Leon sighed to himself as he lay in his bed. Even at the incredible speeds they were moving at, time seemed to drag by painfully slowly at times. It had been fifty days since the discovery of the Glimmer Drorns and they had only visited a single system since then. The ship was nearing a promising looking system however. When they had stopped at the last star, which had been a total bust, Terry had observed a young yellow star nearby that had at least three inner planets close to the habitable zone. He wasn't really sure how she managed to get the information from the crazed mishmash of data that the long-range telescopes provided, but she had been right every time so far.

Leon laid his head back, he let out another sigh and cursed once again that there was no hot tub on the ship nor any tubs in which he could soak in general. He was worn out from his daily exercise routine that had him up early and doing upper body workouts. Every third day he made sure to exercise his legs so as not to lose any muscle tone to the lowered gravity. Still, he supposed, he had it easy compared to those first Jovian explorers. The first manned missions to the great gas giant had required the crews to do extensive exercise and the lack of decent air filtration made the ships stink like used gym socks. He smiled at the thought of those poor astronauts.

The UNSS Leif Erikson was a big ship, possibly the biggest yet built. Sure the outer system colony vessels were longer, but they likely weighed less. The six counter rotating rings on the Leif Erikson were designed in such a way that their two revolutions per minute was enough to produce about seventy percent of Earth gravity. The rings rotated in different directions, three clockwise, three counterclockwise. This was in order to balance out their rotational energy and to keep the ship from spinning like a top.

Leon had often stopped to marvel at the engineering that had gone into the ship. The filtration systems alone were the work of a mad genius and that was without mentioning the way the rings connected to the ship. The basics were a series of magnetic bearings and servos, but anything more in depth made his head swim. He was sure Sabine understood it, but he hadn't gotten around to asking her.

Leon sat up slowly with a groan. They were getting close to their next stop, a few more hours to go at least. He looked up sharply as a series of taps issued from his room's sliding door. He had the door set to invitation only and wondered who it could be.

He had a suspicion but put it aside as he yelled out "Just a moment please." The doors had good sound insulation and his voice had probably barely carried, it would be best to be punctual.

Standing and moving to his wall mounted dresser he pulled on an overshirt and clean pair of shorts before walking over to his door. Pressing the panel to open it, he was unsurprised to see Natalia standing there smiling hugely.

"Hello Nat. What uh, what do you need?" He asked her.

She shuffled slightly as she looked past him into his room and asked "Well? Aren't you going to invite me in?"

Leon shook his head and scooted past her as he closed the door to his room. "I was just leaving actually." He said, only half lying.

She leaned into him as he passed by and he stopped for the slightest moment as he considered giving in to her once more, but he stopped himself. It had been a year since he had first met her back during the training on Earth, but he was still a little scared to open up.

If she noticed his hesitation she didn't comment on it as she said "Oh yeah? Breakfast time?"

She looked up into his eyes and he smiled down at her as he nodded. "Yeah, er. Are you hungry?" He asked her a bit awkwardly.

She giggled slightly and replied "You have such a way with words, consider me invested." And she started to walk in the direction of the mess hall. He felt himself start off after her, his body drawn after hers as if by some magnetic force.

He shuffled up to her side and they walked down the slightly curving hall together. He scratched his head and tried to start a conversation "So, I uh…" but stopped as she spoke at the same time.

"I was wondering if… oh." She stopped as their words overlapped. Laughing slightly, she motioned for him to continue and Leon took a moment to gather his thoughts.

"I was thinking about what you said, the other day, and maybe I will give it a try…" he mumbled.

He saw her flick her head towards him, her hazel eyes searching him for a sign of falsehood. Finally she seemed to take what he said and she nodded slightly to herself.

They walked quietly for a little bit, his bare feet making soft padding sounds on the tough rubber decking underfoot. He could hear the slight creaking of the ship's machinery, the faint hum of electronics and the slight acrid tang of recycled air. The small mess hall loomed close as they walked and they entered it to see several other crew members already in place. There were always a couple of them on rotation for night shift, but Leon had the schedule set to rotate people back to a normal day routine every few days. It wouldn't do for a single person to get stuck in a monotonous cycle, that's how mistakes were made. On a ship hurtling through an environment as unforgiving as space, mistakes were not something that could be tolerated.

