Chapter 4: Drifting in a Tin Can

We drift towards safety through the unending black canvas of space for hours. I keep hugging Kommo-o, resting my head against his chest the best my helmet will allow me. A thousand tiny drops of pink and purple float around us, forming a microcosm of twinkling stars. They haven’t caused any harm to us, although it isn’t good for the internal systems.

I’m not worried about making it there. The fluid gave the lander extra weight differing from what we inputted, but this lander is designed for unpredictability. It adjusted its propulsion to keep the software happy. Kommo-o made sure of that.

The structure is holding, too. The lander did look weak and worn, but that is an illusion of our eyes. I went in and measured everything, adjusted its values, and therefore I knew it will work. It didn’t matter what it looked like – science showed us the truth.

A white octagonal plate floats into view outside the hatch’s window. Straight metal branches stretch out with blue glassy leaves facing the sun lining their sides. A robot arm folds out and spreads its clamp, ready to catch us. The lander propels air in front of us to adjust our speed. A half-hour later, we lurch forward as the arm grabs us and pulls us in.

This station is meant to send and receive deliveries from the Earth and the Moon: a staging station. Normally, the hatch of an orbiter will fit into an onboarding terminal, but the lander isn’t meant for that, so we’re pulled in as cargo. The outside arm passes us off to an interior arm which holds us in place.

I can only see the interior airlock through the hatch, but I know the airlock behind us is closing. Air should be filling in. International standards require all airlocks to take at most an hour to guarantee filling a room with oxygen, so we wait. Kommo-o brings out his tablet, connects to the station’s network, downloads info and interfaces, and busies himself sifting through data and applications. I rub his side.

A lot of time passes. He looks at me. “Alright, says oxygen filled the room now. I couldn’t contact anyone here, so I guess everybody here ditched to earth. Uh, let’s not get any of this liquid inside. Let’s take off our suits before going in.”

I nod. We’re supposed to bring the lander further inside and tie it down, but it’s the apocalypse. Kommo-o opens the hatch. Droplets drift out. He pulls himself out and jumps to the ceiling. I follow him. We crawl along the ceiling using handlebars until we’re a decent distance away from our hatch. We start getting out of suits.

We had to modify our bodies for this path of life. The spikes of my chest and hands have been grounded down to shiny, shallow domes, but they’re minute to Kommo-o’s body modifications. His claws are ground down to stubby caps and the edge of every scale is sanded down. The “braids” of the back of his head are cut off and the end of his tail, where the largest scales would be, is chopped off. A metal bar is embedded into the tip to make up the difference in weight.

A trail of caked blood runs down our cheeks, too, from our last encounter.

We take care not to touch the soiled spots on our suits. Each piece we take off is tossed towards the back. They make a bonk against the back wall minutes later. Kommo-o’s legs and tail take so long to take out that some shimmer nearly reaches the interior lock, but we’re out in time. The door opens, we crawl along the ceiling, and pass through the lock.

The room inside is far wider than the cargo terminal. Towering boxes and complicated machinery are strapped down with thick black cables. There are many other large airlocks on the floor, walls, and ceiling, all different destinations for sending and receiving cargo. Hatches dot the floor above us, which lead to living and operational spaces.

I pull myself to the airlock controls and close it. There’s shuddering and then silence. The shimmer is sealed away.

Kommo-o’s large claw shakes my shoulder till I look at him. He’s smiling. “I’m going to try and get in contact with whoever I can and see what’s here. Look over this fluid for me, okay? Who knows what else it can do.”

I nod. He gives my shoulder another pat and looks up. He kicks off the ground and shoots to one of the holes loading deeper in. I pull myself to the small window in the middle of the lock and watch. The droplets sparkle in mid-air as they very slowly spread out. The suits we threw away spin around and travel in random directions. There’s a small beep from the console warning me I haven’t unloaded our “cargo” from inside but I ignore this for hours.

Kommo-o eventually comes back. “There’s plenty of supplies, easily more than enough a month. Plenty of oxygen too, but we’ll need to keep air locked out of the cargo bay. There’s a day or two’s wait before we can consider going back to Earth since we’re on the dark side and most of the satellites around aren’t responding. Also, uh… those pieces of the moon are actually affecting our orbit, but it won’t drift us of course. It doesn’t look like we’ll collide with any of them either.

“I’ve set up an open communication for nearby stations to pick up but no one has yet. I also can’t get much data beyond what this station a very few other satellites can give us. That’s all.”

I nod and grimace. I look back into the window, but his hand rubs one of my shoulders again.

“Hey, I’ll take over,” he says. “You go take a short break. Take the tablet, maybe someone will pick up.”

I look to the floors above and think about it. No. I reach my arms around Kommo-o’s sides. “I’d rather be with you.”

One of his arms wraps around my back. His eyes linger on mine. “Okay.”

We stay together like this. Kommo-o lets the tablet float in front of him and holds the nearby handlebar, stopping us from drifting away. We say nothing, both of us just apprehensively looking through the window. The droplets have formed polka dots against the walls. My eyes slip away after a while as I instead focus on his warmth. I hear his heartbeat when I rest my head against him.

This lasts a while. It feels like eternity. But he eventually yawns and checks the time on the tablet that nearly drifted out of reach. “We need to think about sleep. We should take turns watching it.”

“Hey,” I say. I tilt my head up and rest my chin against his front. He has to crane his head far down to look back at me. “We shouldn’t bother. If it will attack, what are we gonna do anyways?”

“I-” he looks at me. His face hangs with a grimace. “Are you sure? I-it was a mistake I wasn’t cautious enough. We should do what you did, about finding ‘information.’”

“Hmmm,” I say with a frown. I shrug. “It hasn’t done anything. There’s also no aura. But if it did do something, wouldn’t we just be dead? It’s not like we can escape.”

His claw strokes my back for a bit. He looks away.

I take a deep breath. “Hey, back on the moon, you said we can keep holding each other when we arrived.”

He grunts.

I swing my arms over his shoulders and pull myself up until our heads are more level. “If there’s really a chance we might not have a lot of time left and we can’t do anything about it, then I’d rather spend this time with you.”

He looks back, his narrowed eyes peering into my own. His jaw is shut but the corner of his mouth twitches.

I stroke his cheek. “What about you?”

He thinks for a few more moments. He reaches his muzzle in and kisses my lips.

I wrap my arms around his neck and press my maw against his own muzzle. Our eyes close. He lets go of the bar so he can coil both arms around me. We hold each other tight, our heads tilting and turning to keep our make-out deep. We feel the other’s warmth, our legs brush against each other, his scales clink like chimes. We spin around in weightlessness like this. I want nothing else but this.

His mouth parts from mine. “Hey, we should still get ready to rest,” he says. I rest my chin on his shoulder and close my eyes. He carries me away.

“I love you,” I say.

I’m happy. At peace. Whatever may come next, I’m ready to brave it.