#sartaq dalavtchai

[nalgenewhore]

A rogue storm had her presumed dead and stranded on the red planet. Left on her own, astronaut Aelin Galathynius has four years to make it to the next drop-site, some two thousand miles. Armed with her smarts and dwindling supplies, Aelin attempts to survive on an inhospitable planet, when the nearest help is only millions of miles away. 

masterlist - ao3 - last chapter - next chapter 

+*+*+*+*+*+*

“It just can’t be. Have you double checked?”

Weylan Darrow’s disapproving face stared at Nox through the computer screen, Asterin sitting next to him with a blank expression.

“Yes, sir. Everyone in SatCon and the RPL checked them,” he replied, trying to keep the exasperation out of his voice. “See, the images show both the rovers moving and the solar panels being cleaned. Modifications have been made to—”

“Modifications? What modifications?”

Sartaq Dalavtchai, the director of the Rocket Propulsion Lab, held up an image, “Galathynius took the battery off the second rover and attached it to the first, to double its power…”

Asterin spoke, finishing his sentence, “She’s trying to travel to the Mistward crater for The Crone.”

“Exactly, Asterin, or that’s what we believe is happening.”

“But the rover will only be able to travel a total of one-hundred kilometres and Mistward is… two-thousand at least. Not to mention, she’ll need to use the heater during the nights.”

Sartaq nodded, “You’re correct. Which is why we believe she is planning to attach the solar panels and…” he and Nox shared a look; they wouldn’t be happy to find out what she’d dug up.

“And?” Weylan prompted, wariness in his eyes. “And what?”

“Sir, she dug up the RTG.”

Asterin’s otherworldly eyes – the truest black flecked with brilliant gold – widened, “The plutonium battery?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She sat back in her chair, thinking aloud, “Well, it would be able to fully power the rover without needing to be charged.” As well as powering a nuclear bomb, but Asterin kept that to herself.

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

“She’s what?” Manon barked, glaring through the computer at Nox, as if he had grossly offended her. “Who even is this, where’s the director of SatCon?”

Asterin calmed her cousin, “Stop being a dick, Manon, this is Nox Owens, he’s a satellite planner and the one who found out Aelin’s still alive.” She addressed Nox next with a cheeky grin, “Don’t worry about her, she hasn’t drunk the blood of a virgin for a while, she’s a little grouchy.”

Nox laughed, still terrified of the glaring woman, and Weylan shook his head from the opposite side of the table as Manon, as if thinking, Why did I hire so many witches?

“Please, continue, Nox,” Gavriel said, “where’s Aelin going?”

“Well, we’re not sure, sir. We believe she’s testing out her modifications on the rovers. She drives for thirteen hours, stops, and returns. We think the stops are to charge the batteries.”

Weylan frowned, he seemed to do that a lot. “But you said that she attached the solar cells to the top. Why would she need to re-charge and what about the RTG?”

Sartaq waved to introduce himself, “I can answer that. The solar cells are extremely delicate and the rover is designed to cross all sorts of rough terrain so she can’t have the solar cells out all the time because the risk of breaking them is higher. As for the generator,” he paused, rubbing his fingers over his jaw, “it’s good for spacecrafts but if it ruptures around humans… no more humans. Which is why she isn’t completely relying on it. And why we buried it, with a flag so we would know not to touch it.”

The Orynth team all nodded thoughtfully and Weylan asked, “Sartaq, what’s the fastest you can get a food probe ready?”

“Hmm,” the gears in his mind circled and he narrowed his eyes, “with the planetary positioning… nine months. We’ll need six months to build it in the first place—”

“Three months. Get it done.” Weylan held up his hand when Sartaq startled, looking to protest, “You’re going to say it can’t be done and I’ll give some speech about the immeasurable capabilities of the RPL team and you’ll say something like the overtime alone will be a nightmare.”

“The overtime alone will be a nightmare,” the harried rocket scientist mumbled, looking behind the camera at the rest of his team who were all shaking their heads and holding up a sign that read FUCK NO!!!

“Get it started, I’ll find you the money.”

Manon breathed out, trying to keep her anger in check, “It’s time to tell the crew.”

“Manon,” her boss started, his voice conveying his emotions on the topic they’d already discussed many, many times. “We’ve talked about this.”

“No, you talked about this. But I’m the crew director, I decide what’s best for the crew. They deserve to know,” she pressed, balling her hands into fists, her iron nails flashing for a second.

Gavriel shook his head, “I agree with Weylan, Manon. They need to concentrate on getting home safe.”

