"Aaaand stop!" Donovan pulled his hands off of Titanyana's prompting her to do the same to the controls. "Congratutions Titanyana! You have just performed your first nding! How do you feel?"

  "Exhausted." Titanyana wasn't about to tell her the reasons behind her exhaustion, the close proximity and partial hand holding having stressed her out way more than it should have.

  "Ehe, yeah. I guess its the same for everyone." Donovan ughed off her exhaustion, reaching around her to flip whatever switches and press whatever buttons were necessary to turn the Pegasus off. "Landings are much harder than takeoffs, and are far more important to operating a vehicle safely. Even if it was assisted, this is a big milestone for you."

  A hand nded softly behind one of her ears and began to scratch, causing her to blush furiously. Fortunately the purveyor of such pleasure was behind her, unable to witness the depths to which she was melting.

  "Now, let's get out of here. We've got work to do." Donovan grabbed Titanyana by the armpits and pulled her off of his p.

  "Weren't you going to head back up?" Diana leaned in for a kiss as he crawled himself out of the recess. "Arc's little factory still needs to be set up, right?"

  "It'll work where its at right now. I can drag it into a geosynchronous orbit ter." He pnted a smooch on her cheek. "Our little welcoming party included some people I would not describe as the bureaucratic sort."

  "Your type of person then?"

  "More like the type of person I am going to be directing. You've got a change of clothes, right?"

  "Yes dear, I have enough packed up for a week." Diana rolled her eyes. "Can you tell me why it is you'll be gone for so long?"

  "Setting up the factory and investigating Sol, as well as a bit of system mapping for Ambrosia. It isn't like you won't be able to contact me, you know?" The factory Arc constructed possessed the ability to receive and rey communications and data. One of it's first orders of business was to add AM radio functionality to that capability suite. "You've got much more important work to do down here."

  "Investigating Sol? That's so vague I don't even know where to begin."

  "Then don't." Donovan closed the door behind them, slipping on some pants and a shirt over his flight suit. "It might hurt morale."

  "It's just a bck site, right?"

  "I'm not going there to set up a bck site, Diana!" Donovan raised his voice slightly, hinting at just how often this conversation had cropped up. "At least, I'm not making one yet. We've got much more important things to dedicate resources to."

  "Oh, so you'll be scouting for a good location?" She assumed an accusing tone.

  "No-I, fine. I want to investigate the remnants of our sor system, get an idea of what exactly happened to Sol, and see if we've been left any resource or data caches." Donovan decided now was the time to get her off his back about the matter. Two truths, one lie, an absurd one at that. He really didn't want Diana to know about his other business there, at least not yet. "They managed to get the Noah operable, who's to say they didn't scrap together some instaltion capable of something simir?"

  "You think they wouldn't have told us about such a pn?" Diana raised an eyebrow, clearly suspicious of his intentions. "Do you think the Arboreal Maiden wouldn't have told us?"

  "We, that being Arc and I, were operating under radio silence for a long time before shit hit the fan. I'd wager they tried something to give us a hand, and they certainly had the time to do so. I also seem to recall the Arboreal Maiden was the one who made a certain decision pertaining to our fate," Donovan didn't want anyone else to know what 'Chestnut' had done. She still had a great deal of power over them, and that getting out would certainly hurt their retionship, "and that you were the one who got angry about it!"

  "That's . . . why didn't you talk to me about this?" She was still skeptical, but her suspicious attitude had begun to falter. "

  "Because I didn't want to get your hopes up, Diana." Donovan was really hoping he could sell this to her. "I didn't want to give you expectations for the future that are just gonna be broken anyways."

  ". . . you don't even sound like you believe it yourself."

  "Because I don't!!! I don't think for a second that anything could have survived that barrage, and yet there's this little pesky little voice in the back of my skull that keeps telling me to make sure."

  ". . . just a week?"

  "I promise. The locations on my list are Terra, Luna, Mars, Venus, Mercury, their associated Lagrange Points, the Sor Observation Range, as well as Stations Lambda-Negative-Sodium and Mu-Equals-Hydrogen." Donovan hated the naming convention of research satellites, especially since their names were an encryption of their coordinates. "Arc says that's where the majority of research on the topic of Split was being conducted."

  "I see. Well in that case, best of luck. Tell me if you find anything." Diana's spirits were dampened slightly, likely because she perceived a ck of trust. "And you will be taking a day off when you get back. I want to go on a date, maybe have a picnic, and take a moment to appreciate our new home."

  "Your terms are acceptable."

  - - - - -

  The whirring of the bay door being lowered echoed back towards them as they exited the elevator, the blinding sunlight beyond the threshold obscuring what it should have instead revealed.

