#city of patchwork

[nyotasaimiri]

Day 11: Truce

(vaguely inspired by that headcanon I shared a few weeks back; prompt from @oc-growth-and-development 2021 OCtober list. I know I’m skipping around but I’ll take the inspiration when it strikes and fill in the rest when I get time ^.^;;)

It started small, so very small. Mihre had their hands full keeping over-eager buds in line, and one slipped outside their control for just a few minutes. They found the missing floran with a screech and a crash, and the guilty party scrambled back to Mihre’s side, pursued by two angry crasberries. After pacifying the crustaceans, Mihre dragged a confession out: Nat had dared Belli to sneak into the hylotl boss’s room and take a treasure as proof. Which would have been fine (they were here on reconnaissance, after all, this happened all the time) if Belli hadn’t knocked the boss’s prize bonsai off her desk. Frustrated, and muttering about dang sprouts and their whims, Mihre sent the rookies home to report on the actual successful parts of the mission, while they went to survey the damage. 

It was hopeless, they realized from the start. The pottery could be repaired quickly, and Mihre did just that, but the fall had dislodged the wires from one side and cracked two branches. The poor plant… Not much they could do to hide that. Cursing reckless youths with even more enthusiasm, Mihre twisted the wires back into place as best they could, supporting the broken branches, and scrambled for the exit before the boss could catch them. Rookies causing havoc was one thing. Getting caught fixing the havoc would be just embarrassing. 

Then they went straight to Marcy’s library and borrowed three books on hylotl gardening techniques. 

Tensions mounted for the next few days. One of the rookies had to be fished out of the bay. They were alright after a good bath, but their joints creaked with salt for weeks. A group of sprouts got spooked by a flash mob at their school; the bubbstep was loud enough to rattle the mayor’s windows two streets over. That got it shut down fast; the floran and hylotl gangs could brawl all they wanted, but stars forbid they bothered the politicians. The whole bramble was raring for revenge, kept in check only by Greenfinger Akhi’s insistence that they needed to plan this proper before someone else got dunked. 

Now, the Greenfinger needed a plan, before their more reckless underlings realized this excuse was just buying time. They knew where to go: this had started after that blasted scouting mission. “Mihre!” they called, pounding at their lieutenant’s door. “Mihre, thorns take it, this is a fine stew your party caused.” 

“Hush.” Something soft hit the door. Probably a pillow.

Akhi fumed. “Don’t hush me. Get your carapace out here. I cannot fix this alone.”

Something rustled. “Resssearching. Go away.”

“Researching what?” They could feel their petals bristle. What kind of answer was that? “We do not have time for research. It’s a mess out here!” 

“I know. Fixing it.” 

Frustrated, but resigned, Akhi retreated to their office. At least they had gotten an acknowledgement. No one else would have gotten this much patience out of the stressed Greenfinger, but Mihre was their best sniper. And they did have a knack for fixing problems. Even if the solutions were weird sometimes. 

Mihre left the warren after dark and snuck along to the grey-market. No one was quite sure where the name came from, but it was a good place to get goods that were technically legal, and Mihre liked that. Great place for guilty pleasures and midnight snacks. They weren’t here for that this time, though, even if it hurt their soul to pass the pozest stand by. No, they wanted something specific this time. The hylotl manning the register gave them a weird look, but no one ever asked questions in the grey market. 

What Mihre hadn’t expected was that the boss had the same idea. Their hands closed on the pot at the exact same time. 

“Well. This iss awkward.”

“Yes, quite.” 

“Could talk. I know a place.” 

“What a coincidence. So do I.”

The cashier wilted under their combined stares, and stammered out the address of a third option nearby. 

It was one thing to meet the tiny but terrifying hylotl Matriarch in her hideout, flanked by a dozen bodyguards she did not need, staring down even the fiercest of intruders without a blink. It was another entirely to share a plate of waffles with her at 3 a.m. in a seedy little food shack on the other side of town. She had good taste, in Mihre’s professional opinion; they requested a second bottle of syrup, and watched her demolish the improv breakfast with unconcealed fascination. She was also a shrewd negotiator, but Mihre had come prepared. They countered with an offer she just couldn’t refuse. 

