Chapter 23 - Survey Protocols and Scotch

“The future is not some place we are going, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made. And the activity of making them changes both the maker and the destination.”

—John Schaar

The team filtered in one by one, PAC displays bright on their wrists and laptops clutched against their chests. Ryan dropped into his usual seat with his usual gracelessness, already muttering something about power distribution curves before he’d even sat down. Danny followed, hair still damp, and Chris was already nodding at him from across the table as though picking up a conversation they’d started somewhere else. Luca wondered, sometimes, how Chris did it, just casually being so annoyingly agreeable.

Emily slid into the seat to Luca’s right and powered up her device, back in full professional mode. She smiled at him as she sat down.

Zoe arrived last, moving with that confidence that made subspace look like her natural habitat. She claimed the seat beside Danny, close enough that their shoulders almost touched, and Luca caught the way Danny’s posture straightened slightly at her proximity.

Joey appeared from the galley, wiping his hands on a towel before joining them. His red hair was pulled back in its usual ponytail, and there was flour on his sleeve that suggested he’d been baking. Something yeasty followed him out of the galley, and Luca’s stomach registered it before his brain did. Maybe donuts. Space Donuts. That would make sense.

Luca stood and placed his palms flat on the table. The metal was warm under his hands. “We all know what we’re here for. The System caps Sol at level 60, and this is our shot to break that ceiling.” He let that sit for a second. “But none of that happens if we screw up the charter. The IFC is watching. We’re paying for this ship with data. Survey results. Deliverables. So if we want to go back into those portals and level up, we need to get this survey done. Fast, clean, and by the book.”

He tapped his laptop, and the main screen flickered to life showing a hastily prepared PowerPoint slide with a long list of survey equipment in too small a font, with probes, satellites, telescopes, dozens of devices that would need to function perfectly in an alien star system.

“Primary objective is a complete inventory of all survey equipment. Every probe, every deployable satellite, every sensor package.” He pulled up deployment schedules. “The window for data collection is going to be tight. Just over three months, but Alpha Centauri is an enormous star system. If we discover any planets with an atmosphere or within the habitable zone, we’ll need to land, which will take time away from our survey work.”

Danny’s brow furrowed. “The calibration windows are razor-thin, Luca. The optical arrays alone are going to need three or four days of fine-tuning, and that’s assuming we don’t run into any hardware issues.”

“Better to know what we’re dealing with now than to find out we’re flying blind when we arrive,” Luca said. “I’m dividing us into teams. Joey, Chris, and Zoe, you’re handling the hangar and storage bays. Satellites, the Peregrine, the Percival, and long-range probes. Danny and Ryan, you’re on the science labs. All the precision instruments, the sensitive equipment that needs kid gloves.”

He wanted everything catalogued, down to model numbers, serial numbers, and condition assessments. If a screw was loose, he wanted to know before they hit the system, not after.

“Define ‘kid gloves’ when you’re talking about quantum resonance scanners,” Ryan said.

“The kind that don’t involve taking things apart to see how they work,” Emily said.

“I haven’t broken anything important in at least a day.”

“Questions?” Luca asked.

Nobody had any, which was good.

He powered down the display. “Inventory work starts tomorrow. We’ve got two weeks to make sure everything actually functions when we need it to.”

The scrape of chairs against metal deck plating filled the mess hall as the crew dispersed, laptops tucked under arms and PAC displays going dark, voices already shifting to work mode. The sounds of their conversation faded down the corridor, leaving behind only the steady thrum of the FTL drive.

Luca remained standing at the head of the table, his hands still resting on the warm metal surface. Emily hadn’t moved from her seat, green eyes on the PAC display at her wrist as she scrolled through inventory lists.

“Deployment schedules,” Emily said without looking up. “We need to prioritize the automated sequences.”

Luca lowered himself back into his chair beside her. She angled her wrist toward him, and he leaned in to see the PAC screen, her shoulder brushing against his as she pointed to different sections of the deployment timeline. “The gravitational wave detectors are the most sensitive to initial conditions. If we can get them deployed and calibrated early, they can run autonomous surveys while we focus on the visual spectrum work.”

