He finally showed it — a harsh glare shot over his shoulder that was more convincing than his muttered words, “I do not doubt that.”
Still, he pondered the offer. Roys got the med spray to hand off. That time he had nothing to bite down on, so he groaned through the process. His shivering grew downright pathetic, making him clench the lamplight against his chest. The light scarcely illuminated the cavern. There were three potential exits, each a dark tunnel leading to equally gruesome ends. As much as I hated to admit it, two down here were better than one.
Ten years, he had reminded me. Twenty years left. I’d be forty-five when I escaped the militia, if I did, and I wanted to. No, Ihadto otherwise all of it was for nothing. My life and its worthless fucking decisions would be for nothing, as meaningless as everyone else’s at the Colony. Another corpse to be lost in space, pathetic, used, forgotten.
Damn it.
I threw the shirt at him. Roys looked over his shoulder, brow cocked. “What areyou doing?”
“Take the fucking shirt or don’t. Up to you.”
Roys picked up the garment as if he thought it was infected with an unknown disease, then cast me a sketchy glance. I rested my head on the cold cavern wall. Wordlessly, he slipped on the shirt. It was at least one size too small, honestly two, but I didn’t want to admit that. The fabric struggled to keep him contained, and I also didn’t want to admit how attractive that was, how I wondered what it would feel like to run my palms beneath that fabric, feeling his muscles tense and watching the lust build in his typically stern eyes.
Good looking did not override being annoying,I reminded myself as my eyes fluttered closed and sleep finally greeted me.
06
Ahundredlegswerefar too many legs, and those were the visible ones. A lengthy creature hovered above us, the tip of its head skimming the ceiling. Flowers blossomed along its back, peeking through cracks in the shell and setting loose pollen that had me putting on my visor.
“Roys,” I whispered to the sleeping captain, entirely unaware that a creature watched us with its many unblinking eyes. There were dozens upon dozens sitting in neat rows across the head where six antennas sprouted from a dense brow.
I punched his leg, and Roys jolted. The sudden movement had the creature swerving.
“Wait,” Roys barely got out before I raised my blaster and fired.
The creature lurched back, releasing an ear-splitting wailing noise like scattered comms. A green ooze leaked from the wounds to sprinkle around camp. Neither of us was interested in testing whether that blood was as acidic as the flora. I had the water canister slung over my shoulder, blaster firing, as I fled the alcove. Roys fumbled to grab what we had and made chase.
“You are the definition of shoot first and ask questions later,” he snarled.
“Thanks!”
“That wasn’t a compliment!” He ran around me, scanner up, trying to determine which path to take.
The creature scattered toward the tunnel we came through. The speed shook the cavern. I held my breath, imagining the ceiling and walls caving in, sheer darkness and excruciating pain. If my luck held out, we’d die instantly. If not, we would be trapped under the debris and suffocate slowly.
The rocks settled. The creature escaped. We were alive, but my visor blared in warning. My heart rate had skyrocketed and wouldn’t relent.
“Have you ever heard of the word patience?” Roys asked in that lecturing tone of his.
“Our job doesn’t exactly reward patience.” I nodded toward the tunnels and kept my muscles tight, hoping to stop my shaking. “Has the scanner picked up anything?”
The scanner showed one tunnel had more fresh oxygen than the others. If there was an exit, it would be that way, so we walked, putting distance between us and the creature before stopping to finish our canteens. I refilled our water and ate half a rations pack. Roys took the other, snatched it out of my hand like he thought I wouldn’t share.
The rations didn’t taste as shitty when we were starving. Both of us found our visors more useful off, especially since mine wouldn’t stop showing my accelerated heart rate. I let the damn thing hang off my belt. The air wasn’t too thick in the caves, and the visors ran low on energy, especially Roys’, considering his exoskin released much of the air the visor filtered, anyway.
Roys continuously attempted to call out through our commlinks. No one responded. I had never witnessed the captain so unsettled. Roys kept his cool under most situations. Honestly, I might have been the one constant that managed to piss him off, otherwise he wascalm and collected. But here, like this, he had a jerkiness to his movements that I didn’t believe came from his wounds.
We wandered the cavern that opened in places and became crawling spaces in others. Occasionally, we struggled to push through paths, then trudged through murky water, only after the scanner deemed it clear of flora. If any planet had man-eating flora in water, it was this one.
By midday, we took another break, seated on a rocky growth in one cavern. A type of worm clung to the ceiling, emitting a low green aura. Each had similar budding flowers as the larger monster earlier. A defense mechanism, I had to wonder, a way to trick local flora into believing they weren’t edible.
Roys gave me a look that said,don’t shoot. I wouldn’t, so long as the fuckers stayed on the ceiling.
The tension from last night lingered. Though Roys didn’t hide popping another candy into his mouth, he hadn’t done so as frequently, or perhaps that was also because he had to be running low. When we took a break, he sat the lamplight in his lap and I hovered my hands over it. Roys abruptly stood. He barely caught the lamplight from falling out of his lap.
“What is it?” I asked, hand on my blaster and holding my breath.
“My call went through a moment ago.” His shoulders deflated. “It isn’t anymore.”
