Chapter Text
He wasn't someone Rain expected to see out here. As far as she knew Jormungand had gone under not long after she left. Apparently they didn't. She'd just get it out of that shaky Ensign later. How he made it anywhere in that organization she had no idea. Though, she was thinking that she may have to wait until after she’d had a nap and an opportunity to clean herself up. Taking in what had happened that whole battle, she inferred she must have pushed herself quite hard. There was dried blood all the way from her nose to her chest, staining the white stripes on her tanktop red. No matter, she thought, I’ll just have to scrub this one hard. She took a long breath, and collapsed into the cockpit’s seat, where she sat just breathing for a little while.
Dani’s voice popped up on the Gundam’s comms. “Rain, are you alright?” It’d been a few minutes since Rain had informed her lance of the job being done, and she’d zoned out sitting in the Brynhild’s cockpit.
“Y-yeah, sorry was just taking a breather. That guy had me on the ropes.” She hid her exhaustion with humor, as was Rain’s usual. She stretched her arms and stood the Gundam up, turning it back towards the convoy.
“Oh, no problem at all take your time. Livvy & I are doing more of the same with the truck drivers.”
“Gotcha, I’ll meet up with you and we’ll decompress a bit before continuing on. Good job out there girls.” Rain smiled in that proud, sisterly way that she’d practiced. Eyes half lidded, a little bit of a snort beforehand, usually followed by her ruffling the kids’ hair. In all honesty, she just wanted to go home and sleep. There’d be at least a day before she got to do that though, so she’d take a clean bed in an inn or something, especially before she fell asleep in the cockpit.
The Brynhild sped over the reddish-orange soil that most of Venus was composed of. It was a barren environment between Truth’s Well and Helvetia, mostly waiting to be terraformed by whatever may come, though a few grasses were beginning to grow. Rain thought to herself as she drove the Gundam straight ahead. She’d probably come back with the salvage team in a few days to get the scrap from that Otr, should nobody else get to it first. The joints and especially the spare reactor would be helpful. It was rare for a Belladonna reactor to burn up but spares were always appreciated. She’d probably give Layla a call when she had time. It was nice to have just the whistle and woosh of the flame coming off the back of her Gundam for a little bit, thankfully the cockpit quieted it down considerably to almost a stream or a rainstorm like sound, oftentimes Rain would just zone out to the sound the reactor after a fight in an effort to calm down. She’d often say, “The Gundam knows when I’m pissed and starts running extra hot so I like to just decompress so I don’t go up in flames.”, and then just laugh it off.
Before she knew it, the convoy was on the horizon and she brought the Gundam to a halt. She set the reactor to idle, as you do with fusion reactors, last time the Brynhild’s reactor got shut down it had taken weeks to get the glow plug to generate enough heat to initiate nuclear fusion. Layla never let her hear the end of that one, even though that was back when she found the Brynhild… Rain figured that Layla just needed someone to listen, which Rain was always ready to do. Layla was one of the few girls her age still with Asynjur. The younger ones usually were pulled out of warzones and tended to stay as long as they were being fed, and oftentimes around the time they turned 18 they left. Dani & Livvy had decided to stay on with Asynjur, and Rain was happy to have more Mobile Suit pilots.
As she climbed out of the Gundam, Rain started to feel the pain in her head. She'd spent too long piloting the suit. Gripping her scalp she stumbled over to where Dani was standing. "Hey… got anything like… sugary? Caffinated? I'm dying over here." She looked up at the dark skinned pilot with puppy-dog eyes, like she was the only thing that could save her from certain doom.
"Uh yeah, sure Rain…" she handed Rain a tall can of a coffee-cream mixture. "Are you gonna be… ok? Do you usually get like this after piloting Brynhild?"
Rain brushed her salmon-colored hair out of her face and cracked open the can, shotgunning nearly the whole drink in one gulp. "Yeah. I get migraines sometimes, started when I was a little kid." When she came back down to lean on the bed of a truck, her bangs flew back into her face. She let a small growl escape her mouth. "Sorry if I'm irate… this hurts, a lot. The caffeine helps but.. usually I gotta nap or something. How far out of town are we?" She growled low.
"A few kilometers. Not far." Dani said flatly. "If you want we could load Brynhild onto a truck and you wouldn't have to make it worse."