“Gravitational wave detectors first,” he said. “Because of course they’re the most difficult thing to set up.”

Her finger traced across the screen, and Luca watched her hand more than the data. “The optical arrays are going to need constant babysitting,” she continued. “Danny’s going to be pulling long shifts just to keep them aligned.”

“He can handle it,” Luca said. Kid’s got more patience for technical details than the rest of us combined.

Emily finally looked up from her PAC, and their faces were closer than he’d realized. Her eyes were a lot more fun to look at than the deployment timeline. “What about you? Think you can handle three months of being cooped up in this tin can with all of us?”

The question was light, but she wasn’t talking about the crew in general and they both knew it. “I think I can manage,” he said, quieter now. “The company’s not terrible.”

Emily’s lips curved in a small smile, and she shifted in her chair, angling toward him. “I’ll take that. For now.”

“I aim to please,” he said, and immediately winced at how that sounded. Emily laughed, and Luca decided not to examine too closely why that mattered.

“Do you now?” she asked, and there was mischief in her voice. Her foot moved under the table, and Luca felt the soft pressure of her bare toes against his calf.

Her foot stayed where it was.

“I’m just reviewing deployment schedules,” she said. “Important XO business.”

“You’re going to be the death of me,” he said, quiet enough that it didn’t carry.

“That’s the plan,” she said.

The mess hall door hissed open with a pneumatic sound that made them both jump. Emily’s foot disappeared from his leg so quickly that Luca wondered if he’d imagined the whole thing, but the lingering heat on his skin suggested otherwise. Zoe burst through the doorway, a bottle of amber liquid held high above her head like a trophy.

“Found our alcohol stash!” she announced, grinning like she’d just solved a puzzle that had personally offended her. The bottle caught the overhead lights, refracting them in warm golden patterns across the mess hall walls.

Emily leaned back in her chair. There was a flush on her cheeks that hadn’t been there before. Luca raised his wrist and woke his PAC.

The rest of the crew filtered back in behind Zoe, drawn by her announcement and the promise of celebration. Ryan appeared in the doorway, his eyes immediately locking onto the bottle in Zoe’s hand. “Please tell me that’s not cooking sherry.”

“Single malt Scotch,” Zoe said proudly, setting the bottle on the table with a solid thunk. “Eighteen years old and apparently Joey’s personal stash, judging by where I found it.”

Joey’s face went red. “That was supposed to be for special occasions,” he protested, though he didn’t actually sound that upset about it.

“What’s more special than humanity’s first interstellar voyage?” Chris asked, deadpan delivery, which meant he was definitely enjoying this.

“This,” Luca said, clearing his throat and standing up, “is exactly why we need rules.” He forced himself to focus on the crew around him. “Alcohol is only permitted in the lounge. No exceptions. And only if someone sponsors the night with their personal stash.”

“Supply is limited to what each of us brought,” Luca continued. “But if you choose to sponsor a party or celebration, it’s your drinks that are shared out. And absolutely no drinking during work hours or outside the lounge. The inventory work starts first thing tomorrow, and I need everyone sharp.”

Zoe nodded. “Fair enough. We’re not exactly in a position to call for backup if someone gets stupid.”

“The lounge does need a proper christening,” Joey said, eyes lighting up. “Once we get the inventory work sorted, maybe we could have a proper crew night. Toast to making it this far.”

Emily looked up from her PAC. “We’ve earned it,” she said. She was looking at the table when she said it, not Joey.

Luca caught her eye. She hadn’t forgotten any more than he had. He looked back at the crew before that went somewhere.

“Once inventory is complete,” he agreed. “We earn our celebration first.”

The crew began to disperse again, this time lighter on their feet. Zoe tucked the bottle under her arm and headed for the lounge, while Joey was already talking about what he called “appropriate celebration donuts.”