“Yeah, why areyouso curious about it?” Arana hopped around to face me while walking backwards.
“Because it’s something to be curious about. He was talking to someone in the middle of the night. Who was it? What were they talking about? Maybe he’s up to something, speaking an uncommon tongue, so even if he was caught, we wouldn’t know any better.” I waved my fingers through the air in a mystical manner. “We may be in the middle of a conspiracy.”
Arana laughed. “You are the one making that conspiracy.”
“Or I discovered it.”
“You think far too highly of yourself.”
“I’d argue the world thinks too lowly of me.”
Iylene called for a break, stashing the laser blade to take out their water canteen. We sat amidst the ruckus, swatting at the bugs. I may have killed a few with the laser blade, but to be fair, they were eating venom off those plants. I didn’t know whether those buggers could transfer it, and I didn’t like bugs.
“Do you think he’d tell us what Earth was like?” Arana grunted when my elbow dug into her side.
“Didn’t you disagree with me about him being from Earth?” I snickered when she whacked a bug at me.
“I’m saying, if he is from Earth, then he… well, he’s been there. The cradle of humankind that most humans have never seen. Come on, that’s insane if,” she pointed the handle of her blade at me, “if he is really from there. Mighty big if.”
“I’m not that interested.” Ryker sneezed and wiped his disgusting runny nose on his arm. “Fuck, anyone got allergy meds? I’m out.”
“How can’t you be interested?” Arana challenged. “It’s practically a story to us. We’re so far out and way too fucking poor to go there.”
“I’m not poor.” Ryker accepted an allergy pill from Zavir.
“You are now. Mommy’s cut you off, remember?” I snickered when he tried kicking me. He was too far away and knocked dead flora on my boots.
“They’re giving me tough love. In a year or two, don’t be surprised if I’m pulled out of this dump, and when I am, I won’t ever go to that shithole. I’ve heard enough about it to know it isn’t worth visiting. It’s a wasteland; that’s why humankind left.”
“And yet many are still there,” I said while putting my visor back on. There were too many bugs.
“They are there for the appeal, Lucky, the shit you are giving them right now. Earth — this mystical place to all us humans—”
“I find it a fascinating place,” Iylene chimed in.
“Now you do, after we colonized half the fucking galaxies, changed the course of the entire universe. It’s considered the heart of everything when we know it’s the inevitable destruction. We destroyed Earth. We’ll destroy all worlds, eventually.” Ryker tossed the last of his rations into his mouth, speaking with his cheeks full. “Ask the captain about it if ya want, but don’t be surprised when he says it’s shit. That’s probably the reason he left, too.”
Pretty sure his leaving had to do with those scars on his arms.
A mighty rumble had the group leaping, but that didn’t stop Lilea from being thrown. The attack came as a blur, a dark shape that whacked Lilea and came between us. Lilea shrieked, disappearing among the fern's leagues away. Iylene rolled, avoiding being crushed by the weight of a bug. A really huge bug.
Maybe my dreams of being on an actual planet were foolish because I was coming to really hate this shithole.
“Flames!” Zavir called and brought out the flamethrower.
The bug reared up, revealing its full form high above the field. Fern-like stems protruded from its shell to camouflage into the surroundings. It was the same green as the flora, standing on four back legs and having two large pincers at the abdomen and two more around its salivating mouth. Using those large pincers, the bug battered the ground, causing another quake. The insects once following us dispersed in frenzied clouds.
Our flames roared as we formed a U-shape to corral the creature away. Lilea was somewhere in the field, hopefully not dead. Roys would want us to drag the carcass back, and that’d be exhausting. Those shells weighed a ton, and I wasn’t about to risk myself for sentimentality.
“The fuck is that thing?!” Arana shrieked.
“There’s nothing about it in the catalogue,” Zavir replied while using his scanner, or at least trying to. The fire didn’t help.
“We have a problem!” Lilea called, so she was alive. The top of her shell was cracked over her left shoulder, seen through the break in her exoskin. She limped toward us while waving her flamethrower behind her. “Back there!”
The bug had friends. Lots of them. And they were flying toward us. The one attacking us revealed its wings, six of them fluttering at such a speed that it whipped up the surrounding soil. If not for our visors, we’d be blinded by the soil, maybe more permanently from the venom the plants oozed in droves. Our flames ripped through the field, sending up a plume of smoke and leaving the soil coated in ooze.
“What are you doing?” Ryker barked when I dropped my flamethrower and stepped back.
