“Why didn’t you grab this to get me and the cap out?” I whispered while Korb fired up the scanner.
“We had no idea what half the shit in there was,” Ryker replied.
The scanner hummed. A light, tinted a pale green, erupted beneath the structure.
“Iylene ordered the droids to grab a drill and a scanner that the survey team wouldn’t kill us for breaking, so I suppose this is the one that, if broken, would cause our demise.”
The light condensed into a beam that shot into the soil. Smoke filtered out of the ground that morphed into sludge. Korb and his colleagues observed their commlinks, muttering softly. Roys watched, his visor blacked out. Ryker and I retreated when the runny soil came toward our boots. We stood there waiting, rather impatiently on our parts, for an hour.
“So, how did it go?” Ryker asked after the scanner shut off. He and I stood further away, having withdrawn in increments throughout the hour.
The geologists were less caring about the goop, standing perfectly fine in it. I wasn’t certain Roys wanted to stay in the sludge or chose to be the good little captain, keeping close to the geologists, especially after our satellite warned of a storm. Based on the satellite readings, it wasn’t upon us but could turn.
“The scanner struggled to obtain a full scan; however, based on our calculations, it mapped 72% of the structure,” Korb replied.
“Fascinating,” said his colleague as they took to loading up the scanner.
We made the mistake of asking them why they didn’t have the droids join us for that kind of work where Korb fell into a long rant about all the equipment droids had scratched—not broken, just scratched—while he prepared to descend into the cave. He wanted samples. Roys agreed on a short trek. Ryker would join them, but not me.
I would not go back there. They were fools to go at all.
We brought outdated communication — a type of commlink unused for centuries. They had a far shorter range and crackled consistently. However, The Planet didn’t affect them as badly. Zavir thought of using them when he was cleaning storage yesterday. All habitats had them for situations like this. Equipment acted differently depending on wherethey were, so there were always multiple options. Ryker tested them earlier when he set up the weyline, and they were functional.
With the weyline attached to his waist, Ryker descended first. Korb and the other geologist followed with Roys taking the rear. I stepped forward and then stopped myself.
Telling them not to go wouldn’t change Roys’ mind. If he wanted to be stupid, so be it.
Roys’ visor cleared, showing his usual stern expression. “Keep an eye on things up here.”
“I was planning on taking a nap, actually.” The hem of my shirt stuck to my neck even with the exoskin’s air-con. “What’s the point of being captain if you can’t order some other poor bastard to go in there in place of you?”
Roys tugged on the weyline connected to the front of the rover. “I have experience down there.”
“Experience isn’t the word I would use.”
Roys wore a smile more sugar filled than his candy treats. “It’s sweet you’re caring for me again, but I’ll be fine.”
“Care isn’t the word I would use, either.”
“We’ll be right back, and I am sure Ryker will be more than happy to yap your ear off while we’re down there.”
Roys descended, and my stomach sank with him. I recalled the interior of the cave, the walls closing in, crushing them. Ryker’s voice crackled through the old commlink, sharing extreme details of what they saw. His voice proved they were fine, but my labored breathing wouldn’t relent.
I didn’t understand how Roys could be down there, how nonchalant he was about returning to what was nearly our tomb. Thinking about it made me ill. I removed my visor, believing I would be sick. I coughedand coughed, a hand over my stomach and eyes switching between the drop and my blurred feet.
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
The mantra did little to calm me because Roys was down there. He was fucking down there like a fucking idiot and he could die and he should be up here. Idiots, all of them.
I wanted to scream but I kicked a nearby flora instead. When I put my visor back on, Ryker was still talking over the old commlink, and my holo screen flickered. I tapped the visor. The militia didn’t update our equipment unless absolutely necessary. They kept all the good shit for higher ranks, so it wasn’t unusual for equipment to malfunction. Even more normal to malfunction here, considering what the geologists said, except my screen kept flickering, and the last thing we needed was for them to be down there and the equipment to malfunction.
“Are your visors glitching?” I asked.
“Ours aren’t working at all, just like before. Why?” Roys responded.
“Mine is flickering.”
“I’m telling you, our equipment is shit and the minerals probably have nothing to do with these issues,” Ryker said, going on about the time he got lectured for his cargo vessel ramming another ship at the docks. The sensors malfunctioned, and he couldn’t see anything behind him, which was true. They did an inspection afterward, and Ryker remained salty that no one apologized for their accusations.
