Flying out to the Stars

Athena looks through her cockpit window down at the planet below, her stomach starts to feel unsettled at the thought of surviving the storms. But she manages to calm herself, remembering she's not alone, and she speaks up to Rika.

"Akacer has 4 satellites, we'll land on its first moon" she says.

"We're not going to go down directly to the surface?" Rika asks.

"No, I had a hidden feature added to my ship" she replies. "The reason for there being 2 control stations is because one seals off as a pod and can be piloted away from the main ship without taking away controls from the other."

"That's neat, which side detaches?" Rika asks.

"If you take a look at the space around your seat here in the hallway, part of the walls looks different. It's like a doorway, and the door to seal the space shut slides over from the body of the ship" Athena says.

Rika lands the ship on Akacer's first moon. Athena moves their bags and sets them behind Rika's chair, and she presses a button on the wall to close the door. Athena detaches the pod from the ship and lets Rika pilot it down to the surface. Some stress is felt by the girls as they navigate through the lightning storms and clouds, trying to not get struck down. After some effort they successfully reach the surface, finding a large cave to land their ship in. Rika turns on the hover engines and she moves the ship carefully inside the cavern, landing it deep inside.

"A smooth landing as always" Athena tells her. "Since the information about this place says the storms are during the night, I'd say we can get some sleep here while we wait."

"And we couldn't do that on the moon, then fly down here during the day with no storms?" Rika asks.

"Hey look I didn't think that far ahead, and besides, we did find somewhere safe to spend the night" she replies.

Athena opens a small hatch in the floor, and she pulls out a couple blankets from inside. She closes the hatch and lays the blankets down on the floor behind Rika's chair.

"I guess it's useful to have that hatch, are there any other secrets this ship has that you want to share?" Rika asks.

"If they need to be used I'll let you know" Athena replies. "I'll be getting some sleep now, you should do the same."

Athena lays under the blankets and closes her eyes, Rika lays down with her and cuddles up behind her. The only sounds accompanying their sleep is lightning as it strikes the rocky ground outside. Rika wakes up the next morning, she sits up and stretches her back, feeling a little stiff from sleeping on the hard floor of the ship. Athena wakes up a few minutes later, leaning over to hug Rika.

"Good morning" she says.

"Good morning sleepyhead" Rika replies. "I can't lie it was nice to fall asleep while listening to the storm. In a way it's calming for me."

"Yeah, I felt the same way about it" Athena says. "Want to check out the surface? We can have our breakfasts on the way."

"Sure, let's go" she replies.

Athena gets a couple of the breakfast packets, she adds some water and heats them up, and after a short time they have a delicious breakfast to enjoy. The food packs of which are MRE's, easy to store as many as needed and are simple to make. The girls step down out of the ship as they start to eat, and they look around the cavern they landed in.

Athena walks over to one of the walls and sets her hand on it, she can feel a small amount of static energy which tingles through her hand. She approaches the mouth of the cavern and looks up to the blue sky, light clouds are visible and the cracked rocky terrain stretches out for miles. Some spots of greenish grass sprout from between the cracks.