He felt Natalia grab his arm and he allowed her to lead him over to the small wall mounted fridges that contained the small, prepackaged meals and fresh leftovers from the night before. The ship's garden and aquaponics were capable of growing a great variety of different foods, but it was still nice to eat an Earth manufactured protein bar every now and again. They had enough nonperishable food to last them a decade or more if they used it wisely and that's exactly what he intended to do.

The ship was free of pests and vermin as it had been a very clean environment. They didn't have to worry about burrowing insects or rats, it would help to keep their stocks fresh for a long time.

Selecting a small container of enchiladas made with white fish meat and tomato sauce, he and Natalia sat next to each other on one of the table benches.

"Oh, is that some of Joice's cooking from last night? She does so much with so little it's incredible." Natalia said with a smile.

Leon was inclined to agree, while he wasn't a slouch in the kitchen by any means, he couldn't hold a candle to the culinary creations Joice seemed to be able to produce. She always had something new planned with the limited ingredients they had available. She had told them a story about her mother working as a cook in a fancy restaurant when she was younger and picking up a passion for the culinary delights from that as a child.

“This is certainly better than the soup that I managed to come up with last Tuesday.” Leon said, only half-jokingly.

Nat nudged him and countered “I actually quite liked it. The others just don't like onions as much as we do I guess.” she said with a smirk.

He rolled his eyes at her and opened the container. He had thought about warming them up, but he had always enjoyed cold leftovers as a child. Now that he was an adult, he found that his tastes remained the same.

“What, you didn't want to warm them up? You and your cold breakfasts.” Natalia huffed quietly to him as he moved two of the wrapped portions onto his plate. She stood and moved off with the remaining portions towards the small wall of appliances. Chuckling to himself, he dug into his dish and had almost finished his entire meal when she returned.

“You really must have been hungry, I haven't seen you eat anything that fast since the time we cracked open some of the freeze-dried ice cream bars.” she teased him.

“Haha, I did some strong exercises this morning and I guess it was a bit of a burner of a workout. Needed the calories.” he said with a shrug. She mumbled something noncommittal and started to eat her own meal.

As Natalia worked her way through breakfast, Leon looked around the room at the others. He could see that many of the regular day crew were awake and ready, many had likely eaten a little earlier than them, as the room wasn't full. But he did lock eyes with Aden and gave the mysterious man a slight nod. Aden returned the gesture and focused back on his steaming bowl. Leon knew that spirits among the crew were slipping day by day, they had yet to find any signs of intelligence in the universe, and while the Glimmer Drorns had been a welcome discovery, they were far from intelligent.

Additional surveying of the creatures and their signals revealed the true purpose of their low band radio calls. They were for little more than navigation and as such, held no higher meaning that could be decrypted. While this was rather crushing to Taylor, it was a good sign to Leon, it meant that alien life did exist and the chances of finding some sort of friendly intelligent life was far from zero. But the hard part was going to be actually locating them in the seemingly endless empty void of interstellar space. There were thousands of stars with favorable conditions just in the radius of five hundred light years of Earth. Potentially hundreds of habitable planets that could harbor intelligence.

The thought of what was waiting to be discovered distracted him enough that he jumped in surprise when he felt something touch his cheek. Jerking to the side he saw Natalia smiling at him with her hand raised.

“Sorry, I was, lost in thought.” he said slowly.

She shook her dark brown hair slightly and said “Always the thinker. Well then commander, what do you have planned now?” she asked him.

Glancing at her face he said “I'm going to get cleaned up, we are arriving in a new system in a few hours, I don't want to get caught out of position if something goes wrong.” he said with a grim smile.

She sighed and asked “I don't suppose you need any help then.”

