Chapter Text
The ship’s soft thrum of the ship’s engine reverberates through the mess as ever. For the first few dozen cycles the sound made it hard to sleep, but I almost never notice it anymore.
“...At our typical load I should be able to keep the ship operational for long enough to reach our new planet without any reactor leaks, but the maneuvers required to reach a safe speed and perform an orbital insertion will lead to increased power draw…”
A lock of hair falls in front of her face but she doesn’t mind.
“So we may need to shut off some systems to reduce load. Additionally we only have enough rations for another 500 or so cycles.”
I can’t stop myself from reaching over to brush her hair behind her ear. Her cheeks turn a bit pink, the blush crossing over the seams in her synthetic skin as she lifts her face to look at me.
“Ariane… You’re listening to me, right?”
“Yes, sorry, I just wanted a better look at your face.”
Her blush deepens. “This is serious.. We’ll need to shut down gravity and oxygen reclamation and enter suspended animation.”
“All the more reason to spend as much of the time we have left before that together.” The stress of cryogenic suspension on the body is significant, I won’t be able to go in and out of stasis like her. Once I’m in the chamber, I have to stay there until we reach our destination. “This is going to be harder for you than it is for me… I’ll just get to sleep until we arrive, you need to wake up every so often to keep the ship running and make course corrections.”
“I’ll be able to visit you when I’m up, and I can deal with a bit of isolation as long as I know you’re waiting for me at the end.” My vision starts swimming. I came on this mission to get away from everything and everyone and now I can’t bear to think of being apart from Elster for more than a few hours. “Ariane? What’s wrong?” She places a cool hand on my forearm, even though it isn’t warm, the presence is reassuring.
“I’m so weak… I can’t bear the thought of not seeing you for so long and I’m inflicting that on you… And I came here for isolation, to get away from everyone and be totally alone and now I’m crying because I don’t want to be alone.” The words blubber out of my mouth uncontrollably as Elster wraps her arms around me and pulls my face into her chest again.
It takes a few minutes of sobbing for me to pull away and look her in the face again. “Sorry… I’ve been crying a lot lately, huh?” Elster leans in and kisses my eyes. “Pffft, what was that?”
“I was… I was uh, kissing your tears away.” She’s normally so confident and stoic, seeing her glancing away sheepishly after doing something so romantically awkward is too much and I can’t help but burst into laughter.
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It’s been a few hours since the mortifying ordeal of our inventory review when Ariane laughed at me, though at least it improved her mood. Putting her on a leash afterward improved my mood, but now we need to get back to work.
The soft buzzing of the CRT displays overrides the distant hum of the engines in the background noise of the cockpit.
“Cameras are aligned on the planet and configured to tracking… We’ll need to wait for a transit to determine it’s atmospheric composition but until then we can conduct visual observations.”
Truthfully I don’t have anything to contribute to the discussion. All I can do here is act as a second set of hands for Ariane as she works on observation and analysis.
I can’t help but stare at the profile of her face, the set of her eyes as she concentrates on the task in front of her… It’s different from when she’s painting but no less beautiful. “One of your jobs during travel will be developing the film from the ship’s cameras.” Her words snap me out of my reverie. “This will involve conducting EVA to retrieve and replace the cartridges, as well as to replace the lenses as we approach the planet.”
I nod along silently. “Understood.” I can’t help but stare at the mark I left on her neck earlier. Ariane blushes faintly when she notices.
“I never thought I’d have to be the one to ask if you’re taking this seriously… Were you listening to what I said, Elster?” She’s so cute when she pouts.
“Yes, I’ll need to perform EVA to swap out film cartridges and camera lenses at routine intervals during our approach.”
She sighs in a mixture of annoyance and relief and continues her explanation. “We’ll be taking one picture each hour for the next hundred cycles using 16mm film on a variable exposure depending on the planet’s position relative to it’s star… So you’ll need to replace the film cartridges about once a month. On four cameras. Each with a different type of film to capture a different spectral range.”
“Yes Ma’am.”
“Don’t you ma’am me!”
“Okay Princess.” I am struck in the face with a notepad.
“ANYWAY! We should plan to go into stasis after another 200 cycles, and continue imaging, analyzing, and transmitting up until then. Once that happens I’ll set the cameras to take images less frequently, you’ll need to do the development and transmission yourself during your active periods.” My heart twinges as her voice shifts, a hint of melancholy seeping into her tone as she mentions my active periods.
“Are you worried I’ll be lonely?”
“I mean… won’t you be?”
I meet her gaze. “Of course I will. But it won’t be long, only a few cycles at a time. And we can meet in our dreams.”
“Elster… You’re gonna make me cry again, stop being such a fucking romantic sap.” She leans across the center console and kisses me. "I don't even know if I'm going to dream in cryo.. If I don't then at least it won't feel long."