Thanks for reading. How does humanity define "Home"? Is it a place? Or is it just where you have people who care for you? What would we do if we were forced to make decisions as a race about where Home is?
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Sanira slowly eased the bottom half of her pressure suit down over her hips and pushed it in a bunch down her legs, sighing in pleasure as the bulky garment drifted away in the microgravity environment of the work module. She stretched, relishing the absence of the suit; it wasn't actually heavy, but wearing one for a ten-hour shift outside was exhausting.
She just floated there for a moment, the only sounds her own breathing and the ever-present whir of the fans circulating air. Sanira almost felt like she could nod off, but after a moment a sour odor wrinkled her nose and she opened her eyes to find that the top half of her suit had floated up almost to her face. The suit was grimy with asteroid dust and reeked of sweat just like everything else in the work module, including the people.
With a sigh, Sanira nudged the suit toward its rack by the airlock, then twisted to turn towards the small 'fresher installed at the far end of the module and shoved off gently towards it with the toes of one foot. As she soared the three meters to the fresher, Sanira ran a finger down the sealstrip of her body stocking, opening the closure from the base of her throat all the way down until an unruly tuft of jet-black hair peeked out at the bottom.
A real shower would be a pleasure, but of course it had been months since Sanira had enjoyed one of those. Still, she felt a little tingle of anticipation as the amber light at the top of the 'fresher cabinet came on in response to her approach; it would be good to be clean. She easily stopped herself in front of the off-white cabinet with the fingers of one hand, while the other tugged a shoulder free of her body stocking. The light turned green just as she finished peeling the sweat-stained garment from her legs.
The flesh of Saniras' nipples pebbled and hardened in cool air of the work module as she reached forward and keyed the control to the the 'fresher doors. The doors popped open to the left and right and a small drawer slid out of the bottom of the cabinet. Sanira stuffed the body stocking in and pushed it closed with a "click". A low hum came from the drawer as the 'fresher began cleaning and sanitizing the engineered fibers of the garment. That done, Sanira reached into a pocket on the right-hand door and pulled a warm, slightly-damp wipe from the dispenser.
A soft rushing sound began as the 'fresher pulled air into a small return vent in the middle of the cabinet. The slight suction pulled in moisture and detritus, so that it didn't float around the work module and also helped keep the user from drifting away as they scrubbed themselves.
Sanira briskly rubbed herself with the wipe, starting with her face, neck and hands calling out "mirror" as she worked lower. The back wall of the 'fresher obediently polarized into a reflective surface, allowing Sanira to see what she was doing. She lifted her arms, scrubbing vigorously to clean sweat and grime from her olive skin and the soft black hair in her armpits, then wiped her chest and underneath each small breast, shivering once when she brushed the hardness of her small, dark brown nipples.
It was against the rules, but Sanira pushed the wipe into the disposal slot, then pulled another wipe from the dispenser. She quickly scrubbed from her toes up her legs and to the sparse bush of fine black hair between her thighs. Sanira quirked a little smile at herself in the mirror as she paused, carefully wiping her outer folds clean then gently scrubbing down and underneath through the cleft of her rounded ass. It was supposed to be perfectly sanitary to use just one wipe to clean your whole body, but sometimes a girl just needed to really feel clean. Besides, at the last shift change, Ravi had given her that particularly sad face that he always seemed to wear after a week or two of nothing but his hand, and Sanira was in the mood to show the poor fellow a little mercy.
Sahakari society generally had a very relaxed attitude about human sexuality, and the major families involved in the space program tended to be even more progressive than most. As a result, the majority of the work module crews were mixed-gender, aside from a few teams assembled from same-sex or bisexual-preference crewpersons. There were even a few sibling crews and although most members of the program preferred not to think too much about what those crews got up to amongst themselves during their six-month work rotations, it wasn't considered a big deal. Plenty of people had experience with light sexual play amongst siblings and cousins during their budding years and parents seldom worried much about it as long as it didn't persist past the middle teens.
"Off" said Sanira to the 'fresher; the unit obediently shut down its suction system and the mirror returned to plain white bulkhead. The cleaning drawer popped slightly open, revealing her fresh bodysuit, but Sanira ignored it for the time being and, holding onto the second wipe, gently pushed away from the machine. She had a little 'housekeeping' to attend to first.
Smiling, the nude woman paused by the airlock long enough to push the top and bottom halves of her pressure suit into their racks. Satisfied with the "click" of the suit pieces locking into place, she rotated so that her feet were against the bulkhead and pushed off towards the open hatchway to the hab area of the little two-person work module.
She sailed through the hatchway and into the dimly-lit interior of the hab area, glancing to her left and seeing Ravi zipped into his sleep bag as she expected. Sanira suppressed a giggle as the sleeping man softly snored; Ravi denied ever snoring and being the scion of a family with a long diplomatic pedigree, Sanira had never pushed the matter. Besides, they rotated opposing ten-hour shifts working outside, with only a few hours a day together, so it was a rare occurrence for them to ever try to sleep at the same time.
With a nudge of her toes Sanira pushed herself over to the food storage area, popping open one of the doors and reaching inside to retrieve a flex-fiber container of santra juice and a protein bar. Sakahari space crews got the vast majority of their calories and nutrients from fortified liquids, like the juice, because of the ease of liquid storage and waste disposal in low-g and zero-g environments. The santra juice was Ravi's favorite, but Sanira knew that he always enjoyed solid food like a protein bar after exerting himself.
A moment later, Sanira was floating beside Ravi's sleep bag, patiently waiting for his alarm to go off. Right on cue, the insistent tone of his alarm chimed through the hab module and Ravi began to stir.