He jerked again, this time in mild surprise “What? Help with, hey wait…” he said while narrowing his eyes at her. She gave him a wide innocent smile that made him question if he was just dirty minded. “Never mind, no I’ll be okay, thanks though.” he said as diplomatically as he could muster in his slightly flustered state.

She patted his shoulder before standing exaggeratingly slowly and stretched. “If you need me commander, I will be in the hydroponics section with Joice and Aden. She walked out of the mess hall, his eyes following her figure as she walked out of the room.

‘Damn’ he swore to himself. She really knew how to pry up his armor and get straight to his core. That woman was a vixen in a very pleasant package, she knew exactly what she wanted, and what she wanted was him. He shook his head, he still couldn't understand it. Surely she must be seeing something in him that wasn't there, there was no way a battered old veteran like himself could really be all that interesting to a younger woman like her. Though part of his mind told him to just give in already, he pushed it down. He was still in command of himself damnit, even if he was finding less and less reason to keep holding back.

He felt someone sit down across from him and he looked up from his mostly clean plate to see who it was. He smiled as he saw Samuel sitting across from him, the young man smiling far too broadly to be good.

“Hold up, what's got you in such a fine mood this morning?” Leon asked the young man.

Samuel just raised an eyebrow and glanced towards the door where Natalia had just exited from. “Are you still resisting?” he said straight out.

Leon jerked again for the third time this morning as he was surprised. “What, what are you talking about?” he said, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible and failing miserably.

Samuel just rolled his eyes and leaned towards him before talking in a conspiratorial whisper. “It's pretty obvious to see that Natalia has a major thing for you, commander.” he added with a wink before continuing “I guess I was just wondering. What's really holding you back, she is gorgeous if you didn't realize…” he said with a raised eyebrow.

Leon just closed his opened mouth and spluttered “I am not discussing this here with you Sam. You know as well as I do that I have a responsibility to this ship and its crew, one I can't reasonably endanger by getting caught up in some frivolous activities like some of you.” he finished with a whoosh of air.

Samuel just shook his head sadly and leaned back to a straight posture. Poking at his food, Leon wanted to apologize for his hissed outburst but couldn't bring himself to say anything that might make his argument sound less than concrete.

“Well, if that's the case, then I guess I better let you carry on.” Samuel said as he started to stand.

Leon reached out towards him and said “Wait, that's not what I meant, you know that I…” he cut off as Samuel gave him a piercing look.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“No, that is what you meant. I just want to make sure you know where your priorities lie, with those bureaucratic fucks who we left behind on Earth, or with this crew that might as well be everything that exists now.” The younger man finished with considerable venom. Leon watched as he walked away and ducked his head in embarrassment at the confused looks he received from some of the other crew.

Standing hastily he took his dishes over to the kitchen and passed through the doors to rinse them and place them in the sanitation area.

As he exited the kitchen, he saw that Samuel had left the eating area and he sighed heavily to himself. He figured that he had done some emotional damage to the young man, but there was no point trying to fix the problem right away. He would have a chat and apologize to him later, for now he needed to go and get ready to meet the rest of the command staff on the bridge.

A short while later Leon was feeling more confident, in clean clothes and smelling of cleaning solvents from his shower, he headed out of his room and towards the bridge. His booted feet made soft thumping sounds as he walked along the upwards curving floor of the rotating habitation module. It was still a little unnerving to look like he was walking uphill but not feel it, even after all the time he had been aboard. Gosh, it had already been almost an entire year, just another sixty days and they would be there, a year into the two decade mission.

As he reached the ladder and started his way up it, he heard a voice from behind him say "Hey, good morning sir."

Glancing down at the base of the ladder he noticed Taylor looking at him. "Oh, good morning there, on your way to the bridge?" Leon grunted out as he continued to climb the ladder.

He heard Taylor start to climb the ladder as well, the communications specialist stated "Yes, I was actually hoping to catch you sir, I was wondering where you stood on crew relationships."

Leon almost let go of the ladder at that, what was it today, was there something in the water? He wondered silently to himself as he opened his mouth to reply.

