After getting changed into his sleep clothes, Henry laid back in bed, pulling the covers up to his chin. He fell asleep within moments, and before long he began to dream. In it he was immobilized, laying flat against the ground while far above him a stream of iridescence flowed like fast-moving water. He was like a stone at the bottom of a river, able to do nothing except watch and hope he wouldn’t get swept along. Before long, silver colored fish with gigantic, watchful eyes began to swim past, joined by otherworldly creatures with long limbs and missing faces, twisting and flailing about in the rainbow current.
A feeling of intense discomfort plagued Henry as he watched them pass again and again. When his alarm finally sounded eight hours later he awoke feeling lethargic and irritable, his neck stiff from having slept in an awkward position. After hauling himself out of bed he grumpily gathered up his hygiene kit and a fresh uniform. With his things bundled between his arms he left the room, headed for the latrine at the end of the dorm’s hallway.
The latrine had been outfitted with twelve of the new-style private hygiene cubicles, each containing a shower, toilet and shaving mirror. There wasn’t much room to maneuver inside them, but Henry was grateful for the privacy nonetheless. Showering alongside other people twice a day was something everyone in the navy eventually became accustomed to, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t prefer privacy when it was available.
He showered, eagerly allowing the hot water to warm him out of his lethargy, and rounded off his morning routine with a quick shave. After a brief stop at his room to drop off his things he headed down the main hallway towards the canteen with his stomach rumbling.
Breakfast was a bowl of fruit salad, with a few pieces of synthbacon and toast on the side. Henry appreciated that he’d been served a much lighter and easier to digest breakfast than biscuits and gravy, though it would not be nearly as fortifying.
He carried his tray full of food into the dining area and instantly spotted Kaya and Sam sitting together at a half-empty table closeby, both wearing the civil service uniform. He sat down across from them, grumbling out a cheerless hello.
“Good morning,” Kaya greeted him.
Sam merely scowled and took a bite out of her toast. The right side of her collar had a platinum pin of a blindfolded woman standing with her arms raised in supplication. A Mars pin gleamed opposite.
Henry wolfed down his toast and bacon, and when he spoke again it was through a mouthful of food.
“I had the weirdest fucking dream last night.”
Sam nodded slowly. “Same.”
“It’s normal after long-term hibernation,” said Kaya. “It’ll go away after a week or two.”
“A week or two,” Sam complained.
“You seem fine,” Henry accused.
Kaya gave him a light shrug. “I had weird dreams, too.”
“She’s just a weirdo,” said Sam. “Always been good at mornings.”
“No you’re a weirdo.”
“No, you.”
Henry rolled his eyes and began to dig into his fruit.
“We never did ask you where you’re from,” said Kaya.
“You didn’t,” Henry agreed.
Sam frowned at him. “So tell us. Why else would she ask?”
He hesitated for several seconds, and when he finally replied it was with obvious reluctance.
“...I’m from Luna. Tycho City.”
“Oh,” they said simultaneously. A look of mild discomfort crossed both their faces, and they glanced at one another.
“It’s not as bad as you’ve probably heard,” he said. “Or at least, not everywhere on Luna is bad. Though…well, to be honest, Tycho probably is about as bad as you’ve heard.”
“Luna does have a poor reputation,” Kaya admitted. “Drug capital of the solar system is the, um…often used phrase.”
Henry frowned at her. “I don’t do drugs.”
“I—”
“We weren’t suggesting that,” said Sam.
“I know, but that’s usually the notion I get from people.” He sighed. “Luna’s not a great place to be a kid. I guess that’s another reason I signed up for this. To just…continue getting as far away from home as possible.”
Sam and Kaya shared another look, longer this time. When they looked back to Henry they seemed to have made a decision.
“We had another reason to leave Mars, too,” said Sam.
Kaya nodded. “Back home there’s a lot of…pressure. To get married and have children.”
“I think I’ve heard about that,” Henry said.
“Mhm. It’s a leftover social obligation from the war. Having loads of children was everyone’s patriotic duty.”
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
“Why?”
“It’s politics,” said Sam. “People were scared that the Jovians were going to outnumber us eventually.”
Henry looked between them. “But it's been like twenty-five years, right…?”
“Add eighty years to that,” Kaya said.
“Oh, yeah.”
“It’s basically a momentum thing,” she continued. “The pressure still exists, though I guess it might not be quite as bad as it once was. And there’s little doubt in my mind that it hasn’t gone away after eight decades. Maybe it’s been relaxed some, but I’m sure it’s still there. In some form.”
“Really? Even after all that time?”
They both nodded instantly.
“Damn. Alright, but like…why was that a problem for you?”
“What do you mean?” asked Sam.
“Well…you’re gay. Right?”
Kaya rolled her eyes and looked to Sam, who instantly assumed an air of fake shock.
