At first, when TO looked towards Arkane, they thought they only saw a collection of four stars. As they approached, those stars grew bigger until they could make out the details of Arkane and its four moons. Three of the moons were pale blue-grey colors, one with a blue-green dot on its surface- an Arkanian lunar colony, as far as TO knew, made up of a collection of civilians who had volunteered and funded their own accommodations and housing to lessen the burden of overpopulation on Arkane. The last moon, a reddish-orange colored moon, and was a mining facility. Arkane itself was covered in Greenish-blue water, with mostly grey islands scattered all about it. The largest island - Okoia- was unnaturally rounded by expansions done over the years, and seemed to glitter in the light of the nearest sun.

 

“Apparently, the islands used to be a lot greener before King Decon brough Arkane into the Galactic collective.” TO said, “Then he had a lot of the green space converted to make room for domestic housing and tertiary industrial processes.”

 

“Wouldn’t that mess up the atmosphere, though?” DH asked, “Doesn’t a planet need a certain amount of -“

 

“Algae in the water produced most of the oxygen, anyway.” TO said, “The oceans here- well, no, they’re not oceans, more seas between the islands- aren’t deep, so there’s more plantlife deep under water. Even before industrialization, the water contained more plant-life than all the surface area of Arkane. Aside from that, King Decon’s terraforming technology is more than advanced enough to keep a planet in a healthy state of equilibrium no matter what the civilians want to do on it.”

 

They grew closer and TO watched as the planet grew obscenely big - at least in TO’s opinion. That a planet was big enough to provide its own natural gravitational force was almost dizzying to TO; It seemed like it would be dangerous to get too close! The Training center was massive, but not nearly like this! They had never seen a solid thing that was so big. Soon, they even got so close that on one side of the weapons bay, the planet was the only thing they could see.

 

 

It was at that moment when the ship came to an auto stop. An alarm came in on TO’s chip, with a warning; Ship adjusting for planetary gravity- please prepare for anti-gravity.

 

“Great… this again.” DH muttered.

 

They headed down to the main living area and strapped themselves to the seats as the gravity gave way. “I guess we’re adjusting so we’re in a safe position for landing and for dealing with the natural gravity.”

 

DH’s ears flicked down. “I hope it’s alright.” They said, “I mean, you can control it like artificial gravity-”

 

TO laughed, “DH, you don’t have to worry about that. It should feel like the same gravity on the ship; it’s been slowly adjusting all this time so that we won’t have an issue with the change, remember?”

 

“Right. I knew that.” DH said, their ears flushing.

 

The ship started up again, and they started heading to the planet. “Hold on.” TO said, “they warned us that entering a planet’s atmosphere can be… difficult.” Apparently, most ships caught fire as they entered a planet’s atmosphere. They knew their ship had landed on many planets, but they still worried. Would they be safe? What if the civilians had damaged something back at the portal docks, and hadn’t the dock repair crew hadn’t caught it?

 

“I don’t know why anyone lives on planets, anyway.” DH muttered as they held on tightly to their seat, “Weather, storms, natural disasters, uncontrollable gravity, and fluctuating temperatures. Wouldn’t it be better if they used all the planets for resources?”

 

TO was about to go into the logistics of such a plan which would cause near insurmountable obstacles, but before they could, the camera’s showing space outside shut down. DH’s ears flicked in panic as they reached out to the console and frantically looked up various status reports.

 

“What happened?” TO asked.

 

“The system says they’re in landing mode? They’ve turned off, and retracted back into the main part of the ship! And look!” They pointed to a screen that showed a diagram of the ship and the tendrils with the thrusters that had been moving them through space. “They’ve retracted too!”

 

TO looked at the screen, then looked to one of the nearby windows to see if they could see anything outside. Outside, an odd, orange plasma formed around the ship; pale and subtle at first, then growing brighter and brighter.

 

The force hit them suddenly; similar to the odd jerking of the ship that sometimes threw TO off their feet when the ship started moving, but this was so much worse, so much more powerful. They were being pressed back into the seats by the intense G-force that pushed on them. TO’s heart hummed, their ears flicked back in fear. Was this normal, or was something going wrong? There were no alarms going off, so TO knew that everything should be fine, but the panic rose in them.

 

The pressure pushing TO back got stronger and stronger until they struggled to breathe; it was as though they couldn’t inflate their lungs! They tried to look over at DH, but their head was being pushed back with such force that they couldn’t turn. They couldn’t see out of their peripheral vision, and they couldn’t hear anything now because there was noise coming from outside- a loud roaring as they broke through the atmosphere. It didn’t occur to TO how noisy space travel could be once you were in an atmosphere.

 

A message popped up on the screen, but TO couldn’t see properly. The ship suddenly slowed rapidly and TO felt like they were weightless for a split second before Arkane’s gravity started pulling on them once more. The ship rotated again, setting itself upright and aligning the ship’s design with the pull of gravity until it seemed like they were sitting upright once more.

 

TO took several deep breaths. The pull of gravity below them now felt the same as it had the entire time, and the feeling of panic was ebbing away. They turned towards DH. “That was more awful than I thought it might be. What did you-” They stopped, frowning at the way DH’s head slumped forward.

 

“DH?” TO said, but they didn’t respond. “DH!” TO said. They reached to unbuckle themself from their seat, but the emergency locking kept them in place. They reached over and shook their arm.

 

Their neck broke. The force of the landing snapped their neck! was TO’s first thought, but thankfully before they could panic too much, the shaking seemed to have drawn them back. They looked about, dazed and confused, their ears moving slowly. DH blinked and looked at TO for a moment before their eyes actually focused.

