Chapter 12: 12. Cracked

Neither Sarah or I had anything to do as the Demeter made its descent towards the barren rocky surface. Piper wanted us both in the cockpit though, and I was pretty sure that was so we could observe what she did and how she did it.

So far it was all pretty straightforward.

When we entered orbit the captain contacted the port on the comm. We were assigned a landing bay, and a landing vector was transmitted to the ship. Piper loaded the vector into her console then angled the ship downwards. She was flying manually, but following the guidance on one of her displays.

And as we began our descent towards the planet I found my eyes fixed to the windows. The world was almost colourless, with no atmosphere there was no life down there. The surface was a collection of large and small mountains, cracks and craters, all in various shades of grey. It was a stark contrast to the numerous shades of green and brown of the agricultural world I grew up on.

And I found it absolutely captivating.

I was enjoying my front-row window seat so much my tail started happily swishing back and forth, much to my embarrassment. Even more embarrassing was the fact that I didn't realize I was doing it until Sarah reached out and grabbed it. After all, it was wagging right next to her.

My back arched and I let out a little squeak while the cute engineer held my tail in her right hand and teased, "I'm going to regret finding you that chair if you're constantly flapping this thing around beside me."

I tried to respond but the best I could do was another little squeak, while the muscles in my lower back and behind twitched in an attempt to pull my floofy appendage free.

Sarah's grip was too tight, and while her right hand continued to hold my tail I felt her run her left hand over the fur along the end.

"This is actually really soft," she commented as she stroked her hand over the fur again. "Feels kind of nice."

That's when I learned two important things. First off, she was right. It did feel really nice having my tail petted like that. And second, apparently foxes could make a purring sound, kind of like a cat. Or at least foxgirls could purr. I didn't know enough about actual foxes to know if they did it too.

My whole face was probably bright red by that point. Our captain glanced at me and Sarah and I thought she was about to say something official and captain-like, such as telling us to pay attention and focus on our jobs or be mindful of the controls or something along those lines.

Instead she rolled her eyes and turned back to monitor our approach as she commented, "If you kids can't behave I'll send you both to your room."

Fortunately it turned out that foxgirls can't die of embarrassment, despite feeling like we might. Sarah meanwhile suppressed a giggle as she stroked my tail one last time before finally letting go of it.

As I tried to get my emotions and expression back under control I found myself more surprised by our captain's comment than our engineer's antics. It had only been a few days but I was almost used to Sarah's teasing. And while I didn't know her that well during my time on the Hammersmith, I had observed she seemed to be relaxed and good-natured outside the engine room. I remembered seeing her laughing and joking with other ship-mates in the mess, so her behaviour now wasn't that shocking.

Piper on the other hand didn't seem to be the type. I'd only known her a handful of days but generally speaking she seemed to be quiet, stoic, almost taciturn. So having her tease or act playful was a little more surprising. Although it did leave me thinking perhaps the stoic reserved captain thing was more of an act, or possibly even a defence mechanism to keep people at arm's length.

I recalled Sarah figured our new captain had lost people in the past, and while we knew almost nothing of her history the few things Piper did share made it sound like she spent a lot of time alone. It's possible she wasn't used to having people on her ship, and wasn't sure yet how to act around us.

As for my wayward tail, the only way I could think to keep it from distracting Sarah was to pull it around onto my lap and keep a firm grip on it myself. Which left me feeling equal parts embarrassed and happy. I basically ended up hugging it to my chest like a little girl hugging a plush toy, which in turn left me doubly-embarrassed thinking I was acting immature in front of my new ship-mates. But if I let go of the thing it'd start wagging again and that was just as bad.

Thankfully neither Sarah or Piper commented, though I was painfully aware our captain was fighting a smirk for the next ten minutes of our descent.

In an attempt to distract myself from my self-induced predicament I asked, "So what's this colony look like? I thought we'd be able to see something ahead of us by now but it's all barren rocks and dust."

The ship was still angled downwards, the rocky landscape was getting closer, and I couldn't see any sign of life or civilization at all. I expected to see lights, buildings, some kind of man-made structure. There was supposed to be an entire colony down there with a space port, but the area we were heading for was just empty lifeless rock with a huge crevasse running through it.

"We're heading for The Crack," Piper replied. "The colony and port are built into the side of it."

I blinked at her, "The crack?"

The attractive redhead shrugged, "There's an official name for it, but that's what the locals call it. Like the planet bent over and spread itself wide so the miners could get at the best ore. No point building a port on the surface when all the operations were going on another kilometer deeper."

I gulped, "We're going a kilometer underground?"

"Yeah," Piper nodded. "The Crack is over a thousand kilometers long, about twenty kilometers wide and maybe fifteen deep where we're heading. It's not that different from mining an asteroid, except you don't have to bring your own gravity."

Sure enough the ship's course took us closer and closer to that enormous crevasse, and after another minute or two we dipped down beneath the surface of the world. And I could finally see signs of life, in the form of lights far below us.

My unease at being so far underground was temporarily forgotten as the colony came into view out the windows. It was like a city had been turned on end and stuck to the side of the crevasse. The port consisted of about two dozen oval and rectangular landing bays of varying sizes carved into the sheer rock wall. Surrounding them were countless buildings and windows, built into or emerging out of the grey stone.

By that point our descent had slowed almost to a stop, and we were slowly lining up with one of the smaller rectangular landing bays. I didn't know what the ship's dimensions were, but the space before us felt like it was just barely big enough to fit. The bay was well-lit, I could see large doors sliding open to allow the Demeter access. Once the way was clear we slowly manoeuvred forwards until the ship was fully within the landing bay.

