Terek approached the airlock, his hand on the gun, he typed in the code and waited tensely while it whirled open. In front of the door stood the women hand in hand, both seemed to be a couple of years older than Terek, the one on the left had dark skin and an afro, she wore the standard explorer's uniform grey overalls with red strips along the arms, the explorer's crest over her heart and on her back. The one on the right shared her partner's dark skin and not much else, she has her hair in a high ponytail that reaches between her shoulder blades. She wore a dark blue tracksuit with a matching hoodie, she wore a red t-shirt that had the explorer’s crest. The one on the right introduced themselves.
“Hi, I’m Lily and this is my wife, Katie. Who are you?”
“Terek.” He answered curtly, “Aren’t there usually 3-5 explorers on a ship?”
“Yeah, my brothers hiding behind the door in case you try to rob us or anything.”
“Lily you aren’t supposed to tell him that” her brother groaned. He stood at 6’3’’ he wore a mix of clothing; he wore the explorer's overalls up to the waist and wore a similar t-shirt to Lily except that he had the military crest on it. “Might as well introduce myself. I’m Grá. Nice to meet you, Shouldn’t there be more people on your ship?”
“Should is the operative word; it’s just me and my Viai here.”
“Doesn’t it get lonely?” Katie asked.
“Well I ca… used to call my mom.” Terek answered quietly
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry, what happened?” Lilly asked stepping forward to comfort him.
“It was the Democratic Galactic Government; They killed her while we were calling.” Terek’s mind flashed back to that terrible moment when his last blood relative died.
“Who?” Katie asked.
“The DGG, They’re the ones who started the riots back on earth.”
“Wait that’s not fake news?” Grá inquired
“I learned it isn’t the hard way.”
“It’s a good thing we left when we did,” Lilly said “If we had postponed it by a week we would’ve been trapped there.”
“You're only a week into your mission?” Terek asked
“Yup”
“I know it's a lot to ask but would you mind sharing some protein, I was supposed to stock up on them in Gijji, but I don’t think that would be wise.”
“Sure, we have plenty, let's talk how much over a cup of tea and muffins.” Katie offered Terek nodded and made his way across the airlock, his hand drifting towards the gun, Terek stuffed his hand into his pocket, these people showed him kindness, he should trust them. He sat down and looked around their kitchen, it was all-white with a map in the centre surrounded by the bench he was sitting on. Along one wall were their protein packets and their machine, on the other were their washing machines and utilities, and the third wall was a door leading further into the ship. Lilly and Katie booted up the printer and started on coffee. Terek turned to Grá and once again caught sight of the military crest on his shirt.
“Were you part of the military?” he asked.
“I was; I thought I left the stars behind me, but then my sister wanted to become an explorer, and I wasn’t going to let her float around out here without someone with experience.’’
“That’s very kind of you, I wish I had a brother like that.”
“You an only child?”
“No, my brother was an explorer; he uh disappeared. They never found the ship.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be, I was a late child, he disappeared when I was 12, it’s been 15 years. I dealt with it.” Lilly and Katie interrupted the souring conversation with muffins and hot tea balanced on their arms.
“Now then, what’s going to happen next? Do you want to move onto our ship? Should we go our separate ways? How abo-” Terek cut her off
“How about we become a fleet, that way we get the advantages of both ships, and if we meet anyone else they have more room to sleep.”
“We just met, how do we know we can trust him” Grá replied.
"Why would I lie, we are all trapped out there together."
“Ye” Katie agreed.
“OK then. Where should we go? We can’t just float around aimlessly.”
“I was heading towards an asteroid before I met you, it could be useful to get more money, or as something to trade if the economy collapsed, you never know.”
“Sure sounds good” Katie agreed, they finished up their tea and carried some boxes of protein over to his ship, He placed them in his cargo hold. As he lowered himself into the pilot’s seat preparing to sever the connection to the Cu Chulainn he realized that Grá was still on board with him.
“Aren’t you going to go back to the Cu Chulainn?”
“I’m staying here to ensure that you won’t try anything.”
“Alright then, your bedroom is room 4” He turned back to the cockpit and continued prepping to disengage from the Cu Chulainn with a final press of a button a hiss filled the whole ship before they started the drift apart. Terek booted up the engines and headed off towards the asteroid. Hopefully, there won’t be any more interruptions.
