The grass on Verdara wasn't quite grass. It had the same general idea...thin, green, grew in dense carpets across the ground...but each blade ended in a tiny spiral that caught the double sunlight and refracted it in rainbow patterns. Walking through it was like wading through a field of prisms.

  Jessica sat in the back of the ATV as Vorrin navigated the terrain with practiced ease. The vehicle handled the alien landscape smoothly, its wheels adjusting independently to the rolling hills. Ahead of them, according to the scanner Khamm was monitoring, were the coordinates where the historical records placed their target floofs.

  "Two kilometers out," Khamm reported. "Readings show multiple life signs in the area. Most consistent with local herbivores, a few larger signatures that might be predators but they're keeping their distance."

  "We'll park five hundred meters from the target location and approach on foot," Vorrin said. "Less noise, less disturbance. We want to observe before we act."

  "Are we sure we have the right ones?" Maddie asked nervously. She'd been quiet since they deployed, eyes wide as she took in the alien landscape.

  "The historical records are specific," Orryx's voice came through their suit comms from the ship. "A mating pair, separated from their group three days ago during a predator incursion. They've been traveling together toward the old growth forest to the east. No other floofs in a fifty-kilometer radius."

  "So they're alone," Jessica said quietly.

  "They're the last, or shortly will be" Khamm confirmed, her usual brightness dimmed slightly. "In this entire region. The larger populations have already been hunted to collapse. These two are stragglers."

  The ATV slowed as they approached the coordinates. Vorrin brought them to a stop in a shallow valley, the vehicle's camouflage systems activating to blend with the surrounding vegetation. They dismounted quietly, checking their equipment.

  Jessica activated her helmet's scanning overlay. Immediately, life signs popped up across her vision...small creatures in the grass, something larger moving through distant trees, and two distinctive signatures about four hundred meters ahead.

  "There," Vorrin said, pointing. "Beyond that rise. They're stationary, likely resting."

  They moved forward in a loose formation. Vorrin took point with Khamm close behind. The humans followed, trying to move quietly through the strange grass. Every step released a faint musical tone, like walking across a field of tiny wind chimes.

  "This place is beautiful," Maddie whispered.

  It was. The purple sky, the rainbow grass, the trees that looked like someone had crossed oaks with crystals. In the distance, something that might have been a bird called out in a three-note harmony that made Jessica's chest ache with its complexity.

  They crested the rise and there, in a small clearing, were the floofs.

  The images on the ship hadn't done them justice. They were even more impossibly adorable in person. The blue one was slightly larger, its fur shifting through shades of azure and cobalt depending on how the light hit it. The coral-colored one was smaller, curled against its companion, its fur so soft-looking it seemed more like a cloud than something solid.

  Both had those enormous dark eyes, currently closed as they dozed in a patch of filtered sunlight.

  "Oh my god," Maddie breathed. "They're perfect."

  "They're vulnerable," Deke observed, his tactical training showing. "No natural defenses, coloring makes them visible, and they're sleeping in an open clearing. How did these things survive as long as they did?"

  "They didn't," Vorrin said quietly. "That's why we're here."

  Khamm consulted her scanner. "These are definitely our targets. Genetic markers match the historical samples. Both are healthy, appropriate age for breeding. No temporal anomalies detected."

  "So we just... take them?" Trent asked. He'd been uncharacteristically quiet during the journey, but now he was eyeing the floofs with something that might have been calculation. "Seems almost too easy."

  "That's because you haven't seen..." Vorrin started, then stopped. "Movement. East side, thirty meters."

  Jessica's scanner lit up with a new signature. Something big was moving through the undergrowth, heading toward the clearing. Toward the floofs.

  "Predator?" Deke asked, his hand moving instinctively to his equipment harness even though they had no weapons.

  "Likely," Khamm said, watching her scanner. "We need to move now, before..."

  The blue floof woke up. It stretched, yawned, showing tiny teeth that wouldn't threaten anything, and looked around the clearing. Then, incredibly, it noticed the approaching predator, and its entire body language changed to something that could only be described as delighted.

  "No," Jessica whispered. "No, don't..."

  The floof trotted toward the predator like it was greeting a friend.

  "They have no survival instincts," Vorrin muttered, already moving. "Khamm, take the coral one. I'll intercept the blue. Humans, stay back."

  But he needn't have worried. The predator...something that looked like a cross between a jackal and a spider...emerged from the brush, took one look at the approaching floof, and fled. The floof stopped, looking confused, then wandered back to its companion.

