Chapter 5: |5| – Family

As my brain was slowly rebooting and trying to come up with something - anything - to say to Noma, she walked over to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of what I believe was iced coffee. I had never been a big fan of caffeine, especially if I wanted to get any sleep in the next few hours. In my previous embarrassment, I had also missed that she was carrying the data core we had recovered with her.

After she opened her drink and took a small sip, she went over to where the nutri-bars were still floating around. She plucked the half-eaten one out of the air, read the label, and shrugged to herself, before her hand moved up to her face. "W-wait!"

But before I could warn her, she had already taken a bite and was chewing on it, while having a thoughtful look on her face, like she was a food critic contemplating her final score of the bar. Wait, she's actually going in for seconds?!? How can anyone even swallow that without wanting to do a full stomach cleansing? Apparently, my confusion and repulsion for the alleged 'food' were pretty readable on my face, as Noma just looked mildly offended before opening her mouth again. Thankfully, this time not to take another bite: "What? It's gone a bit stale, sure, but it's not that bad."

"A bit stale?!?" I cried out, maybe a bit more forceful than intended.

"Yeah, I'd give it a six out of ten, maybe a seven, if there was more crunch." She said while sitting down on the couch and motioning me to come over.

In my confusion about her actually liking the food, I didn't even manage to get embarrassed about the invitation. So I walked over and plopped myself down. Similar to when I sat down in the captain's chair of the Fuchsbau, the cushions pushed me back up a few centimeters, before air resistance stopped me. 'Sitting down' in zero-g was always a bit of a weird thing to do, to me at least.

Noma just wordlessly pushed one of the remaining nutri-bars in my direction and I grabbed it, though didn't open it. It was the same vugari flavor, as the last one. No wonder they had been left behind. "I admit, it's a bit of an acquired taste, but it grew on me."

"What even is a vugari? They don't sound like something I had heard before."

Noma's face took on an interesting expression at that, like she wanted to brag about knowing more than me, but also being embarrassed that she knew it in the first place. I didn't know why but now seemed as good an opportunity to learn more about her as any other. I had just been thinking about how I basically knew nothing about her, except that she had been in the military, after all.

After a moment she answered: "That's not surprising. They don't really survive all that well outside of their homeworld. Their equivalent of mitochondria is actually a symbiotic organism that really doesn't like atmospheric changes. My brother doesn't like to eat them either, even though he's farming the damn things."

I nodded along with her explanation and took notice of that last piece of information. So she had siblings, well, one brother at the minimum. But more importantly, Noma had been embarrassed about knowing so much about these vugari, which means I could finally get my teasing revenge on her.

"Neat, but also doesn't really answer my question," I said with a slight smirk.

"Ahh... well, they are these flat omnivore arthropods, about 4 meters long. They were domesticated pretty quickly after New Lima was founded. As I said, my family kind of has a farm with them." She answered while awkwardly scratching the back of her head.

"Oh, that sounds cool. Like a family-owned business or...?"

She nodded her head, threw the last bits of the bar into her mouth, and took a small sip again, before continuing: "Yeah, since my grandparents. They came to New Lima after they heard it would be a good spot to start a new life. And, I mean it was. I'm sure you've heard about it at least." I hadn't actually, most colonies were kind of boring to me, to be honest. More often than not, it would be just a dome above some crater or an underground settlement, and once you've seen one, you had seen them all. So I shook my head and Noma looked a bit surprised at that.

"Oh well. Where to start, then..? As soon as it had been discovered, it was declared prime real estate for colonization. No big surprise with a diverse biosphere and breathable air for humans. It was basically made for someone to put a colony on it. The native flora and fauna also proved a good food source with minimal gene modification needed. Nowadays, it's mostly known for its food exports and the boot camp there." That honestly sounded a lot more interesting than my home.

"So, that's why you joined the Marines?"

That got an amused exhale from her. "Nah, I just did it to stick it to my mom, mostly. But what's with all the questions all of a sudden?"

Shoot, had I been found out? But my reasons for asking weren't malicious or something, so admitting to why I was being so inquisitive should be fine... as long as I omitted the fact that I may be developing a crush on her. "I mean, we will be sharing this ship for at least another month or more and I just kinda realized that I don't really know a lot about you. So why not just ask?"

"Oh? I would've taken you for the type to just be all shy and endlessly beat around the bush, to be honest."

My cheeks may have taken on a red shade at that, but I wouldn't be brought down by my own embarrassment now. "I-I can be bold. When I want something, I'll have you know."

That put a new mischievous glint into her eyes. Oh no, I'm about to be on the receiving end of the teasing again, aren't I?
"So, do you want me, then?"

The seductive way in which Noma said that made my heart skip a beat and my head was probably glowing red like the warning light for an imminent reactor failure. A few moments later, Noma started to laugh and broke eye contact.

"Sorry, sorry! God, what was that? Sorry..." For some reason, I was a bit... disappointed by that reaction to her own antics, but at least she had the courtesy of looking embarrassed herself.

"It- It's alright..." I let out a long sigh while deflating a bit.

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"No, seriously, I am sorry. I should've asked before, doing... whatever that was. But how about we each take turns asking the other a question? I know as little about you as you know about me, after all."

That was fair, so I agreed and asked the first question: "Ok then... hmm... let's start at the beginning I guess, what's your family situation, parents, siblings, etc.?"

"Ah, well, it's not like I hid that on purpose. My parents are married and still living together on the farm. I have one brother and one other sibling, who are still living with them. Other than that, I had never really had much contact with any relatives outside of the occasional cousins or aunts visiting... That's about it... Then, what about you, any siblings?"