“What the hell?! We’re gay?! Can you believe that, babe?”
“No, I can’t,” Kaya smiled.
After a moment of uncertainty, Henry scoffed. “...I get it. Taste of my own medicine from last night.”
Sam grinned at him.
“Gay couples are expected to raise at least seven children, too,” said Kaya. “And we’re also expected to adopt. The other methods are looked down upon.”
“I see…,” Henry trailed off, thinking. “But why seven?”
“Because it’s lucky,” said Sam. “Supposedly.”
Kaya gave him a light shrug. “We just didn’t want that for us. To be honest we were already planning to move off-world when the colonization program was announced.”
“It kinda killed two birds with one stone,” Sam added. “We wanted to get off Mars, and we wanted some adventure.”
“You wanted adventure. I just wanted out.”
“Fine, I wanted adventure.”
Henry watched as Sam drove her fork into a strip of bacon and began to nibble at it.
“I didn’t know things were that bad on Mars,” he said. “I just followed your sports.”
Kaya shook her head. “That’s totally okay. We don’t know much about Luna, either.”
“And suddenly we’re a we again,” Sam said, frowning.
Henry felt the familiar buzz in his pocket of his phone receiving a text message. He pulled it out to check, and was surprised to see Kaya doing the same.
> Grand Admiral Zhu
>
> Senior staff report to the meeting room
Sam looked between them. “Something about work?”
Kaya glanced at Henry before responding. “We’re getting called to another meeting.”
“Well, don’t let me stop you. I’m just going to finish breakfast before I have to go deal with this divorce paperwork.”
Henry’s eyes widened. “...What?”
Kaya looked amused as Sam rushed to explain. “Oh it’s not—I don’t mean for Kaya and I. There was a married couple who filed for divorce within a few hours of waking up yesterday.”
“Oh, okay,” he chuckled.
“Yeah. The judiciary department was supposed to handle all the legal business for the colony until the next ship arrived with some family lawyers. But I guess since we’re now ship-bound we’re gonna see way more cooped up couples filing for divorce. And hooray! As a junior partner I’ll get to be the one handling most of the paperwork.”
Henry rose to his feet, bringing his now empty tray along with him.
“I’ll play you a song on the world’s smallest violin, once I can find it.”
Kaya suddenly leaned in towards Sam and spoke in a low voice.
“You and I are always we, no matter what.”
“Do you mean the royal We?”
“Yes. We proclaim thee beautiful.”
“So do We.”
Henry’s eyes rolled as they shared a brief kiss. Afterwards, Kaya grabbed her tray as well and stood up from the table.
“C’mon Red, let’s go see what the trouble is.”
Sam waved them goodbye as they headed off towards the recycling cart positioned next to the hallway door. They scooped what little remained of their food into the waiting receptacle, then placed their trays onto the nearby rack. Together they walked out into the hallway, joining a trickle of people walking in the direction of the bridge.
“What do you think it is this time? More aliens?” Henry asked.
“Oh god, I hope not. Sam’s brain would probably explode from excitement.”
“There is a whole ‘nother ocean world out there.”
“True.” She paused for a moment. “Is it strange that I already feel used to all the surprises?”
“Honestly? Yeah, it is.”
She laughed. “...Fair enough. I guess it’s just hard to register since the aliens are so strange. I always imagined they would basically look human, like from movies and games.”
Suddenly, brilliance flashed before Henry’s eyes, and he turned to her with a huge grin on his face.
“Would you say that they’re…unfathomable?!”
A peal of loud, uproarious laughter erupted from him. Kaya groaned with disgust.
“‘Cause ocean,” he said between laughter.
“Oh, I got it,” she replied flatly.
She waited for his laughter to die down with a slight frown on her face. Once he’d finally managed to stop, Henry wiped an imaginary tear from his eye.
“Goddamn, I’m hilarious.”
Kaya let out a dubious scoff and shook her head. “You remind me of my brother.”
“Why? Because he’s funny too?”
“No, because he wasn’t. At all.”
“Oh.”
“And he was in the navy.”
“What do you mean, was?”
“He’s gone,” she said simply.
Henry blinked. The way she’d said it reminded him of the way his old flight instructors had sounded when talking about lost friends. Pain hidden beneath layers of grief and acceptance.
“I’m sorry."
“No, don’t be. In all honesty he wasn’t really like you. Jon was more serious minded. Intense. But every once in a while he would surprise us with his humor.”
“Sounds like my kinda guy, then.”
She turned to him with a warm smile. “...Yeah.”
A thoughtful silence descended between them. One of Henry's greatest fantasies as a child had been to have siblings to play with, and he nearly worked up enough courage to ask her what it was like. But right as the question was on his lips, he thought better of it.
He continued on to the meeting room alongside Kaya, lost inside an internal world of old memories and fresh regret.