“Fuck all of you,” spat Manon, murder in her eyes. “Fuck all of you.”

“When we have a rescue plan, we’ll tell them. Until then, it’s useless. Sartaq has three months to get it done, be patient.”

“We’ll do our best,” Sartaq said, his face pale.

Manon turned her gaze on him, cocking her head to the side, “Aelin dies if you don’t.”

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

Rowan couldn’t sleep.

Hadn’t been able to in the month following Aelin’s death.

He wanted more time. Not a lot, just five minutes, just enough to tell her he loved her with all that he was and would ever be.

There had always been some unspoken thing between them, it was impossible to stay away.

They’d loathed each other at the start.

Oh, she drove him crazy.

She seemed to know everything about everything and beat him to the first spot in their classes in the space program, utterly ruthless. At least, when Elide beat the two of them, she was tactful and humble, but Aelin…

She knew just how smart she was and refused to downplay it. Despite loathing her, it was always something he subconsciously admired of her.

She was a wildfire, unapologetic with her quest to get what she wanted, accepting nothing but the best of herself.

With her corn-silk hair and electric blue eyes, it was easy to peg her as a princess – a brat, only here on Daddy’s money.

Gods, he was an ass. It wasn’t until she had fled the dorms, crying after he’d insulted her by calling her a dumb blonde, looking for her Mrs. degree, and told her that she didn’t deserve to be here like the rest of them, and the verbal beating he’d received from Elide (arguably the most terrifying experience of his life – especially when Nesryn was forced to physically restrain the five-foot woman) that he’d realized how badly he’d fucked up.

Even Lorcan gave him a disgusted look and slapped him upside the head before Rowan chased after her and begged for forgiveness.

After… they weren’t friends but they weren’t at each other’s throats all the time either.

Everything had changed the night she’d stumbled into his room, high after smoking with Elide and Nesryn – a birthday tradition he was told – and he fell. Harder than he’d thought possible, irrevocably and irretrievably in love with her.

Rowan kept his eyes at the kitchen table, picking at his fingernails, refusing to look up as Fenrys and Lorcan sat down.

They stayed silent and for that, he was grateful. There were no words to say and so they sat, quiet until Rowan was ready.

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

Gavriel was absolutely exhausted.

It had been a long day, after flying to Perranth from Orynth and meeting with Nox, who he was currently sitting next to as they watched the satellites.

He could feel his eyes drooping shut. Slapping his cheek, a couple times, and draining the rest of his coffee, he sat up and tapped the screen, “Why is there a jump here?”

“Oh, because of how the orbits line up, there’s a thirteen-minute gap every thirty hours,” Nox explained, pushing his glasses onto the top of his head and rubbing his eyes.

“Where is she going,” Gavriel wondered, tracking the movement of the rover through every frame, “there’s out there except for…” he sat up straight, his tawny eyes wide. “I need a map.” With that, he was gone, making his way out of Satellite Control as Nox scrambled to his feet and hurried after him, not sure what was happening.

They sped-walked down a hallway until the cat-like man stopped abruptly and took down a framed image of the Anascaul crater, where the hab was located, and took a marker from his pocket as someone said, “Hey, man, you can’t just do that—”

“Don’t worry about it, it’s fine. Nox,” he addressed the younger man next to him, Nox’s mind still reeling, “what are the hab’s coordinates?”

He rattled them off and Gavriel marked them on the glass protecting the picture, drawing another mark halfway across the picture, in the opposite direction of the Mistward crater. He nodded to himself, “Alright. I know where she’s going. Where’s Sartaq?”

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

Nox still had absolutely no idea what was happening as he trailed after Gavriel and Sartaq through the lab. The dark-haired man said to Gavriel, “I got everyone who was here in ’03, which is when the probe went silent. I’d like to point out that it lasted three times longer—”

“Of course, Sartaq. No one is criticizing the RPL’s work, you’ve done an amazing job.” He shook hands with the three scientists, Malakai Scéalaí, Brulo Vojnik, and Philippa Bisset. “So, I’ll just get right to it. What’s the likelihood of Aelin getting it working again?”

Philippa answered him, “It’s hard to say, really. When we lost contact, we lost a data bank, so we were never able to figure out how it lasted as long as it did and why it stopped working.” She indicated the covered machinery behind him, “We have the replica all ready for you.”

Gavriel turned around and they pulled the tarp off to reveal the original Farnor probe – The Lord of The North.

