Big Smoke

Now

Judy trembled, excitement and terror warring with the unexpected boredom of a three-hour checklist and countdown. This was third time she'd done this and each time she'd been achingly aware that this was the riskiest thing she'd ever done.

"Calm down Fluff," Nick—excuse me, Judy thought, Commander Wilde—said. "You're not a rookie."

Judy rolled her eyes, not that he could see it, and took a calming breath, forcing herself to look at the 'Zero-Gee Indicator' hanging off the ceiling. The stuffed toy rabbit stared back, the lights of the capsule's control board reflecting off its shiny black button eyes made it look almost alive.

"All systems Green," Capcom said. "T-minus ten minutes."

It was just her imagination, but Judy could feel the rocket rumble beneath her.

Seventeen years ago

Her uncle Terry was crouching over his HAM radio, fiddling with the knobs and muttering to himself. Judy rubbed her bandaged cheek idly, watching him tune the radio, listening to it hiss and crack. "This is Bravo Uniform November Sierra Alpha Victor come in, SSP, can you hear me?"

Judy held her breath, Uncle Terry had told her that it was unlikely the astronauts on board Space Station Peace would answer, even though it had a HAM radio too. Astronauts in space were busy, and when they weren't busy they were probably resting. They probably didn't have time for a little bunny's questions.

But one answered.

Five years ago.

There was a fox in the briefing room, lounging casually in back with his feet up on the back of the chair in front of him. Judy felt her stride check, her eyes freezing on him as some primitive part of her brain zeroed in on a natural enemy. The fox caught her hesitation and looked at her, grinning a wide, sharp-toothed grin, tongue curling in silent laughter. She froze up, embarrassment over her reaction and discomfort over the fox's presence warring against each other. Judy remembered that MASA was a desegregated workplace, of course there were predators here. He'd earned a place here as much as she had. The fox gave her a half-lidded look of contempt and Judy felt her spine straighten. She marched over to him, determined to start this off right. "Hi!" she said brightly, holding out her paw. "I'm Judy Hopps!"

For a moment she thought he wasn't going to take it, then he reached out and grasped her paw with his much larger one. She couldn't help noticing his much, much bigger claws. It was a little hard for her to judge his age but she thought he was older than she was, maybe in his thirties. No surprise, most astronauts became astronauts after a career doing something else. Judy was well aware that she was the weird one for entering the program right out of college. "Wilde, Nick Wilde," he said, mimicking perfectly Jack Savage's famous movie quote. "Pilot Astronaut."

Judy smiled for real and sat down next to him, feeling slightly relieved she left the Fox-Away at home. "I'm Mission Specialist," she said, "Working on a PhD in Botany."

"Ah, a bunny botanist," Nick snickered. "Cute!"

"Err," she said, cringing a little. "Maybe you didn't know this but while it's okay for a bunny to call another bunny cute, when other animals does it it's a little ehhhh"

"Oh, I knew that," Nick said, leaning back once again and giving her a smirk. "Just teasing you, Carrots."

Judy felt a flash of annoyance and instantly regretted trying to be nice, but the room was filling up and it was too late to find another seat. She'd just have to endure.

Most of the astronaut class were prey, but about a third were predators, and to Judy's surprise no one looked like they weighed over thirty pounds. There was even a sizable cohort of mice, rats, shrews, squirrels, and other tiny animals, nearly a hundred of them sitting at a set of tiny desks placed on top of four medium sized desks. She'd heard of mousetronauts before, but this was the first time she'd seen any.

"Looks like MASA is a bit sizist," Nick said, following her gaze. "Good thing for us."

"Sizism usually favors large animals," Judy said. "Maybe they're worried about mass?"

"Hmm," Nick said, giving the room a half-lidded look, "didn't stop them in previous classes."

And that was true enough. The astronaut who'd spoken to her through her uncle's ham radio was a gazelle.

"I guess we'll find out."

A clicking of hooves announced the arrival of the MASA chief. As if echoing Nick's earlier comment he was a Cape buffalo, huge and imposing. Judy knew from her natural history classes that Cape buffalo had few predators, even back when predators actually killed prey. Maybe lions, working in a group, but not much else. He grinned at them, or rather showed his teeth. They were flat, like most prey, but somehow more menacing than any pred's. Judy swallowed nervously, her ears at attention.