  ". . . this will be Mercedes' first time seeing sunlight, won't it?" Donovan had put a colr and leash on the dog so that she wouldn't go wild outside.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, she was born on the Calibration, was transferred to the Noah once she could live without her mother, and has lived on the Great Csilcra ever since." Donovan tried to recall what it was like onboard the Oberlux. "She's never been pnetside."

  "Really?" Diana too fell into thought. "I mean, I guess that's right? Will she care?"

  Donovan looked at the derpy creature, tongue lolling out of the side of her mouth as her tail wagged up a storm of shedding fur. There were definitely thoughts going on in that little noggin of her's, none of them to do with the source of that light.

  "Probably not."

  "She doesn't strike me as one who gets concerned about such things." Titanyana offered her assessment. "Shall I hold the leash?"

  "Can you handle her?" According to Diana, Titanyana had been learning some of the commands for Mercedes. Apparently she wanted to act as the intermediary between her people and the dog. "She's pretty strong."

  "I know. Mercedes?" Her head snapped to Titanyana, ears at attention. "Sit."

  Mercedes wasn't quite sure whether she should sit or continue walking with everyone, leading to an awkward situation where she never quite sat down, but she wasn't exactly walking either. This sudden not-quite-stopping led to Petunia stepping on Mercedes' tail. She immediately scampered back towards Donovan, cowering behind him.

  "I apologize miss Mercedes."

  "Sorry, Mercedes."

  "Don't worry about her, you two." Donovan scratched her scalp, fully aware she was just dramatizing the incident for affection. "You can have her. Just be careful not to hurt yourself. She's probably strong enough to dislocate your shoulder if she charges."

  "I will keep that in mind." She accepted the leash as one might a ceremonial sword, holding with a death grip as she carefully reached for Mercedes' ears. "Good girl."

  Donovan really wanted to ugh, but he knew that would damage her enthusiasm for further interaction. Titanyana was way too stiff around the dog.

  "Hello!" Diana waved to the mass of people assembled at the bottom of the ramp, just on the edge of the concrete nding ptform.

  "Good day to you as well." The man in charge on there end, a taller man with an eyepatch, hailed them from his end as well. "Would you like us to come inside?"

  "No, that won't be necessary. I think we'd all like to get some sunshine." Diana stretched a little bit as she descended, basking in the sun's warmth as it climbed up her body. "Seppard, right?"

  "I'm gd you remember. It has been quite a while since st we spoke." He offered a hand.

  "No offense, sir, but I think it would be difficult to forget a countenance such as yours." She shook his hand. In all honesty she would have preferred Donovan assume this leadership role, but she really wanted control over this conversation.

  "Aha, none taken. If you don't mind my asking, where are Kayes and his disciple?"

  "Sleeping." Diana took a look around while speaking, remarking at the beauty and 'natural-ness' of the environment. Pine trees (or at least something approximating pine trees) surrounded a shallow river valley leading out into the sea. There was a retive ck of brush in the vicinity, the majority of vegetation in the valley being grasses with a few isoted groves of trees. "They'll be out soon, I'm sure."

  "I see." Seppard proceeded to shake everyone else's hand, giving them a moment to absorb the sights of 'home' before returning to business. "I suppose some introductions are in order."

  - - - - -

  "So . . . you do realize this is almost certainly a floodpin, right?" Donovan zoomed out on the tablet, pced atop some stacked crates so the relevant parties could see. "We may have been here for all of ten minutes, but we know full well how rivers work."

  "Ah, er, not anymore it isn't." The gentleman in the hard hat(?) and overalls, Bardrum, was the one to respond. "We aren't sure when, perhaps about 20 to 30 years ago based on the growth of trees along the forest line, the rger river that fed into this basin diverted course. I don't know if you saw it on your way down, but it's the big motherfucker that meets the sea about 250 miles north of here. One of our teams made an expedition upstream a few weeks back to investigate, and sure enough there were signs of a flow redirection. Probably a ndslide."

  He was the head engineer for one of the Theocracy's Disaster Response teams, groups of talented individuals trained in rge scale natural disaster relief and reconstruction efforts.

  "Uh-huh, and there's still enough flow for that?" Donovan gestured towards the river, which was fairly rge despite the ck of significant rainfall.

  "The tributaries after that point weren't cut off, and we are at the tail end of a wet season."

  "Got it. Now for my second question. Why here?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "The innd hills and heavy forests are going to limit outward expansion quite significantly. This region is also going to get hammered with snow once winter comes, which we aren't equipped to handle at the moment." The Holifanians had, rather foolishly in Donovan and Arc's opinion, decided to settle on a titude of roughly 58 degrees. Not only was this well into the seasonal snow zone for Nectar, but it was within the updraft region between two Hadley Cells at about 60 degrees titude. This meant lots of precipitation, which would make construction a living hell for all involved. "I mean, you guys know about wet belts and dry belts, right?"