Greenfinger Akhi knew better than to ask Mihre why the ambushes stopped so fast, or why the sniper kept vanishing every other week. They could guess all they wanted; Mihre would share if they wanted to share, and it meant Akhi didn’t want to know if they didn’t. The bramble had their share of mutterings about the sudden quiet. A few even met with forbidden contacts over in the shoal. But none of their hylotl counterparts knew much, either. Just that the boss had “urgent work” every other week or so. And that there was now a second bonsai on her desk.

[nyotasaimiri]

Mihre

Oldarva screamed. Namina was cursing viciously as Lumen dragged him back behind a wide stone lamp; the novakid glowed sun-bright with fear. Nyota pushed herself between Oldarva and the gun in the window, mind whirring.

It clicked. Floran didn’t bleed red.

“Paint,” Namina snarled, indignant beyond coherency. “Bassstard!”

A throaty, rasping chuckle answered his rage. “Paint.” An olive-green floran stepped out of the window they had used as a sniper perch, shouldering an odd, sleek teal rifle, and slid down on the long vines that trailed down the front of the building. “Ssso. No vissits, no wordsss, but bringing new friends to Patchwork?” they asked. “Unwise, sssprout.”

Namina’s snarl faded to a low grumble. “Greythorn.”

Lumen took his hand off his holstered pistol. “What the ding-dong blazes is goin’ on here?” he asked, burning tense and hot.

Greythorn saluted, rustling the large white flower in their foliage, then turned to Oldarva and Nyota with a surprisingly soft smile, despite their fangs. “Apologiess,” they said. “I forget apex are not usssed to Floran greetings.”

“Goodness,” Oldarva murmured. Nyota shifted to put an arm around her shoulders in case she needed support. She didn’t sound well at all.

“It would be best for you to remember that next time,” Nyota told them stiffly. “You are a friend of Namina’s?”

“Sssibling,” Greythorn corrected her almost gleefully. “Sssprout iss foundling in same village. Mihre is also foundling. Sssiblings.”

“Mihre?” Nyota asked.

Greythorn tapped the side of their head in a classic ‘I forgot’ gesture. “Firsst name. Greythorn is village name, given after I left.”

A little of Nyota’s hostility vanished, though only a little. “And do you plan to tell us why exactly you shot Namina with a paintball?”

“Sssibling,” Mihre repeated, and there was no mistaking the gleefulness this time.

Nyota considered the answer (and her own past three months of being a big sister) and nodded. It was, in fact, a good reason.

Namina made a throaty noise of distress as he tried again to get the paint off his chest and Mihre took pity on him. “Come inside,” they offered. “Ssolvent can get that off.”

“No time for visits,” Namina said. His tone was quite grumbly again. “Going back to ship.”

Mihre rustled their foliage again in a floran shrug. “Then ssstay put. I’ll bring it out.”

“Namina,” Nyota said quietly as Mihre ducked back inside, “do you mind telling me who exactly they are?”

“Someone mighty dangerous,” Lumen hummed. His glow still hadn’t faded back to calm. “Did ya see the mark on their sleeve, Captain? They’re one of them mob folk I told ya ‘bout.”

Namina snorted. “Floran iss always dangerous,” he reminded Lumen, swatting the novakid’s corona playfully. “Mihre iss more and lessss than most. Nasssty-good shot with that rifle, not as likely to shoot. Sssmart floran.”

Oldarva swallowed her fear. It was hard for her to be afraid of someone that Namina vouched for. “What do you mean?”

“Mihre is Greenfinger’s help here,” Namina explained. “Very sssmart, keeps food going, planss things for other Floran. Is…” He fumbled for the words. “Iss… tactical sshrub.”

“Like Commander Blake?” Oldarva asked.

“Yess! Sshrub-Blake.” Namina grinned broadly, showing off his thorny teeth. The mental image of a leafy Lana made Nyota chuckle.

“The two of ya left home together?” Lumen asked. He kept his brand turned toward the building Mihre had come from, humming softly and warily. As much as he liked Namina, he was slower to trust this stranger than Eldie.

“Nope.” Namina shrugged. “Mihre left many sseasons before Floran.”

“Sssprout tagged along after,” Mihre teased, returning with a small bottle of solvent in one hand and a bucket in the other. “Took his ssweet time.”

