Rooted Dreams
by sacredlilac
CHAPTER 1 - What The Rain Hides
"We are many. We are one. We have seen what has become of this world, and who is responsible. We demand punishment. We demand repayment. We do not forget."
Teo clenched his head in a futile effort to stop the words invading his mind, but instead of halting the onslaught, he only managed to rip out great chunks of hair that fell around him, unheeded.
The words broke him, ended him, but also opened him to a possibility he could never have imagined.
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Every now and then, Captain Constance Ramaker would tap one finger against the smooth door of the hatch. She had her nose almost pressed against the glass of the tiny porthole in an effort to catch a glimpse of the planet.
The teeming rain had been obscuring their vision of the surface since they broke the cloud cover fifteen minutes ago. Not one of the seven crew members minded the delay, though. The rapid rhythm of the drops filled the old hulk with a symphony they rarely got to hear with their almost constant travel through the vacuum of space.
Apparently the cloud cover acted as some kind of radio wave insulator as well, because information was finally flooding in from the drones that had been collecting data for two days now.
"Captain, none of this information is making sense." Science Officer Teo Osborn's dark brows drew down at the portable monitor before him. "This place is a rock. No life. No water bodies. Yet, the atmosphere is stable, with regular, perfectly clean rain. Two sun's, three moons. Readings don't show any issues with them, though. Even the gravity is almost comparable to our ship. There's a thick layer of top soil covering the entire surface that'll be perfect for horticulture, but no indication of what made it."
The Captain continued to stare at the glass, her reflection showing the slightest crease marring her usually smooth forehead. "The air is breathable?"
"It's thin, but we won't need suits. Aeration masks should be sufficient."
The Captain nodded. "Have the probes gone below the surface?"
"The information is just coming in. So far, soil and rock through and through, rich with minerals and ores. No volcanic activity detected, but I won't have full reports for at least another half hour. Connie," the Captain's head snapped around at the private name he used only when they were alone in their room. "The finders fee from this planet will retire all of us. Maybe they'll even award us an allotment here. No more scavenging. Permanent planet-side." Only decades flying with the Captain let him catch the slightest tightening of her mouth at the best news their crew had had their entire lives.
Teo didn't want to get too excited himself, but this was the biggest find anyone, human or alien, had made in a century.
Every last human dreamed of being awarded an allotment on a real planet, being able to build a home that wasn't on a ship, but on real terrain. It was something so rarely given out after they'd killed Earth as to be described as 'never'. Instead 'human' had come to be synonymous with the equivalent of 'cockroach' across the universe. Forced to scavenge and sell scrap, their race survived by picking over the garbage of others.
The Captain regarded him steadily for a moment. "Reports are strictly for my eyes only. For now."
As suddenly as a faucet being turned off, the pounding rain stopped. The abrupt absence of sound left an eerie stillness in its wake that made the hair on the back of Teo's neck stand up.
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