In the Clear Light

Posted on 17 Jan 2026 @ 3:43am by Captain Sabrina Corbin

1,169 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Lathira Shoreleave
Location: Tide Gardens, Lathira IV

Morning in the Tide Gardens looked nothing like night.

In daylight, the paths revealed themselves as deliberate rather than winding. Pale stone and clear composite glass curved outward over the water, catching the sun and softening it, scattering warmth instead of glare. Steam rose gently from the pools below, drifting upward in thin veils that smelled faintly of minerals and salt. The water itself shifted in shades of green and blue, shallow terraces stepping outward until they met the open sea.

The garden pods sat low and elegant, half-domed and half-open to the sky, their interiors thick with planted growth. Broad-leafed flora spilled toward the water, roots anchored in engineered soil beds that followed the curves of the pools. Walkways arced between them, narrow enough to feel intentional, wide enough to invite pause.

Sabrina crossed one of those bridges slowly.

Her steps made almost no sound against the warm stone. The air was warm but tempered by a steady breeze off the coast. Somewhere below, water lapped gently against stone. She had shed the careful stillness she wore aboard ship, her hands loose at her sides, her pace unguarded in a way that surprised her once she noticed it.

Beyond the gardens, the land rose in wide terraces toward the colony proper. Green bands of cultivated growth alternated with pale structural stone, the settlement built to follow the coast rather than resist it. In the distance, Kestrel Reach climbed the rise in layered tiers, older and denser, its core structures darker with age.

The colony was awake in a different register than the night before.

She heard voices before she reached the lower terraces.

They carried easily in the open air, unforced. A small group stood near a cultivated plot just beyond the resort boundary, boots in soil rather than on stone. Someone was speaking with steady patience, hands moving in slow, illustrative arcs as he gestured toward the ground, then toward the water channels feeding it.

Sabrina slowed.

It took her a moment to recognize him without lantern light and music framing the impression. The sun did not soften Evan. If anything, it made him more solid. Sleeves rolled up to his forearms, posture relaxed but attentive, his focus entirely on the people in front of him.

He was teaching.

The students listened closely, some crouched near the soil beds, others standing with data slates held loosely at their sides. When one of them laughed at something he said, the sound carried across the terrace. Evan smiled in response, not indulgent and not distant. Present.

Sabrina stopped at the edge of the path.

She felt the recognition settle before he looked up.

When he did, his gaze caught on her and held. Surprise flickered, then warmed into something quieter. He offered the group a brief word and a nod, leaving them with a final instruction before walking toward her.

Unhurried.

“June,” he said.

The name sounded different here. Less borrowed. Still hers.

“Evan.”

“I was wondering if you would find your way back into the daylight,” he said, glancing briefly toward the path she had come down.

“The water helps,” she replied. “It makes everything feel less enclosed.”

He nodded. “That is intentional. The gardens regulate more than temperature. They give people room to breathe.”

She looked past him at the terraces. “Off-season does not seem quiet.”

“Not if you know where to look.” He gestured back toward the plots. “We use this time for instruction. Fewer visitors. Fewer distractions. People learn better when their hands are in something real.”

“You are good at it,” she said.

He shrugged lightly. “They listen. That helps.”

They stood together at the edge of the walkway, the water moving beneath them, the colony’s rhythm steady and unhurried. Above them, unseen but felt, a starship held its quiet orbit.

After a moment, he spoke again.

“Are you here for the day?” he asked.

“Just out for a walk before I spend the day idling.”

He considered that, then glanced toward the terraces rising beyond the gardens. “I was hoping you might let me steal you later. Properly.”

She arched a brow slightly. “Properly.”

“Kestrel Reach,” he said. “Not the resort side. The old colony. It is where this place learned how to survive before it learned how to be beautiful.”

“You teach there too,” she said.

“I grew up there,” he replied. “And I think you would understand it better than most.”

The invitation was not casual. It was not rehearsed. It carried weight without pressure.

Beyond the gardens, Kestrel Reach rose along the coastal lift, its terraces climbing the land in measured steps. The stone there was darker, weathered by decades of salt and wind, the structures layered rather than sculpted. Power conduits traced clean, functional lines through the architecture. Water channels cut narrow paths between habitation tiers, feeding both people and crops before spilling back toward the sea.

It did not advertise itself.

Where the Tide Gardens curved outward in glass and pale composite, built to welcome and soften, Kestrel Reach held to the land. It had grown into the rise rather than reshaped it, its systems visible and unapologetic. Older materials. Older methods. A place built to endure before it ever learned how to impress.

From here, the difference was unmistakable.

The gardens below were beautiful, designed for ease, for rest, for the careful illusion of effortlessness. They functioned on newer techniques and largely independent systems, an elegant extension rather than a foundation. A place people came to breathe, not to live.

Kestrel Reach, by contrast, felt central even at a distance.

Sabrina understood the distinction immediately.

That was why he had asked.

“What would we do?” she asked.

He smiled faintly. “Walk. Eat. Watch the light change. Let the place speak for itself.”

The breeze shifted, carrying the scent of salt and growing things. The water below them steamed softly in the morning sun.
She let her gaze linger there a moment longer, then brought it back to him.

“That’s a bit farther than a casual walk,” she said.

“Everything worth seeing here is,” he replied.

She smiled then, small and unguarded, surprised enough by it that she did not try to take it back. “All right. Show me.”

His answering smile came more slowly, as if he had expected resistance and was recalibrating now that it had not arrived. “This evening, then. I’ll meet you at the upper transit lift. Just before sunset.”

“I can manage that,” she said. “Assuming I don’t get lost in the water again.”

“I’ll take the risk.”

They stood there a moment longer, the space between them easy rather than charged. The gardens hummed quietly around them. Voices drifted from the terraces. Water moved beneath the walkways in slow, patient currents.

“I should let them finish,” he said, nodding back toward the students.

“And I should actually use this place for what it’s meant for,” she replied.

They parted without ceremony. No lingering. No backward glance.

 

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