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

Aelin had been sitting outside the hab for an hour. She was so ready to just give up, but every time she thought about throwing a fit and stomping inside, Lorcan’s face appeared and his voice filled her head, insulting her and threatening her with gross bodily harm if she went the ‘pussy-ass-bitch’ route and gave up. Aelin had to stop herself from answering to him, not ready to be that kind of crazy.

She stared at the probe, praying for it to move to point to either one of the signs she’d written and stabbed in the earth after travelling to dig up another TNSB relic.

There were three signs in total, the closest one reading Yes, the middle one: Messages written here. Are you receiving? And the third: No, which was a little redundant because if they didn’t receive, they wouldn’t be able to point to any of the signs, let alone No.

The sun was setting and Aelin could feel herself nodding off, drained after her day and the emotional toll. Gods, I just want to go home, she prayed, take me home, please. She hadn’t let herself cry and it seemed she had put it off too much to control when her eyes grew wet and soon enough, tears were rolling down her cheeks.

A whirring noise interrupted her and she opened her eyes, her heart in her throat as the camera spun to… the left. Yes, they were receiving.

Aelin almost didn’t believe it and stood on surprisingly strong legs before taking one step and then another, but when the probe stayed on the ‘yes’ sign, she threw her arms up and roared of her victory to the high heavens, her voice breaking as the tears came faster and faster.

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

“So, here’s the thing,” Aelin addressed the camera once again, eating oatmeal for dinner, and potatoes. She’d always loved oatmeal, loved to load it up with brown sugar and cream aplenty, to the confusion of every person she’d ever met. “We have to have serious astrophysical engineering conversations with a still frame camera that has a thirty-two-minute round trip communication time. Luckily,” she ate a bite, talking with her mouth full, “the camera does spin three-sixty so I can use an alphabet.”

She stood and walked her empty bowl over to the sink, scraping it clean, “It just can’t be ours because with twenty-six characters plus a question card gives me a twelve-degree arc, which is too narrow, we’d never know what it’s pointing at. Which means,” she spun, pointing her spoon at the camera, “hexadecimals to the rescue!”

She elaborated as she dragged Nesryn’s box into the frame, “Only sixteen characters gives me enough room and I’m hoping the geeks at RPL can send me some code so that the rover’s computer can communicate with TNSB. Fingers crossed.”

Sitting down, she held up a TSCII – Terrasen Standard Code for Information Interchange – table, “I figured one of you had to have an old TSCII table lying around and, ladies and gents, I give you super nerd: Nesryn Faliq. Mala above, Nes, you’re such a computer geek.”

The code had been developed from telegraph code and eventually formatted for the very first telephones and then evolving to computers. It used the decimal numbers – 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 – and six extra symbols, which were transmitted in binary code to be converted by computers.

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

It had been three days since the probe first made contact with TNSB and Aelin had been right, the folks at RPL sent her instructions on how to hack the rover’s computer and with just a smidgen of code, they could now communicate by using the Lord of The North’s broadcasting system.

She’d told them what was happening and what had happened during the storm, reinforcing that it was not the crew’s fault.

Text appeared on the screen.

TNSB: Aelin, this is Gavriel Aryeh

TNSB: We’ve been watching you on the satellites for a while now, amazing job modifying the rovers and growing crops, we’re all rooting for you

LTN: I should hope you all want me to survive, Aelin replied, laughing to herself. Giddiness had taken over every emotion since they’d made contact.

TNSB: RPL is putting together a supply mission to keep you fed until The Crone

LTN: Glad to hear it, really excited about not dying

LTN: How’d the crew take it when they found out I was alive?

+*+*+*+*+*+*

an: well that was a fun place to end on! till next time lovies and as always, let me know if you want to be added/removed from the tag list! 

@mythicaitt​ @kandasboi​ @schmlip-scribble​ @the-regal-warrior​ @westofmoon​ @empire-of-wildfire​ @rhysands-highlady​ @city-of-fae​ @shyvioletcat​ @alifletcher2012​ @tangledraysofsunshine​ @ttakeitbacknoww​ @tswaney17​ @ourbooksuniverse​ @flora-and-fae​ @that-other-pineapple​ @sleeping-and-books​ @superspiritfestival​ @faerie-queen-fireheart​ @chemicha​ @rowaelin-cressworth​ @mynewdreamwasyou​ @candid-confetti​ @bat-wing-rhys​ @the-reading-obsessed-stitchbear​ @feyrethedarklady​ @booklover41802​ @rowaelinforeverworld​ @jamesxdaisy​ @julemmaes​ @hellas-himself​ 

[nalgenewhore]

A rogue storm had her presumed dead and stranded on the red planet. Left on her own, astronaut Aelin Galathynius has four years to make it to the next drop-site, some two thousand miles. Armed with her smarts and dwindling supplies, Aelin attempts to survive on an inhospitable planet, when the nearest help is only millions of miles away.

masterlist - ao3 - last chapter - next chapter 

+*+*+*+*+*+*

The young man – boy, really – was sleeping on the love seat in his office, snoring ever so slightly.

