t h i r t y f o u r ;

They saw the television crews set up right by the spaceship landing, with the admins standing off to the side with smiling faces. The female crew members had their make up done and their short hair pinned away fromt their face for the cameras, and the admins had each of the boys escort each of the girls. It was all for the cameras, or so they thought, but most of the people on the team were in established pairs. By now it was Ivory and Cedar, Honey and Seville, Raven and Roseanne. Then there was Mauve who escorted Scarlet because he had a crush on her, Ciel escorted Sage because he was interested in her, while Indy only escorted Olive because there was no one else left on the team to be escorted onto the ship.

The crew waved with smiling faces for the cameras as the pairs one by one walked into the ship—black and pink, white and brown, yellow and orange, purple and red, cyan and lime, blue and green. As they entered the control center of the ship, there were twelve seats, each in their respective colors with seat belts for them to use as they went through the atmosphere into outer space. Raven's seat was in the middle, in front of all the controls, as he was captain of the mission. To his left was Roseanne's seat as co captain, and to his right was Scarlet's seat as second co captain.

From there, the rest of the seats were organized by class rank.

The twelve members of the crew got in their seats and srtapped in all their safety belts. With only one minute to blast off, the screen in front of them lit up and they could see out onto the spaceship landing. A nervous feeling shot through everyone in the ship collectively as they heard the engines fire up. Raven had been taught the procedures for take off into space many times while he was in his special classes when he had been chosen to be captain, and they had practiced it several times during simulations. But something about actually doing it in eral life made it a thousand times more scary. As time strted counting down, Raven gulped and grabbed onto the lever in front of him with shaking hands. Once the countdown reached zero, he was to push the lever forward and it would send them up towards speace.

The whoe world was watching them, it was a televised mission take off. It felt likethe countdown was going much too slowly as they waited for it, and Raven was so nervous that he hesitated just a mili second longer after the countdown was finished. He slowly pushed the lever forward and the crew could feel themselves flying into the atmosphere at speeds that felt unreal to them. That had not been part of the simulation, the rattling of the ship as it left the dock and the falling feeling they felt in the pit of their stomachs as though they were in a never ending roller coaster ride. That was probably why they had been allowed to go to the amusement park just days prior. They needed to grow accustomed to the feeling of leaving the earth's atmosphere.

Raven finally felt as though he could breathe when the ship's systems went into autopilot, as it would be doing for the next eight years. It was on a set course and they would only need to have someone constantly supervising to make sure everything was working fine.

The ten minute trip out of the earth's atmosphere felt longer than it should have, and Roseanne had thought about the other missions the entire time. She thought about how others had died on the same mission. It had even been deemed a doomed mission by now by the administration. Just because they had made it out did not mean they had gotten past the worst of it. The crew immediately knew they were in outer space when there was a shift in gravity. They had been pushed back into their seats as they were leaving the earth's atmosphere, and now they felt as light as a feather. They would have floated out of their seats if  it hadn't been for their seat belts. Raven pressed a few other buttons and gravity went back to normal on the ship.

Everyone even felt as though they could breathe easier, and it was Ivory who unclipped her seat belts first. She heaved a deep sigh, stretching her arms above her head. "Fuck, that took forever. I almost got an anxiety attack strapped to that seat." She informed the group and Cedar immediately unstrapped his restraints to provide her with some comfort in the form of a hug, but the girl with white hair had her eyes set on the boy with jet black hair.

Roseanne said nothing about it, but thought about how her crew made had a point for a change. It was uncomfortable and even frightening being strapped to their seats like that for what felt like ages. The others even nodded in agreement, but Roseanne could have sworn she saw Indy roll his eyes in annoyance. He was still upset about the fact that she had led him on the way she did.

As she and Cedar pulled away from their embrace, she said. "We're going to go find our bedrooms and arrange everything already."

They turned to leave the control center when Raven stopped them. "Instructor Violet said the automatic controls don't usually have problems, but that someone needs to be watching it a all times just in case."

Ivory heaved a sigh full of something that seemed like a mixture of annoyance, but also a teasing tone. Like her entire reason for being on the ship was Raven and she wasn't actually taking the mission seriously. "So...what do you suggest then?"

Gesturing to the girl with pastel pink hair standing next to him, he suggested. "Rose and I were brainstorming the other day and we came up with an idea." He paused to see if everyone seemed to be paying attention before he continued. "There's twenty four hours in the day and twelve crew members. We could split into pairs and have shifts of four hours, or we can do it individually and have two hour shifts."

The crew members thought about it. While doing it alone was a shorter amount of time, everyone decided that it was better to do it in pairs so that they could have someone to keep them company. From there, the twelve members split up into pairs. Once again, the pairings had been the same as they were when they boarded the ship. It was Roseanne and Raven, Ivory and Cedar, Honey and Seville, Mauve and Scarlet, Ciel and Sage, Indy and Olive.

"Can we switch up partners every once in a while though?" Ivory asked. "I wouldn't mind keeping watch with Scarlet once in a while, or Honey. Or anyone for that matter."

