Re-entry
Mel grumbled as she stared at her PDA, the moon shuttle was packed. Between the chatty pilot, grumbling scientists and screaming tourists she was struggling to focus on her work.
"...and if you look out the port side windows you'll be able to see Earth!" the overly chatty pilot continued, triggering a rush over to the windows on the left of the cabin as the blue marble came gliding into view. Mel remained seated, quietly scrolling through files and news. It was just Earth, she'd seen it plenty of times.
"OK folks, we're preparing for re-entry, please make sure all harnesses are fastened, all luggage is stowed, and that window blinds are closed. Thank you!" there was a soft click and the pilot stopped talking, finally.
Mel locked her harness in place and glanced over at the passenger in the seat next to her, they seemed to be having some trouble, but it was quickly solved by a passing attendant.
"You sure did fasten that up quickly! Not your first flight?" the passenger chuckled, looking over at Mel. A large man, wolf of some kind, the harness stretched out over his belly, but he had a soft face and a soft smile.
"I have a fair bit of experience." she responded, not letting much on.
"Glad to hear it! What's re-entry like?" he asked, craning his neck to look around the cabin.
"Ever been in an aeroplane landing in a cross wind during a thunderstorm?" she queried, glancing over at him as he settled in his seat.
"Once or twice, it's not nice..." he blinked a few times, like he was trying to process just how bad this could be.
"Re-entry is worse, it's always worse," she seemed to chuckle as she said it, "Don't worry though, it's over as quickly as it begins."
Mel didn't actually mind re-entry, sure it was rough, and could get a bit hot, and the world around you felt like it could fall apart at any second. But it meant she was going home. Real gravity, real sunlight, real food. The bumpy ride was just the sign that she would soon be stepping out onto good old Terra firma.
It was actually a surprisingly smooth re-entry, at least by her standards. The orbital tether caught them and decelerated them to entry speeds and there wasn't much turbulence on the way down. Not missing the tether, or getting sick from g-shift because the grav-mesh malfunctioned... or having another passenger vomit on her put it in her top 10.
"I see what you meant..." the wolf next to her slowly withdrew his claws from the armrests.
Mel was already unbuckling her harness, her eyes darted across to the wolf and back, "Believe it or not, that was the smoothest re-entry I've ever experienced."
"I don't think space travel is for me then!" a bit of humour returned to the wolf's tone.
"Be proud of yourself, you didn't throw up on me!" Mel returned the humorous tone.
The wolf smiled and unbuckled his own harness, carefully rising from his seat he seemed to fully relax the instant he realized he was under the effect of full earth gravity.
Disembarking from a space flight was not unlike disembarking from a terrestrial flight, security, border control, customs. Mel rolled her eyes as the queue slowly advanced forward, slipping her PDA out her pocket she lined up a taxi booking for when she got through security.
"Next at window... 4... please..." a synthetic voice chimed, Mel glanced up from her PDA. The queue had been moving quicker than she thought. The wolf from her flight was standing at window 3 and seemed to be having a great time with the border agent.
The agent on window 4 looked like she didn't want to be there. A lop-eared rabbit, long and dark hair, and wearing one of the more surly expressions a person could.
Mel walked over and pulled her paperwork out of her bag.
"Passport and travel papers." the agent grunted.
Mel handed them over in silence, if the agent wasn't chatty, she wouldn't be either. The gold lettering on her otherwise white passport caught the light as she slid it under the plexiglass window towards the agent.
The agent raised an eyebrow as they scanned it, Mel's information appeared on the display, an older photo certainly. The agent then opened the passport itself and looked it over. It was like they were being intentionally slow. Mel rolled her eyes and grumbled.
"Is there a problem?" she finally grunted, the agent's eyes had been flitting between the passport, the screen and Mel for close to a minute.
"When was this picture last updated?" the agent seemed to snarl, a smirk curling across their face.
"It was updated the last time I was planet side, so... three years ago?" had it really been three years, her face scrunched a little trying to remember specific dates.
"You ISA types, not getting your documents updated when things change." a bone to pick with ISA employees perhaps?
"We don't have passport printing equipment on the Lunar bases." Mel was starting to get a bit snippy.
A few more flicks, eyes up, eyes down, eyes up, eyes down. The agent then seemed to decide that continuing to be awkward wasn't worth their time, tapping a few commands into the keyboard in front of them and sliding Mel's documents back towards her. "Get your papers updated whilst you're down here visiting us mere mortals, huh?"
Mel wordlessly stuffed her papers back into her back and strode away from the window without another word. She hoped that the gate staff at the airport would be less of an issue.
It turned out they were, same procedure crossing the vast nation of the EU as returning from space. Amazing how many shortcuts places will take when there's already similar systems in place, even if they aren't fully compatible. Fortunately, domestic travel by a citizen of the International Space Agency doesn't raise too many eyebrows, either that or the gate staff were bored stiff and didn't care. Either way, she was now standing, bag in hand, at the taxi rank of the New Bright City Airport.
Opening up the BrightRide app she glared at the estimated time for a taxi. Automated or not, they were still unreliable. She pondered a moment as to why she was even here. Last she knew of her sister she was in the Western Republic fighting in that stupid civil war. Any communications she sent either weren't delivered or bounced. At least her flat was still shown as occupied, it was worth a shot.