"I'll be fine, don't worry about me kid." Rain stood up to her full height, around a full head over Dani. Rain was tall, but stocky. When she wasn't sleeping or working she was usually doing some sort of workout to make sure what meat she had left wouldn't fail her in the cockpit of her Gundam. She took off her patch laden jacket , worn from years of daily exposure to the harsh Venusian sun, and tied it around her waist. She immediately donned a pair of sunglasses as well, "Migraine. Sunlight isn't good for that." She said.
She slowly made her way over to where Livvy had her Sif & the Otr's cockpit, still with the Ensign inside. She smacked the top of the disembodied cockpit. "Oy, quiet down, I've got a nasty fucking headache and if you make it worse your time with us will be exponentially less pleasant. Am I clear?" She growled, getting a whimper of acknowledgement from the Ensign. She turned to Livvy next. "What's your plan with this guy?"
"We'll get him back to base. I've got someone meeting us in Helvetia to pick him up so we don't have to worry about him ruining your night." The small girl smiled at Rain. Livvy in particular was like Rain's younger sister, they'd come into Asynjur together.
"Good call, excellent planning." Rain finished her drink and crushed the can in her cyberhand. "I'm gonna wanna crash when we get to town, sorry for being so useless, pushed myself way too hard."
"Hey, none of that. He almost shot my Sif's head off which I'm sure would have fried my brain through the DNI. You did great as usual, give yourself some credit. You're not nearly as dumb as you think you are." Livvy put a hand on Rain's shoulder.
"I suppose you're right.'" and Rain stalked off back to her Gundam to find a few moments of quiet. Just a moment to get her head to stop pounding. Once they hit town, she'd take some painkillers and probably sleep in late. Pushing the Brynhild like that was gonna kill her eventually. Worth it to potentially save friends? Oh yeah absolutely no question about it. But Rain knew this wasn't like boiling a frog. She wasn't going to get used to that much stress on her brain. All she could do was take some painkillers and crash for a few hours.
After a few moments with the convoy drivers gathering themselves from a Mobile Suit attack, the lance re-entered their suits and pushed the last few kilometers to the town of Helvetia. Again, Rain sent Dani & Livvy to do negotiations, this time more out of Rain being irate from her migraine. She wasn’t about to get stupid in front of the depot manager because she had a headache from defending the cargo he asked to be brought here. She looked for a place to shack up for the night so she could get some rest and get rid of the horrible awful feeling in her head. Flicking through ads and listings over her comms in complete silence she eventually decided on one that was on the outskirts of Helvetia so she could park Brynhild at least somewhat conspicuously and avoid the rigamaroll that was bringing a Mobile Suit with a Belladonna reactor into a place where people lived.
Good thing I put a lot of the work onto those two , she thought, I couldn’t even begin to… this is why you need to pace yourself Freyja, otherwise you’re useless once the fighting is over. Rain was always one to belittle herself, even though she was the only one in Asynjur with the ability and strength to actually pilot Brynhild. Other pilots had tried, she saw them fail with her own two eyes. Sometimes the DNI rejected them, other times the sensory overload caused them to have strokes. In a way, she was lucky the Brynhild had chosen her.
She set the Mobile Suit down in the back of the motel, a small establishment made of yellow-brown stucco with a terracotta colored roof. The sun was beginning to go down and so Rain put her sunglasses up on her head. She wasn’t silly enough to wear sunglasses at night, that might make her seem suspicious anyways. Not to mention the blood that had dribbled down and stained her shirt earlier. She grabbed the small duffel she usually carried inside the Gundam’s cockpit and made her way to check in. It went by without a hassle but having a splitting headache was not something she was super keen on to begin with. She barely even turned the lights on before quickly changing into an oversized t-shirt with some small holes in it for bed. She just wanted to sleep.
All you had to wake you up on Venus is the sun, no birds, no other noises. It was enough to get Rain out of bed however, feeling much better than the night before. Thankfully the migraines she got from overexerting herself in the Gundam were short after she had some rest. She yawned, almost a high pitched squeal coming from her. Small things like this delight her to no end. Stretching and slowly popping out of bed, she looked at herself in the mirror. A little scraggly, but that’s what hairbrushes and morning showers are for. Those soft eyes of hers were back though, she could see them in the mirror to the right of the bed. She smiled slightly, this meat prison had turned out alright in the end.