Before he could speak Taylor started to talk again "I wouldn't normally bother you with this, but… uh, I guess I will just say it. I want to ask Terry to marry me." The younger man blurted out.

Leon did let go of the ladder in surprise this time, luckily they were far enough up the ladder that he only drifted weightless for a moment before he got a hold of himself. He shook his head as he and Taylor pulled themselves out of the cramped ladder passage and into the more open core of the ship itself.

"Okay, first of all, are you really sure about that? And secondly, what on Earth are you thinking…" he started to lecture when Taylor cut him off.

"We aren't on Earth sir. And I think that you need to remember that yourself." Taylor said to him a bit heatedly.

Leon frowned at the other man's tone and was about to call him out on it when he stopped. After all the time they had spent traveling and all the times he had heard it, it hasn't really sunk in to him, until now. He was right, they weren't on Earth anymore. And if Taylor and Terry really shared something so special, then who was he to stand in the way of it. How he handled this situation would have a vast impact on how the crew listened to him in future scenarios. Handle it poorly and it was likely that his command would forever be questioned, but if he did this right, then the loyalty and security of the crew would be pretty much guaranteed. Especially the loyalty of two of the most important members of the crew.

As he had been thinking, Taylor had been following him nervously. As they reached the bridge entrance, the younger man asked him nervously "Sir, I respect you a lot. And I didnt want this to come as a shock to you when it happened. I, well sir, you are the closest thing either of us has to a father on the ship, and I was hoping to do this with your blessing." Taylor asked tentatively.

For whatever reason, his honest and heartfelt request tugged Leon's heart in just the right way and in that instant his mind was decided. Turning to the other man, he extended a hand to his shoulder and looked him right in the eye. With a bit more emotion than he had planned to use he choked out “Taylor, it would be my honor to give you my blessing. I'm sorry I snapped at you, I have been under a bit of pressure lately and kind of took it out on you. Please forgive me.” he finished, a little ashamed of himself.

Taylor took his arm and pulled him into a fierce hug as he said “There is nothing to forgive, you are like family to me sir. Nothing you do will ever change that.” tears started to form in Leon’s eyes at the outward display of affectionate emotion from the younger man. They stayed that way for a little longer before Taylor released him and smiled wider than the milky way. “Oh boy, you think you were surprised, wait till Terry sees this beauty.” he held out a small box toward him.

Taking it from the young man, he inspected it for a moment. It was a small parts box, likely having held some sort of replacement part before it was repurposed by Taylor. Opening it he breathed in slightly in surprise. Inside the small unadorned box was a beautiful ring. It was shiny and the metal was a bright silvery white in coloration with a slight yellowish hue. On the top was a small but brilliant gemstone. It looked similar in appearance to a diamond and he wondered where the man could have gotten it.

“Where did you get this?” Leon asked the man incredulously. “It's beautiful.”

Taylor smiled and said “Remember that asteroid field we took samples from back in the second to last system we visited?”

Leon nodded and looked back at the exotic ring.

Taylor pointed to it and said “Well, there is the product of two months of hard work, refinement and extraction aside, this was not an easy piece to make.”

Leon cocked his head and said “You made this entirely out of material from the samples?”

Taylor nodded and answered “Yes I did. What you have there is an iridium ring with a moissanite setting. It turned out much better than I was expecting to be entirely honest.” the young man said proudly.

Leon nodded as he handed back the rig to Taylor. Grabbing a nearby handhold to steady himself, he said “She is going to be blown away by that, I can guarantee it. I certainly was.”

Tylor nodded and smiled at the small box for a few moments before looking imploringly at him again. “I know it's kind of short notice, but as the only ranking member of any kind of authority here, I was wondering if… Well, can you marry us?” The man finished sheepishly.

Leon opened his eyes wide in surprise again, this day just kept hitting him harder and harder. “Of course I will, I'm not really much of a priest, but I'll do the best I can.” he said with a half shrug.

