Prompt #2 - "Movement of the sea" (July '19)

[Kris]

July's 2nd prompt is
"Movement of the sea"

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[ArtisticVicu]

It was a burst of light as it entered the atmosphere, fire curling around it for the briefest of moments as what had collected against the hull was burned off in a burst of friction. The vessel itself wavered as it descended through the air far too quickly to be considered a controlled descent.

It kept airborne for over half of the planet's diameter, going from where the sun's light had given way to night to where the sun's light had barely started chasing the night away. It was in this land of crisp morning that the vessel finally lost to the planet's gravity and hit the ground.

The gouge created by the vessel started sharp before the vessel leveled out. By the time everything came to a stop, the gouge was several hundred miles long. and nearly a hundred feet deep. There was some debris littering the gouge but the vessel looked relatively unharmed. The sun crept across the sky and by the time there was any sign of movement from the vessel, the sun had burned off the chill of morning.

A massive door opened slowly near the base of the vessel. Something shimmered in the space left by the retreating door. Beyond that shimmering something, beings stood waiting, watching. Some were battered, some looked exhausted, but all had a sort of apprehension to their expression. The one closest to the shimmering looked like they were holding the weight of the world on their shoulders as they waited for the door to clear from their line of sight and show them what was beyond.

The door thudded to a stop and the shimmering dissipated. All in the room knew that the thing that had been shimmering was still there, though. Invisible as it may seem, the shields were still fully operational.

"Captain?" The one standing at the opening looked to the one that had spoken. The person stepped forward. "Are we cleared?"

The one responding to Captain took a step back from that invisible line. "Be careful out there, Ardolys, and be back in five hours, ship time."

Ardolys nodded and started giving orders. It took a quarter of an hour of ship time for those that were going on the expedition to leave by either foot or vehicle. As the last of the walking group passed over the threshold, the massive door started to lower. The Captain watched all of it without much reaction. There was a deep rumble when the massive door closed completely and the echo filled the silence for a brief moment.

"Mern, I'm counting on your team to keep a constant eye on their locations and communications," the Captain spoke out, turning away from the door. "Orns, with me."

The Captain walked away from the massive door heading for the other side of the hangar. A body fell into step beside him and he didn't have to look to know that it was Orns. "Any reports come in while we sent the expedition teams off?"

"No, Sir," Orns responded readily. "Though the med bay should be the closest to reporting if you would like to head there first."

He nodded. "Head to engineering. I don't expect a final report but I want an update. I trust they'll alert the ship if we need to evacuate but I want to know if we need to make preparations. If the core explodes, we'll need to know what distance is considered safe and they should have that number by now."

Orns gave a shallow bow and continued down the space as the Captain turned left, heading for a door that led back into the halls of the ship.

Nothing had been seriously damaged to the point where immediate evacuation had been required. The landing hadn't been smooth and there was certainly hull damage, but the rest of the ship had stayed in tack, the core hadn't been damaged to the point of immediate explosion, and most injuries were relatively minor. With no major damage to vessel, the med bay was still completely operational and so those few that had been severely injured would be back on their feet in short order.

He stepped into the med bay to find it quite the mess since most things not bolted down or locked away had been thrown about - his own quarters, personal and otherwise, were a sight to see; he didn't even realize he had that many items that could get thrown about in a crash - and other priorities had led to the mess remaining. He did notice a few personnel were cleaning up the far side of the med bay, though, so he took that as a good sign.

"Captain." He looked towards the source and found the lead medic approaching. "Has the expedition teams left, then?"

He nodded, taking a step back to open himself to the lead medic. "How are things here, Eru?"

"Good," the lead medic responded with a flicker of surprise. "I've only had two out of the entire ship that cannot leave their beds for a few more hours."

He let out a sigh as some of the weight on his shoulders left. "I'm glad. Anything else to report?"

