“Asshole,” she muttered.
“Sorry.”I swallowed my laugh.“I was not expecting...that.”I waved my hand up and down.
“Neither was I.”A tiny smile slipped out and she shook her head.“Want to come see your door?”
“Yes.”Though I was dying to see the repairs, I kept a careful distance from Lacy and her grease-covered, well, everything.
She stood next to the door that now reached all the way to the floor.
“May I?”I reached for the controller.
“It’s your ship,” she said innocently.
I hit the button and, with a slow creak, the metal door rose up, disappearing into the track at the top.
I hit the button again.It rolled back down with fewer creaks this time.Another press and the door started its upward journey again, smoother and quieter.
“I swear,” Lacy said, “if you hit that button one more time I’m going to break the damn thing.”
“Fine.Funsucker.”
She raised a greasy hand toward me and I dropped the controller and dashed back up the steps.Her laughter echoed around the cargo hold.
21
Lacy
“We’re going to Pangaea?”My voice rose and I probably sounded slightly hysterical as I stared at Dax.
“Yep.”He spared me a glance, then whipped his gaze back toward the little green planet in our view that was getting bigger and bigger.“I told you that.”
Okay, fine.Hehadgiven me the names, but I’d been so focused plotting a path to Layla, they hadn’t really registered.Staring at the verdant planet, everything I knew about it came rushing back.“One of your crew is down there?”
He nodded.“Yep, Burn.”
What the hell kind of name was Burn?But that wasn’t my most pressing question.“You know that we can’t land on Pangaea, right?”
Named after the primordial land mass of Earth, the planet was lush and green, with exotic flora and dense forests.
And that was the problem.Pangaea was too lush.Too green.The minute a ship set down, the biosphere overtook the technology.Vines wrapped around landing gear.Bugs infested air ducts.Mother Nature was usually the winner: only one in three ships that landed on Pangaea made it back off the planet.
“We’re not landing.Burn will come to us.”
What the hell did that mean?
“Hold on,” Dax warned, just before we dropped out of space and into atmosphere.
My stomach jumped into my throat and my hands clasped the arm rests.We dropped through cloud cover into blue sky that nearly seemed to be eaten up by green trees.“Wow.I never knew trees could get so big.”We’d never had any reason to visit Pangaea.
I turned to look at Dax.“Are you sure you can do this?I can take over.”I really didn’t want the trees to be the last thing I saw.
“I’ve got this, Lacy.Grab the radio, would you?”
I picked up the radio and held it out to him.
He shook his head and gave me the comms frequency.
Keying in the frequency, I held the radio near his mouth.
