A little insight into what the parents are doing during our last chapter. Featuring Don, our resident comedian who is not paid enough.
Parental Interlude
Maureen Robinson hated not having the answers. Especially for something this important.
"The analysis I did last night of the mineral composition is promising," Hiroki assured her as they sat around his table. Waiting.
"I know," Maureen forced a smile, "Just impatient." Hiroki nodded, placing a cup of tea in front of Maureen as they waited for the computer in front of them to spit out results.
There was a good chance that the samples taken would work in the waste converter. They *were* waste, some sort of animal fecal matter that had hardened to a stone-like consistency. This was their best shot of getting off the planet.
Right now, it was their only shot.
A beep startled Maureen. She nearly knocked her tea over. It wasn't the computer though. The simulation was still running.
The beep came again and Maureen shook her head, chuckling to herself as she looked down at the radio comm on her wrist. A flashing notice on the screen indicated a message.
No sign of Robot.
"Hmm," Maureen frowned at her wrist. She looked up at Hiroki, "Still haven't found Robot."
Hiroki furrowed his brow, forehead creasing, "Perhaps a terrain scan?"
"A single jupiter doesn't have a wide enough range," Maureen shook her head, lips pursing.
"Victor mentioned something about connecting the jupiters to amplify signals," Hiroki pointed out, gesturing with one hand towards the control room.
"Yes!" Maureen grinned, throwing her head back as she snapped her fingers, "It wouldn't help with contacting the Resolute, but it might beef up the scanners."
She tapped out a quick message on her watch. It sent just as the computer beeped. The simulation results popped up on the screen.
"We need to talk with Victor," Hiroki hummed, waving at his daughter across the room to get her attention.
Finally, things were looking up.
Naoko drove the chariot. Maureen sat in the back, already working on calculations for the amount of waste they'd need to create enough fuel for all the jupiters. Hiroki was reviewing photographs from the cave.
A frown was forming on his face, but Maureen was determined to stay positive. They had an answer. A solution. They just had to put it in to action. Preferably sooner rather than later.
"So, this big exciting discovery, is it for living on the planet or getting off of it?" Don West leaned over across the space between their seats to ask Maureen.
She just shook her head at him, "Leaving." He nodded, giving her a thumbs up as he sat back in his chair.
The Dhars' jupiter was in the opposite direction of the Robinsons'. Closer to the now dry river.
It wasn't shocking that John and Will had beaten them there. It was a little surprising that Prisha Dhar was outside chatting with him. Not that Maureen cared at all.
Even if they were laughing.
"You look jealous," Don stated, not even bothering to hide his amusement as he unbuckled his seat belt.
Maureen huffed, "I'm not." He chuckled. She glared.
As they exited the chariot, John immediately approached her, pointing towards Prisha, "Apparently Vijay's been working on a way to connect the jupiters to boost the range of all sorts of systems. Prisha thinks he might have a program for the sensors already."
"That would be incredibly lucky," Maureen raised a brow. She glanced to Prisha, "I thought the idea originated with the communication systems?"
"Vijay is his father's son," Prisha smiled softly nodding towards the jupiter. She walked backwards towards the cargo ramp, turning around as she led them up into the jupiter. They all followed her.
Hiroki chuckled as the music reached their ears. He flashed Maureen a smile, "You know what they say about mathematicians…"
"What?" Will asked, head tilted up.
"That it's not called chaos theory for nothing," Maureen grinned. She and Hiroki laughed, Will smiled. John and Naoko exchanged a look.
"I don't think that's a joke math nerds can legally make," Don squinted at her.
Not everyone appreciates a good joke.
"Victor!" Prisha called out as they walked into the main room of the jupiter. He was humming along with the music - some upbeat classic rock song from the early 20s Maureen barely recognized. A whiteboard full of equations seemed to have his full attention.
Maureen looked over the board, nose scrunching up as she tried to decipher the math. It wasn't anything she was familiar with.