Namina made a low grouching noise, but he was grinning as he took the solvent and removed the paint from himself. His grin widened—the only warning before he upended the bucket on Mihre. Mihre hissed and spluttered, wiping water out of their eyes to glower balefully at Namina. But Namina just grinned and Mihre eventually mirrored it, shaking the water off and extending a hand to their brother.

“Even?” they asked.

“Even,” Namina agreed.

Mihre turned to Nyota, Lumen, and Eldie. “Tele-port iss quickest from this way,” they said, gesturing for them to follow. “Ssorry for slowing you down. You can use sssecret floran shortcut.”

True to their word, Mihre led the small group up through a tangle of forgotten, overgrown passages that stopped right below the entrance to the tele-port in half the time it might have taken to reach by the main road. Nyota’s bad leg ached a little still, but she smiled as she thanked them, knowing it would have been worse without their help.

Mihre just offered her a cryptic but gentle smile in return and gestured as if offering a handshake. Instead of shaking her hand, they closed both theirs around hers and patted it twice. “Miss Marcy iss happy because of you. That’s thanks enough.”

“Wait, are you-“

The floran just chuckled. “Friends come in all shapes, yes? Sssafe travels.”

Nyota lowered her hand and stepped back with a nod. “Safe travels.”

-

Marcy was waiting for them when they stopped by with the evening newspaper and a bucket of fresh produce from the deep nests. “Thanks, Mihre,” she said, accepting the gifts. “Dad left some meat from the hotpot for you if you want it.”

“Good,” Mihre all but purred. Jonty’s cooking was quite a delicacy to them. But the promise of meat didn’t hold their focus long. “…sssmall friend looks troubled. What iss it? I thought you might be happy, with your old friend back.”

“It’s…” Marcy bit back it’s nothing; that was Nyota’s way out, and the apex had stopped running too. Now it was her turn. “Mihre? Can you tell me about the Miniknog?”

Mihre hissed and shook their head. “Can tell, but… dark ssstories. You are ssure?”

“Yes. I need to know.”

[nyotasaimiri]

Family

“Can it be? Is that really a Nyota I see? Oh—pardon my rhyme.” Jonty Reese’s shocked stare split into a broad grin. “I didn’t mean this one. But it’s so good to see you! It is you, right? I have not just accosted a poor confused apex off the street?”

Nyota laughed; he was so like his daughter. “Yes, Mr. Jonty. It’s me.” She bent down a little to allow him to hug her properly. She could see Lumen and Oldarva out of the corner of her eye, back from purchasing the resources they needed. Lumen’s bright glow was as warm as any smile. Somehow they had managed to collect Namina as well, and he met Nyota’s curious stare with a cheeky fanged grin.

“So I see you have managed to collect quite a number of friends,” Mr. Jonty said as he let go. “These gentlemen and the lovely young lady say they’re in your crew?”

“That’s right,” Lumen confirmed as Eldie blushed at the compliment. “Nyota here’s our Captain.”

Jonty whistled. “Nine months out and you made Captain already! I told you that you’d go places, girl.” He patted Nyota’s shoulder and hugged her again briefly.

“It was by default more than anything,” Nyota protested. “I can fly the ship.”

“Tell that to the seven of us,” Lumen countered. “We ain’t gonna follow someone who can jus’ fly a ship.”

“Seven!” Marcy gave Nyota a look that was somehow simultaneously reproachful and proud. “And you thought you wouldn’t even be taken on a ship. I’ll want to meet all of them, you know that, right?”

“Another day,” Nyota promised over Namina’s snickers. “I think I have kept you from your family long enough, and I need to return to my ship.”

Mr. Jonty nodded. “I wish I could invite all of you to dinner,” he said, “but I only have the supplies for the three of us tonight. It would be a little on the sparse side, I’m afraid.”

“It’s fine.” Nyota smiled and shook her head. “I’ll visit again sometime. I can cook for all of you instead, then. And no, Marcy, the pancakes will not taste like plaster.”

“She’s really quite good at making them,” Oldarva offered with an anxious smile as Marcy dissolved into nostalgic laughter.