Vaughan Kuāutli popped his head in the open door and rapped his knuckles against the doorframe, “Luca?” The sleeping boy simply snored and smacked his lips together. Vaughan sighed and said louder, “Luca, wake up. RPL needs the probe courses.”

Luca sprang up, his mop of unruly hair facing every which way. “Oh, hey, Vaughan.” He stumbled to his feet, yawning as he made his way to his desk and computer, where graphics of the course projection were spinning around. He grabbed an opened can of some energy drink and chugged the rest, crushing the can in his hand and tossing it into the wastebasket. He missed.

Vaughan didn’t blink an eye, knowing this was normal behaviour for the son of Malakai Scéalaí. Despite the fact that he was TNSB legacy, Luca had worked harder than anyone he knew to get here, where he held the position of astrodynamicist. The boy was near genius status. “I know we’re coming at this from the wrong way, but we can’t commit to launch dates with these many unknowns.”

Luca waved his hand as he sat down in his wheeled chair, nearly missing it. Why did I let him get a wheeled chair, Vaughan thought. There’s so many things that could go wrong. “It’s fine. All twenty-three models will take four-hundred and four days to reach Farnor. They only slightly vary in thrust duration and fuel requirement is almost identical.”

His boss entered the messy room. Messy might have been an understatement. Vaughan thought that ‘biohazard’ was fitting for Luca’s office/bedroom - he ended up spending the night here more often than not. “Four-hundred and four days. Not a good launch window, huh?” His eyes roved over the calculations.

Luca snorted, “It’s terrible. Like, it’d almost be easier to…” his chestnut-brown eyes widened and his eyebrows shot up behind his floppy fringe.

“Almost easier to what?”

Luca got to his feet slowly, looking as though he’d seen a ghost, “I need more RedBull. And coffee.” Honestly, it was a miracle Luca hadn’t dropped dead from cardiac arrest yet.

“Almost easier to what?” Luca was too lost in his head and scrambled for the door, pushing Vaughan out of the way. Vaughan stared after him, “You do remember that I’m your boss, right?”

The only indication Luca gave that he heard him was a thumbs-up over his head and then he disappeared around the corner.

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

“Am I reading this right, five-hundred million?”

Sartaq nodded, looking like he was about to drop dead right on the carpeted floor of his office. “Yes, sir, that’s correct.”

Weylan’s brows rose, the only indication of his shock and he turned his gaze from the screen to the table in front of him, Manon and Asterin somber on the other side. “And now for the expensive question, where’s your team at?”

“…we’re behind.” Sartaq said, sounded defeated. “If I had fifteen more days, I could get it done.”

“All right. Say I can get you fifteen days, then… what? It’s thirteen to mount the probe?”

The RPL director tilted his head to the side a few times, “It actually only takes three days to mount the probe. I can get that down to two and the other ten are for inspections.”

Weylan drummed his fingers on his briefing folder, contemplating something. “How often do those tests present a problem?”

Everyone froze and Manon asked, her voice almost aghast, “Are you saying we don’t do the inspections?”

“Right now, I’m asking how often they present a problem. Sartaq?”

The exhausted man looked nervous and almost as if he resented saying, “One in twenty, but that’s still grounds for countdown halt. Weylan, we can’t take that chance.”

“If you have a safer way, by all means, tell me. Anybody?” Nobody answered him and he nodded, “Right then. Manon, tell Dr. Towers to stretch Aelin’s rations four more days. She won’t like it, but it’ll get us to fifteen. Cancel the inspections.”

“Sir-“

“It’s on me, Gavriel. Sartaq, you have your two weeks. Get it done.”

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

Aelin was standing by the microwave, watching her plate of food spin around and around until the machine beeped and she hastily grabbed the plate, hissing at the heat as she put it down on the counter. Meatloaf and potatoes. Again.

Grabbing her knife and fork, Aelin cut up the meatloaf, “So. I have to hold out here until the probe arrives with more food. This is what minimal calorie count looks like,” pointing to the meager plate, “standard issue ration.”

