Standing, she punched the button that would deploy the loading ramp. Nothing happened.
Flip, she’d have to crank it manually. Was she going to have to rewire the whole ship?
As she manually lowered the ramp, she was infused with a sense of awe. She’d never set foot on the soil of any planet, her entire life spent either on a space station or a ship.
A pleasant breeze that carried a sweet smell caressed her face, and she closed her eyes. Taking a deep breath, the sound of the ocean lapping the shoreline provided a sense of calm.
The shore was a sea of orange that moved like a wave over the landscape. Upon closer inspection, there were thousands of individual orange—
Were those flowers?
There were so many blowing in the breeze, the shore appeared to be moving.
The edge of the ocean was as orange as the flowers, turning a beautiful emerald, then deep blue as it stretched towards the horizon.
C’hase bounded down the ramp before it touched the ground, and she rushed to grab him.
“Wait,” she said as he slipped through her fingers. “We don’t know what’s out there.”
Was he carrying that chicken under a front leg?
All but the feathery tips of his antennae disappearing in the orange flowers, he called back, Fun!
Of course. Heading down the ramp, Dani hoped she could keep her mogha alive long enough to get him back to his kind. Unbridled enthusiasm emanated from the pup as she watched the antennae float from one place to the next.
Reaching the bottom of the ramp, the petals of the flowers flapped gently in the slight wind, sound as soothing as the ocean. Maybe she was worried over nothing—
A grove of trees lined the edge of the flowering shore, opposite of the ocean. All leaned at a sharp angle away from the sea. Brow furrowing, she’d seen pictures of trees and they stood straight up. Why were these leaning like that?
Looking down at her booted feet, she dragged her toe across the sand. Having never fully qualified for the Colony Program, she never thought she’d ever be standing on the surface of a planet.
Crashing wasn’t exactly the way she’d hoped to be standing on solid ground.
C’hase popped out of the flowers next to her, still holding the chicken. Dani let out a chuckle until she realized the pup had something in his mouth.
Alarm prickling her skin, Dani smacked the back of his head. “Spit that out! It could be poisonous.”
The hellhound spit out a flower, and Dani threw her hands in air. “Why would you eat one of the flowers?”
Rubbing at his head, C’hase complained, But they are safe to eat.
“How do you know that?” Dani said.
Because Hedge is eating them.
Sure enough, at the edge of the ramp, Hedge was chowing down on a couple of the orange blossoms.
We can eat what he eats, C’hase resumed eating the flower she made him spit out.
“How do you know for sure?” she said next.
The mogha’s head tilted. I just know.
Dubious, she bent over and plucked a flower, studying it. Having the appearance of a cup, she pulled open the petals, revealing a yellow center and plump yellow wavy dots radiating outwards in the middle of each of the five pedals. The smell was sweet, the source of the sweet scent on the breeze.
Pulling off one of the pedals, she stuck it in her mouth. Flavor similar to the sweetcakes in the station cafeteria delighted her tongue with little bursts of honey as she chewed. Was that what was in the yellow wavy dots?
Look, C’hase said. Even Molly likes it.
Molly?
This is Molly, he said, holding out the chicken as it devoured a pedal.
Walking on three legs, his extended fingers weren’t big enough to wrap around the big bird, but were grasping it well enough. Said chicken clucked softly, not minding the ride at all.
Hedge wanted a pet.
C’hase’s pet, a hedgehog-like packrat that collected wires, buttons and circuitry needed to keep a ship in the air, wanted a pet—
“But it’s a chicken,” Dani said, looking over at the space rat, who now had a pile of flowers next to him, eating happily at it.
Brows raised, shaking her head, Dani held up a flower in front of C’hase’s nose. Both his antennae and his tail went up.
“Okay, C’hase,” she said. “This is what I’m talking about. Is there anything else we need to know about Hedge?
Head tilting completely sideways, he said, I don’t think so.
Dani’s eyes tracked over the landscape, light glinting off the beautiful ocean from a nearby star. This planet was a paradise. There were fish, likely lots of other stuff to eat. She held up the pedal. They even had desert.
Why hadn’t a colony come here? The Human Colony Alliance wouldn’t even need to terraform this planet.
Dani knew from experience that if something were too good to be true, it was. There had to be something.
From a survival standpoint, they weren’t going to have a problem, not with the substantial rations she had on the ship augmenting what they could catch in the wild. But being stuck there wasn’t going to help the moghas.
“You’re pacing again,” L’iza’s electronic tone cut through his thoughts.
K’vyn couldn’t stop thinking about the blue, orange, and green planet, or the freighter. The nagging feeling, well, nagged. It was with him all the time, fogging his brain and keeping him awake.
“My mogha responded.” He stopped pacing, brow furrowed as he studied a holo-chart that L’iza had hovering over the center console of the cockpit.
Seated behind the console, L’iza’s dark eyebrows raised, her silver eyes reflecting curiosity. Except for the apparitional appearance, the hologram was a perfect imitation of a Korthan female.
“That’s good news,” she said, resting her chin on steepled fingers. “I didn’t think we were close enough to Mogha for you to detect one.”
“I don’t think he’s on Mogha,” K’vyn said. “I think he’s on Paradise.”
“Korthans have a sense of humor,” L’iza snorted, eyes beaming in mirth. “Calling that planet ‘Paradise.’”
K’vyn swiped his hand in front of the holo-chart, terrain of the planet appearing closer as it zoomed in on the location where he believed the freighter crashed.
“You believe your detection of the mogha bond has something to do with that human freighter.” L’iza could read him well, even without a full bond.
He could not begin to know what the connection could be, but something about that freighter wouldn’t leave him alone. And he didn’t detect the mogha until the freighter arrived—
“I believe we should take a closer look,” he conceded.
The hologram sat straight up, smile in place, readiness to execute evident. “I was hoping you were going to say that.”
Even though it was just a formality, K’vyn sat in the pilot seat. L’iza did all the flying, though in any instance she became incapacitated, he could fly the ship manually.
Used to her controlling all aspects of herself, he didn’t flinch when the seat swiveled around on its own, now facing the hologram at the console.
“What did your mogha say?” she said.
Leaning on his elbow, chin against his fist, he said, “It was a strange response. He said C’hase was his mogha.”