Arvara vs The Ice Planet

Arvara was never a great pilot. Even during its piloting course everyone knew that Arvara would never be great. Decent? Maybe. But definitely not a cat you’d want to hold onto during a stressful situation. 

So obviously Arvara was always there when weird things were happening. 

It was supposed to be a second pilot, just to keep watch and come in case of an accident. So it went on a break. To get a tea. And when it came back the ship was off its course, and they were in the middle of previously unexplored space, heading towards a strange new world. After years and years of ending up in such situations Arvara just breathed a tired sigh and went straight to work. 

“What’s the situation?” it asked, already reading everything the computer was outputting about the performance of the ship and its surroundings. 

“Stable but not great. Help me find a place to sit this ship down,” said Moonbeam. 

“On it boss.”

Together they moved the ship and entered the atmosphere of the planet below. They were quite close to this planet’s equator, and given all the blues and whites they could see through the feed of outer cameras, Arvara was expecting to see crashing waves of an ocean. Instead, when they got below the layer of dense clouds it saw an unending field of ice and snow. Arvara didn’t say anything, choosing to bite its tongue instead. 

Because it always went exactly like this: Arvara gets on a ship, the ship almost explodes, and the whole crew ends up having to deal with the weirdest thing possible. Just last month it had to spend a week on a remote island because a weird bug flew into their fuel system, breaking everything in its way. The overboss from the company they worked for decided that they would be responsible for fixing it so they couldn’t get away from there any sooner even if they wanted to. So obviously Arvara transferred to a different division as soon as possible, to work under a different person. And what? It gets a position allowing it to work directly under the boss, the most important person, and then they are here. 

Arvara wished it became a lifeguard instead. Yea, the pay would be much lower, but at least it liked swimming. 

Finally they landed without much trouble and opened the hatch to take a look. The computer’s measurements ensured them that the atmosphere was exactly the same as on their planets, which was only a little odd. But if Soda Cats planet had the same atmosphere as Space Cats one then why not this one? At least it wasn’t toxic and the radiation, although a bit high, was still within the norms. All things considered, this was one of the luckiest circumstances Arvara got itself into. 

When it followed outside behind Moonbeam and Goldieit got struck by the beauty of the surroundings. The bosses were talking about something, but instead of listening to them Arvara stepped a bit further, fully hypnotized by the icy field. The wind was lifting the dry snow up in a way that made the world bloom with white fields of glittering particles. Here and there from the snow stood up tall spikes of black stone, almost obsidian in color, but not quite it. The stone formations were casting shadows that turned the pure white of snow into deep blues and even strangely greenish and purplish colors. Arvara assumed that it was a strange feature of the stones themselves and the way they reflected the light. On some of the stone formations huge icicles were hanging, some almost as tall as the stones themself, reaching high into the sky. 

“Arvara, we’re going to look for a source of fuel, keep a watch on the ship in the meantime.” 

“Yes, of course,” said Arvara, turning towards Moonbeam. It was only then it realized how widely it has been smiling. 

Moonbeam gave it a curious look but said nothing. 

Moonbeam and Goldie went and came soon after. When all three of them talked it got decided that they should not split, even if it means leaving the ship unattended. Arvara wasn’t so sure about it, but it wasn’t about to argue with the bosses. They prepared whatever they thought would be wise to bring with them into a cave and closed the ship behind them. Arvara gave it one last unhappy look and went with its bosses, hoping that whatever comes next will be at least a bit more lucky than whatever that was.