Chapter Text
“Sam.”
Sam turns at the voice, meeting his wife’s gaze. “Hey.”
He and Colleen just stare at each other for a long moment. They’re no strangers to space missions and the dangers that always come with them, but this one is the furthest out the Garrison has ever sent someone. Far enough that the Garrison spared the expense to pull one of its best botanists, its most promising cadet, and a civilian teenager from their lives and give them a ride out to Thearios Station at L2 to send their family off. Katie’s been engulfed in a hug from Matt practically since they entered the hangar, and he can see Keith and Shiro a little ways away, talking in hushed tones.
“You know, we’ve sent manned missions out toward Pluto before.”
“Half of those people died.”
Sam sighs and pulls Colleen into a hug. “We’ll be okay. We’ve got the Garrison’s best pilot, its best ship designed by its best engineers, and the best computer scientist and, if I do say so myself, best mechanic, to fix anything urgent.”
Colleen just pulls him into a kiss. “I want you and the boys to come back okay. You make sure of that.”
“I will.”
They stand there, soaking in warmth and love. Sam breathes in Colleen’s shampoo, memorizes the feeling of her in his arms. But, eventually he sees Katie and Matt separating, and he moves back slightly. “Hey. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
The kids approach. Sam notes Keith has been almost entirely enveloped in Shiro’s bear hug, and is clinging back just as hard, then only has eyes for his daughter. She’s holding strong, but he knows her too well; he can see the tremble in her hand. “Come here, Pidge.”
Katie bolts forward, grabbing him in a hug. “You’re going to see a bunch of cool stuff, right? Take lots of pictures and lots of recordings and bring me a rock from each stop.”
“You know we’ll probably find more ice than rock with the equipment we’re bringing.”
Katie pulls her head from his chest to pout up at him. “But cool rocks, Dad!”
He laughs. “We’ll see. What are you gonna have for me when I get back, hm?”
“Not cool space rocks, that’s for sure.”
“How about good grades and a not-exasperated mom?”
“I always get good grades! Maybe I’ll build you a robot that does nothing but clean up your coffee cups, or a really cool spaceship. Or maybe I’ll find aliens before you!”
Sam smiles; there’s something watery at the edges. “If you manage to find aliens before me I will give you a medal.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
Katie steps back. His little girl, standing there in her green dress with a determined face and far more strength in this moment than he’ll ever have and he is so, so proud of her and there’s part of him that wants to give all this up, this mission he’s worked so hard for and might solve their problems and find their dying Earth nutrients they desperately need to feed themselves , he’ll give up his best friend’s life’s work for her. But then he sees Shiro and Keith stopping by them, the other half of his best friend’s life’s work, and he knows that he would hate himself for letting everything Akane worked for fall. She would even understand, god knows he knows how much she gave up for her children, but he knows that Akane’s mission is also his, and Colleen’s: to make sure their children still have a planet to live on.
“Hey, Aunt Colleen, keep an eye on him for me, would you?”
Keith huffs something about not being a kid, Shiro, but Colleen reaches over and ruffles his hair. “Don’t worry, Shiro, I’ll make sure he doesn’t get too much better than you once you’re back.”
That has Keith preening. Shiro rolls his eyes good-naturedly and squeezes Keith’s shoulder. “Tech’s calling. We’ve gotta go.”
There’s a last round of hugs while the techs stand around muttering about launch windows. Matt’s the first one to walk toward the Genesis’s lander, which is basically a whole ship unto itself named Orpheus. Shiro is still muttering to Keith until one of the techs finally calls his name. Sam watches Keith watch Shiro walk away, and is suddenly hyper-aware of the fact that he’s pulling this teenager’s, this kid’s, last family away from him for well over a year on a dangerous mission. “Keith.”
Keith turns. His face doesn’t quite shutter, but that deep-seated, aching longing isn’t visible anymore. Sam settles gentle hands on his shoulders. “I will bring your brother back.”
For a moment he sees that shy and scared ten year old standing behind Akane again, clinging desperately to Shiro’s hand like if he lets go he’ll disappear. “You promise?”
“I promise.”
“All crew,” the synthesized voice of their virtual intelligence comes over the Genesis’s PA, “prepare for torus movement. Please keep all limbs inside the cockpit.”
Matt catches Sam’s eye. “I didn’t program her that way.”
“It’s good advice,” he remarks. He is, in fact, looking around the cockpit to make sure there’s nothing that’s going to fall on their faces, or fall toward the windows or out of the cockpit.
“It’s not like we’re going to disconnect from the torus,” Matt points out.
“Oh shush, a little bit of creativity and humor never hurt anyone.”
“Hal 9000--”
“Didn’t you make Aurora?”
“And that means I know exactly what she’s capable of.”
