Uncharted System 34

[Sombs]

Previous: Uncharted 32

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December 24th, 828 A.S. - Uncharted System 34

Christmas Eve!

As a boy from Rheinland, I got reminded of the differences in celebrating Christmas outside of Rheinland every year. For example, children get their presents in the morning of the 25th. In Rheinland, it's in the evening of the 24th, Heiligabend. Supposedly, Santa breaks into the house when the children sleep. Which sort of makes more sense than just showing up in the evening, but always without getting seen by the children. In Rheinland, people don't place a glass of milk and a plate with chocolate cookies on a table for Santa. The closest thing we have to that is the Weihnachtsteller, the christmas plate.

It's basically just a plate full of low-quality chocolate that you wouldn't touch if it wasn't for christmas. Like, these small chocolate balls that are wrapped in aluminium foil to look like christmas tree decoration. And then the little flat things with thousands of little sugar spheres on them. They always get stuck between the teeth, and they taste more like peppermint than like chocolate. I think the only christmas sweets I ever liked were marchpane potatoes. Marzipantöffelchen.

While we usually remained rather strict with the food stored in the cargo bays, trying to rely mostly on what the hydroponics and the food processing system allowed us to do on a day-by-day basis, certain holidays lead to Ezrael being rather generous. All kinds of sweets, red wine, some non-synthetic meat, even some of the very limited gallic cheeses. Ez always mentioned the dinner he had with Isabelle Montlaville de Chanteloup, the gallic admiral. Given he took care of her during her coma, people assume there was more going on than just a dinner. When confronted about it, he insisted that the only admiral he ended up in bed with was Admiral Knight of Battlegroup Harmony.

The 24th was quite festive, as expected. People grew impatient about Secret Santa and wanted to do it as early as possible, but Commander Aguilar made clear that we wouldn't begin before dinner. With most people being busy with decorating, the preparation of food or getting frustrated at wrapping gifts, Sombs and I spent most of the day in our room, which was mostly involuntary on my part.

Right after breakfast at the canteen, Sombra lured me to the entrance, where a makeshift mistletoe was hanging from the ceiling. She kissed me, then dragged me into our room and what happened there I don't need to explain. What I didn't know was the fact that it was not just to celebrate christmas and our youthful relationship in a, well, fun way, but it was also to make sure I wouldn't walk around on the Apahanta.

In the evening, we had the big dinner. It was a rare sight to have the entire crew in the canteen at the same time - as, well, someone needs to operate the ship, day and night shifts, et cetera. We enjoyed the meal, listened to very annoying christmas songs and then Secret Santa happened, with lots of gifts under the fake tree. Most people put a lot of effort in the wrapping, and then there was Sombra, whose gift was the most obvious to identify, as it was more duct tape than wrapper. To make sure everyone would get some personalized gift, the rule was to craft something from clay-like material.

Some people got really creative. Sherry got a miniature skyline of Manhattan's capital, all painted in high detail. Sombra got a black cat with huge eyes. The person who got Sombra's gift got an absurdely detailed male genital. Someone else thought it was funny to gift clay socks to Ezrael. Leon got a little figurine of supposedly himself on a surfboard, I guess?

When I unwrapped my gift, I found a not-too-detailed 2D picture of the Observation Deck painted onto burnt clay. There was a paper note under it, telling me to go there. So that was what I did. While everyone stayed at the canteen to just be together there and celebrate, I excused myself and headed out.

When I left the lift to get on the level with the Observation Deck, I quickly noticed that the environmental support was offline. It was cold. Given I was wearing my Apahanta suit and a christmas hat, the latter against my will, I only felt it in my face. It was probably below zero. My first instinct was to be careful, yet I moved forward and soon realized what was going on: There was a layer of snow. The closer I got to the Observation Deck, the higher it got. When I entered the room with the wide duraglass windows, the snow layer was probably half a meter high. It was amazing. I did not understand, baffled by the sight. Looking around, I realized a very faint set of footprints in the snow that lead away.

"Do you like it?"

I turned around. Commander Aguilar was behind me, smiling in a way I've never seen her do it before. "You did this?"

"Yes, for you. Do you like it?"

Baffled, I just stared at her for a moment before looking at snow again. "It's amazing!" She did that for me. Wow. "I love it!"

"What are you waiting for, then?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, here is your snow. Build a snowman, that's an order."

I chuckled, still feeling surprised by all this. I tried to explain to myself how she must have done this. Probably lowered the temperature of the room and the adjacent corridors on purpose, then went in here with some kind of snow machine. However, she gave me an order, so I did as I was tasked, rolling up the lower body of the snowman. After a minute or two, the ball was already half my size. I realized Sherry was watching me the entire time. "Commander, it would seem like additional support is required to accomplish this mission."

Sherry chuckled and kept smiling as she stepped through the snow, bent down and began rolling up another ball of snow. I didn't know how much time had passed, but it was fun. We built a snowman together! On a space ship! Due to the lack of rocks, we did not really get to decorate him, but later, when Sombra lead the entire crew to the Observation Deck, they added twigs of the fake christmas tree from the canteen for arms and the pretty gift wrapper of Sombra's gift was turned into a makeshift scarf. He even got small chocolate sweets for eyes and mouth and someone thought of getting the closest thing we had to a carrot for the nose - namely Sombra's gifted clay phallus.

We got to appreciate the dick-nosed snowman until Sombra made a comment while smirking widely. "Not as big as the snowman I made, but probably prettier."

Confused, I looked around, but did not find another snowman. I even glanced over to Ezrael, who was certainly not covered in white paint. "Er, did you make one from clay?"

"Not quite, but, well, something similar." She took my hand and lead me to the window. Then I saw it. The past three days, Sombra was toying around with the Rovers. She said to explore the system. I realized she did something else, and I also realized she did not keep me cuffed to the bed to buy some time for Sherry to flood the Observation Deck in snow, but to prevent me from looking out of the windows.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

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Uncharted System Stories: 18 | 32 | 34 | 37 | 38 | 85

Templates: Character | Transmissions

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