CH18 (99)
It was now 2 months later:
The Moon Shines had left orbit a month ago after having tested the satellite system and verifying that Lucy had access to them.
"I have two cargo ships entering orbit." Lucy tells them all.
Most everyone was in the kitchen eating lunch. "Really? We get nothing for 7 months and 3 in the next 2 months. Can I say weird?" Rick asks looking at Kate.
"Might as well finish eating and see what they want." Kate offers.
Rick and Kate are at the shuttle landing site when Lucy tells them there is one on the way down.
After the rear door opens a man steps out the side. "I presume you are the Castle's."
"I'm Rick and this is my wife Kate. What brings you here?" Rick offers his hand but this guy doesn't know to take it.
"I'm Terry Porthius. I'm the foreman for the construction on your neighboring planet. I'm told that 6 residential domes have already been delivered. Have they been constructed?" Terry was all business.
"They have, they're just north of the shuttle landing zone." Rick points.
"I'm going to need room for three more that I've brought with me. I'm also going to need a separate landing zone to pick up and drop off supplies." Terry informs them.
"Already cleared on the other side of the domes." Rick tells him.
Terry is smiling now, maybe he would like this project after all. "Then we'll build the other 3 domes on the opposite side to store some of our supplies. I've got 2 extra-large shuttles with me. I'm told there is one already here."
"There is, it's sitting at the end of the 6 domes. It's just a parking zone for it when not in use." Rick tells him.
"Good idea. We'll get started on the 3 domes and then start bringing down the supplies. When that has started me and some of my men will to take a look at this planet. I'm told it is your job to feed us. There and here." Terry wasn't asking, or at least it didn't sound like a question.
"Correct. Our kitchen has been expanded. We have more than enough food. We even recently had our first harvest before winter comes. You, your men and we will be fine." Rick knew they had already filled all three silos and were going to need more silos soon.
"Well I need to get to work." Terry tells them and leaves them to supervise the construction of the three domes he brought with him.
"Well, he was fun." Rick comments chuckling.
Kate just slaps his arm and heads off for the greenhouses to help Alexis. Not that she didn't agree though.
It only took a couple of weeks for the two cargo ships to be unloaded. In that time the contractor had come and gone from the site each day. Rick, Kate and Alexis set up turns to take them food each day and shuttle the construction team back and forth when needed.
They ate breakfast with the colonists, had lunch delivered, worked a 10 hour day and ate dinner after most of the colonists were done.
Kate watched Rick getting his gun out. "Going hunting for something?" Kate still couldn't go with him.
"Our new guests are using up what's in the freezer faster. I'm thinking all that work makes them hungrier." Rick chuckles.
"What are you after this time?" Kate was curious.
"Crocs and kangaroo this time. They seem to have developed a taste for both." Rick hadn't seen people eat like these contractors did.
Kate moved to Rick and wrapped her arms around him. "You be careful babe. I don't need you getting injured too."
Rick has already shouldered his weapon and wraps his arms around Kate. "Not to worry, we've got it down to a science now. We take our time and I think we kill more than we need, but we're working on that. We'll be fine." And Rick kisses her. "We'll be back in a few hours."
Kate was in medical doing her physical therapy when Madison and her baby boy came in. "Hi Becks how is PT going?"
"Long, boring but at least it is pain free now." Kate hated doing it but had seen the payoff.
"Just keep doing it Becks, and we'll have you doing more than just walking." Madison tells her while watching the nurse bend her leg.
"Did Dr. Gilligan talk to you?" Kate wanted to know what she thought of the procedure.
"HE DID, and it sounds promising. You would have to spend a few months on Tellus by the sound of it." Madison reminded her.
"I know. Not the part I'm looking forward to. I like Ariel best if I had my choice." Kate didn't really want to go home. Kate had fallen in love with the green of the summer house and Ariel.
"You've got probably over a year to think about it." Madison knew she had time to think about it. Maybe the cosmetic surgery is something Kate wouldn't need.
Since Rick was out hunting Alexis made lunch which was 100% vegetarian. The colonists didn't mind but the construction workers were not quite as enthusiastic about it. However Alexis had brought a lot of it to make up for the lack of meat.