Eru's expression twisted as if the other was annoying or being an unnecessary challenge. "A number of our supplies were damaged or made useless in the crash despite the time he had to secure everything. We're working the matazens at full capacity right now to not only get back to full stock but to have a surplus should anything happen."

"Good. When you start amassing the surplus, send it down to the hangar. I'll set orders out to start relocating things to the designated safe zone till we know more." He started to turn as Eru gave a half bow but stopped. "Vice," he spoke softly, gaining Eru's gaze again. He caught the glint of curiosity. "Don't get caught up in your work. I know Byre will be busy on the engineering team but you two need to check in with each other and your children. Especially now that the worse of it is over."

Eru smiled at him, the gratitude clear in the expression. "I will, Sir. Don't worry." Eru turned partially away. "Just listen to your own advice, Captain. I'm sure Sasha would love to know you haven't gone and killed yourself with overworking again."

He laughed. "I'm sure she will, too."

Words said, he left the med bay. He found Eru's words sticking too hard for him to go directly to engineering. And it wasn't like going to go see Sasha was out of his way, necessarily.

The halls were strangely quiet as he made his way through them. Despite the limited noise the engine and life support systems made, there had always been a low, soothing rumble of a tone that had always filled the halls that he only noticed in its absence and it made him a bit uneasy. He hoped that despite its presence, everything would be fine.

The door opened for him as he approached it and suddenly the noise that had been trapped inside spilled out in a cacophony of sound. There were a number of adults, young adults, and older children in among the youngest members of his crew but it was the children that were making the most noise. There didn't seem any order to the chaos inside the space. While it wasn't massive compared to the hangar, the room itself was still four times the size of the largest conference room on the vessel and was probably the largest space to fall under the living space designation. While the space itself was massive, though, it had been broken up into different areas and small sub-rooms pocketed the depths of the space. The majority of the central space where he had entered into was the most occupied. Children were doing all sorts of crafts. He realized a few were trainings even geared for the younger minds. He caught sight of a familiar face that beamed at him before crossing through the throng of children.

"What do you think?" the familiar face asked.

"Training?" he questioned skeptically.

The familiar face split into a grin. "Meshna's idea. She thought it would be good to start the children off on basic survival skills for their mental levels. Graven was all on board for it. Most are just being taught weaving, fire starting, and how to find or craft a temporary shelter. The higher levels are learning more of what is edible, what is not, how to find north and reallocate themselves with the location of the ship if they get lost, where we are on the map and whatnot. Krem wants to get directional trained in the lower levels too but other things have taken priority as we've done the buddy system."

"You have enough emergency kits for each person here?"

The familiar face softened at his concern. "Each child knows the ins and outs of those bags so well, they'll probably be dreaming about them for weeks." Their expression sobered immediately. "Captain, what is our status? Will we be able to stay in the ship and use it as our home or are we going to have to relocate? A lot of the people on this ship will not be happy with the latter, not when we have to rough it."

He sighed. "Unfortunately I don't have an answer to that question just yet." He met that familiar gaze steadily. "When I find out, I'll send word. I want you to make sure all the children – even the older ones – make it off safely if things go wrong."

"Of course, Captain."

"Gee-pa! Gee-pa!" A little body collided with his leg and he exaggerated the severity of the collision quite extensively. Despite how big the little body had gotten, there still wasn't enough force behind the contact at his thigh to do much in the way of knocking him over, let alone shift his weight. He buried his fingers into the unruly reddish brown curls, gaining a grinning face. "You came! Adma was saying you wouldn't!"

He gave the familiar face a flat look as the other shrugged. "I wasn't certain you would have time to stop by, regardless of if there would be orders to evacuate. I didn't want her waiting around for you to never show up."

He reached down and picked the child up, commenting conspiratorially with the child, "It would seem your Adma has no faith in me at all." The child giggled as that head of curls pressed into his neck and shoulder. "Did you lose faith in me too, my sweet Sasha."

"No," Sasha giggled, little hands clinging to him.

He rubbed her back, content. "I'm glad." He focused back on that familiar face. "Where is Graven?"

