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Opportunity Knocks

14 July 162 GA

Hi Mom & Dad,

Just had a few seconds free so I’m writing you a letter. I’ve got to get back to work at the Marine base in a couple hours but I wanted to write you and let you know that Scoville really is as hot as the news vids claim. It hasn’t dropped below 35 Celsius here in nearly three weeks and you can cook an egg on the pavement at noon. Over easy isn’t on the menu either. It’s over hard or nothing at all.

The good news, is they have good air conditioning here, and plenty of fresh water to drink. I do miss the oceans from home, but here’s where the research is happening, so he’s where I am.

In other good news, the Colonial Senate is selecting staff for the new expedition very soon, and my boss said I’ve been shortlisted for the botany team, and boy… won’t that be exciting. The head of the botany team is Dr. Margaret Ford, and you know I’ve said her name a thousand times. She’s a legend in our field, and if I get this job to travel to Selva and help map the plant life there… My career is secured.

All the homework, all the schooling, all the long hours… all worth it.

But I gotta get the job first. We all know how split the colonies are about further growth. I don’t know if you heard, but a bunch of marines got into a firefight at White Bay on Sota a month or so ago over it. The terrorists there tried to kill a team of First Expeditionary Marines headed here. All the marines won’t stop talking about it. Luckily, the marines survived, and the terrorists were killed, but there will be more attacks, I’m sure.

The anti-expansionists are willing to die to stop the colonial government from expanding us beyond the moons of Ghara.

Strange that they think they’ll stop deaths by giving up their lives pointlessly. Maybe they’re right. Maybe we should allocate more resources to shoring up the economies of the poorer moons. Make them safer? Get the folks in the backwaters off of their horses, and into electric cars like God intended. Maybe get pocket-sized phones again?

But mom and Dad… the rumor mill says Selva has all the heavy minerals the moons are lacking, and if that’s the case, we’ll experience a technological renaissance not seen since Pioneer 3 left Earth all those centuries ago.

Exciting.

Still not dating anyone, so don’t bother asking in your next letter. If I have any luck getting selected to the Selvan Expedition might mean I’ll find a nice girl I can talk plants with, and then maybe get married, and make babies, and get a land grant to raise them on.

Wish me luck on all of that, and tell little Charlotte I said hello, and to study hard so she can be smart like me.

Love you and miss you all,

-Anatoly

 

Part 1 of 6