I stared out the shuttle window at the purple ocean below as we zipped along just above the surface towards the shore. It was much smaller than the bridge and not as outfitted with fancy stuff, but instead was designed for reusable, reliable transport. We were all crammed in the small space with our meagre belongings. Another shuttle had been tasked with trying to tug the bridge to shore. By now, there was a whole operation going on that I wasn’t remotely involved in.

  People were crowding around the windows on the opposite side to try to get a glimpse of our destination. I was just happy to have a comfortable chair all to myself. Tobias sat between Nicole and I, busily tapping away on his tablet. Doing important… Tobias things.

  He was not a nice man. But he wasn’t incompetent either. I tried to hold out hope that all would be well, especially now that we had arrived on N7. But Nicole was still leaking lubricant, and no one except me seemed to care.

  “Where are we going to be sleeping?” I asked Tobias.

  “Hmm?” he asked, glancing up.

  “Where will we be sleeping? Will we build log cabins like in that movie we watched?” I repeated.

  “No, not log cabins,” he chuckled. “Though shelter is what I am currently trying to organize,” he offered with a flat smile before turning his attention back to whatever he was doing.

  Nicole leaned forward to see me. “I do not know if you have been informed…” she trailed off, glancing at Tobias, who was still tapping away. “The atmosphere is near ideal, however, with an overabundance of oxygen. To avoid oxygen toxicity, special masks will be required for prolonged exposure outdoors. Additionally, while water is plentiful on N7, it will cause burns upon contact due to the greater acidity.”

  “Yes, thank you, Nicole,” Tobias muttered, waving a hand in her direction. “Hence why finding proper shelter for all of us is so complicated. If the bridge can successfully be transported, then odds are you will continue to enjoy the amenities of your closet.”

  “Thank you for explaining,” I said, giving Nicole a warm smile.

  “Not a problem,” Tobias replied.

  I adjusted myself in my seat and turned to look back out the window. I could make out the shore in the distance, where the purple water met a reflective rocky beach. The other shuttles awaited our arrival amongst large, nearly vertical rock columns that climbed erumpunt into the crystalline blue sky. Strange curling trees with purplish pink leaves were clustered around the bases. I had never seen anything like it.

  This was my home. The place I would be for the rest of my life. Where I would eventually decompose. It was only now, finally settling it that there would be no returning, and now that everything had largely fallen apart, that was certainly the case. I would see the same thick blue sky with black clouds every day; the same magenta flora and deep purple ocean.

  Was I excited? I didn’t think so. Would anything really be different? Well, the rest of my life suddenly had the potential to be rather short. Tobias had promised things would be different, again and again, those same words. But different from what? The journey here? I was not old enough to have any past to differentiate. Unless Tobias became an utterly different man, even if he did, nothing would be different, just new.

  I was oddly sad as we reached the shore, and I did not know why.

  We landed with a thud. Officers began distributing pullover glass masks amongst themselves as they prepared to disembark. Those who had them threw on coats and layers. It seemed so very dangerous to simply walk out that door. No one had space suits, and while they had run tests, how could they possibly know for sure it was safe?

  Perhaps this was why I was not part of the crew but instead the Baron’s wife.

  “You two stay here,” Tobias ordered. “I’ll be back soon.”

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “We have work to do,” he replied, pressing a passing kiss to the corner of my mouth. “Be brave,” he told me seriously before snatching a mask from a nearby officer and heading towards the airlock.

  “What work?” I immediately turned to Nicole. “Do you know what is going on?”

  “No,” Nicole shook her head. “I am out of the loop. It is… strange to be so… disconnected. Everything is so quiet, no signals, no data servers, nothing,” she frowned, wiping a trickle of lubricant from her nose.

  Slowly, people began to trickle out of the shuttle. Few stayed behind; most of them were busy with something or another. The communications officer from the bridge was speaking with someone through an earpiece. The captain and a few others were deep in discussion. There were no alarms, no screams or panic. A few people walked around to my side of the shuttle. I saw one woman staring out at the sea, she picked up a rock and tossed it in. Brushing off her hands with a smile to herself, she turned around and walked back out of view. Happy, she had seemed happy.

  “Well, we are in the same boat then,” I chuckled, turning back to Nicole. “I am almost always out of the loop.”

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  Nicole did not laugh at my joke. In her defence, I was not very good at them.

  My back twinged painfully, and I shuffled to adjust myself in my chair. I was trying to ignore my body. “Is there anything I can do to help?” I asked. “Some way to stop the leak?” I added, pointing to my own nose.

  “No,” Nicole shook her head. “But thank you for offering. The rupture is too internal to reach manually. And it is a good thing the lubricant is coming out; a buildup could cause more problems.”

  “Okay,” I sighed. “If you’re sure.”

  I turned to look out the window. I strained to see as much as I could.

  “Let’s go outside,” Nicole decided.

  “What?” I blinked.

  “It’s been months since you have stood on solid ground,” Nicole huffed. “Let’s go outside.”

  “Oh…” I muttered. Her decision had totally caught me off guard. “Okay.”

  Nicole grabbed a mask for me and secured it over my face. “There,” she hummed, helping me up. “Let’s get you some fresh air. It might do you some good.”

  “Are you sure it’s safe?” I asked anxiously as I followed her into the airlock.

  “Absolutely. Hold your breath,” Nicole instructed before hitting a few buttons on the keypad. There was a whoosh, and then everything went utterly silent. I wouldn’t have dared to breathe even if she hadn’t told me not to.

