To Sleep in a Sea of Stars

In the year 2257, humans have colonized other solar systems extensively over the past 300 years. The interstellar governing body, The League, oversees all human settlements with support from their military arm, the United Military Command (UMC).

Kira is a xenobiologist, someone who studies new (or potentially alien) lifeforms, and is part of a team that has been surveying Adrasteia, or Adra, an earth-sized moon, for the past four months. The team is leaving the planet the next day, which upsets Kira, because she and another scientist, Alan, are romantically involved, and they may not be assigned together again.

That night, Kira and the team celebrate the end of their mission. She has been traveling for work for the past seven years and is beginning to want a family and a more permanent home. At the party, Kira is told that a drone has found organic material that she will have to investigate the next day before departure. Kira and Alan slip away from the party and go to the hydroponics lab. The humidity of the hothouse gardens reminds her of her home planet, Weyland, and her father’s greenhouses. Kira is upset about her and Alan’s impending separation, and Alan suggests that they apply to be colonists on Adra.