Kate caught up later that night after putting the girls to bed and leaving Alexis to watch them.
Rick was about half way thru his 3rd of 6 crocs when Kate showed up. "SIX! WOW! I don't remember taking that many when we did it." Kate didn't get too close in case his knife slipped.
"We have a system. We pick a group of them and kill them all then sit back and wait. As crocs show up looking for an easy meal we shoot them. When we've waited long enough one hooks up one of the crocs while I shoot anything and almost everything. I think I've killed more pieces of wood than I have anything else, ever.
Then we use the quad to pull it from the river's edge and into the shuttle." Rick explains the process. "I'm just glad the kangaroos and emu's don't fight back." Rick was grinning.
Kate waited until he had the croc in the freezer and before he started on the next one when she came up behind Rick and wrapped her arms around.
"Kate, babe, I'm a mess." Rick tries to shake her off but Kate just holds him tighter.
"No more nightmares?" Kate asks him. Kate hasn't felt any but was hoping he would tell her if he was.
Rick however drops his hands and Kate has her answer, and it breaks her heart. "They're not nightmares in the literal sense but some of my dreams are not exactly happy thoughts." Rick tells her knowing she would want to know now that she has asked.
Kate buries her head into his back. "Why didn't you tell me, I could have helped you. I want to help you. I can't lose you Rick, you mean too much to me." Kate kisses his back.
Rick works on twisting to face her even if he is a mess, she can go take a shower. Which is what he'll be doing when he's done before he starts dinner.
"Dreams are just dreams Kate and some of mine are just weird is all. Considering you sleep on my chest what do you hear?" Rick asks her trying to prove a point.
"I'm asleep silly, what's there to hear?" Kate didn't get his point.
"Precisely my point babe. You sleep with your ear over my heart like you have since we first started sleeping in the same bed. If my heart was racing because of a bad dream it would wake you up wouldn't it." Rick was making his point.
Kate grinned since he had a point. She sleeps calmly listening to his heartbeat. If it was racing she would wake up because it would not be calming.
Kate lifts up on tippy toes to kiss Rick. "I'm going to go take a shower and go find the girls. We'll be back for dinner." Kate pats his chest reaches up to give him another quick kiss, then heads for the showers.
When Kate comes back into the kitchen to eat with everyone, including Madison and Shawn, Kate finds Rick talking with a number of contractors who were here to eat dinner too.
Finally Rick came over with his plate of food. "What did they want babe?"
"They found out that Alexis and I give swimming lessons and guess who doesn't know how to swim?" Rick arched his eyebrows a couple of times.
"Seriously, they are working on a planet that is all water and none of them know how to swim?" Madison's mouth had hit the floor.
"Well I'm told about half do and the other hald don't. So guess who has swimming lessons to do starting tomorrow?" Rick lets them guess.
"Oh, oh I know. … Dr. Gilligan since he was trapped on an island with 6 other castaways." Alexis offers and immediately starts laughing getting Rick to quickly join them.
However all they get from the others are stares not seeing anything funny.
"Maybe the professor will create a time machine that he made out of coconuts and is powered by a bicycle. That he built himself of course" Rick offers, getting both Alexis and Rick to start laughing again and still more stares from the others.
"Are any of them overweight and wear a blue polo shirt and white pants? …. Oh and wear a hat?" Alexis barely gets out while laughing getting Rick to laugh with her.
"No but I have seen a skinny guy that wears a red polo top." Rick adds getting both of them to start laughing again and wiping away tears.
"OK ENOUGH! Explain before I hit you." Kate wanted in on the obvious joke.
Rick and Alexis spent the next half an hour explaining Gilligan's Island. Apparently you had to see the show to enjoy it.
The baby was asleep in Madison's arms and she was thinking of getting up to put him down. "I have found something I think you should see." Lucy pops up on the monitor.
"Forest fire, killer asteroid?" Rick asks, figuring since things were going to well again something bad had to happen.
Lucy simply sticks her tongue out and replaces herself with the image she has of the area. Shawn is the first to look at it. "I think I've seen something like this before." Shawn turns to look at Rick.
Rick gets up to look with Kate right behind him. "Zoom out a little for us Lucy."
"It's in the ocean." Kate notices.