A quick shower, dry and brushing and Rain was all ready, a heck of a lot less scraggly looking than before. Changing her underwear & bra, she ran her fingers along the surgery scars from the only operation she really wanted to have. She smiled, she worked long and hard for that doctor to get it but the neovagina was so worth it in the end. Feeling like yourself will do wonders for your piloting abilities it turns out. She continued to stretch herself out, a big girl like Rain is always in need of such things. A full 178cm (AN: 5’10” for those of you not well-versed in Metric), and stocky if not slender, Rain certainly fit the bill of “Big Girl”, and she liked it that way. Ever since she’d decided her name was Freyja Rain and that she was a lady, things seemed to be a lot brighter, even on such a forgotten planet like Venus. Her wavy, salmon pink hair also brought her a lot of joy, as straightened out it would reach all the way down her back. However, she preferred to keep it wavy and fluffy, and usually to tie it up so hair didn’t get stuck in the DNI socket at the base of her neck. On went a fresh shirt, solid black with a little breast pocket, and no sleeves, just in case she had another incident in the Gundam, and her usual weird pants. Before the knee, they had cargo like pockets for all sorts of things, like her knife, a few rounds for the gun she kept inside Brynhild, and other little things. Past the knee they’d get a lot skinnier, to ‘show off my calves’ as Rain liked to say. Socks and sneaker-looking boots that breathed well and of course, her leather jacket with all the patches on it. It was brown, cropped around her belly button, and featured all kinds of witty or significant patches, sometimes of PMCs she used to be in. She tied it around her waist for now, it was going to be warm today, no use sweating it out. She flung the duffle bag over her shoulder and on her way out of the lobby, tossed the room key to the bellhop and took a granola bar out of her pants pocket, munching on it as she flipped her sunglasses down to go retrieve Brynhild.
“Alright you walking arsenal, time to-” Rain threw herself and her bag up into the cockpit, “head home.” She plugged in the DNI, giving her a small jolt, and disengaged the idle switch for the reactor. The Gundam sprang to life as its ponytail of exhaust flared up behind it. She’d have to get the reactor checked out by Layla when she got back, she did sort of push the Gundam hard, always worth doing maintenance anyways. Though, she was sure there’d be an earful waiting for her when she got back. Part of it was listening to Layla chew her out about maintaining a mobile suit, part of it was listening to her wax poetic about nuclear fusion. In her honest opinion, Rain liked the latter part. It was… cool listening to Layla talk about things that made her excited and she knew a lot about. Of course, most of it flew right over Rain’s head but she at least liked to pretend to listen and ask a question or two because it made Layla happy. And hey, isn’t crew morale important? It was, so when Rain got back she’d help Layla with maintenance and humor Layla about the Belladonna reactors again. It was at least some sorta interesting.
The Asynjur home base was actually quite far from Helvetia, you’d find it with it’s back facing Idunn Mons, buried in the side. It’s a flight, but inside a Gundam traveling at speed, it only takes a few hours to get over the small seas forming in the recent years. Helvetia had to move their entire town recently and Truth’s Well changed its name when the groundwater started to swell in the center of town. It was weird, they were used to the rains of course, and rain barrels were commonplace among Venusian homes, but now that rain was starting to make lakes and seas. There’d be oceans in a few hundred years, no doubt. Rain supposed Layla might be up fixing the volcanic catalytic converter. Rain had only been falling on the planet of Venus for a few hundred years at this point, and this wasn’t quite enough to make the planet’s volcanoes quiet down. One scientist apparently had the bright idea of installing catalytic converters on them, to at least manage the greenhouse effect. Asynjur’s had the benefit of also collecting minerals that were in the volcanic spew prior to eruption, which they were able to refine and trade. It made for good business and also helped make this place habitable. Hundreds of years after the first rainclouds were seeded, Venus was still a massive hellhole. It was their hellhole though, not like leaving for Earth or Mars was an option. As far as Rain knew, she and the others here were forgotten by the rest of the Solar System.