She snorted a laugh, “Usually, it’s three of these every day and now… one every three days.” The meatloaf was cut into thirds and she transported two of the pieces onto a separate plate. “This is today’s allotment. Which I get to supplement with potatoes. Which I am beginning to abhor, happy, TNSB? I watched my language. Anyways, I am beginning to loathe these things with the passion of seven billion million burning suns. I’ve been told to do this,” she cut her potato in half and put one of them on the plate with the meatloaf. “You know, I used to like Yrene Towers. Point is, ‘stretch the rations four more days’ is a real tit punch.”

She walked over to the desk, where there lay two white pills. Aelin sat down and crushed the pills with her knife. She looked to the computer camera, her eyes conveying just how done she was, “I ran out of ketchup three days ago.” Moving the crushed powder into a neat circle, she said, “So I’m dipping my potato in Vicodin and no one can stop me.”

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

The energy in Mission Control was electric as they all waited for Manon’s signal. She slipped on her headset, “Mission Control, this is Flight Director Blackbeak. Begin launch status check.” This is where Manon was in her element and it was obvious to everyone around her.

“Roger that, Flight Director,” the Launch Control director answered. “Launch Control test is complete and we are ready.”

“This is Flight. We are a go for launch.”

The timer controller started its countdown, the robotic voice booming through Mission Control. “T-minus 10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1…”

Asterin paced behind Manon’s seat, praying as liftoff was announced and the rocket was launched from the holding hull.

The flight was clean and when Manon let go of a held-in breath, the room relaxed, all smiles and happy faces as the rocket flew high. But something changed.

“Flight, this is Guidance Control, we’re getting large shimmy in the tail.”

“No…” she whispered, shaking her head as the rocket began losing guidance and telemetry, absolutely powerless as it exploded right before their eyes.

The probe was gone and Weylan Darrow had just signed Aelin’s death certificate. 

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

Kashin and Hasar Dalavtchai were in her office in Antica, watching the head of TNSB do an interview. The woman spat to her brother, “They forced our brother to skip inspections and now their astronaut is going to die.”

“Perhaps,” Kashin replied, sliding a document her way, “The Rukhin’s booster. We ran the numbers and it has enough fuel for a Farnor injection orbit.”

Hasar, the director of the Southern Continent National Space Administration, looked over the document thoughtfully, flipping through the pages, “And they haven’t approached us, why?”

“They don’t know. Father kept the booster technology classified.” It was one of the reasons Sartaq had left. He believed that all of their knowledge should be public access.

“Hm.” Hasar narrowed her eyes and stood up, walking to her office’s large floor-to-ceiling windows. “If we do nothing… the world will never know we could have helped.”

“Yes.” Kashin hid his satisfied grin. He knew what Hasar was thinking and agreed with her wholeheartedly. “If we give them the booster, we will be effectively cancelling The Rukhin.”

Hasar turned to him, her mind already made up. She was tired of her father’s secrecy. “We keep it between SCNSA and TNSB. An exchange between scientists…”

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

“Yes, we understand.” Manon watched Weylan where he was pacing on the phone, with whom she didn’t know. “Yes. Yes… thank you.”

He hung up the phone, relief flooding his face. Manon sat up from where she had been slouching in his office chair. “Yes?”

“Yes.”

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

“Ok, Luca, you need to listen to me,” Vaughan said, serious as he rested his hands on the boy’s shoulders, trying to make him stop shaking. Mala save him, how much caffeine had he ingested? “These people run TNSB, do you understand? You need to be professional. They will not be as easy on you as I am, they don’t understand your thought pattern. And if they ask you to explain, do not, do not, let them know you think they’re stupid, alright?”

Luca nodded, trying to contain his bouncing. “I know, I know. I had some coffee, so I think I’m good to speak to the normies, boss man.” 

Vaughan just shook his head and whispered a prayer of protection as he herded the boy into the conference room, where Weylan Darrow, Asterin and Manon Blackbeak, and Gavriel Aryeh were.

Luca tripped over the threshold, sending his papers flying. Vaughan just hung his head and sat down beside Gavriel, “I’d like to introduce Luca Scéalaí, astrodynamicist.”

To his credit, Luca didn’t piss himself as Manon and Asterin helped him gather his papers, their sharp sharp nails shining. Gavriel rose a brow, “Scéalaí?”

“Um, yeah, my dad’s Malakai? He did some rover thing a while ago.” Luca shrugged, as if it was no big deal of one his fathers had built the first craft ever to reach Farnor. With a deep breath, he put a thick folder on the table. “This is it.”