"Not just in it, but on the ocean floor, and it's round." Rick points out.
"Another one?" Shawn thinks he knows.
Rick has caught on too. "Show us the sub pen and this building Lucy."
After Lucy puts it on the monitor. "It's kinda far." Rick points out.
"It looks to be just at the limit, probably just enough time for one quick pass. Nothing more than that." Shawn was willing to take a look.
"You're thinking, …." Kate trails off.
"Yeah, I am actually." Shawn tells Kate.
"It's getting late." Rick points out. "Launch in the morning after we confirm the distance using Lucy?"
"We can do testing first thing in the morning." Shawn wanted to see it.
Kate was puzzled. "Just how many of these things are there?"
"And does Cyliene have one?" Rick adds.
Rick and Shawn were spending the morning going over the systems of their little submarine. It had seen a lot of use lately.
They used the lifting system to push the submarine out over the water still inside the dome, the lowered it down till it was floating. Removing the straps with Rick holding it in place.
As Shawn was sliding into place. "Lucy will keep track of you and you two can communicate. However without a monitor out here you will be on your own." Rick cautions him. Though if Shawn got into trouble there was nothing Rick could do about it anyway.
"I'll be here when you get back." Rick adds as he closes up Shawn tight.
Shawn is cruising while watching his instruments. He was gaining depth slowly as he went. "How am I doing?"
"You are on course but need still more depth." Lucy responds back. While Kate, Madison and the girls watch one of the monitors. Matt was amazingly silent though he was awake.
A little later. "How am I doing? My sounding shows this area is way past my crush depth." If it was much lower Shawn wasn't going to reach it.
"You're doing fine and at the proper depth. Maintain course, you are half a mile out. …. Now at 100 yards." Lucy advises him.
"I'm turning on the main lights." Shawn informs them.
"You are on course, now 500 feet out. Suggest you be ready to maneuver." Lucy warns him.
"I'm turning on all secondary lights. My sounding is coming back weird. It is both my depth and a lot deeper." Shawn informs them.
"You are merging with the target." Lucy warns him. Just as Shawn suddenly changes course.
"I've got it, almost rammed right into it. …. I'm beginning my one and only pass." Shawn informs them with some excitement in his voice. Since his adrenalin was still flowing.
"It's another dome, just like last time. …. Coming around the back side now. …. It looks perfectly smooth. …. My pass is complete. I did not see any windows or doors, just like last time.
I'm decreasing my depth and headed home. There were no lights either. It is sitting on a shelf a few yards from the edge. I couldn't tell if it was sitting on a raised elevation or if there was a mountain side the other side." Shawn goes quiet as he has a long trip back.
"Another Oracle building?" Kate questions. Just how many of these things are there? Was this planet meant for someone else?
"Earth didn't have one, but Tellus, Ariel, Athos and now we do. And if the other planet also has one., …." Alexis trails off not sure what she was thinking.
"If Captain Montgomery goes looking for more colony planets, are we going to find one their too?" Alexis didn't understand.
"Well I'm not worried, this is my last colony planet to set up. Three is my limit." Kate tells them. Besides this one had cost them too much already. "Maybe you can do it pumpkin when you get older. This works because of you anyway." Kate starts smiling at her.
Kate steps over the wrap her arms around her. "Have you thought about what you want to do when I asked you? Your father and I will help you all we can." College was coming up in a few years, and only a few months till Alexis goes away to school. Probably on Tellus.
Rick and she had gotten a chip from Martha telling then that she had accepted a contract to work a multi-series show for a company on Tellus. So she would be moving and wanted to know if that would affect their plans for Alexis.
So Alexis would be going to Tellus in a few short months. Rick and Kate were going to miss her and Kate was sure she was going to cry as she watched her go. However she knew Alexis needed to go. The Castle clan was paying a lot to make sure these colonies worked out at the start.
It was time to get back into a life.
Kate had gone from Tellus to New York City, to colony planets. It was time to get back to what they had in New York City. A thriving city with infrastructure and lots of choices. Kate really wanted to get to their home on Ariel that they had still only seen pictures of.
Tellus was nice but Ariel was better. It was more them, her and Rick. A place to raise their girls.