Men Who Kill God
After two months, they’re finally getting ready to go home. Two grueling months spent in near isolation with only each other to rely on for interaction are nearly over, and for Ava, it also marks the near end of her contract with this God-forsaken company. It was free, they told her back then, when the first gave her a place to live and a bed to call hers. Charity. Back then, she despised the notion, but now, she wishes that it hadn’t been a lie told to draw her into the contracts and rules and missions to abandoned planets to find any fossil or technological records to tell them what happened here. Why these people would have left. With no evidence to go on and most of them nearing the ends of their contracts, there’s a tangible excitement and playfulness in the air tonight. Even Lanik is smiling as he records final readings from his instruments.
“Earth sweet Earth,” Crockett says, watching the distant glow of their home sun on the horizon. “I’ll be honest, I’m really missing non-dehydrated food.”
“That’s because you’re too prissy to eat fresh,” Will teases. He’s eating dried meat from something he and Connor snared last week, roasting some fresh and letting the rest cure with salt and UV, as he plots his temperature readings onto a graph.
Sarah fakes a gagging sound and everyone begins to laugh. It’s easier to get along when they all know it’s coming to an end. At last, it will be over soon. Sarah’s contract finished yesterday, leaving her to relax and breathe in the balmy air while the others complete their jobs. They’re almost free. Elsa has her shoes off and her feet in the stream while she labels samples beside Sarah and they look so natural together, their arms brushing and sharing soft looks. They’ve kissed when they thought no one was looking. And yes, they seem made to fit their bodies and lips together, but there’s a part of Ava that wishes she was able to be part of this tenderness blossoming between them.
Noah announces from his place on top of the ship, “There’s a storm coming in later tonight,” and takes down the fragile barometer from it’s locked position on the hull. “It’ll be a rough one, so we should expect to leave mid-to-late morning tomorrow instead of dawn. April?”
She pops up beside him. The two are apparently a couple years apart, but they act with the same strange bond as twins. The yellow of Noah’s space suit and the green of April’s seem to compliment each other just as easily as their jobs- solar activity and weather respectively. It’s likely April’s reading is what has been read out to the rest of them.
“I expect about one-half meter of rain and category two winds.”
“When?” Lanik asks.
“Three to four hours.”
Plenty of time to pack up, then. Everyone goes back to their work, Ava included, carefully going over her last readings. She’s been the medic in all this, and she takes a long look at the way that the foreign planet has affected all their bodies according to sixty data points. Crockett has gained muscle mass, Connor has lost it. April got taller with the gravity difference. The others have minor fluctuations that can be explained as basic human body fluctuations.
“Did my tits grow?” Sarah asks, drawing Ava’s attention. “Lockwood on GFN-Y5 said that the new rations made hers grow like crazy. Did mine?”
“They’re fine.”
She noticed a slight change, but nothing worth commenting on. Even putting in that data makes her feel kind of gross. She does it anyways, though, and smiles at Sarah like she’s put the stars in the sky. As far as Ava’s concerned she did. Sarah is light and she’s beautiful, but Ava knows that this teasing friendship is the most she’ll ever get, so she doesn’t push the fact that Sarah has the most tender smile that feels reserved only for her.
Connor chooses that moment to insert himself, demanding to know if he’s still the strongest crew member, which he never was in the first place. Ava gleefully informs him otherwise, and makes sure everyone knows that their physical health is fine to make the trip back; she doesn’t mention the ways that this expedition has hurt them, especially Elsa’s delicate constitution, because it will only frighten them and make the journey home that much more miserable.
By the time they’re all packing up for the night, April comes up to Ava with familiarly troubled eyes. She was chosen for this because of how easily she picks up changes in patterns, in what’s familiar, but it is a skill that has caused her great pain as well. April shakes her hands quickly, the way one would when trying to dry them off after a rinse in the stream, and looks at the gathering storm clouds overhead.
“Something’s wrong,” she tells her. “It all sounds different.”
Ava doesn’t hear it, but she trusts April’s intuition more than she trusts her own. “Different how?”
“It sounds like someone’s screaming, but it’s…” April searches for a word. “It’s small,” she eventually comes up with. “It’s a small scream. I don’t like it. And it’s not coming from the engine, it’s something out here.”
A quick glance shows nothing amiss, so Ava simply shrugs. “It might be a bug or something. Let’s go into the ship, maybe it’ll be better.”
They do, but April winds up covering her ears anyways while she hunkers down in front of the screens in the lab to look over it all one last time before they leave. The end of their contracts is a gift. April wants to go into weather studies even after, though she intends to find different employers, and Noah will likely go with her with his expertise on solar activity. Maybe they will plan routes and departures for future spaceships, both scientific and recreational.
Ava kind of wants to be a doctor when she’s done. She has the medical training to be a nurse, at least, but maybe she’ll have enough money in her locked contract account to pay for the extra classes and the certification. She goes to ask Noah what his final plans are when the first crack of lightning fills the air outside, followed by a heavy roll of thunder. April covers her ears more tightly and shuts her eyes. While Noah comforts her, Ava goes outside to wrangle the rest of the others, noting how Elsa and Sarah are smiling and at ease in the rain.
“Looks like the storm’s coming through. Everyone inside.”
First is Elsa, stumbling a little on her own two feet with Sarah walking behind to steady her. Crockett is next, tugging Lanik along and murmuring something in another language that sounds rather salacious based on tone. It’s Will and Connor who come in last with their packaged stores of meat and heavy equipment. That’s everyone. Ava closes the hatch and locks it three times. Clicker. Deads. Airlock. It hisses to prove that it’s sealed. Everyone wanders off, as always, in their pairs. Except for Ava. Her assigned partner for the trip had initially been Crockett, but he took a liking to the captain almost immediately, and she’s fairly certain they’re in the control room doing something not very family friendly.
She retreats to the medbay to upload her files while the storm rages on, and eventually curls up in one of the sterile beds to rest through the night.