 

“... I think I passed out.” They said, “That was... Entirely unpleasant. Worse than zero gravity.”

 

TO gave a panicked laugh as they squeezed DH’s arm. The landing itself had been awful, but it didn’t even compare to the shock of panic that TO felt when they saw DH unconscious.

 

======

 

They had to stay in their seats until the ship landed properly, and while TO was eager to get ready to leave and meet the civilians they were going to be working with, DH was happy to sit down for a while longer. “I’d have to, anyway.” They explained, “I can’t just get up after passing out. I need to rest a little.”

 

“Even if we could get up, I’d make you rest anyway!” TO said.

 

Once they had slowed, the ship’s external cameras turned back on and they could now see what was going on outside. They were approaching the perfectly circular Okoia, and TO could now see that the glittering they had noticed from space was actually just a result of solar panels on the rooftop of every building on the island, from the giant, narrow skyscrapers to the wide factories and shorter, luxury apartments. The buildings became lower, and had more space between them, closer to the center of the island. As most of the tallest skyscrapers were on the outskirts of the island, Okoia had an odd, bowl-like feeling to it. In the very center of the island, the buildings stopped grouping together altogether, and allowed for a perfectly circular grassy plot with only a handful of large, low buildings. The largest of these buildings was in the center of the grassy plot. Next to it was a space devoid of grass. Purple light from the last rays of the sunset painted everything they could see, save for the shadows, which were only brightened by the blue-green lights which would illuminate the city at night.

 

“I think that’s where we land.” TO said, pointing to the spot, “And the other building must be the government building.”

 

“... Doesn’t Arkane have an overpopulation issue right now?” DH asked, “Why would they have so much space between buildings here?”

 

TO didn’t know the actual answer, but their brain didn’t take long to come up with a logical explanation, “Well, I imagine that on a planet with an active insurgency, having flat space around the important government buildings makes them easier to defend.”

 

DH’s ears twitched as they considered this, “I suppose.” they said.

 

They watched the screen, which showed their descent to the ground, allowing them to see more details - the clean, ornate houses, the fancy foliage, the fences and the guards patrolling about- until they finally landed. The thrusters latched onto the ground all at once, shutting off as they hit and then lowering the rest of the ship down. Once bottom half of the ship settled into a hole and the thrusters had fully retracted, TO imagined that it looked like just a strange dome sticking out of the ground.

 

The seatbelts unlocked. TO unbuckled themself and rushed over to DH.

 

“I’m fine.” DH said, smiling weakly as they unbuckled themself. “My head hurts a little, but I’m fine. I’ll take something from the med kit before we go.”

 

“You’re sure?” TO asked, a hand on DH’s shoulder, “I can go myself? Or we can put them off; The Arkanians can wait-”

 

DH smiled again, but shook their head, “I promise; I’m fine.” they said. They got up, rubbed their shoulders, then smiled at TO, “Let’s go meet the civilians.”

 

======

 

When they left the ship, they left though the t-shaped hallway they found when they first entered. It had been unused up to this point, but clearly it was the main entrance once they were planetside; that made sense given the questioning room and the holding cell next to the hallway.

 

They put on their armor once they got to the hallway, and TO input the codes to unlock and open the door.

 

“.. We’re walking on a planet now.” DH said, “On an actual planet. The ground is under our feet. It’s a planet with its own gravity and everything! I expected it to feel… different.”

 

“Me too.” TO said. They had never been on anything so massive before, and somehow it made them feel smaller than when they were in space. Maybe it was because space was so unfathomably huge, or maybe it was because the parts of space that were actually relevant to them were limited and linked by portals. Maybe it was because they could in fact know how big the planet was, and how small they were when compared to it. Maybe it was because the planet was a physical thing, not a nebulous void.

 

The door beeped as the surrounding lights went green. They approached, and it slid open wide enough for them to walk outside side by side. Though the center of Okoia was covered in grass- grass which now appeared white in the artificial lights since the sunset- the area immediately around them was cement to accommodate the landing of their ship. The wide fence that encircled their ship hummed with electricity, and bore warning signs which hung on the outside of the fence at regular intervals. On the other side of the fence, TO could see flowers bearing large purple blooms with pointed centers. Their helmet identified the flowers as ‘Giant NightShade’ and informed them it was toxic to most species.

 

They walked along the path to the gate in the fence, where a collection of no less than ten civilians were waiting for them; They dressed in ornate grey and green uniforms; Two-piece uniforms like the ones they had seen at the portal docks, with intricate embroidery decorating the seams, and shoes that reflected the nearby lights. TO’s helmet started popping up with too much information about names, positions, and pronouns.

 

“I’m turning the alerts off.” DH said, “For now, anyway; just don’t want them to be automatic. We can just call up information when we need it, anyway.”

 

“That’s best.” TO said, and they did the same.

 

Standing in front of the collection of planetary soldiers was a man who clearly was not a soldier. He was shorter, rounder, and dressed not in a uniform but in extravagant civilian clothing in a dull mossy color that matched the shade of his hair; The clothes were well made, but still seemed too small for the man wearing them. He took a deep breath as TO and DH approached, sucked in his stomach, and puffed out his chest. When TO and DH approached, he did his best to give a bow.

 

“Honored Dignitaries of King Decon.” He said, “Welcome to Arkane. I am the distinguished Minister of Security, Noss. I will work with you closely from here on out.”