“And what would that be, Luca?” Asterin questioned him, exchanging an amused glance with Manon. To Vaughan, it looked like two predators who found their next meal to be adorable.

“Oh, yeah, duh,” Luca slapped his forehead. “I can get The Lani back to Farnor by day five-sixty-one.”

That had everyone in the room choking and shooting up. “What,” Manon breathed, eyes wide. “How?”

Luca looked around the room, spying a half-empty mug of coffee which happened to be Gavriel’s. He snatched it up and chugged the contents, to the half-horrified audience. “Ok, let’s pretend that this is The Lani and you…” he pointed at Weylan, moving his finger to indicate the man to his feet, “sorry, what’s your name?”

“Weylan. I’m the director of TNSB.”

“Oh, deadass? That’s sick, man, but anyways, you’re Farnor and you,” he pointed at Asterin who eagerly stood, relishing the chaotic way that the meeting was going, “you’re Earth. So, right now The Lani is beginning the month-long de-acceleration to enter into Earth’s orbit, yeah?” He walked the mug towards Asterin, who was shaking with her attempts to control her laughter as he made a rocket noise with his mouth and slowed with every step. Vaughan closed his eyes and groaned quietly. “But what I’m proposing…,” Luca walked faster to Asterin. He froze, looking around for something. Without a care, Luca jogged back to Weylan and plucked a pen out of his breast pocket, hurrying back to Asterin. “This is The Rukhin, alright?”

He bopped the pen off her head, causing Manon to cackle, and dumped it in the mug, “We grab whatever provisions we need and now we’re speeding up, like, nyoom, and we fly around Earth and kinda, I guess, slingshot back to Farnor.” He puttered back to Weylan, making more rocket noises.

Luca hovered the mug over Weylan’s head, “But now we’re going too fast to slow down so we do a flyby.”

“How?”

Vaughan spoke up, “By using The Crone’s FAV.”

Luca snapped his fingers and pointed at his boss, “Yes, that. I did the math. It checks out.”

“Luca?”

“Yeah?” He turned to face Weylan.

“Get out.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s a good idea, I need some coffee anyway,” Luca mumbled, leaving his things scattered about the room. “Deuces, dudes and dudettes.” 

Weylan turned to Gavriel and Vaughan. “So is he right?”

“Yes, he is,” Vaughan replied. “His math is correct; the boy is a genius. Crazy, space-cadet, can barely take care of himself, but a genius.”

“And we need to use The Rukhin?”

“Yes, sir.”

Asterin frowned, “Am I missing something?”

Manon nodded, “There’s only one booster. And both plans require it.”

“What about The Lani crew? Luca’s proposal adds…” she did the math in her head, “five-hundred and thirty-three days to their mission.”

“They wouldn’t hesitate,” Manon said, standing up and seething, because she knew what Weylan was leaning towards. “Not for a second. That’s why you made this meeting a secret, isn’t it?” she accused him, meeting his eyes until he looked away. “You want us to decide.”

Weylan nodded.

“You gods-damned coward. It should be Commander Salvaterre’s decision and you know it.”

“It’s a matter of life and death, Manon.”

“He’s the Mission Leader, life and death matters are his decisions.”

Gavriel interrupted the fight before it could escalate, “Can The Lani even do that?”

“Yes,” Vaughan said, “it was built to do all the Three-Faced Goddess missions, so it’s not even two-thirds through it’s lifespan.”

“But if something went wrong, we’d lose the crew.” Asterin furrowed her brow, fighting between siding with Manon, who she agreed with, or with Weylan, who’s option was safer. “So… what? We either have a high chance of killing one person or a low chance of killing six? How do we make that decision?”

“We don’t. Weylan does.”

All eyes turned to him and they waited for what seemed like an eternity before, “We still have the chance to bring home five astronauts. Safe and sound.”

“Let them make that decision,” spat Manon, murder in her eyes. Weylan was grateful for the table separating them, not that it would be a hindrance to her if she tried anything.

“Manon. We’re going with option one.”

She made a disgusted sound and looked around the room. No one dared to meet her eye, not even Asterin. “You should all be ashamed of yourselves.”

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

Aelin trudged up the hill to the solar panels, getting ready to scrub them clean. Again.

As she crested the small incline, she paused. No. She couldn’t do it anymore. 

Without another thought, she sat down, staring at the crimson sun.

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

Nox was sitting before his computer, tracking Aelin’s course. Gavriel was next to him and wondered aloud, “Where is she going?” She would walk for three-hundred metres in one way, pause for ten minutes and repeat the process in another direction. “RPL didn’t ask her to do this, what is it?”