“It’s alright, Eldie. Marcy knows.” Nyota’s smile widened, crinkling the corners of her eyes. “She was there for the first and worst of it, but I did get better.”

Eldie blushed again, deeper, and Nyota touched her shoulder gently as a reassurance that no harm was done.

“You really did. Those oculemon meringue pies of yours were always fabulous,” Marcy said happily.

“Then I know what I’ll bring next time.” Nyota gestured for her crew to follow her; she had intruded enough on the Reese family’s time. “We’ll be in touch.”

Both Reeses stepped forward and hugged Nyota one more time, deep and long. Nyota’s eyes were damp again through her smile when they finally let go. “Our door is always open,” Jonty told her. “But you already know that.”

A memory of tea by the fire, blankets and shelter through her first true storm, warm hands thawing hers in the snow, dinner for four where it had only been three before, a new chair sized just for her. “I do.”

-

“You must be wondering who they are,” Nyota said to her crew as they left the library behind. It was very hard to resist the urge to go back inside as she heard that cheerful, achingly familiar jangle of the chime set above the doorframe.

Lumen chuckled. “Not really wonderin’, Captain.”

“Floran can guessss,” Namina said. “Old friendss?”

“I thought they might be your family,” Oldarva ventured.  

“My family gave me over to the Miniknog when I was a child,” Nyota reminded her stiffly. A little guilt stuck in her throat as she saw Oldarva’s tiny flinch, enough for her to soften her expression and offer her hand in a silent apology.

Lumen shook his head. “Nah,” he said, “them’s just yer parents. But I ain’t ever seen more love in yer face to anyone than I did just now. Those folk there? That’s yer family.”

Surprise caught in Nyota’s throat and tightened a slow smile up at the corners of her lips. “Thank you,” she said. She had never thought of it like that before.

Lumen led the way back up the street and away from the library, Oldarva trailing close behind him. Patchwork felt so different now, under the amber sunset. It felt quiet, but not homelike. Nyota was reminded of the Grand Pagoda Library. Several of the buildings looked abandoned, overgrown with vines, but Nyota could see people moving around inside them. Perhaps the local Floran had claimed them.

That reminded her. “Namina,” she said, “is there a particular reason you joined us now? You could have just asked to come with us when we left.”

“Floran overssslept,” Namina admitted with a sheepish grin. “But Floran heard Captain was going to Patchwork. Can’t missss that. Floran hass friends here.”

Apex lacked humanity’s flamboyant eyebrows to raise, but that did not stop Nyota from attempting to mimic their standard quizzical expression. “I hope you mean the truly friendly sort instead of the more murderous ‘friends’,” she said.

Namina just laughed. “Friendly sssort.”

They walked in silence for a while longer, up the gradual slope that led to the tele-port. The road felt longer to Nyota now, though easier than it had been that morning, with the weight of memories and nostalgia under her. Her left leg complained of the effort, but none of her crewmates complained as she slowed her pace, content to accept her excuse of admiring the buildings. It was true, at least. She did enjoy the architecture here, with the narrow windows and fine blue slate roofs.

Something moved in one of those windows. Nyota’s shoulders tensed, fur rising. She recognized what it was in the same moment that she heard Oldarva shout “Gun!”

A red splatter blossomed across Namina’s chest.

[nyotasaimiri]

Reunion

Nyota froze, still in the doorway, oblivious to everything but that voice. She couldn’t even think. Her eyes automatically dropped to the familiar height, the wide glasses, that slow smile. The apex’s voice was barely a whisper. “Stars below us…”

Lumen hummed and tilted his head to one side, light flickering like an old lava lamp. “Captain,” he asked, “ya know this gal?”

Nyota shook her head a little, but in disbelief, not denial.

“Marcy.”

She stepped into the library, a little too stunned to smile, and Oldarva stepped out of the way to let the girl dash past and into Nyota’s waiting arms.

They stood there for a long moment, breathless, Marcy laughing in those thin high tremors that come when someone isn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. “I can’t believe it,” she hiccuped, taking off her glasses to wipe her eyes with one sleeve. “I can’t believe—it’s been nine months and—it is you, right? I’m not…”

Nyota hugged her tighter, a low purr rumbling up through the lump forming in her throat. “We’re both dreaming. We’ll wake up and I’ll be drifting in space again and none of this will be real.”

