I had no doubt about that.
“Even with our ten warp factors aboard the Ebony, if you have to travel to a faraway system, cluster or galaxy, it will still take a very long time to reach your destination. It’s science, difficult but beautiful. The higher the warp factor, the quicker you travel but you consume more fuel. With warp factor one, we travel roughly one light year every eight hours so that was the factor we used on this mission. It takes four days to travel from Ealra to Earth using factor one, and four days to make the journey back. For humans who have never experienced warp, we decided the lowest factor would be the safest.”
Holy. Shit.
“You have no idea how close Earth is to my home world, Nova. It is a snap of my fingers in travelling compared to the distance my brothers have voyaged to reach other inhabited planets within our own galaxy. Thanas blessed us in discovering your species. You were so close to us all this time … it is amazing.”
“It is amazing, but I hope travelling to Ealra will be the only time I am in space,” I admitted. “It is exciting, and beautiful, but I’m a person whose feet belongs on the ground.” Kol said nothing as I focused backed on Ealra. “It looks a lot like Earth, just more colourful. Not to mentioned huge.”
“Ealra is three times bigger than Earth is. Out of every planet we have visited, Earth is the closest in detail to the native home world of the Maji. Another sign that humans were meant for us.”
“What was the name of that planet?”
“It was called Maji,” Kol answered. “It is where our species got our name. It was a planet in the Mensa star system, the very system that the Vina’s home world, Vada, is located in. That system is also in the Nexus Cluster like ours: Ara. Those two planets were the only ones inhabitable within that star system.”
“That’s how your people knew to find the Vina on Vada to get help? Because it was a neighbouring planet?”
“Yes,” Kol answered. “The planet Maji was similar to Ealra, just like Earth is. Ealra has all the same elements and many more that your world does not. We have water, but it’s all fresh, not salted like on Earth. The main reason we sought humans, aside from the possibility of being reproductively compatible, was because you inhale and exhale the same gases to keep you alive as Maji do on Ealra. Once we knew you could survive here, everything else would be figured out in time.”
A bright beam from my left caught my attention, and I couldn’t look directly at it because it was so overpowering, I knew that it would blind me. I knew it was the sun, but not the sun I was used to. For starters, it was enormous, bigger than Ealra … and blue.
“Is that your, um, I know it’s not called the sun. What is it called again?”
“A daystar. It functions the same way your sun star does in the Milky Way only it’s bigger and still brand new, only a few hundred million years old. It is still in its infant years, just like the Acura galaxy and its clusters.”
“It’s beautiful is what it is … but seriously, it’s fucking blue!”
“We have shields to protect our eyes from it while aboard the Ebony, but it is still very strong so don’t look at it, silly female.” Kol laughed. “From here it looks blue but on Ealra, it looks nothing like that. It makes the sky look pure white because its rays are so powerful. We all must wear a daystar screen cream in the summer moon cycles to protect our skin … you light skin humans will need lots of that cream.”
He had no idea how easily humans could get sun burned, especially fair skinned people.
“Are there other planets, besides Vada, is this galaxy?”
“Nova, the radius of Acura galaxy is four-hundred and ninety thousand light years. It is unbelievably huge. Bigger than your Milky Way.” Kol said. “As I’ve said, we’re in the Ara star system in Nexus Cluster of the Acura galaxy, we’re just one star system of thirty-six in that cluster. This star system has seven planets that orbit our daystar but only two are inhabitable for life. All of the other planets—all of which are bigger than Ealra—provide mineral resources for the people that we mine with drones which are deployed every moon cycle.” He kissed my head. “We have many codices in our athenaeum regarding the Ara system and its planets. You can read them anytime you’d like.”
We both turned our heads when the door to the bridge opened.
“Surkah,” I beamed when I saw my sister-in-mate. “I’ve been wondering where you ran off to.”
She perked up when she saw me and walked towards me with a spring in her step. It shocked me how much I had come to care for Surkah in such a short amount of time, but I was so grateful for her. She was my dearest friend. That connection with her was something I cherished instantly.
If I do the mate kiss thing to her, I said to Kol, will she be okay with it? I really like your sister. I care for her a great deal.
The admiration I felt from Kol for me warmed my heart.
She will never forget it, shiva.
I continued to smile at Surkah as she approached us. She did her arm on chest bow thing to her brother, and when she focused on me, I stepped forward and gestured for her to bend down. She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion but leaned down to me. I placed my hands on her shoulders and watched said eyes widen when I placed the tip of my nose to hers, ran it up the bridge and stopped between her eyes. I replaced my nose with my lips and pressed a gentle, lingering kiss to the spot. With a smile, I pulled back, but that smile was instantly wiped away when I saw that tears had begun to streak Surkah’s face.
“Almighty.” I choked. “I’m terribly sorry. Please, don’t cry!”
I wrapped my arms around a bawling Surkah and practically screamed at Kol in my mind.
She’s sobbing, Kol!
With joy, shiva. You only share a mate kiss with Maji whom you truly love and care for. It is sacred. You never forget a first mate kiss.
That relaxed me, and unlike when I thought of love with Kol, I wasn’t scared because it was different with Surkah. She was my sister-in-mate and had quickly taken up the long-vacant role of cherished best friend. I had only known her for six days, but I felt like we went way back.
“Surkah.” I frowned as I hugged her. “Please, I’ll cry too if you don’t stop and none of us would like that.”
“No, we would not,” Kol agreed, “because we know I’ll do anything to stop the tears, and that means Thane will reach the edge if another engine stalls.”
That made me and Surkah laugh.
Kol and Mikoh both moved over to a couple of crew members to discuss the plan to disembark the humans from the Ebony. I hadn’t heard much of the conversation, but I knew Kol would fill me in later when I asked him.
“What do you think?” Surkah asked as she wiped her face free of tears. “Isn’t Ealra something to behold?”
I turned back to the viewing pane.
“It most certainly is,” I agreed. “I can’t believe there are so many different colours.”
“The green is forest land, the red is desert land, the black is mountain land and the white and blue are layers of ice.” Surkah offered. “Everything that is not purple is land.”
I gasped. “The purple is … water?”
“Yes.” Surkah nodded. “Why is that a surprise?”