Space is Big

Part 3: Tempes

He didn't do much for the rest of the day, nor did he sleep much that night, his excitement keeping him from falling asleep for very long. As soon as his alarm went off, he leapt out of bed, grabbed his bag, and ran down the hall to get breakfast. He met up with the rest of his team as they loaded their things into the ship and were dividing up rooms.
"Good morning Heron!" Alexus called over with a wave. Heron waved back and tossed his things into one of the empty rooms. The ship itself was massive compared to the standard tourist ships and personal ones that could be seen anywhere else. This ship was built solely for going a great distance and then not doing anything for a few years and then going the distance back. It had a lab for collecting samples, a huge kitchen that was fully stocked with almost everything that Heron could ever dream of, and a massive deck that they probably wouldn't use since the ship was fully automated to get to Tempes 6 without the need for human control.
Since it would only take a week to get there because of the newest advances in hyperspace travel, the group decided to play some fun multiplayer video games, but Ashley beat them soundly every round so they switched to board games, but Aiden, who was raised by his grandmother, was an expert at all the games they played. Controllers were thrown and boards were flipped, but they had fun together all the same. Finally, they came to the edge of the Tempes System where the Asteroid Crawler corpse was floating. None of them had seen it in person before so the silence on the deck as they approached was almost palpable.
It looked almost artistic: the corpse of the leviathan framed by the fragments of rock and lit from behind by the glow of the nearby star. Heron held his breath as they passed it, praying that it wouldn't move. He didn't relax until the outpost came into view. It was a huge station that hovered just inside the asteroid belt and surrounded by the newer extensions that made it look like the skeleton of a man-made planet.
They hailed the outpost and as soon as they got the green light, they began their two day descent to the planet below.

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Tempes 6 was absolutely beautiful. The trees were massive, the foliage ranged in colors from green, blue, purple, red, yellow, and almost any color Heron could think of. The crew stood on the spongy, soft ground for a moment before going back into the ship  and getting the supplies ready to build their temporary base. Heron got assigned to the task of bringing out the vehicles that they would be using to explore and map the terrain of the planet. It took him a while, but he arranged them the way he wanted and joined his fellow crew members for lunch. They talked and laughed together before splitting again to finish getting the equipment set up. Heron and Alexus were tasked with taking one of the rovers to the six-mile line to set up the sensors, a task that would take them the rest of the day. They gathered the necessary equipment and made their way across the lush terrain.
"So, tell me about yourself." Alexus said after a few minutes of silence.
"What do you want to know about me?" Heron chuckled. Alexus shrugged and shifted in her seat a bit,
"What brings you on this mission? What do you want to get out of it?"
"Well, I love exploration and I would love to be the one to make a discovery, but since we have Ashley and Aiden on the team, I doubt I'll be able to take credit for a majority of the shit we'll find here. Also, I just realized that I'm the only person on this team whose name doesn't start with the letter A."
Alexus laughed at that and agreed,
"For me, I guess I want to prove to my parents that I'm not just their trans kid that they don't want to talk about. If my name gets into the news, or hell, into some scientific papers, they will have to acknowledge that my being trans is not something that makes me less of a person." She sighed and drew her knees up to her chest. "Sorry, that may have been a bit much considering that this is the first time we've had an actual conversation. I've just grown up being told that I can't follow my dream of playing women's sports because I'm "not technically a woman", told that I'm a disappointment to my family and to think of what I've done to them, and that I'd have to lasso the stars for them to even consider calling me their daughter. That's why I went into the sciences, specifically space. I've written papers, made discoveries, given speeches, press conferences, you name it, I've done it, and my parents still won't call me on my birthday or invite me home for the holidays. I just want them to look at me and actually see me, you know?" Heron put a hand on Alexus' shoulder and smiled, still keeping his eyes on the road.
"I'll be honest, I don't know what it's like to try getting your parent's attention, but I do relate to the "they don't want to think about you" part. I'm an orphan because they were too lazy to raise a child that they made. I grew up being told that since I was an orphan that didn't have anything more than a high school diploma, I was never going anywhere in my life so I promised myself that I'd go to the stars and I'd come back with something amazing to show for it. I think we're both in the same boat in that respect."
Alexus chuckled quietly.
"Thanks. By the way, you can call me Lexi if you want."
"Sure thing, Lexi. I'd say you could call me Ron, but that name makes me gag, so let's just stick with Heron."
That got a laugh out of the woman next to him and they fell into comedic conversation the rest of the drive. Around the five mile mark, they crested a hill and Heron had to stop the car to take in the view. Alexus opened the sun roof and stood on her seat to get a better look.
The hill looked over a lush valley that looked like someone had dropped a rainbow on it. The splashes of fiery color stood out in stark contrast with the dark storm clouds that were constantly moving around the planet.
"How the hell have these plants grown so well? Do they not need much light? Do they need to photosynthesize at all?" Alexus sounded truly shocked by the flora they were surrounded by, "I mean, with the clouds constantly blocking the light, these plants should be tiny, but these are bigger than the fucking California Redwoods!"
Heron stood up on his seat and took out his camera to record the view.
"You're right. These plants are clearly different from the ones on earth, so maybe they've evolved to thrive in this environment. Maybe they just want to show off for us. They probably don't get visitors very often."
Alexus agreed and got out of the car to grab one of the plants for a sample to take back to Ashley for analysis, but she froze and held up her hand for Heron to see. Perched on her hand was a small lizard with three sets of legs and one eye.
"Holy shit." Heron whispered as he aimed the camera at the little lizard. "Should we name it? Can we call it something cool? Can we name it the Monocle Lizard? 'Cause it only has one eye, right?"
"Alright, we'll call it the Monocle Lizard for now. Oh my god, I just realized that if this little guy is here, can you imagine how many different species of creatures there are here? We'll probably have to come up with entire new sets of Genus, Species, everything." Alexus' eyes were alight with the promise of discovery and she motioned Heron down to get a better video angle of the Monocle lizard.
"This is so cool!" He whispered excitedly, trying not to scare the lizard. After Alexus was satisfied with the amount of footage they had, she put the lizard down and they got back in the car. After they finished setting up the sensor, they called Ashley and Aiden to tell them about the lizard.