New friends long gone

The storm keeps rolling through, but we're not sitting still.

The rain hasn’t let up since my last transmission. It’s coming down hard outside and if we weren’t on a hill, I think it might flood us. It’s rattling the roof and walls of this humble little trailer; sometimes the whole thing rocks a little bit when the winds pick up.

Yeah, Vee and I made it back to Angel Outpost. When the rain didn’t let up after a couple of days, Vee went out in a panic talking about delicate surveying instruments still out in the field and how they needed them packed up and accounted for three days ago. The powers-that-be gave us a special pass to go back and collect the fictitious equipment, and we high-tailed it back to our mystery outpost as fast as we could. It was a damp, miserable hike up here, but the outpost has a drying machine built into one of the cupboards and Vee found some blankets, so we were dry and cozy in no time.

Bonus: While I was making tea and audio recording some notes about our journey back here, Vee cracked that mystery tablet. I knew they had cracked it by the way there was suddenly a great deal of jumping and delighted squeeing from their section of the trailer.

“What’d you find?” I asked, looking up from my survey of the snuggly blanket situation.

Vee gibbered and jabbered for a few moments before they could effectively collect themselves.

“I don’t think our outpost administrators have any idea this place ever existed,” Vee said at last. They waved the tablet at me and I took it. “It wasn’t authorized to exist in the first place.”

“How is that possible? You can’t just up and pirate a whole research module.” I frowned and skimmed the document displayed on the tablet screen.

It was a series of brief notes—almost a diary, really—of daily highlights and low points at the station. I scrolled through the hundreds of entries and skimmed for anything pointing to an official mission. Each entry was signed off with the initials D.R. which didn’t immediately set off any bells with me.

“Look, look here.” Vee pointed at one of the entries before I could scroll past it. “Look what they say.”

Dutifully, I read:

No sign yet of any trackers from the outpost or otherwise. Good news there, at least. If they knew what we were doing out here… T.L. thinks we should bring in more people. Drop a few words in the right ears. Maybe get enough funding and resources to stage a real mission. That kind of childish optimism would be adorable if it weren’t liable to get us all killed. Told him as much. No sign of our quarry yet today, but the readings around the clearing say we are certainly not alone. Our friends are out there. I’m certain of it.

I looked at Vee who raised their eyebrows significantly and nodded.

“Holy shit, right?”

I sat down on one of the cots, too stunned to say anything. This place was getting weirder by the minute. A secret base, a life-or-death mission, and… who or what was their quarry our mysterious D.R. was after?

“Someone went missing, you think?” I asked hopefully. It was a far more reasonable explanation than the only other alternative. Vee gave me a look that told me their money was on the less reasonable explanation.

“Someone was in this glade that wasn’t supposed to be here, and they were looking for someone who isn’t supposed to exist.”

“Vee…” I felt superstitiously against saying it out loud, but Vee was going to go ahead and do it anyway.

“Native intelligent life on Ocasta,” they said firmly. I winced, half-expecting the entire trailer to blow up with us in it.

“If that were the case, there’s no way they could hide that from all of us. Not after so many years and with three outposts full of people and more on the way.”

“Maybe, maybe not.” Vee shrugged and returned their attention to the tablet. “I’m going to keep reading this and see what else our new friend D.R. has to share. I sent a copy to your tablet already.”

The wind shook the structure at that moment and the rain picked up outside, doubling down on the storm’s intensity. I stepped over to the tiny kitchen.

“In that case, I’ll get some lunch started.”

Quiche is one of my standard breakfast rotations. It sounds so fancy and formal, but really it’s just a casserole dressed up in a pie crust. Quiche is simple: a good crust, a balanced blend of eggs and cream, some shredded cheese, and a few handfuls of leftovers to flavor it however you like. You don’t even have to use a pie crust: a slab of frozen puff pastry will do if that’s what you’ve got.

We didn’t have a lot of leftovers on hand in the trailer, but we did have some foraged greens that had the same spicy bite as mustard, mellowed when cooked. I sautéed those in a pan with some bacon grease and garlic while I waited for my pie crust to chill.

Bacon and Mustard Greens Quiche

• 1 pie crust, chilled and fitted in a standard pie dish

• 6-7 strips of thick-cut bacon, uncooked, diced

• 2 cups chopped mustard greens

• ½ cup diced yellow onion

• 2 cloves garlic, diced

• 1 tsp fresh thyme

• Salt & black pepper to taste

• Freshly grated nutmeg, to taste

• 4 eggs

• 2 cups whole milk, half and half, or heavy cream (whichever you want/have on hand but make sure it’s nice and fatty)

• ½ cup grated Gruyere cheese

• ½ cup grated sharp cheddar cheese OR grated Swiss

To make the quiche:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Make sure your quiche crust is chilling in its pie pan. It will need to chill for a minimum of 30 minutes before you add the filling.

2. In a skillet over medium heat, cook the diced bacon pieces until crisp. Remove bacon and drain on paper towels. Pour out excess bacon grease, leaving a little bit in the pan for your vegetables.

3. Saute onions and garlic until soft, then add mustard greens and a splash of water. Place lid on pan and let the mustard greens cook down until done. Add the bacon pieces back in the pan and toss to fully mix. Set mixture aside.

4. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs and cream until thoroughly combined. Whisk in your thyme, salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

5. Remove prepared pie crust from the refrigerator and sprinkle the bottom with an even layer of shredded cheese. Add the bacon/greens mixture in an even layer. Cover with more cheese.

6. Pour the egg/cream mixture evenly over everything in the crust and top with any remaining cheese.

7. Bake at 350 F for 40-55 minutes, until the quiche is set and no longer wiggles in the middle when gently shaken. Allow to cool about 10 minutes before cutting.