“Please stop having this argument about AI in front of me,” Shiro interrupts. He turns just slightly from the controls to glare at them. “I’m tired of it. Prepare for torus movement.”
Sam takes the hint and moves his gaze back to his own controls. “All systems ready.”
“Okay. Initiating spin.”
Shiro presses a few buttons and moves the joystick and slowly, ponderously, the view of the stars outside starts spinning. Sam feels himself settle into his seat, the slow build of gravity pulling him down. “Burn complete.” Shiro announces. “One G achieved.”
“Confirmed,” Aurora adds. “Torus movement initialized. All crew may now unbuckle and move about the cabin.”
Matt unbuckles immediately, puts his feet on the floor, and wobbles halfway over. “Hup--okay--that never gets easier.”
“Wimp,” Shiro shoots over his shoulder.
“Fuck you too,” Matt shoots back, “I’ve been on a lot of these and the first torus spin always sucks.”
“You’ve just got a weak ear.”
“That doesn’t even make any sense,” Matt huffs. He wanders off with careful steps before Shiro comes up with a follow-up. Sam unbuckles and makes to follow him, but catches sight of Shiro’s face before he can.
“Shiro?”
“Hm?”
“You alright?”
“Huh? Yeah. It’s--that was the last thing we really needed to do before mission launch. As soon as we’re sure starting the spin didn’t knock anything loose, we’re going.”
“In a year and a half, we’ll be right back here.”
Shiro heaves in a deep breath. “I know. I know they’ll be fine and right here when we’re back. But--but what if we never do?”
Sam hangs onto the back of his chair and considers for a moment. “This is space travel. It will never be a perfect system, no matter how good we get at building and designing spaceships. But, that’s no different from cars. We still require a human behind the wheel just like we require you behind the stick right now. Only one crew has gotten all the way out to Pluto, and they did it at the wrong time to be able to come back. You know the realities as well as I do. But, this will work because it has to. You’ve seen your mother’s projections. There isn’t another option.”
“...I know.”
“Come on, I’m going to check the torus pieces, you should make sure our course is right.”
“You want to what?”
“Send a ship out to look for more phosphorus.”
Sam’s head swivels to follow Akane, who’s burning holes in the Senator for Nova Scotia with her fierce frown. Sam meets Colleen’s eyes, who shrugs resignedly. Harris Wasti sighs. “Akane, that’s never going to get approval. You’re barely holding onto the runs to the asteroid belt for materials for the carbon plants.”
“It will.”
“Why?”
“Because Parliament has no choice.”
Harris studies her, gaze flicking to Sam and Colleen behind her. The Bay of Fundy is still and grey behind him, except for the still burning destroyed water purifier. “Alright, Akane, convince me.”
“How many solar panels are in the Rings, Harris?”
“Uh, a lot?”
“Ten million, give or take. Each of those has a life cycle, and must be replaced sooner or later. Do you know what’s in them?”
“Glass, aluminum, silicon and, I’m guessing given the topic of this conversation, phosphorus?”
“Correct. One of the layers of silicon is n-type silicon, which is most commonly doped with phosphorus to enable the all-important communication of electricity. So, ten million solar panels’ worth of phosphorus, which we must keep in place if we have any hope of powering Mars, much less Earth. Each of those dumps into big batteries, which is transported back to the Federation proper via ships which have their own solar panels. A drop in the bucket compared to the Rings, but still worth mentioning.”
“So you’re saying we need more phosphorus to keep the Rings active and provide power to stuff like your carbon plants.”
“Yes, but it’s not just that.”
“Go on.”
“We need phosphorus for things that are even more important than the Rings: our food. Plants need phosphorus to survive. We’ve gotten pretty good at getting the soil mix on Mars right for growing food but phosphorus doesn’t naturally occur on Mars anymore. We got that from Earth back when Spirit was founded and started terraforming . And that means our already slowly depleting supply suddenly had a huge chunk taken out of it, and we’ve only taken more and more from Earth to Mars. If we keep doing that we’re not going to be able to grow food on Earth, and Mars cannot sustain our population alone. We’re already seeing the effects of lack of phosphorus on farms on Earth, and I’ve heard reports that it’s leeching into the soil on Mars in directions that lead outside of the colonies, which means we no longer have access to it. We’re going to need phosphorus sooner rather than later, Harris, and we need to get it before it becomes a problem, not ten years after.”
Harris stares at her for a long moment. “How do you know all this? The Rings aren’t even your wheelhouse.”
“Not exactly, but they are his,” she gestures back at Sam, “and I know a few things about photovoltaic cells simply by the nature of my degree. I have data to back all this up, Harris, and Colleen and I both ran the numbers on the farm phosphorus. We’ll run out in fifteen years if we keep this up. That means we start looking for a source now.”