  "What just happened?" Maddie asked.

  "It already ate," Vorrin said, checking his scanner. "Recent kill, still digesting. Not interested in hunting. The floof's lucky."

  "The floof's an idiot," Deke said, but there was fondness in his tone.

  Khamm had already moved into position near the coral floof, capture cube ready. "On three. We take them simultaneously...less stress if they're not separated. One... two..."

  "Wait," Trent said suddenly. "Are we really doing this? Did you see that… that spider… thing?"

  Everyone froze.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  "What?" Khamm asked, turning to look at him.

  Trent gestured at the forests. "It was huge… we really going to screw with things like that out here?"

  "We’re travelling through time with aliens…” Jess interjected dryly. “I was surprised my mind found any familiarity to latch on to."

  "It’s one thing when the aliens are…” He gestured at Khamm and Vorrin.

  "Now," Vorrin commanded, cutting him off.

  Khamm activated her capture cube. The temporal field shimmered into existence around the coral floof, freezing it mid-breath. At the same moment, Vorrin captured the blue one, which had been in the process of investigating something in the grass.

  Both floofs hung suspended in their bubbles of stopped time, completely unaware that their entire reality had just changed.

  "Retrieval successful," Khamm said quietly, a smile breaking across her face. "Timeline stable. No paradox markers. We did it!"

  "Wow, Khamm," Trent said, his earlier unease being replaced with that easy confidence. "That was some smooth operating. Always good to see a beautiful woman in action. Maybe back on the ship you could show me some of your other moves?" He flashed what he probably thought was a charming grin. "Or I could show you some of mine."

  “Um… sure.” Khamm smiled at him, either missing or ignoring his implication. “That’s why we train, right, brother?”

  Vorrin's head turned slowly to look at Trent, face impasive but Jess thought she could see his eye twitch ever so slightly. He didn't say anything.

  "Let's move," Vorrin said after a long moment, his tone flat. "We're exposed here."

  They made their way back to the ATV, Khamm and Vorrin each carrying a captured floof in their temporal bubbles. The walk back felt longer somehow, weighted with the reality of what they'd just done.

  Jessica found herself walking beside Vorrin. "Do you ever wonder if we're doing the right thing?" she asked quietly.

  He glanced at her, surprise flickering across his usually stern features. "Every single time," he admitted. "But the alternative is letting them die. Letting entire branches of life vanish from the universe. At least this way, they have a chance."

  "Even if they never see their home world again?"

  "Their home world is dying," Vorrin said flatly. "In two hundred years, Verdara will be industrialized, polluted, stripped of its natural beauty. The floofs' habitat will be gone. At least on the ship, they'll have something close to what they had here, and someday… when we find a suitable place. They can start over. Besides, it makes Khamm happy to help things."

  It wasn't quite an answer to her question, but Jessica understood what he meant.

  They reached the ATV and loaded the captured floofs into secure storage. The bubbles would keep them in stasis until they reached the ship and could transfer them to their prepared habitat.

  "Everyone in," Vorrin commanded, moving to the driver's seat.

  They loaded up...Vorrin, Khamm in the front, then Jessica and Maddie in the back seats, Deke climbing in after. Trent was last, moving slowly, still looking back at the clearing where they'd found the floofs.

  "Trent," Vorrin said.

  Trent reached for the ATV's entry...and Vorrin sealed it.

  "What the..." Trent started.

  "You're not coming back," Vorrin said simply. The ATV's engine hummed to life.

  "Wait, what?" Maddie said, her eyes going wide. "What do you mean he's not..."

  "He was warned not to disrespect my sister yet continues," Vorrin said, his tone cold. "I am not in the habit of repeating myself. That's not just unprofessional...it's dangerous. To all of you, to the mission, to any species we're trying to save."

  "Vorrin, wait," Khamm said, but there was uncertainty in her voice. "Maybe we should talk about this..."

  "You’re going to have to trust me on this Khamm," Vorrin said, looking at his sister. "I won’t let him endanger your mission. That's unacceptable."

  Trent was banging on the ATV's exterior now. "You can't just leave me here! This is an alien planet two hundred years in the past!"

  "Consider it a mercy," Vorrin said. "My first instinct is to return you to your place in the time line and let fate have its way.."

  "You’re insane!" Trent shouted. "I don't want to stay here! I want to go back to the ship! I deserve another chance!"