“I don’t know, oh… she’s at the rover, incoming data dump… what is this, Chem analysis, batch 1A-17A?”

Realization dawned on Gavriel and admiration coursed through him. “She’s finishing the mission.”

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

“We evac’d on day eighteen of thirty-one, which means we still have thirteen days of labs to do.” Aelin crushed up a rock sample, “Commander Salvaterre, your work’s in good hands. Whitethorn… um… I really have no understanding of chemolithotrophic detection. Did I say that right? Anyway, I’m doing my best. Faliq, I know you hate it when I touch the ChemCam but guess what? You left me on a desolate planet, you’re not allowed to get mad at me. Lochan,” she carefully tapped the fine powder into a container and screwed the lid on tightly, labeling it with a black marker, “I got a new cataloguing system that you’ll really like. As for Marama’s jobs… there are none. Really, I don’t know why we even brought you along.”

Aelin sighed through her nose, “I know keeping everything organized and ordered isn’t my strong suit but I want it to all make sense for later. Maybe you can teach it in a class, the Galathynius syllabus. ‘How to make water out of rocket fuel’ or ‘how to grow plants on a planet with no living organisms’, I don’t know, but be creative with it, please. I refuse to have my name attached to some boring class.”

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

Elide was sitting in her bunk, muttering curses at her computer when it wouldn’t let her load the attachment’s from Lysandra’s email. Eventually, she gave up and called Nesryn over the radio, “Nessie darling, can I bother you?”

“Yep, what is it?”

“There’s this email from Lys, subject line: Your Bachelorette Party. I can’t open the attachments, it’s all this code.”

“Ok, well, bring it to me and I’ll see what I can do. I’m in the rec room.”

“Copy that, on my way.”

It only took a few minutes for Elide to float her way to Nesryn. She may have been distracted by her fiancé and his lips for a short while, but that was a moot point as she slid down the ladder and walked to where Nesryn was stretching on the floor. “Hey.”

Nesryn reached out for the laptop, looking like a young child on Yulemas morning, “Gimme gimme.” She lived to solve computer problems. Elide chuckled and sat down on the floor next to her friend as she worked. “Huh. These aren’t JPGs. It looks like plain TSCII files. Math equations, does this make any sense to you?” She angled the computer screen to Elide.

“’Luca Scéalaí Maneuver.’ Yeah, it’s a course maneuver for The Lani…” As the navigator for the mission, Elide tried to make sense of the equations, one phrase sticking out to her. “Day five-sixty-one. Oh, my gods. Nes, bless you, I could kiss you right now!” 

Without another word, Elide jumped up and hurried to the radio, her voice blasted through every speaker on the ship, “This is Lochan, emergency meeting in the rec room, ASAP.”

Nesryn stood up, bewildered, “E, what is it?”

“Just wait, I’ll explain everything.”

Soon after, the boys had made their way to the worktable and Elide told them everything.

They sat in shock. Fenrys was the first to speak, “Would this really work?”

Elide nodded, “Yeah, I ran the numbers. It checks out.” Respect flooded her eyes, an excited gleam that Lorcan hadn’t seen in months. “It’s a brilliant course.”

“So why all the cloak and dagger,” Rowan asked, the ink on his face scrunching as he wrinkled his brow.

“TNSB rejected the idea. They want to put a big risk on Ae as opposed to a small risk on us,” Lorcan spat, indignation in his tone, “whoever snuck it into E’s email obviously disagrees.”

“So, we’re talking about going against TNSB’s orders?”

“Uh-huh. If we do the maneuver, they’ll have to send a provisional probe. We’d be forcing their hand.”

“Are we gonna do it?” Nesryn asked, a determined tilt to her chin.

Lorcan sighed and spread his hands, “Look, if it were up to me, we’d already be on our way.”

Fenrys’ eyes narrowed in confusion, “I’m confused. You’re Mission Leader, isn’t it your decision?”

“Not this time,” Elide answered for Lorcan. “TNSB expressly rejected the plan.”

“We’re talking about mutiny,” Lorcan said and that was not a word any of them used lightly. “We either all do this together, or not at all. Before you answer,” he leaned forward, looking everyone in the eye, “think of the consequences. If we mess up the supply, we die. If we mess up the gravity assist, we die. Even if we do everything perfectly, we still had five hundred and thirty-three days to our mission. Five hundred and thirty-three days without seeing our families. Five hundred and thirty-three days of unplanned space travel.”

“Sign me up.”

