The humans rescue havenworlder colonists from a planet suddenly suffering a massive cooling trend after a super-volcanic incident on the other side of the planet plunged the planet into a sudden ice age. They had no problem with the sub-zero temperatures, but also no problem with the havenworlders needing tropical heat either. One of the rescuers smiled.
"I'm from Wisconsin on Earth, this is normal!" -- Anon Guest
[AN: Having never been anywhere near Wisconsin, I'm guessing this is one of those four-seasons-in-one-day places. Like Melbourne]
The good news was that the colony was far, far away from the volcanic traps. The bad news was that the ash was spreading through the atmosphere and making the planet rapidly unlivable for the reptillian Trachyleps colonists. They were hunkering in their shelters when the Emergency Response Fleet arrived.
They had to descend in gliders and set up a temporary space elevator, as air intake engines would quickly clog with the ash. They came with heaters, insulated livesuits, and modular structures to create and keep tunnels in the ash and snow. There was a lot of shoveling to create the evacuation paths, and at least one Human per habitat to keep the spirits up with warm treat food, songs, and stories. They knew what they were doing, and the Havenworlders could tell by the way that the Humans were joking and goofing around.
While they didn't waste their time on a snow/ash-ball fight, they did chuck a few at their semi-adobe tunnels. It was faster than hauling that stuff up to the higher areas.
And of course one of them had to make a snow/ash-person on a window ledge. As part of the message that it was time to begin moving out survivors. The counterweight was a bunch of supplies to restore the soil once the eruptions ceased. Which was unloaded and stowed in another modular shelter from the falling ash.
It would be a long, slow trip up to low orbit, where the docked evac ship waited to take them in. Readying the next load to counterweight anyone else coming up. And, with every group, a Human came with them to help them stay calm. If a Human was relaxed to the point of napping on the way up, there was nothing to fear.
It helped that the Human on board the elevator carriage was tired from their work on the surface. A calm and relaxed Human was a Human who didn't see anything threatening in the situation.
In the warm elevator pod, the Human would sweat, but was otherwise relaxed.
Many passengers asked, "Are you well despite the temperature change?"
And the Human joked, "It's cool, I grew up in Wisconsin."
It took four days to get all the Trachyleps up to the evac ship. Leaving supplies behind to rebuild after the volcanic traps settled down. And the last people up were the last of the Humans, leaving behind a counterweight pod full of starter camping gear, and long-term nutrition supplies.
[Photo by Marc Szeglat on Unsplash]
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