His sister made a face at him. “That's because your dives should be restricted, period. The poor girl will end up warped for life after five minutes.” She absently patted Lana on the hand. “Not to mention you've probably already worked her into some of them, so she might find herself in some sort of twisted intimate encounter with herself.”
Barix was quiet for an uncomfortable few seconds. “I can neither confirm nor deny that accusation.”
There was an audible squeak as Dax rotated his chair to face towards them, as if he rarely moved it from its usual position. His expression was as blank as always, but Lana caught a faint flush around his neck. “Captain, I'd like to formally complain about the unprofessional behavior towards our new crew mate.”
“So would I,” Aiden agreed sourly. “Seriously, Ishiv, it's well beyond creepy at this point.”
“Agreed,” Ali said in tones of deep disapproval. “Fifty thousand years in space, yet for supposedly one of the most advanced humans among us you're by far the most brutish.”
“Says the Captain's personal sex robot,” the slight man shot back snidely, drawing himself up in affront as he turned back to Aiden. “I'm well aware of the proper codes of conduct, Captain. I didn't bring any of this up, and what I do in my own mind, or by extension in full immersion, is my own business.”
“In that case keep it there, or it'll become my business,” the captain growled. “I'd be only too happy to scour your filth from my ship's computers.”
Barix scowled, turning to focus on his station. “Noted.”
Lana wasn't sure what to think about any of this. Although common sense told her it was probably best not to think about it at all. “Anyway, I got to visit Homeworld!” she announced into the awkward silence, going back to the original subject. “It was the most wonderful thing I've ever seen!”
Belix made a noise that sounded a lot like squee and threw her arms around her, hopping up to kiss her on the nose. “Oh Lana, you're absolutely precious! I just want to wrap you up in a big bow and carry you around everywhere with me!”
She shifted uncomfortably in the elfin woman's hug. That seemed physically impossible, since Belix was so much smaller than her.
“It's with great relief that I can end this conversation by announcing we're about to enter Callis 1's atmosphere,” Aiden abruptly announced. “For reasons of safety, crew are advised to wear restraining harnesses while maneuvering in atmospherics, especially as the colony has recently been hit by a moderate storm and the weather is still choppy. For reasons completely unrelated to safety, let's also spend the rest of the trip in silence.”
Lana was only too happy to wiggle out of Belix's grip and make her way over to her terminal near Dax, getting his help buckling herself in since it was the first time she'd needed to do it. He also showed her how to magnetize the moveable terminal to the deck, so it would remain firmly in place during extreme turbulence and maneuvers.
“I always win the quiet game!” Barix said cheerfully. “Just watch!”
His sister snorted as she finished buckling her own restraints. “If that was a real game you'd be the worst person at it ever. Which is too bad, because your inability to keep your smug self-congratulation about your own wit to yourself means we all lose, too.”
“Coincidentally, speech will become impossible if I vent all air from the bridge,” Aiden said, sounding on the edge of losing his temper. “I only need to push a few buttons.”
Lana couldn't see how that threat was in any way serious since it would kill them all, including the captain himself. But surprisingly the twins fell silent after that; maybe they knew how far they could push the man.
Or maybe it was because at about that time the ship began lurching around as if it had been grabbed by a giant hand, hard enough they could all feel it in spite of the inertial dampeners. She focused on clutching her seat as the constant buffeting continued, wondering how this counted as a “moderate” storm.
On the display, the green patch of the colony swiftly grew larger until she could see broad fields dotted with houses and other buildings sprawling in all directions, around a cluster of a few hundred buildings that looked to have been made from fabricated materials using low-tech means. None were larger than a few stories tall, although most looked freshly painted in bright colors.
Aiden aimed them towards a large green near the center of the cluster of buildings, speaking quietly into his mic to coordinate his approach and landing with someone in the colony. Soon enough the jolting settled to a steady vibration, as the ship's maneuvering jets rotated to provide vertical lift and they slowed to a crawl for the final descent to the ground.
She heard a soft metallic whisper that Dax explained was the landing struts extending, as part of his running commentary on the process of landing on a planet; even now he faithfully kept to his duty of teaching her about ship operations.
Just before they touched down a sudden gust of wind jolted them, and the ship didn't so much settle into the landing as slam down, hard enough to rattle Lana's teeth in spite of the inertial dampeners. Not only that, but as the bridge began to tilt to one side the weapons officer explained that the captain must've either misjudged how level the landing surface was, or water from the storm had made the ground soft enough that even the wide clawed feet of the landing gear were sinking.
Which wasn't a concern, he assured her, because the ship's computer automatically extended and withdrew each individual strut to account for such factors, keeping the ship perfectly horizontal. Although considering the fact that the tilting continued even though they'd already touched
