Solace in the Stars

Landing

Things were easy out in space, no wheel, no worries, just time as Emiel piloted them towards the nearest planet. They put the Aloe plant at the center of the dining room table, it helped liven up the fact that they predominantly had meal cubes to eat. Daena made sure Emiel ate by making meals a family affair. They all sat down together every day.

"So I've looked into the local laws, I assume you guys wanted to take advantage of first settler laws." Danny had his focus on his interface as he sat down to their dinner. Emiel was tired, slumped over as he nibbled at the food even after Daena made him set auto pilot. Daena would make him sleep until they got into planetary orbit.

"That was the plan, but I guess we didn't really plan that far ahead. I thought you could just land in unoccupied territory, and stake a claim." Lee pressed against his shoulder to read what he had up on his interface.

"That's sort of how it works. You can land and build anywhere that isn't claimed. For every person you are allotted three acres automatically, so we could claim twelve. If you choose to grow food crops in bulk you can claim an additional acre by volume of product intended for sale, or per head of livestock. If you grow crops to feed livestock you get acreage at half the value you would if you grow food crops." Danny shifted his arm so Lee could see better, happy to let xer lean on him. He was adorably excited to make himself useful.

"I don't even really know what an acre is. I mean twelve is probably enough for us." Lee scrolled down to try and figure out what the measurements were.

"Jesus, they're giving us each over 130 thousand square feet. What the hell are we going to do with that much space? I could grow enough food to feed the whole wheel with that much space!" Lee scrolled back and forth to make sure xe wasn't reading it wrong. Danny chuckled at their collective surprise.

"It won't be like the grow towers on the wheel. We won't have aeroponic set ups, or even hydroponics unless we make them ourselves. We don't have synthetic nutrients to put in our water even if we do. Most of our food will have to grow out of the ground. We will definitely have enough land to grow a surplus, but we'll also have to account for the space the ship takes up, and any buildings we put up. Pens for any animals, and room for them to graze, and roam. Life on the ground takes a lot more space because we don't have the processors they do on the wheel, or any of the mobile stations." Danny looked off at the middle distance as he thought about what they would be able to set up.

"I want a kitten! They're better than dogs!" Emiel countered with a video of a cat playing with a string.

"We have almost 523 thousand square feet, we can definitely get both. Here, let's plot it out." Lee pulled up a grid to the scale of the land that they would have. Xe plotted in the ship, and plonked it right in the middle.

"Do you have seeds or anything already? This planet is warm enough in most regions that I could plant the aloe by the door in a raised plot so it has adequate drainage!" Danny's eyes lit up as they started to go over plants, and how much space each one would need. Lee planned to make grow towers, running planters, and of course xe would need a workshop at some point. Daena had requested they save a whole acre to get scrap, and dismantle it to sell parts or repair, so they did two around Lee's shop which they extended so they could share. Emiel wanted to have an orchard, and a landing area for ships and drones, so they split his three acres up for that.

"There is one problem." Danny said once they could see everything laid out in front of them. Some of which might change based on terrain obviously, but they had no idea what could be wrong.

"Which is?" Emiel broke from the concern first. Danny went to the end of the legal document he had up.

"We have to register the property to our ID numbers." Danny deflated, and couldn't look at them. He was so upset that he had to put another road block in their dreams. Instead of the worry, and sadness he expected they all broke out into a fit of laughter.