"Victor!" Prisha shouted again, rolling her eyes as he continued to scribble on the board. She approached him, squeezing his shoulder. He jumped about a foot in the air.
She tried not to laugh, really she did, but Maureen couldn't help the smile spreading across her face.
"Oh," Victor cleared his throat as he noticed them all. He capped his marker and gestured towards the table, "Sorry, didn't hear you all come in."
"We saw," John drawled, grinning at Prisha. Maureen frowned. Don snorted.
"What can I do for you all?" Victor asked, leaning forward on the back of a chair.
Hiroki set his laptop on the table in front of Victor and opened up the simulation results, "We may have a way to produce the fuel we need."
Victor arched a brow, head tilting as his eyes read over the results, "We'll need quite a bit of this to get all 13 jupiters into the air." He looked up at Maureen, "I assume you've already started crunching the numbers?"
"I have," Maureen nodded, holding out her tablet across the table. Victor read over it quickly, nodding to himself.
"What do we need to start extracting it from the cave?" Victor asked, looked back to Hiroki.
And now the frown was back.
"I'm concerned about the creature that left all of the waste," Hiroki pursed his lips. His brow wrinkled as he pulled up the photos from the cave, "The size of it all, the quantity, the age - this is from a large creature, and there's remnants of several of that large creature that attacked the beacon."
"An apex predator?" Victor's face pinched together. He stood up, arms folding as he frowned. Hiroki nodded.
Prisha crossed behind Victor, looking at the computer as she leaned over his chair, "Maybe." Her head tilted, "We should investigate the area first, check for threats."
"Investigate?" Don raises a brow, arms crossing, "Is that code for 'hunting a scary monster that might eat us' perhaps?"
"Hiroki, you and Maureen take point," Victor ignored Don as he made eye contact with Hiroki and Maureen, "Use whatever resources you need."
"I'd suggest a tranq gun, if you think it'd work," Prisha added, turning to look at Hiroki. He nodded, lips set in a thin line.
Naoko narrowed her eyes, "You have tranq guns?" Prisha snorted, pushing off from the chair and approaching a cabinet.
Tranquilizers were the least lethal thing strapped into that cabinet. Maureen blinked at the lone rifle and the scope. Everything else she had two of.
"What is that all for?" Maureen looked at Prisha with wide eyes. She shrugged.
"Prepare for the worst…" She tossed one tranq gun to Naoko. Don held out a hand for the second. She kept it, "…the best will catch you by surprise."
"Before you head out for the cave…" John raised a hand, the other on Will's shoulder. Victor glanced towards them both, eyes fluttering as if registering their presence for the first time.
"They want to use Vijay's pet project to scan for the robot," Prisha told him. He nodded, eyes fluttering.
"I should've thought of that," Victor hummed, head turning as he headed for one of the bunks. "Vijay!"
There was no answer. Not even when Victor entered his cabin.
Maureen scanned the room. There was a tablet sitting on the table, unclaimed. She reached for it. The screen turned on and lines of code came to life.
"Is this his?" Maureen held it up. Prisha frowned at it. Victor sighed, head falling back.
"I'll give you one guess where he went," Prisha huffed, pinching the bridge of her nose.
"Does anyone actually need to guess?" Don laughed, pursing his lips as four sets of eyes all glared at him. "Just proving my point there."
Victor grabbed the tablet from Maureen as he crossed the room. He patted John on the shoulder, "Looks like I'm with you Robinson. Let's go."
"Where are we going?" Will asked as they followed him out to the chariot. Maureen pursed her lips, holding in a chuckle.
"Let's get to the cave," Prisha nodded towards the exit, slinging a bag over her shoulder with tranq rounds and her own tablet, "We're wasting daylight."
-.-.-
"Master Chief Robinson, I heard you were on this mission."
Maureen turned to see a woman smirking at her husband. Estranged husband? It was hard to tell lately.
"Sergeant Dhar!" John had laughed, reaching out a hand to shake the woman's hand. She uncrossed her arms to take it. "I didn't expect to see someone like you here. Figured they'd have to order you out of the field when you retire."