The acid had been removed from the rain, but it still came down as hard as possible. You can breathe, but the planet is still dying to kill you. At one point in her life Rain would have been ok with that, at another she was told that was her destiny. Right now, she wasn’t about to let it kill her, she had lots left to do. Apparently, your 20s is still young, even though Rain was among the senior members of Asynjur, so Rain figured she had a while yet before it was her time to die. She had what was 30 plus little sisters in Asynjur, most of them younger than 18 and the venn diagram between that and ‘were war orphans’ being a near circle, she felt it was her duty to make sure they grew up with some semblance of safety, and if Rain could do that from the seat of a Gundam, so be it, that’s how she would live. Asynjur, thankfully, wasn’t like most PMCs on Venus. For one, it was run by and comprised of women and folks who identify as such. The founders meant it as a way to get young girls off the streets of the formerly war-torn planet and out of sex trafficking and other horrible fates, and while the decision to form a PMC was a shaky one at best, it was also an easy way to keep the girls safe. And so, Asynjur has continued to exist in that form, the all-girls PMC. Rain had been worried they wouldn’t accept her, she hadn’t been on anything like hormone treatment when she fell in front of the gates to their complex. Thankfully, Asynjur isn’t heartless, and after talking with her, the senior members arranged for her to stay and undergo whatever she wanted to feel better about her body. They arranged deliveries of cartridges for Rain’s arm that would regulate the hormones in her blood, and hooked her up with a surgeon capable of giving her GRS. Rain had stayed on despite it being encouraged she move on, as a way of her showing thanks to the PMC that had given her another chance at life.
She had initially planned to abandon the Brynhild with whoever would take it, get some money and settle down doing something, maybe she'd be the old hag that cautioned the kids about the men in the military jackets, she figured. But something about Asynjur, how it was run and the girls she met there appealed to her. Maybe it was finally being able to hang around like-minded women, girls who had seen combat like her. Maybe it was just nice to feel like one of the girls. It could have also been that everyone else that got in the Gundam was basically rejected by it. Overloaded by the DNI, the socket not being able to interface with any other capable pilots, one guy straight up died when he got in because he wasn’t ready and got a little cocky. It became clear after a while that Rain was the only one who could pilot the Brynhild, whether she liked it or not. Even if she did manage to sell it, the fact that it was a strange “new” model that nobody had ever seen, meant that it wasn’t of value to more practical-minded PMCs with inventories of readily available spare parts that didn’t fit this strange new suit, nor did it have any parts value because there were no other suits that were anything like it. It had been Layla that convinced her to just keep it intact, she’d figure out how to keep it in shape should Rain stay on and join the Mobile Suit core. It really didn’t seem like there was any other option for Rain at that point, and it’s not as if she wasn’t a great pilot. She was already an ace, she could handle herself, the only thing holding her back was her insecurities. Her body was literally holding her back, and Asynjur was willing to help her with that big problem. She’d give them an ace pilot and a mobile suit and they’d give her a home, which was good enough for Rain.
It wasn’t long until the base came into view, proudly standing against the mountain it’s back side was buried in. After that mess, Rain was excited to go home and rest for a spell without that sleep having to be under the influence of a migraine. Good rest, the kind you wake up more or less refreshed from. She’d get a good opportunity for a nap when Layla was doing maintenance on her Gundam. That and the mess hall’s food was good, unlike that of every other PMC on this planet. How that happened, Rain had no clue. Maybe it was just Gramma’s expertise in the kitchen compared to every soldier who was just slapped in the kitchen as punishment. A chef who likes cooking versus someone there to serve out KP duty, there isn’t even a contest. Food and her bed awaiting her, Rain hit the throttle on the Gundam, giving the thrusters a little more juice to get her up to the landing for the Mobile Suits. Bringing the Brynhild in slowly, she saw Layla poke her head out of the hangar. After powering down the Gundam and popping the cockpit open, Rain slid down the safety railings and waved to whoever might have seen her come in.
Layla nodded as she walked over to the Brynhild, a passing acknowledgement of the ace pilot. Her interest was seeing what had happened to the Gundam in a scrap like Rain had gotten into. Usually, fights between Mobile Suits weren’t this rough, and the Gundam had always proven itself to be strangely resilient to most things an enemy suit could do. But that was the Gundam, and the surprise had long faded into the expectation and knowledge that the Gundam Brynhild was something special indeed. Figuring out what made the Brynhild tick was something Layla has been trying to do for years, and every new discovery about how the Gundam worked was Layla’s reason to get up sometimes. “So how did the redirector work? Notice anything different?”