  Then the door slid open, the air rushing into the vacuum pocket. I sucked in my first breath of air on N7. It tasted… it smelled… well, pretty much the same.

  Nicole smiled and offered me her arm. I looped mine through hers without embarrassment as she helped me down the stairs towards the beach below.

  “How do the masks work?” I asked. “I only know the kind that’s entirely closed, with tanks.”

  “The kind you are wearing is more of a filter calibrated to human requirements. It makes sure you are breathing in the correct amount of all sorts of things,” Nicole explained. “It will also protect you from most harmful gases. However, it can only filter out what you do not want, not provide what you need. Does that make sense?”

  “So… if there was no oxygen, I would still y’know… suffocate?” I frowned, squinting against the sun.

  “Yes, exactly,” Nicole nodded. “But unless specific conditions arise, you will not have any problems on N7. Even without the mask, it would be better to breathe the air here than nothing at all. Just limit exposure as much as possible.”

  “I’m really glad you’re a doctor,” I sighed contentedly. That made Nicole seem extra safe.

  She had no response to that.

  I took a moment to take in the alien planet, my feet sinking into the rocky sand. Holy fuck, I was touching solid ground. I blinked back tears as I gazed out at the endless purple ocean. Mimicking the woman I had seen earlier, I crouched down and picked up a bigger rock. I tossed it into the water, where it landed with a plunk.

  I took a shuddering breath and laughed as the salty air blew my hair every which way.

  A wave crashed on the beach, water sloshing towards us. Nicole tugged me back, out of the way as the water rolled over the rocks and back again.

  “If it soaks through your clothes, it will burn you,” she gently reminded me.

  Suddenly, my profound sense of freedom turned to panic. My own stupidity had already almost gotten me hurt.

  “I… I didn’t—“ I gasped out, trying to find the words as I searched Nicole’s face for something.

  She gently rubbed my back. “It’s alright.”

  I nodded. Somehow, something so simple was enough to calm me down despite the irrational hormones coursing through my veins day after day. I let out a sigh.

  “It really is beautiful,” Nicole spoke up.

  “Yeah,” I smiled. The ashen clouds against the rich blue sky looked like empty pockets of space itself. The sun, approaching the horizon, made the water glimmer.

  It felt utterly unreal to be standing on another planet.

  “I didn’t know you could refuse his orders,” I eventually said neutrally. Admittedly, I was curious about her. Only recently I had been able to peel back some of the layers. I didn’t look at her, I didn’t want it to feel accusatory. Simply offering the topic, should she care to comment.

  “I am an older model, from back when they thought equipping synthetics with enhanced emotional processing and abstract thought capabilities would not backfire,” Nicole began up after a lengthy silence. “Tobias is, of course, supposed to perform routine memory clipping, but instead simply delegates my maintenance to myself.”

  “Oh,” I mumbled. “Um… would it be rude to ask how old you are?” I ventured.

  “Almost eight now,” Nicole frowned slightly. “Time certainly flies.”

  I nodded, deciding to just take her word for it. “Does he know?” I ventured. “If he doesn’t, I promise not to tell. I’ll even do a pinky swear.”

  Nicole chuckled, a small discordant laugh. She held out her fist, pinky finger extended.

  “I saw this in a movie,” I explained, squeezing her pinky with my own. “I solemnly swear never to spill your secrets.”

  “And I swear never to divulge yours,” she replied seriously.

  I grinned. I felt so stupid and yet impossibly important. It meant everything.

  “I don’t know if he knows,” Nicole continued. “I disconnected myself from the central server years ago. Actually, at his request. There had been a data breach, and he can be a tad paranoid. Regardless, his administrator privileges do not mean anything anymore.”

  “That must be nice,” I replied. “But why stay? If you’re free, you could do anything. And you’re the smartest person I’ve ever met, so you can doubly do anything,” I chuckled.

  Nicole rolled her neck, sparing me a glance before turning back to admire the sun. “I’ve… considered it. But it would do me no good. I require maintenance, which is expensive, and no one would hire me without an administrator. Even being as unsupervised as I am is technically against Imperium law. Ironically, I would have less agency. So I stay. It lets me focus on my research.”

  “I’m sorry,” I offered. “I didn’t know it was like that for synthetics.”

  “I have it extraordinarily good,” Nicole smiled.

  I chuckled. “It’s weird. We’re both kinda stuck, but for opposite reasons. I know practically nothing. I wouldn’t even know how to go about escaping. And you know everything—“

  “I certainly do not know everything,” Nicole huffed.

  “Well, not everything, but you know enough to know what you don’t know. And thus you have to stay. Whereas I have to stay because I don’t know how to leave,” I corrected.

  “That is very astute,” Nicole complimented.

  I smiled, a faint blush burning at my cheeks. My heart was thudding in my ears. Escape. I had never considered escape. Discomfort had always been something to endure. But my mind was racing unhindered.

  Not that we could escape now. Or that it was even a good idea, or had ever been. But the very premise of considering it, of letting some high-stakes fantasy play out in my head like a movie was... so freeing. I felt… human.

  Like I wasn’t just an Uxor created to birth and raise children. I didn’t even know if I liked children. I had only seen a handful before, never even interacted with them. I was fairly sure I was having an existential crisis, but in the best way.

  None of this mattered in the real world. We had crash-landed on N7 after all. But it gave me another life to imagine – one with a different husband.