Everyone let loose a dry chuckle and Lorcan turned to Fenrys, “Slow down there, pup. You and me? We’re military. Chances are, we get down there and they’ll court marshal us.” Fenrys made a face. “As for the rest of you, I can guarantee, they’ll never let you back up here again.”

Now Rowan spoke up, “Say we say yes. How does this work?”

Everyone turned to Elide and she shrugged, “It’s really not that hard. I plot the course and execute it. No biggie.” A sly grin grew on her round lips. “Nes?”

“Remote override. But Mission Control can remotely pilot the ship.”

“You can’t disable it?”

“No, I can. I’d have to disable remote override on each control, which is tricky – I’d have to jump over a lot of code-“

“Just so everyone knows, Faliq’s hacker handle was ‘Mrs. Robot’ all through high school,” Elide cut in, cackling as Nesryn shot her a dirty look and then continued, daring anyone else to laugh.

“Lochan is a liar. And should keep our conversations private.” She paused. “I can do it.”

“This has to be unanimous. If anyone says no, we go home as planned.” Lorcan tapped the table, emphasizing his point, “But I vote yes.”

“I vote yes,” Fenrys said, drumming his fingers on the table.

Elide mused aloud, her face growing sad, “If we do this, it will be over nine hundred days of space travel. That’s enough space to last a lifetime.” She smiled at Lorcan as he rested his hand on her thigh and traced soothing circles with his thumb, not looking at anyone else as she said, “Yes.”

“Let’s go get our girl,” said Rowan, a glimmer of a smile on his lips.

And then there was one.

“Faliq?”

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

“Flight, CAPCOM.”

“Go CAPCOM.”

“Unscheduled status update from The Lani.”

“Roger. Read it out,” the night shift was much quieter than the day. Usually.

“It’s… just a single sentence, sir.”

“What? What’s it say?”

“Um… it says: ‘Perranth, be advised: Luca Scéalaí is one steely-eyed missile man.”

“Who is Luca Scéalaí?”

Alarms rang out around Mission Control. “Uh… Flight, Guidance.”

“Go Guidance.”

“The Lani is off course.”

That had him sitting up straighter in his chair and he leaned forward, “CAPCOM, tell Lani they’re drifting. Guidance, get a correction ready-“

“Negative Flight. They’ve adjusted course. Deliberate rotation.”

“What the hell? CAPCOM, ask Lani ‘what the hell’.”

“Roger Flight.”

“Guidance, calculate how long they can stay their course before it’s irreversible and someone figure out who in Hellas’ realm is Luca Scéalaí!”

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

Manon entered Weylan’s office and he made her wait as he stayed staring out the window.

“Asterin will go to the media and tell them of TNSB’s decision to reroute The Lani to Farnor.”

“Seems like a smart move,” she said mildly, picking at her nails. “Is there a reason you called me in here?”

“You may have killed the whole crew.”

“Whoever sent that to them only passed along information that was their right in the first place. The crew decided to switch course.”

Weylan turned to her, his face red with fury as he hissed, “We are fighting the same war, Manon! Every time something goes wrong, the world forgets why we fly. I am trying to keep us airborne, this whole program, the reason everyone here gets up and goes to work every day is bigger than one girl!”

“She is not a girl. She is a grown woman; how dare you belittle her right now? Aelin Galathynius is braver than anyone on any planet. No one in this agency is not better or bigger than her,” Manon answered, her voice dripping with cool condescension for her boss. “Especially not you.”

He straightened. “Once this is over, I expect your resignation.”

She just laughed coldly, “Yeah, we’ll see about that, won’t we, Weylan?”

“Get out of my sight.”

“Sure thing, boss.”

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

“Five hundred and thirty-three days extra? And you said yes to this?”

Fenrys was attempting to placate his wife’s rage through the computer, but he remained unapologetic, “I did. She would’ve done the same for me, Mia, you know that.”

Nehemia scowled at him and traced a hand over her swollen stomach, “You really think I am going to forgive you for this and knocking me up with your demon spawn before you left for a year and a half?” 

Fenrys grinned at her, “I do. Look at this face, no one can stay mad at me for long.” His grin was blinding and Nehemia sighed, pressing her lips together to suppress her grin. The smile won and Fenrys’ only grew wider, “There she is.” He didn’t think he liked anything more than seeing Nehemia smile like that at him. 

Nehemia lifted her hand to the screen and he mirrored her. “Bring her home.”

+*+*+*+*+*+*

an: i told y’all it would all be ok! comment to be added/removed from the tag list! 

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