Intergalactic Turbulence: Darius, Spire, and Oona's Dangerous Joyride

The sun shone brightly on the horizon, but the sky was darker than it should be. It was an unnatural color of black, like there was a hole in space-time where the sun should be. Darius looked out at the vista around him and immediately lost his breath. The planet was beautiful. It went on forever, as far as he could see, seemingly without end. He wanted to explore, to go farther and farther, until he ran out of world. His feet ached to run across its vastness, wet from the dew gathered on the grass around him. There was no wind here either; it was dead still.

“What is this place?” he asked himself aloud. “It’s amazing.”

Darius turned to look at his companions Oona and Spire, who were jotting down notes in their journals that they had taken with them on the ship. They sat on opposite sides of a large wooden table engraved with symbols that Darius couldn’t recognize. The table itself was nothing special; it could have been made anywhere in the galaxy. But it seemed out of place here, on this pristine planet with its waterfalls and mountains and oceans that stretched out so far as to seem endless in all directions.

The table itself gave off a strange feeling to Darius—something magical or maybe even religious about it—but he couldn’t place what that feeling was exactly.

Oona sat facing him, writing quickly in her journal with her pen held expertly in her left hand while her right hand flicked back through pages she had already written in, using her finger as an eraser for whatever she didn’t like about what she had previously written about the strange planet they now found themselves upon. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, making small adjustments to her emerald green hair that only the two of them knew she did when she was nervous or anxious about something.

Spire sat facing away from them both at the far end of the table on a boulder overlooking this strange new world that they now found themselves on. He leaned forward over his notebook and wrote quickly with his quill pen gripped tightly between his fingers, pausing occasionally to dip his feathered pen into an inkwell full of blue liquid that had been sitting next to him since they arrived on this alien world. His handwriting was not the neatest, but Oona knew how to decipher it when she needed to, so Darius really didn’t mind at all not being able to read what Spire wrote most of the time when they were researching together. He always made sure to get a copy of whatever Spire wrote down before they left whatever world they were on anyway; he would make sure everything was transcribed properly later when they were back safely onboard their ship and waiting for their next mission assignment somewhere else in the galaxy.

They had been doing this for years now, so everyone onboard the ship knew their jobs well enough by now that there really wasn’t much need for any kind of ceremony before any particular mission began anymore—their pre-mission rituals had dwindled over time. However, something about these rituals still felt necessary or maybe even comforting, even if they would not admit it out loud when they were back home in their bunkrooms eating lonesome meals together every evening after yet another day spent away from their temporary homes, doing the work that took them across the galaxy to various planets.

The wind picked up suddenly, and a strong gust blew past Darius; he shivered slightly but tried not to let this sudden sensation show too much on his face. He didn't want Oona or Spire to think anything weird about him—he didn't believe in ghosts or spirits any more than they did. Perhaps he was just tired and letting his imagination get the better of him. He reminded himself not to let these fleeting thoughts infiltrate his thoughts, since he considered himself too rational to be bothered by unexplainable feelings. He mentally told himself to relax—to stay cool and focused on the task at hand—and reassured himself that everything was going to be okay.