Last time before Rain had left on her mission, Layla had installed a redirection mechanism into the Brynhild’s second Belladonna reactor. The Gundam, unlike most suits, ran two sequential reactors, one main and then a slightly smaller auxiliary unit that was initially to power the beam weapons that the Valkyrie Class had shipped with. With the absence and reliability of those beam weapons a constant question mark for Asynjur, Layla had devised a system in which the secondary reactor could be repurposed to assist in the Gundam’s other functions, along with a fine-tuning and control mechanism to assist in heat management. “Really well. She’s feeling snappier every day, either she’s getting used to me or I’m getting used to her.” Rain looked up at her suit and let a small smile cross her face. She’d grown really attached to Brynhild.
“Good to hear.” Layla pushed over a piece of scaffold to get up higher to check the myriad of joints in the Gundam’s arm. “Remember when these were so corroded you could barely get them to move?”
“Yeah. It was like physical therapy for a giant robot. She’d not been moved in so so long, and yet I owe this thing for basically saving my life back when I almost went up in flames.”
“Yeah… I’ll never understand how that happened. Like,” Layla slid down the scaffold like a fire pole, “How a Belladonna reactor went nuclear like that. They’re stable as all get out, even though out here they tend to get a little hot.”
Rain shuddered at the thought. Deep down, she knew something was off about what happened. “Must have been bad fuel cells…” she trailed off, both not wanting to think about it and also bombarded with the memories. She looked down at the ground, clutching her cyberarm tight. It had been years ago, but it still stung like the day it happened.
Layla put her hand on Rain’s shoulder. “Sweetheart, we can always stop talking about it if you don’t want to, ok? I understand it’s a sore subject.” Rain simply nodded and gently broke away from Layla’s grip to lean up against Brynhild. Layla slumped next to her, up against the leg of the Gundam.
Rain took a few breaths, attempting to push the intense memories, colored deep red from the reactor’s explosion, out of her mind. She had no doubt that if Brynhild wouldn’t have been there and been her chance at escape, she would have given up piloting Mobile Suits for good. She gripped her cyberarm again as phantom pains flared up. Her breaths got more labored and intense, balling up her artificial fist tight. Eventually, slowly, the intense feelings went away, and the pain in her arm died down. She slumped down with Layla. “Yeah, let’s change the subject.” she said, sounding out of breath.
“Sure.” Layla stood up and helped Rain back onto her feet, giving her a small hug too. “It’ll be ok Rainy.”
Rain nodded and shook herself out, stretching before giving Layla an ‘I’m ok’ smile. “So, anything you want help with?”
“Sure. Before we check out the powerplant I wanna take a gander at that nasty burn on the shoulder.” Rain followed Layla up the scaffold, bumping into her when Layla recoiled with her elbow over her nose. “Hey what the hell stinks?” She blurted out looking at the burn on the Gundam’s shoulder. Rain looked at her like a confused dog, what smell?
Layla kept sniffing, and arrived at the burn. “YOU!” She pointed to the burn mark on the Gundam’s shoulder. “What did you get shot with?” She turned to Rain, perplexed as usual with this machine.
“Beam rifle from an Otr. Fucker was aiming for my head. You should have seen our scrap, girl it was amazing. I haven’t pushed myself that hard in a long time.” Rain smiled, yeah she was proud of what she did, migraines be damned, she was spicy and reckless at heart and the Brynhild was her enabler, the near indestructible Mobile Suit allowing her to shrug off beatings that would put your run of the mill suits like Otrs and Sifs, even Fafnirs in the ground. In a few rival PMCs they’d given the codename of ‘Devil’ to the Brynhild due to the winglike heatsinks on the side of the helmet looking like horns from a distance, or maybe it was due to the fact it was on fire when it was in operation. Either way, Brynhild was a monster and so was its pilot. She didn’t baby the suit, and it certainly showed.
“Beam weapons huh?” The smells of charred armor, fiberglass, ceramic and with just a hint of that Venusian air mixed into one of the most foul-smelling things to hit Layla’s nose since her time in the med ward. “Huh… It’s just charred the ceramics. The fiberglass… Yo come look at this Rain.” Rain shoved her face in beside Layla’s.
“What the fuck am I looking at?” Rain’s eyes darted all over the shoulder armor, looking for what Layla was trying to point out to her.
Layla tapped a bit of the burnt ceramic, and it fell away into dust. “Oh, that’s even worse. Wonder what they’re using… Whose Otrs?”
“Sit down first.” Rain instructed with a hint of ‘You will not believe this shit’ in her tone.
“Motherfucking Jormungand.”
