Empty Toward The Moon

Chapter Seventeen

I looked at Cade and Gianni, then Phill, pleading with my eyes for them to consent to my request. The whole room was silent for a moment, then both Cade and Gianni sat down either side of me, sandwiching me in. Without a word they surrounded me with a familial love that I'd not even had from my own ever loving parents before.

[This is something I do not understand. They haven't said a thing but I believe your emotional receptors are in overload. Will you begin crying again, Cia?]

Shut it, Nova! I growled loudly in my mind.

"You guys are horrible, making me cry." I grumbled out loud.

"You started it." Cade murmured like a preteen adolescent.

"I think we now understand your request, and I believe we can give you what you require." Gianni squeezed my hand that I didn't even know she was holding. Mocha and Latte were included on the love-fest when Mama Quadrozzi pulled them both down onto the floor before us so she could pat their heads. They sat frozen stiff, unsure what was going on. It made me sad to see they obviously had no idea what non-sexual love and physical touch felt like.

"There's a little dusty moon, way out past the outskirts of the Omicron Corp sector. You wouldn't know it exists unless you come across is accidentally. It isn't on any known astronav maps. We've only been there once, but the logs in my cache still have the coordinates. Want me to make arrangements, Boss?" Phill looked up on his BrainComp then projected it onto the office room's holo-projector. Data for the F class star system, the gas giant and the tidal locked moon was shown on the monitor.

Nova, you getting this? What do you think? I asked my digital friend.

[For what we require and for the length of time we require it, I believe this location will suffice. Our needs should be met on this moon, as long as there is no large dangerous predators. You can't fight to save yourself.]

I huffed at his last remark. Being around the Quadrozzi Clan members has irrevocably changes Nova's humour algorithms and his sarcasm has grown in leaps and bounds.

"It is basically a dust ball, hazy air, dirty water. It is mostly rock and stunted forest growth. You'd have to take a large supply of air and water filters, but it could work." Phill spun the world map about to show a smallish moon pock-marked with craters and forest clearings. It was dark and bleak, but I knew I could make this work.

"No one would expect a high flying débutante and business heiress to place herself on a moon like this to live alone. This is perfect." I pretend to watch the holo-projector that Phill has his information displayed on, but Nova was well ahead of him.

[The moon is tidally locked to a gas giant planet that orbits an F class star. Days are 12 Earth days long, six days in cloud filtered sunlight, six day of darkness that get down to freezing during the cooler months. Due to the nature of being tidally locked, there is a twelve hour eclipse each day cycle.] Nova began rattling off stats on the moon for my personal database.

[The moon has a thick atmosphere that is breathable, but particles are blown around the planet due to its stormy weather condition, making it difficult for humans to survive without some sort of filtration apparatus. The weather is windy and humid, the forests mostly black or dark green in colour, and the water is never clean.

[Food options include the black vegetation found in the jungles on the surface that faces the gas giant as nothing grows on the other side of the moon. Fungi, fruit and small rodent such as creatures that burrow.