At the front of the cabin, Roys stood. The captain wasn’t the tallest guy on the shuttle but certainly had the most presence. Ryker always tried to sneak into the captain’s bunk because he swore the man purposefully bought shirts a size too small so they’d struggle to contain his figure. Arana argued the guy was just big, and I agreed with her. Roys was made entirely of muscle, spite, and a pinch of dick. Arana disagreedabout the pinch, but her attempt to convince me to peek at Roys in the shower to prove otherwise never worked.
“Our priority is securing the area so we can set up the habitat and energy shield,” the captain said in a booming voice. His commands always sounded as such — words that shouldn’t be ignored. “I’m sending your orders through the commlink, which must remain on at all times.”
The commlinks on our wrists flashed. Ryker, Iylene, Arana, Lilea, Zavir, and I were together. Over the years, most of the troops found their groups and stuck to them. As much as Roys could be a pain in the ass, he understood breaking apart units never resulted in desirable outcomes.
“Visors on.” Roys took his from under his arm. Visors started as a face mask that spread over and down our necks to connect with our exoskin. The Planet had a breathable atmosphere for all species aboard the shuttle. However, because of the heat, humidity, and unexpected threats, gear remained on.
When Roys next spoke, it came through our connected visor comms. “Follow your orders and watch each other’s backs.”
Buzzing, the shuttle doors descended into light and heat that our exoskins couldn’t wholly cool. The humidity put a fog on the visors. Silhouettes piled down the ramp into the world beyond. I followed and my visor adjusted to the abrupt brightness. Flora surrounded the field, spiraled and puffy, tall and thin, budding and sleeping, but all their caps striving to reach the suns. Two of them danced in the sky, one to the east and the other to the west protruding real light, nothing artificial about any of it, that I wanted nothing more than to touch my bare skin.
“Move along,” said Roys.
Over my shoulder, the captain paused in the shuttle’s threshold. Soldiers marched past his looming figure. My visor wasn’t on blackout, so I offered a contrived smile. Zavir and I argued over beers that Royscouldn’t smile because he was secretly an android in disguise that hadn’t figured out how humans worked. Again, no one had tested the theory, but smile or not, he was stupidly attractive. It was a bit annoying, actually.
I descended to stand on an actual planet. This would make my fifth tour, but it was the first planetary one. Born and raised in a colony, I had always been on a mining vessel leeching off asteroids. I breathed recycled air, drank recycled water, and saw flora on nature documentaries, adverts, or the incredibly rare and expensive flowers that decorated the upper circle’s yards. The richest of the rich lived there, the ones who worked for The Company that survived off the asteroid materials my people mined. And now there I was waltzing along The Company’s future venture because no one ever really escaped them.
I joined my group before Roys could do anything to piss me off, which honestly could be as simple as looking in my general direction. He was too… involved, unlike some of our previous superiors. I didn’t trust a lick of his bullshit.
Lilea and Zavir came over to our group last while the droids took more time unloading. Everyone had their duties on their commlink. When I opened ours, I growled, but Arana was the one to whisper, “What the fuck? Why do we have habitat duty?”
“Because Lucky is in our group and Roys hates him,” said Zavir with an eager hop. All four of his gray hands spread out in a display of excitement. “Once again, your luck is helping us out.”
“In what way?” Arana countered. “We’re stuck with the droids that could put the place up without our help.”
A screen popped on all our visors about a flora the droids encountered prior to being smashed. The flora stood tall with a single thick bloomthat hung low from the top of the stalk. That bloom opened to reveal petals lined by teeth as thick as our arms.
“Do you want to risk running into that?” Zavir asked, each of his four gold eyes locking on a different person. “I sure don’t, so let’s enjoy setting up the habitat and getting in a nap before the captain returns.”
“I like that idea,” said Lilea, who wandered over to the habitat materials.
I wasn’t entirely against the idea of setting up base, but following Roys’ orders always put me in a foul mood. He’d been with us a little more than a month and acted like he owned us. Every superior officer did, having those sticks of superiority rammed too far up their asses for it to ever be pleasurable.
“Don’t make that face, Lucky. Think of it this way.” Ryker swung an arm around my neck. His brown eyes had their usual mischievous glint. “The captain isn’t here to breathe down our necks. We’re likely to have most of the day without him.”
“True, and if my name holds out, one of the flora will eat him,” I replied.
“Let’s hope you’re extra lucky today.” Laughing, Ryker departed to join the others.
Around us, soldiers disappeared among the thick and unknown jungle. At my feet, grass sprouted to brush against my ankles. I had been wondering what it would feel like since we received our orders to deploy here. Try as I might, I couldn’t stop dreaming night after night about how it would feel to dig my bare toes into dirt and bury my face in the grass, to take a breath of fresh real air.
I fell to my knees and removed my visor to finally get exactly that. Leaning forward, the grass touched my cheeks, cool and wet and ticklish.I wondered how humans supposedly came from such beauty and why they would ever destroy it.
Selling thirty years of my life was entirely worth this.
02
Thehabitathadallthe supplies we could need. Built as a giant dome with various divisions connected around the epicenter, the habitat would be our living space for the next three and a half months. Soldiers lived at the west end, four bunks to a room. The captain had a private bedroom and an office. Once the survey team arrived, fourteen of our ranks would take the cruiser back to the nearest port while the rest of us continued operations.
A communal living space at the center of the habitat comprised a dining hall, separated by shelving in an attempt at homey appeal. On the other side of the shelves, couches and chairs made up a meager lounge containing two screens and a handful of gaming equipment. I was exceptionally good at the viz, which no one offered to play with me anymore. Sore losers, they were.
In the barracks, locked doors led to the armory. Only we militia members could access weaponry. Storage for extra food, clothes, materials, anything we may need, plus the charging pods for the droids was to the east. The little buggers had a battery life that lasted a century if they remained in stasis, but they would patrol the area and do menial tasks regularly, so they would probably charge even if they rarely fell below 90%. To the south, we had a med bay connected to the survey team’s lab.The droids handled setting that up. We would not risk being lectured because a piece of equipment was set up wrong or had a fingerprint on it. They were a peculiar bunch, the survey team, full of brainiacs that rarely spoke a word of sense. I steered clear of them mostly, just as I steered clear of everyone once the work was done.
While Arana took to searching for booze, Zavir and Iylene tested out the viz, Lilea and Ryker took naps, I went outside.Never leave unless in a group of two,Roys said, but I didn’t want to be stuck in a habit, shielded from the suns when I finally got to stand beneath the light of one, two actually.
I abandoned the exoskin for our plain black trousers and shirts, stepping out into the suns that brought warmth unlike any other. In my pocket, I grabbed my pack of smokes to light up, then slipped off my boots and socks to let my toes sink into the soil. The grass tickled the soles of my feet before I fell to lie on my back where the suns kissed my face.
The Colony always reeked of smoke and oil. Every day, you woke up choking on your recycled atmosphere. The buzzing of machinery and harsh cracks of the miners deep within the asteroid kept us company. But on The Planet, the wind sang. The suns shined. Strange animals called out. A figure flew overhead, four-winged and slim. Six smaller versions followed it into the canopy, where the flora moved outside the energy shield.
