Here we are, we’re all looking out at a beautiful blue and green planet, which by the looks of it has very few inhabitants, no manmade structures or cities are visible from orbit. Star Fury’s long-distance communications patch us into the on-planet comms and net. Juno sends out a comm to who I presume to be Thomas. ‘Guess who!’
‘I don’t believe it. No way you stop by completely unannounced after all this time, are you going to be here long? How much longer until you’re planet-side?’ he comms. Juno smiles and sends him a reply.
‘We’re planning on staying a while if you’ll have us. Everyone’s here with me, plus an extra that you’ve never heard about, so you’ll finally get to meet them. We can be down in as little as fifteen minutes, do you have anywhere we could park the ship on premises?’
‘Great, I’m glad to hear it, yeah come on down, I’ve got somewhere for the ship,’ he replies.
“Thomas says that he’s got somewhere where we can put Star Fury down, I’m going to start heading that way,” Juno says to us.
“Sounds good, can’t wait to see the place,” says Gabriel.
Juno switches the navigation controls over to full manual mode. The waypoint that Thomas just sent to Juno appears on the hull glass, and she starts to tilt the steering yoke down and in, propelling us quickly towards the waypoint.
In just a few minutes more, we are hurdling over fields and sweeping around hillsides and through crevasses faster and closer to the ground than I have ever seen anyone fly a ship of this stature, only a few meters off the ground traveling just under Mach speed.
“Having a bit of fun are we,” says Liam, who seems to have plenty of confidence in Juno’s ability.
“Yeah, I used to race through here a long time ago, it’s where I picked up the skill. It’s so nice to be somewhere familiar. Star Fury is a lot bigger than the racer I used to fly through here though, I keep having to remind myself of that when I think about dipping into some of these narrower spots,” she says.
The landscape is beautiful, there are fields of tall grass and erratic changes in altitude in the forms of cliffs, mountains, and ravines, often peppered with flowing waterfalls. Juno throws the ship around the mountainsides and dips into ravines at speeds that should be violently sending us every which way against the interior cabin. Luckily for us, the only indication of the speed and rapid changes in direction is the view. I tap into the rear facing visuals from Star Fury to see the grasses and trees bend and tussle as we blow by them. Anyone lucky enough to live in such a place should never leave; if only I were so fortunate.
Juno pulls back on the yoke, and we slow to a much more reasonable pace, just as we are approaching the waypoint. We rise up higher off the ground to see over the hill in front of us, and on the other side lies a house, if you could call it that. It is massive, a beautiful glass, metal and wooden structure that looks as if its curving lines continue into the ground beneath it. With huge sections of the interior being visible from the outside as a result of the glass. The waypoint is pointing off to the side, to an empty field, and as we approach, the earth moves, and the empty field rises up to reveal a hanger big enough to house three ships the size of Star Fury. Juno pulls us in and touches down right in the middle of the hanger.
“Alright, here we go,” says Juno. ‘We’re here, just landed, you coming out to see us or not?’ She comms to Thomas.
‘I’m on my way, I just got out of the shower, I only got back from town a few minutes ago myself,’ he replies.
Juno stands up and motions for the three of us to follow as she walks towards the exit ramp.
“Come on Cicero, quit pouting, we’re here, come meet Thomas!” Juno yells back as she’s leaving.
Thomas appears out of one of the doors on the side of the hanger and Juno starts to run over to him. She jumps up on him and he catches her in a hug. They look like siblings; both have the same bright blond hair and blue eyes. Thomas is a full head taller than Juno, so he’s about 184 centimeters tall.
“It’s so good to see you. Introduce me to your friends. I’ve heard so much about you all,” he says.
“Okay, so this is Gabriel, Liam, and Evelyn,” she says pointing out each of us. “And that over there is Cicero,” she says, as Cicero walks down the ramp out of Star Fury. “Everyone, this is Thomas.”
Everyone says hello, shakes hands, and all that. “Hi, it’s nice to meet you, these guys picked me up on the last planet they were on, so Juno hasn’t gotten to tell you about me yet I assume. Thank you so much for letting us stay here with you,” I say.
“Of course, any friends of Juno are friends of mine, come on I’ll show you inside,” he says.
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“Actually Thomas, I want to go outside for a bit, soak up some sun, it’s been so long since I’ve been home, do you mind if we go this way?” Juno asks, gesturing out into the field.
“Yeah, of course. Sorry, I forget what a beautiful place I live in sometimes,” Thomas says.
We all start walking out of the hanger, onto the lawn. It’s hot outside and my clothes meant for the damp chilly climate of Huyto are going to get uncomfortable soon. “Do you have any substorage access points here?” I ask Thomas. I’d like to relax and decompress in my own space.
“Yes, I can show you where the access points are in a bit, they’re just over there in the main house,” Thomas says, pointing to the house we saw coming in, it’s about forty meters away from where we are now right outside the hanger.