Marcy laughed and reached up to lightly whack Nyota’s chin. “It’s absolutely you. Your outlook’s still as grey as your fur.” She stretched a little higher in an attempt to hug Nyota even harder, and gasped as Nyota picked her up.

“And you’re still tiny,” Nyota said. Her voice was more purr than anything else. She held Marcy for long enough to look her in the eyes, her expression serious and still, then pulled her first friend close and held her tight. One of her fangs cut at her lower lip as she tried not to cry. It hurt so much, her entire chest aching. But it was a good kind of hurt, almost like stretching after being still for too long. She trembled and laughed. “I’m making a scene, aren’t I?”

“It don’t matter much if ya are,” Lumen reassured her. “Looks like we’re the only folk visitin’.”

“You are,” Marcy confirmed. She buried her face in Nyota’s mane, the apex’s thick hair and low hesitant purr muffling everything else. It was just them. “I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed this.”

For a long moment, there were no sounds but the jingle of the door swinging shut, the steady rising rumble of Nyota’s purr, and the light tap of Lumen’s boots as he stepped over to hold Eldie’s hand. His color brightened and warmed in time to the rhythm of Nyota’s purring.

Beside him, Eldie hummed in happiness, almost matching Nyota, if far quieter. “I’m glad we came to this planet,” she whispered, too soft for anyone but Lumen to hear.

“So am I,” Lumen murmured. “I wasn’t plannin’ to stay after sellin’ our load, but ya know… it’s funny how plans change. I’ve seen more’n my share of partin’s, but a reunion, well now. That ain’t a sight I’m like to get tired of for a long, long time.”

“Should we leave them be?”

Lumen watched for a few moments longer, then nodded and raised his voice to more his normal volume. “If ya’d like some time alone, Captain, Eldie’n I’ll get our business taken care of. I got my mic on and SAIL can call us anytime.”

“Nyota, did he just call you Captain?” Marcy looked up, eyes wide.

Nyota gave her a slightly lopsided grin. “It’s a long story. Stars, I have so much to tell you… Yes, go on ahead, Lumen. I’ll catch up with you later.”

“You’re a Captain—” Marcy interrupted herself by bursting into laughter. “See? I told you! You were afraid you’d end up a janitor or not picked at all! So is the Protectorate still out there after all? We’d heard it—but you’re here anyway.”

Nyota sighed, then gently set Marcy down. “It’s a long story,” she repeated. “No, the Protectorate is not officially active. You are the only other survivor I have met.” She tucked a sidelock behind one hear, fidgeted with the silk flower in her hair, and pulled the lock forward again. “Is there somewhere we can talk? It does not need to be private, just… not the middle of a library. I do not want to disturb any guests, and the story is… It has been a long nine months, Marcy.”

Marcy looked up at Nyota, frowning. She was uncertain now, that much was obvious, and Nyota resisted the urge to bite her lip again. But the frown faded into a smile, even if the uncertainty itself didn’t fade. “We could head up to my room, or there’s a little smoothie shop just up the road. It’s no jam shop, not like—”

Her voice caught at the sharp memory of their favorite hangout on Earth, and Nyota put a comforting hand on her shoulder. Marcy put her hand over Nyota’s. “It’s not like what we used to get, but they taste great,” she said, rallying. “It isn’t usually busy right now and the owner’s really nice.”

“Smoothies would be lovely,” Nyota agreed. “I’ll follow your lead.”

[nyotasaimiri]

What Followed

((Looks like this wasn’t actually queued? Sorry about that))

The old hylotl shopkeeper brought them refills; when Marcy tried to pay, she just shook her head and whispered “On the house,” the fluid syllables of her own language somehow comforting against the weight of what had just been said. Nyota tried to smile, and managed a clumsy but heartfelt Thank you in reply.

“It’s okay if you want to stop talking,” Marcy said quietly. She held onto Nyota as tightly as she could, as if she was afraid the apex would vanish or crumble if she let go. Perhaps she wasn’t wrong.

But Nyota shook her head. “You did ask,” she replied. She almost winced, hearing how thick and strained her voice was. “And I have more to say, if you want to hear it.”

