The Outer Moon (A Sapphic Sci Fi Adventure)

Chapter 11

An hour later, there was a large meeting aboard Pepper and Vanessa's ship with everyone getting to know each other while talking to Lena as she and Miles approached the planets that they knew to be the home worlds of the humans from the Atlantis, and the foxes. They would have been on the coms sooner telling them what they were seeing, but Lena had been determined to be the first to have sex in the new solar system. Just for good measure, she made sure they did it three times, so people would have to work on catching up later.

"This place is amazing" came her awed voice as they approached the planets. "It's a binary star, with a red star in it too, but you can barely see it. It might look interesting from the surface of one of the planets, but even from here it doesn't look like much."

"Is there any sign of other ships?" Vanessa asked quickly.

"No, nothing." Lena and Miles had been studying up on the ships survey capabilities in the months that they'd explored the Earth's solar system, and then again on the way to Cancri A, so they knew what they were doing when it came to looking for signs of life. "I can tell you from here that the model we saw on the fox ship projection was misleading. I remember seeing a planet with multiple moons as the fox's home world, and then another smaller planet with a single moon as the human's. But that larger planet is a gas giant, I bet one of their moons is the fox's home."

There was a collected gasp among several of the listeners. There were a lot of books and movies where moons were inhabitable, but this would be their first time seeing one. "And the human world?" Pepper wondered.

Lena was silent for a minute, though they could hear a soft gasp. Finally, she spoke back up in a whisper. "It's pretty bad off. I'm not too sure what happened, but the moon is gone, and the planet seems to be further away from the sun than it used to be."

The other ship was silent at that. No ships in the system, and the human ship world was ruined. That was unexpected. Did the foxes leave too, or were they hiding? There were still a lot of unanswered questions, and hopefully they'd get answered soon.

"Give us a bit," Miles suggested. "We're going to scan the gas giant and the moons to see if we find anything."

There was some low muttering, but it wasn't hard to understand why things would take time. As fast as the ships were, they still took time to be safe, especially in a new system, and do the scans. In the meantime, people were forming little groups and examining the ship, or looking out the window at the view of the Earth below them.

Ara and Hermosa were back in the medical bay, this time with another newcomer, a blond doctor named Lily Reid who was Emily's OB/GYN, and they were obviously talking shop. The three PASSpace shuttle pilots, Nash, Zay, and Tilly were wandering about the ship, taking in the sight of the gorgeous ship now that they had been brought aboard. Jason was in a conference with several scientists that had come over from the PASSpace station, no doubt discussing their next plans.

As for Emma, she was with Viv, Bree and the new young woman that Viv brought along, Lexi. While Emma had been shocked to see another person with her girls when she picked up Viv and Bree, she couldn't deny that Lexi seemed like an amazing young woman who had been through a lot and was thrilled to be going into space with them since she had nothing left back on Earth. As Viv explained on the flight up, Lexa was 18, and still finishing high school, but had been kicked out by her religious parents when her spiteful ex-girlfriend had outed her to them. She'd been on the streets for almost a week while panhandling, and when they passed by her on the way into the store, Viv had offered to take her into Walmart to buy her a few things. Since they weren't expecting to need money anymore, they got her a lot of clothes in addition to some for Bree. It took almost no time for Lexi to win her over with her kindness, and Bree was in love with her red hair.