Raven replied with a shake of his head. "Its not meant to be social hour. I would like for the pairings and times to stay set through our entire time on the mission. That way there won't be room for accidents or mistakes in the future. If you would like to socialize with your friends, you can do so once your shift guarding the ship has ended." Ivory said nothing in response, but gave a roll of her eyes. Raven then continued, "The four hour shifts between pairs have been divided like this—four to eight in the morning, eight to twelve noon, noon to four in the afternoon, four to eight at night, and eight to midnight."

At that, Scarlet had to interfere, already sounding as though she were ready to argue. "How are we going to make sure the shifts are divided fairly? Eight to midnight, and midnight to four sound shitty to me."  She said, crossing her arms over her chest in defiance.

Indy stepped in. "I think our captains have come up with the most fair solutions. Plus, its not like it matters.  Its always dark in space, your body will eventually get used to your sleeping schedule once you establish it."

Everyone else nodded in agreement with him,  except for Ivory who only watched him speak with a scowl. Roseanne noticed that now, they didn't even go within ten feet of each other. Indy was on one side of the room, while Ivory was on the other side. Raven made another suggestion to calm her. "I was thinking we could do like a random generator on our phone to distribute the times fairly. You can gonahead and do it if you want." He knew that if he or Roseanne did it, Scarlet would immediately accude them of cheating.

The girl with fire red hair did not even fight it. She pulled her phone out with a grin and Indy made sure to watch over her shoulder to make sure she wasn't cheating either. They input the pairs into the generator and she clicked the button for the first shift. It was going to be for midnight to four in the morning. "Okay, so midnight to four is...Cedar and Ivy." Scarlet looked up towards them with pity and an apologetic look. She genuinely felt bad for them getting one of the least desireable shifts. "Now the four to eight in the morning shift...that one goes to..." She stopped in her tracks before saying the names and everyone could see the flahs of anger on her face.

She clicked the generator button again, but not before Indy had already seen the result from over her shoulder. "Nah, it was Raven and Roseanne. She just clicked regenerate because she didn't like the result. I thought you were the one most concerned with this being fair, Scarlet." Raven and Roseanne smiled at each other. They would have been okay with any of the shifts, since it was their job after all. But the four to eight turn was the one they had been hoping for. Scarlet seemed instantly mad that they were getting that spot, but could say nothing about it because she was the one distributing the shifts.

Scarlet gave a roll of her deep red eyes. "Fine. Now we're doing eight to noon." She clicked on the generate button and it came up with their results. "Its going to be...me and Mauve."

Mauve exhaled a sigh of relief. Indy was right, they wouldn't even be able to tell if it wwas day or night based on what they could see from the windows of the ship. But it was still nice to know he didn't have to be watching over the ship at odd hours of the night.

Scarlet then continued. "On the noon to four shift is going to be...Seville and Honey. Four to eight is...Ciel and Sage. That leaves...Indigo and Olive with the last shift, eight to midnight." As she finished, she gave an amused laugh. Scarlet didn't like Indy, and it seemed to fill her with joy that he had gotten exactly the worst shift on the ship. But Indy said nothing of it because things had been fair. The shifts had been distributed fairly to the group.

With that, they decided that the pairs would also distribute their work load and their chores. Those were switched around so that the second four hours they could do their chores and it ended up being like an eight hour shift of work. There was even a smart clock on board the ship and they were to all log in their worked hours, otherwise the admins back home would not deposit them anymore money into their bank accounts. Not that they needed any more money in the first place, but the admins thought it would teach them to continue being responsible. They could just let the ship go to waste while on board, but it was for themselves to keep it safe and keep it clean.

For Raven and Roseanne it would be nice to have their work day end at noon. Then they could go back to their rooms for a nap, and have the whole rest of the day off to do whatver they wanted. The ship was built with physical training facilities so that they could participate in sports, and it had a home theater so that they could watch movies whenever they wanted or had the time. There was always going to be somehting for them to do there.

The trick from then on was for the group to adapt to living together in close quarters, seeing each other every single day, and also doing the same thing every single day for the next eight years. If Roseanne already could not stand Ivory and Scarlet sometimes when the garden facility was as big as it was, she could't fathom the thought of having them so close for such a long period of time.

She just hoped she would survive it.

-

another little update for you guys.

i didn't want to post to late bc im gonna celebrate with the family later. since todayis my birthday. but im not too excited honestly because i've been having problems with raven recently. like sometimes we're okay and sometimes we're not. i thnk he'd on his man period again bc he was being hella quiet all week.

but whatever, im not gonna try as hard as i used to anymore. if he wants to talk to me, he knows where to find me. it does kinda feel shitty that i've gotten birthday messages from most of my friends and not him yet. buuuut it is still early and we stayed up til like 1am texting so ima give him the benefit of the doubt since its only 9am right now.

if it goes past noon and he doesnt send me a birthday text though, im gonna be super sad.

-clary