In a way, they were extremophiles, too - so passionate about their work that they had been willing to give up every other aspect of their lives in order to come on this mission: A one-way trip to Saturn’s ice moon, Enceladus.

Irene reached down and impetuously dragged her fingers along the ancient shelf of frozen ejecta from the nearby geyser. How many archaea had the material of her gloves picked up, she wondered as she absently rubbed the ice crystals between her fingers. Maybe none. It was entirely possible that they could be here for the rest of their lives and never find any evidence of the life that this multi-billion dollar mission had sent them to this radiation-battered, hostile satellite for.

Still, she couldn’t complain about the view. As small as the planet was, it felt smaller still with the looming mass of Saturn hanging ominously in the sky, blocking out the light of the stars. The smog-yellow swirling gasses hypnotized her, holding her spellbound as she swore she could almost feel the tidal tugging of its gravity.

“Hey, ‘Elsa’, a little help over here?” That joke was going to get old real quick.

Irene, the mission leader, didn’t bother turning to the first mate as she came out of her reverie. “Sorry, I didn’t catch that. It almost sounded like someone was whining for my help and trying to insult me at the same time.”

“It wasn’t an insult, I liked that movie...” Seulgi mumbled as she straightened from a control panel that was already starting to frost over.

Irene rolled her eyes and carefully climbed over the ridges of ice to her crewmate. Seulgi was standing at the edge of the geyser they were trying to survey, squinting at some readings from a small probe. Irene grumbled, smacking Seulgi’s hand away from the panel so she could see, but Seulgi instead allowed her hand to rest on Irene’s shoulder - a storied touch that carried more weight than the gravity of this tiny moon gave credit for.

—

It had begun during one of their training missions: a five-hour deep-sea dive meant to test their mental endurance. They were cut off from all communication with the surface for the duration of the test, and had only the light from their helmets to guide them through the bathypelagic umbra. There, their objective had also been to collect readings from a probe they had previously dropped near an oceanic vent, and for the first three hours of the mission, things had proceeded smoothly.

Irene had noticed a biofilm beginning to encrust the sensitive instruments of their probe, and she leaned around to clear it away. Rubbing away at the calcifications indelicately with her large, pressurized gloves revealed another vent in an explosion of boiling water that sent her flying back several yards.

She slowly sank back down to the ocean floor in pitch blackness, but that couldn’t be right; she should at least be able to see her teammate’s headlamp - Seulgi’s light - as well as her radio, but all she had was her own frantic breathing in her ears and the constant, dull roar of the vents.

It was a tense moment as Irene tried not to panic until she felt a hand rest firmly on her shoulder. She relaxed almost immediately, and streak by streak Seulgi gently cleared away the blackened sulfides that coated Irene’s helmet. She was a little embarrassed to realize that had been the reason she hadn’t been able to see anything before, and she squinted up at her partner with a petulant pout. Seulgi touched her finger and thumb together in an O.K. symbol, asking if Irene was alright, and Irene confirmed by returning the gesture.

Seulgi’s hand never left Irene’s shoulder as they began to make their way back to the cage that would slowly lift them up to the surface, and though Irene couldn’t hear anything or see without the guiding light from Seulgi’s helmet, she felt strangely at ease. It was then she realized that whether it was to the bottom of the ocean, or out past the asteroid belt - wherever the government and scientific collective decided to send her - Irene wouldn’t be afraid, as long as Seulgi was at her side.

And indeed, months later after batteries of tests and more simulations, when Irene had been handed the docket containing her final mission briefing from the selection committee, she had been relieved to see the younger girl’s name listed beneath hers in the crew details. They had made it. They were finally going to achieve their dream, together.

The three-year flight to Enceladus had given them plenty of time to celebrate their success, with only their other crewmates and the vast emptiness of the outer solar system for company.

“Listen, I said I was sorry!” Wendy protested. “How was I supposed to know you weren’t a couple?”

Irene was prepared with a tongue lashing but Joy piped up before she got a chance to unleash it on the poor engineer: “Yeah, you could have fooled us. If that’s how you treat all your colleagues, I’m going to start sleeping with one eye open.”

“And both ears shut,” Yeri grumbled. “Next time, I’m going to sleep in the lander. If I have to go through one more night of-”

“That’s enough out of you, Kim Yerim-”

“-I’m going to open the emergency hatch and end it all, so help me…!”

At least Seulgi had only laughed at the exchange. Everything had fallen into place so naturally, Irene hadn’t even thought to give it a name. Perhaps it didn’t need one. After all, hadn’t they already decided to spend the rest of their lives together?

—

Seulgi silently held up her hand as Irene turned back to face her in the harsh light as it reflected off of the white icescape of Enceladus’s scarred glacial surface. She touched her forefinger and thumb together in an O.K. symbol, and Irene giggled as she returned the gesture.

“Hey, lovebirds, are you coming back with those core samples or what?” Joy called lazily through the com from their home base several kilometers away.

Irene laughed again, as she looked up at Seulgi’s protective golden faceplate, knowing there was probably a familiar grin behind that opaque shield. “Fine, fine,” she answered. She began walking back to their rover, more than ready to get back to the station and get out of the heavy spacesuit she was wearing, but she suddenly felt something hit her back.

She turned to see Seulgi scooping up another handful of millennia-old ice crystals, before compacting it into a ball to hurl at her as if it were snow off the lawn of a fictitious home they might have shared back on Earth. But perhaps that’s what this place was, now; the sixth-largest satellite of Saturn was their laboratory, and their home.

fin