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This job was reconnaissance and recovery; an old satellite had been hit by some space debris, and Asher’s role was to see which parts were salvageable for either reselling or reuse, and a camera attached to his helmet sent what he’d find back to the station. They could send a little drone, but it’s more difficult to look at parts inside the ship without something that can open hatches, doors, or other panels (and it was cheaper to pay a person than to buy a drone anyway).
His backpack had little RCS thrusters to allow him to navigate a short distance, but he mainly used his hands to get around. As he slowly crawled his way along metal supports away from the main body of the satellite, his pilot chatted to him in his earpiece, the wicker only paying half attention while the conversation didn’t pertain to the task at hand.
“—you know? I mean, I don’t take vacation often, so I figured they’d approve it.”
“Mhm,” Asher inspected a shattered solar panel. Some of the cells could be recovered, but it would need to be taken apart.
“Can’t believe they ‘don’t have enough guys’ to cover one pilot. It’s not like we’re a start-up colony anymore, we got things we can actually do now outside work! Or I could even head off-world, do some sight seeing.”
“I see, I see,” Asher added as he pulled himself along some more trusses until he reached the arm that extended out to what seemed to be a sensor array; all intact save for one missing and one broken. “Off world would be the better option, in my opinion.”
“Heh, ‘course that gets your attention; the only native in our division wants to leave. What say you ask the boss to let us both off, maybe I can take you with me.”
Asher chuckled at that, pushing a piece of debris out of his way gently. “Might be nice, but I’m not the party type like you are, Jim. Besides, I’d rather not have to come back when we’re done.”
“Oh come on, this place ain’t that bad. Nice an’ temperate, perfect for camping.”
“And not much else.” Asher opened an access panel next to the array. The circuitry inside was intact.
“Just not developed enough yet is all. Soon we’ll have plenty to do in town. We’ve got one major city and a few settlements; just gotta import a little fun and games from—” Jim paused his talking for a moment, then came back, “Getting a call, gimmie a minute.”
“A’ight.” Asher took a moment to appreciate the momentary silence. Jim was nice, but he could talk for a while. Not a bad coworker overall, though. Talk of leaving the planet got him thinking again…
Asher had been born after Humanity arrived on his home world, Osova, so his generation knew there was more out there, though it was difficult to mingle with the humans when the previous generation was still wary of them. Wickerbeasts ended up being quite the isolationists when confronted with aliens from space when the wickers themselves hadn’t even been into orbit yet.
Thankfully Asher’s parents were more welcoming—always the curious couple, they were part of the few to meet up with Humanity when they were exploring this world. Things went well; human linguists had been part of the preliminary settlers and were ecstatic to find an intelligent species to learn a new language from, but they hadn’t accounted for wickers to be so good at verbal mimicry. Asher’s parents apparently spooked some poor woman by sounding exactly like her when trying to replicate the English words she was saying to them.
When Asher was born, it wasn’t in a traditional wickerbeast village, it was among humans in their established colony. It had grown a lot in the last 25 years of Asher’s life, and he’d learned about many other human colonies, and especially their home world of Earth, of which every textbook always considered to be the most important of course.
But he didn’t care about how important Earth was, he just wanted to see… any other planet. He knew there were hundreds of worlds out there, and obviously more space faring races. His own race may not want to do anything, but he did. The furthest he’d gotten so far was this job—riding a beauty of a mega-structure a few hundred miles up to get in orbit around his own planet. The view was breathtaking, still was.
Floating there next to a dead satellite, Asher looked out over the horizon, the surface lit up below him, the stars in the cosmic distance littering the rest of his view.
There was more out there he wanted to see, and only a year ago someone who had done exactly what he dreamed of had crashed in what was basically his backyard. Another alien, not human, a raptor of some kind—he’d saved her life, kept her from going insane after she lost her family in the crash. Asher housed her, fed her, kept her company, talked to her about his life, his desires, and in return she told him everything he wanted to hear.