“Of course I do.” Marcy squeezed a little tighter for a moment before leaning back to look Nyota in the eyes. “I just don’t want you to push yourself too much. You always do, I know…”

Somehow, despite everything, that made Nyota laugh. “I do. But I’ll be alright.” She picked up the new smoothie and swirled it slowly, staring at the street outside. It was still bright out, mid-morning, though few wanderers seemed interested in stopping down this particular road. A small floran child was playing with a leafy snake under the awning opposite the smoothie shop. It felt so normal, but so out of place against the memories playing through Nyota’s head.

“I don’t know how long I was out,” she started. “I fell asleep as the ship left Earth’s atmosphere. When I woke up, it was orbiting a little garden planet in the Mimosa Strand system, and there was a weasel on my chest.”

Marcy made a strange noise, pinched her nose, and set the smoothie down. “Wait. A weasel?”

“You can laugh. It is funny.” A fond smile crept through Nyota’s darkened mood. “I still have no idea how it got onto my ship, but it has grown very attached to me, so it can stay. It helped a lot, before I met my crew. It is remarkable how something so small can do so much to keep someone sane.” She paused, remembering how much she had talked to herself, and amended that to “Debatably sane.”

“Have you never had a pet?” Marcy’s eyes went wide and she started to apologize as soon as the words left her mouth; it had always been an unspoken taboo, asking about Nyota’s past.

Nyota just shook her head and put a hand on Marcy’s shoulder to stop the apologies. “You can ask now. It’s not going to offend me.”

Marcy opened her mouth like she had another question, but just closed it again, hesitated, and took another drink of her smoothie.

Nyota frowned just slightly and answered more to cover the awkwardness than anything. “No, I never had a pet, not that I remember. I moved around too much to take care of a small animal, and there was always the risk that I would not come home from work,” she explained. Perhaps a pet would have done her some good, but back then she couldn’t bear the idea of having something utterly dependent on her. It was still hard. “My parents may have owned one when I was a child, but I remember almost nothing from back then.”

She caught the concerned knit in Marcy’s brow and tried to smile it away. The expression came out thin and just a little fake. “It was more than twenty years ago. Memories fade.”

They both knew that Nyota’s didn’t.

“So what did you find on that planet?” Marcy asked to fill the silence that followed. “Was it inhabited?”

“It might have been, once,” Nyota told her, glad for the cue. The weight between them stretched heavily across her. It had not been like this since her first year on Earth. She did not want to think that all it took was a few months’ separation to lose years of closeness. “There was a mine down there, and a ruined house or two. I built a shelter in a covered bridge, since my ship wasn’t suitable for sleeping, really. The FTL drive was damaged from that jump away from Earth. I am lucky SAIL managed to get it somewhere with breathable air.”

“No kidding… But how did you get off the planet? If your ship was damaged, you couldn’t exactly fly away.”

Nyota took a deep breath. “Bear with me here,” she said. “This is where it begins to get strange. I found a gate on that planet.”

The tension vanished. Marcy leaned forward, eyes wide. “A gate? What sort of gate?”

Nyota closed her eyes, looking for a specific memory of a book she had seen once. “In your library, there was one book you were very fond of,” she began.

Marcy laughed. “That could be any of them.”

“True,” Nyota admitted, echoing Marcy’s grin. “But this one was quite old. It referenced a theory about ancient builders, and gates they had made across the universe. You had been exploring that theory as a way humans could have reached their moon before FTL travel was discovered, yes?”

“Oh! Yes, though I think that option was disproved, since there weren’t any on our moon,” Marcy said. She stopped as the realization hit. “Wait. You found one of those gates?”

“I did.” The almost childlike excitement in her friend’s voice drew a genuine smile to Nyota’s lips, and an idea widened it. “Would you like to see where it led?”

[nyotasaimiri]

Patchwork

The sheer diversity of people took Nyota’s breath away as she stepped out of the teleportation booth. Lumen had warned her, of course. It’s called Patchwork ‘cause it is one, see? All sorts of folks stitched right in together.

