CASE [GL]

The train slowly started moving from its spot at the platform towards the big steel airlocks in front of us. Luna, sitting on my lap, was incredibly intrigued as she put her face flat against the window so she could get a better view ahead of the train. 

“It’s so silent.” She commented as the train moved through the airlock and into the actual tunnel. 

“It is.” You could only hear a very faint hushing of the wind outside and some humming of the electricity, but nothing more than that. “And it’ll be even quieter soon.” The train picked up speed, and it didn’t take long at all before we were almost at the edge of the city and therefore also the second set of airlocks. The rushing of the wind had stopped, meaning we were now in the section of the tunnel where there was no air whatsoever. Strangely familiar to the shuttles back in space, although those were inherently a lot louder. 

Luna leaned back against me and put her head on my shoulder. I turned my head left just a tiny bit. “Feel free to rest for a bit.” 

“Are you sure? She asked.

“Yeah, definitely. I can wake you in a couple of hours so we can get a bit of food before we arrive. I think we should be near to the desert at that point.” 

“Hmm.” Luna hummed. “Last chance to get me to my own seat.” 

“Nah, go ahead and sleep. I’m fine.” I gave her a quick kiss on top of her head. 

“Okay.” She nuzzled closer against me, and I hugged her closer to me as well. 

Fifteen minutes later, her lights were completely out. I softly chuckled and activated the entertainment system with my free hand, putting in some ear pods so the sound wouldn’t disturb Luna. 

Since we’d been gone for a while I was interested to know what had happened around the planet, so I zapped on to the different news channels.

As I’d expected, there was no news whatsoever regarding our recent finds during our exploration on the different media. At most, a specialized astronomy news channel would cover a couple of the stars from the star systems we’d visited, together with some images we’d sent back home a while ago. Although it was clear that those images had been carefully selected to be as mundane as possible, with the exception of a couple of asteroid fields with mineable materials. 

News about Earth itself was also not that ground-breaking. Mainly talking about local politics, a minor scandal here and there, and the occasional report about a reconstruction effort. Most damage from the war had been quickly fixed, but there were still some more remote cities that had been pretty much abandoned due to collapsed infrastructure. These were not a priority to get fixed, but since the population forecasts had kind of boomed after the war, some of these cities were at least getting a basic refit. Just to make sure homelessness wouldn’t reemerge as an issue in the near future. In that light, a colonization effort was also advantageous, but it remained to be seen if that would be a real possibility. 

From the military buildup in space, however, it could be assumed that the United Federation at least would want to seize the couple of assets we’d disclosed to them rather quickly.  

But yes, in general, there was not really much noteworthy news on our little blue planet. And the local news for my home region was not much different from normal either. They had been doing a little biography section on me though, which was relatively funny. Mostly about what I had studied. 

 

After I had browsed the news, I put on a bit of music and just relaxed with Luna resting on my chest. An hour into the train ride, we passed through Gibraltar and into the African region through an underwater tunnel. I debated if I should wake Luna up for this, but I think a freighter had just moved through the area which kicked up too much sand to get a nice view. 

As we were nearing the halfway mark of our journey, however, I did wake up my girlfriend, so we could get some food and so she could see the beautiful Namibian deserts. We got kind of lucky as we would be passing through right before the sun would set. 

“Luna.” I wiggled a little to gently wake her up. 

“Hmmm…” 

“C’mon, sleepyhead, wake up. There’s a nice view coming up.” I traced my finger over her cheek. 

She giggled softly. “Lauren, stop, that tickles.” She took my hand and with her other rubbed her eyes.  

“Hehe.” I gave her a quick kiss. “Let’s go to the restaurant car, the view from there should be even better.” 

“Just a second.” She replied. “I haven’t really woken up yet.” 

I helped her off my lap, after which she stretched. “You are a lot more comfy than you might imagine.” 

“Haha.” I laughed. As for my body, even though Luna had been sleeping on me for pretty much two hours, I didn’t really feel it, so I quickly got on my two feet myself. But a little stretching always feels nice after having sat down for a while. 