  "You should have thought of that before… now its too late…" Vorrin said, and engaged the ATV.

  Jessica watched through the rear window as Trent ran after them, shouting, his face red with anger and what might have been fear. But the ATV was faster, and soon he was just a figure in the distance, standing alone in a field of rainbow grass under a purple sky.

  "Jesus," Deke muttered. "That was harsh."

  "That was necessary," Vorrin corrected. "He was a liability."

  Maddie was crying quietly. "But he's all alone..."

  "He made his choice," Vorrin said, and his tone suggested the discussion was over.

  The ride back to the ship was silent except for Maddie's occasional sniffles. Jessica kept looking back, half expecting to see Trent still chasing them, but he'd vanished into the alien landscape.

  She thought about what Vorrin had said...that Trent survived, that history showed he'd lived a full life here. But what kind of life? Stranded on an alien world, unable to go home, watching the years pass knowing that everyone he'd known had either died in a storm or was traveling through time without him.

  Was that mercy or cruelty?

  She touched the flattened quarter in her pocket and wondered what her father would have thought about all this. About choosing who gets saved and who gets left behind. About drawing lines and making calls that affected entire lives.

  Life in its purest form, she thought. Messy and beautiful and impossible to get right.

  Back on the ship, they transferred the floofs to Orryx, who handled them with gentle efficiency. The temporal bubbles would be released in their new habitat, carefully designed to replicate their natural environment. To the floofs, it would be instantaneous...one moment in a clearing on Verdara, the next in what appeared to be the same clearing, except this one would never industrialize, never be hunted, never face extinction.

  "You did well," Orryx said, his reptilian features showing what might have been approval. "The retrieval was clean, the timeline stable. The species survives because of you."

  "What about Trent?" Maddie asked in a small voice.

  Orryx's expression became carefully neutral. "Trent's timeline is his own now. He made choices that led him here. What he does with his second chance is up to him."

  "But he's stuck in the past."

  "We're all stuck somewhere," Orryx said gently. "At least he's alive. That's more than most get."

  Khamm had been quiet since they returned. Now she touched Vorrin's arm. "Can we talk? Privately?"

  They left together, Khamm's usual brightness dimmed. Jessica could hear raised voices from down the corridor...Khamm's quick and emotional, Vorrin's slower and implacable.

  "Well," Deke said after a moment. "That was a hell of a first mission."

  "We saved them though, right?" Maddie asked, looking toward where Orryx had taken the floofs. "The floofs. We saved them."

  "Yeah," Jessica said, not sure if she was trying to convince Maddie or herself. "We saved them."

  She just wished it felt more like victory and less like she'd crossed a line she couldn't see until it was already behind her.

  *  *  *

  Later, when the others had dispersed to their quarters, Jessica found herself drawn back to the habitat level. The viewing window showed the floof enclosure...a perfect recreation of the clearing where they'd been found, complete with rainbow grass and filtered double sunlight.

  The floofs were awake now, released from stasis. The blue one was investigating its new environment with cheerful obliviousness, while the coral one had found a patch of particularly soft grass and was rolling in it with evident joy.

  Maddie was there too, Jessica realized. Pressed against the glass, watching the floofs with a smile that was equal parts joy and sadness.

  "They don't even know," Maddie said quietly. "That their whole world is gone. That they're the last ones. They're just... happy."

  "Maybe that's better," Jessica offered.

  "Maybe." Maddie watched as the blue floof noticed its companion rolling in the grass and immediately joined in, both of them tumbling together in what looked like play. "Do you think we did the right thing?"

  Jessica thought about Trent, alone on Verdara. About the storm that had killed her, that she'd been pulled out of. About the predator that had fled from a doomed creature too innocent to know it should be afraid.

  "I think we did a thing," she said finally. "Whether it's right... I don't know if we get to know that. But it's done now. They're here. They're alive. That has to count for something."

  Maddie nodded slowly, then smiled as the coral floof discovered something interesting in the grass and showed it to its companion with obvious excitement. "They're going to have babies," she said. "Orryx said if the conditions are right, they breed successfully. There are going to be baby floofs."

  "Yeah," Jessica said, and felt something ease in her chest. "Yeah, there are."

  They stood there together, watching life continue in its small, innocent way, and for just a moment, the complicated questions faded into the simple fact of existence.

  The floofs were alive. They would have babies. A species would continue.

  It wasn't perfect. But maybe it was enough.