The other turned, pointing towards a head of hair identical to the one currently pressed against his throat. Graven looked completely content surrounded by a swarm of children all seeking praise of their weaving. It was endearing to see that Graven wasn't just praising every child; even from where they were standing, the Captain could see that Graven was walking a few children through how to make their weaves better and saw how the children took to it.

"I know that species differences between sentients aren't normally talked about in order to respect the more private of the given species culture, but I am so glad that Graven's imrentu. It makes it far easier to work with children when all we have to do is put Graven before them and walk away."

He looked to the familiar face beside him, catching the wistful, grateful look he had seen on a different face so many years ago. "You did good in your choice, even if your old man fought it tooth and nail."

That familiar face broke out into a grin and for a moment, he saw a face he hadn't seen in years. "Ah, come on, Pop. You were just looking out for me after Ma died. And you had every right to be cautious." That familiar face turned away, focusing once more on Graven. "I was on a mission to help quell the dispute between the imrentu and us. Getting caught up with one of them in the middle of that was incredibly dangerous for both of us for the same and completely different reasons." That gaze returned to him. "You had every right to be worried."

He let out a heavy sigh. "But I should have trusted you. We lost so much time because of my stupidity."

"Gee-pa, don't be sad." He looked down at the child still in his arms and couldn't help but smile at the serious look on her face. "Adma and Omna made me so that you can make up."

He chuckled. Despite not understanding her thought process, he got what he hoped was her intent. "You are quite right about that. Now." He carefully put Sasha back onto her own two feet. "Why don't you go see your Omna while I talk with your Adma?"

"Ok! Bye Gee-pa!" she shouted, racing off even as she waved goodbye.

He watched her make it all the way to Graven's side, watch as the imrentu seemed to gain more life at Sasha's presence, lifting her up and showering her with all the love of a devoted parent.

"Pop?"

"When the expedition teams come back, I want you, Graven, and Sasha to be the first to leave." The other shifted to face him but he kept his gaze on Graven and Sasha, watching that familiar face out of the corner of his eye as he explained, "I need you three to be safe, just in case something goes wrong. You and Graven are well equipped to be part of the first settlers if it gets that dire. I will join you when I am able to."

"Pop."

The word was choked, thick with too many words to speak at once. He fought against the instinct to close his eyes against the wave of sorrow but only half succeeded as his eyelids fluttered as he sucked in a breath. "Please, Kyle. I lost your mother. I can't lose you or yours, too."

The room was full of the sound of excited children and adults that were clearly happy but were subdued by the weight of reality. He was glad the children weren't affected.

"When the wind catches the sail just right," his son spoke, the words soft and familiar, "lean all your weight on the line so that you don't lose what you've just caught."

"Ease up on the tension as the body of the ship changes direction till the stem of the ship is pointed true," he continued, his heart going out to all around him. He prayed they survived and thrived.

"Don’t trust the sky for she may lie at times," Sasha spoke, voice aged as she remembered those that been there before her, those that had made sure they had all made it safe to their new world. She yanked on the rope but the sure hands of her daughter and grandson held most of the weight. "Tie the lead off when you've matched the movement of the sea."

"For that will guide you more true than any stretch of air could till night brings the guiding stars," echoed among her daughter and grandson, the words echoing silently from the generations before. Sasha closed her eyes against the sea breeze as her family took control of the ship and wondered if her Gee-ma would have been proud of what had become of those that had chosen to remain planet side. She hoped that her Gee-ma was proud of Sasha and happy wherever souls went after death with Gee-pa, Adma, and Omna at her side.

"Gee-ma!" She opened her eyes, catching sight of her grandson. He beamed at her, pointing towards the dimming horizon. "The Guiding Stars are back."

She smiled, ruffling that head of earth toned curls that reminded her of her own Adma and Gee-pa. "Then let us set course. We do have to get back home eventually."

That youthful face beamed up at her, joyous and free.