Galactic Rebels: Phaea and Euricles' Quest for a New Human Experience

"What do you think?"

"It's a bit too rainy for my tastes," Phaea said, staring out the window of her shuttle. "I think Jupiter would be more suited to my tastes."

Phaea and Euricles were two women in a society that had only recently accepted people of non-binary genders. The two had attended school together and started as friends, but their personalities clashed and soon they had become mortal enemies. They each started their own social circles, but when it came time to enter the space program, they decided that it would be more fun if they worked together, rather than against one another.

Their shuttle began to descend into the atmosphere of their new home. The planet was covered in water and had little land mass, with most of it being islands.

"At least we can swim here," Phaea said. Her tail was flicking behind her, steadily beating up and down. Euricles looked over at her friend and smiled. She was on a beach vacation once and she still remembered how much fun it was to swim in the ocean, even though it was freezing cold and the sand felt like needles under her feet.

The voyage from Earth to this planet took nearly three years, but once they reached the planet, they were told that their colony would take place in only a few months' time. They arrived with all the supplies necessary for their new lives in a foreign world, along with some tools for them to make what they could not bring with them. The colony ship hadn't even landed before Phaea and Euricles set off to explore their new home.

Euricles turned on her flashlight as she walked onto the beach, then stepped into the water. It was warm enough that she didn't need any special equipment other than her boots to walk inside without getting wet shoes, but she thought it would be best to be safe rather than sorry.

She swam out past where the waves met the sand, then stopped when she could no longer feel the ground beneath her feet. She held out her arms and spun around in a circle with a big smile on her face.

"This is amazing!" She shouted over to Phaea where she stood on shore looking disappointed at how small their colony site was going to be compared to Earth's cities or even Jupiter's moons. "We should build our colony here!"

Phaea walked out into the water until she was next to Euricles and stared out at the horizon where the sky met water at a nearly perfect line on all sides of them except for one place where there were two small pieces of land jutting up from the water not so far away from them.

"Why not over there? That looks like it has more potential." She pointed towards those two pieces of land where there might've been more landmass underneath the ocean that could be explored before they settled down for good.

Euricles shrugged at that idea and spoke confidently, "The site we have right now is fine." Then she looked over at Phaea's sad face and added "But I wouldn't mind exploring there next time we go out."