber. This was not how I'd planned to start the day.
By the time we were underway again, Sai had gone in search of something to spray around the ship. The burnt smell simply lingered everywhere.
The sight of this brilliant water world couldn't quite get the burnt smell out of my head.
Nor could the site of this neighboring high metal world, that could easily pass itself off as something more terrestrial that it really was.
The contrast between planet and rings only made me think of the contrast between how the ship should smell and how it did. Which got me to thinking, for a single sock to create so much burnt smell, it would have had to have gotten into the main exchange before I super heated the environmental control.
We must have crossed 600 light years of single-star and binary systems before coming across this nicely contrasting gas giant, populated by water-and-carbon life. The burnt smell had finally either subsided, or fully saturated my sense of smell by this time, and that's when I started to notice something else.
This "Hell Planet" was not half as much hell as I was ready to raise, as a new scent began to assail me. It was that terrible, artificial everything-nice scent one of the travel agents had suggested I stock last year for the holiday season. If I recall correctly 'Holiday Season' is what it was called. I pressed the intercom.
"Sai." I could hear my voice echo throughout the ship. I could hear hers from the door of the bridge.
"Yes?" she chimed.
I turned enough to watch her bound onto the bridge with that sort of energetic happy kind of bounce only possessed by of a girl her age. I also noted she'd tied her hair back with a red ribbon. For some reason I couldn't quite put my finger on at the moment, I found this strangely disturbing.
"Question the first - is there any store room on board you haven't been in yet? Question the second - how much of that horrid spray did you spray, and into where did you spray it?"
"Umm... I don't think so. But you did tell me to make use of the ship's facilities, and just one can, into the main air return. Don't you like it though? It smells festive, and it IS nearly the holiday."
I started to say something, but stopped. Started and stopped a second time before I finally had to concede.
"Yes, I did say that, and no, it smells like a festival of gak."
"Aw, I thought it was kind of nice. It certainly smells better than your burnt sock, which I could smell all the way down to the fighter bay."
At this point, I could only fully concede defeat, and donned my helmet. Once the pressure system engaged, and the freshly recirculated air began to flow I remembered one of the other reasons I liked wearing my helmet - it saved my senses from assaults like this.
"Oh that's just.. hmph." Sai squeeked.
"What?"
"Nothing, I was just getting use to you without your helmet on."
"Well I'll take it back off, once it doesn't smell like commercial district any more."
Several hours, and many hundred light years later, it happened again.
Another crystalline colony, only this time they were built around vents of hot silicates. I wondered if the crystal-dwelling microbes considered this an "industrial" area. I cracked open my visor to check the air. The scents had faded to a mere bad memory, and it was time to eat something. Sai had long since vacated the bridge, and as I made my way through the ship, couldn't help but notice the quiet throughout. The gym was dark, the zero-g pool was dark. I strolled through the observation lounge and it was dark as well. I passed by Sai's quarters as well and knocked. She was either asleep, or wasn't there either. I found myself wondering while wandering where she might have gotten to as I eventually found my way to the galley. I wasn't particularly in the mood to cook, and simply picked something at random from the automated dispenser. I'm still not exactly sure what it was supposed to be, but I'm positive it was a very excellent variety of tan, with hints of grey, served in an easy-to-squeeze tube.
It wasn't until I made my way to the hanger that found Sai, sitting up against the red fighter she was fond of. A slight whimpering noise escaped her. The soft light of a holo-projector bled out of her fingers, as she clutched a personal projector in her hand. I hesitated a moment before I approached, and knelt next to her.
"What's wrong, Sai?" I asked.
She didn't look up as she responded after a long moment.
"It's just.. it's almost the holiday and...." her voice trailed off, and I could see her bite at her lower lip.
"And.. I upset you?"
"No, I just.. I miss my son. I don't even know where he is. That's why I signed up to be a pilot. I figured, as a fighter pilot I could get hired on and use my travels to look for any information about where they might have taken him. And now it's nearly the holiday, and I'm not going to see him. I don't even know if he's all right." she erupted in one long burst.
Her words hit me like a broadside barrage. As her commander and her employer, I had to consider her well being.
"Do you want to go back?" I offered.
"I want to do my job. I mean, I'd love to track down whoever took him, but..."
"If that's what you want, I understand. I'll help you look."
She looked up at me. I could see the determination forced into her face.