Renyu had been to so many worlds as part of her own job, Exploration Expeditions for a branch of her species’ government: The Avali Adventure Corps.
Oh the places she had described… Planets with a completely oceanic surface, some with little dots of land. Wind blasted worlds with nothing but sand, rock, and heat. Worlds just like Osova, but with different biospheres and elemental compositions; one had apparently had a purple ocean. Her personal favorites were the cold, icy ones as they were much like her own home. The ease at which she could describe each one made it feel like they were in his own star system, just a short slipspace jump away.
He loved to hear her recount things she had done with her pack, places they had cataloged. Asher didn’t even try to be subtle about it, and Renyu had grown quite fond of the curiosity of her wicker companion. Though, sometimes he worried that he came off as caring more about her adventures than Renyu herself (she assured him that was not the case of course).
After her crash though, she seemed to have lost a lot of that drive to explore. She just wanted to go home, though lately she seemed… conflicted. The two of them had grown rather close, so whenever Asher brought up that she was going to get to go home and get her arm fixed up and finally be around her own kind again, she seemed happy, but also didn’t like the thought of leaving Asher behind.
It warmed his heart, ironically. Knowing she wanted to be with him, that is. But, he wasn’t sure if her race would be alright with a wicker mingling with them; it sounded like they were majority isolationist as well, and Asher was well acquainted with how that tended to work.
Hopefully she could find a way to contact him, or maybe visit if she had the time or resources to do so… he was going to miss her, but he wouldn’t want to keep her here—Asher didn’t even want to stay here himself.
“’Ey, ground control to major fluffy,” Jim’s voice startled Asher out of his thoughts, “Bossman wants us back to the elevator; got enough info for them to send a salvage vessel for this hunk o’ junk. Aaaaaaand… I smooth-talked our way into a vacation! Just enough for me to visit my folks, though. It was the only way I could convince him.”
“Oh, fuck yeah.”
Renyu was going to be so happy.
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This job was reconnaissance and recovery; an old satellite had been hit by some space debris, and Asher’s role was to see which parts were salvageable for either reselling or reuse, and a camera attached to his helmet sent what he’d find back to the station. They could send a little drone, but it’s more difficult to look at parts inside the ship without something that can open hatches, doors, or other panels (and it was cheaper to pay a person than to buy a drone anyway).
His backpack had little RCS thrusters to allow him to navigate a short distance, but he mainly used his hands to get around. As he slowly crawled his way along metal supports away from the main body of the satellite, his pilot chatted to him in his earpiece, the wicker only paying half attention while the conversation didn’t pertain to the task at hand.
“—you know? I mean, I don’t take vacation often, so I figured they’d approve it.”
“Mhm,” Asher inspected a shattered solar panel. Some of the cells could be recovered, but it would need to be taken apart.
“Can’t believe they ‘don’t have enough guys’ to cover one pilot. It’s not like we’re a start-up colony anymore, we got things we can actually do now outside work! Or I could even head off-world, do some sight seeing.”
“I see, I see,” Asher added as he pulled himself along some more trusses until he reached the arm that extended out to what seemed to be a sensor array; all intact save for one missing and one broken. “Off world would be the better option, in my opinion.”
“Heh, ‘course that gets your attention; the only native in our division wants to leave. What say you ask the boss to let us both off, maybe I can take you with me.”
Asher chuckled at that, pushing a piece of debris out of his way gently. “Might be nice, but I’m not the party type like you are, Jim. Besides, I’d rather not have to come back when we’re done.”
“Oh come on, this place ain’t that bad. Nice an’ temperate, perfect for camping.”
“And not much else.” Asher opened an access panel next to the array. The circuitry inside was intact.
“Just not developed enough yet is all. Soon we’ll have plenty to do in town. We’ve got one major city and a few settlements; just gotta import a little fun and games from—” Jim paused his talking for a moment, then came back, “Getting a call, gimmie a minute.”