“That's all I could have hoped for and more sir. Thanks again, and I trust you won't say anything about this to anyone?” he asked.

Leon nodded solemnly and said “My lips are sealed.” with a motion of crossing his lips.

Taylor nodded once more and the two of them entered the bridge through the main airlock. Taking a moment to pull on his voidsuit, Leon grabbed the accompanying helmet and made his way weightlessly over to his command chair. With only twenty minutes till warp exit, he wanted to make sure everything and everyone was as ready as was possible. He knew from experience that one could never really tell what was going to happen when the ship dropped back into reality as it was more commonly known. They never left reality, but as isolated from the rest of the universe as they were behind an artificial event horizon, they might as well have been in an entirely different plane of existence for all the effect they had on the surrounding space.

As he took his seat, he watched Taylor carefully. He knew the young man wouldn't distract the crew now just in case there was a situation when they arrived, but he was still curious to see how much the young man would let out on accident as he waited. To his credit, Taylor was remarkably calm given what he had planned for the shy woman seated next to him.

It took less time than he thought for the UNSS Leif Erikson to arrive in the new system. Twenty minutes flew by like they had wings and the yellow alert lights began to flash signaling an approaching warp event. As the ship left its bubble of warped space the entire universe seemed to hum in tune with his inner thoughts and flit in and out of view as if his eyes were seeing through the universe into another. But just as fast as his mind was able to register the disturbing effect, it was gone without a trace once more leaving him wondering if he had even experienced it in the first place. The next thing he saw made his eyes widen and his mouth open involuntarily.

The system they had just entered seemed to be composed of circles of light, there were massive shining rings around the star that radiated outwards in ever growing segments till they faded from view as the reflected light dimmed or they thinned too much to form a coherent image.

It took him a moment to gather his wits and blurt out “Terry, what are we seeing?”

The equally stunned woman took a moment to gather her own thoughts and check her equipment. After a few minutes she reported “Commander, it seems like this system's largest planet has a highly irregular orbit that extends far out into this system's Oort cloud. This has the effect of drawing large numbers of comets into the inner system where the water vapor is then captured in the gravitational dead zone between the inner planets and corralled into vast rings composed almost entirely of water ice. If we were to approach one of these rings it could let us easily top up our water tanks with almost no risk.” She finished a little excitedly.

Everyone was starting to notice the recycled water. But this seemed like the perfect opportunity to top off the tanks and introduce some fresh new water into the system. What's more, it was probably chock full of minerals and other such nutrients that would be a benefit to the hydroponics system.

“That sounds like a fine idea. But before we do that, we should maintain our distance and recon the system for at least four hours to make sure there isn't anything we missed. Don't want a repeat of that star with the huge CME bursts.” he said.

Terry just gave a subtle nod and continued to monitor the system. Turning to Taylor he said “Give me some detailed scans of the interior, I don't expect to find anything out of the ordinary there, but it doesn't hurt to double check.” Taylor gave an affirmative motion and turned to his console as well. Looking at Sabine he asked her “Sabine, how's my ship doing? Anything other than good news to report?”

Sabine shook her head and said “Not a thing Leon, she is running at peak efficiency. In fact, I think we are actually doing slightly better than those grunts back on Earth predicted. We aren't seeing the main drive degradation that they predicted might start to occur, we will probably be able to cover a lot more ground in total than they thought we would.” she said with a smile.

He smiled back and nodded towards Samuel, the pilot just gave him a sideways glance then turned away, still clearly upset by his comments from that morning. Well, Leon was banking on his blessing to Taylor and Terry gaining him some of the man's support back.

Leon continued to marvel at the system. The huge bands of light must have been a million miles across to have been visible from such a distance, and there were so many of them. He could see four, but there looked to be several dim ones in the outer system as well. They might eventually coalesce into giant spheres of water in millions of years, but for now, they created a supremely spectacular sight as they occasionally refracted the sun's light into a kaleidoscope of colors that made them seem to sparkle with all the colors of the rainbow and a few more exotic mixings of color he couldn't describe. Light was so clear and sharp without the atmospheric haze he was accustomed to.