Luna waited for me to finish and fixed her uniform up in the meantime. 

“Hey, I didn’t ask, but do you have suitable clothing for Antarctica? It’s going to be early autumn there so it’s going to be rather chilly.” 

“Ah… I don’t think I have.” She looked up at the luggage compartment. 

“Alright. Then I’ll take out one of my own jackets for you before the train stops.” I nodded. “Wouldn’t want you to go cold.” 

Luna blushed and nodded “Okay…” 

I smiled. The jacket was going to be pretty oversized for her, but that’s also going to be a ridiculously cute sight to behold. 

 

Instead of continuing imagining future sights I’ll behold, I put my beret back on my head and removed the privacy screen. When Luna and I were out of the compartment, I locked it back up behind me. 

“It’s that way.” I nodded towards the front of the car. 

“I remember.” Luna started walking towards the front of the train

When we passed by the other couple that was in our car, the guy gave us a nod. They weren’t using the privacy screen, but why would they, apart from us, they were the only ones here and we had been using it so far. “Thank you for your service.” The man said. 

The woman that was sitting with us also gave us a friendly smile. 

Both Luna and I gave them a friendly nod and walked on towards the door. 

When we got through, Luna waited for me to take the lead. “Do you think they know who you were?” She asked as I walked by. 

“Probably.” I admitted. “It’s not terribly hard to make an educated guess.” 

We walked through the interspace into the restaurant wagon. This wagon had a lot more glass than the passenger car we were in, mostly to give people a better view of the surrounding area. It still wasn’t on the same level as some of the dome cars you could find on the more scenic routes, but it was definitely impressive enough to make Luna look around like a kid in a candy store. 

Apart from us, there were again only two more people in this car, this time being the cashier and the actual chef of the restaurant car. 

“Good evening, can I help you?” The lady behind the counter asked with a friendly smile. 

“Yes, thank you.” I nodded. “We would like to eat something and get something to drink as well.” 

The lady opened her little interface in front of her. “What would you like to eat?” She asked. 

“Hmm, I think I will take the sushi and sashimi platter.” I replied. 

“Alright, and the other lady?” She smiled. 

“Uh…” Luna looked around. “Uhm… what do you have?” 

The lady behind the counter tapped on something and a new interface appeared above the counter itself with a list of dishes. “Is this your first time traveling with us?” 

“It is.” I replied in her stead. 

“I hope you’ve been enjoying your travel so far.” She talked to Luna. 

“Oh, yeah! Definitely!” Luna then continued to look at the list for a bit longer. But the lady gave her plenty of time, just patiently waiting for her to choose. “There’s so much to pick from.” 

I leaned in towards Luna. “You can always ask the chef to ask what she recommends.” 

The chef who was standing nearby walked a bit closer and tapped the UI from the other side of the counter. It popped up an image of some kind of croquette. It definitely pulled Luna’s attention.

“This would be my personal specialty. They are croquettes with scampi diabolique. It’s a spicy tomato sauce with shrimp inside of a croquette. If you prefer, I can also make this in its normal form, without the croquette.” 

“That does look very tasty.” Luna smiled, not taking her eyes off the image. “Yes, I think I would very much like to try that.” 

The chef smiled and closed the picture. With it, the entire UI disappeared. “I’ll go to work immediately. It’ll take about ten minutes for me to finish.” She then went off to the kitchen and started getting ingredients out of her fridge. 

The lady behind the counter then spoke to me. “You can sit wherever you like. I’ll be bringing your food to your table.” 

“Thank you.” I then looked at Luna. “What table do you want to sit at?” 

She pointed to the one in the center of the cart, right next to the window. “Will that one do?” 

I started walking over. “Do you even need to ask?” I smiled. 

“Hehe.” Luna followed me and sat down opposite me. I’d left her the seat that could see in the direction the train was headed. That way, she would get the best possible experience.