"No, I am an only child. I would like to think my four moms make up for that though. They are all in a plural marriage and living together back on New Melbourne. As for other family, there is obviously my uncle and aunt who own the scrap yard and all my eight grandparents are still alive and visit from time to time." My parents were honestly the best. Even if having so many adults at home often caused more problems than you'd think. But I wouldn't want to change a thing about them... except maybe turn down Alina's craziness.

"Oh, one of my squad mates also had 3 parents... So you're named after your birth planet then? Never heard of it. What's it like?" Noma asked and she seemed genuinely interested in my answer, as she leaned a bit forward, so I ignored the fact that it was technically my turn.

"Well, there isn't really much to say. It's a new mining colony, less than 50 years old. Only about ten million people live there. Gravity is on the lower end, as you could probably tell," I emphasized that with some hand gestures towards myself, "Other than that, it's the usual underground colony type." She nodded along and waited for me to come up with my next question.

Thinking about it for a moment, I looked around the room. My eyes were drawn towards the USSMC Hoodie Noma was wearing for some reason.

"What was it like in the Marines?" The question kind of slipped out of my mouth, while I was definitely not checking her out. To be honest, I kind of dreaded the answer I could get. She definitely didn't dislike the idea of being in the military as much as I did, but had she liked it? Did she ever have to pull the trigger? Had Noma ever killed someone? And if she did, would that change how I view her?

"Hmmm... that's a tough question to answer, but I guess I'll try. Like I said earlier, I kind of joined the military out of spite for my parents. My mom wanted me to take over the business as the oldest of my siblings and as a girl without a degree or a lump of cash to her name, there were only really two options for me. Become a farmer or join the military. At first, I had thought about quitting at least once a day. Basic training was already hell for me at the time and in my brilliance, I had chosen to join the Marines instead of the more laid-back navy. The only reason I pulled through was the potential penalty looming over my head if I quit and my squad mates relying on me. I didn't want to disappoint these complete strangers that hadn't even been on the same planet as me a few months before."

At that point, she took a longer sip of her coffee. "Later I found that as much as my teammates relied on me, I could rely on them in return. It was nice. Back home my parents always emphasized independence and rarely helped unless I literally begged them or without giving them something in return, and although my siblings are nice, they were both younger than me and I felt like I had to look out for them, even as they grew older. In my squad, it felt like we were all equal. Even our squad leader treated us as equals. Yeah, I would say it was nice... Sorry for rambling on like that." She said with a smile that seemed kind of strained.

I hurriedly shook my hands. "No, no. It's alright. But it's your turn to ask."

She raised her coffee again and I could hear her sucking in the last of the liquid before meeting my eyes. "Sooo, you went to university?" She said more lightheartedly while tipping her cup towards my hoodie. Somehow, seeing her bounce back like that was disconcerting, but I didn't stress much about it. Following where she was pointing, I looked down and saw the Melbourne University logo.

"Ehhh, just online courses, sadly. Never even met any professors or other students in person. I have a degree in astronautical engineering, though. One of my moms insisted I should get a degree in something and I always liked ships. Even though it kind of overqualified me for the job I took in the end." I said with a brief, self-deprecating laugh. "You don't have to answer this next question if you don't want to... actually, that was true for all the questions I asked, but... why did you leave the military?"

Noma first looked at my face again with a hard-to-describe look on her face, before she let her eyes wander around the room. Somehow she seemed very sad at that moment, and I regretted asking the question. I mean, how many career soldiers leave the military early for good reasons? Stupid, Mel, that question was really stupid.

"Maybe ask me again, when we know each other better. It's still kind of fresh on my mind."

"Of course, I'm sorry! I shouldn't have asked!" I hesitated if I should grab her hand or hug her or something. For me, physical contact was often comforting, but I didn't want to risk making the situation worse. In the end, Noma made the decision for me, when she stood up and made her way to the sink. She threw her empty cup into the bin and stretched once exaggeratedly.

"I think we both had a stressful day, so how about we both get some shut-eye?" she asked with what seemed like fake cheerfulness and I just nodded before pushing myself off the couch.

As she scanned the room one last time, she also seemed to realize that she had forgotten something. Namely, the data core still floating in her hand. "Oh, right, I tried to have a go at cracking this thing, but the encryption is crazy tough. You have any ideas?"

"I should have some decryption tools on my computer. I could let them have a go at it while we sleep."

She pressed the data core towards me and simply said: "Sounds good to me." Before making her way towards the crew quarters. Taking hold of the black suitcase, I followed her towards my room. After we said a simple "Goodnight," to each other, she vanished into her room. My room was right below hers. As the only other crew on board, I had been given the room normally reserved for the First Officer.

I activated my computer and fished the keyboard, as well as a few cables, out of their hiding place in one of my cabinets and looked at the data core for any ports where a cable could connect. Thankfully, all computers use the same few interface types, so it was easy to connect it to my computer.

The decryption tools on my computer had mainly been used to look through the data cores of any ships that still had them back in the yard. Normally they would be illegal without a license, but one of my moms had worked as a cybersecurity consultant - read: hacker - back in the days and had shared some of her tools with me.

The program said it would take a few hours. Not much I could do to speed it up, anyway, so I got ready for bed. I slipped out of my still pretty fresh clothes, dimmed the lights with a hand gesture, and made my way to the bed. After loosening a few of the straps so I could slip in, I activated the little fan beside my bed and turned the lights off entirely.