“A’ight.” Asher took a moment to appreciate the momentary silence. Jim was nice, but he could talk for a while. Not a bad coworker overall, though. Talk of leaving the planet got him thinking again…
Asher had been born after Humanity arrived on his home world, Osova, so his generation knew there was more out there, though it was difficult to mingle with the humans when the previous generation was still wary of them. Wickerbeasts ended up being quite the isolationists when confronted with aliens from space when the wickers themselves hadn’t even been into orbit yet.
Thankfully Asher’s parents were more welcoming—always the curious couple, they were part of the few to meet up with Humanity when they were exploring this world. Things went well; human linguists had been part of the preliminary settlers and were ecstatic to find an intelligent species to learn a new language from, but they hadn’t accounted for wickers to be so good at verbal mimicry. Asher’s parents apparently spooked some poor woman by sounding exactly like her when trying to replicate the English words she was saying to them.
When Asher was born, it wasn’t in a traditional wickerbeast village, it was among humans in their established colony. It had grown a lot in the last 25 years of Asher’s life, and he’d learned about many other human colonies, and especially their home world of Earth, of which every textbook always considered to be the most important of course.
But he didn’t care about how important Earth was, he just wanted to see… any other planet. He knew there were hundreds of worlds out there, and obviously more space faring races. His own race may not want to do anything, but he did. The furthest he’d gotten so far was this job—riding a beauty of a mega-structure a few hundred miles up to get in orbit around his own planet. The view was breathtaking, still was.
Floating there next to a dead satellite, Asher looked out over the horizon, the surface lit up below him, the stars in the cosmic distance littering the rest of his view.
There was more out there he wanted to see, and only a year ago someone who had done exactly what he dreamed of had crashed in what was basically his backyard. Another alien, not human, a raptor of some kind—he’d saved her life, kept her from going insane after she lost her family in the crash. Asher housed her, fed her, kept her company, talked to her about his life, his desires, and in return she told him everything he wanted to hear.
Renyu had been to so many worlds as part of her own job, Exploration Expeditions for a branch of her species’ government: The Avali Adventure Corps.
Oh the places she had described… Planets with a completely oceanic surface, some with little dots of land. Wind blasted worlds with nothing but sand, rock, and heat. Worlds just like Osova, but with different biospheres and elemental compositions; one had apparently had a purple ocean. Her personal favorites were the cold, icy ones as they were much like her own home. The ease at which she could describe each one made it feel like they were in his own star system, just a short slipspace jump away.
He loved to hear her recount things she had done with her pack, places they had cataloged. Asher didn’t even try to be subtle about it, and Renyu had grown quite fond of the curiosity of her wicker companion. Though, sometimes he worried that he came off as caring more about her adventures than Renyu herself (she assured him that was not the case of course).
After her crash though, she seemed to have lost a lot of that drive to explore. She just wanted to go home, though lately she seemed… conflicted. The two of them had grown rather close, so whenever Asher brought up that she was going to get to go home and get her arm fixed up and finally be around her own kind again, she seemed happy, but also didn’t like the thought of leaving Asher behind.
It warmed his heart, ironically. Knowing she wanted to be with him, that is. But, he wasn’t sure if her race would be alright with a wicker mingling with them; it sounded like they were majority isolationist as well, and Asher was well acquainted with how that tended to work.
Hopefully she could find a way to contact him, or maybe visit if she had the time or resources to do so… he was going to miss her, but he wouldn’t want to keep her here—Asher didn’t even want to stay here himself.
“’Ey, ground control to major fluffy,” Jim’s voice startled Asher out of his thoughts, “Bossman wants us back to the elevator; got enough info for them to send a salvage vessel for this hunk o’ junk. Aaaaaaand… I smooth-talked our way into a vacation! Just enough for me to visit my folks, though. It was the only way I could convince him.”
“Oh, fuck yeah.”
Renyu was going to be so happy.
<<< PREV | FIRST | NEXT >>>
Posted using PostyBirb
Category Artwork (Digital) / Still Life
Species Wickerbeast
Size 2000 x 1333px
File Size 2.81 MB
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