But hearing and experiencing were two different things entirely. The vast majority of the crowd was hylotl, all comfortably at ease in the seaside tele-port. There were quite a number of floran around too, many of them hawking snacks and souvenirs for tourists. A handful of avians and glitch wandered around, some clearly gawking and others intent on their business. Nyota even spotted a rather pretty purple novakid talking to a massively tall, similarly-colored apex. And here and there, scattered in the crowd—

“Humans,” Nyota murmured. Not the tired, frightened refugees she and her crew had met on the planet where they recruited Arrowmail, months ago, but laughing, talking, normal, thriving humans, like she hadn’t seen since—since Earth.

“It’s so busy,” Oldarva whispered, staring wide-eyed around them and snapping Nyota out of her daze. “I’ve never seen so many people in one place before.”

“It was even busier back h—Back on Earth,” Nyota said. Home caught in her throat. “Stay close to me and Lumen. I don’t want you getting lost.”

“That would be very easy here,” Oldarva agreed. They could both see the city sprawled out below the port: a wide dock off to their right and glass-roofed buildings below the water, skyscrapers and broad, orderly streets to the left. She hesitated. “Ah… Where is Lumen?”

“Right here, don’t ya fret.” The novakid hurried over, boots making surprisingly little noise on the metal walkway, even considering the bustle of the crowd to muffle them.

Nyota accepted one of the colored cards he offered her. Hers was red, like Oldarva’s. Lumen’s was a bright yellow, barely visible before he tucked it away in his vest pocket. “What is this?”

Lumen tapped the writing on the face of the card. “It’s a visitor’s pass. Marks ya as safe from any of the trouble I mentioned. Mine’s yellow ‘cause this ain’t my first time here. Sure, it’s been a few decades, but they keep good records here. I’d have a blue one if I was a regular.”

Nyota turned her card over. “Certainly the nuanced system they have,” she said, studying it. She had to look away from the cramped Hylotl lettering after a moment. It made her head spin; she recognized what little she managed to glimpse as the words for ‘guest’ and ‘temporary’. “No further identification necessary?”

“None but what ya bring anyhow,” Lumen hummed, indicating her Matter Manipulator, or rather, where she had hidden it. Nyota wasn’t willing to openly declare her status as a member of the Protectorate on an unfamiliar planet, not where her affiliation might bring trouble to those accompanying her.

“So little?” Oldarva’s eyes widened at the idea.

“Few cities are even remotely as controlled as our hometowns,” Nyota told her, putting a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “It’s… alarming, I admit, but you get used to it.”

“That’s reassuring…” Eldie was clearly not reassured.

Nyota chuckled and patted her shoulder again. “It will be fine. Let’s go.”

-

It really did feel like Earth.

That was the first and strongest thought in Nyota’s head as she and her crewmates entered the crowded streets. The tall buildings reminded her so much of the area around the Protectorate, with glass skywalks stretching between them to give the occupants a safe alternative to crossing the street. An old library sent a deep pang of loss through her chest. Even though this one was sandwiched between two high-rises instead of on a row with other lower, cozy buildings, it reminded her—

“Somethin’ up, Captain?”

Nyota blinked and glanced over at Lumen. He wasn’t where she remembered. He and Oldarva were a few steps ahead, watching her quizzically. “Ya stopped dead in yer tracks. That ain’t like ya,” Lumen explained almost apologetically.

“It’s nothing—” Nyota started to say, then glared at both of them as Lumen passed Oldarva a few pixels. The novakid flickered in the equivalent of a cheery wink.

“Just settlin’ a bet. Carry on, ma’am.”

“…as I was saying,” Nyota continued, tone sharp, “it is nothing of importance. This library just… reminds me of somewhere I knew on Earth.”

Lumen and Oldarva shared another quick glance, a much deeper one. “How so?” Eldie asked.

Nyota looked up at the sign. “My friend Marcy, her family owned and operated a library much like this one once. I spent quite a bit of my first year working for them. …well, almost living in the shelves at first, to escape the summer heat. Marcy’s father offered me employment when he realized I didn’t have a job.”

Lumen looked between Oldarva’s confusion and the fond smile that gently creased Nyota’s face. “Ain’t no harm in stoppin’ in to look,” he said slowly. When Nyota turned toward him, frowning, he warmed and brightened in his own smile. “We ain’t on a tight schedule anymore. No universe needs savin’. Go on.”