He sighs. “Okay. You’ve convinced me, but I’m rather scientifically minded for a senator. How are you going to convince Parliament?”
“That’s what you’re here for.”
Harris rolls his eyes. “Of course.”
“Systems check.”
“All systems are green,” Aurora intones. “Mission commander agrees that torus shows no signs of unhooking after spin start. All modules are operational.”
“Confirmed,” Sam adds.
“Confirm systems green,” Matt says. “We are go.”
“Thearios Control, this is Genesis,” Shiro calls into the comms board. “We are ready for initial burn.”
“Copy that, Genesis, ” the traffic controller in Thearios Station answers. “Transferring timing control to local control. All space around you is clear for five degrees on either side until you’re out of the influence of L2.”
“Acknowledged. Starting initial burn in ten… nine…” Sam triple checks the engines. “Eight… seven…” He checks his seatbelt. “Six… five…” He braces himself as the whine of the engines starts. “Four, three, two, one.”
The engines come online with a great roar that echoes through the ship, communicated through the vibration of metal and the movement of fuel. Acceleration presses Sam into his chair. Shiro is calm next to him, glancing over the controls with a practiced eye, but the only thing Sam has eyes for is the stars slipping past. “Initial burn complete. Course confirmed within acceptable parameters.”
“Acknowledged, Genesis. Hang on a moment.”
There’s the sound of shuffling over the comm, and then the voice of the Prime Minister of the Sol Federation, Ciaran Davidson, joins them in the cockpit. “Sam. Matt. Shiro. I know you’ve listened to too many of my speeches in the past few days, so I’ll keep this brief. There’s a lot riding on the Genesis. Physically, it’s the stuff that will keep you alive for up to two years, although I hope you don’t need all that. It’s the tools you need to complete your mission and return to us alive. But spiritually, mentally, emotionally, you hold the hope of our civilization. The three of you know intimately the state of the Federation. You know why we’re sending you out. Find us our phosphorus. Find us our hope, our rebirth. Find us another genesis.” They pause, just for a moment, a dramatic effect. “Good hunting, gentlemen. And good luck.”
Sam wakes up to something hard and metal kicking him in the ribs. It feels like it might be designed after a toe, if a toe were designed as a weapon of mass destruction.
“Net aalimtrel,” a digitized voice growls above him. Net a limb trell? What limb? His limb? “Net aalimtrel.” The super-toe kicks him again. Sam groans and tries to roll away from it, but something picks him up and drags him to a kneeling position. He finally blinks his eyes open. Everything is… purple?
“Dad?”
Sam turns and finds Matt being held in a kneeling position a little to his left. The thing doing the holding Sam guesses is a robot, judging by the glowing lights on its torso. The crest on its head looks vaguely martial, and the gun it’s holding, casually pointed at Matt’s head, signals the rest. Matt has his hands up by his head, open palmed, a gesture of surrender and as non-threatening as he can make himself. Shiro is near them, being held against a wall by another robot with a bigger gun. He’s got a bruise on his cheek and several rips in his flight suit.
The robot holding him up nudges him. “Net aalimtrel.”
Sam takes a deep breath. Okay, they’re being held captive by strange robots. Robots that presumably got out to Pluto in the ship they saw, which was… big. There’s still the possibility that these robots came from the Sol Federation though. Right? A slim one, at least. Robots speaking a language he has no idea about. “I cannot understand you,” he settles on, raising his hands like Matt.
The robot holding him nudges him again. “Net aalimtrel.”
Sam looks at Shiro, the one of them who knows the most languages that aren’t computer languages. Shiro shrugs. The robot holding him isn’t happy about it, though, pushing him harder against the wall. “We cannot understand you,” he tries again.
This time, the robot pauses. “Saatrel.”
“Sahtrel?” Sam tries back. He gets a rifle-butt to the cheek for it.
“Net atrel zizsik.”
Sam stays silent, which seems to be what the robot wants, as it leaves him alone. There must be some communication going on between the robots, as except for the humans’ breathing it’s silent. “Dad,” Matt mutters, “these aren’t Earth robots.”
“They’re not Earth robots we know.”
“No, Dad, they’re not Earth robots. One of them tried to shoot Shiro earlier before they got him pinned. It wasn’t--it wasn’t a bullet.” Sam stares at him. Matt stares back. After a solid minute of silence the door opens to admit a towering figure. Sam can’t tell for a minute whether the figure is another robot or not until he finally sees the face.
It’s like he’s been slapped, jaw on the floor and pain in his cheek, and sheer, unadulterated terror worming up his throat.
Samuel Holt realizes, distantly, that he is face to face with an honest to god alien.
Okay, he thinks somewhat hysterically, guess I’m not giving Katie a medal.