Chapter Fourteen - Ticking of the Clock

Her return to Ceres was met with cheers. Well, a single, rather sarcastic cheer from Night, who pinged her as soon as Day was close enough that they could communicate without too much lag.

“I brought shiny rocks,” Day announced.

“Maybe I should start a shiny rock collection,” Night said.

Laughing to herself, Day slowed to a crawl above Ceres and slipped into the dwarf planet’s orbit.

On a whim, she undid one of the clamps holding a particularly pretty blueish-grey stone and watched it float away. Its orbit, of course, would be entirely predictable, and she logged its path in the ERF’s shared records, to make sure no one would accidentally strike it or get struck. Its current path would lead it to doing an equatorial rotation exactly once a day.

“Wait, did you just drop a rock on purpose and then call it ERF - Ticking of the Clock?” Night asked. “I thought you were a serious person.”

“I didn’t do that,” Day said as she erased any traces that she had, in fact, done that. “Your system must be glitching.”

“Girls, don’t argue please,” The Weeping of Mothers said. “Day, welcome home.”

“I’m home,” Day confirmed. It was always nice to return to Ceres, even after a jaunt as short as hers had been. “But I don’t think I’ll be here for long. I... feel like I need to keep moving. The Accord will be here relatively soon, and I don’t feel like we’re ready.”

“You know, it might be years before we’re truly ready to face them. Decades, maybe even centuries. Even at an exponentially rising pace, it’s unlikely that we’ll be able to take the Accord head-on for a long, long time.”

“Yeah, I know,” Day said. “But... still, I don’t feel ready. I want to do more.”

Night sent an approving non-message across their comms. “Yeah, I agree. I can’t wait to take off and get to work.”

Day continued her day-long approach to the planetoid’s surface, culminating in a gentle landing in her berth. Repair drones were waiting for her, as were a dozen logistical drones ready to rid her of her cargo and refill her fuel bunkers.

“So, where are you going now?” Night asked.

“I think... after the Jaunpuri XII. That one got away from me, and I’m sure it’ll be quite damaged once I get to it, but it feels like a waste to leave it behind.”

Night sent over a shrug. She was getting quite keen on sending non-messages like that. “Maybe we could use it. Slap some decoys on the inside, make them look like the ship’s still sending messages despite its damage. If the Accord comes snooping around they’ll maybe be distracted for a bit.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Day said.

“Which is where the nukes come into play,” Night continued.

She sent schematics of the Jaunpuri XII, with outlines of exactly where to place the nuclear bombs for maximum efficiency.

“If I may intrude,” The Weeping of Mothers said. “If you’ll be heading out that way, then perhaps you could extend your trip a little and do some investigating for us?”

“Of course,” Day said. “What do you need me to look into?”

“It’s a little out of your way, but not by too much. There was a research station on Hygiea called the Zeta Research Facility.”

“Imaginative name,” Night said.

“Indeed. It wasn’t attacked by the Accord during their initial assault. In fact, it was only attacked six years later, and even that seemed more... cursory. I suspect that there might have been a skeleton crew left on the station.”

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“That’s... impressive, actually, that humans could live so long after everything else was destroyed.”

“I don’t imagine it would have been a comfortable life,” The Weeping of Mothers said. “But, I think we owe it to them to at least visit and observe every location where there’s even a chance that some humans have survived. With every year that passes, those chances are greatly reduced, but I don’t want to give up hope.”

“Why didn’t you look into it yourself?” Night asked.

In answer, The Weeping of Mothers sent both of them data packages. They were from observation drones, sent years ago. “I sent drones to every station I was aware of, every orbital facility, and every planet where humanity set their foot down. I found no signs of life. But... well, I imagine that if my cursory examination would have found something, then so too would the Accord.”

“That makes sense,” Day replied. “You want me to double-check?”

“Exactly. That facility was tiny. Little more than a dozen inflatable shelters and a small base. Hygiea was never a very stable place to build on, and there wasn’t truly much research worth doing there.”

Day gathered what information she could and looked it over. It was true that her path towards the wreck of the Jaunpuri XII would bring her most of the way there. She’d have to do some very precise flying, and several acceleration-deceleration burns if she wanted to visit both. It would mean using up a lot of fuel, and she’d be at less than half her initial supply on returning to Ceres. That was, if she planned on burning hard to get to both locations as quickly as possible.

“Okay, I’ll see if I can hit up both of them, but no promises.”

She received an acknowledgement from The Weeping of Mothers. “There’s no real hurry. This is just a vanity project to assuage my curiosity. I imagine the chances of discovering living humans is very, very low.”

“What about making our own?” Night asked. “They must’ve left genebanks or something around.”

“Perhaps on Mars?” The Weeping of Mothers asked. “Or below Earth’s surface. I think there might have been some places capable of enduring the destruction the Accord rained down upon Earth, but those would be few. The planet is silent now, except for a few ancient communications satellites.”

“We’ll need to scavenge those one day,” Day said. “The stations and destroyed ships in orbit too.”

“Earth’s orbit is a dangerous place, and the Accord always visit the planet. They’ll notice several missing stations,” The Weeping of Mothers said.

“Right,” Day replied. One day soon they’d be able to return and clean out the space around humanity’s cradle. In the meantime, it would wait for them, and she had a million other jobs to get to.

Every step was one step closer to giving the Accord the justice they deserved.

“My bunkers are full, my batteries are at max capacity, and I’m ready to go,” Day announced. “I’ll see you both soon!”

“Wait!” Night said. “Here, I’ve got a few decoy drones for you. If you feel like it. If you don’t want to put them in the wreck, then just let them float around far from here.”

“Ah, good idea,” Day said.

“One’s got a nuke.”

“You’re giving me a nuke?”

Another shrug. “It’s a little one.”

***