The woman shrugged, head tilting to the side, "Same as you, I expected." Her eyes shifted over to their kids. Her smile softened as she looked at them.
All of them were asleep in the plastic seats over their designated embarkation zone. Maureen watched her assess Judy and Will briefly before her eyes narrowed on Penny. She frowned.
Her voice lowered, "Keep that girl close to home, Robinson."
John's head barely moved, but Maureen knew when he was nodding. Her brow furrowed.
"Noticed the ratio huh?" John sighed, head shaking. He raised a hand to drag it down his face
"I *always* know the ratio, Robinson," she clapped him on the shoulder before she started to walk away. Her voice was light then, half laughing, "And do me a favor, try not to clock my husband when you meet him eh? I get jealous real easy."
Maureen stiffened as John laughed, head ducking as he turned around to walk back towards them. Their bags were all on board. It was just the five of them waiting for the transport up to the Resolute now. There were other waiting areas. All of them full of colonists.
"Who was that?" Maureen asked, frowning at the woman's back as John took a seat beside Will. It was the closest they'd been to alone since he'd joined the mission, their son sleeping between them.
"Friend from a deployment," John smiled, the curve of his lip highlighting the lines in his tired face, "Nice to know I'm not the only grunt being shot in to space."
Shifting in her seat, Maureen huffed, "Hiroki's daughter is a military pilot."
"Not the same," John shook his head, "Naoko'll be a godsend if we need to fly out of a jam, but if we run in to real trouble, we'll all be happy Prisha's got our back up there." He shrugged, leaning forward to meet her eyes, "You wondered why I would vote for a mathematician as our colony rep?" He gestured in the direction Prisha had walked, "She's why."
"You voted for Victor because you know his wife?" Maureen's eyebrows rose high, mouth falling open.
She couldn't understand his attitude. At all! Who expected to need military backup for a mission like this? They were colonizing an uninhabited planet!
"What exactly do you think we're going to find up there?" Maureen asked him, eyes darting to Judy and Penny as they shifted in their sleep.
John shrugged, leaning back, not breaking eye contact, "Prepare for the worst, the best'll catch you by surprise."
-.-.-
"So…" Maureen cleared her throat, eyes darting between Prisha's face and the gun in her hand, "You and John served together right?"
"We served in the same theater at the same time," Prisha barely glanced at her, eyes on the landscape outside the chariot.
The ones looking at her were Hiroki and Naoko in the front two seats. Their eyes had done a quick check over their shoulders, almost synchronized, before turning back.
At least they were trying to ignore what was surely the most awkward conversation she'd ever attempted to initiate.
"My unit pulled his team out of a sticky situation at one point," Prisha finally turned her gaze on Maureen.
Swallowing, Maureen nodded, "Well, thank you then, I guess."
Prisha nodded, head turning back towards the window.
"You came to see him when we were waiting to board the Resolute," Maureen tried again. Hiroki muttered something in Japanese in the front seat. Maureen ignored him, "You made a comment… about him not punching your husband?"
Maureen did not expect the snort.
"Victor's a bit of an ass, I'm sure you've noticed," Prisha drawled, eyebrow rising as she looked at Maureen again. She nodded. Prisha mirrored the action, "Given he married me after I decked him at his sister's wedding, I generally prefer no one else punches him. It's a thing."
"Oh." Maureen hummed, pursing her lips. She fidgeted. Prisha waited.
"Anything else?"
Mouth falling open, Maureen failed to find the words. She stuttered out the beginning of at least three.
"I'll take that as a no."
"Well, that wasn't as awkward as I was expecting," Don cleared his throat. Both women looked back at him, strapped in to a seat in the back of the jupiter. He gave Maureen a double thumbs.
The tension in the jupiter dropped. Maureen rolled her eyes. Prisha laughed. And the Watanabes let out a collective breath.
Reviews Always Appreciated!