Crash Landing

the present

The only reason anybody had to report to her was if something detrimental went wrong or if one of the few laws was broken intentionally.

Which most of us were able to keep from happening but there have been a few times we've slipped through the cracks, like the time I was almost able to sneak out onto a spacewalk with the Explorer's group but I wasn't sneaky enough so my ass ended up in the uncomfortable leather chair in Commander Ophelia's office then in a spacesuit.

A small smirk pulled at the corner of my lips at that memory; I've always been a bit of a troublemaker and it only seemed to get worse as I grew up, a trait that I hoped my younger sister, Collette, wouldn't inherit in due time.

Unfortunately though, Collette was going through one of those phases that all tweens went through where she wanted absolutely nothing to do with me but I couldn't blame her.

I wasn't exactly fun to hang out with, unlike her new friends who managed to stay on the Celestial due to Mommy and Daddy's money.

Sighing once more under my breath, I slid out of the chair at the station before I wiped my filthy, greased up hands off with a washcloth at the station.

I couldn't be bothered to clean up much since it was late at night and my stomach was starting to growl at me which meant that I had to feed it again at some point and the cafeteria was only open for another half hour or so.

My cheeks were smeared with oil from the late night project I was working on, a re-customization of the old oxygen tanks used on the regulatory Explorer's missions, and the tight, black one piece uniform was dirtied up by the project but I didn't care.

I loved my work, it gave me purpose and it drove me to think greater than myself, to think beyond anything that was considered to be possible.

My feet, clad in black slip on closed toed shoes, padded silently out of the metal workroom and the red braid hanging off the back of my head swing hypnotizing across the small of my back as I casually strolled down the hallway that would eventually lead to some metal stairs which would bring me down to the lower levels for the cafeteria as well.

The hallway felt colder, the stairs even colder but that was the Celestial in a nutshell.

Everything about this station was cold, empty, lifeless of empathy, compassion or humor.

Most of the workers lost those traits long ago and I was beginning to turn into one of 'em as well.

But I still tried to bring some joy back to the coldness of the Celestial when I could, such as humming a tune to a song that my mother used to sing to me every night before I went to bed when I was a child as I was heading into the open concept steel walled room that was the cafeteria, high back chairs placed against one side of the wall as the tables across the other side of the room were preoccupied with warming up cold food automatically.

"I love you, a bushel and a peck. A bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck…."

My voice sounded quiet, too quiet in this vast room but I didn't care, my filthy hands were too busy picking up a container full of weirdly colored mush and reused water to care much about anything else.

One benefit to living on an intergalactic space station?

The food was always warm because the tables were designed with special heating and cooling temperatures, the only fear you needed to have was if you got too close to the tabletop and if it burned or froze your exposed skin.

My inner thoughts were interrupted by the scent of the mush hidden behind the container, my mouth watering even as my stomach churned at the thought of forcing down another brightly green colored bite of the meal.