Chimera 🌈 [ONC 2024]

8: Outreach

Ryan had already settled in the cockpit when Leanne arrived. The forward console decks glowed softly, two images displayed across the panels. As Leanne hurried closer, she realised they were not still pictures, but videos, staggered and lagging. One location she recognised as Wells station, the orbiter currently spinning around Mars and mapping her climate. Leanne had stood in that bridge a mere four days before, listening to Commander Roth's final briefing. Cliff had sat beside her in a seat currently just out of frame, turning and turning over that shooting star ornament in his hands. He had no idea that in hours, he would be dead.

A chill washed over Leanne's stomach. She walked slowly behind Ryan's chair, putting her hands on its back for support. Commander Roth's face seemed more drawn and lined since Leanne had last seen her, made haggard by the last days. Dark rings circled her eyes and her usually neat red ponytail had come a little loose. Even in half-freeze frame, Leanne could see the pain and fear in her gaze.

In contrast, Jakande, the governor and commander of Nerio, was like stone. She sat, surrounded by a silently flashing bank of computer towers, dressed in the sleek and severe uniform of the colonists. The symbol of Mars was emblazoned across the dark cloth, the red eye of the planet wrapped in trails of fire and starlight. Her dark hair was short and tightly curled and perfectly preened, just like every inch of her. Leanne had never spoken to her before but felt as though she needed to stand up straighter under her firm gaze.

"Valkyrie," Ryan said. "Can you try and get us a better connection? It's like speaking with a photo album."

"Of course."

A moment of quiet and then both Jakande and Roth's voices were filling the cockpit. The uplinks suddenly spurted into life, emitting a hive of activity. Other astronauts appeared behind Roth, flitting in and out of the frame with data pads and clipboards and logs. A low rumble could be heard from Jakande's stream, the pulses of the computer bank almost seeming to be a pattern of speech.

"Apologies," Roth finally said above the din. "Lieutenant Ziegler, Ryan, it is good to finally see you."

Leanne again thought of the strangeness of Ryan being referred to entirely by her first name. Perhaps the Nerio colonists did not have surnames?

"Ryan," Jakande said, seeming to confirm it. "Lieutenant Ziegler, I am glad to see you well."

"Thank you, Commander, Governor, ma'am. I am still breathing." That was the best Leanne could manage.

"We're stable," Ryan agreed.

Roth waited, perhaps waiting for Jakande to say more. The BASE's meticulous hierarchy played across her indecision, mixed with the fact that this mission had begun as a BASE endeavour. But Nerio had supplied Phaethon and Ryan and the Arcadia sat in Martian airspace. Between Roth and Jakande, there was no clear superior. Leanne felt a stab of sympathy for her. She had only been in the job a few months.