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11
LILI
Folding space was a strange experience. As Dark had said, it felt like everything and nothing all at once and seemed to last no time at all and a thousand years at the same time.
When they came out of the red gash in space, Lili saw something new in the viewscreen—a vast planet that looked a little like Jupiter was taking up most of the screen. It was striped with horizontal bands of orange and brown and red swirled with white and cream.
“Is that F’rith Three?” she exclaimed.
“Nah—that’s Trilios, the gas giant it orbits. F’rith Three is actually one of Trilios’s moons,” Dark explained.
“That’s it right there.” Light pointed to a much smaller looking planet—or moon, Lili supposed—on the far right of the viewscreen.
“Wow.” Lili leaned forward to look at it. “But if that’s F’rith Three, where are F’rith One and F’rith Two?” she asked.
“F’rith One is extremely volcanic—it orbits too close to Trilios to be inhabitable,” Light said.
“And F’rith Two is a fucking hellscape,” Dark growled. “It has sub-zero temperatures and it’s inhabited by carnivorous beasts that thrive in the cold and eat every damn thing they can sink their claws into. So if you don’t freeze to death, you’ll most likely be torn to shreds.”
“Oh, that sounds awful!” Lili shivered. “Are there any other moons in the system?”
“None that are inhabitable,” Light assured her. “And most are so small they can’t even support an atmosphere. More like larger asteroids than moons.”
“Hang on, approaching F’rith Three now,” Dark said. “Let’s see if they let us in right away or make us wait for scanning.”
As F’rith Three got larger in the viewscreen, Lili saw that it had a number of spaceships orbiting it. The larger ones seemed to come in all different shapes and styles, but there were smaller ones too. Little red ships only about half the size of their long-range shuttle were flitting around the larger ships, like bees buzzing around a bunch of flowers.
“Looks like they’re scanning today, Brother,” Light said.
Dark nodded.
“Yeah, looks like you’re right.”
As if on cue, a voice from the com-link said,
“Unknown vessel, stay where you are and await scanning. You are not permitted to take orbit until scanning is complete.”
“Affirmative,” Dark answered. “We’ll wait.”
“Please be aware that you may experience turbulence during the scan due to the v’reckner waves,” the voice continued.
“Yeah, all right. Just be sure you warn us beforehand so we can strap down,” Dark said. “Can you give us an idea of how long the wait time for scanning is right now?” he added.
“Two to three solar hours—possibly more,” the voice replied.
Lili was glad that she’d been given a shot of Translation Bacteria so she could understand everything that was said, but it seemed they had hit a delay.
“Well, it appears we’re stuck here for a while,” Light remarked.
Dark shrugged.
“Nothing we can do but wait,” he rumbled.
He still looked down about what he and Light had told her about being unable to Bond with a woman, Lili thought. And Light was subdued as well. She wondered if there was any way to cheer them up—or at least take their mind off their troubles.
“Do we have to sit up here while we’re waiting?” she asked. “Or can we go back to your living room area and relax?”
Dark shrugged again, his broad shoulders rolling.
