The Outer Moon (A Sapphic Sci Fi Adventure)

Epilogue

Ten years later

Pepper sat back happily in the wooden chair on the wooden dock next to their house, her fingers intertwined with Vanessa's who was sitting right next to her. It was a lovely evening, with the setting sun reflecting off the gas giant and illuminating the shallow sea before them. Sitting on the dock and enjoying the evening had become a daily occurrence for them, as the view was simply stunning. The karsts to the south stood out against the horizon, and the shallow sea glowed with the light from the bioluminescent coral and fish that inhabited the area.

"It's another gorgeous night," Pepper said with a happy sigh.

"Yeah, I don't think I'll ever get sick of these," Vanessa agreed, lifting Pepper's hand to kiss.

With the two of them stepping back from the day to day running of the settlement, they had plenty of time to build a new little village. It wasn't huge, but there were a dozen little houses there now, several of which were for people to come take a break in when they needed to get away from their day to day lives. Their goal had been to make a fishing village, and they had, but it had also become a little resort. Just looking to the north, they could see several other humans and Antuhsas relaxing on docks like theirs just enjoying the night. Nobody had any complaints.

New Atlantis, and indeed their whole new civilization, was doing quite well.

Which was more than could be said for Earth. Not that Earth itself was much different than normal, but they were the same squabbling countries they'd always been. The three prophets had all died, though it had taken three years and two small civil wars for the first two. The last one took the longest, and it only happened when he tried to commandeer one of the Australian cargo ships. The Australians had capitalized on the ships and had signed a treaty with the remaining members of the Mars colony, and together they had started mining the asteroid belt and were looking to see if they could do the same with any of the moons in the system.

None of the other countries could do much to stop them, unless they wanted a war that they couldn't win. Australia made it very clear that while their ships weren't armed, they were quite capable of grabbing an asteroid and dropping it on a city if they were attacked. The ships may not have guns, but they could still pack a punch.

So, the other countries just sat back and continued their age old rivalries while Australia quickly became the richest nation in the world. Depleting natural resources were an issue around the globe, and now they were the sole country with access to centuries of mining access unless the other countries thought they could get to space and do better with lesser ships.

That didn't seem likely. But at least there was relative peace. Maybe they would visit again someday to look for more settlers, but that didn't seem like a priority. Without the ability to screen their applicants that Jason had once provided, it would be a risk to damage the fragile system they had going. Not that there weren't arguments and fights, but the vast majority were able to be smoothed over quickly, and there were no hard feelings in the long run.

Everything wasn't perfect, of course, but what could be? Three years after the last batch of colonists came, they experienced their first losses. The settlers from Mars loved exploring Iluyanka to the point where plans to move the planet and terraform it had been scrapped. In their estimation, it could easily be a century or more before they had explored all the buried structures and found all the hidden treasures hidden there. But of course, that was dangerous too, and a collapsing floor led to four men dying there.

It was a shocking day, as there had been no warning, and the citizens as a whole came together to grieve. The Antuhsas had been sad too, though they were much less worried about death, seeing it as part of the natural circle of things. They never had a graveyard, always cremating their lost ones instead. The settlers did the same, with everyone joining in as the smoke rose and everyone paid tribute to the fallen.