"I took this job, I'll see it through. I go where you go. It's my oath. You don't owe me anything."
"Sai, what I'm doing... it's not important. I'm out here cruising the edge of the galaxy in cruise liner. I don't mind helping you out."
"No, really. It's ok. I'll be ok. It's been almost a year since they took him, and never so much as a ransom demand or anything."
"Any idea who 'they' are?"
"No, I mean, pirates to be sure, probably onion head smugglers. There were a few gangs of them in Ceti. A lot of the farmers there grow it, because its one of few things that actually grows there, and there are always pirates and smugglers around, you know? I'd run some of them off on a few occasions, for hassling the farmers. The only thing I ever got was a second-hand message 'Stay out of our business if you want to see your kid again.' One of the local patrols found it, along with this."
She held up her hand, which shook slightly, revealing the holo-projector she was clutching. It was a simple device, and showed a still image of Sai and small boy, perhaps 3 years old.
"The local authorities couldn't really do much. They found this, and a repeater of that message in the wreckage of a ship. For all I know my son could be dead. I didn't know what else to do. I was an ex convict, a single mom, nobody important. I started to make a little bit of a name for myself running these guys off, but then this... what else could I have done?"
I'd heard one too many stories like this, and I knew they almost never ended well, and I'm pretty sure Sai knew it too, but just didn't want to admit it to herself.
"I think you did what you had to do. And my offer still stands - if you want to go back and look, I'm willing to help you. If you don't want to go back, I'm still willing to help you. I know quite a few people, some good, some... not so much. And I know people in both the Imperial Navy and the Federation Navy. I probably have a favor or two I can call in."
"You'd..? You'd do that for me?"
"I would."
"Why?"
"Because, that's who I am. That's what I do. I help people who need help, and it sounds like you could use some help. So what will it be?"
"I... I mean..." Sai was at a loss for words. I could tell she'd turn the galaxy inside out looking for anything, but I also knew that a single ship could search for a hundred lifetimes and not find a single thing. Sai swallowed hard, and wiped her face.
"You're my commander, my employer, and maybe the first really decent person I know. I know you said what we're doing out here isn't important, but I think it is. I think it's important to you, and as much as I'd like to start turning over every square meter of every system out there, I can't ask you to go back for me. But if there is anything you can do, anyone you might know who might be able to tell me anything..."
"Consider it done. I send word out when I'm back on the bridge, and if I hear anything, we're heading to look for your boy. This can wait."
Sai threw her arms around me, nearly knocking me over and simply sobbed into my suit. I held her for as long as she needed. When she was ready, we stood up together. I misjudged my position, and banged my head on the fighter's wing.
"Ohh.. are you alright?", Sai winced and nearly laughed at the same time.
"Nnngh... I will be, but you might want to check that fighter for damage." I mustered. This time she did manage to laugh, at least a little.
Maybe it wasn't peace I'd come looking for out here after all. Maybe it was just a human connection. I did spend the majority of my time alone, jumping from place to place, contract to contract, job to job. I didn't really take much time to really get to know anyone. I suppose we'd see.
We made our way back to the bridge, after a brief stop by the galley. I cautioned Sai against the tan-and-grey squeeze. She commented about it having to be at least twice as good as what they served in the pilot's lounges, and fixed herself a sandwich of some sort and said she'd join me shortly. I made my way back to the bridge, and made preparations for our next jump.
By the time Sai finally made it back to the bridge, I'd put us in orbit of this rocky little world. After what had just transpired, I was willing to risk another shriek. Sai was more somber, though she did beam a smile as she settled in to a seat. I sent out word to the contacts I knew, though I knew a message from out here would take some time to reach them, and had Sai upload the image from her holo-projector, along with all the information I had.
"So, just how far are you planning on going?" Sai finally asked.
"All the way, around the outside, then once across the very center."
"That's quite a trip."
"That's what I thought, but I meant what I said. If we hear anything at all...."
"I know. And I meant what I said too. I'm with you, for as long as you'll have me. It's my honor to work for such an honorable person."
"And mine to have such a good one as you. You ready? The galaxy isn't getting any smaller."
"Actually, can we just sit a little while longer? I don't really know why, but these red planets are so pretty, and they make me feel better inside."
"Alright. You give the word."
I leaned my chair back, and just stared, watching the clouds of this little ball of red rock drift. Sai sat in the gunnery seat, her feet alongside her, staring out as well.