As they sat silently for a while longer he noticed Taylor looking at him expectantly. Leon looked around the room and then nodded to the man who smiled hugely.

Taylor Cleared his throat loudly and then made a show of accidentally losing the small box, sending it floating gently towards the floor. Terry looked over at him in amusement at his obvious theatrics and Sabine and Samuel noticed as well. As Taylor unstrapped and got down on one knee with his other leg tucked under the seat of his chair to keep from floating away to retrieve the box, he pulled a smooth one eighty and faced Terry with the box in his right hand, the lid now opened to expose the exotic ring in its bed of packing foam. Her face went from amused to confused to shocked in an instant as Taylor spoke several words. Words that apart meant little, but together, were heavy with passion and commitment.

“Terry, will you marry me?” Taylor asked Terry on one knee on the bridge of a ship a quadrillion kilometers from Earth.

Terry looked around at them, Leon smiling as wide as Taylor, Sabine shocked, and Samuel seemingly torn between the two. Finally she squeaked and looked back at Taylor. She reached out and pulled Taylor into a tight hug that had the man almost lose his grip on the box.

“Of course I will marry you!” she burst out as tears started to flow from her eyes. One floated away in the zero gravity and sparkled like a tiny diamond as the radiant light from the forward view screens lit it.

Sabine clapped her hands together and said “Oh how nice. You knew about this didn't you.” she accused Leon as she saw his face. He just shrugged and continued to watch the pair as they talked quietly to each other.

Leon looked to Samuel and said slowly “I know where my priorities lie Sam, and I hope this proves it.” he turned towards the happy couple and announced “This is a great day, both for our journey, and our friends. I am glad that you two have decided to take this great step. While I am not much of a priest, I would be happy to perform a ceremony for you when you want. Whether now or in the future, though I must admit, the view from the observation deck has got to be absolutely spectacular at the moment.” he finished with a slight wink at the pair.

Terry looked at Taylor and hugged him close again before she asked “What do you say, want to get it done now, while we have such a nice backdrop. I'll bet all the girls on Earth would kill for such a photoshoot.” she finished with a giggle.

Taylor nodded and said “I assume everyone is invited?” to which she just giggled again.

“Sabine, if you would be so kind as to invite the crew to the observation deck, let them know the reason and tell them they don't want to miss this.” she nodded and began to type furiously onto her console.

Taylor and Terry moved out of their seats towards the airlock, still grinning ear to ear. Their mood was infectious and Leon found himself smiling too.

As Sabine finished and moved to the airlock, Samuel finally got out of his seat and drifted over to him. Leon looked at the man and opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by a hasty apology from the young pilot.

“I, I'm sorry Leon. I spoke without thinking this morning. Of course you only have our best interests in heart, You have been nothing but decent to us all this whole time and I really don't have anything to complain about.” the man said, his head bowed.

Leon clapped the man on the shoulder as he unstrapped from his command throne. “Oh come on, you know I didn't take it personally. As your only superior I'm sure you understand that you can talk to me about anything. I won't break your trust, and if you really need to, you can talk to Natalia. In fact, please do, it will keep her off my back for a little while at least.” he joked with a smile.

Samuel cracked a small smile as well and said “Alright. But you owe me one.” and with that he was gone as he torpedoed himself to the airlock to catch it before it cycled closed.

Alone on the main deck now, Leon looked to the large view screen at the rings of the system. It was such a mesmerizing sight, full of wonder and mystery. That this was all an effect of random events was a marvel to him. In a universe so vast and incredible, it was indeed a wonder that such things could come to be, beauty from pure entropy. Smiling to himself he turned slowly from the shimmering sight and moved to the airlock, he had one last piece of business to attend to before he could attend the hastily scheduled wedding. With any luck there would be cake, he had no idea how anyone would make it, but if Joice knew a way, then there would be.

There is an additional short story called 'The First Interstellar Bond' below in the Post-chapter notes if you feel inclined to read more. I hope you like it.