Layla’s eyes were the size of grapefruits. “You’re shitting me. You’ve got to be pulling my leg right now, seriously Rain who was it?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die it was them! Dude literally said it was them!” Rain threw up her hands in mock surrender.
“Well, fuck me silly…” Layla leaned up against the scaffolding, her brain going into overdrive trying to figure out how a dead PMC, with beam weapons, had baked the armor on the Gundam to the point of it crumbling like that.
Rain got a funny look on her face in the meantime. She really wanted to say something… no, she better not, Layla was too good a friend. What if she took Rain up on the offer too? God that would be awkward. I’m not ready for the implications of this! Why! Brain stop being so DIRTY for five minutes PLEASE I am BEGGING YOU. She is just my friend and I want to keep it that way because clearly I am an immature jackass who isn’t ready for even a date with a mind like this! Rain! Shut the fuck up!”
Rain shook her head as if to recenter herself. “Yeah, no and get this, it was my old supervisor too.”
“Ok this is too convenient.” She went back to examining the armor. “Rainy I don’t know how but I have a bad feeling about how the stars are coming together. Be careful ok?”
Rain nodded. “Hey, y’all got our shaky friend from the other one right?”
Layla stopped for a second, eyes flitting around in order to search her brain. “Yeah, yeah we did. He’s been really clammed up tight, you know the boss doesn’t do torture or anything. We’re sorta just waiting for him to crack, dude looks like he’s constantly about to shit himself.” Rain snorted. Yeah, how that dude got anywhere in the Jormungand she’d been a part of was a complete and utter mystery. She’d finish up whatever Layla needed from her, and then maybe she’d go visit Private Shakes.
On a Ride class cruiser, the captain’s office is one with a panoramic view of the space ahead, comprising of layered windows and a multitude of screens, with overlays upon overlays depicting everything one would need to know about the ship. Maps. News reports. Incoming and outgoing communications. This was Captain Ethan Philips’ view at his job, every single day since March, SRY 200. It had been just a few weeks since he and his battalion had left Earth on a course for Venus, a planet which he was told was barren from failed colonization efforts by the defunct Planetary Federation. He had been assured that most if not all citizens were long dead, and if there were anyone left, he was to contact his superiors for direction, not that he would need to, as it was barren of course. Ethan mulled this over, taking one of the shiny black strands of hair that framed his face and curling it around his finger. There would be a lot of time for self reflection on the way there, and his ship, the Meteor, at least had things like Mobile Suit simulations and mountains of paperwork for him to complete by the time he would arrive at his destination. What he would do when there? No idea, play it by ear probably. It was a strange, new frontier, not unlike the Moon back when Earth counted time in AD. Leave things alone long enough and they’ll change in ways that you will never expect.
Captain Philips was physically typical, of average height for a man his age with enough muscle to justify his rank to anyone willing to start a fight with him. He had cold, icy blue eyes that could stare flechettes through anyone with a weaker will than he. He kept his hair long and most of it in a braid at the back of his head, an homage to his late father. The old man had explained the meaning behind what each braid, each twist and colored band meant at one time when Ethan was maybe 16, and he had difficulty recalling that at the current moment. He’d send a letter to his mother later asking for it again, it was always a grounding experience to realize what his father was trying to say. His skin was a ruddy tan, a surprising sight between the admittedly milquetoast leadership of the ECGB. Recent years had brought a call for more diversity at the top, so that the ECGB Defensive Fleet would more accurately enact the will of all of Earth’s citizens. Of course Ethan knew that most of it was tokenism and that there were few who believed in his abilities to begin with. Oh well, he figured that now that he had the materials, he would use them to his advantage.
Ethan stared out the windows on his office, admiring each and every star, tracing constellations in the distance with his eyes. Stargazing was one of his favorite activities with his parents, he’d wanted to be an astronomer in his youth. Maybe when he finished his tour of duty, he’d go to college for that. He smiled at the thought. Leaning back in his chair, he imagined what life would be like when this was all over. Studying stars and planets, finding new and interesting formations and galaxies, looking through telescopes and taking pictures all day. He was determined to do well here to achieve his dream. And so, he chugged away at his paperwork, partook in the sortie simulations with his crew, and anything else possible to make Operation Tabula Rasa a success.
The stars were especially beautiful out here, and soon he’d get to see the Morning Star up close and personal.