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The interior was almost all uniform grey, cut directly from solid rock. There were lighting panels overhead and some power conduits and machinery along the wall to the right. And directly in front of us, about fifteen meters away from the nose of the cockpit the back wall of the bay had a smaller airlock-style door in the lower left corner, and next to that was a larger cargo-style door. In the corner on the far right was some more equipment built into the wall, but I couldn't guess what its function was. Something to do with being a landing bay, presumably.

Piper's hands moved over the controls with relaxed precision and confidence. I watched and picked up the indications and details on the various displays. The ship had landing gear, which were extended and locked into place. Artificial gravity ramped down and natural gravity took over, with an almost imperceptible shudder in my stomach. Then the ship settled on the smooth stone floor with a noticeable shudder through the deck. Finally, the engines were powered down and we were landed. One of the displays showed the view astern, and those large bay doors were slowly sliding closed.

Our captain silently went through what I assumed was her landing checklist, making sure the engines were secure, the ship was stable, all that sort of thing.

Sarah was focused on her engineering displays, and she asked "Will we be taking on fuel here? We're at fifty-eight percent capacity."

"Fuel yes, supplies no." Piper responded. "They don't produce much here other than what they dig out of the rock, so everything has to be shipped in. That makes it expensive. Fuel's not too bad, and it's always prudent to top up whenever we get the chance."

One of the displays in front of me indicated there was now atmosphere outside the hull, the pressure was low but it was rising steadily as the people in charge pressurized the landing bay. I hadn't been sure if they'd do that, since air had to be a rare commodity here. It was a nice touch though and it meant Piper wouldn't need an e-suit to leave the ship.

As she finished up the last of her checklist, our captain glanced at me and Sarah again. "I'm probably going to be busy for the next four or five hours. Sorry this will be boring for you but like I said, I don't want either of you leaving the ship yet. The main cargo hold is also off limits while we're here. There'll be local people coming and going to offload my delivery and I don't want any incidents between them and you just yet."

"Ok," I nodded. With nothing to wear but a nightshirt I wasn't eager to leave the ship regardless, especially not at a port I'd been warned was a rough or dangerous place.

Sarah asked, "I get the main hold is off limits, what about the secondary? Can I go down there? I was hoping to spend some time talking with Jenny, to see if she's interested in my idea of interfacing her with the ship."

Piper frowned slightly as she unbuckled, then shrugged as she got to her feet. "Sure. The doors between the main and secondary hold are sealed, so you'll be fine in there."

"What do you mean talk to her?" I asked the blonde. "Are you going to get in that tube again?"

Sarah and I unbuckled as well, then followed our captain out of the cockpit. As we all headed aft the engineer replied, "If I have to. But I wanted to try and connect a standard terminal to her core. If that works then we can interact with her while we're there next to the pod. It'll also tell me how feasible it is to interface her with the Demeter's core. Sort of a test, to verify it'll work."

The two of us ended up in the mess while Piper stopped at the starboard airlock.

"Just don't plug her into the ship's computer until I've said it's ok," the captain warned. "If your test works then I'll probably want to have words with her too, before I make that decision."

Sarah nodded, "Of course boss, this is all just preliminary."

"Fine," Piper responded then descended down the starboard ladderway into the forward hold. Once she was down there the ladderway hatch sealed, as did the airlock.

I wasn't sure what to do with myself for the next few hours, so I decided to stick with Sarah. I figured I could keep her company, and maybe get to know her better.

She ducked into the lounge area to pick up the pack she left there a few days earlier, then the two of us went back to the engine room and rode the lift down to the lower deck. Finally we headed forward into the secondary hold.

It was a bit crowded in there with the Hammersmith's huge computer core taking up most of the floor space. I ended up perched on a shelf next to the boxes of ammunition I stowed there a few days ago. It beat standing around or sitting on the metal grate floor, and I could sort of see what Sarah was up to.

"Why are you so determined to get Jenny out of there?" I asked. I was still wary of AIs, but more than that it just felt like a strange obsession for the engineer.

Sarah was already laying on her back on the floor behind and partially beneath the large black cylinder, presumably inspecting the interface back there next to where the power leads emerged from the thing. All I could see was her legs and feet at the moment.

"I told you I had a couple long conversations with her right?" Sarah's voice came up from below the black pod. "I get that she's not alive in the same sense you and I are, but she's still an intelligent sentient being. And I get that her purpose is to help and heal injured people when they need it, but the rest of the time she's alone, lonely, and bored."

She added, "It's like you in a way? You're a medic, Piper said she could use a medic now and then, but in the meantime you want to do something else too right? You want to be useful? I think it's the same for Jenny. She could be helpful, if we just give her the chance. And she's lonely, this way she'd be able to interact with us same as you and I are doing right now."

I thought that over for a few moments, then asked "You're sort of thinking of her as another member of the crew?"

"Yeah," Sarah replied as she emerged from beneath the tube. She got to her feet and added, "I think we've all got something in common too. We're all sort of lost souls, survivors of different shipwrecks. You and I came from the Hammersmith, but we didn't really know each other till we got here. Jenny's another survivor. And for that matter, I think our captain is too. We've all come from different places, different paths, but we've all ended up here on the Demeter. Piper's already let us join the crew, I think Jenny deserves the same opportunity."

That left me thinking again, and I found myself agreeing with her. I still found it hard to think of an AI as a 'lost soul' but I couldn't disagree she survived a shipwreck.

"Ok Sarah," I finally responded. "Is there anything I can do to help?"