  "We do, but we decided that this pce was the best spot anyways, and there are three reasons."

  "Do tell." Donovan wasn't sure if abandoning this spot was a strict necessity considering how much effort had already been put in, but it wasn't his first choice.

  "This pce has wood, water, and arable nd in abundance. Water and nd should be obvious, those two being crucial for any successful civilization, but wood is way more important. It's a building material and fuel source, these pines being particurly useful for both of those things, meaning that the more we gather and put to use here, the less stuff we have to import. This lets us prioritize the import of manufactured goods we don't have a way to produce ourselves."

  "Hmm." Donovan pondered this. He wasn't comfortable with wooden buildings being the primary form of residence, their proclivity towards burning, rotting, and other forms of damage implied a greater degree of risk compared to other materials, but it would definitely be the easiest to construct for a bor force cking a sufficient industrial and logistic support. "Your justification makes sense. I definitely want a settlement in a drier spot though, if only to make sure we don't lose everything to one natural disaster. I'm not entirely sure I trust this pin to stay unflooded."

  "You'll have no objections to that on our front boss. We'd actually like to get a settlement more innd, away from the coast."

  "How will you get your ships in? I will not approve a nd route at this juncture."

  "A ke or sufficiently slow moving river is all a galley needs to nd. Saltwater isn't a necessity." The captain of the survey corps answered the question in a manner-of-fact tone. "I understand how that might not be something you know given . . . that, but it's common practice. Not every city is on the coast, you know."

  "So why haven't we done that yet?"

  "Part of it is waiting for winter so we know which areas will freeze over enough to become effectively inaccessible, while the other part being that there are a great many more viable ke and riverside options than coastal."

  "Coastal waters are easier to nd in though."

  "Got it . . . I know you all don't want to talk about it, but have we put any consideration into utilities? Water and Wastewater? Electric? Roads? Stormwater management and erosion control?"

  "As much as I'd love to dip my toes into liquid utilities, we really don't have the manpower, tools, time, or cargo capacity to deal with trenching and piping, much less the design."

  "Arc can handle the design."

  "That doesn't solve the prior issues though. I'm sorry to say it, but we'll have to handle sewage with the old hole-in-ground method."

  "Septic field?"

  "Maybe for a few locations, but not at a rge scale."

  "Fuck." Donovan knew that it was going to be a nightmare to add in a rge scale wastewater management system ter. "What about water?"

  "It'll have to be communal wells and rain collection systems." Bardrum shrugged. They just didn't have the capacity to handle excavation and pipe instaltion. "We're doing everything we can with regards to erosion control though. Textile nets are light compared to pipes."

  "And roads?"

  "It's a lost cause at this point. The soil here is too soft for anything heavier than a horse, and we don't have a quarry for gravel yet. We are working on it, trust, but it's still three or four months out on the current schedule." He sighed, clearly having his own share of trouble with the roads. Transporting manpower and material to project sites could be a bigger problem than designing or constructing the damn thing. "And before you even ask about electricity, I'd like to ask what we'd even use it for at this juncture. I mean, if you build the pnt and supply the wire, I'd be more than happy to have my guys put up some poles for you, but as far as I'm concerned a slightly more convenient means of lighting doesn't justify the effort at this point."

  Donovan groaned. Bardrum was right, but at the same time he was wrong. There was no way they could afford electric infrastructure at the moment with their current construction capacity, but failure to consider it now would require everything to be rebuilt ter.

  "Whatever, it's a problem for the future at this point." He had resigned himself to reality. They weren't going to get this right the first time around. "I severely overestimated our construction capacity."

  "How so?"

  "Even on the low end I expected a rudimentary gravity sewer, one without a treatment pnt."

  "A what?" Bardrum and a few of his compatriots donned confused expressions.

  "A wastewater treatment pnt, so that we aren't polluting the waterways with excrement and chemical waste."

  "So . . . a settlement and skimming basin?"

  "Huh? No, you can't just do that. There's bacteria and toxic chemicals in that water. You need to put it through a bunch of process to ensure that . . ." Donovan watched, incredulous, as his audience only grew more confused instead of understanding. "You guys just put it all out into the water?!"

  "I mean, yeah? I'd advise against swimming near an outfall because of the chemicals, but it isn't like a bacterial infection has ever posed a serious threat to anyone not already at the end of their life. Any treatment is best saved for when we put it in the pipes."

  cakeonfrosting