A week passed in a blur of blue and steel grey, rushing in and out and frantically completing every mission they could remember. Now that they had secured a way home, the crew needed to show something for the time they had spent on this ocean planet.

Liza, true to her word, stayed glued to the radio in case they received another call from home. They did, although it was a simple confirmation that they were still alive and still would be alive by the time their ride arrived.

They had somehow all agreed that a buddy system was in order, and so Rachel and Quince stuck by each others' sides like glue, somehow staying out collecting rock samples for longer than Liza would have ever wanted to. Rachel, despite having minimal geological knowledge, seemed unbothered by what Liza would have envisioned as mindless underwater hammering.

Jay and Cinnamon, although not specialists in any scientific field, were able to collect still-living samples of many plants from the sea floor. With some tinkering help from Wayne, they created small aquariums to house different hand-held biomes; small snapshots of the underwater world they could take back home.

Everything felt busy, but nobody complained. They collapsed into their beds at night, exhausted but satisfied by the work they had done that day. The removal of the threat of imminent death from over their heads had boosted team morale, and they found it easier to laugh and joke with the promise of rescue on the horizon.

The final day of their sojourn on Trivia arrived, and the crew gathered at the airlock of their temporary home, laden with relics of the world all around them.

"I'm going to miss this place," Jay said mournfully, looking around. Rachel scoffed. "I definitely won't. This place is just a reminder of the worst part of my life yet."

"It wasn't all bad, though, was it?" Quince asked, his expression undeniably tender. Rachel blushed, looking away. "Maybe some good came out of it."

Liza gazed at her teammates one by one. They had already been close before they left Earth, but the experinces they had had on this small oceanic world would bind them together in an indescribable way. There was just something about sharing a traumatic adventure, she mused, following Cinnamon out of the base for the very last time, that made you want to take care of the people you experienced it with.

As they made their way back to a planet that hadn't changed in their abscence, the crew of the former Carolina had fundementally transitioned from mere space explorers to real adventurers of the vast universe.

The End.

A/N: Woo! It's finally done! After years of procrastinating, I've finally finished a project that I was really passionate about at one point!!

Now I can really call myself an author: one story finished, many more to go!

If you've stuck with this book all the way through, I would just like to say a profound thank you. Also, I'm very sorry that it took me so long to finish the damn book. A multi-year cliffhanger must have sucked.