"Hey, check this out!", a young voice resonated in the hut made of metal scraps and ship parts. One of the two girls sitting at the tables filled with broken mechanical devices and trash twirled around in an old leather chair bursting with its stuffing in several places.
"I've never seen a cloud soooo big before", the girl in the chair pointed at a screen behind her, showing a bunch of glowing dots.
The other girl, not looking up from the scraps she was carefully taking apart answered in a soft voice, "So you're getting excited at the *size* of clouds now", laughing a little, "are you really that bored?"
Still trying to get the other's full attention the girl beamed and got up.
"It hasn't rained in like half a year, maybe we'll finally get some wetness up in this wasteland of a desert"
Pushing her messy chin length hair behind her ears the other looked up to watch the screen herself. Still filled with excitement the girl that had been looking at the signals from the sky was already stuffing a few things in a rugged bag.
"I'm off to check if I can see it on the horizon, the wind should bring it further our way. Maybe I can already tell the others about it too"
And just like that, throwing it over her shoulder and wrapping her head in a light fabric she stormed out.
"Be safe out there, Maya!", the other called after her.
The hut was their home, and had been that for years. Once an abandoned and broken down building, only a few of the original walls had survived and gave the hut the base structure. Walls from shipwrecks and metal sheets held up and supported by metal streams filled out the rest and made it habitable. Years ago, when this place hadn't been the girls home for long, they found old weather equipment in the ground that had been hidden by sand and dirt. Kora had spent months on trying to get it to work, only to spend several months more studying how it even worked.
Maya, as the older of the bunch, despite being sceptical, let her do this and gradually the hut turned into a weather station for the desert people who appreciate the forecast in the rough climate of the desolate planet from time to time. Though the desert people weren't typically aggressive or dangerous, they were still not always to be trusted and Maya had found that out on several occasions on trips to the next big city.
Largely getting their food from old family friends and jobs fixing up broken things the two girls who once chose their home as a place of isolation had actually become an important piece of the community and were respected by the people that knew them.
As of now, Kora was working on a fusion cell worth enough to get them through the next few months, given she actually figured out how to fix the thing.
"Damn it.", she mumbled and placed her tools down. It was bent out of shape and she didn't know if it would ever work again. Frustrated she got up to walk back to their kitchen, she started rearranging the containers of condiments, trying to take her mind of her apparent failure.
She thought about what they were actually working towards. Was there a goal for them to reach, something for them to discover? Kora thought her life had lead to a dead end where what lies ahead won't ever be new or exciting to her. She started heating up a food packet they bought in town while her mind went different places. They were getting by, had enough food, essentially did what being adult was. Or was it?
She could try getting a job in town, stop hiding away in this desolate place and actually face the world. Was she trained enough to be able to prevail out there? The idea scared her and she retreated back to her sleeping mat, steaming food packet in one hand and a bent out of shape spoon in the other.
Maya had ran over to visit their nearest neighbours in her excitement, a family with six children, ages ranging from a baby to a boy about the same age as her. The run was rather long, in the scorching sun Maya felt thankful she had water and fairly good health to get her through. The mother was feeding camels outside when she saw Maya walking towards them and waved at her.
