POLUS

II - Blue, Orange, Red

Harvey
Chapter Two
Ship 1

I open the door into the cafeteria. The ship is in the air at this point, and I had already brought in all of my items into my quarters, because I know if I don't do it now, I'll never be bothered to do it ever.

When I walk into cafeteria, I notice three people gathered around one specific table. They all seemed to be in their spacesuits still. Each of their suits had different coloured accents- Blue, Red and Orange. I look down at my suit, which has yellow accents. Hey, at least we have some things in common right? Plus, that might be a good conversation starter.

I'm... not the best at conversations.

Gaining back my courage, I approach the table. But something I hear grabs my attention.

"They could have just regrouped you."

The one in orange looks toward the one in Blue. The one in Blue shrugs. "I don't know man, I could have sworn I was grouped with other people."
What? Do these guys have the same problem too? Maybe this isn't on me, or them, but on Mira!
"Uh... can we help you?" The one in Red was looking at me. The others turn to look at me too.
Crap! Now they're all staring at me.

"Sorry, uh- I couldn't help but overhear your conversation, do you guys think you're in the wrong group too?" I say. A few of them look at each other and back at me. "So this has happened to other people too?!" The Blue one says, looking at me. "I mean, to be honest I'm not sure, the process of getting here was just... really, really weird. My main manager showed me a member list, and none of them looked like you guys." The one in Blue just looks at me while I talk, almost scared. The other two don't look all too interested. They just sit there giving each other weird looks. The Orange one raises their head to look to me. "Do you think all of us are from different groups? It would explain the different coloured suits." The one in red speaks up. "Don't know. We were all originally headed to the Mira headquarters though, correct?"
The one in Orange agrees, before the one in Blue talks again. "I was supposed to be going to some unexplored areas or something. I was just a sub-in."

Mira headquarters? Are these guys supposed to be in a lower level or something?

I look to him. "Me too, although I wasn't a sub-in." I look around. It's so spacious, and the windows show a dark starry sky, with no clouds in sight.
I turn back. "Well, uh- I'm going to have a look around! See you later I guess." The others look at me. "Alright, see you then. I'm Eric, by the way." The one in blue says. I try my best to give him a smile. "I'm Harvey!" The others don't introduce themselves, but the orange one waves as I leave.

As I journey around the ship, remembering all the areas from my missions last year (or more re-remembering, since it never takes me long to forget things), I notice a sort of... weird vibe to it. Like, the atmosphere is a lot different than all the other times I've been here. It may just be because I'm on a new mission- at least I think. I might just be overthinking on the whole "wrong group" thing.
I overthink about a lot of things. I forget things easily, too.
What was I just talking about before?

Anywhooo... I have a few small tasks to do on the ship while we travel to the Polus. It's going to be a long trip, so the faster I get these done the more time I'll have to chill!

I go to refill some gas canisters when I hear a faint clash from the room next to me. It didn't sound like much, but my generally curious self decided it was worth checking out.

"MEDBAY" is written in bold letters at the top of the entrance to the room. The room is very bright and a lot cleaner than the rest of the ship. There's beds across each side of the room and a few science-y things such as what looks like a scanner and a few containers of liquid at the back. It's arranged differently from the ship I was previously on last mission, but nothing I haven't seen before.

However, when I look to the right side, not far from the equipment at the back- there's something that catches my eye. A small, metal, rusty lid over a hole in the ground.

Almost like a vent.

It wasn't small though. Not some kind of air vent of gutter-like thing. It was quite large, actually. Certainly large enough to fit through. Honestly, that would be super cool. Imagine, having your own little tunnels around the ship to go wherever you want super quickly!
God, my brain's going all creative again.

I probably shouldn't go near it. It's probably part of the science-y stuff and to be completely honest, I do not, at all whatsoever, trust myself to be around equipment like that. I'm not even sure how I managed to pass the training exams. I'm a pretty big clutz-

I hear a little "clink!" from near the vent.

...is someone here?

I carefully make my way over to the area of the vent.

I slowly peek from behind a cabinet, to see slight movement in the vent before the vent is pulled down by someone who looks to not be in a spacesuit- meaning I can't tell who it is by the accent colour.

My fourth year here, and never have I seen anything like that before. Is it just an extra part of the ship? This one has a similar layout but it could be a newer model. Or maybe they just upgraded the vents and someone is checking to see if they're clean. Whatever it is, I'm sure my crewmates have it covered! Probably.

Okay, now I've forgotten what I was doing before.

"Uh, what are you doing here?"