Gabriel, Liam, and Cicero are looking around, admiring the view. Liam has his eyes closed, face up with his arms out to his sides, as if he were soaking up the sun. He stands there for a moment or two and sighs, he then starts walking to catch up to us. We’re all strolling across the lawn towards the house. Juno and Thomas are catching up, chatting away.
When we get to the entrance, Thomas asks Juno to show everyone where the guest rooms are while he shows me the access point, and they all take off to the right.
“The access points are this way, follow me,” Thomas says. I follow him down the stairs to the left, they curve to the right staying in line with the general circular shape of the aboveground structure. On the next floor down, there is a large, conjoined kitchen and dining room, chairs line only the side of the table opposite the kitchen. The stairs continue down to another floor below, but on the left, just preceding the stairs down to the next floor there is a door. Thomas opens the door and shows me in. Inside, there are four access points.
“I hope that these have capabilities enough for your room, I rarely have had any use for these, so I haven’t had them connected to any external communications,” Thomas says.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m grateful that you have them at all, thank you. You are more than welcome to come inside with me. You’ve opened your home to us, it’s only fair that I do the same,” I say.
“If you don’t mind, it’s not every day that I get to talk to an interstellar traveler,” he says with a smile.
I turn away from him for a moment, I don’t need him to see my necklace surfacing out of my skin, that would cause problems I think. I take my room out of my necklace, the size and shape of a drop of water, really a technological marvel. I take it and place it in one of the access points.
“I’ll leave it unlocked, just come in when you’re ready,” I say.
“Okay,” he replies.
‘Hey, I’m going into Evelyn’s room, entertain yourselves upstairs, there’s food in the kitchen,’ he comms to Juno.
‘Okay, watch yourself, there’s been nothing but trouble since we picked her up,’ she replies. Interesting to know, Juno doesn’t trust me yet, and why would she. I plan on improving that situation in the coming days.
I enter my room, a familiar feeling, but thrilling every time, the space between nuclei and electrons shrinking to fit unimaginable volume in such a small space. Everything is exactly how I remember it, not a hair out of place. Thomas appears next to me a moment later, the entrance is in the lounge, it acts as the center point for the other rooms.
“You can sit down on the couches if you like, I’m going to get some water and change into something a little more suited for your climate, do you want anything to drink?” I ask.
“No, I’m fine, thank you,” he replies.
“Alright, well feel free to look around, the library’s that way. I like to collect things from my travels, they’re scattered all over this place,” I say, pointing out the library to the right. Thomas forgoes the couches at the mention of the library and starts heading that way as I take the stairs to the left to go up to my changing room. I change out of my clothes into a thin turquoise romper, with no shoes. It’ll be nice to feel the ground beneath my feet, to be one with nature and all that.
I walk into the library to see Thomas looking at a picture of an ancient structure that was found on a planet near the center of the universe. It was left behind by the Preludes, a species that beat humans to space by many thousands of years. They still occupy a decently large system of planets very near the center of the universe, but they have made it very clear that they want nothing to do with any other intelligent life, taking a stance of isolationism. From what we have been able to gather, they are much more in tune with some of the more subtle secrets of the universe, such as its origin and other metaphysical concepts. The structure in the picture was left behind when they seceded to their current domain, we have been able to learn a few things from what they left behind, but the main purpose of the structures such as this one is unknown.
“It was even more of a marvel in person. I spent several months there on Eiso,” I say, as he turns around to look at me.
“I bet it was, you must have been to more places than anyone I’ve ever met, I’ve been looking at all these pictures and books and they’re from all over. You’ve seen some pretty amazing things,” he says.
“Have you done any traveling yourself?” I ask.
“Sadly no, I haven’t, it’s something I’ve always been interested in, but I have my place here to look after and there’s plenty to do here on Airis, it’s a more traditional way of living, but it is fulfilling in its own way,” he replies.
“You ought to ask Juno if you could come along with us for a little while, I believe that after their last mission they may be retiring from their line of work to a more relaxed lifestyle. Star Fury is a slip craft, so you wouldn’t have to worry about losing this place to time,” I say. If I can get Thomas to come along with us, at least for a little while, it might help my own position with the crew. I could potentially use this as a long-term solution, traveling place to place on Star Fury, instead of my usual ditch and run strategy.
“I’ll think about it, it would be a pretty big change for me. Anyways, tell me about some of the places you’ve been, what’s it like traveling so much?” He asks.
“Well, it keeps you on your toes, you never get too used to one place. I have to move around for work, or, I had to, I didn’t like it much at first, but I got used to it, and after that it got easier to enjoy. Occasionally, I’ll end up somewhere really nice like Airis here, and it’ll be hard for me to leave, but for the most part I do okay. This one planet I was on had close to a trillion people on it and the chaos of living there was just wild, the next couple places I went from there seemed incredibly boring,” I say.