"I am Chief Bogo. Welcome, Recruits, to Zootopia's 23rd astronaut class!" There was a round of enthusiastic clapping. Everyone in this room had worked really hard and beaten out thousands of other applicants to get here. Even Nick clapped, although he did it with a sardonic expression on his face. Judy was considerably more excited, practically jumping up and down in her seat. The buffalo waited a few beats then gestured for silence. "Alright! Settle down!" Gradually the applause died down. Bogo waited until there was complete silence and every eye focused on him. "I should have a nice little speech welcoming all my new brothers and sisters into MASA's little family of spacefarers, but I don't. More than half of you will wash out of the program in six months or less. We will be lucky if a third of you are here in two years. Most of whoever remains might not get a space mission for years. You will spend more time in caves, or under the ocean than you ever will in space. When you aren't diving and doing seemingly pointless teambuilding exercises you will be studying and taking tests or doing outreach at schools. If you are lucky you will be running controls for tests being done up in the SSP as well as experiments down here on Earth. When you aren't doing that, you will be doing paperwork. Lots of paperwork." Bogo's grin was downright nasty. "If you wanted to do actual space exploration, you should have joined JPL. They have robots exploring alien worlds."

Judy knew all this, everyone in the room did, or should anyway. That didn't stop the slightly alarmed pang that hit her in the chest. Years! (of course it would be years, they'd have to train her, and that took time) It was somewhat shocking to hear it all laid out so bluntly, but that was probably a good thing. She took a determined breath. Judy was a farmer's daughter, she knew better than anyone that the best things in life were worth the wait and work. She could do this.

"If you do manage to get a mission your chances of dying go up exponentially," Bogo said. "We have never lost a crew in space, although we've come close. Launch and reentry, however..." his voice trails off meaningfully and Judy shuddered. She'd watched every disaster on Ewetube of course, her mother forcing her to watch them over and over again in the vain hope that Judy would withdraw her application.

"If you wanted a safe career," Nick murmured, "go back to carrot farming."

Judy rolled her eyes. "Farming is one of the more dangerous careers, actually."

"As dangerous as strapping yourself to the top of a giant bomb and launching yourself into space?"

"Got something to add Wilde?" Chief Bogo called out from the stage. Judy blushed as the entire class turned to stare at them, but Nick just gave him a cool look.

"Oh, just all the pilot astronauts who died when their experimental planes crashed, no biggie." Nick made a show of examining his claws nonchalantly but Judy was close enough to feel an odd bit of tension wafting off him.

"Doesn't count." Bogo said. "Didn't happen on a space mission." Judy was watching Nick closely enough to see something that was almost a snarl shift into another sardonic grin. "But yes, that is another risk for some of you." Nick snorted softly.

'Doesn't count,' she thought. Why not? Isn't flying also part of the job?

"Anything else?"

Judy's hand shot up but she didn't wait to be called on. "Why aren't there any larger mammals?" It had been niggling at her since Nick's remark.

"Good question...?"

"Hopps, sir."

"Hopps," he repeated, "If we're going to hit our 2022 asteroid mission and our 2030 goal of a crewed mission to Mars at our current funding level we needed to downsize. Literally. You Pip Squeaks get to be heroes."

You could have heard a pin drop. Between the unexpected slur and the buried lede dropped so casually into the middle of his speech Judy didn't know what to think. They were going to Mars? Her heart pounded and blood rushed in her ears. People had been talking about it for years of course, but she hadn't known that it was official.

"Well now," Nick said as the room broke into applause. "Heroes?" He didn't sound impressed.

"It certainly sounds exciting!" Judy said, almost vibrating in her seat.

"There's such a thing as too exciting, Carrots."

Judy rolled her eyes. "If you didn't want exciting you shouldn't have become an astronaut."

Nick shrugged and stood to leave. "Just following someone else's dream."

That got Judy's attention. She looked up at him and caught the glimmer of emotion in his green eyes but before she could decipher it he flicked on a pair of sunglasses and turned and walked away.